Spinning off from this thread about Vulcans, I'm curious who everyone thinks best represents humanity in Star Trek?
I'm still thinking on my answer.
I'm still thinking on my answer.
Humans
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
Okay, decided. It was hard, since everyone I ran through had a deal breaker. Kirk was a bit of a creep in a few episodes; Picard would let innocents die to uphold the Prime Directive; Sisko used chemical weapons on innocents; McCoy moaned constantly; Archer was an idiot etc.
I chose Seven of Nine.
We saw her entire journey. She's flawed and she makes mistakes, but always learns from them and strives to improve. She always strives to help others. And she overcomes all the crap and health issues the galaxy can throw at her head-on. Wins my Best Star Trek Human award.
I chose Seven of Nine.
We saw her entire journey. She's flawed and she makes mistakes, but always learns from them and strives to improve. She always strives to help others. And she overcomes all the crap and health issues the galaxy can throw at her head-on. Wins my Best Star Trek Human award.
Thing is ... Humanity is not underrepresented in STAR TREK. In fact, most aliens have Human-envy and strive to attain their own Human-ness. Even Barclay, for all of his shortcomings, was given by design what the rest of the Galaxy desperately hopes it can achieve.
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This is so subjective. Some of the traits that some, even most, might consider "bad" are traits that some others, including myself, might consider "good."
For example: Dr. Russell in TNG's Ethics is a brilliant, driven researcher who achieves amazing results. Her talents combine cutting-edge, outside-the-box medical theory and its surgical implementation. She is clearly supposed to be reviled by the audience for her abandonment of medical ethics when the opportunity presents itself. I find myself torn about her, though, and notice that it's not as if she runs Dr. Frankenstein's House of Horrors--she uses those who are already dying for her research and, in Worf's case, someone who, although emotionally distraught, IS in his right mind and DOES give permission for an experimental procedure, the second of which is something that is done in the real world.
For some reason, though, my mind comes back to Admiral Ross. Not sure why--maybe because he is very likable? That alone shouldn't be enough.
For example: Dr. Russell in TNG's Ethics is a brilliant, driven researcher who achieves amazing results. Her talents combine cutting-edge, outside-the-box medical theory and its surgical implementation. She is clearly supposed to be reviled by the audience for her abandonment of medical ethics when the opportunity presents itself. I find myself torn about her, though, and notice that it's not as if she runs Dr. Frankenstein's House of Horrors--she uses those who are already dying for her research and, in Worf's case, someone who, although emotionally distraught, IS in his right mind and DOES give permission for an experimental procedure, the second of which is something that is done in the real world.
For some reason, though, my mind comes back to Admiral Ross. Not sure why--maybe because he is very likable? That alone shouldn't be enough.
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If you are looking for someone perfect. Well all of the completely human characters in all of the Trek programs have some flaws, just like all we humans do. Like Vandervecken said, it's all subjective.
That being said, I think Uhura would be a good choice. She's brilliant at her chosen profession, she's compassionate.
Edited to add: The only negative thing I can think of at the moment is she joined in with the snide comments about the Klingons after the dinner party in Undiscovered Country. I'm not saying that's the only instance, but it's the only one that comes to mind at the moment.
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I think O'Brien comes closest to being the everyman-Human-in-Trek character. But there's no right or wrong answer here - there are a lot of sets of criteria one could go off of, and in some cases arguments could even be made for characters who aren't human at all being the most... :choke: human...
Best as in most accurate, or best as in most flattering?
I know a couple of philosophy professors that could turn this into a college course. 
Quark.
Yeah, I know you meant 'Most positive example of a human', not 'Most accurate human' (Which goes to Quark).
Real answer, being a great human doesn't mean you never do anything wrong or don't have any failings. Being a great human marries empathy and rationality, and means identifying your failures and growing. Based on that, Kirk.
Real answer, being a great human doesn't mean you never do anything wrong or don't have any failings. Being a great human marries empathy and rationality, and means identifying your failures and growing. Based on that, Kirk.
... Bring it.Perhaps, then, we should start similar threads for species like Species 1-1-6 ?
You see Paris as a Mary Sue? He's far from idealized and isn't really praised a lot by the crew. I thought Wesley was universally accepted as Trek's Mary Sue.
I would think that Seven would be more likely to be classified as a Mary Sue. How many times has she saved the day with her vast storehouse of Borg knowledge or her nanoprobes? Or been immune to something that was affecting the rest of the crew because she was a former Borg.
But he can do just about everything! Sci-fi Debris has a running joke about all the things Tom Paris can do that are not his job.
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If we go by Soval's definition of humans, Trip fits this to a T. He's the most emotional person on board yet he's also very disciplined. I'm sure that if you were to tell T'Pol in the beginning that everyone would later worry about him overworking himself, she would have thought you were crazy. Trip is a very complex character and it would take a very long post to get a complete picture. But he embodies all the contradictions of humanity.
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