List all the things that are not Star Trek.

[Nyotarules]

Monolithic cultures that lack diversity. Why do Vulcans speak 'Vulcan', Klingons speak 'Klingon' and Humans don't speak 'Earth'? I think the languages we hear is the official planetary language but there are other dialects spoken by the locals...just like on Earth, Chekov still speaks Russian, Picard French and Uhura Swahili.

 

[eschaton]

I have to ask: If there's no money, no currency, no cash except for "alien luxuries"... why do Joe Sisko and Robert Picard continue to operate their restaurant and winery? It doesn't make sense unless they're making some kind of profit. They prefer to do without replicators, so it's not like they can just endlessly recycle everything.

Canon references to no money from Memory Alpha:

• During an excursion to 1986-era San Francisco, Kirk told Spock about 20th century Earth, saying, "They're still using money. We need to get some." He then sold eyeglasses that McCoy had given him for $100. Later on, while Kirk was having dinner with Gillian Taylor in a restaurant and was unable to pay there, Gillian asked sarcastically, "Don't tell me they don't use money in the 23rd century," and Kirk earnestly replied, "Well, we don't." (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)

• In 2364, Jean-Luc Picard tried to explain to Ralph Offenhouse, a financier from the 20th century, that there would be no need for his services any longer. "A lot has changed in three hundred years," said Picard. "People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of 'things.' We have eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions." (TNG: "The Neutral Zone")

• When Lily Sloane asked him how much the USS Enterprise-E cost to build, Picard told her, "The economics of the future is somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century... The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity." (Star Trek: First Contact)

• When Nog suggested that Jake should bid for a baseball card in an auction, Jake said, "I'm Human, I don't have any money." Nog commented, "It's not my fault that your species decided to abandon currency-based economics in favor of some philosophy of self-enhancement." Jake answered, "Hey, watch it. There's nothing wrong with our philosophy. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity." Nog then replied, "What does that mean?" Jake responded, "It means... It means we don't need money!" Nog quickly pointed out, however, that Jake wouldn't be able to bid or borrow. (DS9: "In the Cards")

• Tom Paris said about the significance of Fort Knox, "When the New World Economy took shape in the late 22nd century and money went the way of the dinosaur, Fort Knox was turned into a museum." (VOY: "Dark Frontier")

Clearly some people seem to be, at minimum, self-employed in the Federation. But the implication seems to be they do it for fun, rather than to live. Whatever credits are, they don't seem to be money. Perhaps they're some sort of basic income supplied through Federation trade with the rest of the galaxy?

Certainly I can't think of a single instance within canon of a corporation existing within the Federation. Which means nothing similar to what we understand as modern capitalism exists.

 

[Tenacity]

Why do Vulcans speak 'Vulcan', Klingons speak 'Klingon' and Humans don't speak 'Earth'?

After processing though a universal translator, all terrestrial languages might be referred too by the single identifier of "Human." Regardless if the language is English or Japanese.

Klingons don't speak "Kronos."

Certainly I can't think of a single instance within canon of a corporation existing within the Federation.

Within the Federation is the planet Dytallix B, the entire planet is owned by the Dytallix mining corporation.

 

[Nyotarules]

Certainly I can't think of a single instance within canon of a corporation existing within the Federation. Which means nothing similar to what we understand as modern capitalism exists.

Memory Alpha is not canon, there are examples in the franchise were some financial system takes place.
1. Kirk asks Spock how much Starfleet spent on his education and training, Spock gives an answer in monetary terms, he does not say 'you know my training was free Captain, the Federation does not deal with money.'
2. In TAS Carter Winston is a millionaire, his wealth must be measured somehow.
3. Ezri Dax-Tigan's Trill family runs a family business, I doubt they do it for fun.
4. Miles O'Brien's mother refused to own or use a replicator, she cooked her own food. There is no suggestion they lived off free food and received free clothes.
5. Real life example, the British royal family never have currency/money on their person but still they are stinking rich.

When it comes to this topic as well as others, the franchise contradicts itself. Modern present day capitalism does not exist but its not a everything is free society.

 

[eschaton]

Memory Alpha is not canon, there are examples in the franchise were some financial system takes place.
1. Kirk asks Spock how much Starfleet spent on his education and training, Spock gives an answer in monetary terms, he does not say 'you know my training was free Captain, the Federation does not deal with money.'
2. In TAS Carter Winston is a millionaire, his wealth must be measured somehow.
3. Ezri Dax-Tigan's Trill family runs a family business, I doubt they do it for fun.
4. Miles O'Brien's mother refused to own or use a replicator, she cooked her own food. There is no suggestion they lived off free food and received free clothes.
5. Real life example, the British royal family never have currency/money on their person but still they are stinking rich.

When it comes to this topic as well as others, the franchise contradicts itself. Modern present day capitalism does not exist but its not a everything is free society.

Some of those are explicable however. TAS is arguably non-canon. Ezri's family lives in the Sappora system, on a non-Federation planet, which may explain its market economy.

In general, the references to money in Trek have been passing, arguably figures of speech for the most part (much like we call a wage a "salary" - which is a holdover of when the Romans were paid in salt). In contrast, the times that it has been stated that the Federation doesn't have a cash-based market economy have been very explicit.

I will admit that the writers never took the time to actually think through what a post-scarcity economy actually means, but that doesn't mean it's not the most parsimonious answer to what we see onscreen.

 

[uniderth]

Star Wars

But on a serious note:
Enterprise, JJTrek, and Discovery

 

[Nyotarules]

TAS is arguably non-canon.

David Gerrold, who contributed two stories to TAS, stated in an interview his views on the canon issue:

Arguments about "canon" are silly. I always felt that Star Trek Animated was part of Star Trekbecause Gene Roddenberry accepted the paycheck for it and put his name on the credits. And DC Fontana—and all the other writers involved—busted their butts to make it the best Star Trek they could. But this whole business of "canon" really originated with Gene's errand boy. Gene liked giving people titles instead of raises, so the errand boy got named "archivist" and apparently it went to his head. Gene handed him the responsibility of answering all fan questions, silly or otherwise, and he apparently let that go to his head.[14]

Consider
On June 27, 2007, Star Trek's official site incorporated information from The Animated Series into its library section,[19] clarifying, finally, that the animated series is part of the Star Trek canon. Both David Gerrold and D. C. Fontana have stated that the animated series is essentially the fourth season that fans wanted originally.[2

 

[Ghrakh]

Humanity in the TNG era hasn't evolved in the slightest, they're still the same dangerously savage child race as they were in the 20th century. It's all just propaganda which the wonderful utopian Federation has drilled into Picard and the rest of the Next Gen crew since they were children.

Edgy.

 

[scotpens]

Monolithic cultures that lack diversity. Why do Vulcans speak 'Vulcan', Klingons speak 'Klingon' and Humans don't speak 'Earth'?

Because Esperanto will never be anything more than a hobby for geeks.

 

[at Quark's]

Monolithic cultures that lack diversity. Why do Vulcans speak 'Vulcan', Klingons speak 'Klingon' and Humans don't speak 'Earth'? I think the languages we hear is the official planetary language but there are other dialects spoken by the locals...just like on Earth, Chekov still speaks Russian, Picard French and Uhura Swahili.

In Broken Bow (ENT), the Klingons are described by Archer as "An empire of warriors with eighty poly-guttural dialects constructed on an adaptive syntax" and later on, Hoshi complains that the translator is not locking on to the Klingon's 'dialect'. So at least in that episode they paid lip service to the idea.

 

[Jayson1]

It's not a monkey drinking a bottle of sprite and wearing a Tim Tebow Jersey while running around like crazy on the sets of of the HBO show "Divorce."

Jason

 

[Tenacity]

In general, the references to money in Trek have been passing, arguably figures of speech for the most part

The same could be said of the suprisingly few references to money not existing.

 

[eschaton]

The same could be said of the suprisingly few references to money not existing.

I'm not sure how you can say that. Picard saying "Money doesn't exist in the 24th century" - Jake saying "I'm Human, I don't have any money" and Tom Paris saying "money went the way of the dinosaur." are pretty damn specific. In contrast, almost all of the onscreen discussion of money in Trek was very fleeting, and can for the most part be explained in exactly the same way that an atheist sometimes curses using "god" and "hell" - that the words continued to be used as idioms long after the concepts ended.

Off-screen, it seems that late in his life, the Great Bird himself decreed that the Federation had no money. Ronald D. Moore noted by the time he joined the writing staff, he was told that money could no longer be mentioned - nor could credits. This helps to explain why all of onscreen discussion of money in the Federation is limited to TOS, TAS, and some early TNG episodes. Obviously Roddenberry's latter-day desires to retcon what Trek actually meant don't define canon in and of themselves, but it is clear from TNG Season 3 on Trek has been consistent that money doesn't exist within the core of the Federation.

My personal preference would have been if money was phased out some time between TOS and TNG. It's pretty clear that replicator technology, after all, doesn't exist in the ENT or TOS era, thus the ENT/DIS/TOS/TAS era is not a true post-scarcity economy. But that one-off comment by Tom Paris in Dark Frontier seems to establish the "New World Economy" came into being some time in the 22nd century.

 

[Gul Sengosts]

So after watching through the entirety of DSC, ENT and VOY, I'm now re-watching TOS, and one thing really springs to mind. In TOS, they're more often than not confronted with someone or something that's beyond their own power or even understanding. It's often a humbling encounter that's resolved with tactics and wit, not by force or superior technology. That's what good Star Trek is to me, being confronted with something otherworldly beyond your comprehension.

I don't hate VOY, but it couldn't be more different. In most episodes, VOY encounters some single-episode throwaway alien jerks with inferior technology, and more often than not they have to succumb to Voyager's technology and holier-than-thou ethics.

The thing is, in VOY everything's trivialised. It struggled to make its own interesting aliens, then resorted to bringing back the Borg, and even the Borg were trivialised in the sense that they could be so easily outsmarted. The same Borg that were so overwhelming that Picard begged Q for help are hardly more than a nuisance here. Speaking of Q, he must ask Janeway for parenting advice in VOY, so even they are trivialised. And where Kirk had to be smart, VOY often just has to remodulate subspace harmonics or whatever shit just came to mind.

Another thing, this time mostly in contrast to ENT, is the Vulcans. For all the human self-importance on display in TOS, Spock is an extremely capable and important officer not despite, but because he's Vulcan. He's very good, very efficient, and Kirk doesn't seem to try to change him, because he knows very well how good Spock is. He takes him as he is. Here, the Vulcan is someone with flaws but whose approach and strengths are incredibly valuable. In ENT, Vulcans are most of the time depicted as stubborn idiots, and Archer constantly tries to assimilate poor T'Pol. In contrast to TOS, in ENT being Vulcan seems to be a flaw, a flaw that can be fixed by making them more human.

So, back to the question: what is Star Trek to me and what isn't? To me, Star Trek means reaching out to the universe and encountering things we're not prepared for, that are beyond our imagination. To me, it doesn't mean laser gun battles, reversing shield polarity, or out-teleporting the Klingon flagship.

And this is why TMP, for all its flaws, is still my favourite Trek movie.

 

[CRM-114]

Honestly, one thing Star Trek is not is a great model for the future. We don't really know how a lot of things work in that world, but we accept that they do work in order to accept the stories the creators want to tell. Either that, or they work without any of the perceived flaws being an issue, e.g. Starfleet being a semi-military organization with tremendous power, influence, presence, and resources that somehow (at least, publicly) only works toward benevolent purposes. At least with Section 31, there was the recognition that such a system could have its' bad elements.

 

[Paradise City]

Democracy. The Federation is too big to be one.

Are ordinary Federation affected by Federation council decisions (other than war & peace ones)?

 

[Mojochi]

If you want to get technical... a Cardassian space station in orbit of a planet is not a star trek, & than my friends is when I decided to give up trying to hold them to a definition of "Star Trek", because whatever you want to call it, it was a good show

 

[Nerys Myk]

Democracy. The Federation is too big to be one.

Are ordinary Federation affected by Federation council decisions (other than war & peace ones)?

It's probably a representative democracy. I assume the Federation policies on economics, trade and other national issues impact Joe Synthpack in some ways.

 

[Tim Thomason]

I am not Star Trek. I am a human being.

 

[eschaton]

So after watching through the entirety of DSC, ENT and VOY, I'm now re-watching TOS, and one thing really springs to mind. In TOS, they're more often than not confronted with someone or something that's beyond their own power or even understanding. It's often a humbling encounter that's resolved with tactics and wit, not by force or superior technology. That's what good Star Trek is to me, being confronted with something otherworldly beyond your comprehension.

I don't hate VOY, but it couldn't be more different. In most episodes, VOY encounters some single-episode throwaway alien jerks with inferior technology, and more often than not they have to succumb to Voyager's technology and holier-than-thou ethics.

The thing is, in VOY everything's trivialised. It struggled to make its own interesting aliens, then resorted to bringing back the Borg, and even the Borg were trivialised in the sense that they could be so easily outsmarted. The same Borg that were so overwhelming that Picard begged Q for help are hardly more than a nuisance here. Speaking of Q, he must ask Janeway for parenting advice in VOY, so even they are trivialised. And where Kirk had to be smart, VOY often just has to remodulate subspace harmonics or whatever shit just came to mind.

To a certain degree, this is a problem with all Trek series post TOS. The writers felt like Roddenberry leaned too much on advanced, godlike aliens who could do anything as a crutch. He continued this over into early TNG - that's why Q exists (he's so close to Trelane that Trelane has been semi-officially retconned into a baby Q). But TNG in later seasons tried to avoid the mysterious "energy beings." DS9 obviously had the prophets, but after the first few seasons didn't really discuss other advanced races (other than of course the Founders, who really weren't all that advanced). ENT actually did a better job of this, with the Temporal Cold War and the Sphere Builders, but I suppose it's to be expected that due to its prequel status we'd see humans outgunned on a regular basis.

I agree though the problem was particularly bad on Voyager. I have heard that the writers were very loathe to ever consider writing Janeway in a way to make her seem weak or wrong, because they didn't want the first female captain to fall into female stereotypes. This is why, for example, if there was any sort of internal conflict within the crew, Janeway always had to be right in the end. Perhaps the same dynamic occurred with outside conflict as well. Certainly we never got a scene, for example, where Janeway was tortured, similar to Picard in Chain of Command or Kirk on so many occasions I can't recall them all.

Another thing, this time mostly in contrast to ENT, is the Vulcans. For all the human self-importance on display in TOS, Spock is an extremely capable and important officer not despite, but because he's Vulcan. He's very good, very efficient, and Kirk doesn't seem to try to change him, because he knows very well how good Spock is. He takes him as he is. Here, the Vulcan is someone with flaws but whose approach and strengths are incredibly valuable. In ENT, Vulcans are most of the time depicted as stubborn idiots, and Archer constantly tries to assimilate poor T'Pol. In contrast to TOS, in ENT being Vulcan seems to be a flaw, a flaw that can be fixed by making them more human.

I actually didn't mind ENT depicting Vulcans as dicks. The fact of the matter is that even discounting ENT, Vulcans have usually been depicted as prickly at absolute best, and more typically just total jerks. ENT didn't have enough time to finish out the "arc" of the founding of the Federation, but I liked what they were doing in the last season - starting to deal with the petty squabbles between Humans, Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellarites, in order to have them come together as a unified force for the Romulan War.