Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

[teriyakiburns]

Did the Cardassians have replicators? Because otherwise what resources did Bajor have that required the mining space station that couldn't be replicated?

We don't know how replicators work, beyond a general sense of "they do magic with stuff", but they appear to require an incredible amount of energy. The federation, being the avatar of luxury gay space communism, is willing to devote a considerable amount of its energy production to using replicators for every conceivable thing, but other cultures might well prefer to devote more of their energy output to other purposes, or might simply prefer to exploit what resources are available rather than just using replicators for everything. We've seen numerous episodes where mining colonies are mentioned or depicted, even within the Federation, so it appears that there is still a high demand for resource extraction, even when replicators are universally accessible.

 

[Ishtar]

The thing about the Bajorans I got was that they were an incredibly stagnant society that somehow managed to reach Cardassia with sub light travel and yet also were “a century” behind when the cardassians first arrived. I have no doubt that the dajarra caste system and the influence of the bajoran religion had a lot to do with it.

So yes they were capable of art, they had an entire caste devoted to artistic and aesthetic production. But we don’t see much of an engineering or science focus amongst them.

The prophets and their orbs also likely kept them in a state of stagnancy, after all when you receive orbs from time to time with prophecies that appear true, then the very notion of progress becomes alien. The prophets guide us, now, they guided us then and they guide us in the future.

As for the prophets themselves-I found it so telling they were one-willing to re write people’s brains to make them more amenable-quark and Zek, and two didn’t seem to have a problem with the dajarra system-beyond some vague “it’s time has passed”. The way they string sisko along in rapture instead of just saying they don’t want bajor in the federation was also absurd. I get mysterious visions and all, but it’s telling in rapture the prophets never directly appear-Sisko just has seizures and says he has visions.

The Organians have a more respectable moral compass-and their’s was “utter indifference to the war erupting right in front of us, until it gets sufficiently loud, and then turn the primitives’ weapons a thousand degrees to make them shut up”.

The prophets are probably the most capricious god like beings in trek. More than Q who at worst could be a trickster and presumptuous.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

it just makes them horny to the point they want to fuck anything. the vulcan in voyager desperately needed to breed a human/klingon mix after all.

I took pon farr always as nature giving vulcans the middle finger and help them out, otherwise they would be so logical to make themselves cease to exist. "what to you mean fucking for fun, do I look like a human? and have you looked at the cost and effort of raising a kid? and don't get me started about raising a daughter *hitspipe*. shit ain't logical captain!"

Vulcan pee is stored in the balls.

 

[Ishtar]

It made the least sense on Voyager.

You'd think there would be at least one woman on board that would want to be spit roasted.

Janeway should have asked if there were any volunteers, I’m sure someone would have signed on.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

The prophets are probably the most capricious god like beings in trek. More than Q who at worst could be a trickster and presumptuous.

That's a bit strong. The Q have a humanoid perspective (or can at least simulate one when they want to) while the Prophets don't seem to be able to understand us even if they want to. As incorporeal beings not subject to linear time, most of our basic facts of life elude them. It's also implied that, unlike the Q, they can't descend or otherwise become like us- when they want to act as a human agent, they don't manifest, they influence existing humans to act as their agents (Sisko, the woman they possessed to become his mother.) I think their apparent caprice is the result of us being incapable of understanding each other on a fundamental level.

 

[Ishtar]

They exist in an atemporal dimension-there is no past, present or future, there just is.

So even fundamental concepts like cause and effect are alien to them, as they are to humans.

The Q on the other hand do not seem to be as unified as a race-there is Quinn after all, and they seem to have some understanding of time-even if they likely perceive it and interact with it differently than mere mortals(a "new era" is mentioned, Q can travel through time at will, or even create pocket realities on demand, where time goes differently, and there is a clear past-a time before they "had done and been everything").

The prophets have on the other hand always existed, whereas the Q as powerful as they are, are not pre-existing.

 

[L50LasPak]

Am I the only one who kind of detested the Bajorans?

Probably not, but I was mostly okay with them since DS9 didn't really try very hard to force me to like them. TNG, on the other hand, did though thankfully that was rare. Outside of muh occupation the Bajorans are downright deplorable; stubborn, miserable, backwards and altogether rather unappealing to spend any amount of time with them. Also its compelling to watch Kira go from something of an arrogant Bajoran patriot who laughs off the problems of other races to someone who seems almost embarrassed by her culture at least half the time. This is also why I'm fine with Bajor not joining the Federation. It doesn't suit them or their attitude at all, and frankly the Federation higher-ups are probably glad that they don't need to figure out how to integrate the smelly space jihadis into their secular utopia.

I'd almost say I like the Bajorans because I don't like them, but the way TNG handled them makes me think that might have been unintentional on the part of the writers so i'm hesitant to give them credit for it.

Did the Cardassians have replicators? Because otherwise what resources did Bajor have that required the mining space station that couldn't be replicated?

Its taken for granted that the exotic materials depicted on the show can't be replicated, or that doing so isn't very efficient at least. This is mostly held up by on-screen evidence, so it stands to reason that you just need to mine for some stuff no matter what.

There are some things about the way those borders are drawn that makes me question what I thought I knew about DS9 geo(astro?)politics.

Worth noting there's never really been a canon star map of the Star Trek universe. Star Trek: Star Charts is probably the closest thing you'll get, but even that makes some arbitrary assumptions just based on the fact that most of this stuff was never really pinned down.

For what its worth, this website has a small catalog of all the star maps actually seen on screen in classic Trek, along with stuff from the Star Trek Encyclopedia and DS9 Technical Manual:

https://www.stdimension.org/int/Cartography/Maps.htm

And here they have their own speculative Galactic Atlas, last updated circa 2000:

https://www.stdimension.org/int/Cartography/Atlas.htm

This used to be the definitive one for fan discussion until the tie-in maps for Star Trek Online took over.

There's also this one i see brought up a lot, which is fairly different:

http://www.startrekmap.com/ufpmain.html

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

As for the prophets themselves-I found it so telling they were one-willing to re write people’s brains to make them more amenable-quark and Zek, and two didn’t seem to have a problem with the dajarra system-beyond some vague “it’s time has passed”. The way they string sisko along in rapture instead of just saying they don’t want bajor in the federation was also absurd. I get mysterious visions and all, but it’s telling in rapture the prophets never directly appear-Sisko just has seizures and says he has visions.

This is one of the things I hated the most. They're willing to rewire Zek and Quark because they're greedy and competitive, but they let an entire fleet of violent mass murdering psychopaths just come on through after sending Sisko vague ass visions of locusts going to Cardassia and have him tell the Bajorans not to join the federation yet (because the Dominion might attack them) instead of, I dunno, YEETING THE ENTIRE FUCKING FLEET INTO NOTHING. Which is literally what they do like 1 or 2 seasons later on Sisko's request.

Why the fuck did they even let the Jem'Hadar through? Why didn't they rewire their brains to make them less "adversarial?" The Prophets are either fucking retards, psychopaths, or actively wanted the dominion to invade but for their precious pet Bajorans to be the only ones not fucked in the ass by them.

Keep in mind they were willing to create a human being for the sole purpose of defeating their enemies, the Pah'wraiths, then force him to abandon his family to come live with them for some stupid reason despite the fact that as beings with power over time and shit they could have crapped him back out 30 minutes after he left having experienced whatever they wanted him to.

Out of every godlike race ever shown in Star Trek the only ones I can claim to fully detest is the Prophets. They're not very intelligent, not very benevolent, and are actively a destructive force for almost anyone who has any dealings with them.

The moment the war was over and Sisko was gone we should have discretely fired a chroniton beam into the wormhole and killed them off.

 

[White Devil]

This is one of the things I hated the most. They're willing to rewire Zek and Quark because they're greedy and competitive, but they let an entire fleet of violent mass murdering psychopaths just come on through after sending Sisko vague ass visions of locusts going to Cardassia and have him tell the Bajorans not to join the federation yet (because the Dominion might attack them) instead of, I dunno, YEETING THE ENTIRE FUCKING FLEET INTO NOTHING. Which is literally what they do like 1 or 2 seasons later on Sisko's request.

Why the fuck did they even let the Jem'Hadar through? Why didn't they rewire their brains to make them less "adversarial?" The Prophets are either fucking retards, psychopaths, or actively wanted the dominion to invade but for their precious pet Bajorans to be the only ones not fucked in the ass by them.

Keep in mind they were willing to create a human being for the sole purpose of defeating their enemies, the Pah'wraiths, then force him to abandon his family to come live with them for some stupid reason despite the fact that as beings with power over time and shit they could have crapped him back out 30 minutes after he left having experienced whatever they wanted him to.

Out of every godlike race ever shown in Star Trek the only ones I can claim to fully detest is the Prophets. They're not very intelligent, not very benevolent, and are actively a destructive force for almost anyone who has any dealings with them.

The moment the war was over and Sisko was gone we should have discretely fired a chroniton beam into the wormhole and killed them off.

Strong "What does god need with a starship?" vibes.

 

[Ishtar]

This is one of the things I hated the most. They're willing to rewire Zek and Quark because they're greedy and competitive, but they let an entire fleet of violent mass murdering psychopaths just come on through after sending Sisko vague ass visions of locusts going to Cardassia and have him tell the Bajorans not to join the federation yet (because the Dominion might attack them) instead of, I dunno, YEETING THE ENTIRE FUCKING FLEET INTO NOTHING. Which is literally what they do like 1 or 2 seasons later on Sisko's request.

Why the fuck did they even let the Jem'Hadar through? Why didn't they rewire their brains to make them less "adversarial?" The Prophets are either fucking retards, psychopaths, or actively wanted the dominion to invade but for their precious pet Bajorans to be the only ones not fucked in the ass by them.

Keep in mind they were willing to create a human being for the sole purpose of defeating their enemies, the Pah'wraiths, then force him to abandon his family to come live with them for some stupid reason despite the fact that as beings with power over time and shit they could have crapped him back out 30 minutes after he left having experienced whatever they wanted him to.

Out of every godlike race ever shown in Star Trek the only ones I can claim to fully detest is the Prophets. The moment the war was over and Sisko was gone we should have discretely fired a chroniton beam into the wormhole and killed them off.

They re write Quark and Zek because they find their life philosophies personally distasteful. They seem indifferent as to the Dominion war itself, and Sisko has to remind them it affects Bajor. Its clear they have some connection to Bajor, but not the way the Bajorans understand it-they Bajorans treat them as basically ethnic "gods of our people" when the Prophets themselves don't even seem to know what the Bajorans are or how their orbs and visions affected Bajoran society, beyond the absolute most vague sense.

I mean, the Organians in TOS are just fine with a war erupting, and don't even bother to tell Kirk and Kor "actually we are super advanced energy beings, you literally can not hurt us at all, we find you repulsive, go away"-instead acting passive and sheep like(while also strangely knowing things they shouldn't), and then only intervening when a war is about to break out in their metaphorical front lawn.

Trek godlings seem generally indifferent to "mortal" affairs, unless it intrudes on them in some way or they are pressured to intervene.

 

[Great President of McHell]

This is one of the things I hated the most. They're willing to rewire Zek and Quark because they're greedy and competitive, but they let an entire fleet of violent mass murdering psychopaths just come on through after sending Sisko vague ass visions of locusts going to Cardassia and have him tell the Bajorans not to join the federation yet (because the Dominion might attack them) instead of, I dunno, YEETING THE ENTIRE FUCKING FLEET INTO NOTHING. Which is literally what they do like 1 or 2 seasons later on Sisko's request.

Why the fuck did they even let the Jem'Hadar through? Why didn't they rewire their brains to make them less "adversarial?" The Prophets are either fucking retards, psychopaths, or actively wanted the dominion to invade but for their precious pet Bajorans to be the only ones not fucked in the ass by them.

Keep in mind they were willing to create a human being for the sole purpose of defeating their enemies, the Pah'wraiths, then force him to abandon his family to come live with them for some stupid reason despite the fact that as beings with power over time and shit they could have crapped him back out 30 minutes after he left having experienced whatever they wanted him to.

Out of every godlike race ever shown in Star Trek the only ones I can claim to fully detest is the Prophets. They're not very intelligent, not very benevolent, and are actively a destructive force for almost anyone who has any dealings with them.

The moment the war was over and Sisko was gone we should have discretely fired a chroniton beam into the wormhole and killed them off.

I just assumed they were fucking with zek because he had the audacity to go and annoy them. I do think its an interesting take that the revered bajoran gods don't seem to give much of a shit about lesser species and just enjoy watching them fight and being worshipped. Plus the federation cant really do anything about it unless they want the bajorlets going ape shit on them.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

In summary: Star Trek in 2022 is a hollow shell of its former self

In other words, Nu Trek is like Zombie Simpsons: sucky woke zombie shows that are pretty much different shows from the originals?

 

[ZMOT]

It made the least sense on Voyager.

You'd think there would be at least one woman on board that would want to be spit roasted.

not by some boring vulcan engineering nerd

We don't know how replicators work, beyond a general sense of "they do magic with stuff", but they appear to require an incredible amount of energy. The federation, being the avatar of luxury gay space communism, is willing to devote a considerable amount of its energy production to using replicators for every conceivable thing, but other cultures might well prefer to devote more of their energy output to other purposes, or might simply prefer to exploit what resources are available rather than just using replicators for everything. We've seen numerous episodes where mining colonies are mentioned or depicted, even within the Federation, so it appears that there is still a high demand for resource extraction, even when replicators are universally accessible.

just because you can replicate a lot of stuff doesn't mean it's always feasible or makes logistical sense. why build a big af reactor to power your replicator to get the mineral you need when you can to pick up the earth instead right now?
otoh you can't underestimate the advantages it has since energy is usually a lot easier to transport/generate than the material itself. but there's also always a security aspect, take electric cars for example, even if someone creates a battery that can store a ridiculous amount of energy and is even pretty save, it will never get put on the street if a small modification can turn it into a mini nuke.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

Picard's statements about the Bajoran doesn't contradict their collapse. Jean Luc is an archeology enthusiast and to someone like him, "architects and artists and builders and philosophers" defines pretty much every pre-industrial human civilization that managed to produce some basic cultural achievements because it's technically correct. Yet, any of these civilizations would get wiped out quickly by a more technological one.

Like, is there another species in Star Trek or sci fi that has this sort of inbuilt racial impulse that either is who they are or requires extraordinary will or other desires(e.g. Kira) to not overcome all else? Most of the time the message seems to be “you aren’t bound by racial instinct or behavior”-and in the founder’s case this actually requires extreme will to not be true(and really love). Odo’s love for Kira must be incredible.

The closest would be the guy the Enterprise D rescued and who was transforming slowly into a more powerful entity. There was some instinct about it, he knew what kind of powers he had.

Then it'd be that race Geordi was mutating into. All the others who did it before remembered the planet they had to go back.

Pretty much this, it's very much a case where there are lines that you can go back and reinterpret as clues about their relationship, but had the script or story been changed, those lines would have worked just as well applying to something different. IIRC, about the best line for the whole deal was from one of the space pirates to Yondu in the first film about him always being soft on Peter or something to that effect.

Yes, in a second view, I noticed taht scene particularly was a first clue, but it was too vague. I better hint would have been him saying "he's not your son to protect him" because that hints the audience to start guessing if he could be considered his real father as he raised Quill.

 

[Gimmick Account]

what the fuck is up with the Alien references in SNW

 

[Captain Autism69]

Neil, honey, did you actually WATCH the fucking episode?

It is a literal taboo in Trill society for a symbiote who was once romantically involved in a relationship to re-engage in that relationship if the symbiote changes hosts (ESPECIALLY if said symbiote changes genders as DAX had done).
There were ACTUAL fucking consequences for what they were doing. It wasn't just, "hey, Star Trek fans, here's two women kissing, get over it". There was an actual fucking PLOT, and actual fucking CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.
Now the marketing might've been overt in the messaging, but the episode itself was not.
The entire episode was about love and loss and moving on, but no, that's not what this generation gets from it.
The woman who Dax knew (as Curzon) just wanted a final moment to say goodbye to Dax and actually learned to move on instead of holding onto the past.

This has nothing to do with the bullshit marketing behind the episode, because despite the pandering, it was actually a really good episode for Jadiza.

And totally missing the point here, is that the girl on girl action in this episode is with the kind of women you would actually like to see lez it up a bit.

 

[Polyboros2]

I fully expect the tenth episode to have Pike giving a speech to an alien species along the lines of, "We used to have terrible people who wouldn't suck the girldick, but when we embraced it, we became the Starfleet we are today!"

Ugh, starting to get really shaky footing.

Spoiler

It seems they set up a way for M'Benga to find or create a cure for his daughter... only to have him just give his daughter up to a powerful nebula entity that held the crew hostage. The thing forces M'Benga with an ultimatum. Give me your daughter, or everyone stays in this silly fantasy reality. For all we know, it's a pedonebula. These magical wand-waving resolutions are annoying. My only hope is that he M'Benga realizes that he made a "needs of the many" decision and it HAUNTS him, even if the supposed solution was beneficial to his daughter and crew.

It was definitely the first episode I didn't like. That said, I don't think it was full nuTrek horrible. Contrived reason for everyone to act like something else for an episode is pretty well established. I tended not to like those episodes when DS9 or TNG did them, the one where Bashir is James Bond is corny, and largely saved by Avery Brooks having too much god damn fun with the Bond villain trope. However, to say the episode wasn't in the spirit of the golden years of Trek is disingenuous.

However, who almost got close to saving the episode for me was Hemmer. He was the star of the episode. I really disliked how they threw away M'Benga's arc though. Just an episode or two ago it seemed like there was going to be a running theme of him working to save his daughter. Guess someone in Hollywood really wanted to molest that actress, cause not only do they just yeet that subplot out the airlock, they also do time fuckery to just give M'Benga immediate pay off and justification for deciding to let a space cloud vaporize his daughter. It's really dissatisfying, and I can only guess it's from real world conflicts, as before this episode it seemed more like a long term plotline.

 

[Midwit]

They were able to cultivate a military fighting force that allowed them to go toe-to-toe with the Federation, despite the fact that the Federation was ostensibly a much more capable power.

They only got out so well because the Federation was unwilling to actually fight and brokered peace the moment the Cardassians offered it, despite the fact that given how Cardassians operate a peace agreement would almost certainly be a sign that they're on the back foot and they're only doing it because the Federation would never capitalise on such an obvious advantage. Idealism vs Reality.

 

[IrishGuy088]

They only got out so well because the Federation was unwilling to actually fight and brokered peace the moment the Cardassians offered it, despite the fact that given how Cardassians operate a peace agreement would almost certainly be a sign that they're on the back foot and they're only doing it because the Federation would never capitalise on such an obvious advantage. Idealism vs Reality.

Benjamin Sisko was the best thing to ever happen to the Federation cucks.

 

[Exceptionally Exceptional]

Rewatching The Begotten and it strikes me how absolutely generous Quark was being to Odo selling him the baby changeling. First he says 5 slips when he thinks its dead, then 10 when Odo says it's not, then settles on 8 when Odo informs him that it's sick.
But 8 slips? That's an absolute pittance. Quark only paid his Bajoran slave laborers a single slip of latinum a day. For comparison, a Starfleet Cadet Uniform is about 5 strips. A fine piece of custom clothing from Garak's shop could set you back 20 strips. Quark's Dabo girls made 14 strips per pay cycle. Slips are basically the equivalent of a latinum dollar.

Quark handed Odo something he could have sold to a lot of perspective buyers, including the Federation, for a small fortune for what amounts to a few measly dollars.

Honestly, that shows you how how much Quark considers Odo a friend. He was willing to part with a rare and valuable object for almost nothing because he knew how much it would mean to Odo. I actually consider it something akin to Quark giving Odo a gift, but charging for the delivery.