What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Orphalesion]

Author Christopher L. Bennett reconciled this a little bit in his novel The Buried Age. He depicts Data as having had a series of low-prestige Starfleet assignments where his COs and crew members basically avoided him and isolated him out of prejudice. Picard encounters Data and realizes his potential, and encourages Data to assert himself and start being pro-active abouthis career. But that does go a little ways to explaining why Data was so unfamiliar with basic humanoid social situations.

I mean that's pretty much just the logical conclusion. That Data was seen more as a machine and an individual. I could even see a scenario where the Enterprise is the first time where Data got his own quarters rather than being put in some storage closet between his shifts.
Of course that paints a rather bleak picture of his life before Picard where everybody treated him as Pulaski did.

 

[Feltman_Langer]

It surprises me how much religion/ spiritual beliefs are featured at times, I would hope once a civilisation has become warp capable that it would leave all that woo-woo behind along with child labour and rickets!

 

[publiusr]

With FTL like jet travel…no chance.

Religion might be easier to stamp out with slower transits. Had I Musk’s ambition, I might have an AI raise a diverse group of children…and not tell them a damn thing about history, or religion…who did what to whom. A fresh start. When they age and are on life support, they link back to Earth second life style where all is revealed…leaving the new world pristine.

 

[Deks]

Precisely why I didn't like the battle at the of DISCOVERY season 2... too much clutter.

I had no issue with the NUMBER of craft seen... the problem was the combat being fought at such 'spitting distances' when we know that UFP ships have massive weapons ranges.
Its one aspect of Trek I wish we saw more of in older Trek too.

 

[Sci]

If I were Grand High Lord of All Star Trek, I would try to find some excuse to get rid of transporters and holodecks. To my mind, transporters make transportation too easy and opens up too many unexplained doors (e.g., why aren't transporters used as weapons?). Holodecks make the emotional impact of space travel too low for dramatic purposes, and also tend to lead to boring "holodeck malfunction" episodes (that have only ever been done well a couple of times).

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

the problem was the combat being fought at such 'spitting distances'

It's more pegging them in the arse with a Baseball distance then spitting distance.

=D

 

[Deks]

If I were Grand High Lord of All Star Trek, I would try to find some excuse to get rid of transporters and holodecks. To my mind, transporters make transportation too easy and opens up too many unexplained doors (e.g., why aren't transporters used as weapons?). Holodecks make the emotional impact of space travel too low for dramatic purposes, and also tend to lead to boring "holodeck malfunction" episodes (that have only ever been done well a couple of times).

Removing holodecks and transporters from Trek is a bad idea if you ask me.
There's nothing wrong with using those.

If you want to make the emotional impact of space travel higher for dramatic purposes (which I wouldn't recommend because I already don't particularly like Disco for ignoring or handwaving a lot of 24th century tech etc. and dumbing things down for exactly the same reason) you might as well eliminate Warp drive and artificial gravity while you're at it.
Shields and phasers?
Need to get rid of those too I'm afraid... makes space travel too easy. And then what you're left with?
Oh right... the Expanse (and even then that's taking place too far in the future to look 'realistic' because it ALSO doesn't take into account exponential developments and returns in many areas).

A good writer would create a good/great story working WITH established (and even more advanced) technology... its just that genuine attempts at doing so in Trek (and Disco in particular) are relatively sparse I'm afraid.

Bottom line is, as we advance, our technology will soon also make space travel fairly easy and relatively low risk... that's just about the result of progress.

Instead of dumbing down things for the sake of drama, I'd rather we have better designed stories that WORK with the setting and technology in question... even use it to full capacity as a result (and no, just because you use the technology and science to its full potential doesn't mean you 'cheat' - because if that were the case, then you should strip humanity of technology, automatio, logic and reason in real life to make things more 'dramatic').

But seriously, lower tech route isn't the answer.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Take the transporters out of Star Trek, and you don't have Star Trek any more. That's in the same ballpark as taking warp drive out of it. "Beam me up" and "warp speed" are both quintessential Star Trek phrases.

 

[Sci]

Instead of dumbing down things for the sake of drama,

Removing a plot element because it enhances the drama is not "dumbing it down." It's removing an element that makes things too easy for the characters.

I'd rather we have better designed stories that WORK with the setting and technology in question...

Star Trek has been trying to do that that with holodecks for 34 years and transporters for 55 years. It has usually failed. These are plot devices that do not as a general rule lend themselves to good writing. They do, however, make some problems so easy to solve that dramatic stakes are undermined.

A comparison is how powerful you make Superman. If you make him nigh-omnipotent, then no amount of "find a way to write a better story around his powers" will work; the audience will be left with a sense that nothing important is really a stake because Superman's powers will fix the problem. Superman's powers lend themselves to better writing when they are more limited. Same thing with Federation technology.

 

[Unicron]

Let's just say if you're coming to Star Trek for the science: you poor, poor person.

That way lies insanity.

 

[fireproof78]

If I were Grand High Lord of All Star Trek, I would try to find some excuse to get rid of transporters and holodecks. To my mind, transporters make transportation too easy and opens up too many unexplained doors (e.g., why aren't transporters used as weapons?). Holodecks make the emotional impact of space travel too low for dramatic purposes, and also tend to lead to boring "holodeck malfunction" episodes (that have only ever been done well a couple of times).

Holodecks I can agree too but not transporters. I would highly limit transporters, which is something the Kelvin films did a little bit, requiring more direct monitoring by the transporter crewmember than just sliding the controls.

 

[Tim Thomason]

If I were Grand High Lord of All Star Trek, I would try to find some excuse to get rid of transporters and holodecks. To my mind, transporters make transportation too easy and opens up too many unexplained doors (e.g., why aren't transporters used as weapons?). Holodecks make the emotional impact of space travel too low for dramatic purposes, and also tend to lead to boring "holodeck malfunction" episodes (that have only ever been done well a couple of times).

I wouldn't change Star Trek as presented, but a show with those stipulations would probably best fit in as an Enterprise prequel (Birth of Starfleet?) or otherwise be outside of regular Starfleet.

But then, Prodigy might be shaping up to be a transporter/holodeck free series (for the most part).

 

[dupersuper]

Actually, I don't think the Borg are as much ahead of UFP as the Q are ahead of the Borg.

That's what I was saying. The Q are WAAAAAAYYY further beyond the Borg than the Borg are us.

I think in his previous assignments, no one bothered to treat him, truly, like a person. In "The Next Phase", he tells Worf he never had a friend until Geordi... someone who accepted him exactly as he was.

Starfleet: "we're all bigots."

 

[Paul755]

I think in his previous assignments, no one bothered to treat him, truly, like a person. In "The Next Phase", he tells Worf he never had a friend until Geordi... someone who accepted him exactly as he was.

That could definitely explain a lot of his first experiences happening on the Enterprise... no one before really took any time to BE with Data and teach him.

The Geordi connection makes it all the more glaring that he’s not in Picard S1.

If I were Grand High Lord of All Star Trek, I would try to find some excuse to get rid of transporters and holodecks. To my mind, transporters make transportation too easy and opens up too many unexplained doors (e.g., why aren't transporters used as weapons?). Holodecks make the emotional impact of space travel too low for dramatic purposes, and also tend to lead to boring "holodeck malfunction" episodes (that have only ever been done well a couple of times).

holodecks yes, trash them. But keep transporters.

 

[Jay Kid of Wonders]

I guess you could call this my controversial trifecta, one, I don’t like the sovereign class, two I think the nebula class looks way better than the galaxy class, and three, I have no intention of ever watching tng, because I already know I’ll hate it. Keep in mind it’s not like I don’t know what happens or anything like that, I’ve seen countless videos, reviews, and recaps, but I just have no intention of ever actually watching tng.

 

[Jay Kid of Wonders]

I guess you could call this my controversial trifecta, one, I don’t like the sovereign class, two I think the nebula class looks way better than the galaxy class, and three, I have no intention of ever watching tng, because I already know I’ll hate it. Keep in mind it’s not like I don’t know what happens or anything like that, I’ve seen countless videos, reviews, and recaps, but I just have no intention of ever actually watching tng.

I also think tos looks goofy as hell and it only looked decent in the animated series, if it wasn’t for the tmp completely changing the designs I might have just completely written off the original cast.

 

[Jay Kid of Wonders]

I despise how the trill look, for a species with such an interesting concept and culture, regular ass people, but with leopard spots, like seriously? I get having a budget, I get needing to have as little makeup and what ever for long, or action heavy scene, but come on dude!
Well before I ever got into Trek I remember seeing an isolated image of Jadzia Dax, and I though she was like some kind of tribal human my first though was never, oh she’s an alien.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I despise how the trill look, for a species with such an interesting concept and culture, regular ass people, but with leopard spots, like seriously? I get having a budget, I get needing to have as little makeup and what ever for long, or action heavy scene, but come on dude!
Well before I ever got into Trek I remember seeing an isolated image of Jadzia Dax, and I though she was like some kind of tribal human my first though was never, oh she’s an alien.

Well they had bumpy foreheads in TNG before being completely redesigned for DS9 (because Rick Berman wanted Terry Farrell to look her best)

 

[ichab]

I guess you could call this my controversial trifecta, one, I don’t like the sovereign class, two I think the nebula class looks way better than the galaxy class, and three, I have no intention of ever watching tng, because I already know I’ll hate it. Keep in mind it’s not like I don’t know what happens or anything like that, I’ve seen countless videos, reviews, and recaps, but I just have no intention of ever actually watching tng.

I can see why tng would be less appealing to today's audience. The show can be very sterile with lots of talking and very little action. I loved it growing up but looking at it now...yeah. It certainly shows its age.

 

[Unicron]

I think holodecks can be quite useful, although I agree they often wound up being used in a silly manner (especially if the script revolves around holodeck problems). It'd be cool to see them used for other options besides recreation, as there are a number of useful applications.