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Mr.Unique-Name posted:They pretty regularly talk about how the Andorians are a founding race of the federation and they're important and a big deal. I think they've also made noises like Andorians need to do some kind of complex four-person mating rituals to have kids so they have low population. (Ridiculous. Three-individual, sure; but four?) Cockmaster posted:And the last episode of Lower Decks got me thinking: Is it just me, or are humans and Vulcans the only species capable of realizing that if you're meeting a member of a totally different culture, and they do something you consider rude, that it might have been an innocent mistake?
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Aug 21, 2020 05:11
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Nessus posted:The makeup's a pain in the rear end. For Vulcans you just need the ears and maybe a carefully thought out makeup job. For Andorians and Tellarites, though? I mean hell have we even seen a Tellarite since TOS? Wasn't the president of the Federation in DS9 a Tellarite? I don't think we saw any Andorian characters that even had a speaking role in DS9 as a whole.
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Aug 21, 2020 05:13
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:Wasn't the president of the Federation in DS9 a Tellarite? I don't think we saw any Andorian characters that even had a speaking role in DS9 as a whole. Enterprise had a lot of Andorians.
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Aug 21, 2020 05:16
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Technowolf posted:Enterprise had a lot of Andorians. Enterprise has managed to be the only Trek series I've seen literally none of. I keep thinking I should give it a shot and watch it then I see something that causes me to decide against it. At least the Andorians showed up in it.
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Aug 21, 2020 05:45
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Both Andorians and Tellarites show up multiple times in Enterprise, the former especially. Also you should watch Enterprise, since it is good.
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Aug 21, 2020 05:49
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HD DAD posted:Also you should watch Enterprise, since it is good. Hypothetically, if I were to watch it, should I watch the series finale? Because everything that I've seen really says that the finale is the worst poo poo and ruined everything.
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Aug 21, 2020 05:51
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:Hypothetically, if I were to watch it, should I watch the series finale? Because everything that I've seen really says that the finale is the worst poo poo and ruined everything. I mean, it’s up to you. But it’s truly awful and a huge disservice to the cast and show. Especially since the two-parter directly preceding it already feels like a series finale that wraps up all the major thematic arcs.
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Aug 21, 2020 05:59
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:They pretty regularly talk about how the Andorians are a founding race of the federation and they're important and a big deal.
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Aug 21, 2020 06:14
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Yeah, Andorians were pretty much absent from the TNG era since they wanted something more than "guys in blueface with deely bobbers", but since they couldn't figure out a makeup design they were happy with, they created the Bolians as a sort of substitute. When ENT went into production, they decided that since the Andorians were one of the founding members of the Federation, they had better figure out a makeup design. Fortunately technology had advanced to the point where they could give actors prehensile antennae, and that went over well with both the producers and the fan. As for the Tellarites, they have the far greater problem of being a race of pig men, and nobody likes pig men.
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Aug 21, 2020 06:14
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Sash! posted:Maybe it is like how eight US presidents were born in Virginia, the most of any state, but only because four of the first five presidents were. And the last one was president a century ago. They used to be super important, but not so much now. If Andorians are basically space Virginians it's probably better they don't show up much. I will accept this explanation.
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Aug 21, 2020 06:21
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Are there any named enlisted-rank characters in Star Trek other than O'Brian? Edit: My biggest problem with Lower Decks is the fact that the characters are apparently all commissioned when it's supposedly focused on the comings and goings of the lower ranking dregs. Mr.Unique-Name fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Aug 21, 2020 |
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Aug 21, 2020 06:28
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:Are there any named enlisted-rank characters in Star Trek other than O'Brian? Sergey Rozhenko was an enlisted crewman and there are a ton of them in Enterprise Edit: also any Yeoman from TOS (Janice Rand apparently made CPO by the time of the movies as well)
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Aug 21, 2020 06:39
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The idea with the TNG era was meant to be that getting a commission has shifted in the same way that getting a degree has in the last century or two.
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Aug 21, 2020 06:48
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I think the reason is that Andorians and Tellarites are mostly jerks that are fine with dealing with the backend support for the Federation, but don't want to personally go far and wide across the galaxy. Heck, the Vulcans seem pretty reluctant to do deep space exploration from how few of them there are in crews in the show. Maybe because they don't want to deal with arranging a trip back home when they go gently caress-crazy, maybe they don't really want to see what's out there in the stars after the last few things they found. Brawnfire posted:Blue people with wiggly antennae are silly. Too silly! I don't think they show up much outside of the original series ether though? MikeJF posted:The idea with the TNG era was meant to be that getting a commission has shifted in the same way that getting a degree has in the last century or two. If anything, it's harder to stop yourself from getting promoted. Ryker fought tooth and nail to stay where he was, and Kirk had to pull some crazy poo poo to get back into the captain's seat after getting put in a desk job. SlothfulCobra fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Aug 21, 2020 |
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Aug 21, 2020 07:00
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Cockmaster posted:In the later seasons, DS9 also had a Trill officer who was made a counselor because someone thought that several centuries of generic "life experience" is an acceptable substitute for actually studying how to be a proper therapist. Ezri actually was trained as a counselor. I think there was some dialogue that she was only a few formalities away from graduating. She just sucked at it.
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Aug 21, 2020 07:02
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Kibayasu posted:She just sucked at it. I mean, that's par for the course in Trek. Tell me you wouldn't rather spill your guts to Guinan over a Romulan ale than listen to Troi's platitudes.
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Aug 21, 2020 07:07
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:Are there any named enlisted-rank characters in Star Trek other than O'Brian? Everyone in engineering on DS9, because O'Brian needs to outrank them. Besides, in the officer/enlisted stereotype a junior officer is usually straight out of school and lacking experience, whereas a noncom is the experienced guy who knows how everything works but lacks the training/education for higher command. Short of making a show about some "here's your helmet" private that needs to be kept busy so he doesn't break anything, I think they achieved their goal.
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Aug 21, 2020 07:14
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:Are there any named enlisted-rank characters in Star Trek other than O'Brian? TNG has Simon Tarses and Voyager has Michael Jonas. MikeJF posted:The idea with the TNG era was meant to be that getting a commission has shifted in the same way that getting a degree has in the last century or two. I think a structure reflecting real-world navies as well as the complications of spaaaaace would have something like: enlisted crew for barbers and cooks and administrative assistants and other support roles (a minority of the crew), unrestricted line officers for command crew (a minority of the crew), restricted line officers with authority in only a specific area and not general command authority (most of the crew), and some variety of limited duty officer or commissioned warrant officer role for already-experienced outside specialists who get recruited by Starfleet (for those occasional Starfleet-sponsored mad scientist research projects). It feels like civilians were shoehorned into TNG for lack of the crewman role initially (but they then added them later anyway), and the lack of restricted line officers leads to obvious nonsense like Troi or Crusher taking command entirely by virtue of rank.
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Aug 21, 2020 07:18
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I think we can all agree that putting families onto ships meant for exploration in a galaxy where the powers that be are aware there's a lot of hostile factions is asinine and the basic conceit of Star Trek is dumb.
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Aug 21, 2020 07:24
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Even in the real military, the percentage of enlisted personnel has been constantly dropping - back in WW2, the enlisted:officer ratio was about 10:1, now it's more like 5:1 and dropping.
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Aug 21, 2020 07:26
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:I think we can all agree that putting families onto ships meant for exploration in a galaxy where the powers that be are aware there's a lot of hostile factions is asinine and the basic conceit of Star Trek is dumb. Actually, what does the ratio look like between planets rendered uninhabitable onscreen and federation ships destroyed onscreen. I bet it's like, 10:1 or something at worst, and there are WAY more people on a planet than on a starship, so your odds are a lot better in space. The galaxy is littered with the bones of civilizations lost to time, and you know those guys just stayed at home. Tunicate fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Aug 21, 2020 |
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Aug 21, 2020 07:57
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I haven't seen Discovery, does the Discovery have civilians and families on the ship? If not, then only TNG really did that. DS9 doesn't count because it's a space station/trading hub.
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Aug 21, 2020 08:41
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Kibayasu posted:Ezri actually was trained as a counselor. I think there was some dialogue that she was only a few formalities away from graduating. in her defence, they made her counsel garak
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Aug 21, 2020 09:52
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Owlbear Camus posted:I mean, that's par for the course in Trek. Tell me you wouldn't rather spill your guts to Guinan over a Romulan ale than listen to Troi's platitudes. Guinan seems better at life advice and sensing weird-rear end poo poo going on. Troi's empathic abilities only actually help once in a blue moon, the rest of the time the alien has some blocking technology or powers or it's just never explained, she must have been tired that day. My favourite use of Troi's emotion reading was definitely the scene in The Wounded where the Cardassians arrive on the transport pad and she looks back at O'Brien for a second.
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Aug 21, 2020 10:15
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Someone should make a fan edit to remove or rewrite Wesley Crusher out of tng. Same for the captain's kid in ds9.
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Aug 21, 2020 10:28
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Jake is so much better than Wesley it's not even funny.
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Aug 21, 2020 10:35
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SlothfulCobra posted:I think the reason is that Andorians and Tellarites are mostly jerks that are fine with dealing with the backend support for the Federation, but don't want to personally go far and wide across the galaxy. Yeah, it's really the only sort of explanation that makes sense with 22nd century Earth somehow ending up being the seat of power. We brought everyone together, and for the most part those early members are happy to stay near home and enjoy the fact that they aren't constantly fighting anymore.
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Aug 21, 2020 11:57
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:I think we can all agree that putting families onto ships meant for exploration in a galaxy where the powers that be are aware there's a lot of hostile factions is asinine and the basic conceit of Star Trek is dumb. Fake edit: That was basically only the Enterprise-D... and I think the idea makes sense for stuff like "the science ship doing slow-boat close surveys of a star sector." Like if you're gonna be doing a three-year survey of gaseous anomalies why not make that science ship a giant tub and build all that poo poo from the "cruise liner" tug boat outline from the Franz Joseph manual?
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Aug 21, 2020 11:59
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Owlbear Camus posted:I mean, that's par for the course in Trek. Tell me you wouldn't rather spill your guts to Guinan over a Romulan ale than listen to Troi's platitudes. idk if guinan actually loses this 'contest' to anybody in the series
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Aug 21, 2020 12:06
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Senor Tron posted:Yeah, it's really the only sort of explanation that makes sense with 22nd century Earth somehow ending up being the seat of power. We brought everyone together, and for the most part those early members are happy to stay near home and enjoy the fact that they aren't constantly fighting anymore. The Star Trek setting relies heavily on you never looking behind the curtain of 'what are the politics of the Federation?' to stay intact. Now that's fine because that's not what Star Trek stories are about and you are missing the point if you want to go there, but so many stories would presumably naturally end in the Federation Council getting a note and saying "Wait, the military did what?"
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Aug 21, 2020 12:31
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Alchenar posted:so many stories would presumably naturally end in the Federation Council getting a note and saying "Wait, the military did what?" Um excuse me Starfleet is not a "military," it's a space exploration and diplomacy corps that just happens to be uniformed and structured by a rank hierarchy, operate heavily armed space vessels, and is called on whenever the federation needs to project force in defense of its holdings and interests.
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Aug 21, 2020 12:41
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If it's so cold on Andoria, why don't we see more Andorians in bikinis?
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Aug 21, 2020 12:45
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Alchenar posted:The Star Trek setting relies heavily on you never looking behind the curtain of 'what are the politics of the Federation?' to stay intact. Now that's fine because that's not what Star Trek stories are about and you are missing the point if you want to go there, but so many stories would presumably naturally end in the Federation Council getting a note and saying "Wait, the military did what?" Captains have an insane amount of leeway considering that unless you're in a Voyager style situation they can communicate in realtime with Federation leaders.
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Aug 21, 2020 12:58
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Nessus posted:We cannot. Except that's not really what they were doing on TNG, unless there was some severe timeskipping. More sedentary science projects were for other ships. The Enterprise went headfirst into uncharted territory without planning to stay in one place more than a week, along with diplomatic missions, disaster relief, responding to military threats, and even proactively patrolling an area in search of potential threats. I do think that it's an interesting idea for crewmembers to not have to leave their family behind for long stretches of time so that there's not the most logistically and emotionally difficult part of working on a ship, but I don't think the full implications are ever really explored, like how many people have to give up their own planetary life to be a stay-at-home parent because their spouse is part of Starfleet, or have to figure out how to get a job in a complimentary field to still have something to do on the ship. We only see that kind of dynamic with O'Brien, where Keiko has to leave whatever job she had on the Enterprise when he got promoted, and yet she would occasionally go off somewhere on a long-term study without feeling the need to bring him along. Arglebargle III posted:If it's so cold on Andoria, why don't we see more Andorians in bikinis? This is the real important question.
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Aug 21, 2020 15:18
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:Are there any named enlisted-rank characters in Star Trek other than O'Brian? That Romulan/human dude from The Drumhead was a medical technician. He talked to Picard about how he just wanted to venture out into space and didn't want to bother attending Starfleet Academy. edit: Did not see Roadie's post somehow
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Aug 21, 2020 15:30
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:Hypothetically, if I were to watch it, should I watch the series finale? Because everything that I've seen really says that the finale is the worst poo poo and ruined everything. It's bad but I wouldn't say it ruins the rest of the show. I think what happened was, before it aired, some people online read about what it was gonna be like, and they misinterpreted the framing device as implying that the whole show might never have happened. But in the actual episode there's no such implication. The issue is more that the framing device accomplishes the opposite of what it was allegedly supposed to do. Instead of lending greater weight to the story, it just keeps drawing attention to the framing device at the worst possible times.
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Aug 21, 2020 15:57
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Sir Lemming posted:It's bad but I wouldn't say it ruins the rest of the show. I think what happened was, before it aired, some people online read about what it was gonna be like, and they misinterpreted the framing device as implying that the whole show might never have happened. But in the actual episode there's no such implication. The issue is more that the framing device accomplishes the opposite of what it was allegedly supposed to do. Instead of lending greater weight to the story, it just keeps drawing attention to the framing device at the worst possible times. Imo the bigger problem is that it introduces some major developments that weren’t adequately built up to and that it doesn’t do justice. It feels like it should be at the end of a season 5 or 6, not 4. It’s like if Babylon 5 had skipped straight from Zhadum to Sleeping in Light, if Sleeping in Light also sucked on its own and was about some other random guy from a different show.
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Aug 21, 2020 16:14
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Exactly. Honestly, I view it not as a series finale, but as a...not well thought-out self-congratulatory pat on the back for 18 straight years of Trek. Like, I get what it was going for, but it missed the mark by several miles. Demons/Terra Prime wraps up a lot of thematic threads for Enterprise, and honestly feels like it was written as a finale. Actually, I think I remember reading somewhere that Coto wrote it as one. There’s a lot of “remember when we did this at the beginning, and how far we’ve come now” references. Personally, if I ever watch TATV, it’s a little side-story epilogue.
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Aug 21, 2020 16:22
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Mr.Unique-Name posted:Enterprise has managed to be the only Trek series I've seen literally none of. I keep thinking I should give it a shot and watch it then I see something that causes me to decide against it. Enterprise is divisive but I think most people agree the Andorian episodes are all great.
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Aug 21, 2020 16:32
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I think it's pretty cool how actors playing recurring alien characters can do one big long career as one character and then flip to another different character in the franchise. Sometimes they're similar, but sometimes they're wildly different. Brunt is great in Enterprise.
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Aug 21, 2020 17:38
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