Spoilers Let’s talk about the destruction of Trek utopia…

The most depressing thing about Earth or the Federation in PIC is Raffi's lifestyle and the conditions of her existence, but those could be her own self-destructiveness and choice and not something Earth society imposed on her. Humans throughout Trek have the choice to be constructive or self-destructive.

 

Of course.

 

This did show a pattern about Starfleet and the Federation not learning from past miss-steps when it came to emerging new forms of life; first it was Data, later the concept of holographic rights and later again android rights.

When they repurposed the EMH Mark I's Starfleet didn't see them as anything else but a tool, a sophisticated piece of software definitely but a tool none the less. The only crew who treated an EMH as more than his programming was Voyager and that was down to their unique situation. The Enterprise E EMH was likely amongst those miners, the only other time we know of his use was when Crusher used him as a doorstop to distract the Borg.

Even the EMH's own creator seemed to think of them as just lines of code at the end of the day, whether that was down to the reaction the original program got which having patterned it on himself must have been a blow to his ego.

I got the impression that the androids seen on Mars was again considered a tool, again a sophisticated highly advanced form of AI but still just a tool and not sentient.

Juarti said something along the lines of "no one has come close to recreating the science behind Data" which implies to me that while the Androids are advanced they were not sentient.

This does lead to other questions though, are the Rios holos sentient or do they just seem so as they appear have distinct personalities or do these persona's just come from Rios' mind scan where his engineer has a pass of a Scottish accent because Rios links engineering with a legendary Scotsman but can't actually do a Scottish accent himself so again its just clever programming?

 

Someone (or some device) in Earth society were making these substances availible to facilitate her destruction.

Where was society when she needed help?

 

Giving her a perfectly decent house with free energy, free wifi, food replicators, free medical care and however much psychiatric help she herself was willing to accept (which was obviously none), perhaps.

 

That was more my impression was that Raffi was not willing to trust the system and deliberately kept herself out of it.

 

I don't think she asked for help.

She was sure (and later proven right) that there was a conspiracy inside of the Federation/Starfleet.
She was trying to stay away from society.

 

Where it is now. Letting people make their own life choices.

Like a truly enlightened society usually does.

 

I was most depressed by the Fox News style "journalist" and rise of Federation xenophobia and isolationism and AI bigotry. All squarely in the Federation.

 

Well, Picard was angry at all of it too, so he's on your side. On our side. (looks around) Well, the sides of some of us.

Like it or not, that's one of the issues of the day. Something Star Trek tackles sometimes. When everyone has free speech, and everyone "has the right to be an asshole" to paraphrase Ghostbusters II, I see media outlets -- including the news -- getting worse, not better.

The reverse of that is censorship, moderation, and people complaining about free speech being curtailed and free press being curtailed, even though what they really mean is they don't like not being able to mouth off, not being able to entrap people their questions, or not being able to twist someone else's answers into their spin machine. It's not going to go away in 400 years, because we've unintentionally set up an environment that allows it to flourish.

I personally would love it all Comments Sections were done away with and there was an Editor who decided what would be seen by the public and what would be deleted. So we'd actually have some standards again. That way, people would be required to put some thought into their positions before the public sees it. But I don't see that happening either. The complaint will be "You're editorializing free speech to fit your soap box!"

And the "news", such as it is, will continue to fragment and it will continue to tailor itself to people's biases in their pursuit of trying to hear only what they want to hear and depending on those outlets to be told what to think.

 

I find nothing depressing about freedom of speech. It's actions that concern me. And the actions of the Federation were never shown to be right in the show...ever. So, I can't find it depressing when we are literally told they are wrong and being manipulated in some manner.

Just like in Insurrection, inter Arma Enim Silent Leges, Homefront/Paradise Lost, The Undiscovered Country, among others. The Federation not willing to recognize the wrong and not reversing course would be depressing. That wasn't the case here.

 

100% agreed. Also, as has been repeatedly pointed out, a very strong argument can be made that the Federation's position on AI in Picard is ultimately less problematic than before. Especially by the end of the show, but even in regards to the ban itself there is no evidence they did anything to actual ai as there's no evidence the synths in use at that point were actually self-aware and we have no idea what the status of holograms and other artificial life was during that period. It's entirely possible the only bad things that came from the ban were Maddox being driven underground (but that was his choice) and the cure for that one disease being no longer possible. Which is not exactly horrible in comparison to Measure of a Man and Author, Author.

And as has also been pointed out, one newsperson being a jerk does not Fox News make. And the reporter was nowhere near as much of a jerk as any number of Federation officials from prior shows. I'd rather deal with her than that jackass from the Trouble with Tribbles.

 

Except he wasn't introduced. He never appears! He's not only dead, but he's long dead. I cannot emphasize this enough: Thaddeus Riker is not a character; he is a plot device. Just like Will's mom and Deanna's dad.

Thad is a plot device introduced to facilitate this thematic element: Will, Deanna, and Kestra have learned to continue finding happiness and love in their lives beyond grief. Because that's so muc of what PIC is about -- finding life after grief and loss.

Nothing else on television gives you Sir Patrick Stewart reaching his emotional catharsis as he confronts and accepts his own mortality and finally moves on from his grief over his ersatz son's death. "That's why we're here -- to save each other."

DS9 establishes pretty firmly that, at least in terms of material wealth, every mainstream Federation world exists in a state of abundance. "A Simple Investigation" features a woman talking about how her homeworld "isn't like a Federation world where everything is given to you."

The only Federation worlds that don't seem to exist in a state of economic abundance are the barely-developed colony worlds we always see at the frontier.

I see no contradiction there. I generally don't like the tendency to ascribe broad traits to entire species in ST, but let's say the Andorians are passionate and violent -- what if they just really like boxing or competitive sports? These are things that can be channeled in a socially productive way.

Was the utopian future in the Federation, or was the utopian future onboard the Enterprise? Because TNG certainly depicted the Federation engaging in a lot of abuses of power for a utopia.

I want to be very careful about this, because far too often "its their own choices" is used as an excuse for judging, and ignoring the needs of, people in real life who live in poverty and need a better welfare system. But, yeah, in the broader context of what ST has established about the distribution of material wealth in the Federation and on Earth, it makes more sense to assume that Raffi is living as she does out of personal choice.

Also, she's not exactly living in destitute misery. That mobile house looks like it's safe and provides adequate shelter from the elements. There's no indication of any pest infestations like roaches or wildlife. There's no indication that she's in any danger from other people. There is no canonical evidence that she's living in poverty or unable to afford to meet her needs. There's no indication that she's malnourished or is unable to obtain medical care. She seems to be able to get her hands on some recreational drugs. Her mental health obviously isn't great, but that's clearly a result of her personal choices. And no one is hassling her for living next to an iconic rock formation. Ultimately I'd say that the United Earth welfare system doesn't look like it's failing her.

And that same U.E. welfare system seems to have set up the unemployed 22-year-old college grad Dahj with a very nice apartment in a major metropolitan area that would go for over $2,000/month in real life today, with no indication that she has to pay for it or for the food she obtains from its replicator.

Hard to say. You would think that the Synth Ban would preclude the presence of sentient holograms aboard La Sirena, but there again it's possible that those holograms weren't obtained legally (what with La Sirena being an illegally unregistered ship and all). Their scene puzzling out Rios's behavior with Raffi establishes a level of cognitive reasoning that implies sentience.

 

Exactly. F8 in that episode didn't feel as advanced as Data, heck didn't even feel as a advanced as B4 or even a hologram. There didn't seem to be any real intelligence in there.

Dialogue implied the holograms were a standard feature of the ship class.

 

Well, the grief and loss parts certainly came through...

Patrick Stewart's a great actor, but he's not nearly enough to save this dreck for me.

I'd still say in the Federation, with abuses of power added in the show for TV drama purposes. The odd admiral losing their marbles doesn't change the fact that Billions (trillions?) are living safe and free with free food, shelter, medical care, education, etc. across untold worlds and starbases.

I haven't read it yet, but from what I've gathered from other BBS members postings about it, didn't the first Picard novel say the Mars synths were specifically designed as non-sentient/sapient machines?

 

The show itself all but proved they were.

 

Sentient?

 

I never got the impression the Mars synths were sentient, just conditioned to respond in certain ways to their humanoid superiors and interact like, say, a modern AI system in a video game.

 

That's how I understood it. She chose to be a hermit and live (relatively) primitively.