The traditional monologue, as used in TOS, TAS, TNG, Strange New Worlds, as well as the endings of Enterprise and several movies, can be taken as a sort of overall mission statement for the Enterprise, possibly even one that takes place in-universe.

If the other series-- Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, and Prodigy-- had similar mission statements, how might you phrase them?

When studying vertebrate paleontology, the skeleton is one of the most important, and often the only, clue we have to the appearance of long-extinct animals. In Lower Decks: "Kayshon, His Eyes Uncovered", we were treated to the ghoulish sight of of Spock's skeleton ^1, ^2, courtesy of the remains of his giant clone from TAS: "The Infinite Vulcan." Any dinosaur fan knows that while there's only so much bones can tell you about the living animal, they can still tell quite a story. I am not an expert in anatomy and not a trained paleontologist, but it is my hope that analyzing the remains of Spock the Larger will provide further insight into the anatomical differences between humans and Vulcans. By way of comparison, here is an anatomical diagram of the human skeleton: ^3

Dentition

As near as I can tell, adult Vulcans appear to have 28 teeth to the human's 32, seven on each side ^4, ^5 on top and bottom. (It's possible that Spock could have had his wisdom teeth out, but presumably the clone would have undergone no such procedure, and no empty sockets are in evidence.) Looking closely at the teeth themselves, six molars, four incisors, and four bicuspids per side are in evidence. There is no sign of the canines a human has. This suggests that Vulcans evolved from a herbivorous answer. Could Vulcans' propensity for vegetarianism be a biological imperative rather than a cultural tendency?

Skull

The proportions of the Vulcan skull as depicted in this image compared to the human skull in this image are fairly simpler. The skull, across the zygomatic along the upper corner of the orbit, is 101 pixels wide on the Vulcan as depicted in figure 1 and 75 pixels wide in the human as depicted in figure 3. The height of the skull, respectively, is 173 and 132 pixels. These equal a ratio of 1.71 for the Vulcan and 1.76 for the human. Sufficiently clear side and rear views are unfortunately not available for comparing the approximate circumference of the cranium, but it can be presumed that the Vulcan skull is similar in all dimensions to that of a human, and that their brain would likely be similar size (and thus, similar in proportion to their overall body mass) to that of a human. While brain-body ratio isn't a perfect estimator of intelligence this is certainly consistent with them being comparable to a human in intelligence (but don't let the Vulcans know, they'd surely be insulted.) Vulcan eyes are forward-facing. Binocular vision is unusual in prey species, but as we've established, Vulcans are herbivores. One possibility is that a wide field of vision is not necessary to protect from predators, which would suggest that there are no predators on Vulcan large enough to threaten a man, however the existence of the Le-Matya and the large creature that nearly slew a young Michael Burnham when she camped out in the Forge disproves this hypothesis. On Earth, the only herbivorous animals with forward-facing eyes are found among our primate relatives, who descend from an arboreal ancestor that required depth perception to brachiate. I suggest it is thus likely that Vulcan was once home to vast forests, in the trees of which a distant, pointy-eared ancestor once lived.

Vertebrae

Vulcans are vertebrates, shockingly.

All jokes aside, based on the position of Giant Spock's shoulders, it would appear that Vulcans have only five cervical vertebrae to humans' seven ^6. Fewer than seven vertebrae is uncommon for mammals on Earth-- the only mammals with more or fewer than seven vertebrae are manatees with six, two-toed sloths with five, and three-toed sloths with nine. All other mammals, from mice to gorillas, have seven. It's hard to say what the practical effects of this would be, as the number of bones in the neck don't necessarily tell us much about the flexibility of that neck.

Ribcage

I count seven ribs per side, of which the last two are floating ribs unattached to the sternum ^7. These extend rather further forward than the floating ribs of humans. Like earth's tetrapods, and unlike many fishes, Vulcans have only a single set of ribs. I think the Xiphoid process can be seen through a hole in Giant Spock's shirt. I suspect that Vulcans may have smaller lungs than humans do(an assertion backed up by the anatomical chart in the old Starfleet Medical Reference Manual, where the position of the Vulcan heart and stomach truncate the lungs slightly.) Vulcan is generally said to have a thinner atmosphere than Earth, so we can conclude that Vulcan lungs must be far more efficient than our own.

Hands

This is an interesting one. If you look closely at the bones of the Vulcan hand it appears that they are significantly different from those of a human. The most notable difference is that the Vulcan hand appears to have either an additional phalange, or else they have not one, but two metacarpals per finger-- I think the latter, because it looks like the joint would be about mid-palm on a human to me. ^8 The most likely result is that the Vulcan palm can, perhaps, be folded in the middle. This could potentially jive with our brachiation hypothesis from earlier. However it is worth noting that this adaptation seems to appear only on the right hand (on the audience's left in the image.) Most likely one hand or the other is simply the victim of an animation error, but which one it is, we cannot be absolutely certain of.

Unfortunately, glimpses of the remainder of the skeleton are fragmentary and hard to tell us much, though a generally close resemblance to human anatomy continues to be evident from what we see, which includes part of the left radius, the radius, ulna, and humeral trochlea of the right arm, the right shoulder, some three lumbar vertebrae, a bit of the ilium on both sides, and a glimpse of both knees. However we have sufficient diagnostic material to distinguish fossil remains of H. sapiens and V. eridani despite the otherwise extreme convergence of their physical traits.

It will surprise few members of the Daystrom institute who are familiar with me and my work that cartoons are one of the only things I enjoy as much as I do Star Trek. One of my favorite animated shows of all time is Cartoon Network's 2010-2019 surreal fantasy-comedy Adventure Time with Finn and Jake. The creative crew of Adventure Time were notorious Star Trek fans, and particularly of TNG. Over the course of their ten seasons they cast numerous Star Trek alumni, including George Takei, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Wallace Shawn, Marina Sirtis, and LeVar Burton, not to mention many more that would later appear on Star Trek-- mostly career voice actors and comedians with roles on Lower Decks or Prodigy such as Tom Kenny, Paul F. Tompkins, Grey Griffin, Lauren Lapkus, Paul Scheer, and Dee Bradley Baker, but some that are more well-known for live action such as Tig Notaro, Rebecca Romijn, and Rainn Wilson.

For those of you that may be unfamiliar with Adventure Time, it primarily centers around the adventures of teenage boy Finn the Human and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake the Dog, a pair of fantasy adventurers in the land of Ooo, a fantasy realm a thousand years after global nuclear war ends civilization as we know it and heralds the return of magic to the world. As the show went on it explored many corners of their world, often devoting entire episodes to supporting characters where the two leads make minimal or no appearances. One of the most acclaimed and beloved episodes of Adventure Time is season 5, episode 16, "Puhoy", the series' first Emmy winner. Many fans, including tiresome internet personality Doug "That Guy With The Glasses" Walker, have noted the similarities between Puhoy's story and that of Star Trek: the Next Generation's "The Inner Light", an episode I am sure requires no introduction to the members of the Daystrom Institute.

More than merely riffing on a shared trope, however, I argue that Puhoy constitutes a specific parody of The Inner Light, a joke helped along by the appearance of not one but two notable Star Trek alumni: Jonathan Frakes as a grown-up Finn, and Wallace Shawn as village wise man Rasheeta. Finn, held back from adventuring by the arrival of a dangerous storm and melancholy about the state of his budding relationship with Flame Princess, constructs a pillow fort with Jake. Jake advises Finn that the problems he worries about are imaginary ones borne of attachment, and to demonstrate, thoughtlessly destroys his favorite mug by pitching it out the window into the conflagration. Unsure about the lesson, Finn enters the pillow fort to meditate and finds a mysterious door, which appears to lead him to another realm made entirely of pillows and blankets. While there, he slays a dragon, and dances with Roselinen, the daughter of a local villager named Quilton, but finds himself wanting to return home soon.

Meanwhile, Jake uses a fishing rod to retrieve his cup, and when questioned about this apparent hypocrisy by their roommate BMO, a living video game console, Jake offers to share some hot chocolate with them. Back in the pillow world, years have passed. Finn and Roselinen have married and had two children, named Jay and Bonnie (after Jake and another main character, Princess Bubblegum, also called Bonnibel.) Quilton arrives and informs him that he has learned of a way to return to Finn's normal life-- a door that appears only infrequently and for a short time. Years later, Finn consults with the oracle Rasheeta about the door, but Rasheeta offers no clear answers, except that Finn will soon leave. Finn finds he can no longer clearly recall Jake, and when he tries can only recall a figure that more closely resembles Rasheeta telling him to stay with Roselinen. Roselinen encourages him to return home, asking only that he remember her and the children when he does. Finally, Finn dies of old age, surrounded by family, and emerges from the pillowfort, still a young boy. His attempts to relate this experience to Jake is interrupted by a phone call from Flame Princess, causing him to forget the whole thing like a dream.

Almost every beat of Puhoy is the opposite of The Inner Light. Unlike the crew of the Enterprise, Jake and BMO make no attempt to rouse Finn from his other life, and indeed scarcely appear to be concerned at all. Unlike Aline, Roselinen is supportive of Finn's desire to resume his old life. Unlike Picard, the experience can leave no lasting impression on Finn, and the episode is at best ambivalent about the idea of sentimental mementos, adopting as many of Adventure Time's most poignant episodes do a highly existential, Zen philosophy that it is best to focus neither on the past nor the future. But Finn and Picard's journey is alike, the tension between their old life and their new life is alike, and it only serves, alongside the casting of Frakes, to highlight the irony of how unlike the details of the episodes around them are in a way that brings the audience in on the joke.

While some may argue in transparently bad faith that it isn't so, it's obvious to even a casual observer that Star Trek's setting depicts in the Federation a vision of society in which the goals of both the social and economic left wing have largely won out and largely been attained. The people of the Federation have relatively complete equality of race, gender, sexuality, and even species. Resources are abundant and housing, food, shelter, healthcare, education, and beyond even the necessities even most of the pleasures of life are provided to virtually all. The environment is protected and even controlled on many populated planets to protect the ecosystem.

What, then, is at the cutting edge of politics for the Federation? In the interests of disclosure, I have identified as an anarcha-feminist and a pacifist for more than a decade (albeit not a tremendously intellectual one), and my analysis here is based in large part on the issues I believe that, as a civilian living in Star Trek's universe, I would likely have strong positions on.

A few candidates immediately present themselves:

• AI rights. A major theme of 24th-century Star Trek, from the beginning of TNG right up to Picard, is the debate over the rights of artificial intelligences, whether in the form of androids and synths like Data and Soji or photonics like the Doctor, Vic, and Moriarty. Less attention is given to less anthropomorphic forms of artificial intelligence. As we see in Lower Decks, Starfleet and the Daystrom Institute keep rogue AIs such as AGIMUS, Peanut Hamper, and 10111, with no evidence that they received any kind of trial or evaluation. The tragedy of 2385 became a major impediment to AI rights, but after the events of season 1 of Picard they seem to be back on track, at least for Synths. The personhood of photonics and non-anthropomorphic AIs remains up in the air.
• Augment rights. This may be an internally contentious issue. on the one hand, it is clear that genetically-altered individuals are marginalized as of the Dominion War. It is by the narrowest of margins that Bashir avoids being drummed out of Starfleet for being the recipient of a medical procedure he had no ability to consent to or refuse, and the Jack Pack are in some ways treated more like inmates than patients. Less than a century and a half before, Illyrians were persecuted and La'an Noonien Singh faced bullying as a child for being the distant descendant of Khan. However the memory of the Eugenics Wars looms large in the human imagination and genetic augmentation may still be viewed by some as inherently hierarchical.
• Humanocentrism and Vulcan Supremacy. Azetbur's remarks on the Federation as a "Homo sapiens-only" club are not strictly true, but they're not strictly unfounded either. The Federation's capital has always been Earth, Starfleet's headquarters are on Earth, Earth seems to have more colonies than any other member world (and stay tuned while we discuss that further), Humans make up the bulk of Starfleet (even on the Cerritos, by far the most species-diverse ship shown in Trek canon, the majority of the crew seem to be human), Federation Standard is closely descended from English, and four out of six Federation Presidents named or depicted across Star Trek canon are either human or of partial human ancestry. Vulcans, meanwhile, are frequently openly prejudiced against other species and seem to face little opprobrium for being so. This is more prominent in the 22nd and 23rd century, with anti-human terrorism on Vulcan, Spock's childhood bullying, and Starfleet even declaring entire vessels (such as the Intrepid) Vulcan-only; but it still seems to be present in the 24th and even, in some respects, as far ahead as the 32nd century.
• Seceding worlds (and the Maquis.) Unlike the United States of America, which had a whole civil war over the matter, Federation member worlds, and even colonies, appear to have the right to withdraw Federation membership. Aside from the Cardassian Border colonies that produced the Maquis rebellion, Turkana IV is perhaps the most prominent example in the 24th century. We know later in history most of the Federation's worlds, including Earth, Ni'Var, and Andoria, will secede as well in the aftermath of the Burn, and there are some indications that M'Talas Prime may be ex-Federation by the time of Picard. Turkana IV and M'Talas prime serve as an effective demonstration of exactly why this might become a progressive issue: neither seems to have thrived without the Federation, and the Maquis secession resulted in years of violence ending in mass murder on the part of the Dominion. On the other hand making Federation membership irrevocable is not exactly respectful of the sovereignty of those worlds' people. This is likely an issue that sees divided perspectives.
• Expansionism and Imperialism. This may be another controversial one. It is undeniable that the Federation is expansionist, always settling new worlds, welcoming new members, and pushing its borders outwards. As an organization Boldly Going Where No Man Has Gone Before is a central element of Starfleet's mission. However it is clear that one of the key goals of the Prime Directive¹ is in ensuring that this expansion does not come at the expense of sovereign indigenous civilizations. Nevertheless, we often see the citizens of other polities feel their people are pressured, or even subtly coerced, to join the Federation, especially in DS9. It is not hard to believe that these concerns are shared by at least some Federation citizens.
• Social issues in neighboring societies. It is clear that many of the Federation's neighbors do not place as high a value on the rights of the individual or of the people as do the Federation, from Ferengi misogyny to Klingon classism to Cardassian totalitarianism. This is the opposite side of the coin from the prior issue, and it seems like the dominant strain of thought in the Federation is to pursue a policy of not intervening even in other advanced societies in the name of inalienable rights, or even providing more than token support to internal resistance movements much of the time (witness the struggles of Bajor, for instance.)
• Section 31. It remains unclear how much of the existence of Section 31, particularly in its modern form, is known to the public. However if it is known, an organization willing to violate the Federation's every high-minded principle in the ruthless pursuit of protecting its interests is doubtless a fraught subject. If their existence only became public knowledge after the fact of their indiscretions, one could easily imagine it being a scandal that tarnishes entire governments.
• Criminal Justice. While crime is no longer as widespread as it is in our own time due to lack of deprivation, the Federation still practices a form of carceral justice. Better minds than I discuss elsewhere the matters of police and prison abolition. Here is one 21st-century left-wing cause that hasn't yet become obsolete.
• Militarism. A common criticism of Star Trek is that everything in the Federation seems to revolve around Starfleet. While that's partly a limitation of the nature of the show, it raises the question: how true is it really? And how true do the people of the 24th century perceive it to be? How comfortable are civilians with the prominence of Starfleet?

Please use the comments to offer your own insights, or to suggest any issues I may have overlooked.

^A subject about which liberal and left-wing arguments both for and against are so played out as to be not worth any further mention.

Normally the Prime Directive would forbid contact between Starfleet from open contact with a species incapable of interstellar communication. It is generally taken for granted that a similar rule or law must be in force for Federation civilians. It is hard to imagine the Horta could have warp drive, or even something like subspace radio. The Horta are almost obligate subterranean dwellers, finding even an open cavern uncomfortable compared to their own narrow tunnels. It is unlikely any Horta has ever deliberately traveled to Janus VI's surface. Even if one were to, they give every indication of being blind in the conventional sense-- or at least poor enough of vision that it took a mind meld for the Mother Horta to even understand what her unexpected guests even looked like. The Horta simply cannot look up to the stars and wonder, as other species can. They live in a world where the idea of flight could barely occur to anybody. It's debatable whether even the idea of tool use would be meaningful in such an environment (though the Mother Horta clearly understood the idea enough to understand how to sabotage the miners' life support.) And yet they are clearly an intelligent and sophisticated people, if alien. Extracanonical materials see the Horta join the Federation and become a vital part of its mining infrastructure, and even on a few occasions show mature Horta who have joined Starfleet, serving on such prestigious vessels as Kirk's Enterprise and Riker's Titan.

There is no indication that either the Federation miners nor the crew of the Enterprise encountered any reprisals for establishing a formal relationship with the Horta, even despite the fact that in the former case, their actions so interfered in the future of the species and their indigenous culture as to actively jeopardize their survival! Granted the miners had no way of assuming that the Mother Horta was sapient until long after the deed was done, but it was certainly clear to Spock before he attempted the Mind Meld.

This raises the question: why? Does Starfleet carve out some sort of exception for a species that may be incapable of ever meeting the standards for first contact? Did the fact that the contact by civilians was completely accidental create a justifiable breach, as it seems to have in "A Private Little War", and if so does that mean that in Picard's era Starfleet would have been obligated to ignore the Horta as the interpretation of the Prime Directive grew stricter?