You're talking about the textbook version of work. The textbook doesn't apply behind-the-scenes or in some of the most extreme circumstances that aren't behind-the-scenes. Anyone who's worked in retail or in a call center knows how much of a toll it eventually takes on the employees. And yes, I've worked in both, and I've seen how it both effected myself and my co-workers. Or, for that matter, any job with a high turnover rate.
I would hope and believe that a Federation starship has a better work environment and operates at a higher level of professionalism than your average retail job or call center.
Tell us about the war you were in. Otherwise, you don't know what you're talking about. I know vets who have been to Iraq, Afghanistan, and even Vietnam. A lot of them were messed up by what they saw.
I'm not gonna upload my DD-214 for ya, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that I've spent more time in a VA hospital seeing the aftereffects of military service and the toll on veterans than you ever have. And I've seen it from the perspective of myself, and also from watching my 100% service connected father sit all day in a waiting room vomiting his guts out waiting for medical care even though he had a 9am appointment.
Nowhere in this thread, especially from me, has it been claimed that there isn't emotions or a psychological toll to military service that could be used for drama in
Star Trek. The argument is over whether
Discovery depicts it well or says anything particularly insightful about it. And my opinion, just my opinion if we're still allowed to have those, is that what we get from
Discovery is usually shallow and cheap, where if you had well-written characters having a natural catharsis it might have some depth that was meaningful for the audience. Instead,
Discovery says let's have our commanding officer bring her personal life issues onto the bridge during a crisis where entire sections of the Alpha Quadrant are being destroyed by extra-galactic aliens so we can emotionally manipulate the audience into a cry. So maybe that's why you think the work environment of a call center is applicable to a Federation starship.
From the (TOS)
Star Trek writer’s/director’s guide:
“The time is today. We’re in Viet Nam waters aboard the navy cruiser U.S.S. Detroit. Suddenly an enemy gunboat heads for us, our guns are unable to stop it, and we realize it’s a suicide attack with an atomic warhead. Total destruction of our vessel and of all aboard appears probable. Would Captain E. L. Henderson, presently commanding the U.S.S. Detroit, turn and hug a comely female WAVE who happened to be on the ship’s bridge.
As simple as that. This is our standard test that has led to STAR TREK believability. (It also suggests much of what has been wrong in filmed sf of the past.) No, Captain Henderson wouldn’t! Not if he’s the kind of Captain we hope is commanding any naval vessel of ours. Nor would our Captain Kirk hug a female crewman in a moment of danger, not if he’s to remain believable. (Some might prefer Henderson were somewhere making love rather than shelling Asiatic ports, but that’s a whole different story for a whole different network. Probably BBC.)”
Yet, when Spock died, we got an extremely emotional funeral scene, complete with crying AND bagpipes.
Plus, we then got an entire movie filled with emotional turmoil as a followup.
How quickly people forget that Star Trek was filled with emotion and feelings. It wasn't until TNG that Trek went all in on stoicism.
People expressing emotion at a funeral, people dealing with those emotions in the aftermath of those events, and people expressly going against Starfleet to save their friend, those films laid the groundwork to make those events believable within the context of that situation.
The argument that people don't want emotion in Star Trek is a fallacy and a straw man.
And you know what other
Trek series have done? They've SHOWN those emotional connections to us before those moments. They've depicted those emotional connections through actions to the audience. So when the time came there was an emotional payoff.
They didn't just rely on cringey monologues from characters, like Tilly fretting about whether she's ready to be a commanding officer for the umpteenth time, where they have to tell us their inner feelings in the middle of the damn hallway before a group hug and cry. It does a disservice to characters like Tilly, and making her a believable character within the context of being a competent Starfleet officer to continually do that.
Also, look at "The Ship" from DS9...
SISKO: "I know it's hot. We're filthy, tired, and we've got ten isotons of explosives going off outside. But we will never get out of this if we don't pull it together and start to act like professionals!"
But ya know I guess it would have been better if Sisko would have gotten everybody in a semi-circle to express their emotions in the moment before confronting the Jem'Hadar. That's the
Discovery way.
No, no, no, this is what we need:
- When someone gets killed, the commanding officer says, "Noted." Or, better yet, "Acknowledged."
- If someone grieves, they're told it's a primitive emotion.
- If someone says the person who was killed is in a better place now, they're told religion is superstition and their beliefs are primitive.
- We are then told to be content that this person is gone and they are now in nothingness.
- Back on the ship, if someone unwinds, and wants to listen to music, they should be told that all music after 1955 does not exist. Creativity and any type of pop culture or artform is permanently stalled roughly half-way through the 20th Century...
- ... except for Social Progress. All social progress should be permanently stalled in 1966. Two-thirds of the way through the 20th Century. Token blacks, token Asians, token Russians, but definitely token. And no gays!
- The future should definitely NOT be more progressive than the present. The future should just be stuffier and a lot more preppy.
- If they want to watch a movie, they should be told that form of entertainment is archaic. You should either listen to classical music, jazz, or go to a malfunctioning holodeck.
- If you want to change out of uniform, you should put on the worst-looking clothes imaginable. The dorkier, the better. And don't forget that buttoned up shirts represent dystopia. We heard that once from a poster here.
- The 2150s should look like it was made in the 2000s, the 2260s should look like it was made the 1960s, the 2280s should look like it was made in the 1980s, and everything else should look like it was made the 1990s.
- And most important: Have to keep everything male-dominated. Straight male-dominated, just to be clear. Let's ignore the fact that it was women who gave rise to Trekkies and the reason why we're probably still talking about and arguing about Star Trek today.
And that's Star Trek, people!
EDITED TO ADD: Do you want to know why I like
Picard so much despite not being much of a TNG Fan? It's because I like seeing TNG characters in a series that's
nothing like what I just described above. We're seeing them through a new light. And it proves to me that it was never the characters or the actors who were the problem. It was the creative straight-jacket they were stuck with. TNG was a good series despite of all those things, not because of them. And no other Star Trek series should be beaten to a bloody pulp for abandoning those things.
I find it interesting that the same people that bristle at all of the exuberance for Terry Matalas, and criticize some fans of
Picard season 3 for basically thinking Matalas can do no wrong, are the exact same way about
Discovery and will allow no criticism of it.
