Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1x03 - "Ghosts of Illyria"

[DaveyNY]

Heh ... Ask on any street in America and I'd bet 3/4 of the folks you run into can't name the last four presidents, never mind who the important leaders were during WW II.


I learned about the 1921 Tulsa event in High School, but it was on my own, from my prodigious reading of books from the library.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

And next you're going to tell me everyone in the U.S. follows politics and the news very closely. Most honestly do not. The other fallacy is that everyone reads Twitter and Facebook or even care about politics in general.

I'm just saying the majority of people in the U.S. aren't as involved in following all this as you think they are.

You'd be surprised by what the masses don't know WRT history.

Lol. No one has to be an expert on anything in order to know about Hitler, and it's silly that you're assuming they do. How many people do you know personally that would actually respond, "WHO???" if the name Hitler was mentioned. As in, "Who's that???" Saying that the only people who know of Hitler are bigtime history buffs is simply incorrect.

 

[Noname Given]

Lol. No one has to be an expert on anything in order to know about Hitler, and it's silly that you're assuming they do. How many people do you know personally that would actually respond, "WHO???" if the name Hitler was mentioned. As in, "Who's that???" Saying that the only people who know of Hitler are bigtime history buffs is simply incorrect.

I'll just end with this and agree to disagree in that:

No, the majority of the U.S. isn't interested in politics or history, and now 80+ years after WWI; the majority who don't vote and never went to college or finished High School don't know much of what you would consider even recent history. They don't care and they really don't pay much attention to something unless it really affects them directly.

I didn't used to believe what I'm saying above was the case either; but yeah, the more I've had to interact with these type of people over the years, I now believe it.

 

[Belz...]

Lol. No one has to be an expert on anything in order to know about Hitler, and it's silly that you're assuming they do. How many people do you know personally that would actually respond, "WHO???" if the name Hitler was mentioned. As in, "Who's that???" Saying that the only people who know of Hitler are bigtime history buffs is simply incorrect.

It might be unintentional, but "the masses" is very condescending.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

I'll just end with this and agree to disagree in that:

No, the majority of the U.S. isn't interested in politics or history, and now 80+ years after WWI; the majority who don't vote and never went to college or finished High School don't know much of what you would consider even recent history. They don't care and they really don't pay much attention to something unless it really affects them directly.

I didn't used to believe what I'm saying above was the case either; but yeah, the more I've had to interact with these type of people over the years, I now believe it.

I get what you're saying, and historical amnesia is a real thing, for sure. But I work with kids, and many of them latch onto every good-vs-evil story they hear - which isn't only for storytelling but is also how some [oversimply] understand the world at that age. With learning about Hitler, that's such a clear example of pure evil that it sticks with them well into their teen years, adult years and beyond. It's not some random politician or historical date that gets forgotten after taking an exam. So even though I can sympathize in your skepticism of certain things, people don't easily forget such a clear example of evil.

It might be unintentional, but "the masses" is very condescending.

Huh?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It might be unintentional, but "the masses" is very condescending.

EXTREMELY condescending.

Huh?

Because it's arrogant. It implies that the person using the word is the only smart one, and everyone else - the poor, unwashed masses - isn't.

See also words like "woke" (I'm awake, everyone else is asleep) and "sheeple".

 

[cooleddie74]

I went back and took a closer look at the Hemmer dummy and Una's stunt double from the transporter room scene of this episode and, Man, it is so much worse than I first thought and remembered. That is almost TOS-level stunt double visibility there.

 

[Kevman7987]

La'an is mad people don't like augments. Did she forget that every time we see them they try to commit genocide or try to betray the Federation to the Dominion?

 

[Nerys Myk]

La'an is mad people don't like augments. Did she forget that every time we see them they try to commit genocide or try to betray the Federation to the Dominion?

How can she remember things that haven’t happened yet?

 

[cooleddie74]

Or that happened 230 years before she was born. Hearing stories is one thing. Remembering actual events is another.

 

[iarann]

How many people do you know personally that would actually respond, "WHO???" if the name Hitler was mentioned.

I'll do you one better: has anyone here ever met anyone over the age of say 16 who had never heard of Hitler? All these comments about how people on the street don't know anything, but I've honest never met an adult person in my life who didn't at least have a vague idea of who Hitler was.

I'll just end with this and agree to disagree in that:

No, the majority of the U.S. isn't interested in politics or history, and now 80+ years after WWI; the majority who don't vote and never went to college or finished High School don't know much of what you would consider even recent history. They don't care and they really don't pay much attention to something unless it really affects them directly.

I didn't used to believe what I'm saying above was the case either; but yeah, the more I've had to interact with these type of people over the years, I now believe it.

"These type of people"? Seriously? How many people, high school graduates or not, have you honestly met who don't have at least a vague idea of who Hitler was?

 

[Tuskin38]

So the slight ridges on one of the Illyrian children was a reference to the Enterprise species
https://twitter.com/timothypeel1/status/1528824781121982467?s=21&t=h1XdkDy4GFocYLyuAT7lsg

 

[Belz...]

La'an is mad people don't like augments. Did she forget that every time we see them they try to commit genocide or try to betray the Federation to the Dominion?

She probably doesn't watch Star Trek.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

La'an is mad people don't like augments. Did she forget that every time we see them they try to commit genocide or try to betray the Federation to the Dominion?

Actually La'an doesn't like augments any more than the rest of them do. Her problem was getting bullied because of her name.

 

[Sci]

Also, most here follow politics and the political news to some degree - but in all honesty the majority of the general population really doesn't. They may read the occasional scandalous headline, but the majority of the people in the U.S. aren't interested.

You can tell that by the number of people who actually bother to vote even in the U.S. Presidential elections. In general the HIGHEST turnouts was in 2020 with 68%; but in general, turnout is considered 'high' (in the U.S. when you get to around 50% - and for any other non-Presidential election the turnouts are much lower.

I think it's really important to bear in mind that "don't follow politics" is actually not quite the same thing as "not interested." In my experience, a lot of people feel completely alienated from the political process because they (often correctly) believe that their voices are not heard or valued by the political class. Combine that with the general stress of trying to survive in the world, hold down your job, and/or raise your family. Combine that with very common feelings of confusion over how government works due to inadequate education -- I'm knocking doors a lot right now for two candidates for the Maryland General Assembly, and a lot of people do not understand the differences between Congress and state legislatures, or if they do they don't know what the different issues each one covers. (Lack of newsmedia coverage of state and local politics doesn't help.) You end up with a recipe for a lot of people staying away from politics and not voting, not because they don't care but because they feel ignored and overwhelmed.

Which is not to say that there aren't people who don't care. Clearly there are. But the number of non-voters encompasses more than just people who don't care, and I don't think anyone has yet figured out how to parse out and measure the apathetic from the alienated and overwhelmed within that cohort yet.

I don’t agree: Hitler is MUCH more famous than Hirohito (and Tojo isn’t famous at all). Everyone knows, at least superficially, what hitler stood for an how he looked, not that many know who Hirohito was and even fewer among those would recognise a photo of him.

Just bear in mind that knowledge of what Hitler stood for is somewhat more common in the West than in the East. I was recently listening to a podcast series about the rise of Hindu nationalism in India, and it talked about how there's a lot of ignorance of Hitler's antisemitism in India and a lot of people who just think of Hitler as a strong leader for his country without a lot of info on the Holocaust and the totalitarianism.

So the slight ridges on one of the Illyrian children was a reference to the Enterprise species
https://twitter.com/timothypeel1/status/1528824781121982467?s=21&t=h1XdkDy4GFocYLyuAT7lsg

Roger that. I still think the ridges are dissimilar enough that people who want to interpret them as separate species can reasonably do so, but this does at least seem to establish that the authorial intent is that they're the same species and thus Una is an alien.

(Which, again, raises the question of why the Talosians didn't realize she was an alien when they abducted her and tried to pair her with Pike...!)

 

[jackoverfull]

Just bear in mind that knowledge of what Hitler stood for is somewhat more common in the West than in the East. I was recently listening to a podcast series about the rise of Hindu nationalism in India, and it talked about how there's a lot of ignorance of Hitler's antisemitism in India and a lot of people who just think of Hitler as a strong leader for his country without a lot of info on the Holocaust and the totalitarianism

this is a very good point.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

Because the Talosians are not gods/infallible and the Illyrians are masters at what they do.
If they want to adapt someone to blend in with humans, that’s what they do.

 

[DaveyNY]

So the slight ridges on one of the Illyrian children was a reference to the Enterprise species
https://twitter.com/timothypeel1/status/1528824781121982467?s=21&t=h1XdkDy4GFocYLyuAT7lsg

Geee ... I wonder who actually postulated and described this back several pages in this very thread ....
(post #605)
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/sta...hosts-of-illyria.311400/page-31#post-14155639

Because it's arrogant. It implies that the person using the word is the only smart one, and everyone else - the poor, unwashed masses - isn't.

Somehow I think the Statue of Liberty would disagree ...

"...Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...,"

 

[Belz...]

Different contexts have different meanings.

 

[Nyotarules]

La'an is mad people don't like augments. Did she forget that every time we see them they try to commit genocide or try to betray the Federation to the Dominion?

Because the few we saw on the screen (ENT, TOS, TWOK) represented the total Augment population? Talk about stereotyping, or maybe they expected her to try and take over the UFP!

(Which, again, raises the question of why the Talosians didn't realize she was an alien when they abducted her and tried to pair her with Pike...!)

Well they did not even figure out how to fix her human body properly, so they are not as clever as they want others to believe.
(powerful telepaths, terrible doctors)