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Arglebargle III posted:I love that in the 24th century a pilot cum small-time architect is considered a failure. What a nice world. LANDSCAPE architect.
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May 11, 2017 22:57
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I thought it was implied Bashir's dad just lied about his job?
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May 11, 2017 23:15
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VanSandman posted:I thought it was implied Bashir's dad just lied about Actually he's no longer into landscape architecture, he's going into city planning now.
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May 11, 2017 23:16
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Timby posted:He's awful in the first season. He gets better, though ... until they slap a bizarre retcon on him. Bashir starts bad, gets better for a good while, gets bad again for a short time, then gets better again until the show ends.
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May 11, 2017 23:33
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It makes sense with that one poster's theory about Starfleet overlapping with the Federation aristocracy. For the elite, working the earth is, at best, something you might imagine doing as a hobby on your estate during your retirement while you descend into senility. This is why Jean-Luc and Robert have such an antagonistic relationship. Only the former could pass as an elite (e.g. the affected accent) and was later fully integrated into their circles whereas the latter struggled to maintain the patrimony and produce an heir. Richard Bashir, of course, is neither noble nor able to pass - being a landscaper is apparently a deep embarrassment - and so tries to engineer a way for Julian to join the elite. Because notions of nobility and blood are so intertwined, genetic engineering represents a grave threat to the social order (e.g. the other engineered humans masquerading as officers) and is strictly forbidden. Julian is granted a literal privilege only as a result of his social ties and his exemplary war service.
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May 12, 2017 00:08
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Early TNG stories are all written with a tremendous amount of baked-in patronization of "lesser" cultures, but I'm not sure it's worth over-analyzing really bad writing for the deeper meaning (none, generally). I can't calculate out how many Prime Directive episodes occur in the agreed-upon good TNG seasons, but the Prime Directive is stunningly grotesque and should never be mentioned in an episode of Star Trek ever the gently caress again. That's my white line for when Star Trek is definitely gone from "forward and progressive" to "social issues as written by a room full of stupid white men."
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May 12, 2017 00:15
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It's worth remembering that Bashir is as disgusted with his family's shame as he is with his dad bouncing from job to job. He would prefer to be a retarded guy with a lazy dad who was at peace with his life choices. Honestly, what's wrong with being a dilettante in post scarcity society? If Bashir's dad was a gentleman of leisure his hobbies would be seen as quirky and harmless. But we have this sort of weird ethical space where Bashir Sr. is a waste yet owning a vineyard or a restaurant - apparently just for fun or love of craft because they're economically negligible - is a noble calling. Obviously this has its roots in the American context of the show.
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May 12, 2017 00:41
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The reason all the Admirals hate the Enterprise on TNG is because it isn't assigned to any of their fleets or the long distance exploration fleet. The Enterprise seems to just travel from place to place showing the flag for the most part. If I was an Admiral I'd hate the flag ship showing up whenever the Chief of Staff feels like it, annoying you.
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May 12, 2017 00:49
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It's been said before, but when you're discussing the Prime Directive it's important to clarify which incarnation you're referring to. The impression I always got from TOS was that the Prime Directive was basically "if you interfere with an outside culture, you had better have a good loving reason" which is why we mostly only see the situations in which Kirk breaks it. Basically, if a Captain makes that decision then they can expect to explain themselves to several humorless Admirals in the near future. TNG goes back and forth, using it to create dramatic tension where there was none before. "Who Watches the Watchers" makes sense (they're not interfering for scientific reasons as well as cultural), but the episode where they can't stop an asteroid because...Prime Directive??? is dumb as gently caress. Voyager used the PD like it used everything else: as a lazy crutch to ape the ideals of Starfleet but without any of the actual thought.
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May 12, 2017 00:50
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The enterprise isn't even a flagship, much less the flagship. There's no admiral on board!
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May 12, 2017 00:50
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spincube posted:TNG's first-season finale feels like something a Trekkie would write: the mysterious pointy-eared race unseen since Kirk's day returns, are they friend or foe??, with 'oh you foolish 21st century freezer geezers, we have no use for your primitive 'teevee' here in the 24th century The best is when the stock broker comes in when the two captains are discussing the missing colonies and is just like "Are you guys retarded? They don't know what's going on either!" A guy from 400 years in the past just told you what a highly trained diplomat and his kinda psychic/useless helper couldn't simply because he hosed over a lot of people in corporate America.
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May 12, 2017 01:02
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' as the B-plot.
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Arglebargle III posted:The enterprise isn't even a flagship, much less the flagship. There's no admiral on board! eh, terms change meanings over time. I'm pretty sure it is explicitly referred to as the flagship more than once
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May 12, 2017 01:04
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The Bloop posted:eh, terms change meanings over time. I'm pretty sure it is explicitly referred to as the flagship more than once Yeah, sort of like how a company's top of the line cellphone is called their flagship product. Enterprise is one of the Federation's newest and snazziest starships and it has the historic name that's so special it even gets its own numbering scheme. When the Enterprise rolls up, you know the Federation means business. Well, except for all those cargo runs it seems to get sent on, delivering supplies to some far-flung colony or other. But still, when the Romulans start making noise and Starfleet wants to straighten it out, they sure as hell isn't going to send the USS Kennebunkport.
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May 12, 2017 01:15
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Brawnfire posted:Remember how pulling on the long, exposed cables coming out of a Borg's neck kills them, somehow? It's amazing that Borg shields allow through punches and grappling from species they've got DNA records on. This is from some pages back, but these days I tend to view the individual Borg's shielding similar to Apophis' personal shield in SG-1, where the shield's ability to protect is proportional to the type and level of energy that hits it. Combine that with the fact it takes time and exposure to adapt and I'm able to live with it.
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May 12, 2017 01:40
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Honestly the Borg shields, cables, weird jiggly servo stumps, and hologram eyes are much better as inscrutably alien than with any real explanation.
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May 12, 2017 02:34
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What is this chaos on the bridge thing on Netflix? Just a tng doc?
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May 12, 2017 02:47
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It's a documentary about Gene losing his poo poo during the beginning of TNG. I think Shatner made it so he's in it too.
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May 12, 2017 02:58
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Grand Fromage posted:I remember it being really good and by far the most Star Trek of any Star Trek game, but I was also ten the last time I played it. I found a YouTube explainer. Took a while because I'm a moron, but there's a dozen or so steps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgkDOzRmXy8 Warning, the segments are divided by a just-too-long clip of the TNG theme, and it's quite a bit louder than the guy talking.
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May 12, 2017 03:03
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My flatmate finally finished watching TAS, so now we're moving on to watching the films. His opinions so far: The Motion Picture - Good Film Wrath Of Khan - Boring Film
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May 12, 2017 03:27
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mossyfisk posted:My flatmate finally finished watching TAS, so now we're moving on to watching the films. His opinions so far: Your flatmate has no honor.
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May 12, 2017 03:37
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Bury him. Alliiiiiiive.
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May 12, 2017 03:37
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They're both good films and I can already tell he's going to have the wrong opinion about The One With The Whales.
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May 12, 2017 03:39
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You're going to need to bust into his room constantly screaming KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN until he learns the error of his ways.
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May 12, 2017 03:45
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mossyfisk posted:My flatmate finally finished watching TAS, so now we're moving on to watching the films. His opinions so far: Your flatmate brings shame upon your house and the Empire. 
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May 12, 2017 03:45
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"Oh Richard, why couldn't you have been a glass-blower who blew glass solely for the enjoyment of owning a small glass trinket shop for the next 75 years until you die? But instead...you decided to try doing different things and broaden your horizons! Oh Richard why?" I guess whatever eudamonic society the Federation grows their children up in they want you to choose a major and stick with it.
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May 12, 2017 03:47
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I'm with thinking Bashir's dad is what a lot of people would be in a post-scarcity society. You don't need a career to survive so why not just pursue whatever interests you at the time and change to a new thing once you're tired of it? That's what I'd be doing, sounds like the best kind of freedom.
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May 12, 2017 03:51
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Zurui posted:It's been said before, but when you're discussing the Prime Directive it's important to clarify which incarnation you're referring to. The impression I always got from TOS was that the Prime Directive was basically "if you interfere with an outside culture, you had better have a good loving reason" which is why we mostly only see the situations in which Kirk breaks it. Basically, if a Captain makes that decision then they can expect to explain themselves to several humorless Admirals in the near future. The TOS Prime Directive was just a statement about the right to self-determination. Kirk doesn't hide that he's a spaceman, when he negotiates with primitive people for mining rights or a strategic base against the Klingons or whatever he's like, "the Prime Directive means your planet is yours forever and if you want us to go away just say so and we'll respect it, but watch out the Klingons will just conquer the poo poo out of you." So it was perfectly consistent with saving a planet from a killer asteroid, and when Kirk did want to interfere he made the case that people living in thrall to a computer with mind-control powers or whatever were being denied that right to self-determination. The TNG Prime Directive was some weirdo religious belief that if you haven't invented the warp drive and something bad happens to you, welp it must be the Cosmic Will that you and the other billion people on your world deserve death.
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May 12, 2017 03:53
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MrJacobs posted:A guy from 400 years in the past just told you what a highly trained diplomat and his kinda psychic/useless helper couldn't simply because he hosed over a lot of people in corporate America. This scene is why I can't not love that episode. Dude is flat out "look, I know precisely dick about this future I'm in, but those folks are being cagey as poo poo and good Christ how do you idiots not see it?  "It's a guilty pleasure for me, and I'm not ashamed of that. MisterBibs fucked around with this message at 03:58 on May 12, 2017 |
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May 12, 2017 03:56
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spincube posted:TNG's first-season finale feels like something a Trekkie would write: the mysterious pointy-eared race unseen since Kirk's day returns, are they friend or foe??, with 'oh you foolish 21st century freezer geezers, we have no use for your primitive 'teevee' here in the 24th century It was one that made a strong impression on me as a kid. I was someone who had started watching TOS when I was little, and by 10 was a mega spergnerd fan. This was a few years before TNG, so I got a taste of what it was like to be an OG fan skeptical/excited by this new Star Trek. Watching it live was amazing, because in all the preshow promo stuff they talked about how the universe was radically different from Kirk's time but they weren't going to spend a lot of time on how it got there. The Klingons were the Federation's friends and allies, there were lots of new and more interesting races to meet and the Romulans had hosed off and nobody heard from them and maybe we'll get to them and maybe we won't. So it was a big huge  moment when they showed up with that awesome new warbird. The 20th Century Guys B Plot was interesting too, because young me was quite enamored of the idea of jumping into cryosleep and waking up in Star Trek, so it was fun to put yourself in their shoes and see people from your time interacting with The Future.
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May 12, 2017 04:36
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It really was the ending tng season one deserved. All that "we've evolved" stuff was made explicit and trumpeted, but there was also acknowledgement that people were still people and some things don't change. The missing colonies with no explanation or solution wasn't just foreshadowing, it was the point where the crew finally began to seem small and humbled enough to actually tell interesting stories about them. Even with Q, they'd never really seemed outmatched, but here they were confronted with a cataclysm and were utterly at a loss. I think The Neutral Zone is the first essential tng episode after Farpoint (and maybe Datalore) and even though it has a lot of problems, it's hard to overstate how much it changed the course of TNG.
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May 12, 2017 06:10
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Grand Fromage posted:I'm with thinking Bashir's dad is what a lot of people would be in a post-scarcity society. You don't need a career to survive so why not just pursue whatever interests you at the time and change to a new thing once you're tired of it? That's what I'd be doing, sounds like the best kind of freedom. Or that having the vacation planet with good weather is somehow weak or corrupting. These sons of bitches are always with us. If they did a new trek in the 28th century there'd be guys bitching that timewave transport meant that space exploration was meaningless, back in the good ol' 23rd century you had to use dilithium crystals, MINED FROM THE GROUND, and you were traveling at MERE lightyears-per-day - it was struggle - it MEANT something, dammit! Not like these kids these days. As for Bashir's dad there was also an element of love - it was of course kind of impure and bound up in his own self image, but it was actually quite nuanced, I thought, and realistic.
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May 12, 2017 06:22
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Grand Fromage posted:I'm with thinking Bashir's dad is what a lot of people would be in a post-scarcity society. You don't need a career to survive so why not just pursue whatever interests you at the time and change to a new thing once you're tired of it? That's what I'd be doing, sounds like the best kind of freedom. Middle class white men from California in tyre 1990s would disagree with you I guess. More charitably I think it's about Picard's whole deal about working to better yourself and the human race; when everyone has access to basic goods and services those who apply themselves and build a body of work whether in art or service or academia are the elite. Bashir's dad is probably seen as someone who hasn't accomplished anything worthwhile by overachievers like Picard. Maybe a hobby would have garnered more respect than his odd jobs if he'd stuck with it and developed some mastery.
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May 12, 2017 06:32
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Here's a question: You have to sell someone on each series in one episode, completely out of context. Assume all they know about Star Trek is spotty, unreliable pop culture osmosis. And it can't just be a good episode, it also has to be an episode that sums up what that series is about. For me.... TOS: Space Seed is out because it takes Wrath of Khan to really sell. Mirror, Mirror isn't nearly as good without context. I'd say... The Devil In The Dark, maybe. TNG: Measure Of A Man, no questions asked. DS9: I was actually in this exact situation, and someone made me watch House Of Quark. It worked, so... 
girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 07:13 on May 12, 2017 |
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May 12, 2017 07:10
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PMush Perfect posted:Here's a question: You have to sell someone on each series in one episode, completely out of context. Assume all they know about Star Trek is spotty, unreliable pop culture osmosis. And it can't just be a good episode, it also has to be an episode that sums up what that series is about. The "summing up what that series is all about" part is really sorta nigh-impossible for some of them, as some series had wildly different tones from week to week. You'd also need to make sure to pick episodes that exist well in a vacuum without any other knowledge of Trek lore. DS9 and Voyager are probably the only ones that you could get away with choosing a single episode... in the former case because the entire series has a tone that is pretty uniform, and the latter because the entire series is pretty bad. Unfortunately DS9 is hard because choosing an episode that exists in a vacuum also rules out like half of the series because of the Dominion story arc. TOS (goofy pulp campyness): The Trouble With Tribbles TOS (serious introspection): City on the Edge of Forever, Balance of Terror TNG (goofy pulp campyness): Time's Arrow 1 & 2 TNG (more serious space opera): Best of Both Worlds 1 & 2 DS9: In The Pale Moonlight (provided you explain a little bit about the Dominion War first), otherwise Duet VOY: Uhhhh....... Future's End 1 & 2 ENT: none of it? Drone fucked around with this message at 07:33 on May 12, 2017 |
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May 12, 2017 07:29
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PMush Perfect posted:Here's a question: You have to sell someone on each series in one episode, completely out of context. Assume all they know about Star Trek is spotty, unreliable pop culture osmosis. And it can't just be a good episode, it also has to be an episode that sums up what that series is about. For DS9, I'd probably say Duet. I think the it makes backstory about Bajorans and the Cardassian occupation pretty easy to pick up on, it's applicable to real life, it deals in moral grey areas like a lot of the best episodes of DS9, and on top of it all, it's a drat good episode. The other episodes I considered were In The Pale Moonlight (rejected because I think it loses something without the context of years of TNG reinforcing the Federation as supremely morally upright), The Wire (probably better if you've already gotten to know Garak and Cardassians in general), and The Siege of AR-558 (the action might make it too different from the typical DS9 episode to be a good intro, plus if you don't know Quark and Nog, their scenes really lose a lot). Pakled fucked around with this message at 07:34 on May 12, 2017 |
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May 12, 2017 07:31
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Balance of terror is a fantastic Trek entry point, but I think my personal entry might have been Return of the Archons and it's not bad either. Tng, I'm not sure. The Drumhead maybe? Or Starship mine. Actually, First Contact (the episode) is pretty close to peak TNG, might go with that. DS9 is harder, but Duet might work. Voyager is obviously Threshold.
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May 12, 2017 07:33
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Real Voyager answer is you can't just pick one because it's basically two shows (at least). For the Kes era, I might pick Cold Fire, because it's fairly solid and really ties into the themes of the early show. The one where they get doubled isn't bad either. Later voy, I'd probably avoid anything with Borgs and holograms and go for something weirder like the one with Jason Alexander space Mensa, or the dinosaur people.
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May 12, 2017 07:52
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My first Voyager episode ever was Prometheus and it's kind of not a bad place to start?
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May 12, 2017 07:53
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I think "The Jem'Hadar" is a pretty good capsule of DS9. A little war, a little humor, a little "gently caress you Gene Roddenberry" criticism of human nature. Kind of an all-around bridge episode between the "frontier outpost" and "on the front lines" phases of the show. On the other hand, I like "Starship Down," and "To the Death" because they're strong ensemble picks that showcase nearly the full cast. For Voyager, just pick practically any from the middle seasons except the ones this thread typically singles out as "good," because those almost always tend to be the ones that break the formula and are hence not what the show is actually "about." I'd probably go with something like "Night." For Enterprise... I don't even know, what was that show even about? I'd go with "Carbon Creek" or one of the Shran episodes. I always thought "Future Tense" was kind of cool, too. Echoing your picks for TOS and TNG. Drink-Mix Man fucked around with this message at 08:08 on May 12, 2017 |
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May 12, 2017 07:54
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DS9 is hard to pick one for because all the ones that best encapsulate the show require a lot of context. Voyager and Enterprise are hard to pick because a lot of the episodes that encapsulate what the show is ultimately "about" are not something that would make the strongest case for watching it...
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May 12, 2017 08:01
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