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Delthalaz
Mar 5, 2003






Slippery Tilde

adaz posted:


I never understood this. Star Trek has _always_ been intensely rooted in present day. Arguably even more so in ToS than now.

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large_gourd
Jan 17, 2020

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

adaz posted:

I don't think its that utopia isn't possible it is the struggle to maintain and preserve utopia. Think of all the stuff Sisko went through when Earth was first dealing with the changeling threat. Ultimately, the good guys prevailed and there wasn't a coup. Starfleets always had flaws and the federation has flaws what consistently sets it apart from other sci-fi is the institutions ultimately move away from those flaws and adjust. There's always a solid corp of people who as you said accept the suffering and problems and survival isnt the only thing (someone early in thread mentioned it - VOY was good at showing this). So far nothing I've seen in Picard has conflicted with that general star treky-ness

There are some things.

Starfleet chose not to help the Romulans after their world was destroyed. I think in the RLM video they have a good point in this area that it would make more sense for Starfleet to have helped in some capacity even if they couldn't/wouldn't (for security reasons) devote all of their resources to it. They would have planned to make diplomatic inroads through the process, even looking at it cynically, and it's just the right thing to do. It seems more immoral and stupid to just ignore them.

Then you've got the reporter - who for now, is the only representative we have of public opinion - distinctly saying 'romulan lives' which Picard has to correct, which is typical present day othering. She's drawn broadly, focusing on her make-up and hitting Picard with some hardball questions, there's nothing in that character which doesn't suggest to me that the media atmosphere is any different than what we have today.

We'll see how the show develops, but these are the only two things which give us an indication on how they are handling this. The first one, the event the show is spinning out from, doesn't seem well thought out (so far, we could get more context) and the second is just a bit of broad writing that I think demonstrates the lack of nuance they are imbuing the issue with.

I dunno. I didn't expect much from this show and part of me is just appreciating that it even took a moment for Picard to correct the woman and say 'lives'. I just get the perspective of someone who looks at this and sees more of has been wrong for a while.

Binary Logic
Dec 28, 2000

Fun Shoe

zoux posted:



Why would anyone on earth shop at a ferengi establishment

Androids and synths are banned by the Federation. That doesn't necessarily mean they're impossible to obtain if you can scrape together enough gold pressed latinum.




Arglebargle III posted:

It would be cool if Star Trek was about the future.

large_gourd posted:

It's just unfortunate that the message of Star Trek has become that utopia isn't possible.

Origami Dali
Jan 7, 2005

Get ready to fuck!
You fucker's fucker!
You fucker!
I feel like I'm crazy, because I really don't like how this show has started. It's just been a bad action melodrama so far. People have been saying it takes its time, which is bizarre as hell because it feels far too fast moving to me. We get kung fu less than 10 minutes in, our mysterious girl, who we've had no time to get to know and care about, finds Picard two scenes later, she rather untactfully gets told she's a synthetic another two scenes later, is killed in a Matrix style action scene one minute later, another minute or two later Picard recklessly reveals her existence to the researcher he just met at Daystrom, with barely any mention of or inquiry about the massive explosion at Starfleet that just happened, and on and on. This is like at least 3 episodes worth of poo poo condensed into one, and all the while the music never stops for more than a few seconds.

I expected it to be pretty bad like everybody else seemed to, and this is about on par with what I expected. But anybody being pleasantly surprised by it is baffling to me. Maybe my expectations were different because I've never seen an episode of Discovery.

Tighclops
Jan 23, 2008

Unable to deal with it


Grimey Drawer
If what we've heard about STD's third season is true then the Federation goes fash eventually regardless of whatever Picard does in this show

I agree that "The Federation is corrupt and lovely now! Look at how topical we are!" sucks. I don't need the future to be perfect but part of Trek's idealism has always been that these were institutions not entirely like ours, they're actually good and worth keeping. We've only seen one episode so far and while I didn't hate it or anything the more I think about it the less interested I am in seeing where this goes. Maybe they'll actually "explore" why everything is hosed and why having some ideals is a good thing, or maybe it'll just be more edgelord navel gazing. I think that if they had done this show 15 years ago people would be less skeptical but they've been hitting that "maybe better things aren't possible?" angle for so long now that it's just exhausting to think about more of it, even with the nostalgia goggles.

Lizard Combatant
Sep 29, 2010

I have some notes.

Origami Dali posted:

Maybe my expectations were different because I've never seen an episode of Discovery.

Oh wow, it's definitely this.

It's hard to overstate how much of a clusterfuck that show is.

adaz
Mar 7, 2009

large_gourd posted:

There are some things.

Starfleet chose not to help the Romulans after their world was destroyed. I think in the RLM video they have a good point in this area that it would make more sense for Starfleet to have helped in some capacity even if they couldn't/wouldn't (for security reasons) devote all of their resources to it. They would have planned to make diplomatic inroads through the process, even looking at it cynically, and it's just the right thing to do. It seems more immoral and stupid to just ignore them.

Then you've got the reporter - who for now, is the only representative we have of public opinion - distinctly saying 'romulan lives' which Picard has to correct, which is typical present day othering. She's drawn broadly, focusing on her make-up and hitting Picard with some hardball questions, there's nothing in that character which doesn't suggest to me that the media atmosphere is any different than what we have today.

We'll see how the show develops, but these are the only two things which give us an indication on how they are handling this. The first one, the event the show is spinning out from, doesn't seem well thought out (so far, we could get more context) and the second is just a bit of broad writing that I think demonstrates the lack of nuance they are imbuing the issue with.

I dunno. I didn't expect much from this show and part of me is just appreciating that it even took a moment for Picard to correct the woman and say 'lives'. I just get the perspective of someone who looks at this and sees more of has been wrong for a while.

Is this a criticism of _picard_ or of star trek in general because please tell me how this scene of the press from generations doesn't get the same treatment? If the criticism is in general that Star Trek is too rooted in the present day I won't disagree but if its picard is too rooted in the present day I can see no real difference between it and any other ST series. Very, very early ST:TNG was about the only thing that turned the "not like present day" level up to an 11 with the kids on spaceship, money doesn't exist, marriages dont exist etc but even so it was dialed back and its not hard to find where the federation is the sole superpower in a big galaxy oh and also here are present day americans I mean ferengi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCOuUW1pnDs

adaz fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Jan 27, 2020

HD DAD
Jan 13, 2010

Generic white guy.

Toilet Rascal

large_gourd posted:

It's just unfortunate that the message of Star Trek has become that utopia isn't possible.

Or...maybe it’s that utopia is possible, but it comes with responsibility. If you’re not careful, it can quickly disappear if even a small selection of people fall back into fear. Basically it should the responsibility of everyone to promote open-mindedness and empathy. Utopia must not be taken for granted.

Or something. Idk I’m drunk

pyrotek
May 21, 2004



Origami Dali posted:

People have been saying it takes its time, which is bizarre as hell because it feels far too fast moving to me.

For me, that is just in comparison to Discovery, which goes so fast it is like the writers were smoking crack or something. I'd also like Picard to be slower.

Mooseontheloose
May 13, 2003

FlamingLiberal posted:

I do think it's a little weird that the Federation, or at least some of the people in it, would blame the Romulans for an attack carried out by a lab experiment on Earth

Doesn't make a lot of sense for there to be that much xenophobia against the Romulans, but we also don't have the full picture yet

I don't have a problem with them trying to make a 21st century analogy with the plot of the show, but it needs to be done properly.

I want to push you on this though and we use the America analogy. Let's assume there was 25 (ish) years of peace after the end of the Dominion War and after Voyager came home. Federation is still the sole super power in the region (Martokis rebuilding the Klingon Empire, Cardassia is in ruins, Romulan Empire is destroyed really the only MAJOR player left is...the Ferengi?) and they haven't really done anything since the war. Then when the federation is about to do their international peace keeping shtick, they are attacked and they basically say gently caress the galaxy, why are you doing this to us and essentially retreat but use their vast power both soft and hard to maintain their competitive edge.

This is basically the story of America post Gulf War 1 to now. It feels like a mash of Black Hawk Down (a international humanitrian mission where Americans died and the US said gently caress this), 9/11 (terrorist attack), and disillusionment of what we are as a country (War on Terror and 2016 election). So to me the story is not only believable it speaks to where we are now. To truly make this trekian is how does Picard (or Space Jimmy Carter? in this analogy) restore his hope, how do we make ourselves better.

Gaz-L
Jan 28, 2009
Yeah the idea that the Federation has ever been anything but a thin stand in for the US or if you're being generous, maybe NATO or the UN is pretty hollow, I think. In the 60s, they were in a cold war with a competing super-power with a distinctly different ideology. In the 80s they'd made peace with that same power, partly because a new leader had made the regime more moderate and everyone was convinced no wars would happen ever again and we can all swim with dolphins and chill with crystals at the Mariott convention center... except they did and we get poo poo like the Cardassians coming up around the time of the first Gulf War.

It's actually when Trek tries to be non-political that it tends to be at it's worst: See VOY and the first half or so ENT.

MichiganCubbie
Dec 11, 2008

I love that I have an erection...

...that doesn't involve homeless people.

Gaz-L posted:

Yeah the idea that the Federation has ever been anything but a thin stand in for the US or if you're being generous, maybe NATO or the UN is pretty hollow, I think. In the 60s, they were in a cold war with a competing super-power with a distinctly different ideology. In the 80s they'd made peace with that same power, partly because a new leader had made the regime more moderate and everyone was convinced no wars would happen ever again and we can all swim with dolphins and chill with crystals at the Mariott convention center... except they did and we get poo poo like the Cardassians coming up around the time of the first Gulf War.

It's actually when Trek tries to be non-political that it tends to be at it's worst: See VOY and the first half or so ENT.

Don't forget that the Romulans were the Chinese in TOS. In the 60s they were isolationist and closed off. We didn't know much about what they were up to, but we knew they were antagonistic.

Nitrousoxide
May 30, 2011

do not buy a oneplus phone



large_gourd posted:

There are some things.

Starfleet chose not to help the Romulans after their world was destroyed. I think in the RLM video they have a good point in this area that it would make more sense for Starfleet to have helped in some capacity even if they couldn't/wouldn't (for security reasons) devote all of their resources to it. They would have planned to make diplomatic inroads through the process, even looking at it cynically, and it's just the right thing to do. It seems more immoral and stupid to just ignore them.

RLM was just factually wrong here. It was stated (and in their cut aways it says this) that Picard did convince Starfleet to help and they were doing so until the synthetics attacked UP shipyards and destroyed both the shipyards and the evacuation fleet that was (presumably) being refit to handle large masses of refugees. It's not like cargo ships for ore have the life support to handle thousands of refugees.

After that, with the main shipyards for the Federation destroyed, most of the ships well suited for a massive evacuation gone, and the means to refit or build new ones out of commission for the foreseeable future, they called it off.

Mooseontheloose
May 13, 2003

Gaz-L posted:

Yeah the idea that the Federation has ever been anything but a thin stand in for the US or if you're being generous, maybe NATO or the UN is pretty hollow, I think. In the 60s, they were in a cold war with a competing super-power with a distinctly different ideology. In the 80s they'd made peace with that same power, partly because a new leader had made the regime more moderate and everyone was convinced no wars would happen ever again and we can all swim with dolphins and chill with crystals at the Mariott convention center... except they did and we get poo poo like the Cardassians coming up around the time of the first Gulf War.

It's actually when Trek tries to be non-political that it tends to be at it's worst: See VOY and the first half or so ENT.

If you were to do a more broad star trek going forward, I think you could do some interesting things with the Klingon and the Federation the Klingon's being a power trying to both cling to its warrior past but trying to reform itself to make its society and the Federation that has is getting arrogant with its power.

I also have other ideas but like I don;t want to go down some fanfictiony rabbit hole.

Lizard Combatant
Sep 29, 2010

I have some notes.

Nitrousoxide posted:

RLM was just factually wrong here. It was stated (and in their cut aways it says this) that Picard did convince Starfleet to help and they were doing so until the synthetics attacked UP shipyards and destroyed both the shipyards and the evacuation fleet that was (presumably) being refit to handle large masses of refugees. It's not like cargo ships for ore have the life support to handle thousands of refugees.

After that, with the main shipyards for the Federation destroyed, most of the ships well suited for a massive evacuation gone, and the means to refit or build new ones out of commission for the foreseeable future, they called it off.

So how are they reading that incorrectly?

After an unrelated attack (unrelated in the sense that the reporter and by extension the larger federation doesnt link the two at this point in time) the Federation doesn't believe using what ships they still have as a "good use of resources" because they're an old adversary, something which Picard considers abhorrent and he says so.

The text says that after suffering their own setback they abandoned giving any aid whatsoever.

Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice
Maybe this is a dumb thing to point out in general, but science fiction is always about the present. It's either, "What if this present trend continues", or "What if what we're afraid of happens", or "What if what we hope for happens". It's always a mirror of current fears and hopes.

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

The Federation has no money, no poverty, as of TNG there hadn't been a terrorist attack on Earth in over a century. People forget racism exists sometimes so that Sisko has to remind them. It's not space America. It went out of its way to contrast the Utopian future and the crapsack present many, many times through allegory. Star Trek has always embraced allegory, but it hadn't embraced cynicism until the 2000s. And it sucks and it has sucked for a long time.

Of course it's about the present, but it used to also be about the future. Making the 24th century the 21st century is a reflection of what IMO is a (one of many) societal disease(s) of our time: we can't imagine a future that isn't a disaster.

Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Jan 27, 2020

Admiralty Flag
Jun 7, 2007

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

FlamingLiberal posted:

I do think it's a little weird that the Federation, or at least some of the people in it, would blame the Romulans for an attack carried out by a lab experiment on Earth

Doesn't make a lot of sense for there to be that much xenophobia against the Romulans, but we also don't have the full picture yet

I don't have a problem with them trying to make a 21st century analogy with the plot of the show, but it needs to be done properly.
Maybe I missed something, but I thought the implication was the attack on the shipyards caused the Federation to massively overreact defensively, and one of the ways they did this was by reneging on committing personnel and resources to the relief effort, not that it was blame against the Romulans specifically.

In fact, I thought that was the whole point of Picard's righteous fury speech about. Just because something bad happened, we don't have the moral grounds to say FYGM to people in a literal life and death situation to whom we have promised aid

e: somehow missed that I wasn't on the last page of replies, oops

Admiralty Flag fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Jan 27, 2020

Pinterest Mom
Jun 9, 2009

Arglebargle III posted:

The Federation has no money, no poverty, as of TNG there hadn't been a terrorist attack on Earth in over a century. People forget racism exists sometimes so that Sisko has to remind them. It's not space America. It went out of its way to contrast the Utopian future and the crapsack present many, many times through allegory. Star Trek has always embraced allegory, but it hadn't embraced cynicism until the 2000s. And it sucks and it has sucked for a long time.

It can be true (I think probably is true?) that Star Trek embraced cynicism in the 2000s because it was always about using the future to tell stories about present-day America.

Nitrousoxide
May 30, 2011

do not buy a oneplus phone



Lizard Combatant posted:

So how are they reading that incorrectly?

After an unrelated attack (unrelated in the sense that the reporter and by extension the larger federation doesnt link the two at this point in time) the Federation doesn't believe using what ships they still have as a "good use of resources" because they're an old adversary, something which Picard considers abhorrent and he says so.

The text says that after suffering their own setback they abandoned giving any aid whatsoever.

I'm not saying that the Federation is in the right. But they devoted a pretty substantial amount of resources to the operation, including the use of the main military shipyard for the Federation for an extended time and tons of Federation and (presumably) Starfleet support vessels in addition to the civilian ones helping out. They were not just leaving the Romulus to their fate like RLM was saying.

It was only after the attack that destroyed pretty much all the resources they were willing to devote to the operation that they abandoned it.

Now they probably should have still done what they could, but they also can't be entirely faulted for not wanting to take other shipyards offline to refit even more civilian or even defense vessels and weaken their readiness to handle incursions, especially if the public are really not happy after losing thousands or even millions of people in the Sol system to the attack.

Don't forget too that the Federation had a sudden crisis on Earth's doorstop both for the people living on Mars and possible attacks on Earth itself, or the attack could have been an attempt to weaken the Federation borders by getting them to pull stuff out to take over the rescue mission.

Kibbles n Shits
Apr 8, 2006

burgerpug.png


Fun Shoe

Nitrousoxide posted:

Red letter has a Re:View of Picard and boy they don't like it.

Do they like anything? It was a funny review at least and I tend to agree with them on a lot, but the show has been well received and it's hardly a "funeral".

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


Kibbles n Shits posted:

Do they like anything? It was a funny review at least and I tend to agree with them on a lot, but the show has been well received and it's hardly a "funeral".

I haven't watched a ton of their stuff, but they were pretty positive about The Mandalorian.

Lizard Combatant
Sep 29, 2010

I have some notes.
Worth saying though, is that even if I don't like that the Federation had to lose its moral compass for the story they want to tell to work, I'll accept it if they create can something meaningful and coherent.

Coherent being the operative word.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

Arglebargle III posted:

The Federation has no money, no poverty, as of TNG there hadn't been a terrorist attack on Earth in over a century. People forget racism exists sometimes so that Sisko has to remind them. It's not space America. It went out of its way to contrast the Utopian future and the crapsack present many, many times through allegory. Star Trek has always embraced allegory, but it hadn't embraced cynicism until the 2000s. And it sucks and it has sucked for a long time.

Of course it's about the present, but it used to also be about the future. Making the 24th century the 21st century is a reflection of what IMO is a (one of many) societal disease(s) of our time: we can't imagine a future that isn't a disaster.

Agreed on all accounts. Star Trek has featured current themes very often, but always from an enlightened and utopian perspective, when even the hard choices (like the gritty DS9 ones) were made in full awareness that they were wrong and counter to the spirit of the era, and likely going to have a cost.

Also, dumb little peeve. Let's not even go into the "advanced space empire somehow can't get a fleet together to evacuate its capital but a distant other entity somehow both organizes first and gets there sooner" deal. It's still an EMPIRE. Any dumbshit in the Federation would know that having them lose their homeworld while the Federation withdraws help would mean hundreds (thousands?) of Romulan colonies gigantically pissed at them, forever. Forget about the random evil androids, they'd be facing space 9-11 from bitter romulan survivors all over the place, every week.

It's a very forced setup.

Tighclops
Jan 23, 2008

Unable to deal with it


Grimey Drawer

Lizard Combatant posted:

Worth saying though, is that even if I don't like that the Federation had to lose its moral compass for the story they want to tell to work, I'll accept it if they create can something meaningful and coherent.

Coherent being the operative word.

At least Picard isn't the one getting cynical, if the whole show is explicit about needing to get back to something utopian in the face of xenophobia and so on then at least it'll be something positive.

HD DAD
Jan 13, 2010

Generic white guy.

Toilet Rascal

Arglebargle III posted:

The Federation has no money, no poverty, as of TNG there hadn't been a terrorist attack on Earth in over a century. People forget racism exists sometimes so that Sisko has to remind them. It's not space America. It went out of its way to contrast the Utopian future and the crapsack present many, many times through allegory. Star Trek has always embraced allegory, but it hadn't embraced cynicism until the 2000s. And it sucks and it has sucked for a long time.

Of course it's about the present, but it used to also be about the future. Making the 24th century the 21st century is a reflection of what IMO is a (one of many) societal disease(s) of our time: we can't imagine a future that isn't a disaster.

I get what you’re saying. I really do. And on a certain level, you are absolutely right.

But I’m also going to put forth the argument that Star Trek has always reflected what the West, specifically the United States, has thought about itself. During TOS, the country was going through both political and societal upheaval. But a lot of that came with a feeling of hope - there was a better future that was actively being fought for. Massive strides had been made in societal progress, and that was continued as a through-line into the types of stories that were told.

By the time TNG rolled around, we had come a long way with warming up relations with the USSR. We had (naively, on a surface level) “solved racism”. The USA was a force of good, a shining beacon of example for the rest of the world. The future literally did seem like we were all going to chill in a Marriott while rubbing crystals all over ourselves, as someone else in this thread basically said. The Gulf War was bad data, but it was “necessary” and for the greater good, at least it seemed at the time. The 90s in the US, while certainly not devoid of poo poo, was “relatively uneventful”.

Enterprise needs no explanation, really. We were hurt massively on a cultural level. We had a massive wave of nationalism, and we were out to get the bad guys. And sometimes we had to make hard decisions.

And now with Discovery and Picard - culturally we’re at a point where we’re honestly both pissed and embarrassed at ourselves. We’re the crazed hobo yelling at nothing on the subway platform, all the while government and corporate corruption becomes even more blatant and shameless. Again, reflected in Star Trek by shadowy organizations or a Federation fallen on xenophobia and fear.

Yes, now more than ever, it would be nice to have a show whose voice says “yes, the future’s gonna be awesome”. But at least with Picard, the message seems to be “it can be awesome, but we’re gonna have to work for it”.

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013

Kibbles n Shits posted:

Do they like anything? It was a funny review at least and I tend to agree with them on a lot, but the show has been well received and it's hardly a "funeral".

Like I said, this is why I stick to Best of the Worst when it comes to RLM. When they’re talking about Star Trek and Star Wars they really come across like a couple of tired old men who are forever cranky that Star Wars is no longer Empire Strikes Back and Star Trek is no longer The Next Generation. One of the first things Mike says in his legendary Plinket Prequel review is “I don’t like things that are different” and it turns out that wasn’t an in-character line :v:

Well, I hope they have fun pouting because Picard looks like it’s gonna be rad as poo poo.

nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Jan 27, 2020

Angry Salami
Jul 27, 2013

Don't trust the skull.
Some people think the future means the end of history... people can be very frightened of change.

Sephyr
Aug 28, 2012

HD DAD posted:

I get what you’re saying. I really do. And on a certain level, you are absolutely right.

But I’m also going to put forth the argument that Star Trek has always reflected what the West, specifically the United States, has thought about itself. During TOS, the country was going through both political and societal upheaval. But a lot of that came with a feeling of hope - there was a better future that was actively being fought for. Massive strides had been made in societal progress, and that was continued as a through-line into the types of stories that were told.

By the time TNG rolled around, we had come a long way with warming up relations with the USSR. We had (naively, on a surface level) “solved racism”. The USA was a force of good, a shining beacon of example for the rest of the world. The future literally did seem like we were all going to chill in a Marriott while rubbing crystals all over ourselves, as someone else in this thread basically said. The Gulf War was bad data, but it was “necessary” and for the greater good, at least it seemed at the time. The 90s in the US, while certainly not devoid of poo poo, was “relatively uneventful”.

Enterprise needs no explanation, really. We were hurt massively on a cultural level. We had a massive wave of nationalism, and we were out to get the bad guys. And sometimes we had to make hard decisions.

And now with Discovery and Picard - culturally we’re at a point where we’re honestly both pissed and embarrassed at ourselves. We’re the crazed hobo yelling at nothing on the subway platform, all the while government and corporate corruption becomes even more blatant and shameless. Again, reflected in Star Trek by shadowy organizations or a Federation fallen on xenophobia and fear.

Yes, now more than ever, it would be nice to have a show whose voice says “yes, the future’s gonna be awesome”. But at least with Picard, the message seems to be “it can be awesome, but we’re gonna have to work for it”.

It's not a bad argument, but is simplifies a bit too much. The 60's were also the era of Mutually Assured Destruction, of the American Dream starting to spring leaks, of presidents being shot in the head on television, foreign wars turning ugly and black churches being burned, George Wallace and Barry Goldwater rising to proeminence. The hope was both a survival effect to heal deal with the convulsions of change as well a rose-tinting on a period after we cleared it.

By that same token, someone from the 2070's could look bad at our decade and go "Man, the 10's were so full of hope. Gay and trans rights becoming everyday issues, socialism getting vocal support among people for the first time, awareness of the evils of giant corporations controlling all media and content hitting home, the biggest protest marches ever seen all around the globe!".

To me, it does fel like the message is that the utopia isn't there, which is a valid point but not a Trek one. That it's always going to be petty assholes killing or abandoning millions to get their rocks off, and that is the status quo.

There's already Star Wars for those who need their sci-fi to always have a genocidal overlord calling the shots over the galaxy and society itself not even mattering.

Delthalaz
Mar 5, 2003






Slippery Tilde
Did you guys not see Star Trek 6? Remember the vast military conspiracy within Starfleet to commit untold murder in order to keep the Cold War going? Even admiral Cartwright was in on it!

e: Kirk and the OG enterprise crew disobeying starfleet and doing the right thing was the plot for two to three of the six TOS movies .

Also lmao at this being heavy handed for Star Trek. They had to go back in time to the 1980s to save the whales ffs.

Delthalaz fucked around with this message at 06:27 on Jan 27, 2020

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013

Delthalaz posted:

Did you guys not see Star Trek 6? Remember the vast military conspiracy within Starfleet to commit untold murder in order to keep the Cold War going? Even admiral Cartwright was in on it!

e: Kirk and the OG enterprise crew disobeying starfleet and doing the right thing was the plot for two to three of the six TOS movies .

Also lmao at this being heavy handed for Star Trek. They had to go back in time to the 1980s to save the whales ffs.

First Contact, Insurrection, and Into Darkness are also "gently caress Starfleet, we're doing what's right movies." So that's like literally half the film canon.

MichiganCubbie
Dec 11, 2008

I love that I have an erection...

...that doesn't involve homeless people.

nine-gear crow posted:

First Contact, Insurrection, and Into Darkness are also "gently caress Starfleet, we're doing what's right movies." So that's like literally half the film canon.

It was an old trope that Admirals are basically worthless or actively treacherous. Admiral Ross was the first one who was really on the level.

Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice
TOS wasn't utopian, though. It was better than real life, in that we had overcome racism and nationalism on earth and such, but there was still war, there was still hardship. I mean, in the show, we find out that Captain Kirk grew up in a colony, where in a response to food shortages, the governor killed half the population so the other half could live. You have a starship captain who, when stuck on a planet, decided the way to bring the people of the planet together was Nazism. You have miners trying to make a living by working on dangerous planets in the hope they'll strike it rich and be able to buy a bride.

From a strictly narrative purpose, you can't have heroes in a utopia. The reason we root for characters like the Enterprise crew is because they're trying to make things better....Kirk stands up and says, "You're not going to oppress the miners so you can live in luxury in your sky cities", "You're not going to commit suicide just because a war simulaton says you should." Picard says "You're not going to take apart Data so you can figure out how to make a race of robot slaves", "You're not going execute Wesley just because he walked on the grass."

We're rooting for them because they're standing up to injustice. And that's the thing. If the Federation is really a utopia, then while it's a pleasant place for the people who live there, it's a terrible place to tell stories. It's the same reason that Iain Banks Culture stories (and the Culture is pretty much an actual utopia) are pretty much never set in the Culture. They're all people from the Culture outside the Culture, because while the Culture is a great place to live, it's really boring.

Kibbles n Shits
Apr 8, 2006

burgerpug.png


Fun Shoe

Delthalaz posted:

Did you guys not see Star Trek 6? Remember the vast military conspiracy within Starfleet to commit untold murder in order to keep the Cold War going? Even admiral Cartwright was in on it!

Hell I still have my VHS release of it where Rene Auberjonois plays the Starfleet Colonel turned assassin.

Did Starfleet even have Colonels outside of him in one movie? Seems like the usual progression is to be Captain until you're certifiably insane, and then you get to be an Admiral.

Kibbles n Shits fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Jan 27, 2020

Delthalaz
Mar 5, 2003






Slippery Tilde

Sephyr posted:

To me, it does fel like the message is that the utopia isn't there, which is a valid point but not a Trek one. That it's always going to be petty assholes killing or abandoning millions to get their rocks off, and that is the status quo.

There's already Star Wars for those who need their sci-fi to always have a genocidal overlord calling the shots over the galaxy and society itself not even mattering.

Now I didn't write Star Trek Picard and if the RLM guys are right in their predictions yet more revenge superweapon horse poo poo then this is absolute garbage. But if this is show is anything like I hope it will be, the message is going to be: the trial never ends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvDWtCM_ch8

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.

MichiganCubbie posted:

It was an old trope that Admirals are basically worthless or actively treacherous. Admiral Ross was the first one who was really on the level.

Picard seems to be a loophole there by going against Starfleet when it's actually the right thing to do.

twistedmentat
Nov 21, 2003

Its my party
and I'll die if
I want to

Kibbles n Shits posted:

Hell I still have my VHS release of it where Rene Auberjonois plays the Starfleet Colonel turned assassin.

Did Starfleet even have Colonels outside of him in one movie? Seems like the usual progression is to be Captain until you're certifiably insane, and then you get to be an Admiral.

They also have Commadores that also go insane.

And gently caress RLM, god I hate how the internet holds them up as some kind of gods. I've only watched a handful of their stuff and its basically like reading CD comments from the most pedantic goons. Their Picard video is at the top of my recommendations and them doing the :uggh: thing upsets me.

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013

Kibbles n Shits posted:

Hell I still have my VHS release of it where Rene Auberjonois plays the Starfleet Colonel turned assassin.

Did Starfleet even have Colonels outside of him in one movie? Seems like the usual progression is to be Captain until you're certifiably insane, and then you get to be an Admiral.

Enterprise brings back army/marines ranks for the MACOs. The marines assigned to the NX-01 in season 3 have ranks like Major, Corporal, and Private, so Col. West was probably whatever the movies version of MACO was. Though Undiscovered Country was all about the Federation abandoning is war footing and bringing it in line with TNG, which was already airing at the time and was high up its own rear end with Gene's end-days wackadoodle Actual Uber Utopia that he couldn't actually get away with in TOS. So folks like West were literally a dying breed at that point.

adaz
Mar 7, 2009

Yeah they didn't exist even in the dominion war -- the siege of AR-558 the soldiers were just addressed as LT etc. Basically those forces became red shirts and rip

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Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice

twistedmentat posted:

They also have Commadores that also go insane.

And gently caress RLM, god I hate how the internet holds them up as some kind of gods. I've only watched a handful of their stuff and its basically like reading CD comments from the most pedantic goons. Their Picard video is at the top of my recommendations and them doing the :uggh: thing upsets me.

I don't think I've ever sat through one of their reviews. I feel guilty about it,because the guy can't help the way he talks, I guess, but its just really hard to sit through.

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