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Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice

Grand Fromage posted:

I have to do something with the degree I paid $100,000 for

No you don't. Why should you be any different than the rest of us?

Also, my joke looks mean sitting by itself on the top of a new page like that. Have a picture of a dog in penance.

Epicurius fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Dec 19, 2020

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Taear
Nov 26, 2004

Ask me about the shitty opinions I have about Paradox games!

SpeakSlow posted:

Yes, because all plucky freedom fighters use indiscriminate bombing campaigns to push their agenda. To the point where the typical upholder of freedom Federation formally declares them terrorists and sends ships like Voyager after them.

The bajorans and the marquis are different, are you trolling

Martian
May 29, 2005

Grimey Drawer
I haven't seen the MU episodes yet (and don't care about spoilers), but I remember someone in season 1 saying that the only biological difference between Terrans and prime Humans was a higher sensitivity to light, hence Lorca's eyedrops. And now Terrans are suddenly biologically evil?

Seemlar
Jun 18, 2002
The "Terrans are biologically evil" thing was a lie, and called out as such immediately

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe
Also, even if it was true, it was "revealed" 900 years after Discovery's original timeline. So, they could have chalked it up to having 900 years of additional data on terrans.

At least, the first time I remember hearing about it was when they found New Starfleet HQ. If it came up before, I have forgotten it.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe

nine-gear crow posted:

Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most... stupid.

I heard this in Kirk's voice. And not now-Kirk. I'm talking late-1970s-Kirk. Except instead of stumbling on the word "most" as he fights back a sob, he stumbles on that word as he stifles a little snicker.



socialsecurity posted:

Where was extreme fascism efficient historically?

I don't really have an opinion about this matter, but I've heard this about fascism quite a bit. It's not an uncommon sentiment, so acting like it's patently absurd without bringing up any examples feels a little off.

That said, the reason I'm replying at all is because I seem to remember ST:TOS actually addressing this, unless I'm misremembering. There was an episode, I think, where the Enterprise finds some good new-fashioned Nazis. I'd say Space Nazis, but no, they were Nazis--they just happened to be on a planet in space. Well, other than Earth. Alien Nazis, I guess. And at the end of the episode, they find a Starfleet dude who somehow engineered the Nazification of Space Planet, and he did it because he thought that their efficiency was somehow going to help him do... something. Sorry, I forget the details. But I think that Spock also acknowledges that, as a matter of fact, the Nazis may have been bad, but they were efficient.

Anyone else remember this, or do I need to see a brain doctor?

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle




Yvonmukluk posted:

Making her the emperor was a good choice for a shocking reveal back in series one (assuming that's what you're aiming for as a writer), it's just adding her to the crew long-term made it an elephant in the room they couldn't really address. And I think they did that in response to people pointing out they'd completely wasted Michelle Yeoh.

I think I've said earlier in the thread that I think wait Fuller was aiming for was not the actual mirror universe but one where Michael didn't mutiny and Georgiou didn't die - a sort of 'road not taken' - although given how events were presented at the Battle of the Binary Stars I'm not 100% sure how that would have actually played out.

They went to scan an array or something. The ship couldn't scan it so Burnham volunteered to do a spacewalk and promised to be quick because of radiation or something. Burnham hosed up her spacewalk and landed on the klingon ship. Then she stayed on the ship long enough for the torchbearer to come out and defend in in honourable 1v1 combat. He died, leading to the crazy klingon cultists sending out the bat signal to all klingons that their holy whatever was under attack. Other klingons come. Burnham checks with her dad to see how Vulcans manage the klingons, he says they attacked all the time until the klingons asked for peace. So she tells G to attack, G says gently caress no. Burnham commits mutiny but fails. More klingons show up. There is a dumb battle, G is killed and her ship destroyed. More importantly, krafty klingons learn about the crazy cultists cloaking device and pretend to join the crusade to get their hands on that technology. Cloaking devices become widespread in the klingon fleets, putting the Federation at a huge disadvantage in the war.

So, what could she have done differently?

1. Not go solo into the weird radiation to get a closer look. or
2. Make it a quick check like she said, if she isn't pushing her luck she doesn't crash into the cloaked ship. or
3. Leave as soon as she finds the ship, because she is not prepared for a long solo mission.

The torchbearer doesn't die, the cultists don't send the bat signal, the rest of the klingon empire continues infighting and doesn't get cloaks. Everybody on the Shenzou lives, and there is no war.

There is still the mystery of the array that went down and some weird radiation so maybe someone competent should look into that.

Epicurius
Apr 10, 2010
College Slice

tarlibone posted:

I don't really have an opinion about this matter, but I've heard this about fascism quite a bit. It's not an uncommon sentiment, so acting like it's patently absurd without bringing up any examples feels a little off.

That said, the reason I'm replying at all is because I seem to remember ST:TOS actually addressing this, unless I'm misremembering. There was an episode, I think, where the Enterprise finds some good new-fashioned Nazis. I'd say Space Nazis, but no, they were Nazis--they just happened to be on a planet in space. Well, other than Earth. Alien Nazis, I guess. And at the end of the episode, they find a Starfleet dude who somehow engineered the Nazification of Space Planet, and he did it because he thought that their efficiency was somehow going to help him do... something. Sorry, I forget the details. But I think that Spock also acknowledges that, as a matter of fact, the Nazis may have been bad, but they were efficient.

Anyone else remember this, or do I need to see a brain doctor?

That's the episode Patterns of Force. In the 1960s, a lot of historians did think that the Nazi government had been efficient. It was a common belief at the time, and that was what the episode was referring to. They rebuilt Germany! They almost conquered the world! Then starting in the late 70s-early 80s, there was a newer group of historians who actually looked at German governmental and power structures under the Nazis and realized that wasn't true....that the Nazi government was extremely inefficient and incompetent. The most recent really good book about this, and one you should read if the topic interests you at all, is Adam Tooze's 2006 "The Wages of Destruction", where Tooze shows that the Nazis, by abandoning traditional economic policies, destroyed the German economy, which was only being kept alive by invading other countries, taking them over, and living off the theft of their economies, and so they couldn't really stop without destroying themselves.

Anyway, Nazi efficiency is s a myth that was debunked about 40 years ago.

skasion
Feb 13, 2012

Why don't you perform zazen, facing a wall?

tarlibone posted:

I heard this in Kirk's voice. And not now-Kirk. I'm talking late-1970s-Kirk. Except instead of stumbling on the word "most" as he fights back a sob, he stumbles on that word as he stifles a little snicker.


I don't really have an opinion about this matter, but I've heard this about fascism quite a bit. It's not an uncommon sentiment, so acting like it's patently absurd without bringing up any examples feels a little off.

That said, the reason I'm replying at all is because I seem to remember ST:TOS actually addressing this, unless I'm misremembering. There was an episode, I think, where the Enterprise finds some good new-fashioned Nazis. I'd say Space Nazis, but no, they were Nazis--they just happened to be on a planet in space. Well, other than Earth. Alien Nazis, I guess. And at the end of the episode, they find a Starfleet dude who somehow engineered the Nazification of Space Planet, and he did it because he thought that their efficiency was somehow going to help him do... something. Sorry, I forget the details. But I think that Spock also acknowledges that, as a matter of fact, the Nazis may have been bad, but they were efficient.

Anyone else remember this, or do I need to see a brain doctor?

Yeah that’s in TOS. That kind of “he made the trains run on time” argument was common in older pop history about the Nazis.

tarlibone
Aug 1, 2014
Fun Shoe

Epicurius posted:

That's the episode Patterns of Force. In the 1960s, a lot of historians did think that the Nazi government had been efficient. It was a common belief at the time, and that was what the episode was referring to. They rebuilt Germany! They almost conquered the world! Then starting in the late 70s-early 80s, there was a newer group of historians who actually looked at German governmental and power structures under the Nazis and realized that wasn't true....that the Nazi government was extremely inefficient and incompetent. The most recent really good book about this, and one you should read if the topic interests you at all, is Adam Tooze's 2006 "The Wages of Destruction", where Tooze shows that the Nazis, by abandoning traditional economic policies, destroyed the German economy, which was only being kept alive by invading other countries, taking them over, and living off the theft of their economies, and so they couldn't really stop without destroying themselves.

Anyway, Nazi efficiency is s a myth that was debunked about 40 years ago.

Fair enough. Like I said, I don't have an opinion on it one way or the other because it's just something I've heard more than once, but it's not a topic that I've given any thought to. Personally, "Nazis are bad because evil" is good enough for me; when someone tries the whole "but Volkswagen and Autobahn!" thing, I just go "counterpoint: genocide and MORE GENOCIDE." But, I might check that book out. I've apparently been around long enough to have heard a lot of stragglers who have hung on to the whole "fascism is efficient" myth for too long.

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle




Epicurius posted:

That's the episode Patterns of Force. In the 1960s, a lot of historians did think that the Nazi government had been efficient. It was a common belief at the time, and that was what the episode was referring to. They rebuilt Germany! They almost conquered the world! Then starting in the late 70s-early 80s, there was a newer group of historians who actually looked at German governmental and power structures under the Nazis and realized that wasn't true....that the Nazi government was extremely inefficient and incompetent. The most recent really good book about this, and one you should read if the topic interests you at all, is Adam Tooze's 2006 "The Wages of Destruction", where Tooze shows that the Nazis, by abandoning traditional economic policies, destroyed the German economy, which was only being kept alive by invading other countries, taking them over, and living off the theft of their economies, and so they couldn't really stop without destroying themselves.

Anyway, Nazi efficiency is s a myth that was debunked about 40 years ago.

There was also the thing where the Nazis stopped paying reparations from WW1. I'm no historymancer, but back in high school in the 80s they said the terms of the WW1 peace treaty were so awful for Germany that they would have still been paying it off (in the 80s). That would give them a bit of a boost vs. the previous government. Just tear up treaties.

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?


Facebook Aunt posted:

There was also the thing where the Nazis stopped paying reparations from WW1. I'm no historymancer, but back in high school in the 80s they said the terms of the WW1 peace treaty were so awful for Germany that they would have still been paying it off (in the 80s). That would give them a bit of a boost vs. the previous government. Just tear up treaties.

They also had to resume payments after the war and made the last WW1 reparations payment October 3rd, 2010. And that was with a big balance forgiveness.

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle




Grand Fromage posted:

They also had to resume payments after the war and made the last WW1 reparations payment October 3rd, 2010. And that was with a big balance forgiveness.

Rude. When I tear up a treaty I expect it to stay torn up!

twistedmentat
Nov 21, 2003

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

Grand Fromage posted:

Good lord you're not exaggerating I've spent eleven years posting about Romans. Christ. I only got to teach my Roman history course for a year.

Hahah, I had no idea. And It was more directed at everyone not just you. I'm sure you can understand why the Terrans would go all Roman for a lot of their theming.


tarlibone posted:

Fair enough. Like I said, I don't have an opinion on it one way or the other because it's just something I've heard more than once, but it's not a topic that I've given any thought to. Personally, "Nazis are bad because evil" is good enough for me; when someone tries the whole "but Volkswagen and Autobahn!" thing, I just go "counterpoint: genocide and MORE GENOCIDE." But, I might check that book out. I've apparently been around long enough to have heard a lot of stragglers who have hung on to the whole "fascism is efficient" myth for too long.

In the last period of the war, the Nazis stepped up exterminators because they believed that if they could just kill enough jews, romas and gays, the war would magically be won for them. Resources that could have been used elsewhere were diverted into the camps. My favorite anecdote about how wackadoodle the Nazis were was the Einsatzgruppen would go in, clear out Jewish villages in Poland and Russia, and just find a bunch of poor farmers and tradespeople. Like everywhere else. But rather than thinking "maybe all this stuff about Jews hoarding wealth and having massive treasures is wrong" they figured that the Jewish populations had just hidden it so well that they couldn't find it.

Facebook Aunt posted:

There was also the thing where the Nazis stopped paying reparations from WW1. I'm no historymancer, but back in high school in the 80s they said the terms of the WW1 peace treaty were so awful for Germany that they would have still been paying it off (in the 80s). That would give them a bit of a boost vs. the previous government. Just tear up treaties.

Everyone argued against that, but French President George Clemansau wanted revenge for the Franco-Prussian war so insisted on incredibly harsh punishment for the war. Also the Franco-Prussian war was not started by Germany, but France, so basically he was salty they lost a war they started. Even The Main Klan Man himself Woodrow Wilson thought this was not the best idea. Which is why after WW2 the Allies helped rebuild the Axis rather than just letting them deal with it themselves. Also to stop the commies.

That makes me wonder, if LDS went to Nazi Planet, I wonder what they'd find there. All the swastika's have "Do not obey stickers" on them?

SpeakSlow
May 17, 2004

by Fluffdaddy

Taear posted:

The bajorans and the marquis are different, are you trolling

No troll. Accidentally conflated the two due to the Cardassian connection. Saw most of the episodes on original runs and haven't gone back through since. (*it's a full screen issue with me as I can't stand the side bars). Maquis were considered traitors by Starfleet and terrorists by the Cardassians.

Bajoran Resistance were just terrorists, mostly unaffiliated with either in a major way until events in DS9.

Specifically, taken from the book of DS9 S5 E11: "The Darkness And The Light"
Kira: "None of you belonged on Bajor. It wasn't your world. For fifty years you raped our planet, and you killed our people. You lived on our land and you took the food out of our mouths, and I don't care whether you held a phaser in your hand or you ironed shirts for a living. You were all guilty and you were all legitimate targets!"
Prin: "And that's what makes you a murderer. Indiscriminate killing... no sense of morality... no thought given to the consequences of your action. That's what makes us different."
Kira: "I was a soldier. You're just a bitter old man out for revenge."
Prin: "I am bringing the guilty to justice. And unlike you, I take care to protect the innocent."

That is, unless there is a greater value placed on Cardassian innocents than there were on Bajoran innocents.

SpeakSlow fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Dec 19, 2020

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?


twistedmentat posted:

Hahah, I had no idea. And It was more directed at everyone not just you. I'm sure you can understand why the Terrans would go all Roman for a lot of their theming.

Oh sure, they'd hardly be the first empire to do Roman cosplay. But there was the Latin, and IIRC there's EU stuff about the MU that basically said it was that way because the Roman Empire survived and conquered the whole world in that universe. Terran cartoon villainy being associated with being Roman is what makes my teeth hurt.

Though not as bad as the stroke I had from a twitter moron earlier posting about how Romans all lived in miniature versions of the Colosseum.

SpeakSlow
May 17, 2004

by Fluffdaddy

Facebook Aunt posted:

(excellent recap)
There is still the mystery of the array that went down and some weird radiation so maybe someone competent should look into that.

iirc, the cultists fiddled with the array to goad a confrontation on the Beacon.

Yeah, here it is from Memory Alpha:
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/T%27Kuvma
"Seeking to provoke a general confrontation with the Federation, in 2256 he (T'Kuvma) placed the Beacon of Kahless in a binary star system near the edge of Federation space, and disabled the interstellar relay there to attract the attention of Starfleet. The USS Shenzhou was dispatched to investigate, and the first officer, Commander Michael Burnham, made a space walk to investigate the Beacon. While there she was attacked by T'Kuvma's Torchbearer, Rejac, whom she killed in self-defense. T'Kuvma proclaimed Rejac a martyr and named Voq the new Torchbearer. (DIS: "The Vulcan Hello")"

well why not
Feb 10, 2009




Grand Fromage posted:


Though not as bad as the stroke I had from a twitter moron earlier posting about how Romans all lived in miniature versions of the Colosseum.

This is true though

twistedmentat
Nov 21, 2003

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

Grand Fromage posted:

Oh sure, they'd hardly be the first empire to do Roman cosplay. But there was the Latin, and IIRC there's EU stuff about the MU that basically said it was that way because the Roman Empire survived and conquered the whole world in that universe. Terran cartoon villainy being associated with being Roman is what makes my teeth hurt.

Though not as bad as the stroke I had from a twitter moron earlier posting about how Romans all lived in miniature versions of the Colosseum.

That hurts my brain, plush traditional Roman houses are amazing.



If I was a millionaire i'd totally have a house built like that.

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

twistedmentat posted:

That hurts my brain, plush traditional Roman houses are amazing.



If I was a millionaire i'd totally have a house built like that.

You can have a house like built like that now if you're a millionaire.

Deathreaper
Mar 27, 2010
Boy does this show really love to pump up Burnham's tires, and it's really one of the things that makes it feel out of place as Trek - this week's episode felt particularly intense in that regard, back to the usual cry and feels fest. Was really hoping for the season to keep on track with the seed ship episode in terms of tone.

HD DAD
Jan 13, 2010

Generic white guy.

Toilet Rascal
I like Discovery, but lmao at the fact that it’s now taken two seasons of methodical scrubbing to remove the stains that first season left on the show.

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle




SpeakSlow posted:

iirc, the cultists fiddled with the array to goad a confrontation on the Beacon.

Yeah, here it is from Memory Alpha:
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/T%27Kuvma
"Seeking to provoke a general confrontation with the Federation, in 2256 he (T'Kuvma) placed the Beacon of Kahless in a binary star system near the edge of Federation space, and disabled the interstellar relay there to attract the attention of Starfleet. The USS Shenzhou was dispatched to investigate, and the first officer, Commander Michael Burnham, made a space walk to investigate the Beacon. While there she was attacked by T'Kuvma's Torchbearer, Rejac, whom she killed in self-defense. T'Kuvma proclaimed Rejac a martyr and named Voq the new Torchbearer. (DIS: "The Vulcan Hello")"

Yeah it was a trap, and Burnham walked right into it. I can't see Picard or Sisko or Janeway crashing headfirst into the trap quite that badly. It isn't like the brain trust on the klingon ship were especially cunning strategists -- they were literally kooky cultists the rest of the empire had written off.

sbaldrick
Jul 19, 2006
Driven by Hate

Facebook Aunt posted:

They went to scan an array or something. The ship couldn't scan it so Burnham volunteered to do a spacewalk and promised to be quick because of radiation or something. Burnham hosed up her spacewalk and landed on the klingon ship. Then she stayed on the ship long enough for the torchbearer to come out and defend in in honourable 1v1 combat. He died, leading to the crazy klingon cultists sending out the bat signal to all klingons that their holy whatever was under attack. Other klingons come. Burnham checks with her dad to see how Vulcans manage the klingons, he says they attacked all the time until the klingons asked for peace. So she tells G to attack, G says gently caress no. Burnham commits mutiny but fails. More klingons show up. There is a dumb battle, G is killed and her ship destroyed. More importantly, krafty klingons learn about the crazy cultists cloaking device and pretend to join the crusade to get their hands on that technology. Cloaking devices become widespread in the klingon fleets, putting the Federation at a huge disadvantage in the war.

So, what could she have done differently?

1. Not go solo into the weird radiation to get a closer look. or
2. Make it a quick check like she said, if she isn't pushing her luck she doesn't crash into the cloaked ship. or
3. Leave as soon as she finds the ship, because she is not prepared for a long solo mission.

The torchbearer doesn't die, the cultists don't send the bat signal, the rest of the klingon empire continues infighting and doesn't get cloaks. Everybody on the Shenzou lives, and there is no war.

There is still the mystery of the array that went down and some weird radiation so maybe someone competent should look into that.

G not being willing to attack on the word of the Vulcan Ambassador made me turn off discovery and not watch till season 2 (I’ve seen watch season 1). If the Vulcan Ambassador says the only way to deal with Kilingon is strength then maybe take his advice idiots.

Lord Krangdar
Oct 24, 2007

These are the secrets of death we teach.

Facebook Aunt posted:

Other klingons come. Burnham checks with her dad to see how Vulcans manage the klingons, he says they attacked all the time until the klingons asked for peace. So she tells G to attack, G says gently caress no.

I thought the idea was attacking first would actually seen as a sign of respect or respectability, in Klingon culture? Since cowardice is what Klingons claim to loathe most.

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle




Lord Krangdar posted:

I thought the idea was attacking first would actually seen as a sign of respect or respectability, in Klingon culture? Since cowardice is what Klingons claim to loathe most.

That may be true. Riker still didn't do a mutiny if he thought Picard was making a dumb call. That's not the first officer's job.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMKtKNZw4Bo

some kinda jackal
Feb 25, 2003

 
 
This MU bullshit makes me feel like I’m in an agonizer booth.

Drink-Mix Man
Mar 4, 2003

You are an odd fellow, but I must say... you throw a swell shindig.

Deathreaper posted:

Boy does this show really love to pump up Burnham's tires, and it's really one of the things that makes it feel out of place as Trek - this week's episode felt particularly intense in that regard, back to the usual cry and feels fest. Was really hoping for the season to keep on track with the seed ship episode in terms of tone.

Same.

I was more or less a Burhman defender in first couple seasons. People were making this complaint back then too, but I didn't really have a problem with it because the show seemed to really want to be about her self-discovery. But now the story is supposed to have a larger focus and they're not really advancing Burnham's story at all, so now all the "you're so special" stuff just feels tacked on.

Drink-Mix Man fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Dec 19, 2020

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

sbaldrick posted:

G not being willing to attack on the word of the Vulcan Ambassador made me turn off discovery and not watch till season 2 (I’ve seen watch season 1). If the Vulcan Ambassador says the only way to deal with Kilingon is strength then maybe take his advice idiots.

No that's not the takeaway you are supposed to have. In fact Sarek explicitly warns her in the conversation that the solution was context specific and in particular muses that if the Klingons are rallying around a single leader then they might be looking for a war.

Michael is really really dumb and while she's stopped before her actions can cause the war, her plan would absolutely not have worked.

e: I don't mind a Star Trek shows that focusses on just one character, but that character has to actually be the hero the show claims they are. Michael is an awful person and an awful officer.

Verviticus
Mar 13, 2006

I'm just a total piece of shit and I'm not sure why I keep posting on this site. Christ, I have spent years with idiots giving me bad advice about online dating and haven't noticed that the thread I'm in selects for people that can't talk to people worth a damn.
yknow it strikes me as even more annoying that georgiou is such a lovely worthless character because star trek has literally had an extremely evil person who was a consequence of their upbringing slowly redeem themselves into polite society while still maintaining their ability to be a murderous freak in garak. the difference is, his evil past is kept obscured long enough that hes perceived as a regular with a shady backstory and then once its revealed he was actually a fascist psycho, its tempered with the revelation that his circumstances were exceptional, that he does have a conscience and to an extent he does the 'right' thing enough times that hes a bad guy the audience can sympathize with

even lorca follows this path to an extent until the switch flips. if they wanted to redeem a freak they really should have chosen him, both a better character and (maybe this is controversial, im sorry) better actor

FlamingLiberal
Jan 18, 2009

Would you like to play a game?



also with Garak you at least get the impression that he was a good person who ended up in a violent line of work that really hosed him up, not to mention his daddy issues

well why not
Feb 10, 2009




His daddy issues meaning that he was a daddy w/ issues

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

The nuance of Garak is that he isn't a bad guy, he's a professional intelligence officer who's done plenty of nasty things because it was his job because he was a patriot. He isn't a foil to the rest of the cast because he's 'a fascist psycho', he's a foil because his relentless cynicism is the antipathy of the optimistic attitude we expect from our Star Trek protagonists. Later on as the show gets darker and the main cast start to shift towards Garak's more cynical point of view, he's used to call them out on their inconsistencies. He calls out Bashir for having his James Bond fantasies but flinching at having to do real espionage work. He calls out Sisko for asking him to trick the Romulans into the war while lying to himself that he could do that without getting his hands dirty.

Garek was obviously in service to an evil fascist empire pre-show but I don't think in the show he ever does anything bad for gratuitous or selfish evil reasons. He's just a guy who doesn't have any ideals (until the final season) and firmly believes that the ends justify the means.

Facebook Aunt
Oct 4, 2008

wiggle wiggle




I wouldn't say he has no ideals. He has the classic Cardasian ideal that the individual should serve the State.

Until the State utterly fails, and he has to decide the best way to help his people. That nearly crushes him.

Mokotow
Apr 16, 2012

twistedmentat posted:

That hurts my brain, plush traditional Roman houses are amazing.



If I was a millionaire i'd totally have a house built like that.

You should visit Pompeii some day or go on a virtual tour. These houses scaled all the way to peasant size and there are many great examples still standing.

Bilirubin
Feb 16, 2014

The sanctioned action is to CHUG


Verviticus posted:

at the most fundamental level none of the mirror universe makes sense and its even funnier contrasted with time travel because the idea that "if you travel back in time and wave your arm everything changes" is the exact opposite of the "no matter what happens in the mirror universe, the protagonists antecedents and descendants are immutable"

which is why i like ds9s mirror universe stuff because the actors are all given goofy roles and are having fun with it and they tell a fairly normal story with those thats engaging enough to give fake worf or kira or garak enough space to do their thing. visit it whatever, four times in the series and its not overdone and it doesnt logically completely fall apart

Poor Smiley never catches a break

Marshal Radisic
Oct 9, 2012


I still feel like Diane Duane attempt in the TNG novel Dark Mirror was the best attempt anyone in Trek has ever made in trying to make the Mirror Universe make sense. She attacked the problem from two directions: an immediate sociological one, and a more nebulous philosophical one. In terms of sociology, she depicted the Terran Empire as a ruthlessly expansionist power that saw its primary mission as preserving the human race by spreading it across the cosmos. The short version is that Khan and his ilk won the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s and ran a bunch of little empires for a few decades before destroying one another in more wars. As humanity rebuilt there was a general consensus that if something ever happened to Earth that would be it for the species, so humanity needed to seek out and claim the stars as fast as possible. Humanity went out, reducing some species to slavery, destroying those who were too alien to negotiate or who don't understand what the Empire wants, and always claiming their worlds and filling them up with more colonists afterwards. By the 24th century "expand or die" has been the ruling ethos of the Terran Empire for so long that no one even thinks to question it any more. Indeed, the great irony of Duane's Terran Empire is that what threatens their domain is not some outside aggressor but the consequences of their own ethos. Not only has the Empire grown so much that warp drive isn't fast enough to traverse it in a reasonable time anymore, they are also starting to discover vast starless drifts of space between their local spiral arm (based on a dodgy interpretation of galactic structure from the 1990s, alas) in which there are no more worlds to conquer.

As for the philosophical approach, that comes when Picard ends up in his mirror counterpart's quarters and starts flipping though his books. He ends up thumbing though The Merchant of Venice in a Shakespeare collection, but is horrified to discover the scene where Portia argues for Shylock to show mercy on Antonio has been replaced with one where she argues that "the quality of mercy must be earned" and that Shylock deserves his pound of flesh from Antonio. Picard looks through more plays and different authors, going all the way back to The Illiad and finds that moments of kindness, compassion, charity, and humility have been replaced with celebrations of callousness, cruelty, and authoritarian utilitarianism. Picard theorizes that long ago, probably before the beginning of recorded human history, something happened on the Mirror Earth that began a "long, relentless moral inversion" that crept on and grew over the centuries like a glacier over the hearts of men, and the Terran Empire is just the final fullest flowering of this evil.

Of course, the ultimate problem with the MU is that it's taking a great idea for standalone episode of TOS - how would Kirk and his crew express themselves in a world with much different moral parameters - but when DS9 returned to the well they tried to make the MU a place with its own consistent history while also preserving it as a mirror for the main characters on DS9, and it always feels like an awkward mashup of two different concepts. Some of what DS9 did wasn't bad, but every time we go back to the MU everyone is just a hammy cartoon and I can't honestly anything would be lost if we never visited the drat place again.

(Oh, and I wanted to mention that about two-thirds of the way through Dark Mirror Picard discovers to his horror that his counterpart had Jack Crusher killed and forced Beverly Crusher to serve as his "captain's woman" as well as his CMO, which is way darker and disturbing than anything DSC has done.)

Marshal Radisic fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Dec 20, 2020

Verviticus
Mar 13, 2006

I'm just a total piece of shit and I'm not sure why I keep posting on this site. Christ, I have spent years with idiots giving me bad advice about online dating and haven't noticed that the thread I'm in selects for people that can't talk to people worth a damn.

Alchenar posted:

The nuance of Garak is that he isn't a bad guy, he's a professional intelligence officer who's done plenty of nasty things because it was his job because he was a patriot. He isn't a foil to the rest of the cast because he's 'a fascist psycho', he's a foil because his relentless cynicism is the antipathy of the optimistic attitude we expect from our Star Trek protagonists. Later on as the show gets darker and the main cast start to shift towards Garak's more cynical point of view, he's used to call them out on their inconsistencies. He calls out Bashir for having his James Bond fantasies but flinching at having to do real espionage work. He calls out Sisko for asking him to trick the Romulans into the war while lying to himself that he could do that without getting his hands dirty.

Garek was obviously in service to an evil fascist empire pre-show but I don't think in the show he ever does anything bad for gratuitous or selfish evil reasons. He's just a guy who doesn't have any ideals (until the final season) and firmly believes that the ends justify the means.

even tain remarks that garak's enthusiasm for interrogating/torturing someone had to be restrained under circumstances. he is or was a pretty evil person overall, we're just not privy to that until later and the part of garak that we do see is with years of exposure to trustworthy paragons from starfleet constantly influencing him

he literally tries to kill both o'brien and the entire holodeck staff by turning it off exclusively to save his own life! bashir shoots him with that dinky little pistol to get him to stop. just because he's chipper and well-spoken when he does these things doesn't mean that he isnt evil

the ds9 writing staff obviously recognized - unlike the discovery writing staff - that you cant make someone a truly capricious, gleeful sadist and also a sympathetic character, so they made garak's crimes have purpose (service to the state) and a certain style that we dont immediately recognize as completely psychotic, and also for the most part they just don't show them. him torturing odo was clearly a departure in the right direction from his previous approach to interrogating bajorans or cardassian dissidents and it was already pretty loving uncomfortable

Verviticus fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Dec 20, 2020

Erulisse
Feb 12, 2019

A bad poster trying to get better.
The MU 'arc' is a waste of screentime. Well, at least they are consistent with wasting screentime by filming discovery instead of more lower decks.

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Carbon dioxide
Oct 9, 2012

Facebook Aunt posted:

That may be true. Riker still didn't do a mutiny if he thought Picard was making a dumb call. That's not the first officer's job.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMKtKNZw4Bo

Just try to imagine a conversation like that but between Saru and Burnham.

Times like this, I miss TNG.

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