Don't forget my favorite: Mideast peace is best served by the West arming a dictator of its choosing to rule by force.
Maybe next season they can really go out on a limb and oppose human sex trafficking.
Horatio Hornblower: Does Discovery need a more TOS-style spirit of seafaring adventure?
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Don't forget my favorite: Mideast peace is best served by the West arming a dictator of its choosing to rule by force.
Maybe next season they can really go out on a limb and oppose human sex trafficking.
I don't think that was the intended message. Much like muddling Ash Tyler's memory of sexual assault by having him go away at the end with his abuser, I think the writing team (or maybe those higher up in the production chain) just wasn't thinking about the ramification of their decisions.
In contrast, the explicit messages that DIS gave us were the most non-controversial pablum imaginable. Of course, Trek seldom concluded on a "this is the absolute right answer" note, but at least it was pretty normal to present two sides of an issue and explore what it meant in the past. It's one of the reasons why I really wish even if they were going to go ahead with MU Lorca, they had made him a bit more complicated as a character.
I know the documentary in question, I think it's on Dailymotion "Tomorrow's World's: The Unearthly History of Science Fiction", first episode - about 13 minutes in - it's really an interesting segment.
What the presenter suggested was that although Star Trek is very diverse and integrated, it still argues that liberal democracy is best, and like a Victorian, Kirk can't resist lecturing people on right and wrong and the error of their ways. He compared the Royal Navy College to Starfleet Academy. Meyer even pointed out the bugle call at the beginning if the Gregory Peck Hornblower movie is the Star Trek theme :-)

Now the presenter made this comment using less culturally neutral terms, saying that it's effectively arguing the 'western' way is best, but I'm not sure that is how I would interpret it. India and Japan are also prominent democracies. Does he suggest liberalism is only western, discounting India's world leadership via Gandhi and Nehru, et al? Does he suggest something is inherently bad just because it was associated with recent imperialists? Would he rather see a worse tyranny descend, just because of these qualms?
This topic raises a wider issue, which is the huge gap in perception between the global south and the rest of the West. Christians are the most persecuted group on Earth right now. In Africa and Asia, millions are choosing the democratic way of government and even the Christian culture not because they are all unwittingly imbibing propaganda, as some self-absorped westerners might insultingly think, but because they genuinely find it better than the alternative, often of a different religion's alternative repressive theocracy, or a hypocritical socialist regime that is anything but social. In the developed West people are hardly aware of this massive cultural movement - indeed the centre of gravity of Christianity for example is now shifting away from America toward Africa and Latin America, residing somewhere in the Atlantic, and millions in China and Korea likewise have enthusiasm for it, often not because of theology, but because it is associated with the freedoms of America, compared to stolid restrictions. They can see the value of these cultural institutions for teaching, and are agitating for liberal democracy even if our own self critical culture thinks these western concepts are a tainted by imperialism or a relativistic preferance; they can see the effects of terrorism, forced marriages, pogroms, etc, and they don't want the culture surrounding it.
So we worry about whether Star Trek would be seen as imperialistic by promoting liberal democracy and freedom of choice, and dredge up negative stereotypes about Dr Livingstone type missionary figures, while the world chooses these things anyway without caring what the West thinks. Rival extremists understand this and are globally competing whether Europeans and Americans want the competition or not. I'm not a Christian by conviction, but I can see the value in what schools have done in Africa, the relative peace with which they have conducted themselves, and the historical and present conduct of the main alternative missionary religion, funded currently by immoral oil backed autocrats.
I'm starting to think maybe Star Trek needs to embrace it's progressivism more aggressively, like The Orville does, and maybe even the West needs to rediscover that not all alternatives are equally good. Star Wars takes a stand and we see that it is hugely popular as a timeless story of inspuration. Perhaps Star Trek is the grown up alternative, where Aristotle and Plato rather than Luke Skywalker come with the gunboats.
Then again maybe I'm dangerously wrong, but you will have to decide that based on your own free thought - I am aware that imperialism was no good thing, my father's country suffered - you will have to ask yourself where ethical intervention becomes colonialism.
What the presenter suggested was that although Star Trek is very diverse and integrated, it still argues that liberal democracy is best, and like a Victorian, Kirk can't resist lecturing people on right and wrong and the error of their ways. He compared the Royal Navy College to Starfleet Academy. Meyer even pointed out the bugle call at the beginning if the Gregory Peck Hornblower movie is the Star Trek theme :-)

Now the presenter made this comment using less culturally neutral terms, saying that it's effectively arguing the 'western' way is best, but I'm not sure that is how I would interpret it. India and Japan are also prominent democracies. Does he suggest liberalism is only western, discounting India's world leadership via Gandhi and Nehru, et al? Does he suggest something is inherently bad just because it was associated with recent imperialists? Would he rather see a worse tyranny descend, just because of these qualms?
This topic raises a wider issue, which is the huge gap in perception between the global south and the rest of the West. Christians are the most persecuted group on Earth right now. In Africa and Asia, millions are choosing the democratic way of government and even the Christian culture not because they are all unwittingly imbibing propaganda, as some self-absorped westerners might insultingly think, but because they genuinely find it better than the alternative, often of a different religion's alternative repressive theocracy, or a hypocritical socialist regime that is anything but social. In the developed West people are hardly aware of this massive cultural movement - indeed the centre of gravity of Christianity for example is now shifting away from America toward Africa and Latin America, residing somewhere in the Atlantic, and millions in China and Korea likewise have enthusiasm for it, often not because of theology, but because it is associated with the freedoms of America, compared to stolid restrictions. They can see the value of these cultural institutions for teaching, and are agitating for liberal democracy even if our own self critical culture thinks these western concepts are a tainted by imperialism or a relativistic preferance; they can see the effects of terrorism, forced marriages, pogroms, etc, and they don't want the culture surrounding it.
So we worry about whether Star Trek would be seen as imperialistic by promoting liberal democracy and freedom of choice, and dredge up negative stereotypes about Dr Livingstone type missionary figures, while the world chooses these things anyway without caring what the West thinks. Rival extremists understand this and are globally competing whether Europeans and Americans want the competition or not. I'm not a Christian by conviction, but I can see the value in what schools have done in Africa, the relative peace with which they have conducted themselves, and the historical and present conduct of the main alternative missionary religion, funded currently by immoral oil backed autocrats.
I'm starting to think maybe Star Trek needs to embrace it's progressivism more aggressively, like The Orville does, and maybe even the West needs to rediscover that not all alternatives are equally good. Star Wars takes a stand and we see that it is hugely popular as a timeless story of inspuration. Perhaps Star Trek is the grown up alternative, where Aristotle and Plato rather than Luke Skywalker come with the gunboats.
Then again maybe I'm dangerously wrong, but you will have to decide that based on your own free thought - I am aware that imperialism was no good thing, my father's country suffered - you will have to ask yourself where ethical intervention becomes colonialism.
Crime Story was on its was to being one of the best (and at the time most expensive) shows ever made and they pulled that. Gritty Chicago mob drama becomes glitzy proto-Casino crime drama becomes nuclear-politics-thingy, becomes Central-American-Junta-Politics. Audiences were pulled like taffy and it was over after two seasons. I think networks learned lessons from that.
Yeah. I think The Wire was the only successful show that changed its format every season. And it only got away with that because it was on HBO - network TV never would have allowed it. Plus its ratings when on the air were meh.
These days parodies of Star Trek are better than actual Star Trek.
The USS Callister episode of Black Mirror was a light year better than any episode of STD. The Orville had more socially relevant commentary than STD.
There's going to be a new Galaxy Quest show. I'm sure that will be better than STD also.
The USS Callister episode of Black Mirror was a light year better than any episode of STD. The Orville had more socially relevant commentary than STD.
There's going to be a new Galaxy Quest show. I'm sure that will be better than STD also.
I'm not sure what to think. Part of me wants to be charitable and assume it was just thoughtlessness. But, at the same time, what does that say about the writers if they didn't see that obvious parallel? I'm not sure chalking it up as unintentional is charitable at all. It certainly wouldn't inspire much hope for season two.
I kinda hope it was forced on them, or the result of too many rewrites, or they just needed to get things wrapped up unexpectedly. Or something.
These are some really interesting comments, thanks everyone.
Would promoting the Federation's institutions be so bad? I am as sympathetic to the preservation of unique culture as anyone. I would never want to see the end of our academic appreciation of them. We tend to lament the Spanish's conquest of the Aztecs as the end of a unique culture, even though the Aztecs were themselves brutal imperialists. But actually living them is different from appreciating them in a museum, placed in an academic context, after the fact.
If Starfleet comes across a planet where one in ten people are sacrificed to a machine deity, and they freely choose Federation values after being exposed to scientific fact, I think an ethical case can be made that Starfleet was right to expose the deception. If they discriminate against an entire gender, even with the support of a majority, in a way that causes suffering, should they not comment? Or like The Orville recently did, bravely point out the suffering it causes? What is it that these societies fear about the truth?
In my view, it might be 'method' that represents the real immorality that separates perceived westernisation (infact modernisation) from imperialism... that you can't, like Section 31 think, accomplish good via unethical means. Imperialists fomented coups and thought that they could change society from the top down via the writ of an unpopular sympathiser. They also profited from imperialism, and may not have genuinely wanted to democratise their subjects. While elements of the American establishment have been guilty of falling into this, for the most part, nobody has ever had to sell the good things about liberal democracy this way; they are self-evident. The Federation is even more progressive, it has solved the suffering caused by having to compete for employment and has solved almost all health problems.
If conservative forces attack people because they feel they are losing their culture, who is morally at blame, the Federation for not having considered the possible emotional effects of change, the individuals for freely rejecting that culture, or the one who chooses to actually press a button to murder someone? So many arguments place the blame on the former rather than the latter.
Getting back to the main topic; the Klingon Empire in TOS represented a rival social system, the way the Revolutionary/Napoleonic French did for Hornblower; maybe such seafaring adventures need that, a rival empire which is intransigent in it's desire to colonise their own more violent system upon the galaxy? Looking back, the Federation is peaceful, but it is also confident that it's social system is in the right, and willing to defend itself, without existential anxiety.
Would promoting the Federation's institutions be so bad? I am as sympathetic to the preservation of unique culture as anyone. I would never want to see the end of our academic appreciation of them. We tend to lament the Spanish's conquest of the Aztecs as the end of a unique culture, even though the Aztecs were themselves brutal imperialists. But actually living them is different from appreciating them in a museum, placed in an academic context, after the fact.
If Starfleet comes across a planet where one in ten people are sacrificed to a machine deity, and they freely choose Federation values after being exposed to scientific fact, I think an ethical case can be made that Starfleet was right to expose the deception. If they discriminate against an entire gender, even with the support of a majority, in a way that causes suffering, should they not comment? Or like The Orville recently did, bravely point out the suffering it causes? What is it that these societies fear about the truth?
In my view, it might be 'method' that represents the real immorality that separates perceived westernisation (infact modernisation) from imperialism... that you can't, like Section 31 think, accomplish good via unethical means. Imperialists fomented coups and thought that they could change society from the top down via the writ of an unpopular sympathiser. They also profited from imperialism, and may not have genuinely wanted to democratise their subjects. While elements of the American establishment have been guilty of falling into this, for the most part, nobody has ever had to sell the good things about liberal democracy this way; they are self-evident. The Federation is even more progressive, it has solved the suffering caused by having to compete for employment and has solved almost all health problems.
If conservative forces attack people because they feel they are losing their culture, who is morally at blame, the Federation for not having considered the possible emotional effects of change, the individuals for freely rejecting that culture, or the one who chooses to actually press a button to murder someone? So many arguments place the blame on the former rather than the latter.
Getting back to the main topic; the Klingon Empire in TOS represented a rival social system, the way the Revolutionary/Napoleonic French did for Hornblower; maybe such seafaring adventures need that, a rival empire which is intransigent in it's desire to colonise their own more violent system upon the galaxy? Looking back, the Federation is peaceful, but it is also confident that it's social system is in the right, and willing to defend itself, without existential anxiety.
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I'm not home right now, I'm posting from my cell phone, I'm on-location doing a gig all weekeend, but Monday I'll give my thoughts.
Thanks man, I find this topic very interesting.
Back! Thanks everyone for waiting. Anyway, let's get back into it...
Academic appreciation isn't the same as actual existence. All societies have a brutal past.
Including American society. I'd say it has a fairly brutal present. Police brutality, overspending on the military, not enough genuine interest in ending poverty, institutional discrimination, and an electoral system that only gives you a real choice between two leaders (since the system is so heavily rigged against third parties) which means that America is exactly only twice better than a government that only gives you one choice. Since the Federation is supposedly supposed to be a stand-in for America, I would prefer that it not be used as an example to spread across the galaxy. I'd prefer if the Federation represents an idealized version of what the United States could become that it's presently not and hasn't ever been regardless of who's in power. If they highlight the contrast just as something that is, without calling too much attention to it, it would work even better.
For the Aztecs: If the Spanish hadn't conquered them, for all we know the Aztecs of the 21st Century might've been a benevolent society or they might've been not much different, in terms of barbarity, from nations today. We have no way of knowing what they would've been like.
It depends on the will of the people in question. If they want their oppressive leader overthrown, a debate can occur as to whether or not it should be. But it should be made by the Federation President and the government, not by a Starship Captain whose only authority should be over their ship and to serve as a proxy for Starfleet, which is really only the military or not-military of the Federation. What if a Navy Captain decided on their own, today, to just change things in a third-world nation willy-nilly? I don't think it's their call to make.
The Prime Directive in the 23rd Century is more flexible than the Prime Directive in the 24th. Episodes like "A Taste of Armageddon", "A Private Little War", "The Apple" "The Gamesters of Triskelion", or "The Cloud Minders" where Kirk had to initiate change in entire civilizations just to save his ship and crew, obtain vital shipments, or stop a world from falling completely into enemy hands never would've happened on TNG. But the main issue I see here is that Starfleet explores several worlds. They wouldn't have the resources to change or improve every society they run into because if Starfleet is really doing as much exploring as they say, they'd be running into a lot of worlds.
One of the reasons I think Kirk might've been promoted to Admiral is because while he's great at planetary reform on a whim, it creates more work for the Federation in the aftermath and Starfleet saw him as a rabble-rouser, just one with a great tactical mind. So they promoted him to take advantage of his insight and to keep him from being out there changing worlds on a whim before they even know what to do.
I suppose in DSC they could show how the Federation would be over-exerting itself and that's why the Prime Directive was changed from the TOS version to the TNG version but this concern would have to be one that's raised and not acted upon until later than TOS. So it's a point raised and unresolved, left up to the viewer to decide, if they watch DSC in a vacuum.
In DSC, because of the type of series it is, I'd think their motives behind wanting to "civilize" a planet or enlighten it would be so they could gain a strategic ally. That would be in-line with the show's mentality and pragmatically co-opting the TOS mentality if not embracing it in a genuine, well-intentioned fashion.
I think if a society is benevolent and its citizens are satisfied, it should be left alone regardless of what the Federation thinks of it. Especially if it poses no threat. If it posed a threat or its people requested aid, then it would be a situation that would have to be examined case-by-case. I was never too thrilled with the idea that the Federation let the occupation of Bajor just happen, for instance. If the Federation didn't want to risk war with Cardassia or make it worse than the border wars they already had, they could've tried to find a diplomatic solution, by giving the Cardassians something they'd value in exchange for Bajor's freedom. Or, if the Cardassians didn't pose a sizable enough threat, drive them away from Bajor and fortify the space until Bajor could get back on its feet. There were different things the Federation could've done.
But, again, Starfleet as just an instrument of the Federation and representing the Federation. I don't think Starfleet should be making decisions such as those independently.
Exploration doesn't necessarily need to include colonization. The Enterprise was on a mission to, among other things, explore and to render aid to pre-existing colonies but not to colonize themselves.
I can see the idea of the Federation wanting to colonize worlds before the Klingons can and make allies before the Klingons can, but that leads to the Federation monopolizing the Galaxy. Another civilization that would like to colonize a planet, that has nothing to do with the Federation or Klingons, wouldn't be able to because the Federation claimed that planet first because they feared the Klingons might even if they might not have, so they can have more space. The Federation would inflate its size and gobble up as much space as it could only so the Klingons would think twice about attacking them and then a third party civilization would only be able to colonize on that claimed planet if they went through the Federation or became part of it. This makes the Federation sound like Wal-Mart and the Klingons sound like Target, while they push out all the little guys.
But that's not the note I want to this post end on. I'd rather end it on something else. TOS introduced Star Trek's 23rd Century. "Here's the 23rd Century and a basic understanding of it." DSC (or a spin-off, like a Pike series) has the chance, if they use it, to flesh out this time period and say, "Actually it's more complicated than that." They can add layers to what's already there and use what was shown in TOS to tell a larger story.
Academic appreciation isn't the same as actual existence. All societies have a brutal past.
Including American society. I'd say it has a fairly brutal present. Police brutality, overspending on the military, not enough genuine interest in ending poverty, institutional discrimination, and an electoral system that only gives you a real choice between two leaders (since the system is so heavily rigged against third parties) which means that America is exactly only twice better than a government that only gives you one choice. Since the Federation is supposedly supposed to be a stand-in for America, I would prefer that it not be used as an example to spread across the galaxy. I'd prefer if the Federation represents an idealized version of what the United States could become that it's presently not and hasn't ever been regardless of who's in power. If they highlight the contrast just as something that is, without calling too much attention to it, it would work even better.
For the Aztecs: If the Spanish hadn't conquered them, for all we know the Aztecs of the 21st Century might've been a benevolent society or they might've been not much different, in terms of barbarity, from nations today. We have no way of knowing what they would've been like.
It depends on the will of the people in question. If they want their oppressive leader overthrown, a debate can occur as to whether or not it should be. But it should be made by the Federation President and the government, not by a Starship Captain whose only authority should be over their ship and to serve as a proxy for Starfleet, which is really only the military or not-military of the Federation. What if a Navy Captain decided on their own, today, to just change things in a third-world nation willy-nilly? I don't think it's their call to make.
The Prime Directive in the 23rd Century is more flexible than the Prime Directive in the 24th. Episodes like "A Taste of Armageddon", "A Private Little War", "The Apple" "The Gamesters of Triskelion", or "The Cloud Minders" where Kirk had to initiate change in entire civilizations just to save his ship and crew, obtain vital shipments, or stop a world from falling completely into enemy hands never would've happened on TNG. But the main issue I see here is that Starfleet explores several worlds. They wouldn't have the resources to change or improve every society they run into because if Starfleet is really doing as much exploring as they say, they'd be running into a lot of worlds.
One of the reasons I think Kirk might've been promoted to Admiral is because while he's great at planetary reform on a whim, it creates more work for the Federation in the aftermath and Starfleet saw him as a rabble-rouser, just one with a great tactical mind. So they promoted him to take advantage of his insight and to keep him from being out there changing worlds on a whim before they even know what to do.
I suppose in DSC they could show how the Federation would be over-exerting itself and that's why the Prime Directive was changed from the TOS version to the TNG version but this concern would have to be one that's raised and not acted upon until later than TOS. So it's a point raised and unresolved, left up to the viewer to decide, if they watch DSC in a vacuum.
In DSC, because of the type of series it is, I'd think their motives behind wanting to "civilize" a planet or enlighten it would be so they could gain a strategic ally. That would be in-line with the show's mentality and pragmatically co-opting the TOS mentality if not embracing it in a genuine, well-intentioned fashion.
I think if a society is benevolent and its citizens are satisfied, it should be left alone regardless of what the Federation thinks of it. Especially if it poses no threat. If it posed a threat or its people requested aid, then it would be a situation that would have to be examined case-by-case. I was never too thrilled with the idea that the Federation let the occupation of Bajor just happen, for instance. If the Federation didn't want to risk war with Cardassia or make it worse than the border wars they already had, they could've tried to find a diplomatic solution, by giving the Cardassians something they'd value in exchange for Bajor's freedom. Or, if the Cardassians didn't pose a sizable enough threat, drive them away from Bajor and fortify the space until Bajor could get back on its feet. There were different things the Federation could've done.
But, again, Starfleet as just an instrument of the Federation and representing the Federation. I don't think Starfleet should be making decisions such as those independently.
Exploration doesn't necessarily need to include colonization. The Enterprise was on a mission to, among other things, explore and to render aid to pre-existing colonies but not to colonize themselves.
I can see the idea of the Federation wanting to colonize worlds before the Klingons can and make allies before the Klingons can, but that leads to the Federation monopolizing the Galaxy. Another civilization that would like to colonize a planet, that has nothing to do with the Federation or Klingons, wouldn't be able to because the Federation claimed that planet first because they feared the Klingons might even if they might not have, so they can have more space. The Federation would inflate its size and gobble up as much space as it could only so the Klingons would think twice about attacking them and then a third party civilization would only be able to colonize on that claimed planet if they went through the Federation or became part of it. This makes the Federation sound like Wal-Mart and the Klingons sound like Target, while they push out all the little guys.
But that's not the note I want to this post end on. I'd rather end it on something else. TOS introduced Star Trek's 23rd Century. "Here's the 23rd Century and a basic understanding of it." DSC (or a spin-off, like a Pike series) has the chance, if they use it, to flesh out this time period and say, "Actually it's more complicated than that." They can add layers to what's already there and use what was shown in TOS to tell a larger story.
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But, in my view, it's not about gobbling up territory to just to deny others, although that would be a side-effect. Rather it's about morality/ethics. If the Federation promotes it's values, in the belief that peace is better than war, freedom of belief better than theocracy, rights for all better than discrimination of some, then a chain of allies will be a side-effect, but the actual reason is simply that the Federation can do nothing other than follow it's founding principles.
There is a somewhat famous American foreign policy document from the beginning of the 20th century (I really wish I could find it's name), in which the USA outlined a policy of ethical influence in world affairs, in which it would promote liberal democracy, freedom of conscious, freedom of religion, etc, and perhaps reap the results of this liberty in the form of a friendly group of world regimes. It genuinely believed the Constitution represented 'self evident' pan-human values. Liberal democracy and freedom of choice would by necessity would tend to encourage free trade, allies, wealth, etc. I've become much more sympathetic to this in the last few years, having seen the alternatives.
Now, this of course might create a series of regimes sympathetic to the USA, so a cynic might interpret it as being British Empire 2.0. But it is actually remarkable if taken as it was intended; a consideration of the welfare of others, fulfilling the fundamental belief of the US Constitution; that all humans are created equal, and not just those living within the borders of the USA. Scholars who believe values are relative admit that even if cultural values are relative, a culture can do no other than follow it's principles anyway, in order to have self-respect; perhaps the west needs to rediscover this, because frankly, irrelevant of my intellectual understanding of cultural development, I don't like the values that some groups hold, I would rather live under secularism democracy than see my country become some communally-divided failed state, and world culture is mixing whether countries invite the challenge or not.
In the wake of all the negativity America has endured over it's foreign policy (including real moral failings), I'm beginning to see the value all the more clearly of the liberal order that emerged post-World Wars, promoted by American influence. Frankly, the rise of extremism in Europe makes me much more sympathetic to the promotion of 'subjective' constitutional values, which I feel have objectively produced better states. Would the Aztecs have eventually produced a tolerant civic society? Maybe, but we will never know, because globalism was inevitable, and both the Aztec Empire and Spanish Empire contacted each other at an intolerant time in both their cultures. I don't think the developed world should feel paralysing self-consciousness about it's values, when another culture that produces pogroms and death sentences for minor crimes openly challenges it.
There is a somewhat famous American foreign policy document from the beginning of the 20th century (I really wish I could find it's name), in which the USA outlined a policy of ethical influence in world affairs, in which it would promote liberal democracy, freedom of conscious, freedom of religion, etc, and perhaps reap the results of this liberty in the form of a friendly group of world regimes. It genuinely believed the Constitution represented 'self evident' pan-human values. Liberal democracy and freedom of choice would by necessity would tend to encourage free trade, allies, wealth, etc. I've become much more sympathetic to this in the last few years, having seen the alternatives.
Now, this of course might create a series of regimes sympathetic to the USA, so a cynic might interpret it as being British Empire 2.0. But it is actually remarkable if taken as it was intended; a consideration of the welfare of others, fulfilling the fundamental belief of the US Constitution; that all humans are created equal, and not just those living within the borders of the USA. Scholars who believe values are relative admit that even if cultural values are relative, a culture can do no other than follow it's principles anyway, in order to have self-respect; perhaps the west needs to rediscover this, because frankly, irrelevant of my intellectual understanding of cultural development, I don't like the values that some groups hold, I would rather live under secularism democracy than see my country become some communally-divided failed state, and world culture is mixing whether countries invite the challenge or not.
In the wake of all the negativity America has endured over it's foreign policy (including real moral failings), I'm beginning to see the value all the more clearly of the liberal order that emerged post-World Wars, promoted by American influence. Frankly, the rise of extremism in Europe makes me much more sympathetic to the promotion of 'subjective' constitutional values, which I feel have objectively produced better states. Would the Aztecs have eventually produced a tolerant civic society? Maybe, but we will never know, because globalism was inevitable, and both the Aztec Empire and Spanish Empire contacted each other at an intolerant time in both their cultures. I don't think the developed world should feel paralysing self-consciousness about it's values, when another culture that produces pogroms and death sentences for minor crimes openly challenges it.
I think that Discovery has that spirit, it's just no so over-the-head like The Original Series was/is.
I can't do tenth gear again. "But you make it look so easy!" Trust me, it's not. 
So, I'll go briefer than my last post.
I'm not saying it would be the intent, just a side-effect as you say. Obviously Federation values are better than the Klingons installing dictators and putting down resistance... wait a minute. That sounds like the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor. Were the Cardassians the '60s Klingons done over? But anyway...
I agree that forging alliances is the way to go.
Sounds up the ally of Theodore Roosevelt. Do you mean the Roosevelt Corollary?
By the Very-Late-23rd Century, in Star Trek VI, it's established that they have the Articles of Interstellar Law. It seems like at least the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans were abiding by them. I have to wonder if this was the result of some sort of Treaty. It seems like some type of standard that some of the Alpha Quadrant's major powers have agreed to.
So, I'll go briefer than my last post.
I'm not saying it would be the intent, just a side-effect as you say. Obviously Federation values are better than the Klingons installing dictators and putting down resistance... wait a minute. That sounds like the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor. Were the Cardassians the '60s Klingons done over? But anyway...
I agree that forging alliances is the way to go.
Sounds up the ally of Theodore Roosevelt. Do you mean the Roosevelt Corollary?
By the Very-Late-23rd Century, in Star Trek VI, it's established that they have the Articles of Interstellar Law. It seems like at least the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans were abiding by them. I have to wonder if this was the result of some sort of Treaty. It seems like some type of standard that some of the Alpha Quadrant's major powers have agreed to.
How do you have any idea what his involvement is?
I think the no-win scenario in "The Battle at Binary Stars", and there was no way to win, was as Nick Meyer as you can get without the literary references. It was a test of character that arguably Burnham failed. The entire premiere was one big two-hour Kobyashi Maru. She didn't have the chance to stop what she felt like she started until "Will You Take My Hand?"
Even the solution in "Will You Take My Hand?" was imperfect. I'd say imperfect by design, and we'll eventually see how it all blows up (pun intended).
Even the solution in "Will You Take My Hand?" was imperfect. I'd say imperfect by design, and we'll eventually see how it all blows up (pun intended).
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