Minutes before, Khan crushed a phaser with his hands.
It bothers me of how much corruption there is within Starfleet.
- Thread starter The Rock
- Start date
Never underestimate the power of the greeble.
If that weren't true, we would not be able to identify with the characters. Or the situations. Which would have not only eliminated any chance of mass appeal, but also defeated the whole purpose of ST.
A quirk that's a product of its design, not the material it's made of.
A supposition, not fact.
Starfleet and the Federation are driven by utopian ideals, but human beings are still human beings, warts and all. They're still occasionally going to struggle to live up to those ideal, and sometimes they're going to fall short. And that's where the eternal drama of the human condition comes from.
TOS was pretty clear about this. "We're not going to kill . . . today." Etc. As is most of Trek, with the possible exception of early TNG, which arguably got a little carried away with whole "utopian" thing, with DS9 providing a necessary corrective down the road.
And even TNG, in its defense, had outstanding episodes like "The Wounded" and "The Drumhead" in which humanity struggled to live up to Starfleet's ideals, with our better angels prevailing in the end.
Which, honestly, I find more heroic than just declaring by fiat that humanity has somehow "evolved" beyond all that.
TOS was pretty clear about this. "We're not going to kill . . . today." Etc. As is most of Trek, with the possible exception of early TNG, which arguably got a little carried away with whole "utopian" thing, with DS9 providing a necessary corrective down the road.
And even TNG, in its defense, had outstanding episodes like "The Wounded" and "The Drumhead" in which humanity struggled to live up to Starfleet's ideals, with our better angels prevailing in the end.
Which, honestly, I find more heroic than just declaring by fiat that humanity has somehow "evolved" beyond all that.
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Utopia breeds corruption. An intentional message on Doctor Who with how the Time Lords are written. And really when you get down to it, corruption in the ranks just makes for entertaining stories. People do remember that Star Trek's first and foremost priority is to entertain, right? Right?
Even Gene Roddenberry knew that.
Even Gene Roddenberry knew that.
Is it perhaps a gentle rebellion against the prime directive to pretend to be superior in order to subtly direct those "beneath" you to better things?
As I like to point out,TOS always had a healthy skepticism toward "utopias." Pretty much every time Kirk and Co. stumbled onto society that was a little too perfect and peaceful, there was always a fly in the ointment: mind-warping spores, insane computer-gods, oppressed troglydytes, etc.
As god-like beings were fond of reminding us, we were still a half-savage child race with a long way to go.
As god-like beings were fond of reminding us, we were still a half-savage child race with a long way to go.
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I thought it was a writ on how to live a more evolved life?
I think all that needs to be said about this is that that's not how human evolution works, at all. And it's not how it plausibly would work under any such hypothetical scenario.
Can't think of any offhand, but was there ever the opposite (i.e. a Trek dystopia with one teeny-tiny bright spot that made it worth preserving)?
No, but while Khan can admittedly push open a locked door and memorize lots of speed-read records (and per the Kelvin timeline, survive in vacuum), overall I can’t say he actually ever seemed all that superior otherwise. He’s basically just got Sheer Damn Charisma going for him, like most would-be dictators and “superior men”, but bonging him on the head (or thinking in 3-d when fighting him in space) takes him down just like anybody else.
No, humanity hasn’t evolved much; but that was just as true of the so-called supermen, in the end. The biggest thing they ever accomplished was temporarily conquering swathes of Earth, then losing, and causing devastation along the way.
it kind of becomes explainable with section 31 though; the bad admirals are part of that chain, the links from the inside to the outside, tainted by the section 31 ideology which gives them their own permission to do what they must. it fits the storyline and the narrative.
It would be weird if it turned out Augments succeeded massively due to highly exaggerated PR and the psychology of propaganda.
Not all badmirals are Sectioners, surely. Those whose planning, motives, and execution are weak would be liabilities.
Not all badmirals are Sectioners, surely. Those whose planning, motives, and execution are weak would be liabilities.
To my mind, “superior” doesn’t mean has higher stats; it means better overall in some way. The Augments have higher stats, but compare the world they built to the one that non-Augments built, once the Post-Atomic Horror (which it apears the Eugenics Wars the Augments started began rolling the ball towards) ended. On this comparison, the so-called supermen clearly fail.
Okay.
You know, this would not surprise me. Not that their success lasted long, anyway.
and that would be why they are found out, exposed, taken away.... they know too much.
there has to be a gray zone between the secrets of 31 and the regular SF that doesn't even believe in it. a layer of admiralty in-the-know, and that will affect their philosophy, whether its direct or indirect. I'm not saying they are part of 31, but affiliated, or used by.
They may not ever be recruited, but perhaps added to a list of convenient scapegoats just in case a plot is found out, but not traced to its source.
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