Last week the wind kicked up and many of the trees we live among started having sex again. Billowing clouds of vaporous yellow conifer pollen rolled across the Peak to Peak, coating everything with billions of microscopic gametophytes. Each airborne grain contains sperm encased in a coating of inert biological polymer, sculpted in a pattern unique to its species.

This airborne fertilization ritual is essential to the reproductive cycle of all gymnosperms, the group of seed- producing plants that includes conifers, cycads, and ginkgo. As haploid (single chromosome) sex cells explode from the canopy, the air literally pulses with life. This seasonal milestone confirms the biological advent of summer, but it isn’t always pretty.

The allergy attacks and power washing we muddle through as a result of conifers having sex demonstrate how a single event can be perceived through a variety of interpretive lenses, each colored by the refractive context of our education and values.

Some see those miasmic yellow clouds primarily as a harbinger of personal discomfort and additional toil. A pharmaceutical executive might perceive them as a market opportunity with recurring demand for symptomatic relief. A paleoecologist would see pollen grain durability as a Rosetta stone through which the fossil record of life on earth is preserved.

One of the greatest perceptual debates in science fiction is the grudge match between fans of Star Wars and those of Star Trek. The ferment of clashing fandoms reveals that the ST/SW dichotomy illuminates many philosophical differences.

Gene Rodenberry pitched Star Trek in 1964 with a vision of telling sophisticated stories about contemporary problems using futuristic scenarios as analogies.

From the outset, Trek was preoccupied with social justice. The show focused on slavery, warfare, and racism and how they could be rectified through humanism. Its multi-racial cast was a first for an American live- action series, and it was the first show to feature an interracial kiss. Aliens, women, and people of color are portrayed as characters with authority and agency.

“There’s no such thing as the unknown – only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.” – James T. Kirk, Star Trek, Season 1.

As Kirk’s declaration implies, the optimistic tone of Star Trek is fueled by faith that science and reason are the pillars of human progress. In the Federation, technology has freed humanity from many of the resource constraints that generate human misery.

The Federation is meritocratic. Anyone can rise through hard work. Nepotism and cronyism are primitive artifacts which Starfleet has transcended.

Star Trek also paints a favorable picture of the administrative state. Except for Kirk’s occasional disobedient escapades, the rule of law is ubiquitous. Rogue admirals circumvent the system, but those aberrations are brought to justice.

Trek promotes cultural relativism and is explicitly anti-colonial. The Prime Directive prohibits Starfleet from interfering with the natural development of alien civilizations. This protects unprepared civilizations from the pernicious influence of advanced technology and insulates Starfleet from ethical challenge during its quest to “seek out new life and new civilizations.”

The franchise also promotes moral relativism. There is no such thing as good and evil. Mysticism is portrayed as a scientific mystery to be solved, something endemic to less advanced cultures.

Star Trek is aligned with a liberal, democratic, secular perspective. While the initial series was ahead of its time (it was canceled after three seasons), the Federation is a solidly blue space.

“Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.” – Yoda, Star Wars, “The Empire Strikes Back.”

Star Wars is the inverse of Star Trek in many regards. Instead of using cerebral futuristic analogies to examine contemporary issues, Star Wars recycles ancient religious themes in a simplified narrative aimed at audiences of all ages. And from the outset, George Lucas focused the franchise more on merchandising and toy sales than on exploring social issues.

Star Wars does not embrace technology or reason as the principal drivers of progress. In fact, technology doesn’t seem to have solved any of life’s persistent problems. Poverty is widespread. Non-humans are subjugated in colonial fashion. Slavery exists in multiple forms, even in the supposedly beneficent Republic that predated the Empire. Artificial intelligence doesn’t help guide starships, residing instead primarily in bots and droids of various forms.

Star Wars is essentially a religious allegory, updated with a futuristic set and setting. Until Disney began churning out its own incarnations of the franchise, Star Wars was anything but multi-racial and rarely overtly feminist. More significantly, the Star Wars universe is not a meritocracy – it is inherently dominated by elites and many planets are rife with nepotism, cronyism, and birthright aristocracies.

Jedi can manipulate the Force because they were lucky enough to be born with an abundance of midi- chlorians within their cells. Midi- chlorians are microscopic organisms that have inhabited the cells of every life form since the dawn of the universe. Their existence effectively powers the all-encompassing energy field known as the Force.

The contest between the light side and the dark side constitutes the central morality play that animates all narratives in Star Wars. There is no moral relativism. Adepts of the light side of the Force can transcend death to become a Force spirit. Anakin Skywalker / Vader demonstrates that a deathbed conversion is sufficient to access this afterlife.

Star Wars is singularly preoccupied with the binary tension between good and evil. It’s not just the Jedi who must choose – everyone must pick a side. The march of evil – as opposed to poverty, racism, or sexism – provides the loose causal explanation for oppression, crime, greed, and other social plagues in Star Wars.

This religious, deterministic perspective suggests the Star Wars universe is red space. Technology and good government will not eliminate suffering and oppression. The biological elite control the fate of the universe. Forget about diplomacy; hand me a lightsaber.

These iconic SF franchises differ in more than narrative preferences. Each is plumbed to tap into the personal values and the quotient of humanism or determinism residing within each of us.