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Rhyno posted:Don't they find out that they can't us the tech then? Yeah after Tuvok brings it over they install it and have to use it straight away because Janeway wants the ship to leave and the planet acts as a natural amplifier so it won't work if they leave orbit. It starts spitting out Bad Space Stuff which is loving up the ship and the contacts fuse to the computer so they have to destroy it with a phaser to stop the ship exploding.
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Dec 9, 2016 01:58
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Pwnstar posted:
Usually, Quark is the one that holds to traditional values while the Negus and his mother are trying to introduce more progressive ideas. But you are right that there are some episodes where Quark is accused of going soft on his employees.
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Dec 9, 2016 02:25
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The reason who watches the watchers is bad is because everyone unrealistically agrees with Picard's patronizing (you could argue paternalistic) argument that it's better for the aliens to discover things by themselves. Nobody points out that they just condemned millions of people over generations to suffer and die from preventable ailments because of ideology. The main dude's wife died in a flood and they can't even teach them how to build a dike because someone might use it to do something bad somehow. The fact that the federation is perfectly happy to sit around spying on the suffering people for academic purposes just makes the whole thing even worse. I'd love to see a sci-fi show that specifically rejects a lot of star trek trappings and it's about a society with various transhuman technologies that makes it their mission to go around do humanitarian stuff for less technologically advanced cultures
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Dec 9, 2016 02:35
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Where do you draw the line? How far along to we bring their society? Agrarian? Industrial? Warp capable? Once we've decided how far they can go with our help, how do we deal with them constantly asking us for better technology? What do you do when you beam down and start "improving" their world and then they end up resenting you for destroying their world with your evil technology? Especially when we have Insurrection where they think they are studying some primitive race and it turns out they can make any technology they want, they just choose not to.
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Dec 9, 2016 02:40
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Those are all really complex issues but the episode in question is bad because nobody on the planet expresses a dissenting opinion after Picard says his bit. Everyone just agrees that it will be more fulfilling to watch their children die from a fever than ask the spacemen to help. I think it would have been a great episode if at least some of the aliens were left with real anger at the federation and if the episode ended with the crew stewing over the consequences of their actions and having feelings of doubt and guilt. Personally I think the ethical issues of inaction are equal to the ethical issues of action, at least as star trek posits them. The fact that they often veer into a near-religious natural progression/destiny argument with the prime directive makes the argument for it weaker.
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Dec 9, 2016 02:56
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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. Yeah, but Trek's almost never actually like this because the writers generally knew how stupid this was and worked around it where they could. Star Trek's society as depicted isn't free from interpersonal conflict at all, or even free from trivial office politics and workplace drama.
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Dec 9, 2016 03:58
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cenotaph posted:The reason who watches the watchers is bad is because everyone unrealistically agrees with Picard's patronizing (you could argue paternalistic) argument that it's better for the aliens to discover things by themselves. Nobody points out that they just condemned millions of people over generations to suffer and die from preventable ailments because of ideology. The main dude's wife died in a flood and they can't even teach them how to build a dike because someone might use it to do something bad somehow. This here novel has a Federation-esque Humanity that does that kind of stuff. Well, they're sort of a Federation moving gradually moving towards the Culture. Full disclosure: I wrote that novel. I've always felt the Federation has an interesting idea with the PD, but the show/setting doesn't really sell the whole thing very well, most of the time. 'Interfering with natural development' is taken as-read to be a terrible thing, and it's mostly assumed viewers will treat it as analogous to IRL colonialism and suchlike. Which is fair enough on the surface, but the Federation is explicitly really good, and has little enough reason to even want to exploit shitheads who haven't developed FTL yet anyway. So the Prime Directive is treated as an absolutely, when really it should have a clause about extenuating circumstances in the culture or something. A planet that is suffering from a massive plague might have it's future 'changed' if Bashir beams down and cures it, but... what does that actually mean? It only makes sense if you assume that there's a predestined course, but that this course can somehow be interfered with. (e; just as you said in a later post, Cenotaph  ) Saving a billion lives will change that planet's future, sure, but I don't think many people on the planet would call it a poor trade.They really needed more examples of the early Federation trying to intervene and loving it up. A tribe that develops a sigil that looks like the Enterprise is not a culture that has been catastrophically or irrevocably damaged. e2; I generally take the attitude that day-to-day life in the Federation is incredible, but as with the Culture novels focusing on the small segment of society that deals with Special Circumstances, so does the Trek canon look at the people who are for one reason or another on the fringes and thus testing the society's basis regularly. There's no contradiction here, we're not watching a show about someone in San Fransisco. Ms Adequate fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Dec 9, 2016 |
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Dec 9, 2016 04:10
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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. You put Dukat exactly 180 degrees from where he should be. This is a Bad Chart and you are a Bad Person.
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Dec 9, 2016 04:20
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I like how Damar is more good than Riker and Pulaski is more evil than Weyoun. edit- also how the guy who wanted to rule one world government is the most chaotic motherfucker to ever live
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Dec 9, 2016 04:30
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Mister Adequate posted:I've always felt the Federation has an interesting idea with the PD, but the show/setting doesn't really sell the whole thing very well, most of the time. 'Interfering with natural development' is taken as-read to be a terrible thing, and it's mostly assumed viewers will treat it as analogous to IRL colonialism and suchlike. Which is fair enough on the surface, but the Federation is explicitly really good, and has little enough reason to even want to exploit shitheads who haven't developed FTL yet anyway. So the Prime Directive is treated as an absolutely, when really it should have a clause about extenuating circumstances in the culture or something. A planet that is suffering from a massive plague might have it's future 'changed' if Bashir beams down and cures it, but... what does that actually mean? It only makes sense if you assume that there's a predestined course, but that this course can somehow be interfered with. (e; just as you said in a later post, Cenotaph But then you could also try to play with that idea some more by having the Federation's inherent goodness become undermined by that various colonialist-and-suchlike process. If the Federation became an imperialist, colonialist power it would become corrupted and cease to be the Federation. Which goes to the idea that the relatively benign hypocrisy of a non-interventionist Federation is preferable to the hypocrisies of an interventionist one. So if the Federation starts giving tech to a backwards planet, and then that planet's version of ISIS decides to build a genesis device, then there's a problem. Then you get Federation imperialism to keep the backwards people from loving it up. Or something. BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Dec 9, 2016 |
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Dec 9, 2016 04:39
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Paradoxish posted:I like how Damar is more good than Riker and Pulaski is more evil than Weyoun. That chart is fantastic, in that there's simply no way that was created without the aid of narcotics...
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Dec 9, 2016 04:51
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Nessus posted:I imagine Brooks wanted to err extremely strongly on the side of not reinforcing stereotypes about black fathers, even in jest.
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Dec 9, 2016 05:13
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Garak, the person who felt really patriotic about the old authoritarian, ordered Cardassia, is the most chaotic person in Trek next to Khan, the guy who tried to rule Earth. A good chart.
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Dec 9, 2016 05:40
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I like the implication that Kirk is just one burnt tomato plant away from becoming Eddington.
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Dec 9, 2016 05:51
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Taking everyone's feedback into account, I have fixed the chart.
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Dec 9, 2016 06:00
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You didn't fix it, Morn still isn't on it.
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Dec 9, 2016 06:03
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turn left hillary!! noo posted:You didn't fix it, Morn still isn't on it. Morn is the chart.
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Dec 9, 2016 06:05
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Not seeing Landerig either
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Dec 9, 2016 06:05
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I can't get over Evil Jake Sisko
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Dec 9, 2016 06:07
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I think I screwed up somewhere
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Dec 9, 2016 06:18
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Tunicate posted:Taking everyone's feedback into account, I have fixed the chart. There is only one law. Picard's Law. And you best follow it. ...at least the creepy stalker LaForge is properly labeled evil.
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Dec 9, 2016 06:25
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Dukat's whole character arc is his fall from Lawful Evil bordering on Lawful Neutral to full on Chaotic Evil.
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Dec 9, 2016 06:31
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Rhyno posted:I think I screwed up somewhere Yeah, the crystalline entity is blue
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Dec 9, 2016 06:41
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Dukat is the real hero because otherwise there wouldn't be any DS9 episodes for us to watch without him He committed genocide in our name.
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Dec 9, 2016 07:07
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Mister Adequate posted:This here novel has a Federation-esque Humanity that does that kind of stuff. Well, they're sort of a Federation moving gradually moving towards the Culture. If they're going to use the Prime Directive as much as they do, I wouldn't mind a story of some Starfleet doctor curing a plague and then a few years later some local gets made leader on the promise that people are dying of illness again because they angered the space doctors by straying from their conservative path and he'll bring the doctors back by killing the gays and forcing women back into the kitchen. By the time Starfleet can check on them again, dickhead is still making promises to keep himself in charge and people are plowing women in burkas through a hole in a sheet or whatever. I've heard this kinda sorta happened with cargo cults when they weren't making fake airbases. ...and then someone from the U.S.S. gently caress poo poo Up beams down and vaporizes President Dickhead and a few years later they find the planet has a space-AIDS epidemic and people are starving because everyone has been in a constant orgy so as not to be smited by the space doctors.
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Dec 9, 2016 07:10
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Rhyno posted:I think I screwed up somewhere
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Dec 9, 2016 09:19
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The Culture is cool, they totally gently caress with less advanced civilisations all they want and its ok because it almost never ever goes wrong we promise.
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Dec 9, 2016 09:49
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Pwnstar posted:The Culture is cool, they totally gently caress with less advanced civilisations all they want and its ok because it almost never ever goes wrong we promise. They've done the maths, you see.
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Dec 9, 2016 10:16
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OAquinas posted: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. Yeah, that part's fine. The problem I have with those episodes is how they didn't notice the nebula coming from light years away and didn't change their course a couple of degrees to avoid it completely.
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Dec 9, 2016 12:46
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Where does Lefler go on the chart? She's the one who's all about laws, of course, but OTOH she banged Wesley, which is chaotic af.
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Dec 9, 2016 12:48
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Lon Suder: neutral good? I guess Spock has darkvision 60ft, given he's a half-elf.
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Dec 9, 2016 12:55
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Rhyno posted:I think I screwed up somewhere Seems to be a fairly accurate cross-section of the USS Hyperriker.
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Dec 9, 2016 14:29
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Alright, you nerds. listen up: Kirk: CG Spock: LG Bones: NG Sulu: LG Uhura: NG Scotty: LG Chekov: TN Picard: LG Riker: NG Data: LG LaForge: TN Troi: LG Worf: LN B. Crusher: NG W. Crusher: CN Guinan: TN Yar: CG Ro: CG B Sisko: NG J Sisko: CG Kira: CG Odo: LN J Dax: CG E Dax: NG Bashir: TN O'Brien: LG Garak: CG Quark: TN Rom: NG Nog: NG Janeway: TN Chakotay: CN Tuvok: LN Torres: CG Paris: CN Kim: LG The Doctor: NG Seven: LN Neelix: CN Kes: CG I'm not going to do the villains because most of them are E by intent or by action, and L and C are fairly obvious with them. The problem with putting D&D alignments on a chart like that is that it makes an already goofy system even goofier by suddenly applying comparisons and degrees to everyone, like characters act that consistently. It's hard enough to put them into alignments, but it's even harder (and basically impossible) to split that hair even further and apply degrees.
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Dec 9, 2016 14:36
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OK Conspiracy. Uh, how exactly did these brain bugs take over Starfleet? Obvious neck-thing aside, they were total loving weirdos who were worse at blending than Invader Zim. This isn't like those disembodied prisoners who took over Troi, Data (?!), and O'Brien. They at least were able to use their hosts' knowledge of how to act to lay low and be normal until they could execute their plan. Yeah Data's guy was dumb and jumped the gun, but until he started disobeying orders no one had any idea something was wrong. But these bug dudes, the second they take someone over suddenly your friend Dave is making awkward speeches about how bugs are a superior form of life and inviting you over for dinner to split a case of worms.
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Dec 9, 2016 14:36
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VitalSigns posted:OK Conspiracy. I don't know what you mean, human citizen. Perhaps we can discuss this further over a nice... grilled... styrofoam sandwich?
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Dec 9, 2016 14:40
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:Lon Suder: neutral good? He's a green-blooded hobgoblin 
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Dec 9, 2016 18:27
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Rhyno posted:I think I screwed up somewhere That's not how you draw dignity.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:33
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VitalSigns posted:OK Conspiracy. The bug-folk had to be awkward enough for the dumbass tv audiences of 1988 to not get confused. I'm pretty sure that the most clever thing done on tv at that point was color.
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Dec 9, 2016 19:45
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:I guess Spock has darkvision 60ft, given he's a half-elf. Half-elves only get low-light vision, sorry
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Dec 9, 2016 20:39
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cenotaph posted:I'd love to see a sci-fi show that specifically rejects a lot of star trek trappings and it's about a society with various transhuman technologies that makes it their mission to go around do humanitarian stuff for less technologically advanced cultures Everyone needs to read The Use of Weapons I think
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Dec 9, 2016 21:07
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