What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

Which made it weirder. Sisko was a shipbuilder, a station administrator, and a part time religious icon. Section 31 were elite professional spooks.

 

But Sisko was also one of the few Starfleet captains who was not above getting his hands dirty to serve a greater good. In that respect, he is very much Kirk.

And Sisko did try to convince Vreenak that Dominion was going to after the Romulans at some point.

Whether Garak's entire plan was to blow up his ship from the jump or it was a backup in case the rod was discovered to be a fake, we may never know.



Regarding the plan being a construct of Section 31, I actually don't think they would have been able to do it simply because of Sisko. I say this because it seemed clear that Vreenak would be open to talk an extremely few amount of Starfleet officers. Given his breakdown of Sisko at the airlock, I think he was one of those elite few Vreenak would bother to give the time of day. Basically, the entire plan hinged on whether or not Vreenak would come to the station, and Garak knew enough about the man to realize Sisko was the draw. I don't think Section 31 has anyone on their staff or in their pocket that would have been as effective a draw.

 

While definitely a human thing, many countries have employed concentration camps. And the Nazis weren't even the first to use them!
Concentration camps (in their modern sense) were first employed by the British during the Second Boer War (1899-1902). In fact it is highly likely that Hitler took his inspiration from them - there were many elements of the British Empire which he admired.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War_concentration_camps
https://www2.lib.uct.ac.za/mss/bccd/

 

It wasn't a backup. The bomb clearly had to have been planted while Vreenak was with Sisko, ergo, before anyone knew the fake had been discovered. You could theorize maybe he would only blow it up if the fake were discovered, but if the unexploded bomb were found after Vreenak went home it could've made the Romulans ally with the Dominion instead, so that would've been a terrible plan. Plus Garak made it pretty clear he didn't really expect the fake to pass muster.

 

Many cultures used concentration camps, it's true. Usually, however, their purpose was detainment of enemy personnel. And, I expect others will in the future; they're a cruel reality of war. Hitler used them to kill and cremate 11 million of his own citizens. Let's hope THAT, at least, is a one and done.

 

Great Britain - a democratic society and postwar industrialized power - ran concentration camps in Kenya while it was still a British colony in the 1950s to incarcerate Mau Mau rebels and others deemed in league with or sympathetic to them. Even democracies use concentration camps if it's in their selfish interests.

 

I mean personally I always thought that, for example the Khmer Rouge were pretty similar to what Nazi Germany did, even if it "only" killed 2 million of their own citizens. Or the prison camps in North Korea, that, from what I've read only differ in that they don't have gas chambers.
Really genocide, including of a country's own citizens happened during many parts of history, and is still happening today.

Of course the "Concentration Camps" of Nazi Germany are more correctly called "Death Camps" or "Extermination Camps" since once the 'final solution' was agreed on by the Nazis they were not meant to contain people, they were meant to murder people as efficiently as possible.
I think that is one big factor that makes the Nazis stand out as so monstrous. They ended up not even trying to pretend anymore that their facilities were work or prison camps. They created an industrialized way to kill people they didn't like (one that was extremely agonizing for the victims to boot)
The other reason is probably that both the murderers and the victims were white Europeans living in a place that had been considered "civilized".

To bring that back to the Ferengi. I can totally see them doing, for example, discovering a valuable resource on a plane with a primitive civilization and taking over and working the local population to death mining that resource. I could even see them doing that to a portion of their own population back when they still had nation states. Or exterminating/enslaving a species that interfered with their profit.
As for interstellar wars, considering how long the Ferengi have been in space and how much contact they had with other species (including forming something called the "Ferengi Alliance") I still think it is most likely/realistic that they had interstellar wars. At the very least they would have had proxy wars in situations where they can see a profit for them.

That whole scene remains complete hack writing.

 

There's no way the Ferengi couldn't have had war of some kind. If it breathes, it bleeds. The Ferengi are no different.

I mean, they have those badass military vessels for SOME reason, don't they?

And everyone knows Ferengi women are (or were, pre-Rom and Ishka) slaves. So if Quark says otherwise, he's full of shit. End of discussion.

 

Star Trek under Alex Kurtzman is a different timeline, the Alex Kurtzman timeline.

 

Well. No.

 

I don't know if this is a controversial opinion, but STAR TREK: PICARD would never have happened if NEMESIS wasn't filmed.

 

Well, it is the controversial opinion thread.

 

Well, Nemesis was a turkey, and Picard was fourth of my list of Nu Treks only because I actually managed to grind through most of it... I would have done fine without.

 

Calling NEMESIS a 'turkey' is an insult to turkeys everywhere. At least they are delicious, and good with gravy.

 

Fine. It's a slug slimed sack of rat guts and cat vomit, a scab picked pimple squeezing finger bandage, and a week-old maggotburger with everything on it and flies on the side. Better?

 

As bad as NEM may or may not have been...don't even try to tell me that Patrick Stewart wasn't enjoying the hell out of driving the Argo.

 

To be clear I don't mean disrespect to Discovery, Strange New Worlds or Picard. I really enjoyed Picard (except for the 400 year gap with the borg) but I haven't gotten through Discovery and Strange New Worlds yet. I started off looking at what people have said about the continuity errors and because of that initially I entirely boycotted all new Trek. Continuity, at least to the amount it was kept up to Enterprise was and is important to me. When I was sick, I relied upon the continuity of Star Trek to give me a clear picture of this Star Trek universe, it was my reality in my darkest times, and I was able to shrug aside the minor inconsistencies in the canon and I could tell the writers and producers did their best and that's what mattered to me. After a while I decided to give new Star Trek a chance, but with the view that the major inconsistencies are explained by there being a different timeline. In this way, I don't have to worry about whether the writers and producers don't care enough to research the canon before writing, I can simply say that it's another timeline or universe that can be enjoyed as the old can be without there being contradictions all the time. I wanted to enjoy the new series' and to do that I had to make the separation. It doesn't mean in my view that the new is illegitimate, just a recognition that it is different and tells a different story.

 

I'm sure the purpose of this thread is not to be-- Poster: "I have a controversial opinion!" Everyone else: "YOU'RE WRONG!" I mean, that's why it's controversial.

BUT... I think to a lot of people that's not even a controversial opinion. Heck, wasn't that even conventional wisdom at some point?

I don't agree, of course. It's meant to be the same timeline even if you don't like what they're doing. And I often don't like what they're doing.

I admit, when my wife makes me watch Insurrection and Nemesis I don't find either of them TERRIBLE (although certainly not great). And I usually find Nemesis more interesting overall.