Nazi's in Outer Space
- Thread starter Photon
- Start date
Pardon? thats one hell of a generalization. just shut up if you dont know what you're talking about!
Yes, I'm glad. It's a rather easy episode to pass off rather than creating a new story and to be honest Little Green Men was all you needed for that sort of era.
It's not a generalization, it's a very specific description - one specific to the TV portrayal of WWII Germans, aka Nazi Swine. I thought that's what the original poster was talking about, since that's what all the other Trek portrayals of WWII Germans have been about.
And often quite naturally so, since Trek hasn't yet featured an episode where there'd be real WWII Germans. In "Patterns of Force", there was a culture perverted into a farcical version of the Nazi rule; in "The Killing Game", Nazi stereotypes were used for holographic entertainment. The intent always was to show stereotypes, not historical characters or events.
DS9 does this a bit more subtly, by first suggesting the Cardassians are simple Space Nazis, thoroughly evil and yadda yadda - and then painting more shades of sickly grey there, including many clear differences between the real examples of Nazi occupation of conquered territories and the Cardassian way of doing things. Basically, though, DS9 milks "WWII Germans" for their usual value, that of embodying the 20th century concept of pure evil.
Timo Saloniemi
And often quite naturally so, since Trek hasn't yet featured an episode where there'd be real WWII Germans. In "Patterns of Force", there was a culture perverted into a farcical version of the Nazi rule; in "The Killing Game", Nazi stereotypes were used for holographic entertainment. The intent always was to show stereotypes, not historical characters or events.
DS9 does this a bit more subtly, by first suggesting the Cardassians are simple Space Nazis, thoroughly evil and yadda yadda - and then painting more shades of sickly grey there, including many clear differences between the real examples of Nazi occupation of conquered territories and the Cardassian way of doing things. Basically, though, DS9 milks "WWII Germans" for their usual value, that of embodying the 20th century concept of pure evil.
Timo Saloniemi
I haven't seen it, but didn't Enterprise's Storm Front feature real WW2 Germans?
I think that it was for the best they didn't feature any episode with soldiers wearing swastikas. Space Nazis are much worse than vague analogies to space Nazis.
Well, TNG never did any German WWII episodes either, so I'm not sure what your point is.
Yes, it featured real WW2 Germans, but also aliens who became aligned with them and wore uniforms of the Third Reich.
The VOY episode with the Hirogen was possibly even cheesier - OK, so it was a holodeck program, but they did have to feature every possible WW2 movie cliche?
I find it particularly annoying when people say "Cardassians are Nazis" because of the stupidity of equating a political ideology (nazism) with a race/species (Cardassians).I concur with the OP.
Although I find it extremely annoying when the writers make reallly stupid statements in interviews that do things like equate Cardassians to Nazis.
Right, it's just like saying "Germans are/were Nazis". Some were. Not all, in fact some Germans belonged to organizations the Nazis tried to exterminate. But when someone says Cardassians are Nazis, we know they're referring to the political organization. Just like saying "The Germans are coming!" Technically, the Nazis were coming, not just the Germans.I find it particularly annoying when people say "Cardassians are Nazis" because of the stupidity of equating a political ideology (nazism) with a race/species (Cardassians).
The Cardassian Military Government was quite similar to the Nazi government.
lol.. awful lot of pedantry here.
The Cardassians' beliefs as a race were fascist, this surely is a no-brainer. They believe that the state is supreme, and that the indi vidual should submit to the state. How is this not fascist?
there also is a parallel between the bajoran occupation and the Holocaust.
The Cardassians' beliefs as a race were fascist, this surely is a no-brainer. They believe that the state is supreme, and that the indi vidual should submit to the state. How is this not fascist?
there also is a parallel between the bajoran occupation and the Holocaust.
Actually, it doesn't have to be. What you're describing is totalitarianism (if it includes the state regulating every aspect of people's public and private lives), not specifically fascism or nazism.
And it is a well known fact that Cardassians have a special gene that makes them all want to submit to the state.
Right. Because Nazi Germany occupied the less technologically advanced Jewish country in order to exploit its natural resources and use its people as slaves. The occupation lasted several decades, during which time hunger, harsh conditions, murder and cruelty of their German masters lead to the death of some 0.002% to 0.01% of the Jewish population over the course of 40 years. Eventually, the Germans had to leave, largely because of the successes of the Jewish resistance movement combined with the diminishing returns that were not enough to justify the use of military and resources.
If the occupation of Bajor works as a parallel to anything, it works as a parallel to colonialism. "Duet" featured a parallel to Holocaust and attempts to capture Nazi war criminals, and. one might also say that DS9's portrayal of "comfort women" and the way Bajorans despised them was more reminiscent of German officers and soldiers' concubines from the local population of occupied countries during WW2 (not Jewish though - sexual relations between Jews and "Aryans" were forbidden, and no officer or soldier of Third Reich could have kept a semi-public or public Jewish mistress), than it was of the real life meaning of that expression. That's pretty much where the similarities end.
I tended to see the Cardassians as similar to Germany--but there were also strong parallels in my opinion to Russia, as well, right down to their background before the rise of the totalitarian regime (being a people of very deep faith). I know in my own writing there have been times I have very much used imagery from Russia, because it just...felt right. (In particular this happened in a story called "A Stone's Throw Away," where I just couldn't shake an aesthetic similarity between the city of Lakat and what was during the Soviet Union Leningrad.)
Strong parallels to all sorts of totalitarian/fascist/communist regimes.
Actually, it doesn't have to be. What you're describing is totalitarianism (if it includes the state regulating every aspect of people's public and private lives), not specifically fascism or nazism.
And it is a well known fact that Cardassians have a special gene that makes them all want to submit to the state.
Right. Because Nazi Germany occupied the less technologically advanced Jewish country in order to exploit its natural resources and use its people as slaves. The occupation lasted several decades, during which time hunger, harsh conditions, murder and cruelty of their German masters lead to the death of some 0.002% to 0.01% of the Jewish population over the course of 40 years. Eventually, the Germans had to leave, largely because of the successes of the Jewish resistance movement combined with the diminishing returns that were not enough to justify the use of military and resources.
If the occupation of Bajor works as a parallel to anything, it works as a parallel to colonialism. "Duet" featured a parallel to Holocaust and attempts to capture Nazi war criminals, and. one might also say that DS9's portrayal of "comfort women" and the way Bajorans despised them was more reminiscent of German officers and soldiers' concubines from the local population of occupied countries during WW2 (not Jewish though - sexual relations between Jews and "Aryans" were forbidden, and no officer or soldier of Third Reich could have kept a semi-public or public Jewish mistress), than it was of the real life meaning of that expression. That's pretty much where the similarities end.
it's not a matter of genetics. Cardassian society is based on subservience to the state, and that the individual must be secondary to the state. This is by the by the definition of fascism. It was said on screen many times that loyalty to the state was part of the being of Cardassians as a people.
Maybe there is no "gene" that causes this, but from what we see on screen also, Cardassians never used to be authoritarian. It was because Cardassia Prime became exhausted of resources that the Cardassian "condition" changed. Since then, Cardassian value authority above all else.
And the Occupation of Bajor is only a loose parallel to the Holocaust perhaps, but there are some similarities. The Nazis thought that the Jews were inferior. The Cardassians thought that the Bajorans were inferior. The Nazis used Jews and other they deemed undesirables in death camps. So did the Cardassians. Other aspects of the real-life Holocaust that the Nazis did were explained on screen as part of the Bajoran occupation.
The fact that it's not a perfect match doesn't mean there are some similarities.
I don't think that Cardassians have a gene that makes them want to submit to the state the way the Dominion put genes in the Jem'Hadar and the Vorta to make them want to submit to the Founders. Not even close.
I do think Cardassians may have a more pronounced pack instinct than humans--something on a canine level rather than primate--but NOT something that overrides free choice, not at all. (This all depends on whether you accept Jellico's comments literally.) We humans, of course, do have this to some degree...the Milgram and Stanford Prison Experiments are proof enough of this, as is the bystander effect. And these should serve as a very, very serious warning to us. Deference to authority comes naturally, and I suspect to Cardassians, if they are indeed more "canine" in their pack instincts, it would cause great psychological strain to go against the grain. But a person of great character and great inner strength CAN accomplish this.
Such an instinct also would NOT lead inevitably to totalitarianism. Even democracy is possible, if belief in the value of the individual becomes sufficient that it is believed equal representation is necessary to protect those who have less standing ordinarily to speak for themselves. What it might contribute to, though, would be making a totalitarian regime like that hard to shake without a very serious upheaval--which was exactly what the Dominion War provided. (And, I believe, that the exhausting of the planet's resources provided to topple the prior government, 500 years prior.)
I realize, of course, that not everyone will agree with me...like I said, it requires that Jellico's comments in "Chain of Command" be literal, and not just a figure of speech on Jellico's part. And again, I think Cardassians absolutely have free will. (Hell, one of my stories deals with an AU where the Dominion makes a grave mistake in thinking that whatever genes and neurological structures the Cardassians are some sort of surefire anti-rebellion measure. Ohhhhhhhh boy did it backfire on them, and badly!)
I do think Cardassians may have a more pronounced pack instinct than humans--something on a canine level rather than primate--but NOT something that overrides free choice, not at all. (This all depends on whether you accept Jellico's comments literally.) We humans, of course, do have this to some degree...the Milgram and Stanford Prison Experiments are proof enough of this, as is the bystander effect. And these should serve as a very, very serious warning to us. Deference to authority comes naturally, and I suspect to Cardassians, if they are indeed more "canine" in their pack instincts, it would cause great psychological strain to go against the grain. But a person of great character and great inner strength CAN accomplish this.
Such an instinct also would NOT lead inevitably to totalitarianism. Even democracy is possible, if belief in the value of the individual becomes sufficient that it is believed equal representation is necessary to protect those who have less standing ordinarily to speak for themselves. What it might contribute to, though, would be making a totalitarian regime like that hard to shake without a very serious upheaval--which was exactly what the Dominion War provided. (And, I believe, that the exhausting of the planet's resources provided to topple the prior government, 500 years prior.)
I realize, of course, that not everyone will agree with me...like I said, it requires that Jellico's comments in "Chain of Command" be literal, and not just a figure of speech on Jellico's part. And again, I think Cardassians absolutely have free will. (Hell, one of my stories deals with an AU where the Dominion makes a grave mistake in thinking that whatever genes and neurological structures the Cardassians are some sort of surefire anti-rebellion measure. Ohhhhhhhh boy did it backfire on them, and badly!)
I never said that the Cardassians have a gene that makes them submit to the state.
But the Cardassian society and way of life is built on that ideal. This is a no-brainer.
Besides, who is to say that Cardassians do not submit to authority, or value authority, more so than humans do? Different species would have different characteristics. It's like Klingons in a way. Klingons are warriors, which it seems they were not in all of their history (we don't know what they were before Kahless existed), but Klingons are naturally aggressive and violent. So being warriors lends to that.
But the Cardassian society and way of life is built on that ideal. This is a no-brainer.
Besides, who is to say that Cardassians do not submit to authority, or value authority, more so than humans do? Different species would have different characteristics. It's like Klingons in a way. Klingons are warriors, which it seems they were not in all of their history (we don't know what they were before Kahless existed), but Klingons are naturally aggressive and violent. So being warriors lends to that.
