Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

[UnKillFill]

I can't tell if this is parody or no. Geordi a black muslim??!

Sisko should never have pulled that shit about "our people".

DAS RIIIITE!

Seriously though, with how clearly atheist the entirety of Trek has been portrayed so far (before the dark times that is), there's no way in hell that one of the most backwards and regressive major religions of the present day survived into the 24th century... Ignoring all of that, if Geordi was actually a muslim, you'd think it would have come up even once over the course of 7 seasons, and 4 movies... and it didn't. That bitch is an idiot. I can't be too mad at her though, if she really is from somolia, it's more likely than not that she had her clit cut off for religious reasons, and that's just terrible.

 

[Flexo]

So rewatching some MacGyver recently and look who showed up in an episode in S1.

https://pluto.tv/on-demand/series/macgyver/season/1/episode/hellfire-1985-1-8

Nana Visitor, Kira herself, is the girl of the week in this one. Is it me, or does her hair there make her look like she has real life anime eyes?

 

[Emperor Julian]

The economics of Star Track are a mess. If it's a post-scarcity society, how do they explain Chief O'Brien?

So it's understandable that people would still want to work as starship captains in a future utopia where everybody's rich. Power, pussy and adventure will always motivate men. What motivates O'Brien? He's a blue collar guy working a lonely, boring, shitty job (I believe spiders were mentioned at one point), getting little respect from his peers and zero respect from his awful, awful wife.

He could be drinking margaritas on the beach at Risa, or something, or literally anything. But instead he's stuck in a dead end job he clearly hates, on a space station next to the puckered butthole of the Alpha Quadrant, suffering spiritual and literal torture for... what, if he doesn't need the money?

While you kind of have a point about post scarcity potentially leading to decadence, you've got O'Brien completly wrong, Firstly he's been slowly climbing the career ladder for years, something which has been referanced in the show as he started off as a squaddie and by the end of the series is a proffesor of engeneering at starfleet academy. His job on enterprise was pretty boring but Ds9 is pretty important and he's the chief of engeneering.
Besides off duty he gets to get shitcanned with his posh best mate and sometimes a space viking , larps in the battle of britain which sounds really fun, nails his hot wife and play with his delightful children. Life is good for O'brien when his wife isnt possesed by Satan or he isnt being hunted by Cardassian 'tailor' on Combat drugs.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

While you kind of have a point about post scarcity potentially leading to decadence, you've got O'Brien completly wrong, Firstly he's been slowly climbing the career ladder for years, something which has been referanced in the show as he started off as a squaddie and by the end of the series is a proffesor of engeneering at starfleet academy. His job on enterprise was pretty boring but Ds9 is pretty important and he's the chief of engeneering.
Besides off duty he gets to get shitcanned with his posh best mate and sometimes a space viking , larps in the battle of britain which sounds really fun, nails his hot wife and play with his delightful children. Life is good for O'brien when his wife isnt possesed by Satan or he isnt being hunted by Cardassian 'tailor' on Combat drugs.

I dunno. He got pretty annoyed at DS9 having to be the one plumber on the entire station. Also, the physical law of O'Brien's shoulder, which dictates that every energy beam, rock, fist, and rifle butt must make contact his his bum shoulder.

 

[Emperor Julian]

I dunno. He got pretty annoyed at DS9 having to be the one plumber on the entire station. Also, the physical law of O'Brien's shoulder, which dictates that every energy beam, rock, fist, and rifle butt must make contact his his bum shoulder.

He's pretty much chief of engeneering with underlings and seems to enjoy his work.

Plus considering O'briens luck he's probably safer on ds9 where bad just naturrally happens if he was on risa he'd end up getting molested by a morbidly obese Ferengi or mistake space bleach for booze.

 

[Imperial Citizen]

DAS RIIIITE!

Seriously though, with how clearly atheist the entirety of Trek has been portrayed so far (before the dark times that is), there's no way in hell that one of the most backwards and regressive major religions of the present day survived into the 24th century... Ignoring all of that, if Geordi was actually a muslim, you'd think it would have come up even once over the course of 7 seasons, and 4 movies... and it didn't. That bitch is an idiot. I can't be too mad at her though, if she really is from somolia, it's more likely than not that she had her clit cut off for religious reasons, and that's just terrible.

Could be a Starfleet regulation to shut the fuck up about religion while in the service. And Geordi could be not devout or went atheist. Considering his background he probably was raised Muslim but religion is going to be controversial, especially for American television.

But it does bring up a point about human religion interacting with the Star Trek aliens. Most of the religions don’t seem to conflict with each other; each species seems to be fine with having “their gods”. But how would the monotheistic religions of the humans interact with this? They would probably hold that their God created everyone and that would create some interesting conflicts that could be explored.

Would a missionary try to use logic to convert a Vulcan? Would a devout Starfleet cadet violate the Prime Directive to convert a civilization at First Contact?

There are some stories that could be told, but I don’t trust the current people at Star Trek to do those stories justice.

 

[Flexo]

Could be a Starfleet regulation to shut the fuck up about religion while in the service. And Geordi could be not devout or went atheist. Considering his background he probably was raised Muslim but religion is going to be controversial, especially for American television.

In the episode where Geordi and ensign Ro become "out of phase" he is literally the one presenting the atheist argument & view of death while Ro is providing the religious one.

His mom was also the first female starfleet captain we see on screen (IIRC - maybe first one we see alive). I doubt she gets time to pray to Mecca while being attacked by the Borg.

 

[Imperial Citizen]

In the episode where Geordi and ensign Ro become "out of phase" he is literally the one presenting the atheist argument & view of death while Ro is providing the religious one.

His mom was also the first female starfleet captain we see on screen (IIRC - maybe first one we see alive). I doubt she gets time to pray to Mecca while being attacked by the Borg.

There’s also the fact that Geordi was created by Gene Roddenberry, who would have been called a neckbeard atheist if he created Star Trek today. He thought that by the 23rd century, humanity would outgrow the backwards belief in a god. Not to mention that every time the Enterprise encounters some species’s “god”, it turns out to be a supercomputer or a omnipotent teenage alien.

 

[AnOminous]

There’s also the fact that Geordi was created by Gene Roddenberry, who would have been called a neckbeard atheist if he created Star Trek today. He thought that by the 23rd century, humanity would outgrow the backwards belief in a god. Not to mention that every time the Enterprise encounters some species’s “god”, it turns out to be a supercomputer or a omnipotent teenage alien.

That reminds me of the old as dirt joke: "Why aren't there Muslims in Star Trek?" "Because it's set in the future."

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

There’s also the fact that Geordi was created by Gene Roddenberry, who would have been called a neckbeard atheist if he created Star Trek today. He thought that by the 23rd century, humanity would outgrow the backwards belief in a god. Not to mention that every time the Enterprise encounters some species’s “god”, it turns out to be a supercomputer or a omnipotent teenage alien.

And Kirk would double-hand-slam that sucker into the dirt by the end of the episode, so he could have a nice freeze frame with Spock and McCoy laughing at the omnipotent being of supreme knowledge being bested by a good old-fashioned Starfleet standard-issue general purpose asskicking.

 

[Tookie]

Is the Federation even a democracy? Its flag is just the UN flag... IN SPACE, which suggests an intergovernmental body. And by the TNG era it gives off a kind of European Union vibe (atheistic gay technocracy, smug yet complacent assumptions of its own supposed benevolence, pretending to value diversity while imposing stifling conformity where everyone is pretty much the same except for funny forehead bumps).

Oddly, the first season of Discovery has the Klingorcs disliking the Federation for essentially this reason while simultaneously portraying them as evil MAGA Trumpers and not bothering to explain why they are actually wrong beyond "fuck Drumpf."

 

[Trig.Point]

Is the Federation even a democracy? Its flag is just the UN flag... IN SPACE, which suggests an intergovernmental body. And by the TNG era it gives off a kind of European Union vibe (atheistic gay technocracy, smug yet complacent assumptions of its own supposed benevolence, pretending to value diversity while imposing stifling conformity where everyone is pretty much the same except for funny forehead bumps).

It's not a dystopia in the 1984 sense (or what Verhoeven thought he was doing in Starship Troopers), but it could be a kind of Brave New World type of hell where everyone's material needs are met and any form of cultural or ideological dissent is lovingly and ruthlessly crushed (hey... where did all the Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus and Buddhists go? They just magically evolved, you say? Same thing with all those folks who sympathized with Terra Prime? Huh.)

Sure, the Mirror Universe folks are theatrically evil, but are we sure the Federation are really the good guys? What if they're literally mirror images of each other - not opposites, just different perspectives. Soft, reasonable, urbane totalitarianism versus a high camp, melodramatic, but at least honest version of the same damn thing.

And how do we know Praxis just "exploded", anyway? That's pretty convenient for the homo sapiens club that is the Federation, don't you think? Dilithium crystals can't melt duranium beams.

View attachment 1850057



The economics of Star Track are a mess. If it's a post-scarcity society, how do they explain Chief O'Brien?

So it's understandable that people would still want to work as starship captains in a future utopia where everybody's rich. Power, pussy and adventure will always motivate men. What motivates O'Brien? He's a blue collar guy working a lonely, boring, shitty job (I believe spiders were mentioned at one point), getting little respect from his peers and zero respect from his awful, awful wife.

He could be drinking margaritas on the beach at Risa, or something, or literally anything. But instead he's stuck in a dead end job he clearly hates, on a space station next to the puckered butthole of the Alpha Quadrant, suffering spiritual and literal torture for... what, if he doesn't need the money?

When I was a kid I used to read Star Trek novels (which could be a mixed bag). One of them was by an Irish Author Diane Duane, who wrote a series of novels detailing the early history of the Romulans (which has since been abandoned by the movies).

Detailing how they left Vulcan because it was becoming so regulated and spent generations living on ships while they found a new home. When they did find it, they became obsessive about looking after it. They had spent so long on ships, that now they had two planets to call home, and they were never going to let anything happen to it.

They were strict enviromentalists, while there were constant wars they never used weapons that could damage the planet.

Anyway as a kid I found this fascinating, but then she describes how one day the federation turned up in their solar system, just casually strode around for weeks examing the solar system and then left.

The Romulans just couldn't understand how any race would wander into someones solar system motivated by anything other than aggression, so in the space of a few months, build a space fleet and when the next federation ship turned up blasted it to bits. Then they reverse engineered the warp drive, tracked the ship back to where it came from and destroyed that base.

Obviously the Novel had to stick to Star Trek 'principles' but the underlying theme of the book was that the Romulans were happy to just live on their own planets and not bother anybody. Then to paraphrase the author, the federation blundered into someones home, and scared a race of people that you really don't want to scare. They formed their own empire as a counter weight to the federation.

Anyway that nuanced view of the Romulans was binned by the Franchise. However the idea that the Federation had a habit of starting shit with people is interesting. I mean if the Enterprise is constantly getting shot at... maybe the problem is with them.

 

[rabo]

Anyway that nuanced view of the Romulans was binned by the Franchise. However the idea that the Federation had a habit of starting shit with people is interesting. I mean if the Enterprise is constantly getting shot at... maybe the problem is with them.

Well, you're not wrong there, the Federation is driven by exploration and making contact with other species. That sounds nice from the Federation's standpoint, but that still means "We're going to trample through everybody's yards and knock on their doors."

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Obviously the Novel had to stick to Star Trek 'principles' but the underlying theme of the book was that the Romulans were happy to just live on their own planets and not bother anybody. Then to paraphrase the author, the federation blundered into someones home, and scared a race of people that you really don't want to scare. They formed their own empire as a counter weight to the federation.

Anyway that nuanced view of the Romulans was binned by the Franchise. However the idea that the Federation had a habit of starting shit with people is interesting. I mean if the Enterprise is constantly getting shot at... maybe the problem is with them.

Hence why I say the Feds have insanely lax colonization laws. One would think after creating two neutral zones, the Feds would regulate what their colonists do. Then again, I also postulate that the colonists are really semi-exiles that have to trade with the Feds, but then can be ordered to leave at a moment's notice.

 

[Trig.Point]

Well, you're not wrong there, the Federation is driven by exploration and making contact with other species. That sounds nice from the Federation's standpoint, but that still means "We're going to trample through everybody's yards and knock on their doors."

Interestingly in the book the Romulans were pre warp, taking the technology from starfleet ships they destroyed.. So it gives an interesting take on why the federation wrote the pre warp rule into the prime directive.

 

[Van Darkholme]

In the episode where Geordi and ensign Ro become "out of phase" he is literally the one presenting the atheist argument & view of death while Ro is providing the religious one.

His mom was also the first female starfleet captain we see on screen (IIRC - maybe first one we see alive). I doubt she gets time to pray to Mecca while being attacked by the Borg.

AKSHUALLY, Enterprise-C's Captain Rachel Garrett was first (Yesterday's Enterprise), but like Geordi's mom she also died.

Speaking of the Enterprise-C: I really like the Ambassador class design, it looks like a step between the old Excelsior with an older style saucer and the following Galaxy class, there's something very charming about it.

 

[Flexo]

AKSHUALLY, Enterprise-C's Captain Rachel Garrett was first (Yesterday's Enterprise), but like Geordi's mom she also died.

Speaking of the Enterprise-C: I really like the Ambassador class design, it looks like a step between the old Excelsior with an older style saucer and the following Galaxy class, there's something very charming about it.

You're right that I was wrong to a point, BUT you are incorrect as well.

Yesterday's Enterprise aired in Feb of 1990.

Star Trek 4, the Voyage Home, aired in Nov of 1986. Wherein we saw the captain of the Saratoga on screen. She portrayed by one Madge Sinclair who went on to play...

Silva LaForge.

 

[Van Darkholme]

I stand corrected.

 

[Flexo]

'tis all good. You win on the "first NAMED & speaking female captain" technicality.

I mixed up which role the actress was playing. lol

 

[draggs]

The Federation is C.S. Lewis' tyranny for your own good... in SPAAAAAAAAAACE

That's why the villains have to almost all be thin stereotypes, unrestrained greed for something motivating the vast majority. Professor Moriarty type villains are relatively rare. The Federation is soooo good that the only way it can be bad is misunderstandings, mistakes, crazy Admirals, etc. The idea that some species just have no interest in the smug fake-pacifist technocratic enlightened strangers club does not compute.

Oh and dont forget how Picard promised Moriarty the Federation would try to find a way to free him and did fuck-all for four years then found a solution real fucking quick when Moriarty forced them to. A solution they could have done in the first place but didnt because the Federation's claims of principles are situational bullshit.