Very true, but at least we can make them the best portrayal of what former Trek producers strived for. At least we can honor these heroes' planet history told in the form of TOS than claiming the events from January 6th, 2021 lead to WORLD WAR III. LOL!!!
The problem is they'd probably become the new Borg, with so much known about them and defeated so many times that they stop being a mysterious threat and just become part of the furniture. If our experience with Ilia is the standard for Deltans then he'd have to take an Oath of Celibacy to serve in Starfleet, so as to not damage any of the sexually immature species he'd serve with. Would be great to see the Deltans return in a series, get to know them beyond just that.
Perhaps an Andorian captain might make for an interesting option. Aside from the brief visit in Star Trek: Enterprise - which was focused more on the Aenar in particular as opposed to Andorians in general - there hasn't been much portrayed on-screen regarding the Andorian home system. Certainly not when compared to, say, Vulcan. While there are individual Andorian and Aenar characters in recent Franchise productions, a series lead with a strong connection to Andoria could leverage that potential yet further.
That was the 23rd century. This would be a more sexually mature 25th? Or the oath could apply to his Starfleet crew but not visitors to the ship or aliens they meet. There’s just so many ways you could explore sex, ammirite? In ways big and small, nuanced and gross, male and female, trans and cogenitor, young and old, Mugatu and orchid…tender and vicious, curious and dumb, on and on. Captain McShaved could be our guide and champion through it all.
Played by Samuel L Jackson. "I have had it with all these MFing snakes on my MFing starship!" "Please, Captain, they're called Selayans. Their ambassador just heard you say that."
Good analysis. The "silent enemy" avoided this, appearing in only one episode. So people in universe must assume that the shroomies are still out there somewhere, and that they are incomprehensible but definitely dangerous. I would have handled the Borg the same way, with appearance in only one episode. If that had been the case with both opponents, an implication would have been that there are dangerous/daunting forces out in the galaxy. Ones too powerful to be coped with by mere humans. Actually, that would have also been implied by the events of The Neutral Zone (TNG), where we saw the effects but not the culprits. The Dominion War presented opponents who were formidable, but not so overwhelmingly powerful that resistance was futile. And because of the first encounter of the Borg by the Enterprise D, the anti-Borg ships (that is, actual warships) had been under development.
^ that’s interesting. I wonder, do they (the original Borg) say, would they say, “Resistance is futile” to everybody? It was futile for the humans/Federatiom, but would their words tactics have been different for others?
They didn't when we first saw them, in Q who (though they did say 'We have analysed your defensive capabilities as being unable to withstand us. If you defend yourselves, you will be punished.', which might come close). However they also seemed to use the catchphrase against species 8472 though they were destroyed before they could say 'futile', thus being shown that resistance was anything but. (Or would the Borg have used a different word there? 'Resistance is undesirable', perhaps?)
I didn't mind the Borg in TNG as other than BoBW they never really faced the unstoppable force of the Collective and even then a fleet of 40 ships were decimated. VOY seemed to have a single small starship defeating them every few weeks instead of coming up with more and more clever ways to evade or avoid encounters, they were quickly declawed.
The same happened to the Q on Voyager, they were 'declawed' from being being mysterious, capricious, near-omnipotent entities that gave Picard a few lessons (and yes, also received some in return), to a hapless race in civil war that needed mummy Kate' s wisdom to survive (in the form of her giving Q parental advice about his son, etc). And to the 8472, who very quickly went from a threat even greater than the Borg to a species that could perhaps be talked with, and that even became victim to some other races. And to the Hirogen, who even shrunk in size physically as time went on. (Well, OK, perhaps the producers simply figured it was too much of a hassle to keep them at that size in terms of finding tall actors, or finding camera angles to make them appear that way, etc). For whatever reason, it seems to be a bit of a VOY tendency. Not saying other series didn't do this (Ferengi, anyone?), but it seems fairly conspicuous in VOY.
I think that it would have worked best if Q Who had been the last appearance of Q, and the first and last appearance of the Borg. There are very few plots that work with near-omnipotent entities, or even somewhat less powerful forces like the Borg, because it would be very likely that the less powerful would be completely overwhelmed by the more powerful.
Given how often fantasy can have a nonhuman lead character, I'm baffled that scifi doesn't do it more often. I'd love a Betazoid, Andorian or Trill captain.
here is a link to a question about the first science fiction story with all nonhuman characters (and thus nonhuman lead characters). https://scifi.stackexchange.com/que...hich-no-character-is-an-earthling/94337#94337