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Spoilers Let’s talk about the destruction of Trek utopia…

Remember the final moments of "Balance of Terror," with Kirk striding grimly away from the poor woman whose fiancee was killed on their wedding day?

With the credits rolling while he's walking. I always found something weirdly modern about that scene. I would even dare to call it something of a "bad ass" scene.
 
“Why is Earth a paradise in the twenty-fourth century? Well, maybe it’s because there’s someone watching over it and doing the nasty stuff that no one wants to think about.”
I agree with both of these things, and I think one answers the other. To me, one of the pleasures of Picard has been that it sits with the consequences of Starfleet decision-making, which Trek in general hasn't. I mean, TNG was optimistic in a way I adore, but it was often an unearned optimism made possible by the nature of episodic television, which allowed stories to ignore things like imperialism, political fallout, and other complexities when the credits rolled.
Serialized television is just a fundamentally different genre than episodic television; each has things it can accomplish that the other can't, and it's not really fair to either genre to demand that they do things they can't.

One thin that I noticed is that in TNG, Picard or his crew would usually solve a problem before they had to do something morally drastic. Hugh and the Borg, the Klingon civil war, Sela trying to capture Vulcan with 2000 troops :lol:. Even the stuff with Jellico.

Data could have killed Fajo, but he was beamed out just in time, so he had an escape clause. Picard could have ruthlessly infected Hugh with that virus or whatever it was, but an easier solution of 'maybe he'll influence the Borg with his individuality' let him off the hook.

Sisko and Janeway (DS9 and Voyager) didn't always have that luxury. When Sisko saw that the Federation was steadily losing the Dominion war, no matter what they did, he actually tricked the Romulans into the war.

And Janeway technically forced Tuvix (with guards) to give up his life even though he insisted he was a living person and didn't want to give up his life. Usually the episode would end with him changing his mind on his own and willingly do it. Or another freak transporter accident changes him back to normal. It was a crazy situation.

That's a major difference in episodic plots and serial plots.

With Picard, he and other characters finally have to consider doing drastic things, because he no longer has the power or resources to fix everything, and according to Jerri Ryan, "the universe is going to hell in a hand basket".

To me, for the time being, it seems like whether Picard is considered 'darker' or not depends a little on how much power the heroes had to fix the problems by the end of each episode.
 
The good thing is that Robau can still be alive in the Prime Timeline and appear in DSC as, say, Admiral Robau. ;)
Or his ship could have been destroyed by a Romulan ship, as it was patrolling the Neutral Zone back in 2233; and nobody in Star Fleet would be the wiser. :angel:;)
 
I've pieced together the endo-genesis of TNG. I have proof of what he came up with as well as why and when he came up with it.

I also now know why all Star Trek after TNG, it doesn't matter which series or which movie, had to be a step back from it in order to exist. I also know why PIC, and DSC S3 for that matter, fit along the lines of the ideas Gene Roddenberry already had before his epiphany that he should turn Star Trek into a soup of everything, since it was his most successful series and knew he had to put everything underneath that umbrella if he wanted to get it out there.

It's going to take a few days to put together, at least, but when I'm done, you'll be able to follow along with me as I put together how Gene Roddenberry got from one step to the next, and how Picard fits into it.

I've already been looking at the evolution of Star Trek for almost 30 years, but now I think I have all the connective tissue to pull it all together.

I'm not going to talk about it any further for now. But I'm going to promise you a post that's been three decades in the making, coming soon.
 
Sisko and Janeway (DS9 and Voyager) didn't always have that luxury. When Sisko saw that the Federation was steadily losing the Dominion war, no matter what they did, he actually tricked the Romulans into the war.

And Janeway technically forced Tuvix (with guards) to give up his life even though he insisted he was a living person and didn't want to give up his life. Usually the episode would end with him changing his mind on his own and willingly do it. Or another freak transporter accident changes him back to normal. It was a crazy situation.

Don't forget ENT and TOS. Archer had to turn space pirate, and the very first season of Trek had Kirk murder a woman he loved to save the world.

TNG is the outlier.
 
Picard could have ruthlessly infected Hugh with that virus or whatever it was, but an easier solution of 'maybe he'll influence the Borg with his individuality' let him off the hook.

I think saving Hugh was the morally harder choice to make especially for Picard himself and to TNG's credit it did come back on Picard later when the admiral chews him out about it.
 
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Someone mentioned Strangelove a bit up-thread.

I've decided the only way this season can end is with Jurati riding a tachyon positronic cascade disassembler shouting, "We are Sex Bob-Om!"
 
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