Some Biblical scholars use the term to describe an ancient text they believe was used as the source of the New Testament's wisdom. They are attempting to rebuild the Q by extracting the basic wisdom from the anecdotes told by the writers of the Gospels. This essay, similarly, is my attempt to extract the essential ideas of Star Trek from the stories as they have been told. In my view, to the extent that a story embodies these ideas, it's Star Trek, and to the extent that it doesn't, it's just standard, boring space opera. So I offer these ideas to the electronic wind, in hopes that they may influence some writers and improve the quality of Trek writing.
Life is a no-win scenario.
Death is inevitable. How you face that fact is a test of character. Your character is revealed in the passion and tenacity with which you fight to ensure survival, doing what you have to do to turn certain death into a fighting chance for life. The more hopeless your situation appears, the more passion is called for, to the very last moment, to the final extremity. In Star Trek, the protagonists continually discover that the more danger they are in the more precious they find life to be, and they draw from this the resolve to find new resources to fight with, to pull another rabbit out of the hat.