Star Trek to boldly go straight into the garbage, start selling NFTs

Paramount has announced new Star Trek NFTs as part of a plan that will eventually involve Nickelodeon NFTs, too, which is just so, so cool

Star Trek to boldly go straight into the garbage, start selling NFTs
Faceless, soulless Star Trek crap, for no particular reason. Photo: VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images

One of the things that’s always set Star Trek aside from other science-fiction franchises is that it, for the most part, depicts a functional utopia. More recent series like Picard have pushed back on this idealistic ideation a bit—at least in part to create a reality closer to our own, the better to reflect back upon it—but the traditional portrayal of the Federation is as a post-scarcity socialist society where pretty much all needs are met, by default, and the predatory burdens of capitalist existence have largely been alleviated.

Anyway: Star Trek gots NFTs now!

This is per a new article posted right up on StarTrek.com today, announcing that Paramount is launching “Season 0" of its new Star Trek-themed NFT collection, which will allow nerdy saps savvy consumers the chance to drop $250 real human dollars on a pack of algorithmically generated starships, later this week. (Well, okay: They’ll actually drop their money on a token that serves as a receipt for said spaceships; it’s April 2022, you understand NFTs about as well as you’re going to at this point, right?) A subsequent “Season 1" will allow those same collectors to pick up crew for their little ships, while “Season 2" will then allow those crews and ships to team up in a “play to earn” scheme populated by only the most invested of chumps no, wait, we did actually mean chumps that time.

And while all NFT projects from big-name, beloved entities are a bummer—hey, Kevin Smith—there’s something especially dispiriting about Trek getting into this market. For one thing, it’s been literally announced as a wedge franchise for a whole bunch of other Paramount-branded NFTs (including Nickelodeon, which is just a grotesque idea). Beyond that, though, it’s just such a colossal mis-match with the inherent spirit of the series to have its identity rendered into so much gold-pressed latinum. Anyway, congratulations to all involved!

 
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