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MikeJF posted:In anything even approaching a realistic world So what about in the world of Star Trek?
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Nov 5, 2015 12:38
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MikeJF posted:In anything even approaching a realistic world, amorality is always, always immoral. It's as simple as that. Without wanting to sound pedantic, if this were unequivocally true then someone with a mental disability meaning they lack the comprehension or morals would be amoral, which is wrong. You could argue that by choosing to be amoral S31 commits immoral acts, which would be true, they just don't take morality into account.
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Nov 5, 2015 12:43
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Moral ambiguity? Is everyone forgetting the part where Section 31 tried to genocide all the shapeshifters (including Odo) with biological weapons? Anyway, I think S31 is dumb, bad 1990's conspiracy garbage and is pretty much contrary to the entire idea of optimistic, humanist utopian science fiction.
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Nov 5, 2015 17:01
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I like section 31 because Roddenberry would have hated it.
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Nov 5, 2015 17:03
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I think the interesting part of Section 31 is that for all the talk about taking the moral high road the Federation does, it still needs dirty work done like any of the other factions. Plotwise, it doesn't seem to exert the same kind of control over its own citizens that the Obsidian Order or Tal Shiar do. The Federation being a utopia with no dirty laundry is thematically boring, and it's difficult to have them as a protagonist without it being preachy and unrealistic. Having individuals holding themselves and the others they command to higher morals is thematically interesting and much more plausible. Shows like TNG which tried to sell the utopia to the viewer (and sometimes the conflict of the week) often fell short because of how inconsistently it was handled. TNGs better episodes were ones where the morality came from Picard, or when characters struggled with morality (like The Pegasus). Clark Nova posted:Moral ambiguity? Is everyone forgetting the part where Section 31 tried to genocide all the shapeshifters (including Odo) with biological weapons? Maybe you're forgetting their first contact with the Federation was blowing up the Odyssey? The immoral acts from the Alpha quadrant were offloaded to the Romulans and Cardassians, because hey the Federation can do no wrong, right? It's well and good for the Federation to have high morals, but the real interesting storytelling comes from the lasting effects of choosing the high road. There's no lasting consequences to any of their actions in Voyager, so there's no weight to the plot at all - everything is resolved at the end of the episode or the reboot button is hit. DS9 started to show consequences for the ideologies present in the Alpha Quadrant, which is why it was so interesting. Entropic posted:I like section 31 because Roddenberry would have hated it. Also this. the Pixies fukken SUCKED fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 5, 2015 17:09
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Entropic posted:I like section 31 because Roddenberry would have hated it. It really is the best reason for it to exist.
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Nov 5, 2015 17:10
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Pick posted:q's pretty flirty with picard, picard should have gone with that imho. i mean q doesn't need to look like john de lancie that was, for some reason, a choice picard plays super hard to get. like there was that space fraudster lady in Devil's Due who offered to wear any costume he wanted, and he said "lol no you don't do anything for me, you space strumpet" q's gotta back off a little. he's so smothering sometimes.
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Nov 5, 2015 17:20
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Melchior posted:I think the interesting part of Section 31 is that for all the talk about taking the moral high road the Federation does, it still needs dirty work done like any of the other factions. There's already an organization that does this. It's called Starfleet Intelligence. The argument that the Federation "needs" Section 31 is essentially an argument against accountability and civilian control in government, and it is morally repugnant. EDIT: Also, we don't know just how much the Federation actually needs Section 31. Of course Section 31 thinks they're necessary! But what would actually happen to the Federation if they weren't around?
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Nov 5, 2015 17:23
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:There's already an organization that does this. It's called Starfleet Intelligence. Well, above the board, of course. But above the board is boring. quote:The argument that the Federation "needs" Section 31 is essentially an argument against accountability and civilian control in government, and it is morally repugnant. Correct, which makes their existence interesting and conflicting! The federation being homogenous gestalt of morals despite being comprised of thousands of diverse cultures is in itself unrealistic. Surely there is diversity in opinions within the Federation with respect to Section 31 being necessary? I'd think so. Sure, you want to strive for that higher standard, but you've gotta fake it until you make it (or until your enemies are vaporized).
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Nov 5, 2015 17:35
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Melchior posted:Well, above the board, of course. But above the board is boring. In one of the later Enterprise episodes they even point out in a pretty sly way that the Federation eventually swallows up the Klingons, Romulans and Cardassians to keep fighting scarier and scarier aliens in space and time. Its pretty much the Imperium of Man with diversity hire requirements
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Nov 5, 2015 17:41
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Melchior posted:Well, above the board, of course. But above the board is boring. Yes, I'm sure there's a lot of diversity in opinion among Federation members about a secret conspiracy group that nobody even knows exists. Section 31 isn't the CIA, or even the Cold War-era NSA; they're literally a band of renegades that abuse their positions to illicitly divert government resources towards missions which are not only unaccountable but may even directly conflict with the policy set forth by the government. Support for Section 31 is about two steps short of advocating for a coup d'etat. Your position about "well it's unreasonable that thousands of diverse cultures would agree Section 31" is farcical because the same could be argued about any policy.
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Nov 5, 2015 18:03
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"It's unrealistic that thousands of member worlds would share the same values" Sure I'll take that at face value if we assume the Federation was founded by thousands of worlds, but it's probably a lot easier if you start with like four and then say "okay anyone who wants to join has to share these values." You don't even have to get into the weeds of "yo does everyone get jury trials or are tribunals cool?", just super-basic poo poo like "hey civilian authority should always be supreme" would be pretty easy to establish.
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Nov 5, 2015 18:06
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Yeah, infinite diversity in infinite combinations is a pretty important concept in trek. Take away that and any sort of accountability for war crimes and you basically have Donald Rumsfeld. In space. With cyborg titties. Forever. 
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Nov 5, 2015 18:17
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Nov 5, 2015 18:53
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:picard plays super hard to get. like there was that space fraudster lady in Devil's Due who offered to wear any costume he wanted, and he said "lol no you don't do anything for me, you space strumpet" I still kind of think it was trashy for him to be dating the lady who went to off-limits planets. also sounds like a good way to get a finger in your butt
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Nov 5, 2015 19:05
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Pick posted:I still kind of think it was trashy for him to be dating the lady who went to off-limits planets. also sounds like a good way to get a finger in your butt A good cadet prank would be transporting things into people's asses as they go about their day.
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Nov 5, 2015 19:07
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Yes, I'm sure there's a lot of diversity in opinion among Federation members about a secret conspiracy group that nobody even knows exists. Okay a super utopia is more likely than a clandestine extrajudicial task force, got it.
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Nov 5, 2015 19:11
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shadow puppet of a posted:A good cadet prank would be transporting things into people's asses as they go about their day.
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Nov 5, 2015 19:15
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Melchior posted:Okay a super utopia is more likely than a clandestine extrajudicial task force, got it. lol you literally cannot accept the concept of accountability within government what a loving broken society we live in, jesus christ maybe the new star trek should drop all the future-optimism and just make it literal space-america, complete with cops executing minorities on the street and convicted sex offenders literally being ordered to live under a bridge I didn't even say "assassinations are bad" I just said "hey cool that spy poo poo should be done by an organization that is under a chain of command that ultimately reports to the civilian government." Section 31 is worse than the CIA, or the KGB, or nearly any other state apparatus of violence because they're literally accountable to no one (whereas at least in theory congress could bring the CIA to heel). If that concept is too difficult for you to parse maybe we can find some kind of coloring book for you or something
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Nov 5, 2015 19:23
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Just because S31 thinks the genocide of an entire race is neccessary to save billions of other lives doesn't actually make them evil incarnate you know. It's like the old question: There is a train out of control and about to crash into another train which has 50 people on board, UNLESS you pull a lever which directs a train off an unfinished bridge killing the 5 train drivers. Most people would pull the lever. However, say instead of a lever there was a really fat guy standing on a cliff, and if you shove him off the cliff and onto the tracks his huge corpse will derail the train, killing the 5 people on board (and the fat man) but save the 50 people. A lot of people would say it's morally wrong to actively kill someone to save others, even if the numbers are far different. S31 wouldn't hesitate to shove the fat guy off the cliff, because the morality of killing someone isn't important, what matters is it saves more people. The other interesting piece is that by definition S31 is full of Federation citizens. You know those goodie two shoes types? So if they do these things there's a requirement that they rationalise what they are doing, and there are plenty of ways this can be done. It could be a matter of maths for some, for others it might be that it's nothing agencies like the tal shiar wouldn't do first, some may even acknowledge what they do is wrong, but is essentially neccessary to defend the Federation meaning a guilty few bear the burden of a heavy conscience of the guilt and regret so billions of people don't have to know what it takes to defend their utopia. As the audience you may sit there and judge them all as rationalising their immoral actions so they can live with it. That's cool, because that's an interesting thing to watch, especially if they interact with people on a daily basis who would condemn everything they did if they knew it existed. Also regarding S31 not being like the CIA, it's hinted on many occasions that Admirals and other senior Federation officials make no comment on S31's existence, and they certainly make no effort to track them all down. So while they may not be an official department, it's hinted that Star fleet tolerates their existence to a certain degree, and it's always hinted that some Admirals even support its existence.
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Nov 5, 2015 19:34
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As long as Section 31 are presented as bad guys and not held up as Tough Men making Hard Choices (because they aren't, they're cowards), I don't see how they're much different than the scores of rear end in a top hat rogue admirals or psychotic xenosociologists over the years. The Federation is a utopian society yes but as Picard said, they must be vigilant to maintain it. If I want a right-wing circlejerk I'll watch literally any cop or crime show or the news or basically 90% of mainstream entertainment, leave Trek out of it thanks
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Nov 5, 2015 19:36
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I think a show based on Section 31 would work if the series finale revealed that the main characters were a bunch of 24th century liberatarian nerd equivalents playing the latest new edgy holo novel at the end.
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Nov 5, 2015 19:52
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A Section 31 show would be cool if it were that each planet had its own cell, and the cells 'fought' for what it thought would be best for the federation. For example the Vulcan and Federation cells would argue and try to sabotage each other over major political decisions, like where to build the next ship building facility. You could have a random ship find out about the cells, and now each of the command staff is blackmailed by each races 'faction' of 32.
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Nov 5, 2015 19:57
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I want a show that focuses on a Klingon clerk at the Office of Land Reclamation and Water Treatment. Watch as he valiantly lives the warrior code during staff meetings, field sampling, and data analysis. For the glory of the klingon empire, he fearlessly defends protected waterways from pollution to truly earn his place in Stovokor.
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Nov 5, 2015 20:00
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Nostrum posted:I want a show that focuses on a Klingon clerk at the Office of Land Reclamation and Water Treatment. Watch as he valiantly lives the warrior code during staff meetings, field sampling, and data analysis. For the glory of the klingon empire, he fearlessly defends protected waterways from pollution to truly earn his place in Stovokor. i dunno if Dwight Schrute could really carry a show by himself
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Nov 5, 2015 20:07
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:i dunno if Dwight Schrute could really carry a show by himself Holy poo poo Every Klingon ever is a slightly buffer Dwight
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Nov 5, 2015 20:08
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I want a show created and written by Aaron Sorkin that shows the behind the scenes of Klingon opera and theatre. Lots of walking and barking at each other and eating handfuls of gagh, and Shakespeare in its original Klingon.
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Nov 5, 2015 20:08
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:lol you literally cannot accept the concept of accountability within government Honestly, I wasn't even commenting on whether or not Section 31 is immoral. I was commenting on what's thematically more interesting as a show - a utopia where everyone always follows the rules and there's no conflict, or a show where you see inside the sausage factory that's hinted at that is required to maintain that utopia. Quark's thoughts about humans and the Federation were well-known throughout DS9's run (siege of AR-588 being the most significant in my mind). Outside of Earth, is the Federation really that perfect utopia with 'government accountability'? Maybe, but that makes for a boring show. the Pixies fukken SUCKED fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 5, 2015 20:14
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Melchior posted:Honestly, I wasn't even commenting on whether or not Section 31 is immoral. I was commenting on what's thematically more interesting as a show - a utopia where everyone always follows the rules and there's no conflict, or a show where you see inside the sausage factory that's hinted at that is required to maintain that utopia. Quark's thoughts about humans and the Federation were well-known throughout DS9's run (siege of AR-588 being the most significant in my mind). Outside of Earth, is the Federation really that perfect utopia with 'government accountability'? Maybe, but that makes for a boring show. Yeah, the Federation is a boring place. That's why you don't make Star Trek about the Federation.
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Nov 5, 2015 20:21
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Yeah, the Federation is a boring place. That's why you don't make Star Trek about the Federation. That's true actually, it's very rarely any of the episodes are actually about the Federation itself. It's just there in the background.
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Nov 5, 2015 23:26
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Even though Starfleet denied or disapproved of Section 31, they had their own amoral force, the Red Squad of adolescent fanatics who had no problem sabotaging Earth's power grid because that was what they were ordered to do. That storyline didn't suggest that they new why they were acting as state-sponsored terrorists in a false flag operation - the Starfleet admiral who butted heads with Sisko probably kept his motives to himself. It was pretty funny later on when Red Squad refused to communicate to Starfleet that all the adults died on their ship and they fought their own private war until dying due to their methed-up Captain's incompetence.
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Nov 5, 2015 23:49
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Filthy Hans posted:Even though Starfleet denied or disapproved of Section 31, they had their own amoral force, the Red Squad of adolescent fanatics who had no problem sabotaging Earth's power grid because that was what they were ordered to do. That storyline didn't suggest that they new why they were acting as state-sponsored terrorists in a false flag operation - the Starfleet admiral who butted heads with Sisko probably kept his motives to himself. That episode was just The Secret Agent Club meets The Hunt for Red October
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Nov 6, 2015 00:04
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shadow puppet of a posted:A good cadet prank would be transporting things into people's asses as they go about their day. Is teleporting a dildo into a butt technically sodomy? There isn't really any 'penetration', one moment it isn't in there, and then it is.
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Nov 6, 2015 00:26
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shadow puppet of a posted:A good cadet prank would be transporting things into people's asses as they go about their day. BBs in to people's urethras
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Nov 6, 2015 00:29
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Yeah, the Federation is a boring place. That's why you don't make Star Trek about the Federation. They had such an amazing opportunity to explore this with Voyager. One ship, stranded all alone in hostile space. A quarter or so of the crew is actually from a faction that was, for all intents and purposes, AT WAR with the Federation. They were going to have to make some very hard choices about which of their Federation (and Maquis) ideals to keep, and which ones would have to fall by the wayside if they're even going to survive. They might arrive at some surprising conclusions... and the audience might come to agree with them, that maybe the Federation way that they'd loved for years and years of Star Trek wasn't so perfect after all. And if it was all done really well, it would say something about the present day too. Honestly this was the best premise for a Star Trek show since the original series. There was so much they could have done with it. And they went immediately to alien-of-the-week, with scripts that wanted so hard to be TNG episodes that practically all you'd need to do is change the character names and bang, TNG. It very rarely FELT like they were actually stranded out there. Sure, they mentioned their situation a lot, but they stayed a bog-standard Starfleet ship and crew that felt like they stopped in at a starbase every few episodes. When DS9 ended and Ronald D. Moore hopped over to Voyager, he wanted to make the show true to its premise, but they wouldn't let him. So he left and made Battlestar Galactica. For all the show's faults in later seasons, THAT ship at least FELT like it was stranded all alone in a hostile universe.
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Nov 6, 2015 00:35
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Booblord Zagats posted:BBs in to people's urethras reminded me of this: 
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Nov 6, 2015 00:36
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Powered Descent posted:And they went immediately to alien-of-the-week, with scripts that wanted so hard to be TNG episodes that practically all you'd need to do is change the character names and bang, TNG. It very rarely FELT like they were actually stranded out there. Sure, they mentioned their situation a lot, but they stayed a bog-standard Starfleet ship and crew that felt like they stopped in at a starbase every few episodes. I remember reading that starting sometime around the middle of the series run, the writers and producers would occasionally get into arguments over whether to bring Voyager home and just straight-up do TNG 2 for the rest of the series.
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Nov 6, 2015 00:38
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Booblord Zagats posted:BBs in to people's urethras With a bladder full of Faygo cola behind them. That's called the fizzy yardarm.
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Nov 6, 2015 00:43
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Clark Nova posted:Moral ambiguity? Is everyone forgetting the part where Section 31 tried to genocide all the shapeshifters (including Odo) with biological weapons? The problem is with the shapeshifters, genocide and assassination are the same thing. In the great link, they're all united under a single consciousness. There is no debate, they are all united. If Odo hadn't gone in and healed them and helped them become someone better literally the only way to stop the Dominion would be genocide. Multi-genocide, too, because every one of their client races have been engineered to be in worship of them or completely dependent on them. That's the key to the whole thing, every single member of the Dominion fights both for the Dominion and their lives, and those two factors are never (except in extreme circumstances) in conflict.
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Nov 6, 2015 00:45
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Ok, get this. A star ship, stuck in a time bubble that resets with them and a nearby planet getting blown up. They have a hologram character that starts to get messages from past versions, ala when Data did. So the whole series is them repeating the same 24 hours with increasingly more information than the last. Where the gently caress is my Emmy?
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Nov 6, 2015 00:48
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