dominates the federation

Well there you have it.

I think it's nerds. /s

I think a lot of the lemmy userbase are at least somewhat techy (also see the Linux communities), and a lot of techy people like Star Trek.

The Star Trek community has been going strong for nearly 60 years for a reason - Star Trek rocks.

When it started in the 60s (and continued especially strong with TNG in the 80s), it was unique in depicting a hopeful look at how things could be rather than a reflection of how things are, differing from how most shows do social commentary. It's refreshing.

Star Trek is attractive to people who want to see a world where people work together toward great things in a post-scarcity utopia, with current day conversations of race, nationality, sex, gender, etc. being so far in the rear-view mirror that they're non-issues. Plus cool technology. I think that appeals to the Lemmy crowd.

Well, you see, Lemmy is full of nerds and communists.

So others have already talked about how great Star Trek is. I agree with them, but I think that literally everyone has missed the point of your question:

https://startrek.website

It's its own lemmy instance. It was spawned from the migration away from reddit, and it's stayed alive since. So combine an active former-reddit community with lemmy and a good reason to all rally around, and finally the final ingredient of federation, and the Star Trek related rooms will always be on every server, and they'll always be populated.

Why is the show about gay space communism popular on the gay space communism network?

that's why

Asking why Star Trek dominates the Federation? tsk tsk tsk

Because Trek fans were the first to organize conventions. They started out small in the late 60s. Now every single weekend, somewhere on this planet, there's a Trek convention being held. The conventions also raise massive money for charity. They are the nerds other nerds want to be, in terms of organization. I'm here for the memes.

Most of the internet was started with Star Trek boards. If I recall correctly, one of the first emails ever sent was about Star Trek

Ah yes, the nostalgic leftist scifi show that defined generations is popular amongst the left leaning members of the nostalgia generation.

no other franchise I know of that dominates the federation as much as Star Trek does.

You answered your own question, brother.

federated platform full of nerds

asks why there are Star Trek fans

Guess.

Thr "federation" you say? ;)

We may never have a good answer for why the gay nerdy communists love the colorful scifi communist space adventures

The Lemmy community is disproportionately made up of either computer nerds or queer people.

Star Trek is basically the most popular nerd IP that hasn't been successfully brought into the mainstream, and is known for being progressive.

Because I want to see Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism happen in my lifetime.

Guys guys, they're talking about us!

Same reason Linux is popular on Lemmy. Lemmy is essentially an explicitly leftist community that appeals to people nerdy and techy enough to leave Reddit and join a smaller platform. Linux is a FOSS, ie leftist techy OS. Star Trek is leftist Sci-Fi.

Nerds, tech, and leftism all congregate on Lemmy.

there is also a lot of communities about programming and linux

there's only 1 common denominator here. we are all nerds

Almost like it's some kind of federation...

Star Trek (esp 90s Trek and esp TNG) is extremely formative for most Gen Xers and Millennials. It's unapologetically nerdy and has themes of tolerance and empathy, and establishes a utopian vision for the future that (to most people) is unfathomable. When we're not on Lemmy, we're talking about Trek with people in person.

Two words.

Fully automatic gay space communism.

Star Trek just kinda kicks ass.

What, you haven't seen Deep Space Nine?? Cmon what're you doing? Fix that!

because star trek has long been welcoming to gay and trans people for their inclusiveness and the fediverse is home to a lot of nerds and gay or trans (or both) people. 💕

dominates the federation

Say it again so the kids in back can hear ye

star trek mods successfully moved their communities from reddit back then. afaik the only other community with similar success is the piracy community.

Lemmy is socialist by nature, and so is Trek, but also it's Trek, one of the two most iconic Sci-fi franchises available, Reddit was basically the same way but with Star Wars, but for some reason there seemed to be far too many people on the dark side and simping for the empire and Vader.

Are you telling me there aren't enough star trek communities?

Because Babylon 5 ended in 1998 and the reboot isn't even in production yet. Also MGM doesn't have the faintest idea what it's supposed to do with Stargate.

Lemmy is filled with leftists and geeks. They're the same demographic.

Federation. Star Trek. IT. Linux. Programming socks. Gay. Furries.

This sums up the vocal group here. There are others, but these seem to be the most common.

Anecdotally I have the impression a lot of North American Lemmy users are technology professionals and enthusiasts in their 40s and 50s and therefore many would also be Trekkies from the 20th century.