Spoilers Strange New Worlds 1x01 - "Strange New Worlds"
- Thread starter Mudd
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And I'm just starting to realise that I might live to see just how accurate those clothes were.
I think you have to pass the holocaust solstice for that.
Only if you believe the future is set. There is no future but what we make for ourselves.
Yes but that's a bit misleading. It's like saying I have enough bullets to kill everyone ten times, but in war a LOT of those bullets are going to get wasted or not kill their optimal number of targets. Same with nukes. I think the "killing all life X times over" is more about their capacity, not necessarily how many would die if they were are flung on a small number of cities. Not sure about this, though.
Which was an important realization for Pike’s character to have in this episode. It was one of the best parts of the episode.
Agreed. I enjoy serial storytelling but it doesn't work well for Star Trek in my opinion.
It's a pretty explicit theme throughout the season. Not only does T'Kuvma start his war against the Federation by asserting that Federation diversity is a threat to Klingon purity, but then Mirror-Lorca tries to convince Michael to defect to his faction in the Terran Empire by claiming that she must realize that multiculturalism is doomed to fail and only racist authoritarianism can survive.
Section 31's lawlessness and authoritarianism make it inherently an ideological threat to Federation values.
I mean, the season culminates in Picard showing Sojii that the androids and organics don't have to live in fear of one-another to survive and the UFP rescinding its ban on synthetic lifeforms. So I'm not sure how much more of a lesson it could have been.
Again: DIS and PIC test and challenge Trek philosophy, and ultimately depict it as triumphant.
I mean, I wasn't referring to and don't particularly care about whether or not the blasts directly kill everything. I was as much referring to the subsequent environmental damage caused by so many nukes as anything else. It's not like we'll be any less dead if we die from starvation because no one can grow crops anymore rather than being incinerated at ground zero of a nuclear blast.
That was one of several period clips featured in Pike's presentation. The next clip is very possibly a progressive protest featuring a "No Justice No Peace" sign. That follows some more scenes from the Jan 6th protest and then general scenes of disorder with riot troops marching in smoke and finally one with what might be a car lit on fire and people throwing molotovs (BLM or related protest?).
Within the logic of the story I would suspect it to have been the result of query "computer, give me half a dozen clips of civil violence during pre-WW3/EugenicsWars/Civil War 2" or something to that effect.
Further Pike's framing around these images is
There is no effort there to point to any 'side' upon which to lay blame. It is a succinct general statement about a particular time period (albeit the single most defining one for humanity, obviously). Moreover, Pike's discourse is about getting beyond blaming and hating each other to prevent a catastrophe - I doubt that within that context he'd be looking to say something like "Now all you have to do is make sure to ostracize/imprison/exterminate all the people that are <insert political persuasion here> and you'll be set"
I'm quite pleasantly surprised that the production chose to go that way - they could have easily done what you suggest and strongly tie it to how some people perceive the present - I think that would have been in direct contradiction to the message that was being conveyed through the Pike character.
I'm really glad they didn't.
Again I must stress that I've only seen DSC once so far. However, they don't defeat the Klingons through their diversity. They do so by sticking to their principles, canceling the mission and then putting one Klingon's finger on the button to keep a balance of power. As for the Terran empire... again they don't quite "defeat" it. They kind of just leave. Not saying that's bad storytelling, but I'm not sure that Trek's philosophy gets challenged in that second case.
Again, is that interpretation or is it explicit? Because we can read quite a few things in fiction, but it doesn't mean that it's an actual theme or lesson to be taken away from the series. Season 2's a bit of a mess, though.
I meant for the Federation, not the principal casts of the show.
Doesn't look like it. Spock and Pike have their conversation in the turbolift before Enterprise leaves spacedock.
Warp's just faster than it was in the 1960s.
So, I'm watching it again.
So, their "principles" included supporting the installation of a dictatorship where one person ruled through the threat of being able to annihilate millions (at least) of her own people if they rebelled.
Which is fine if you think both sides are at fault in some way. But if one side is willing to compromise and one isn't, then Pike's message is clearly not aimed at both sides.
Sure they do. Their willingness to unite as one crew consisting of many different cultures after having started the series at odds with one-another due to both personal and cultural differences is the key to them being able to do everything else they accomplish.
Sure they do. They destroy the ISS Charon and the threat it represented to both universes, overthrow the Terran Emperor, and prevent the ascension of Lorca. They don't conquer the Empire or anything, but it's certainly a defeat for the Terrans.
I mean, both DS9 and DIS were pretty explicit in depicting Section 31 as abusive and authoritarian, so I'm not sure how much more explicit it can get when they follow that up with literally depicting Control as being blowback from Section 31's actions.
I mean, Picard literally exposes the Zhat Vash conspiracy and proves to the Federation that they were wrong to fear synths. Again, not sure how much more explicit it could have gotten.
Sure beats genocide.
Sci, Burham just decided not to follow through with the mission.
Yes, it's a victory for them, but again the Empire wasn't ever a threat to the Federation or its principles, nor was there ever a lure for the cast.
Given what they almost summoned it doesn't seem like they were wrong at all, but whatever.
Almost like it's encouraging self reflection?
Dropping an atomic bomb on a Japanese city saves lives, right?
No, that's not an analogy. It's simply the same logic - we're justified in participating in horrific immorality as an alternative to even greater suffering. It may make sense, but it's got nothing to do with "sticking to principles;" it's very nearly the definition of pragmatic decision making.
Michael would not have been in a position to hand power to L'Rell in the first place if the Discovery crew had not overcome their cultural and personal differences to bond and trust each other as a crew.
1) Yes, it's a victory for the characters.
2) The Terran Empire's spore drive tech was explicitly established to be a threat to the fabric of space-time across both the Mirror and Prime Universes. So, no, the Terran Empire was a threat to the Federation.
3) The Terran Empire's principles are the exact opposite of the Federation's. Thematically, the entire MU arc in S1 is about the lure of fascism and why multicultural democracy is superior to fascism.
There was absolutely a lure for the cast. Michael was faced with the prospect of status, power, and having her ersatz mother figure back.
The Coppellian Androids almost summoned the Admonition-Makers because they were facing attempted genocide from the Zhat Vash and persecution from the Federation. And the Zhat Vash were only trying to genocide them because the Zhat Vash were fearful of the Admonition-Makers. It's a vicious chicken-and-egg cycle in which neither side was truly evil and both sides believed sincerely that they were acting to protect themselves and their right to exist from a genocidal threat.
That's what makes PIC S1's assertion of the value of diplomacy so important. PIC S1 isn't saying, "Hey, we can have peace as long as we're all really nice people underneath it all." It's saying, we've all messed up. We've all been wrong, and we've all got good reasons to fear each other, but we can still chose to change and still chose a better path. So I (Picard) am going to be vulnerable to you; I'm going to show you that there is another way, that we can learn to trust each other and earn each other's trust legitimately.
That's what real diplomacy is -- learning to forgive and eventually make friends with your enemies, with people who have genuinely done you wrong. And that's what makes PIC S1's assertion of the moral superiority of diplomacy over war so important.
Well, you do the math. 225,000 people at most versus millions. It's a hard calculation to make but invasion would've been worse, and might've ended with Japan split in twain.
Hmm. Explain the part about "sticking to their principles" again. This is pragmatism.
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