Kraith

The Kraith stories are a set of inter-connected works of Star Trek fan fiction. The earliest were written by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (also creator of the Sime~Gen Universe books) beginning in 1969 and continuing through the first few years after the cancellation of the original TV series. As such, Kraith represents some of the earliest Star Trek fan fiction. The stories are named after the kraith, a goblet or chalice used in the performance of certain Vulcan rituals, featuring prominently in several of the stories in the sequence.

The first few stories were published in the T Negative fanzine, under the editorship of Ruth Berman, beginning with Spock's Affirmation in T-Negative 8. As interest grew, later stories were published in a wider range of outlets, and other authors began to make contributions to the sequence of stories. Over fifty amateur and professional authors have now contributed to Kraith.

The universe portrayed in Kraith is not canon Star Trek, but its emphasis on stories with sociological, psychological and emotional plotlines had, and continues to have, a substantial impact on Star Trek fan fiction. A high proportion of early contributors to the Kraith storyline were women, and this has continued to be reflected in the high proportion of female fan writers.

The story of Kraith is ostensibly "Spock finds a wife," but this is only a trivial incident compared to the thoughts and ideas presented in the series. The central premise concerns the fact that in the original Star Trek, humans were portrayed as the dominant race throughout the galaxy. In many episodes, Kirk was shown as imposing not just human values, but his particular version of human (that is to say, white, male and 20th-century American) values, on a number of alien cultures, supposedly for their own good or to save them from being conquered by the Klingons. Lichtenberg presents this imposition as reflecting the overall attitude of the Earth-dominated Federation toward unaffiliated and member worlds. How would alien races respond to such treatment? How would they feel about the aggressive capitalism practiced by Earth companies, the influx of human residents on their worlds, the influence of human cultural values, and the eventual threat to their cultures as a result? Even if they were happy to have their world belong to the Federation, what would happen when their young people tried to join Starfleet, only to find that starships like the Enterprise are designed with only human comfort in mind?

...
Wikipedia