Why Star Trek Sucks

Well, for one thing, Earth Starfleet isn't military, but the Federation Starfleet is. That alone should tell you something.

I agree that when the Federation was formed, its Starfleet must have taken cues from the Earth version as to how to organize things. But logically speaking, they can't actually be the same organization. Totally different areas of jurisdiction and responsibility, let alone mission profiles.

 

My thoughts...

-Agreed on the "rock music" comment. It's highly unlikely that television, baseball etc. will be gone in a few hundred years. Competition has always been a popular form of entertainment and so has many different forms of music. I doubt that people in the future are just going to lay back in a chair and listen to Beethoven after a long hard day's work or just want to go to a holosuite on a weekend.

-The part about "Federation is always right" was true in Next Generation but not so on DS9. The Federation and it's ethics were questioned on DS9 constantly which is why it's been a favorite of so many people. This article was published after only a few seasons of DS9 so I'll cut the writer some slack on this one.

-Society- Cassette tapes no longer exist so the writer ended up being wrong on that count. Plus there's nothing stupid or pointless about sacrificing what you want to help the greater good. Real members of the military do that every day. That's why their usually referred to as heroes.

-Unlikely Civilizations- The writer is apparently ignorant of the universal translator.

-Blinded Science- I find it hard to take this paragraph seriously after the writer has just told us that he loves T2 and Jurassic park. Apparently a race that integrates computers in the brain is WAY more silly that robots who can transport into the past at will or dinosaurs being brought back to life on an island

-Seen that Plot before-um....... see my post above.

-In closing-

Trek might not be on T.V anymore but the conventions haven't went anywhere. Sorry.....

 

I tend to see the human-centricity of Starfleet as a budgetary constraint.

Although it's true that in the 60s the networks had the impression people couldn't feel sympathy for humans the way they do for humans.

 

In the 60s most of the aliens looked like humans, anyway.

 

And the reason they listen to classical music and stuff was because they figured it would just needlessly date the show if the characters were shown listening to Britney Spears.

 

Pretty sure it was because they were free. Playing a Britney Spears song would seriously impact the budget.

 

Anyone see the Buck Rogers show? They had modern (IOW 25th century) rock music in an episode and it just sucked. I'd rather hear classical than phony futuristic music.

 

There are contradictory quotes throughout Trek as to whether they're a military organization or not. You can't just pick the one you like and declare it the one, true answer. They sent a Starfleet ship to meet the Xindi threat, not a MACO-commanded one.

The Captain's Oath is in-universe from Zefram Cochrane's speech in "Broken Bow" - "Seeking out new life and new civilizations, boldly going where no one has gone before" is what they've always done.

All that happened was a rebranding, and instead of taking orders from the Prime Minister of Earth, they came from the President of the Federation.

 

I think the idea is, at least show something analogous to modern sounding music.

Exclusively playing classical or sometimes jazz music as entertainment made Trek, particularly TNG look weird.

Like I say, you don't look for this intentionally, it's just hard not to notice, especially in hindsight.

It had a slight Amish feel to the culture, as if to say that in order to be advanced, you have shun anything from earth that came after 1950.

I give an "A" for effort for Star Wars, because they tried to stay with modern music, like that weird alien pseudo-disco, pop music in Jabba the Hutt's palace.

 

The music thing all comes down to licensing fees, but it does create an odd effect. I doubt anyone in the 23rd/24th Century is going to be listening to Britney Spears, but I find it hard to believe that no one is listening to, say, the Beatles, Elvis or Frank Sinatra.

 

The designs of the ships through the centuries are close to the early Starfleet designs. We've seen that starship don't have to follow that design.

They don't look like Vulcan ships.

They don't look like Andorian ships.

They do look like Human ships.

This much is obvious.

In the 23rd and 24th centuries, Starfleet was taking it's instructions from the Federation Council, and not some President. With maybe one exception they were very consistent about this.

And did we even once see the 22nd century Starfleet take an order from "the Prime Minister of Earth?"

Yes, and when there wasn't a military mission to undertake, Starfleet engaged in exploration and diplomacy. Which sound like what they did through the centuries.

 

While his critique of the show in general has some basis (and after 40+ years of a fiction series presented in a number of mediums, what wouldn't have flaws), his knock on the fans is waaaay off base. Hey, I used to regularly attend the Vegas convention. I met like minded people, drank (alot), met some people from the show, even hooked up with real live attractive women (yes, they were there!) and I'm the biggest Trek geek going. I also have a good job and bathe regularly. Then again this is a ten year old rant, so we probably shouldn't get too bend out of shape by it.

 

Well, I too agree with a lot of the article, and it honestly holds more true for the TNG, DS9 (yes even DS9) and VOY era; but as to singling Trek fans as true geeks out at science fiction conventions --- the author has rose colored glasses of science fiction fandom in general because there are literary 'fan boys' and 'fan boys' of other science fiction IPs that are right up there with the worst of the 'Star Trek' fanboys.

 

And the only ones that I'm aware of that say the Federation Starfleet ISN'T military, come from Picard, and I don't particularly believe him (he's a bit of a posturer).

Only because at that time, Earth did not HAVE a space borne military fleet (that we know of). And Archer took the MACOs along with him - at his own insistence.

Like I said: the Earth Starfleet wasn't military, but all the evidence suggests the Federation Starfleet IS.

 

You can't say "all the evidence" immediately after saying you're ignoring Picard's testimony. When that was written it was what the writers intended.

 

While it is likely that Starfleet grew and changed and was altered by events over the course of the century you mentioned (and continued beyond that), I do think that it remained essentially the same organization in that it is a Earth - primarily Human - driven fleet, true they are being employed by the group entity known as the Federation, but they are Earth ships.

When Kirk said that their authority came from a United Earth agency, that was exactly what he meant.

When Q told Picard to "go back where you came from," Picard told the crew Q wanted the Enterprise Dee to return to Earth. Even though Q never mentioned Earth.

 

Given that one of the premises of TNG was that Starfleet officers devote their life to duty rather than frivolous hobbies I don't think it would have made sense for members of the main cast except maybe Wesley to be interested in pop music. Most older people, if they still listen to popular music, listen to the popular music from when they were teenagers anyway. And the more time they spend on work the less they do that.

But I do agree that, if it was the case that these people didn't have frivolous hobbies, they also shouldn't have given the impression that 'fine arts' type stuff was considered less frivolous than popular styles of art. That only deeply intellectual art is considered a worthy use of anyone's time.

 

Which is why they go to the holodeck to pretend to be detectives, fight monsters, re-enact Shakespeare?