"...one crew, a Starfleet crew." Really...WHY?
- Thread starter Gotham Central
- Start date
I completely agree - no arguments here.
They went better that they realistically should have according to our behaviors today. What folks tend to forget is that the Trek world is one where humans have evolved. In many ways they would not behave the same as we would.
I recall in "The Cloud", Neelix disagreed to how Janeway ran the ship.
Her reply was an offer to put him off the ship.
The Maquis members that were non-Starfleet took issue with Tuvok and intergrating into a Starfleet crew.
Chakotay's reply was punching one of them in the mouth.
Given the choices, it was best to play along and join the crew as a member of Starfleet.
Her reply was an offer to put him off the ship.
The Maquis members that were non-Starfleet took issue with Tuvok and intergrating into a Starfleet crew.
Chakotay's reply was punching one of them in the mouth.
Given the choices, it was best to play along and join the crew as a member of Starfleet.
Neelix wanted to be let off during a dangerous mission then picked up again when it was over. Basically, he was just thinking of himself. Janeway was reminding him that he was there voluntarily and it was not a champagne cruise. If he didn't like it he was free to leave.
Chakotay was making a point. Apparently not all the viewers got it...
Exactly what viewers are you referring to?
You mean they'd behave more like sheep and people who secretly wanted to be in Starfleet the whole time?
Having the Maquis wearing Starfleet uniforms makes as much sense as having Minutemen wearing Redcoats. And Janeway pressing the Maquis into Starfleet service -- demanding concessions from them but offering no substantive concessions to them even though both crews needed the other -- is no better than the Royal Navy's old habit of pressing Americans into service on British ships.
Nope.
Humans in Star Trek are not more evolved than they are today. That's nothing more than a piece of propaganda that Picard and Co. liked to spout. The ultimate evidence? In "The Last Outpost," a Tkon asks Riker if he would like for him to kill the Ferengi. Riker does not respond by saying, "No, they are sentient creatures with a right to live," or, "No. These guys may be assholes, but the rest of their species might be nice." He responds by saying that the Ferengi remind him of when his species used to be inferior -- judging an entire culture on the basis of an encounter with one ship -- and declares, "If you kill them, they will learn nothing." In other words, no, don't kill them, because then we won't be able to spread our culture to them.
That's cultural imperialism, pure and simple. It's really no better than the British declaring that they conquered the world to civilize it.
More evidence? The Maquis themselves. From a Maquis point of view, the Federation betrayed its own citizens -- handed over their homes to the enemy, tried to relocate them against their will, and then tried to hunt them down for daring to use force to protect themselves from Cardassian attacks and to seek independence. Realistically-written Maquis would never consent to wear the uniform of a state that had, from their POV, so betrayed them. And if the Federation were really so evolved, it wouldn't have engaged in such a brazen act of appeasement.
Finally, the concept itself is anti-scientific -- there's no such thing as being "more" or "less" evolved. Evolution is not a hierarchy.
That's cultural imperialism, pure and simple. It's really no better than the British declaring that they conquered the world to civilize it.
More evidence? The Maquis themselves. From a Maquis point of view, the Federation betrayed its own citizens -- handed over their homes to the enemy, tried to relocate them against their will, and then tried to hunt them down for daring to use force to protect themselves from Cardassian attacks and to seek independence. Realistically-written Maquis would never consent to wear the uniform of a state that had, from their POV, so betrayed them. And if the Federation were really so evolved, it wouldn't have engaged in such a brazen act of appeasement.
Finally, the concept itself is anti-scientific -- there's no such thing as being "more" or "less" evolved. Evolution is not a hierarchy.
Yeah, because punching one of your subordinates in the mouth, one of the people that looks up to you as a great leader, is a fine example of "evolved" humanity.
Who knew, all this time General Patton was an evolved human! 
I'd never thought of it that way.ETA: And though I don't entirely agree with your follow-up post, you make some very good points.
No, it wasn't. That was a revisionist piece of nonsense that Roddenberry began spouting when he created TNG and starting buying into his own hype. And it was nonsense on the show, too; the TNG crew were as ethnocentric and imperialistic as any modern American, they were just ethnocentric and imperialistic about different things.
Nothing in TOS suggests that humans are "more evolved." TOS suggests a better future, certainly, but at no point does it posit some fundamental change in human nature (which is itself a meaningless concept). TOS's attitude is best encompassed when Kirk says, "We're killers, but we won't kill today." Better choices, not better natures.
Exactly - humanity was able to make better choices to the point where there was no longer war on Earth (or within the Federation for that matter).
Secular humanism was associated with Trek long before TNG hit the airwaves. DS9 made a move away from it but it was still mentioned in Voyager. Two examples:
1) The conversation with Tom and the girl he met in "Future's End" when she comments about how he is concerned more for the big picture rather than his own petty concerns. His response was prett much "Well isn't everybody?"
2) Q wanted to mate with Janeway because he believed a half-human child would bring some of humanity's best traits to the continuom. She tells him that "sprinkling human dna" won't do the trick. These were traits passed on for centuries - notice she doesn't say "thousands of years".
After Gene Roddenberry died writers were no longer held to a strict secular humanism standard but some writers on Voyager still wrote those kinds of stories.
The problem is that just showing the Maquis putting on Starfleet uniforms and obeying Starfleet regulations isn't the same as actually telling a story about people coming to realize that certain values are superior to selfishness.
They made no effort to show the Maquis actually realizing that the Federation way was superior -- in part because, frankly, the circumstances that created the Maquis are not circumstances in which the Federation way was superior.
The Federation's decision to engage in an act of appeasement to the Cardassians and sell out its citizenry was a violation of Federation ideals and principles. A story about the Maquis reconciling themselves with the Federation and its values would have necessarily included a story about Janeway and the other Starfleet officers coming to realize that, frankly, the Federation had done the wrong thing.
How? By keeping up hostilities and war that claimed millions of lives already? That's the wrong thing?
Apparently, proper human nature equates "Vicious Warmonger".
And frankly, TOS' idea that humans would act 100% the same in the 23rd Century that they do in the 20th century is dumber than any critique of the TNG future.
Apparently, proper human nature equates "Vicious Warmonger".
And frankly, TOS' idea that humans would act 100% the same in the 23rd Century that they do in the 20th century is dumber than any critique of the TNG future.
The war was already over. The Cardassians had been defeated. There was no reason to hand over Federation citizens' homes.
No, it equates not giving an aggressive, hostile power the territory they've gone to war to conquer. We tried that in real life. It was a bad idea to hand over the Sudetenland to Hitler, and it was a bad idea to hand over Federation planets to the Cardassians.
TOS didn't portray people as behaving 100% like they did in the 20th Century. TOS posited that in the future, humanity's fundamental nature would stay the same, but that its culture, its values, and, therefore, its choices had changed.
That's a very different, and frankly much less self-congratulatory and ethnocentric, message than, "We're more evolved than everyone else," which was basically early TNG's premise.
In fairness, we don't know the exact terms of the Cardassian treaty, or why the decisions were made to cede those planets/colonies to Cardassian control. In truth, I don't recall any discussion of what former Cardassian citizens who found themselves on the wrong side of the new border thought, or why they didn't form their own version of the Maquis. It may well be that the decision the Federation made saved a lot of lives, it may even be that some of those planets were illegitimately claimed by Federation settlers in the first place, in a situation not completely different from Cestus III from 100 or so years previously. In a lot of ways, the Maquis had legitimate grievances - especially when Starfleet started coming after them. The whole situation, as you've indicated, just needed more explanation.
We are more than our natures - we are also our choices. (Which is not to say you're correct that proper human nature equates "Vicious Warmonger.")
Why? Humans in the 1990s century act very similarly to humans in the 1690s, aside from technological innovations and a sharp increase of leisure time. Shakespeare would be just as much of a hit today with the same material and updated language.
What TOS suggests is that human society has developed - has progressed - to the point where we are able to make better, more enlightened choices even when our natures tell us otherwise. And Voyager continues that attitude, in my opinion. Even DS9, except when it's specifically highlighting how humans still aren't perfect and can be broken (see Quark's speech in AR-558 for example), has that message.
BSG said nothing of the sort.
As for Voyager, I'm always surprised when people express disappointment over the lack of Maquis-tension throughout the series. Did these people even watch the first episode? Realistic or no, Voyager ended up being very true to that speech in Caretaker.
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