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All this talk of the Dominion being a multi-species counterpoint to the Federation makes me glad that Enterprise never tried to suggest that the Xindi were actually a prequel to the Dominion. "The Federation has destroyed our superweapon! Let us retreat, and rebuild... Perhaps, some day, we will get another chance to establish our DOMINION over this quadrant!"
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Jul 26, 2017 14:08
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Sir Lemming posted:"The Federation has destroyed our superweapon! Let us retreat, and rebuild... Perhaps, some day, we will get another chance to establish our DOMINION over this quadrant!" *stares directly into camera for several seconds after saying this*
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Jul 26, 2017 14:10
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FuturePastNow posted:If Discovery makes it to a second or third season, they will run completely out of ideas, and Fuller (who was one of the writers for Voyager) said he'd like come back to write for them. Fortunately it's barely managed to make it to a first season
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Jul 26, 2017 14:16
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Sir Lemming posted:All this talk of the Dominion being a multi-species counterpoint to the Federation makes me glad that Enterprise never tried to suggest that the Xindi were actually a prequel to the Dominion. Berman and Braga would never have done it, because it would require acknowledging that DS9 did something worthwhile.
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Jul 26, 2017 15:32
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Sir Lemming posted:All this talk of the Dominion being a multi-species counterpoint to the Federation makes me glad that Enterprise never tried to suggest that the Xindi were actually a prequel to the Dominion. *groans aloud* But it makes (Star Trek) sense, in a way. The multiple different Xindi species come together, figure out a way to manipulate their genes to "shift" seamlessly between Xindi types... but is there a limit to this "shifting"?
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Jul 26, 2017 15:36
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I can never get enough of Worf. He was raised by Humans and learned all his Klingon culture from books for the most part. He has an idealized version of Klingons in his mind and the truth is absurdly far from it. It's Arrested Development levels of absurd. Worf: "A Klingon would never have so little honor as to stab an unarmed man in the back." Narrator: "Actually, they would" *Stabs in back* Basically, Worf is pure Weeaboo going on about the superior culture of
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Jul 26, 2017 15:56
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Mortanis posted:It's Arrested Development levels of absurd. Narrator: And through the power of the aliens from the wormhole, Worf had the sparring session with his father he'd been waiting for his whole life and was finally able to truly connect with what it meant to be a Klingon. Warrior: "For the honor of all Klingons!" *stabs Worf in the back* Worf: "I'm Klingonnn..."
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Jul 26, 2017 16:10
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Worf: "Tell me another story about the honorable deeds of the Klingon Empire!"
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Jul 26, 2017 16:13
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Dax: I tend to look at the Empire with a little more skepticism than Curzon or Jadzia did. I see a society that is in deep denial about itself. We're talking about a warrior culture that prides itself on maintaining centuries-old traditions of honor and integrity. But in reality, it's willing to accept corruption at the highest levels. Worf: You are overstating your case. Dax: Am I? Who was the last leader of the High Council that you respected? Has there even been one? And how many times have you had to cover up the crimes of Klingon leaders because you were told that it was for the good of the Empire? I... I know this sounds harsh, but the truth is, you have been willing to accept a government that you know is corrupt. Gowron is just the latest example. Worf, you are the most honorable and decent man that I've ever met. And if *you're* willing to tolerate men like Gowron, then what hope is there for the Empire? Worf: I've made a huge mistake. (MUSIC: JOHN HIATT "CRY LOVE")
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Jul 26, 2017 16:14
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The episode of Enterprise where they do that stupid HEY THIS IS LIKE THE THING IN NORMAL TREK with the prime directive was so bad. Especially since it basically made Phloxx or whatever come off super goddamn nazi-y and Archer was just there going along with it.
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Jul 26, 2017 16:18
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Gorelab posted:The episode of Enterprise where they do that stupid HEY THIS IS LIKE THE THING IN NORMAL TREK with the prime directive was so bad. Especially since it basically made Phloxx or whatever come off super goddamn nazi-y and Archer was just there going along with it. There was one thing about that episode that I liked, when Archer tells Phlox "you could cure these people" and Phlox replies "sure, and you could give them warp drive. How well do you think that would work out?" "...they'd blow themselves up trying to make antimatter." "Ayup." The original script called for Phlox to figure out a cure, and then lie to Archer about it and tell him that it couldn't be done. UPN intervened and made them change it.
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Jul 26, 2017 16:25
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The Prime Directive is lovely not because of its ideology, but because pretty much no writers anywhere actually understand it.
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Jul 26, 2017 16:36
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MorgaineDax posted:Would unironically donate to a patreon account for you to keep going all the way through DS9. Kind of unrelated to anything, but I'm super pumped that the Greatest Gen dudes have confirmed that they're definitely moving onto DS9 once they're done with S7 TNG.
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Jul 26, 2017 16:38
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The Prime Directive is a really interesting philosophical and policy topic. It certainly seems to come from a good place, not wanting to destroy developing cultures and erase their ways of life. Sort of temporary isolationism in place of a patriarchal position. In practice, it is a little FYGM and a lot patriarchal in the sense of "I know what's best for you" Surely, the correct answer isn't to give potential WMDs to every backwater planet - just a single warp drive or even a replicator could potentially lead to deaths on a biblical scale. At the same time, not curing diseases or raising people out of abject poverty when it costs you essentially nothing is a total dick move. Trek really values "freedom" to develop "free from interference" in a big way, and those are libertarian values and buzzwords, not socialist utopian ones. Surely the people of the Federation are more free to do anything than dirtfarming peasants. Their requirement for a world government to join the Federation seems fine - if that simply means a seat at the table deciding galactic politics. It seems that far less developed civilizations might still be worthy of basic aid. Here's the real thrust of my thought: I feel like this may be hopelessly entangled with Trek's weird notion of teleological evolution. If it is true that there is some greater form that a species is actually meant for then that must change the calculus. Aid really does become "interference" at a certain point. It may be that the Trek world is too poorly defined to really judge Phlox or the Prime Directive accurately. edit: source your quotes, tldr, 420, goonsay, etc - Just a bit bored at work and musing into one of the more receptive, welcoming voids out there
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Jul 26, 2017 16:48
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The Prime Directive as it should be written should only apply to planets that have had no explicit contact with the greater galactic community. As soon as First Contact has been made, it should become much more flexible. Obviously you still shouldn't gift them weapons, but curing disease is definitely something that should be considered. I mean, are we really to assume that the Vulcans didn't help humans along? How else can we explain the sudden invention of faster-than-light travel curing all human disease and ending war and famine within 50 years of its introduction? Seems a bit hypocritical.
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Jul 26, 2017 17:07
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I've been more sympathetic towards the Prime Directive after doing a course on colonial policy, and specifically colonial educational policy. Like, of course I was aware of the horrible things done to indigenous populations, the Stolen Generation in Australia, the residential schools in Canada and the US... but it hadn't really sunk in that these were set up by the humanitarians, the idealists. By people who truly and sincerely believed that the next generation of American Indians and Aboriginal Australian deserved the same opportunities and chances as the rest of the population... and that the best way to do that was cultural genocide. I think it's very easy to convince yourself that this time, though, it'll be different, this time we're self-evidently right, this time our goals and motives are pure, that we have a moral obligation to act... but too often, that has been exactly the justification for crimes and atrocities, that maybe it isn't a bad idea to start from the position that no, we don't have an obligation to act, that inaction should be the default, not the exception.
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Jul 26, 2017 17:08
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The Prime Directive also makes a lot of sense when considering scientists and average joe civilians. I imagine that there would be an enormous number of fascinating social experiments that could be done with a prewarp society that would be hideously unethical; likewise, some dork who feels rejected by federation society really shouldn't go install himself as the god of some prewarp planet. And they'd have to keep the rules fairly strict because otherwise in all the above cases the bad actor could say "oh but they would have died without my help!"
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Jul 26, 2017 17:10
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Xibanya posted:The Prime Directive also makes a lot of sense when considering scientists and average joe civilians. I imagine that there would be an enormous number of fascinating social experiments that could be done with a prewarp society that would be hideously unethical; likewise, some dork who feels rejected by federation society really shouldn't go install himself as the god of some prewarp planet. And they'd have to keep the rules fairly strict because otherwise in all the above cases the bad actor could say "oh but they would have died without my help!" Doesn't help that there's a few cases of poo poo exactly like that happening, often by accident. Like Gangster Planet.
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Jul 26, 2017 17:11
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The Prime Directive itself isn't the problem. The problem is the interpretation of it. In Kirk's time, captains were apparently given more latitude to use their own judgment in applying the Directive on a case by case basis. That's how Kirk was allowed to arm Tyree's people. It was an imperfect solution to a bad situation. By Picard's time, the Directive was interpreted so ridiculously strictly that it led to incidents like Homeward, when Picard and his crew were prepared to allow a pre-warp civilization to die for the preservation of a rule. It was moral cowardice masquerading as concern for cultural contamination.
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Jul 26, 2017 17:15
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TNG was exceptionally bad about Prime Directive stuff. There were probably a dozen episodes about cataclysmic events or planetary-wide diseases that Picard didn't want to intervene when they had the technology to just shoot a couple of torpedoes filled with magical science solution and fix everything with no one on the planet being the wiser. Just stupid, stupid writing.
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Jul 26, 2017 17:22
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The Prime Directive should really only be "Don't try to mentor or uplift pre-warp or early-warp civilizations". Enterprise could have done something neat with this, showing how the PD was created as a response to Vulcan's micromanagement of their warp program but that would have required writing with effort. The hand-wringing is monstrous in that TNG episode about whether to allow a pre-warp civilization to be wiped out by an asteroid.
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Jul 26, 2017 17:24
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Or Picard almost condemning Sarjenka to death in Pen Pals. The Prime Directive is almost kinda interesting but so poorly handled that it really comes off bad. Apparently in Homeward it says Starfleet allowed sixty races to straight up cease to exist in order to not violate the Prime Directive. I wish more Trek had gone into the cracks between the Utopian Society idea. It's a great place to explore. Not in some heavy-handed "see socialism can never work!" sort of way they tried in some episodes, but just the shadier, less robust parts of it. Thankfully DS9 was about a lot of that and its no surprise it's Best Trek.
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Jul 26, 2017 17:31
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Mortanis posted:The Prime Directive is almost kinda interesting but so poorly handled that it really comes off bad. Apparently in Homeward it says Starfleet allowed sixty races to straight up cease to exist in order to not violate the Prime Directive. This is where the PD loses the "it's a moral responsibility" excuse and just becomes Starfleet literally believing in fatalism and predestination.
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Jul 26, 2017 17:37
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Big Mean Jerk posted:This is where the PD loses the "it's a moral responsibility" excuse and just becomes Starfleet literally believing in fatalism and predestination.
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Jul 26, 2017 17:38
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Big Mean Jerk posted:The Prime Directive should really only be "Don't try to mentor or uplift pre-warp or early-warp civilizations". Enterprise could have done something neat with this, showing how the PD was created as a response to Vulcan's micromanagement of their warp program but that would have required writing with effort. Enterprise was really the best opportunity to play with that. Starfleet without a prime directive would probably be handing out super advanced technology like it was going out of style. Imagine that they started giving out all their technology wherever they went as parting gifts. Later on those civilizations get too big for their britches and start interstellar wars with each other and the Federation. If all these civilizations were anywhere near the Klingon Empire it would've been viewed as the Federation trying to sow unrest on their borders which could ignite a massive war that Earth's not ready for. That would've made a hell of background story. But, you know, temporal cold war is okay too I guess.
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Jul 26, 2017 17:39
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Big Mean Jerk posted:This is where the PD loses the "it's a moral responsibility" excuse and just becomes Starfleet literally believing in fatalism and predestination. Riker even pitches what amounts to "What if God wants them to die?" in Pen Pals, doesn't he?
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Jul 26, 2017 17:42
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Jeb! Repetition posted:Maybe a few movies too. I've never seen Wrath of Khan. When you do get around to it, make sure you've seen Space Seed first. (But don't watch it immediately before. A lot of time passes between those two, give it a little time in the real world too.)
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Jul 26, 2017 17:46
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Gaz-L posted:Riker even pitches what amounts to "What if God wants them to die?" in Pen Pals, doesn't he? Yeah, Riker suggests it's all part of a cosmic plan they don't have the right to interfere with. For a society that's supposedly beyond religion they sure put belief in a higher power pretty often.
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Jul 26, 2017 17:52
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Big Mean Jerk posted:Yeah, Riker suggests it's all part of a cosmic plan they don't have the right to interfere with. For a society that's supposedly beyond religion they sure put belief in a higher power pretty often. To play Devil's Advocate, they know the Q continuum is out there, isn't that essentially the same thing as God?
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Jul 26, 2017 17:56
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WampaLord posted:To play Devil's Advocate, they know the Q continuum is out there, isn't that essentially the same thing as God? Essentially, but they've never had a problem arguing against Q's wishes. If Q tried to drop a planet on a primitive culture they'd drop everything to stop him.
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Jul 26, 2017 17:57
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Jeb! Repetition posted:It's probably just gonna be TNG because it's the most culturally important and I want to end it on a high note. Maybe a few movies too. I've never seen Wrath of Khan. I want to encourage you not to watch things because they're culturally relevant, but because they're good. Just save All Good Things until after you finish DS9. If it's a time commitment issue then I do understand; that's a lot of TV to watch, but it'll be rewarding. I recall that earlier you dismissed Babylon 5 as well; did you try it and not like it, or some other reason?
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Jul 26, 2017 17:57
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I've always been curious what the galactic community of god-beings is like. The Q are just seemingly one of many god-like forces that they've encountered. Do all the different god-beings hang out? Do they have turf or agreements on who can meddle with what?
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Jul 26, 2017 17:58
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turn left hillary!! noo posted:Just save All Good Things until after you finish DS9. Why?
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Jul 26, 2017 18:01
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WampaLord posted:Why? He wants it to end on a high note, and there's not much higher in Trek.
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Jul 26, 2017 18:04
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Delaying that would be weird. Finish DS9 then watch movies 2, 4, and 6 for the high note ending.
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Jul 26, 2017 18:09
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turn left hillary!! noo posted:He wants it to end on a high note, and there's not much higher in Trek. Nah, he should watch all of TNG, and then hopefully go on to watch all of DS9. Grand Fromage posted:Finish DS9 then watch movies 2, 4, and 6 for the high note ending. This is a good idea.
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Jul 26, 2017 18:13
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Big Mean Jerk posted:Yeah, Riker suggests it's all part of a cosmic plan they don't have the right to interfere with. For a society that's supposedly beyond religion they sure put belief in a higher power pretty often. I always found the "cosmic plan" argument a bit silly, because you could use it to argue that maybe it's the cosmic plan for the Enterprise to intervene and save the planet because they're in the right place at the right time to do so.
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Jul 26, 2017 18:15
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I've been running though TNG with someone who hasn't watched it before and I've been mulling over going in airdate order with DS9 or just doing all TNG then all DS9
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Jul 26, 2017 18:16
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Is there any crossover beyond the pilot of DS9 and that one TNG episode I always forget about where Bashir shows up for some reason? I'd just do TNG then DS9.
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Jul 26, 2017 18:18
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Grand Fromage posted:Is there any crossover beyond the pilot of DS9 and that one TNG episode I always forget about where Bashir shows up for some reason? I'd just do TNG then DS9. Quark shows up briefly in a Duras sisters episode. I think that's in TNG season 7?
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Jul 26, 2017 18:19
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