Free Illyrians!!! Free the Augments!!!...
- Thread starter Ferengi Prime 5
- Start date
I'd put a bet on the Soong Augments in Ent causing the ban to still be in place - especially with the impact on the Klingons.
Had that not happened it is possible that the Fed would have relaxed the rules a bit
And another risk of genetic engineering becoming more widespread is that it could lead to a society like Gattaca, where only the engineered, augmented "elites" have any rights whatsoever, and "normals" are little more than slaves.
Just my two-cents, but personally, I would rephrase that as, "Not the end of the Universe."
That...makes sense.
Well, no. Every single time the Federation's ban on genetic augmentation has been mentioned, it's been depicted as something that is morally ambiguous, not as something that's a clear moral good. Star Trek as a narrative is not endorsing the Federation's ban on genetic augmentation.
Also, you can't be bigoted against a class of people that literally physically cannot yet exist.
I'm very curious if it's a Federation law or a United Earth law. If it's a Federation law, does it apply to non-Humans in the UFP as well? The canon is ambiguous, although SNW seems to imply that it's a Federation-wide thing. Maybe Earth isn't the only Federation Member who had a negative experience with genetic augmentation in their past.
See, here's a problem. You're framing this as though the Illyrians are a marginalized culture within the Federation. But they're not -- they're a foreign state who are free to run their society as they wish. It's fair to say that the Federation is largely bigoted against Illyrians and that that's a bad thing. But when you title a thread "Free the Illyrians!" and say, "Illyrians are outcasts in the Federation," you're implying that they're an oppressed minority within Federation society when in fact they are free and are an entirely external society.
Also, the Prime Directive protects the Illyrians' right to use genetic augmentation within their own society.
Problem with that comparison is, genetic augmentation is by definition a choice, not a natural trait.
Now, that doesn't mean that Augments aren't also an oppressed minority group. But you need to make that argument per se -- you can't just say, "It's the same thing as race or sex."
Even if genetic augmentation ought to be legal, I'm skeptical of the idea that there shouldn't be some level of regulation. In particular, I think concerns about an Augment-dominated society beginning to use non-official means to discriminate against non-Augmented people are just as valid as concerns about Augments like Bashir being unfairly discriminated against.
Okay, you're being unclear when you say "they." How can "they" as in Illyrians be second-class citizens of the UFP if they're not allowed to become UFP citizens in the first place?
If you mean that Augments are second-class citizens in the UFP, then you can make a legit argument there. But while all Illyrians may be Augments, all Augments are not Illyrians.
I think the kerfluffle over whether to call Earth the UFP's "homeworld" or "capital" speaks to a question about how much power and dominance Earth and its culture has over the Federation. Is the UFP a "homo sapiens-only club" as Azetbur once claimed? Are the other Federation worlds just vassals of United Earth? Why should United Earth's ban on genetic engineering carry over onto the rest of the Federation? It's not like Vulcan's ban on showing emotion carries over onto other UFP worlds.
I'm pretty sure it's for lying to Starfleet and concealing her true identity for her entire career.
Well, sort-of. Star Trek is pretty clear these days that the Federation is not a perfect utopia even if it represents real and significant progress over real life. But the Federation bans Illyria from joining because of a choice they have made as a society, not because of "who and what they are" per se. That decision on the Federation's part might be unjust, but it is a reaction to an active choice, not to a natural status.
The Federation did not exist during ENT S1, S2, and S3. We do know from ENT S4 that United Earth had laws against genetic augmentation in the 2150s, but the Suliban Cabal never as far as we know operated in United Earth territory -- we saw them operate in unclaimed space, in Klingon space, and in Tandaran space, but not United Earth space. So it's not like U.E. would have had the legal authority to regulate the Suliban Cabal or its members -- a modern comparison might be like the United States passing laws about what kind of weapons members of, say, the Donetsk People's Republic Army can own.
However, the experience of the Suliban Cabal destabilizing the region for years at a time might have been part of what kept United Earth's fears of genetic augmentation alive, and combined with the actions of Arik Soong's Augments towards the Klingons and the Klingon Augment virus, maybe these events combined to persuade the early UFP to extend United Earth's ban on augmentation to the entire Federation.
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The silliness of the total ban on augmentation is that it is arbitrary and not at all "defined" within the context of why such a ban was put into place in the first place. The Illyrian situation is silly because the people are trying to adapt to their environment, not conquer other people. "Khan" and his crew were designed to be living weapons, weapons designed to force the world into compliance under a single banner. The question I have is under whose authority, and did Khan rebel against his maker before embarking on his power-trip?
In fairness, societies do sometimes pass laws that are arbitrary and not at all defined within the context of why the law was put into place in the first place. ::coughcoughabortionbanscoughcough::
Considering how moral Pike is meant to be, I find it difficult to accept he stayed in an organisation that imprisons his friend and colleague
but in the 'Pike didn't die' episode he made that decision
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Me too, having a galactic society still following the cultural prejudices of 1990's Earth in the 31st century would be ridiculous. (which is why I was not a fan of the idea of the Discovery crew jumping so far into the future)
And yet they allow warmongering, Germans who started two Earth world wars in Starfleet. I think Germans should be banned from Starfleet. For every good German, there is an Adolf Hitler waiting in the wings.
Makes sense...right?
The Illyrians do exist and in an episode in the New Worlds the Illyrians were trying to change their DNA to remove their enhancements. So they can join or become part of the Federation and it cost them their lives being turned into light creatures. You do not want to change you DNA to belong if you are not being persecuted by the Federation bigots...
We know from the New Worlds that even to be the great great grand child of an argument makes you a second class in Federation society... ask Noonien-Sing...
They are outcast for a bunch of them on a planet gave their lives in an attempt to join the Federation by changing their argumentations. The sad thing was Pike and Spook were proud of them for wanting to change their society to be part of Start Fleet. It remind me of the 19th century of the white man going to civilized the savage Indians...
The Illyrians were not making super humans or human weapons only trying to blend into new worlds they want to colonize. You know live with the new natural worlds they find. You know terraforming destroys the natural world of a planet...
I will give you this one...
No more than Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny…or Archie Bunker for that matter. One cannot be bigoted against fictional constructs. It would be like saying I think the Martian Manhunter is inferior because he’s green. It’s absurd.
What, she's not a second class citizen, none of the episodes remotely even implied that. Yes, children bullied her because of her ancestry, but nothing has said the Federation law treats her any differently from the rest of their citizens.
She wouldn't be in Starfleet if was an issue. I'm guessing most if not all of the augmentations were bred out of her family over the generations.
Or, maybe because she is the descendant of Earth citizens, there's grandfather clause or something that lets her live in the Federation.
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Yeah, I don't see the issue besides some laws that require some looking at, and are inconsistently enforced at that.
Now hold on here. When you say, "Star Trek promotes bigotry," that is a metatextual statement. That is not a description of events occurring within the fictional narrative; it is an evaluation of what impact a work of fiction is having on the real world by sending messages to its audience.
But if your support for the claim "Star Trek promotes bigotry" is to cite a fictional group of people who practice something that is physically impossible, then you're not describing Star Trek's impact on the real world. You're describing events within a fictional narrative.
So which is it? Are you saying that Star Trek depicts bigotry, or are you saying that Star Trek promotes bigotry?
Yes, and this is an example of how Star Trek, as a narrative, is not endorsing the Federation's bigotry against Augments. It is depicting it as a bad thing.
This is quite the leap. You're literally just making shit up. "Ghosts of Illyria" was very clear that those colonists tried to remove their enhancements because they wanted to join the Federation but were not under the Federation's rule (and therefore not suffering under the Federation's thumb). There is no evidence whatsoever that the Federation was persecuting them. They were a foreign culture that wanted to join, not an oppressed people.
"Ghosts of Illyria" establishes that La'an was subject to emotional abuse from other children as an open descendant of Khan Noonien Sighn. That's very different from establishing that La'an was a second-class citizen. That is not to say that genetically modified people aren't second-class citizens in the UFP -- I think DS9's "Jack Pack" episodes and "Dr. Bashir, I Presume?" already established that. But "descendants of Khan" is a very different category than "genetically augmented persons" -- and both are different categories than "Illyrians."
Again, you and I would probably agree that the Federation treats genetically augmented persons within its society as second-class citizens. But that's not the same thing as treating Illyrians as second-class citizens, because Illyrians are by definition not Federation citizens -- they are foreign nationals, citizens of a foreign government, members of a foreign society. That foreign society is free and independent of the Federation, and it is not conquered or oppressed or controlled by the Federation.
A change the Federation never asked them to make and which the Federation was never told they were making.
Wow there buddy.
1) At no point were the Illyrians in that colony established to have wanted to join Starfleet. They wanted to join the Federation. Saying they wanted to join Starfleet when they wanted to become a Federation Member would be the equivalent of, to use a modern comparison, claiming the Dutch territory of Aruba wanted to join the United States Navy when they wanted to join the U.S. as a state. (Aruba does not want to join the U.S. as a state -- that's just a modern comparison to illustrate the relationships between these organizations.)
2) I didn't get the impression Pike and Spock were somehow proud of the Illyrian colonists for wanting to change their society per se. They were proud that these Illyrians thought the Federation was a society worth joining, and they were grateful that the Illyrians continued to help them even after losing their mortal bodies, but Pike and Spock also struck me as feeling ambivalent about what the Illyrians ended up suffering and about the Federation's ban on genetic augmentation. They in no way thought of these Illyrians as inferior to Federates or of these Illyrians trying to rid themselves of their augmentations as an unambiguously good thing.
And that is a very strong argument that the Federation's decision to exclude cultures that practice genetic augmentation from Federation Membership is unjust. But, if it is is an unjust decision, it is an unjust decision that the Federation makes on the basis of a choice these societies have made for themselves, not on the basis of "who and what they are."
It does both depicts Vulcan bigoted attitude towards humans. It depicts human bigoted attitude towards arguments.
The Vulcan distain for humans reeks in Enterprise episodes. I am surprised we stated allies with them as time went by and we became a Spacefaring power.
The New Worlds like I have mention Pike and Spoke were proud the Illyrians wanted to change their being to join the Federation even thou it cost them their lives. Think about how much self hate those Illyrians felt to go to such extremes to going the Federation that kind of self hate comes from prosecution...
In New Worlds, when Una confesses her Illyrian heritage to Pike and Pike speaks up for her, She reminds him that even he can go to jail for helping her or showing support. Starfleet way past bigotry. Its on to prosecution if she feared for Pike...
So Star Trek promotes bigotry...
Not in the New World , or Original Star Trek , or Next Generation they all think the bigotry is okay... Deep Space Nine questions it because of the doctor...
No. It shows it as a reality and has done so since it's inception.
Nope.
