I would suggest that this whole discussion kinda misses the point, as
tends to happen. Sure, I could stick in lots of references to ancient
stuff...but why is it on Trek nothing of cultural value seems to have taken
place after Shakespeare? Doing antiquity is easy. Modern is harder.

But the whole POINT of the exercise goes to the heart of the show's
philosophy: I'm trying, rather desperately, to connect our present to our
future, to say that's US out there, building the future, recognizeably us.
We've lost the thread of continuity that ties us to the future. I'm trying
with this show to tie the two pieces of the string together again. We
have lots of ties to our ancient past (and I try to work those in as well,
cultural and literary references), but it's the *future* that we seem to
have lost touch with today, in our present. So I'm trying to knit those
together.

jms