Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

[Dr. Sexbot]

If Riker couldn't have been watching it during "These are the Voyages..." then it isn't canon.

 

[The Gene Genie]

I just can't believe how post-Enterprise Trek got done. They had so many possibilities with the timeline after the Dominion War and they shanked it.

The problem is how shows have mostly been made for the past decade (2015 btw). The thing that’s in now isn’t a 30-episode season of situation-of-the-week plots with vague plot arcs sometimes going on behind them. What’s in is miniseries, where the first season is effectively one long-drawn out pilot episode and there’s no guarantee of a second or third season. If TNG was made today Encounter at Farpoint would’ve been the entire first season.

This sort of style can work in other franchises but it simply doesn’t work in Star Trek no matter how hard they try to force it. The weight of the franchise is carried by actors on styrofoam soundstages and writers coming up with interesting plots. One of its main appeals is getting “to know” the characters over the course of a season. How can a modern miniseries have a Data episode? Or a Worf-connects-with-his-heritage episode? It would be, at best, a scene that would feel disjointed because the narrative is otherwise tight and focused.

SNW still hasn’t been able to move beyond this formula either, even if it has tried. It still feels like a miniseries.

 

[Miller]

A gift

https://cosmicbook.news/star-trek-discovery-erased-canon

Lower Decks is a cartoon, I doubt that what happens there is canon.
STD is canon, as long as Kurtzman Trek is a thing.

(One of) the reason(s) I don't like Strange New Worlds is because it looks jarring with this modern "sleek" bullshit. I wish they had fully committed to the bit and recreated "The Cage" Enterprise and uniforms and set design. Obviously it would be higher fidelity and better quality than it was when it was filmed in 1964, but there is something deeply lost about the whole thing with this gay minimalist sleek design.

I miss the buttons and the whirly sound effects.

I heard people say that Strange New Worlds is ok, I tried to watch one episode (the Balance of Terror rip-off), to me it's just STD with other characters. The tone is all over the place and never feels like Star Trek.

 

[Scritti Politti]

A really funny editorial from a while ago about how Voyager all but heralded the rise of Trump. The whole thing is funny, but these are some choice quotes:

Voyager reflects this conservatism in its core concept. More than any other Star Trek spin-off, Voyager marks a conscious effort to return to the “space western” aesthetic that defined the original show. This is particularly obvious from the outset. The pilot episode, Caretaker, unfolds primarily from the perspective of Thomas Eugene Paris, the only white American male in the primary cast. The episode is saturated with western clichés. Chakotay is presented as a faithful Native American sidekick, with the Kazon standing in for the primitives on the frontier.

While Deep Space Nine celebrated the diversity of its cast, Voyager works hard to erase it. Despite the fact that Janeway is supposedly commanding a crew compromised of characters with very differing value systems, the show downplays any sense of cultural difference. On Deep Space Nine, characters like Odo and Kira kept their different uniforms and command structures for the seven-year run of the show. On Voyager, the Maquis crewmembers were wearing Starfleet uniforms by the end of Caretaker, their differences resolved by the end of Parallax.

Deep Space Nine celebrated diversity and multiculturalism, encouraging characters like Quark and Worf and Garak to honor their cultures and their values. Deep Space Nine featured entire episodes focusing almost exclusively on Klingon characters on Klingon ships; Soldiers of the Empire, Sons and Daughters, Once More Unto the Breach. Deep Space Nine built episodes around an ensemble of Ferengi supporting players: Family Business, Little Green Men, Ferengi Love Songs, The Magnificent Ferengi, Profit and Lace.

In contrast, Voyager rejected any suggestion that its characters could exist outside a traditional Starfleet hierarchy. The character of Seska rejected Janeway’s leadership in Prime Factors, but the show immediately revealed her to be a Cardassian spy and cast her off the ship in State of Flux. When Learning Curve pointed out that maybe a bunch of former terrorists wouldn’t readily integrate into a Starfleet hierarchy, the show made a point to beat those round pegs to make them fit the square hole.

In contrast to the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants, the Delta Quadrant is not dominated by galactic empires or powers. in many ways, the Star Trek franchise had treated the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants as analogous to the western world, with great powers vying for dominance; the Romulans and the Klingons could be stand-ins for Soviet Russia, while the Cardassians and the Dominion could be read as Nazi Germany. In contrast, Voyager presented the Delta Quadrant as a more disorganised and fractured political environment.

If the Alpha Quadrant was the western world, the Delta Quadrant was the developing world. Cultures tended to be less socially and technologically advanced than Voyager. The region was dominated by dictatorships with no respect for human rights, as seen in episodes like Resistance, Warlord, The Chute, Counterpoint. The series was especially fond of the trope of the “cargo cult”,
societies building myths around their Alpha Quadrant visitors; worshipping the Ferengi in False Profits, venerating the EMH in Virtuouso, mythologising Voyager in Blink of an Eye and Muse.

This isolation is justified. In the Delta Quadrant, even species claiming to be friendly inevitably seek to exploit these well-meaning tourists. In Nemesis, some warring aliens conspire desperately to draw Chakotay into a conflict that very consciously evokes Vietnam. In Think Tank, a local organisation offers to assist Voyager, promising to trade their help for the blonde-haired and blue-eyed Seven of Nine. When Voyager meets a genuinely friendly species, as in Sacred Ground, even Janeway admits her surprise.

Even the major alien species tend to fit this analogy, playing into western stereotypes about the region. The Kazon were tribal warlords picking through the remains of a colonial power. The Vidiians (Phage, Faces, Lifesigns, Deadlock, Resolutions) were a culture ravaged by disease, perhaps reflecting the spread of HIV and AIDS in Africa. The Hirogen (Hunters, Prey, The Killing Game, Part I and The Killing Game, Part II) were cast as “great white hunters.” The Malon (Night, Extreme Risk, Juggernaut) were industrial polluters causing damage to indigenous populations.

The back story of the Kazon became increasingly problematic. When Michael Piller charged Kenneth Biller with coming up for a “bible” for the Kazon in the early second season, Biller seized upon the racially-coded subtext of the Kazon and explicitly wrote it into their back story. Playing up the idea of the Kazon as stand-ins for young African American men, Biller imagined the Kazon as a race of former slaves that had overthrown their masters and unleashed hell upon the Delta Quadrant as a whole.

This was uncomfortable enough, even before Voyager decided to explore that back story on screen in the episode Alliances. In that episode, Janeway encounters the Trabe. The Trabe are the race that had previously enslaved the Kazon. They are presented as much whiter and much more conventionally “human looking” than the Kazon. Their clothes are neater, their dialogue is more sophisticated, their politics more civilised. While the Kazon are presented as savages, the Trabe are presented as comfortably middle-class.

Tellingly, after more than a year of failing to find common ground with the Kazon, Janeway immediately hits it off the Trabe. The Trabe are very much Janeway’s sort of people. They dine together, they discuss politics, they engage one another. The Trabe seem like thoroughly decent individuals, the very ideal of benign slave owners. Once again, Voyager plays into particular populist white conservative fantasies. One in five Trump supporters believes that ending slavery was a bad idea. Many Trump voters support preserving monuments to people who fought to preserve slavery.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

The whole thing is funny, but these are some choice quotes:

Yep, that's an essay written by a typical English graduate in Current Year. I probably would have written something like this when I was in school.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

The whole thing is funny, but these are some choice quotes:

He was doing well up until he started talking about the political makeup of the Delta Quadrant, which I just remember being BORG BORG BORG BORG BORG after the first couple of seasons.

 

[Calandrino]

One in five Trump supporters believes that ending slavery was a bad idea.

 

[INDEED]

He was doing well up until he started talking about the political makeup of the Delta Quadrant,

Geography in the delta quadrant never made any sense. They were travelling for 2 years and still encountering Kazon. Borg space was so vast yet the Equinox overtook Voyager and somehow never encountered them. The Nekrid Expanse was supposed to be at the limit of Neelix's knowledge yet in the next episode he's an expert on local culture again. George Costanza claims to have cured the Phage but they were at least 3 years away from the nearest Viidian. And so on.

Anyway if anyone in Star Trek matches Trump it's Grand Nagus Zek.

 

[JustSomeDong]

Grand Nagus Zek.

Pre or post Moogie Zek? Because those are two very different Zeks.

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

A really funny editorial from a while ago about how Voyager all but heralded the rise of Trump. The whole thing is funny, but these are some choice quotes:

It already gives me a brain aneurysm. Please, evil Janeway, shoot me-

Indeed, the Federation is quite explicitly socialist, something hinted at in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and explicitly confirmed in Star Trek: First Contact.

No, it's fucking not. Post-scarcity and "socialism" are not the same thing, you utter retards. The Federation is a post-scarcity automated meritocracy. 21st century kindergarten ideological concepts don't even come close to apply. Reminder that there is no such thing as meritocracy under socialism. You don't hate journalists enough.

On a more fundamental level, the franchise is about people from different cultures and with different values coming together to work in common purpose.

Yes, and it wasn't forced. It felt natural, because the core ideal of the UFP is cooperation, not some 21st century globohomo fake crap like 'diversity'.

Even Deep Space Nine fumbled the ball. Rejoined was well-meaning

lol, lmao even. The episode was much more about the VERY MUCH illegal act of reassociation in Trill society, dipshit. And it was done with subtle style. If this was made today, it would beat you over the head and the intra-universe context wouldn't even be mentioned once.

More than any other Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine embraced multiculturalism.

Sure, it did. But once again not the globohomo crap. You don't see IQ80 subhuman apes burn down the station, either. You wanna know why? Because this shit doesn't exist in Trek. WW3 has seen to that, lol.

In the context of the 2016 election, this should be Hillary Clinton all the way; a diverse coalition all pledging “I’m with her.”

HAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Voyager was made at a time when Bill "I didn't have sex with that woman" Clinton was still in charge. Where is the urge to recontextualise coming from? Can't possibly the marxist indoctrinators and the post-modern deconstructionists as a source for that delusion, right? Jesus Christ... Killary is the Borg queen in this... context, retard.

Despite the fact that Janeway is supposedly commanding a crew compromised of characters with very differing value systems, the show downplays any sense of cultural difference.

When the main mission is to get home and shorten the trip you don't have exactly the time to talk about "I'm more globohomo than you".

Deep Space Nine celebrated diversity and multiculturalism, encouraging characters like Quark and Worf and Garak to honor their cultures and their values. Deep Space Nine featured entire episodes focusing almost exclusively on Klingon characters on Klingon ships; Soldiers of the Empire, Sons and Daughters, Once More Unto the Breach. Deep Space Nine built episodes around an ensemble of Ferengi supporting players: Family Business, Little Green Men, Ferengi Love Songs, The Magnificent Ferengi, Profit and Lace.

None of them was forced to abandon their heritage or atone for the imaginary sins of their ancestors. If DS9 was made today, Garak would turn into a globohomo zealot, Quark would turn into a bolshevik by season 4 and Worf would never ever consider killing anyone in self-defense. It would be dull, boring 21st century corporate demoralisation slop. Ask yourself why all the Ferengi-episode are fan favorites.

Like Trumpism, Voyager seemed afraid of anything different. Like Trumpism, Voyager also leaned authoritarian. Janeway never accepted any debate or any question about her leadership style, never accepted that the unique situation might merit a unique approach to command.

Because Janeway works for the MILITARY and that has something known as a CHAIN OF COMMAND. She gives ORDERS, not grounds for debates. Even a fucking cruise ship has that.

In contrast to the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants, the Delta Quadrant is not dominated by galactic empires or powers. in many ways, the Star Trek franchise had treated the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants as analogous to the western world, with great powers vying for dominance; the Romulans and the Klingons could be stand-ins for Soviet Russia, while the Cardassians and the Dominion could be read as Nazi Germany. In contrast, Voyager presented the Delta Quadrant as a more disorganised and fractured political environment.

Yes, because the Borg assimilated anyone beyond a certain tech level. The delta quadrant is depicted as being dominated by the Borg, idiot. There is no centralised resistance against them. There can't be.

If the Alpha Quadrant was the western world, the Delta Quadrant was the developing world. Cultures tended to be less socially and technologically advanced than Voyager. The region was dominated by dictatorships with no respect for human rights, as seen in episodes like Resistance, Warlord, The Chute, Counterpoint. The series was especially fond of the trope of the “cargo cult”, societies building myths around their Alpha Quadrant visitors; worshipping the Ferengi in False Profits, venerating the EMH in Virtuouso, mythologising Voyager in Blink of an Eye and Muse.

Oh, for fuck's sake... Are you saying the delta quadrant is full of streetshitting shitskins? Your opinion, not mine...

Fuck, I'm bleeding from my nose, some major blood vessel in my brain just popped-

 

[Scritti Politti]

Ask yourself why all the Ferengi-episode are fan favorites.

All the Ferengi episodes?

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

All the Ferengi episodes?

View attachment 6820029

Yes, all of them. I just like my space jews the way they are, okay?

 

[JustSomeDong]

Fuck, I'm bleeding from my nose, some major blood vessel in my brain just popped-

The writer would have a Pakled calling himself smart by comparison.
"You look for things. Things that make you offended."

Yes, all of them. I just like my space jews the way they are, okay?

The space jews underwent radical changes during the course of the series. They way they are ain't the way they was. So, I ask you, as well. Pre-Moogie or post-moogie Ferengi?

 

[teriyakiburns]

The pilot episode, Caretaker, unfolds primarily from the perspective of Thomas Eugene Paris

When they're off to a start this wrong, you know you're in for a treat.

 

[Dr. Sexbot]

A really funny editorial from a while ago about how Voyager all but heralded the rise of Trump. The whole thing is funny, but these are some choice quotes:

I'm trying to archive this (it is KF after all) but archive.li and archive.today just sit on "Loading" for minutes; should I be using something else now?

There are some funny comments at the foot of the page:

A polite "you're full of shit:"

Heh:

Hundreds of thousands of words

I wonder how many words the actual damn script of the show had...

"Come on guys, he's only mentioned in 25% of my reviews, not a full 50%! That's arguing in bad faith!"

 

[Scritti Politti]

While I'm at it, here's an excerpt from his Day of Honor review which makes the episode (and VOY by extension) seem extremely redpilled:

[The Cataati] are introduced as a dispossessed and pitiable collection of refugees, however they quickly show themselves to be villainous and untrustworthy. As with Displaced, there is a strong suggestion that the proper reaction to people in need of assistance is paranoia.

The first sign of trouble occurs relatively early in the episode, when the Cataati make their case to the crew of Voyager. Day of Honour bends over backwards to insist that the Cataati are being unreasonable and pushy. “Forgive me but, from my perspective you live in luxury,” Lumas suggests. “You don’t suffer from debilitating diseases. You have many sources of energy. Replicators. Your crew is very well fed. Apparently, keeping your bellies full is more important to you than helping those less fortunate.”

Naturally, Neelix is quick to bristle at the implied accusation. “These are the most generous people you could hope to meet,” Neelix reprimands Lumas. “But if we gave supplies to everyone who asked, we wouldn’t have anything left.” It is worth noting that Lumas has not even heard what Janeway is willing to offer, he just jumps right to trying to shame and guilt-trip the crew into surrendering to his demands. The Cataati are quickly defined as ungrateful and unappreciative of those in more privileged positions.

There is something disconcerting about this characterisation from the beginning, even before the Cataati prove themselves untrustworthy. It plays into stereotypes about the dispossessed and the disadvantaged that are frequently used to justify broader indifference. Refugees from Syria in 2015 and 2016 have been described by more reactionary media and hostile residents as “ungrateful” for the charity they receive, with many racist and nationalist organisations perpetuating these reports.

To be fair, this sort of paranoia and distrust is not exclusive to immigrants and refugees. Virtually any dispossessed or disadvantaged group is subjected to these accusations and criticisms. Homeless men and homeless women are frequently criticised for being “ungrateful” for the assistance offered to them. This an uncomfortable idea, the sense that treating a person with dignity needs to be rewarded with eternal and unquestioning gratitude, and that those who receive aid should be happy for what they receive rather than arguing for better conditions.

This is an incredibly privileged perspective, and one at odds with the progressive humanism expected from Star Trek. It is more akin to the rhetoric employed by the political right to deal with any criticism or opposition. Sarah Palin famously responded to Colin Kaepernik’s “taking a knee” protest by calling him an “ungrateful punk.” In these early scenes, Day of Honour suggests that the Cataati should be grateful for Janeway even agreeing to hear their request in the first place. The implication is that Lumas should say nothing more than “thank you.”

Naturally, this scene exists to foreshadow the climax of the episode. When Voyager is forced to jettison its warp core, the Cataati respond by holding it hostage. Again, there is no sign of gratitude to the ship and crew that showed them charity. Instead, they use to the opportunity to pounce upon Voyager and to deliver an ultimatum. The Cataati are ultimately presented as outlaws and thugs, an untrustworthy race that refuse to show Janeway and her crew the respect that they deserve.

“You’ve brought some friends,” Janeway reflects. “Needy friends,” Lumas replies. “We’re hoping you will offer us more supplies.” Janeway protests, reasonably, “I made it clear last time that we couldn’t possibly you with enough for all your ships.” Lumas is pragmatic and opportunistic. “And I had to accept that because your ship is more powerful than ours. But the situation has changed, hasn’t it? You seem to be at a disadvantage now. We have your warp core. You can’t escape. I’m hoping that’ll make you more generous.”

Again, this feels like familiar xenophobic paranoia. It reflects the fear that immigrants and refugees are just waiting for an opportunity to turn the tables on their hosts. The argument suggests that it is better to keep these dispossessed individuals at a disadvantage, because they will take any opportunity to undermine the countries foolish enough to welcome them. After all, consider the paranoia around alleged plots by minorities to impose Sharia Law or to smuggle terrorists across borders. It is as paranoid about immigration as Displaced was.

This is not something unique to Day of Honour or Displaced. By its nature, Voyager tries to find reasons for the crew to avoid helping the disadvantaged and dispossessed residents of the Delta Quadrant. This is most notable in Janeway’s application of the Prime Directive, a rule nominally intended to prevent colonialism or imperialism, but which also serves to advocate moral responsibility. It was also an issue with the Kazon; the visuals in State of Flux suggested that the Kazon deserved Janeway’s sympathy and compassion, but the script ignored it.

 

[JustSomeDong]

Attention Bajoran workersTrek thread posters. I inform you that I'm a bit blazed and all cozy on a frigid Saturday, about 2/3rds through Season 4 of DS9 (as of now I'm about 10 minutes into Hard Time), and I'm gonna drop whatever trek meme I have in my recent downloads folder, just for the hell of it.



That is all.

 

[Travoltron]

I'm trying to archive this (it is KF after all) but archive.li and archive.today just sit on "Loading" for minutes; should I be using something else now?

Is this that commie Mick that appears on the Trek Culture YouTube channel? I had to unsub because the channel became super pozzed.

 

[Calandrino]

Is this that commie Mick that appears on the Trek Culture YouTube channel? I had to unsub because the channel became super pozzed.

How Media Illiterate are leftards that they even get into this franchise? It is a far-right Nazi show where hot women walk around in miniskirts, trannies do not exist, and stereotypes about entire races of people are 100% true.

 

[INDEED]

Pre or post Moogie Zek? Because those are two very different Zeks.

Post-Moogie Zek ruined the character and I pretty sure he was shown to have dementia and Moogie was running things from behind the scenes.

All the Ferengi episodes?

I think the only reason there were so many was because Armin Shimerman was such a great actor. Imagine the cool Trill episodes if Terry Farrel had been able to actually act.