Wow, I thought this topic had been dead. I appreciate you guys' interest in posting in the forums; however, it may be time for this thread to stay dead, at least for now.
Look at the last date of the one who posted before you two folks:
2004-01-16, 01:17:19.
Wow, that's three months before I even registered.
Now on topic, I think that even the Star Trek timeline wasn't a utopia because of all the wars there are. In my experience, most people who live here in the US can't get along with anybody else. Fortunately, there are people like those on this site who get along well and we've known each other either for months or years on this site. But in regular every-day life, for two people to get along for more than two seconds is rare. I'm not too surprised that there's so much war. Granted, what's going on now isn't even close to what WW2 was, but war will no doubt always continue.
In the Star Trek timeline, Zeframe Cochrane invented warp drive, then poverty disease and war on earth was (pretty much) eliminated. But as we saw, there was a Terra Prime, Section 31, other races that wanted to take the Federation down, corrupt Admirals and conspiracies. The Federation is sometimes at war with itself.
My point is, that Star Trek is a rather optimistic view on the future, yet war still exists among humanity in some form or another. No matter how good we think we can make it, someone (terrorists) is going to come along and ruin it.
Since the 300's, the world has been in the Dark Ages. To me, the Dark Ages never truly ended. The Crusades, the Medieval wars, the cruel punishments (some which happen today in many corners of the world), are still continuing. The only thing that changes is technology. The Muslims and Christians have been at each-others' necks for quite a long time.
First, you have those who wish to punish one culture because of their differences. Then, the people who are attacked or their allies must defend themselves - so they also go to war. Then the terrorists will loose, then they'll get angry in the future, or if we lose, we get angry in the future and then the cycle of war begins again.
No utopia is possible, I imagine. Except with the Borg. I'd hate to say it, because the Borg are the most lethal and deadly forms of life (well, until the Sernaix and Universal Conquerers), but the Borg have a Utopia, of sorts. Because there is a collective mind and no personal differences, thus no war due to differences. The Borg rarely if ever fight each other.
So if we were to have a utopia, we would have to, all of us, lose our individuality as a price for peace. To me, it wouldn't be worth it. I'd hate to say it, but the wars we have fought have given us the technologies we now have. If it was all peace and no problems, then we wouldn't have anything to be interested in.
And even if there were no wars but we would still have problems in life, that would be the closest to utopia we would get to. If we didn't have problems (such as the classLabel problems in modding Armada), then there wouldn't ever be alternate and different ways to do things. If you want to eliminate something bad, then you have to sacrifice something good - that's the order of the universe that can't be breeched it seems.
Last word on this topic: Thread Closed (due to being very old and thusly revived) until further notice.
Flew in here 17 years ago, flew out 13. Back then early 20s, dreamin'. Now, late 30s, reminiscin'. Too bad there wasn't an Armada 3, except the Sins of a Solar Empire mod. But hell, at least there's that. *Shrugs*