Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

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Exceptionally Exceptional said:
Honestly, I thought it was less "dark and edgy" and more "what happens when you take this optimistic view of a more enlightened humanity and then violently test their principals in a conflict where diplomacy isn't really an option against an enemy willing to cross any line we might set for ourselves."

I mean, as much as people use the "That's not what Star Trek was about!" line, let's not forget that in TOS we were actively at war with 2 other species, the Romulans and Klingons, and routinely had violent encounters with hostile alien life. The Dominion War really isn't much different than the Federation-Klingon war, it just got a hell of a lot more screen time.

In TNG we encountered the Borg, who were more or less ruthless mass murder machines that invade a system and either assimilate the sentient species they find or utterly annihilate them.

Star Trek has never really shied away from the idea that the universe is a scary, dangerous place filled with crazy warlike assholes.

"Doctor McCoy is right in pointing out the enormous danger potential in any contact with life and intelligence as fantastically advanced as this. But I must point out that the possibilities, the potential for knowledge and advancement is equally great."
- James T. Kirk
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“If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you ought to go back home, and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here! It's wondrous...with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it's not for the timid.” - Q
 
Tasty Tatty said:
DS9 is definitely a good show, but I kinda agree with RLM guys saying it's not what Star Trek is about. A lot of people love it because "muh expectations being subverted" and because "muh gritty reality 3edgy5me."
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The RLM guys say a lot of things. Never forget that they made Space Cop and loved Star Wars TFA and TLJ.
DS9 is the only deconstruction done right. It didn't destroy Star Trek, it re-enforced its values.
 
If you cock swallow whatever RLM say, you aren't intelligent enough to have your own opinion.
 
Exceptionally Exceptional said:
Am I the only one that thinks the Prime Directive sucks? I meant it makes sense in a lot of cases like "don't give the primitive barbarians phasers" and shit, but when you see a species who are about to be destroyed through no fault of their own how the fuck do you just ignore your conscience screaming at you?

Even Janeway pointed out in Voyager that it kinda felt shitty to be on the other side of that principal when an advanced alien race refused to share their space folding technology with us.
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I like it better when it is used more as a guiding principle than religious dogma.

For an idiotic example, take Into Darkness (please). Primitive world, absolutely no way to deal with a super volcano - ok, maybe the Enterprise gets involved. But why for the love of Gene do they park the Enterprise in the ocean??? Why not, "Hm, we're not to interfere with other cultures. So why don't we park the ship in outer space, on the other side of the planet where the aliens have no hope of ever seeing it and then fix this super-volcano problem??"

The thing with involvement is where do you stop? At least giving the crew a command to help sort this stuff out makes sense. "Whatever you do, DON'T LET THEM SEE YOU!" makes some sense. Big asteroid or comet way out going to hit the planet someday? Sure take that out. Is there just going to be a local flood or volcano or other disaster that is going to affect a large number, but still only small portion of the population? No real way to solve it without the people seeing you, let them work it out. etc

There could even be some examination of it in the show. The Federation takes a hands-off approach because it's very libertine oriented. Whereas maybe once upon a time the Romulans regularly interfered with those planets in its Empire - and then it kept interfering and interfering until eventually it became an oppressive police state/helicopter parent because that was the only way to keep everyone safe. There was a little hint at that in the Dominion (except they were all about keeping the founders safe) and with the Borg but nobody has ever really sat down to write out an examination of these philosophies.

(And the Klingons were probably like the predator, just going to worlds to pick fights and see who is worthy of being in the empire)
 
I've probably mentioned before, but what's really the problem about the PD is that it's based on the liberal/progressive idea that "colonization is bad!", or as Picard kinda said, when a "superior" civilization meets a less developed one, it can end up in disaster.

Sure, European colonization in Africa was bad, but Spanish conquest -not colonization- of America actually worked because they 1. got rid of primitive customs such as human sacrifice and 2. improved the lives of the natives via schools, hospitals, and a new batch of rights they didn't have.

While I do remember to have studied America being conquered under a positive light when I was a kid (already here in Peru), I don't doubt that nuance gets lost in US academia where the topic is not properly discussed, hence, I wouldn't doubt either that Roddenberry would think that this alleged genocide of native Americas happened both in the North and the South of the continent so there are no examples of good interventions.

I can see the PD working well for certain cases. Two good examples are that planet where some thought Picard was a god and the one when Riker was kept prisoner. Both seemed to be on a good path for future real development and their people being -at the moment- sane enough to not start a genocide between each other. So yes, it's reasonable there is no need for Starfleet to intervene.
 
Tasty Tatty said:
I've probably mentioned before, but what's really the problem about the PD is that it's based on the liberal/progressive idea that "colonization is bad!", or as Picard kinda said, when a "superior" civilization meets a less developed one, it can end up in disaster.

Sure, European colonization in Africa was bad, but Spanish conquest -not colonization- of America actually worked because they 1. got rid of primitive customs such as human sacrifice and 2. improved the lives of the natives via schools, hospitals, and a new batch of rights they didn't have.

While I do remember to have studied America being conquered under a positive light when I was a kid (already here in Peru), I don't doubt that nuance gets lost in US academia where the topic is not properly discussed, hence, I wouldn't doubt either that Roddenberry would think that this alleged genocide of native Americas happened both in the North and the South of the continent so there are no examples of good interventions.

I can see the PD working well for certain cases. Two good examples are that planet where some thought Picard was a god and the one when Riker was kept prisoner. Both seemed to be on a good path for future real development and their people being -at the moment- sane enough to not start a genocide between each other. So yes, it's reasonable there is no need for Starfleet to intervene.
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When I was a kid (American here) the subject actually was taught with nuance and wasn't politicized. Points you brought up were absolutely gone over, how disease was wiped out for them, savage practices were stopped, their general quality of life vastly improved.

I can imagine nowadays all that stuff isn't told at all and it's just white colonization bad 24/7.
 
White Devil said:
When I was a kid (American here) the subject actually was taught with nuance and wasn't politicized. Points you brought up were absolutely gone over, how disease was wiped out for them, savage practices were stopped, their general quality of life vastly improved.

I can imagine nowadays all that stuff isn't told at all and it's just white colonization bad 24/7.
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The pathogen thing alone would be reason enough to avoid alien contact. "We don't need one of you sneezing and causing extinction while you're trying to save the people from extinction! "
 
Tasty Tatty said:
Sure, European colonization in Africa was bad, but Spanish conquest -not colonization- of America actually worked because they 1. got rid of primitive customs such as human sacrifice and 2. improved the lives of the natives via schools, hospitals, and a new batch of rights they didn't have.
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Well, the ones who were still alive after unforeseen and (usually) unintended consequences like exposing them to pathogens they had no immunity to.
 
Praise to Ds9 aside, I hope it doesn't get renewed. At leasts not under Bad Robot.

Don't know much about the behind the scenes drama and such. But I know say, Andre Robinson jumped at the chance to retcon Garak as gay.

Also, that Ira Steven guy seemed too eager to brag about how progressive they were in that documentary.

Which to be fair, they were. It was social commentary done right.

Now days?

Even if they were the same people, I just don't trust them not ro ruin Ds9. Too many cases of good things and good writters turning to shit once they decide to virtue signal woke politics.

Kurtzman already missed the point by thinking ssction 31 was an excuse to be edgy and not, again, a way to test the heroe's integrity.
 
I wonder what the Federation would do if they encountered a faction that had a creed more or less in direct opposition of the Prime Directive.
Always intervene. Uplift every sentient species to a warp capable, star faring people. Stop bloody civil wars through direct intermediation. Teach various primitive races how to properly advance their technology in ways that won't destroy the fucking planet.

We're talking professional Uplift architects who've done this hundreds of times and distilled it to an eact science. Assess species, study and catalogue culture, then tailor an uplift regimen to the species in question designed to smoothly and (relatively) safely bring them to full warp capability and ready to join Galactic civilization. Perhaps they were inspired to do so by the knowledge of the Progenitors of all the humanoid races.

How the fuck is the Federation going to react to that shit?
 
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Exceptionally Exceptional said:
I wonder what the Federation would do if they encountered a faction that had a creed more or less in direct opposition of the Prime Directive.
Always intervene. Uplift every sentient species to a warp capable, star faring people. Stop bloody civil wars through direct intermediation. Teach various primitive races how to properly advance their technology in ways that won't destroy the fucking planet.

We're talking professional Uplift architects who've done this hundreds of times and distilled it to an eact science. Assess species, study and catalogue culture, then tailor an uplift regimen to the species in question designed to smoothly and (relatively) safely bring them to full warp capability and ready to join Galactic civilization. Perhaps they were inspired to do so by the knowledge of the Progenitors of all the humanoid races.

How the fuck is the Federation going to react to that shit?
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They did that in Starfleet Command II although it was a non-benevolent version called the Interstellar Concordium. Ya ya I know it's a video game and non-canon but an interesting idea none the less.
 
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Flexo said:
The pathogen thing alone would be reason enough to avoid alien contact. "We don't need one of you sneezing and causing extinction while you're trying to save the people from extinction! "
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Theoretically, by the time of TOS onward at least, they should be (and most likely are) able to use the transporters to separate potentially harmful pathogens from the people beaming down if they would be dangerous to the natives.

Enterprise showed us that this can actually work both ways when Archer's stupid dog almost died because of an alien pathogen. (they didn't have reliable transporters yet at this point)

Speaking of Archer and the prime directive... It will never not be funny that Archer -and more particularly Phlox, literally condemned the Valakians to a slow and painful death, despite *easily* having the ability to cure them, despite the PD not even existing at the time to prevent them from doing so, and then moralizing about how correct they were for doing it after the fact. But as I'm so fond of saying, "lol, fuck the Valakians."

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XYZpdq said:
more like un-retcon him from hetero
Garak is mission-sexual, but he'll make exceptions for personal grudges so he fucks his enemy's daughter
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Robinsin literally believes that Garek is a homosexual who legitimately fell for Bashir though, right? The actor isn't always right. Just look at Patrick Stewart.
 
UnKillShredDur said:
Robinsin literally believes that Garek is a homosexual who legitimately fell for Bashir though, right? The actor isn't always right. Just look at Patrick Stewart.
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Getting really sick of the way even adults these days can't see a close friendship between 2 men without seeing faggotry.

And I decry the "Garak was gay" theory for one major reason; If Garak had wanted Bashir's bussy, he would have fucking gotten it. You aren't going to sit there and tell me that Garak couldn't seduce the implants off a Borg. The man was roughish and charming as hell, dude could probably have gotten a goddamn Vulcan girl all hot and bothered if he wanted to.
 
Exceptionally Exceptional said:
Getting really sick of the way even adults these days can't see a close friendship between 2 men without seeing faggotry.

And I decry the "Garak was gay" theory for one major reason; If Garak had wanted Bashir's bussy, he would have fucking gotten it. You aren't going to sit there and tell me that Garak couldn't seduce the implants off a Borg. The man was roughish and charming as hell, dude could probably have gotten a goddamn Vulcan girl all hot and bothered if he wanted to.
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I wasn't supporting it, I was just stating the fact that Andrew Robinson these days very clearly thinks that Garek is actually gay, and wants Bashir's ass and/or dick. You can definitely put me on the side of @XYZpdq (and others here) in saying that Garek is "Gay for the mission." I totally believe that he would have fucked Bashir if he thought it would help Cardassia in some way. But I doubt he would have if it didn't. At *very* least, even if Garek *did* prefer men, I doubt he'd go for a human man over a fellow Cardassian.
 
UnKillShredDur said:
I wasn't supporting it, I was just stating the fact that Andrew Robinson these days very clearly thinks that Garek is actually gay, and wants Bashir's ass and/or dick. You can definitely put me on the side of @XYZpdq (and others here) in saying that Garek is "Gay for the mission." I totally believe that he would have fucked Bashir if he thought it would help Cardassia in some way. But I doubt he would have if it didn't. At *very* least, even if Garek *did* prefer men, I doubt he'd go for a human man over a fellow Cardassian.
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It's funny, Miles was so close with Julian that he outright said he wished Keiko was more like Julian. And yet nobody obsesses about Miles maybe being a bit gay for Bashir's bussy. Hell, Miles is Julian's best fucking friend, way closer than Julian and Garak, so if anyone should be gay for the guy it's him.
 
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