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Conflict, however, is the stuff of drama, and space battles are what the paying public wants to see, especially on the big screen. Since Roddenberry's death, Berman has evolved Star Trek into something darker, more elemental and more mysterious. "Rick was a little more broadminded about what I was permitted to explore as a character," observes Patrick Stewart, TNG's Captain Picard, and the new shows are stretching the Star Trek guidelines even more. On the current Deep Space Nine, set on a remote space station, Starfleet officers tangle with the alien races who share the outpost. And in the forthcoming Voyager series (which features the first female starship captain in a leading role, albeit in a form-fitting uniform), Federation stalwarts must make an uneasy truce with a contentious band taken on board in a distant part of the universe. "This way," explains Berman, "you have a core group of people who were not all brought up on Gene Roddenberry's 24th century Earth. They don't have to follow the rules."
Whether that reasoning will pass muster down the line remains to be seen, since Trek fans are notoriously alert to any noncanonical deviations from Roddenberry's holy writ. "The laws of Star Trek are totally fictional but are held by the fans with such reverence that they have to be followed as if they were Newton's," says Berman. "You have to treat them very carefully, because there are people who for 25 years have considered them sacred." Even so, there are times he contemplates heresy: on his desk sits a bust of Roddenberry, its eyes and ears covered by a blindfold. "Things are sometimes said in this office that he probably would not like to hear," Berman says.