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Tighclops posted:Curious, if DS9 is "dystopia-lite" than where are we living right now? I'm not saying the portrayal of the Federation is 100% consistent or positive (like anything else on these shows) or that there's no room to examine the roots and principals of the thing, but I'm baffled and mildly alarmed by this need a lot of people seem to have to see the Federation as this quasi dystopian nightmare regime. I've already been saying for a couple of years that we're living in a sci-fi dystopia. If nothing else, the fact that our most recent presidential election was between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump should've clued you in. Each would have served, in the '80s and '90s, as cheap shorthand in a cheap sci-fi novel for the coming dystopia if we failed to change our ways.
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Dec 8, 2016 15:03
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"The Federation is a Dystopia" is a pretty ridiculous way to look at it, the vast bulk of its citizens are post scarcity and can spend their long lives building cheese sculptures of starships if they want, they're just not perhaps a utopia like they pretend to be
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Dec 8, 2016 15:05
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Star Trek by default has to constantly struggle with figuring out how to explore our current problems in a future where a lot of those problems shouldn't exist.
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Dec 8, 2016 15:11
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Finally finished S1 of Enterprise. Hot take: I think this show might be bad. Some of the only entertainment I can get out of it at this point is dumb headcannon about the actors and setting stuff. Like:  "Rene Auberjonois is in this episode, but what if his character is really Odo? Like, Changelings can live crazy long, and Enterprise already has an over-arching time travel plot stemming from the 2900's, so what if this weird old guy is secretly Odo from the far future, here to warn Archer about something, or to set him on a path that will ensure the safety of the future as we understand it in TOS, TNG, and DS9? Maybe this boring plot isn't just a dig at the only good character on Voyager and is a really sly, long-term hint at some crazy bullshit in the longer plot..." Wishful thinking. A lot of these include Archer as Dr. Sam Beckett too. I went for some Farscape as a palette cleanser after I finished S1, only to find it has recently fallen off Netflix streaming. I am now alone with my thoughts, and with Enterprise. Kill meeeeeeeeeee
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Dec 8, 2016 15:16
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LinkesAuge posted:You also run into the problem of how to stop outside communication with such civilizations because it really doesn't need physical interference to do huge damage. That's why in my opinion in a universe like Star Trek's there wouldn't be anything between pre-industrial and warp civilizations (or just for a very short time). Once a civilization reaches the industrial age it would notice what's going on out there, one way or another. It should be like int the Culture books, where almost every society that's invented the radio is aware of the greater galactic community, and maybe even has alien embassies in their cities, but everyone's pretty much agreed to not give the kids the adult toys (even though they all do it in secret to some extent)
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Dec 8, 2016 15:19
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grilldos posted:Star Trek by default has to constantly struggle with figuring out how to explore our current problems in a future where a lot of those problems shouldn't exist. That's easy, though: aliens. Honestly, I think the less time they spend in known space, the better.
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Dec 8, 2016 16:02
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MikeJF posted:That's easy, though: aliens. And sometimes time travel! DS9's sanctuary districts sound like a very Trumpian solution to economic disenfranchisement so we're probably living in that timeline
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Dec 8, 2016 16:07
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override367 posted:And sometimes time travel! It takes place in 2024, and IMHO is as good a guess as any for what America will look like after two Trump terms.
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Dec 8, 2016 16:22
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Apollodorus posted:It takes place in 2024, and IMHO is as good a guess as any for what America will look like after two Trump terms. rich aloof people laughing about how hosed Europe is while the underclass' fuse is burning out around them? I can see it
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Dec 8, 2016 16:45
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override367 posted:rich aloof people laughing about how hosed Europe is while the underclass' fuse is burning out around them? Already happening except replace "rich" with "white."
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Dec 8, 2016 17:36
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MikeJF posted:That's easy, though: aliens. Check your human privilege!
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Dec 8, 2016 17:46
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Tighclops posted:Curious, if DS9 is "dystopia-lite" than where are we living right now? I'm not saying the portrayal of the Federation is 100% consistent or positive (like anything else on these shows) or that there's no room to examine the roots and principals of the thing, but I'm baffled and mildly alarmed by this need a lot of people seem to have to see the Federation as this quasi dystopian nightmare regime. It's the same thing that drives people to "theorize" that Rugrats is all just a coma dream or whatever. People like darkening poo poo up to seem deep.
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Dec 8, 2016 18:43
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I'd like to imagine the Malcorans (from First Contact) went on their merry way without warp drive, then just got casually invaded by the Dominion during its foray into the Alpha Quadrant. Welcome to the galaxy, suckers.
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Dec 8, 2016 21:30
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Far Beyond the Stars is so good. When I first watched it I was worried it would be a lesser retread of Inner Light, but it wasn't at all. Seeing Dorn out of makeup was strange but cool, and it made me realize DS9 has a lot of black actors on it.
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Dec 8, 2016 21:34
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FuturePastNow posted:I'd like to imagine the Malcorans (from First Contact) went on their merry way without warp drive, then just got casually invaded by the Dominion during its foray into the Alpha Quadrant. Welcome to the galaxy, suckers. Doesn't Betazed get rolled by the Dominion at one point? I remember one major Federation planet serving as an example to the audience how serious the situation is. If Betazed goes down, can you imagine the shitstorms going on elsewhere? All those dumbass colonies TNG deals with every third episode: all gone. VanSandman posted:Far Beyond the Stars is so good. When I first watched it I was worried it would be a lesser retread of Inner Light, but it wasn't at all. Seeing Dorn out of makeup was strange but cool, and it made me realize DS9 has a lot of black actors on it. "Far Beyond the Stars" is one of the DS9 episodes that I can recommend to anyone as Good Television, regardless of genre or Trekness or whatever. Yeah, it's about sci fi writers, but it's really a drama about race in mid-century America. So drat good.
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Dec 8, 2016 21:43
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VanSandman posted:Far Beyond the Stars is so good. When I first watched it I was worried it would be a lesser retread of Inner Light, but it wasn't at all. Seeing Dorn out of makeup was strange but cool, and it made me realize DS9 has a lot of black actors on it. namely Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abdurrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdul Karim El Mahdi
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Dec 8, 2016 22:15
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Ha, just dug this out of an old hard drive from ages ago. It may even have been for this thread. If I recall correctly, I put a lot of thought into it.
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Dec 8, 2016 22:15
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Edit: ^^^^ I have so many questions about this!CharlieWhiskey posted:namely Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abdurrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdul Karim El Mahdi "Bob" to his friends.
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Dec 8, 2016 22:18
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Picard is more lawful than Spock?
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Dec 8, 2016 22:18
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Where is Morn
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Dec 8, 2016 22:20
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Brick Card posted:Ha, just dug this out of an old hard drive from ages ago. It may even have been for this thread. If I recall correctly, I put a lot of thought into it. Jake Sisko: evil? Quark: evil? Got Janeway right, though.
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Dec 8, 2016 22:20
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Tighclops posted:Curious, if DS9 is "dystopia-lite" than where are we living right now? I'm not saying the portrayal of the Federation is 100% consistent or positive (like anything else on these shows) or that there's no room to examine the roots and principals of the thing, but I'm baffled and mildly alarmed by this need a lot of people seem to have to see the Federation as this quasi dystopian nightmare regime. While it's getting a little far afield, I imagine this is one factor that has led folks to leap on colorful, bright, cheerful crap like the ponies and Steven Universe. Even if the latter has its share of dark depressing etc., it's like, "Finally, something other than rehashed Bush-era cynicism in everything."
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Dec 8, 2016 22:22
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Railing Kill posted:Doesn't Betazed get rolled by the Dominion at one point? I remember one major Federation planet serving as an example to the audience how serious the situation is. If Betazed goes down, can you imagine the shitstorms going on elsewhere? All those dumbass colonies TNG deals with every third episode: all gone. Yeah Betazed gets invaded and occupied, and stays occupied until the Dominion's surrender IIRC. quote:"Far Beyond the Stars" is one of the DS9 episodes that I can recommend to anyone as Good Television, regardless of genre or Trekness or whatever. Yeah, it's about sci fi writers, but it's really a drama about race in mid-century America. So drat good. It's so loving good. When me and Pikestaff saw it was coming up we weren't sure where it would go, but god drat. (Although I wish today as a white guy I could get 5c/word writing  )
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Dec 8, 2016 22:27
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Railing Kill posted:Doesn't Betazed get rolled by the Dominion at one point? I remember one major Federation planet serving as an example to the audience how serious the situation is. If Betazed goes down, can you imagine the shitstorms going on elsewhere? All those dumbass colonies TNG deals with every third episode: all gone. Yep, Betazed did get rolled by the Dominion. If you ever wondered where the Enterprise-E was during the war, it was in the fleet that failed to defend Betazed and had to retake it. There was a novel or two about it.
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Dec 8, 2016 22:49
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grilldos posted:Star Trek by default has to constantly struggle with figuring out how to explore our current problems in a future where a lot of those problems shouldn't exist. this gets a lot easier if you just accept that Star Trek should not be about the Federation
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Dec 8, 2016 22:52
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Tighclops posted:Curious, if DS9 is "dystopia-lite" than where are we living right now? I'm not saying the portrayal of the Federation is 100% consistent or positive (like anything else on these shows) or that there's no room to examine the roots and principals of the thing, but I'm baffled and mildly alarmed by this need a lot of people seem to have to see the Federation as this quasi dystopian nightmare regime. gonna quote myself from the Farmer Crack-rear end posted:replicated food is actually poo poo because we're so insecure about our own existence that we're deeply uncomfortable with a setting that suggests things could actually be better, so we need every innovation to have a terrible downside that reassures us that we're actually better off without it Also: quote:The original idea for this episode involved that admiral literally being Kirk
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Dec 8, 2016 22:56
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:gonna quote myself from the The core problem is that Roddenberry's utopia free of interpersonal conflict is unrelatable and more importantly insanely boring.
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Dec 8, 2016 23:07
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Star Trek should always be about things getting shot with phasers and then exploding dramatically.
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Dec 8, 2016 23:09
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Quark, totally more evil than Weyoun. That chart should be hauled away AS garbage.
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Dec 8, 2016 23:15
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dont even fink about it posted:The core problem is that Roddenberry's utopia free of interpersonal conflict is unrelatable and more importantly insanely boring. That's true, which is why Trek should be about going outside of that to explore strange new worlds rather than about retreading the non-problems of normal old worlds.
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Dec 8, 2016 23:21
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Brick Card posted:Ha, just dug this out of an old hard drive from ages ago. It may even have been for this thread. If I recall correctly, I put a lot of thought into it. If you think Sloan isn't much deeper into evil you have some seriously warped ethics. I mean, he likes to think he's neutral, I'm sure.
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Dec 8, 2016 23:25
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Baronjutter posted:Quark, totally more evil than Weyoun. That chart should be hauled away AS garbage. Weyoun Six was a good good space boy
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Dec 8, 2016 23:26
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Baronjutter posted:Quark, totally more evil than Weyoun. That chart should be hauled away AS garbage. The logic could be that since Weyoun is genetically engineered to be completely loyal to the changelings he literally cannot be evil because evil requires intent??? Though in that case he should be right at the centre because anything he does could be considered the will of another.
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Dec 8, 2016 23:39
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Kibayasu posted:Though in that case he should be right at the centre because anything he does could be considered the will of another. Nah, his mind and personality is definitely lawful.
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Dec 8, 2016 23:43
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Cojawfee posted:Picard is more lawful than Spock? I probably made it that way because of the Unification thing with Romulus Spock did. Railing Kill posted:Jake Sisko: evil? It's been so long I kind of forgot the justifications, but evil doesn't necessarily mean evil, just more selfish rather than altruistic. Brick Card fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Dec 8, 2016 |
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Dec 8, 2016 23:55
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That chart is more an indictment of two-axis alignment than anything else.
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Dec 8, 2016 23:57
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LinkesAuge posted:You also run into the problem of how to stop outside communication with such civilizations because it really doesn't need physical interference to do huge damage. That's why in my opinion in a universe like Star Trek's there wouldn't be anything between pre-industrial and warp civilizations (or just for a very short time). Once a civilization reaches the industrial age it would notice what's going on out there, one way or another. Well, unless you're right on top of the planet any attempt at communicating with prewarp civs will take literal years in the best-case scenario and would be very questionable in its success rate. There's a lot of space to watch, even today we only track a few % of the sky. Most of the stuff we discover is by picking a semi-random spot and letting a telescope array chew it over the course of days/weeks and then spending months going over the data. When it comes to nebulae, I actually have less of a problem with the 2D maps--many of them have similar aspects in all three dimensions, so if you're saying "no" to it then up, down, left, right--doesn't matter. One direction may be more optimal than others but they're all probably in the same ballpark. That goddamn "romulan blockade" episode was just enormously stupid though.
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Dec 9, 2016 00:32
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Railing Kill posted:Jake Sisko: evil? Seriously, Quark is one of the most moral characters on the show. It's just that his culture's morality isn't aligned with what most humans are.
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Dec 9, 2016 00:46
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Tuvok owns pretty hard. Voyager came across an advanced civilisation that had technology which would allow them to cut 40 years off their journey home. Unfortunately the aliens have a rule that their whole society is based on that means they can't share technology with a less advanced species and influence their development. Everyone thinks this is bullshit and what kind of dickheads would have a dumb rule like that? One of the aliens offers to make a sneaky trade and offer the technology in exchange for a copy of all Voyager's ebooks under the table. Janeway decides that this is immoral so she puts the kibosh on the plan. When everyone is getting ready to leave Tuvok sneaks off the ship and makes the trade. When Janeway finds out and ask why he says that getting home is their primary mission and knew Janeway would contrive some moral objection to the deal so he did it himself to ensure her hands were clean.Lowen SoDium posted:Seriously, Quark is one of the most moral characters on the show. It's just that his culture's morality isn't aligned with what most humans are. It changes as the show goes on though. The reason why Brunt hates Quark so much is that in the eyes of the Ferengi, Quark is a philanthropist which to them is despicable. Pwnstar fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Dec 9, 2016 |
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Dec 9, 2016 01:43
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Pwnstar posted:Tuvok owns pretty hard. Voyager came across an advanced civilisation that had technology which would allow them to cut 40 years off their journey home. Unfortunately the aliens have a rule that their whole society is based on that means they can't share technology with a less advanced species and influence their development. Everyone thinks this is bullshit and what kind of dickheads would have a dumb rule like that? One of the aliens offers to make a sneaky trade and offer the technology in exchange for a copy of all Voyager's ebooks under the table. Janeway decides that this is immoral so she puts the kibosh on the plan. When everyone is getting ready to leave Tuvok sneaks off the ship and makes the trade. When Janeway finds out and ask why he says that getting home is their primary mission and knew Janeway would contrive some moral objection to the deal so he did it himself to ensure her hands were clean. Don't they find out that they can't us the tech then?
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Dec 9, 2016 01:51
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