Not sure that I'd even call it a flare up. Me and Geoff just had a difference of opinion on a single post.
Did they overdo the amount of aliens in Titan?
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Not sure that I'd even call it a flare up. Me and Geoff just had a difference of opinion on a single post.
I believe it was first mentioned in the TNG Section 31 Novel "Rogue".
I don't remember any stir.
^That's right. The character of Keru first appeared as Hawk's life partner in Section 31: Rogue.
Really? I do. There was even a question added to the FAQ on this site, "Why are there gay people in the books", as a result. People were complaining about Martin & Mangles fronting some kind of "gay agenda" and all sorts of insanity. It was bizarre.
For what it's worth, I'm gay and I wasn't offended by the Village People joke. It wasn't all that funny, but not really offensive either.
I don't have a problem with Keru's look. You do see it on bikers and other "macho" men of all orientations, and I think the look suits Keru. Besides, it's nice to have a character with a radically different look, so many ST guys have had generic clean cut look. I like having a gay character around ST who looks like (and is) a bad a$$.
I do remember a lot of stupid bigotry over Keru and Hawk, and the embaressing need for a FAQ about it.
I like the diversity of Titan, it's a unique set up in ST, something that would be harder to do on a tv series.
I don't have a problem with Keru's look. You do see it on bikers and other "macho" men of all orientations, and I think the look suits Keru. Besides, it's nice to have a character with a radically different look, so many ST guys have had generic clean cut look. I like having a gay character around ST who looks like (and is) a bad a$$.
I do remember a lot of stupid bigotry over Keru and Hawk, and the embaressing need for a FAQ about it.
I like the diversity of Titan, it's a unique set up in ST, something that would be harder to do on a tv series.
I was probably on psiphi.org more at that point and there wasn't much of a stir there.
I love the different species. On the shows we'd see diversity too - humans & aliens that look human. I agree an illustration of the various new species would be nice apart from those Thrawn mentioned & the few we have seen in the hallowed halls of the BBS.
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Sadly I remember this as well. I would have thought (though I know better) Trek fans would be able to overlook such things. Sigh... As a famous Klingon once said: it would appear that we have a long way to go.
I will say, I have always detected a certain "agenda" if you will from much of Mangel's Trek work, but I think that can be more broadly characterized as an acceptance of differences and diversity, most notable in sexuality and sexual preference but also in the simple question of "What makes a life form valuable?" His work reminds me of Big Love, a show about a "nontraditional" family that the creators (who are gay) hope will encourage debate about what exactly a family is.
The same can be said of much of Andy's work - I see the Trek characters often struggling against viewpoints or with situations that fall out of their comfort zone (the Tholian issues in "The Sundered" and the struggle of the Neyel in both "The Sundered" and "The Red King.")
I sometimes found myself, at first, put off by the emphasis on differences (especially in the time - and I will admt there was a time - that I was much less open-minded to the homsexual lifestyle), but I came to appreciate and even enjoy the perspectives Andy brought to his work, and I will say, his is one of many voices that finally made me reconsider my stance and perspective on homosexuality. And I feel richer and more rounded for that.
IIRC, the character's impressive mustache is based on Andy Mangels' own, or at least that of a friend of his? (Edit: Ah yeah, Mark!)
Personally, I think that there are so many humans on board the Enterprise NX-01, USS Enterprise, USS Enterprise-A, USS Enterprise-D, USS Enterprise-E, Deep Space Nine and USS Voyager, that I find it hard to keep track of them all.
Having started the second Titan book yesterday, the 'forced' feeling became less during the first book. I am curious as to how it will be in the second one.
And please, let me stress again: I don't mind the amount of aliens on Titan, I felt the writers focused on the issue a lot during the first half of Taking Wing. But after finishing the first book, I can see that this was perhaps done intentionally, making us feel like some of the characters were feeling, who weren't accustomed to so many aliens/non-humanoids around them. But as their voyages continues, they get more comfortable around eachother, and I as a reader feel the focus being laid elsewhere aswell.
If there's one thing that bothers me just a little bit....... Stitch as a counselor. I dunno, it feels a bit odd. But I'm hoping I'll get used to it.
And please, let me stress again: I don't mind the amount of aliens on Titan, I felt the writers focused on the issue a lot during the first half of Taking Wing. But after finishing the first book, I can see that this was perhaps done intentionally, making us feel like some of the characters were feeling, who weren't accustomed to so many aliens/non-humanoids around them. But as their voyages continues, they get more comfortable around eachother, and I as a reader feel the focus being laid elsewhere aswell.
If there's one thing that bothers me just a little bit....... Stitch as a counselor. I dunno, it feels a bit odd. But I'm hoping I'll get used to it.
Glad that my work had some positive effect on you, Adam, and you basically hit a nail on the head for me and my work in general. Oddly, I put credit for the fight for acceptance of differences/diversity on three different elements of my life, two of which you hit on (one of which unknowingly):
1 - obviously, being gay during the time that I grew up and came out had a major impact on how I view prejudices and hatred against others for factors that are not choices for them.
2 - the part you unknowingly didn't know about was that I was raised Mormon (thus, the Big Love connection, though they are "Jack Mormons"). The LDS church teaches a lot about taking care of community and helping others no matter their differences, sometimes even to the detriment of self, and those values are some of the most deeply ingrained things I kept from my upbringing.
3 - Where I grew up, a small town in Montana, had pretty much nothing but WASPs. What the meant is that without other cultures to "learn" prejudices about, I was able to form my own thoughts and opinions at an older age, and thus value differences and diversity more. In this case, I wasn't being sheltered as much as being not exposed. But that meant I was not exposed to the uglier sides of bigotry and hatred either. And I've since found the world to be a wonderfully diverse place.
I hope that when we finally do get space travel, we will discover that in our ignorance of "what is out there," we will also discover the universe to be a wonderfully diverse place.
BTW, you were correct in crediting me for the Tholian material, but Mike wrote almost all of the Neyel-specific material in those two books. I tended to write the Federation material in those two.
But I did write a lot of the Trill societal stuff in Worlds of DS9: Trill, in which I had to find a way to understand the rationale for the acts of Trill terrorists... and I was writing that in a real world that was still hurting from 9-11.
Wow.
For the record, though we come to it along different roads, I very much share Andy's "agenda."
TITAN was designed, as a series, to be more idiosyncratic and, yes, to have the frictions/solutions brought on by "forced" integration, be one of its primary themes.
All of us, black, white, straight, gay, oldish, youngish, AMerican, british, have applied ourselves to illuminating those themes and were allowed (by Marco, in the early cases) to write the books we wished to write in the way we wished to write them.
I agree the diversity thing is hit hard in Taking Wing but I also agree that it definitely becomes increasingly more subtle as the series progresses.
I don't believe this was a conscious choice by the writers; nor do I believe it's accidental. By the time I wrote SoD, the crew was more or less settled and had gone through a few binding experiences and so the whole "holy crap! look at the big sloth guy working the bar!" aspect was not such a big deal. I tossed in a few of my own aliens, sure, but i never made much of the enormous diversity of TITAN. nor did CLB or James after that.
It becomes the backdrop and the filter through which we can attack whichever aspect of the "diversity thing" we wish, according to our own filters. Which, again, I believe was always the intent.
For the record, though we come to it along different roads, I very much share Andy's "agenda."
TITAN was designed, as a series, to be more idiosyncratic and, yes, to have the frictions/solutions brought on by "forced" integration, be one of its primary themes.
All of us, black, white, straight, gay, oldish, youngish, AMerican, british, have applied ourselves to illuminating those themes and were allowed (by Marco, in the early cases) to write the books we wished to write in the way we wished to write them.
I agree the diversity thing is hit hard in Taking Wing but I also agree that it definitely becomes increasingly more subtle as the series progresses.
I don't believe this was a conscious choice by the writers; nor do I believe it's accidental. By the time I wrote SoD, the crew was more or less settled and had gone through a few binding experiences and so the whole "holy crap! look at the big sloth guy working the bar!" aspect was not such a big deal. I tossed in a few of my own aliens, sure, but i never made much of the enormous diversity of TITAN. nor did CLB or James after that.
It becomes the backdrop and the filter through which we can attack whichever aspect of the "diversity thing" we wish, according to our own filters. Which, again, I believe was always the intent.
I concur with m'colleague's comments here. I wrote the Titan crew in Synthesis with the 'see no colour' manner that I always felt was the ideal the Federation aspires to.
Speaking of psiphi.org, what the heck has happened to it? Al it does now is mostly point to pages that no longer exist.
As I recall, it had a catastrophic system failure -- I think the physical server was destroyed/wiped/taken offline -- and many pages were lost. The webmaster (David, IIRC) tried to recover/reconstruct the site content, but real-life concerns (I'm thinking an illness) kept him from finishing. Eventually he GAFIAted and the site has been in semi-abandoned mode since.
And most of us from those long-ago days found our way here.
The pages could be grabbed from Archive.org from their last snapshot and then the ones in need of fixing get fixed and the other stay as is.
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