Free Illyrians!!! Free the Augments!!!...

[Ferengi Prime 5]

You know Star Trek promotes bigotry. Yes, it does, against people who augment their genetics to be the best person or species they can be. It is an irrational fear because of one specie , one planet , and one fear from a war fought hundreds of years earlier by this earth specie's. It has brought great harm to other species and peoples through-out the Federation and codified this bigotry into Federation laws.

Illyrains a peaceful people, who use genetic augmentation to adapt themselves to the worlds they colonize. Adapting oneself to living peacefully on another world is much better than terraforming worlds to ones will. It makes more sense for the people and the world they want to live on to use augmentation. Illyrian's and their use of augmentation are now outcast in the Federation even thou they have never harmed another species but face persecution for their beliefs, instead.

Here is the Bigotry: Free Illyrains... Free the Augments... Replace the words genetic augmentation with a race, religious, sex, species and so on in the paragraph below... It is ethnocentric language in Federation law...

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Illyrian

Due to the ban on genetic augmentations in the United Federation of Planets, in the 23rd century, they were considered outcasts in the Federation. Illyrians could not join the Federation or Starfleet, and there was a directive against mixing Human and Illyrian blood. The Federation also banned the use of any Illyrian medical technology. (SNW: "Ghosts of Illyria")

The Federation needs to end this irrational earth fear over genetic augmentation and free the Federation people to be all they can be...

 

[O'Dib]

The Federation is about promoting fair play on a scale of eons. A technoutopia that values the natural processes of mindless evolution? That is truly a society in balance. Illyrians aren't a marginalized Federation minority, they're free to do as they want in their own polities.

 

[Tuskin38]

the Illyrians aren't even federation members.

 

[Ferengi Prime 5]

the Illyrians aren't even federation members.

They not allowed to join because their species values and use of genetic augmentation and Federation law make the second class citizens...

 

[O'Dib]

No, not citizens.

 

[oberth]

They not allowed to join because their species values and use of genetic augmentation and Federation law make the second class citizens...

some sort of aliens - you are either a federation citizen or you are not

 

[fireproof78]

They not allowed to join because their species values and use of genetic augmentation and Federation law make the second class citizens...

If they can't join they can't be citizens.

 

[Ferengi Prime 5]

No, not citizens.

True but that not the point... The point is they would make great Federation world but they have to change their culture to please Earthlings irrational fears over genetics...

The film Gattaca was predicting future America correctly and the use of Genetic Augmentation...

 

[Ferengi Prime 5]

The Federation is about promoting fair play on a scale of eons. A technoutopia that values the natural processes of mindless evolution? That is truly a society in balance. Illyrians aren't a marginalized Federation minority, they're free to do as they want in their own polities.

I disagree they can not do anything within the Federation because of their gene tech. It is bigotry... Can you justify the Federation position in genetic augmentation...

 

[Nerys Myk]

It's an irrational fear and has always been presented as such.

 

[fireproof78]

It's an irrational fear and has always been presented as such.

Yup.

 

[Tuskin38]

There's DS9 episodes that cover this very subject of it being unfair.

Julian wanted to change things IIRC.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Listen, equality is important. If you had a race that was three times as strong and three times as smart as humans , what was next, pointy ears?

What about psychic powers?

They'd be immense dangers to us all!

 

[Mudd]

I can do without the "Federation promotes bigotry OMG!!!" histrionics, but Ferengi Prime 5 is essentially correct. It would be nice to see SNW take this on, next season. The genetic ban is tone-deaf.

 

[Charles Phipps]

I can do without the "Federation promotes bigotry OMG!!!" histrionics, but Ferengi Prime 5 is essentially correct. It would be nice to see SNW take this on, next season. The genetic ban is tone-deaf.

Is it? I mean it makes perfect sense for the Federation and setting. There's also no attempt to argue it's moral.

I mean, its just like the Prime Directive, it's a law that exists that looks good on paper but is actually fundamentally evil.

As the Prime Directive is an overcompensation for colonialism, so is this for eugenics.

 

[C.E. Evans]

It's an irrational fear and has always been presented as such.

The problem is a lack of context. We're simply told that genetic augmentation is illegal with real no explanation why except that it likely stems from Earth's Eugenics Wars.

Sadly, it's a non-canon Khan comic book miniseries that provides the best case I've seen why Earth has a total ban on augmentation. The Eugenics Wars were depicted as perhaps one of the darkest times in Human history, starting off with multiple nuclear strikes from Khan and his peers to seize over forty nations and to put the fear of God into the rest. Now putting that non-canon book aside, onscreen Trek has really glossed over the Eugenics Wars and how bad it must have been for Earth to still have a ban on augmentation centuries later. We've been told in passing dialogue in various episodes that anywhere between 30 to 40 million people died and that it put Humanity into a new dark age that lasted for decades, but that sill kind of leaves it up to viewers to conclude that Earth would rather totally ban augmentation indefinitely than even risk having another Eugenics Wars.

To be fair, though, Star Trek Into Darkness did show us what just one pissed-off Augment could do to San Francisco...

 

[Campe]

My belief is that it’s the intent for the tone-deaf-ness of Starfleet and the Federation here. I have absolutely no idea how they’ll get Una out of this but I imagine it’ll involve some speechifying. If they get her out of it at all. We have no idea what happens to Number One. She may end up staying in prison.

 

[Mudd]

The problem is a lack of context. We're simply told that genetic augmentation is illegal with real no explanation why except that it likely stems from Earth's Eugenics Wars.

Sadly, it's a non-canon Khan comic book miniseries that provides the best case I've seen why Earth has a total ban on augmentation. The Eugenics Wars were depicted as perhaps one of the darkest times in Human history, starting off with multiple nuclear strikes from Khan and his peers to seize over forty nations and to put the fear of God into the rest. Now putting that non-canon book aside, onscreen Trek has really glossed over the Eugenics Wars and how bad it must have been for Earth to still have a ban on augmentation centuries later. We've been told in passing dialogue in various episodes that anywhere between 30 to 40 million people died and that it put Humanity into a new dark age that lasted for decades, but that sill kind of leaves it up to viewers to conclude that Earth would rather totally ban augmentation indefinitely than even risk having another Eugenics Wars.

To be fair, though, Star Trek Into Darkness did show us what just one pissed-off Augment could do to San Francisco...

It's not just Earth that's banned it. It's the Federation.

This strains credulity, in addition to being inhumane on its face.

 

[shapeshifter]

In story, the context is Space Seed and WoK.

To me the message was, they tried to do the right thing, let the Genetic Manipulation Genie out of the bottle and it literally bit them in the ass, multiple times.

So now they are all... Uh-uh. Nope. Never again. Leaving any good to come from it, like addressing congenital diseases or deformities, out in the cold.

So that's "canon", but I hope DISC revisits the issue in the far future, breaks the ban and does story's examining how lives are improved when properly handled.

 

[Charles Phipps]

The problem is a lack of context. We're simply told that genetic augmentation is illegal with real no explanation why except that it likely stems from Earth's Eugenics Wars.

I mean, we don't need an answer because eugenics has a horrifying history on Earth in RL.

The Federation is found on ideology not practicality and the ideology is not that transhumanism is impractical, it is transhumanism is EVIL.

Which I think fans need to think about when they wonder why so many Federation folk react with visceral disgust.