Spoilers First season 2 spy pic!
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
- Start date
We've seen plenty of examples of the darker side of the Federation. How many times has someone been racist against Spock / Data / alien of the week? How many evil admirals have there been, motivated by their own xenophobic biases? John Gill and Merik literally created or joined fascist, dictatorial societies so that they could lead it. In STiD, Marcus was going to kill every single person on board the Enterprise without a second thought, just so he could satiate his prejudice and enact genocide.
All it takes is for someone like that to coerce a following and grab power. Without "going there", let's just say that recent events on 21st century Earth have shown us that "it can't happen here" can very quickly be shown to be false. The 23rd and 24th centuries are no different. People haven't changed in thousands of years. They won't change in a few hundred more.
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The fundamental premise of Star Trek is that it is different, that the Federation has come further in overcoming humanity's pathologies than we have in our time. Yes, it's been acknowledged in "The Drumhead," DS9, and elsewhere that it's capable of backsliding. I just don't think it would be that easy, that any random guy raised in the Federation -- let alone in the same family as Jean-Luc Picard -- would plausibly be so evil and screwed-up as to go there, or would be able to erase all that progress within a single lifetime. Maybe you could sell me on the idea that Picard's grandnephew or great-grandnephew could become a dictator, but not his nephew.
The problem with glib appeals to unchanging "human nature" is that human nature includes everything from Gandhi to Hitler. We have the potential to go either way, and our upbringing and environment can encourage us to develop in one way or the other. So the balance can be shifted by the circumstances of society, by how people are raised and educated and treated and what opportunities they're given. That's what Sisko meant by "It's easy to be a saint in paradise." Federation upbringing encourages the best in people and teaches them to manage and overcome their darker sides.
All this is why I always loved Quark's comments to Nog in Siege of AR-558:
The First Contact story in the first book of the Man-Kzin Wars also falls along a similar philosophy.
Truer words were never elsewhere said about the realities of human nature on Star Trek.
The First Contact story in the first book of the Man-Kzin Wars also falls along a similar philosophy.
A pretty sweet one, but I'm more interested in that caption involving dope. Who needs dope when meth, quaaludes, or poppers are said to be more fun?
Yes, but Quark's words support what I'm saying -- that it's a question of context and upbringing. A human raised in hardship could turn out badly, sure. We've seen humans on fringe colonies go bad, like Kodos or the more ruthless Maquis. I'm talking about the probability that someone raised on nigh-paradisical 24th-century Earth, someone coming from a near-identical background to Picard himself, could turn out so monumentally worse than Picard did. That kind of pathology doesn't just randomly happen regardless of context.
Are we talking about the same Federation that tried to throw Seven of Nine out an airlock?
"You are hypocritical, manipulative. We do not want to be what you are." -- Seven of Nine, The Gift
Yep, the same Federation that tried to permanently deactivate and study Data in Measure of a Man; in effect, murdering him.
Certainly not the Paragon of Galactic Virtue it would like its neighbors and citizenry to believe.
Certainly not the Paragon of Galactic Virtue it would like its neighbors and citizenry to believe.
Yes, obviously the Federation is imperfect. I have acknowledged that already. But there is a huge gap between "imperfect" and "random fascist dictatorship popping up out of nowhere."
Of course...that's really saying something.
* Hitler's father was a civil servant.
* The 9/11 hijackers were all children of the elite (almost all of them were college-educated and had advanced engineering degrees).
One need not come from a disadvantaged background to be attracted to radical ideas (The January 6th rioters were primarily wealthy and upper middle-class -- CEOs, professionals, business owners, retired & active duty police/military, etc. One woman from Texas went so far as to charter a JET to attend the gathering/riot!)
One person's Paradise is another person's living Hell. It's simply a matter of perspective.
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I just truly hope it’s something a little more deeply thought out than yet another contrived Orange Man Bad shallow allegory.Of course...that's really saying something.
I'm calling...the Romulan evacuation happened successfully, and the Romulans took over the Federation, or merged with them in a way that involved meeting in the middle, fundamentally altering the Federation.
Ooh, I like that! And it fits with the Tal Shiar-looking uniforms people seem to be wearing. That would be a lot more interesting than Starfleet turning into another gaggle of space Nazi’s in an alternate timeline. That would just be some tired old shit right there.
Good way to bring back Commodore Oh and Narissa (her loyal Lieutenant -- pun intended).
(Disco just had the two actresses who played Airiam -- Sarah Mitich and Hannah Cheeseman -- sharing the same stage together in the mirror universe. Mitich played Mirror Nilsson and Cheeseman played non-augmented Mirror Airiam.)
Cheeseman is front row, second from left:
(ETA: It's late and I should be in bed.
)
It was good to see the lady underneath the latex.
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I could mention third season DSC stuff, but I won't.
Let's just say I think a different faction of the Romulans, besides the Romulan Free State, might consider joining the Federation. So it would be a fusion of the Federation and the Anti-Free State Romulans versus the Romulan Free State.
Which might or might not have to do with that flag. I figured it might also just be a particular planet's flag for a Federation world. States, commonwealths, and territories within the United States also all have their own flag in addition to the national flag.
Let's just say I think a different faction of the Romulans, besides the Romulan Free State, might consider joining the Federation. So it would be a fusion of the Federation and the Anti-Free State Romulans versus the Romulan Free State.
Which might or might not have to do with that flag. I figured it might also just be a particular planet's flag for a Federation world. States, commonwealths, and territories within the United States also all have their own flag in addition to the national flag.
Picard continues to lament about what he should have done and how the Romulan evacuation could have turned out and Q says “oh really?” He snaps his fingers and Picard and crew find themselves in a fascist Federation influenced by Romulans with Sela at the helm.
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Now ya lost me!
Getting Denise Crosby back ... that WOULD be a coup!
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