An Observation About diversity on Discovery, 32nd Century

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Discovery' started by Dryson, Jan 28, 2021.

  1. nic3636

    nic3636 Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2021
    My broader point was that I've liked how Trek has historically tackled serious issues are relevant in the real world. I used stories about bigotry in general as an example of this broader point. Now we are talking about something even more specific, violence against LGBTQ, with the implication that I want to see this on Discovery, which is pretty far away from what I was originally trying to say (and not something I was even thinking about until you brought it up). I'm perfectly happy with a story about Odo and the things he has to deal with being a shapeshifter in a world full of solids. The stories can relate to real world issues without being specifically about them (e.g. I don't need a specific story about black racism). It's also not like there's certain type of issues I want to see more than others, anything that has substance to it is fine by me. So for example, I liked Detmer's PTSD arc.

    Your point about people not wanting to see their personal trauma on screen is a valid one, my response point was that other groups (e.g. people with PTSD) may not want their trauma on screen either, but I'm not really interested in advancing this as I assume it would involve rating various traumas on the 1 to 10 scale and then figuring out the threshold of what is acceptable to portray on screen vs. not. You are welcome to do so, but I have nothing to add as I have no objective basis to compare the pain of a mental disorder with the pain of discrimination.
     
  2. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 13, 2001
    Location:
    Earth
    With PTSD the trauma is generally associated with the event that caused it, not seeing someone else go through PTSD. These are generally pretty specific things and certain ones have no business being shown anymore, like suicide which tends to actually trigger suicides when shown.
     
    Gilora and nic3636 like this.
  3. Dryson

    Dryson Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Apr 13, 2014
    We don't see many non-humans in the new Starfleet HQ, could it be possible that all species found their way back to their home planets after the Burn? Or is there something more insidious taking place? Look at how non-humans species have been treated after attacks in the past, such as the Xindi attacking Earth. For many years afterwards, non-humans were treated like they were all lepers.

    Does anyone know how long after the Xindi attack on Earth that non-humans were accepted again as being equals?
     
  4. StarMan

    StarMan Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 5, 2005
    Nothing insidious.

    The most elegant in-universe explanation as to why we see so many humans in an organisation comprised of hundreds of aliens is - we just like to fuck a lot. Probably why Vulcans have looked down their noses at us for centuries, viewing us as a race of promiscuous horn bags that can't keep their hands off one another.

    Why do we see so many humans? There's so damn many of them.

    I'm sure some humans returned to Earth post-Burn, but I doubt the majority of 32nd century humans would view it as home anymore than most of us would view Africa as home.
     
  5. Dryson

    Dryson Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Apr 13, 2014
    There is no elegance in the 32nd century. Everything that has dilithium as part of its components has been laid to waste. There would not be any large scale re-population taking place in the last 125 years either as the resources of the planets that had people on them would need to be strictly controlled after the Burn, otherwise those planets would be like Earth is today.

    So are you saying that Africa would be an alien continent in the 32nd century?
     
  6. Nyotarules

    Nyotarules Vice Admiral Moderator

    Joined:
    Jan 20, 2016
    Location:
    London
    In Trek in universe lots of planets had human looking aliens - the Magna Roman planet, the Nazi planet Ekossians, Zeons, Beta III, Angel one, maybe they all joined the UFP and so look human but are not.
     
  7. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2001
    Location:
    AI Generated Madness
    A week?
     
    StarMan likes this.
  8. Dryson

    Dryson Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Apr 13, 2014
    I think that Earth accepting non-humans took longer than a week after the Xindi attack that killed seven million humans. I think the 32nd century is much the same way. Look at how Burnham handled the Vulcans and Romulans during the incident at Ni’Var. Not very diplomatic, but almost condescending because they were non-humans.
     
    STEPhon IT and cooleddie74 like this.
  9. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2001
    Location:
    AI Generated Madness
    Everything was Jake by the end of season four.
     
  10. cooleddie74

    cooleddie74 Fleet Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2001
    Location:
    The Warped Sector of the Demented Quadrant
    In Trek Beta Canon weren't the Centaurans of the Alpha Centauri sector - the actual humanlike natives of that region that at one point were conjectured to include Zefram Cochrane - almost completely indistinguishable from Earth humans? I seem to remember them being a founding member of the Federation in Beta Canon and the most like Earth in appearance.
     
  11. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2001
    Location:
    AI Generated Madness
    Yeah, something like that. I think one story had them as transplanted Greeks or something.
    Watching TNG right now. The aliens in the episode look like humans with a birthmark on their heads. They did that a lot. :lol:
     
  12. StarMan

    StarMan Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jul 5, 2005
    Humans originated on the African continent. I'm saying 32nd century humans may view Earth in a similar vein (as opposed to identifying with it as home).
     
  13. nic3636

    nic3636 Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2021
    Yeah, besides the obvious budgetary reasons they did that I believe there was also an in-universe explanation. In one of the episodes in TNG there was an ancient alien race that seeded most of the galaxy with a similar genetic code. I might be mis-remembering but I think that was an implied explanation why there are so many aliens that look like humans.
     
  14. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2001
    Location:
    AI Generated Madness
    Not just the ones that looked exactly like humans, but the ones with bumpy foreheads, spots and odd shaped ears, noses and what have you.
     
    fireproof78 likes this.
  15. Shaka Zulu

    Shaka Zulu Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Mar 28, 2013
    Location:
    Bulawayo Military Krral
    A good thing to focus on would be if the production can find enough registered actors of color to play said background roles in episodes before just saying (or implying) that they didn't try hard enough to find any.
     
  16. Dryson

    Dryson Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Apr 13, 2014
    Would that mean that there are alien races for each human skin color and non-human, alike, seeding the galaxy with genetic material or did the ancient aliens seed the galaxy with genetic material that built life from the best DNA material that could be found on each planet?
     
  17. nic3636

    nic3636 Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2021
    It's been a while since I saw that episode but I don't think it went into that much detail.
     
  18. Serveaux

    Serveaux Fleet Admiral Premium Member

    Joined:
    Dec 30, 2013
    Location:
    Among the sellers.
    That's never anything but an excuse, for laziness at the very least. It's entirely a matter of how much importance they place on it.
     
  19. DEWLine

    DEWLine Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Apr 27, 2003
    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    And this is part of why Bryan Fuller wanted and got CBS and Netflix and whoever else to agree to filming in Toronto: because the talent base is there. In all the human colours.
     
    Serveaux likes this.
  20. Shaka Zulu

    Shaka Zulu Commodore Commodore

    Joined:
    Mar 28, 2013
    Location:
    Bulawayo Military Krral
    No, it is a factor, as much as and like what happened when that episode of Deep Space Nine focusing on Bashir's Augment status had the production staff scrambling to find an actress of the right ethnicity to play his mom (they had to settle for a woman who was a visiting college professor-and not an actress-to play the role just for this episode.) Having non-actors be in a show or movie is a thing that can get actor's equity organizations pissed off (this happened when the production staff of Star Trek: The Motion Picture used non-actors [including David Gerrold] in the scene where Kirk assembles the crew to see what Vejur was up to.) It might not be as bad in this instance, but incidents like that are not fun to go through.
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2021