[GL of Sector 2814]

That's a good way to look at it. I always thought that on ST TNG they simply wanted to dispense with any mundane plots involving theft, embezzlement, hunger, unemployment, etc.

This is what makes Babylon 5 so much superior to ST: TNG. B5 dealt explicitly with all of these subjects. Just because it's hundreds of years in our future doesn't mean these problems are going to go away.

[Sans-Culotte]

This is what makes Babylon 5 so much superior to ST: TNG. B5 dealt explicitly with all of these subjects. Just because it's hundreds of years in our future doesn't mean these problems are going to go away.

Same was true of Firefly in which the protagonists were smugglers in a totalitarian universe. Or, rather 'verse.