Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x01 - "Hegemony, Part II"

[fireproof78]

And that the future will still contain faith. Yes, we know faith can lead to repression and bloodshed, but the past century has also demonstrated that officially atheist and godless regimes can also bury millions in mass graves, line up scores of innocents against the wall and work them to death in labor camps.

Human failings and extremism are the issue, not faith. Pike's expression was nice to see and did nothing to harm the episode.

This.

With everything going on with Paramount and Skydance in the news, my immediate thought, rightly or wrongly was this about making someone happy rather than having anything to do with the show.

It has nothing to do with whatever is going on right now given how long production times are.

 

[Pindar]

As mentioned earlier in the thread, Pike having a religion was part of his backstory going back to Disco S2. Indeed, in the original "science vs faith" storyline Harberts and Berg had planned for that season, Pike was meant to be much more religious than he has become now and we would have seen him praying on a regular basis throughout that season. Plus this episode was written and ready to film back in 2023, well before the current real world drama involving Paramount, so this was likely an attempt to incorporate the religious side of Pike's character hinted at previously rather than an attempt to appease That Crowd.

I had a vague memory of him talking about it Discovery.

Did he say his father was a priest of some denomination?

There are no Starfleet Chaplains. Was Gene Rodenberry's vision of the future not one of secularism?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Did he say his father was a priest of some denomination?

His father was a teacher. One of the subjects he taught was comparative religion.

There are no Starfleet Chaplains. Was Gene Rodenberry's vision of the future not one of secularism?

Sometimes.

 

[Farscape One]

No Starfleet chaplains I'm aware of, but TOS had a chapel in "BALANCE OF TERROR".

 

[Nerys Myk]

One of the illusions the Talosians pull from Pike's mind is of the classical fiery Hell.

 

[Mr Awe]

Late to the party but I'm giving this one an 8. That's a little generous. It's more like a 7.5.

The action in it was effective to a degree. But there was way too much technobabble that made the solutions too easy. The whole medical angle was technobabble. Medicbabble? The transporter codes made things way too easy. Really, transporter codes to basically instantly save all colonists? And I have a hard time believing that M'Benga is the only Doctor on the Enterprise so when he was gone, only Chapel (a nurse) and Spock (non-medical) could work on Batel?

Also, they did the old Borg "sleep" trick to save the day.

And while I've supported SNW's take on the Gorn, if this was meant to close the chapter, it was a waste. So much potential and now they just put it off for someone else to solve. Is that a reference to Arena? Because that's not really a resolution. Or, is there more Gorn to come in SNW?

At any rate, it wasn't bad. There were some really nice moments. But the resolution was way too easy. And you knew there wasn't going to be a full on war with the Federation so that entire threat lacked urgency.

 

[Mr Awe]

I'm a TOS fan and I'd love more episodes set in the TOS era.

Not necessarily remakes of existing episodes, but certainly new adventures.

Ditto. Massive TOS fan here. I actually love the idea they're proposing for Star Trek: Year One. The time between when Kirk takes command and Where No Man takes place.

 

[Mudd]

I don't give a good goddamn what Roddenberry's "vision" of religion in the future was, given that he never made a public observation about religion or religious doctrines in the here-and-now that was anything other than superficial and, too often, puerile.

 

[The Wormhole]

Was Gene Rodenberry's vision of the future not one of secularism?

People often think that based mostly on Who Watches the Watchers where Picard makes comments which seem to imply humans don't have religious beliefs. And while it's true Watchers is basically a thesis on Roddenberry's attitude towards religion (at that time) the idea that humanity has become completely secular has never been represented either before Watchers or since.

 

[Turtletrekker]

"According to myth, the Earth was created in 6 days. Now, watch out! Here comes Genesis! We'll do it for you in 6 minutes!"

 

[Moopsy]

"According to myth, the Earth was created in 6 days. Now, watch out! Here comes Genesis! We'll do it for you in 6 minutes!"

I remember when a certain Christian denomination had a hissy fit over that line. [BTW, I am a Christian.]

 

[cooleddie74]

One of the illusions the Talosians pull from Pike's mind is of the classical fiery Hell.

"From a fable you once heard in childhood."

The Talosians know about his Christian upbringing. Definitely.

 

[CaptChris42]

And that the future will still contain faith. Yes, we know faith can lead to repression and bloodshed, but the past century has also demonstrated that officially atheist and godless regimes can also bury millions in mass graves, line up scores of innocents against the wall and work them to death in labor camps.

Human failings and extremism are the issue, not faith. Pike's expression was nice to see and did nothing to harm the episode.

The problem is generally totalitarianism and fear based morality, I find (and I say this girding my teeth that I may be stepping into too big an issue here...)

Regimes tend to grow from both those seeds above, leading into forms of absolutism, protectionism and unquestionable creeds, I find. Many of those do seem on the rise more and more today, however.

Stalin and his kind modernized Russia... but only at a terrible cost to others. China went a similar way.

Perhaps ancient Israel was quite similar too - unified by collective myths, that soon became... err... more and more authoritarian coded. Cultic elements possibly forming later.

But yes - at it's best, faith becomes a very unifying and aspirational principle. It can all too often depend on absolutisms, however... which can be the enemy of constructive compromise.

But then, so can Communism.

 

[Fateor]

Something to think about so far as religion in Trek is concerned is that a lot of religions might have been influenced into starting by Aliens.

And once humans got out into the wider galaxy, and all the "hidden" aliens on Earth stopped hiding, they would have found out about a lot of that. So suddenly a bunch of religions are faced with realities like "Oh yeah sorry, that was just bob messing around".

 

[Yistaan]

Something to think about so far as religion in Trek is concerned is that a lot of religions might have been influenced into starting by Aliens.

And once humans got out into the wider galaxy, and all the "hidden" aliens on Earth stopped hiding, they would have found out about a lot of that. So suddenly a bunch of religions are faced with realities like "Oh yeah sorry, that was just bob messing around".

Controlled time travel doesn't happen until TOS though, Section 31 red angels aside. We know they meet Apollo in TOS. We don't know if the Fed starts poking around in Bethlehem or Nazareth for time travel missions, but keep in mind that Picard is still celebrating Christmas in a Nexus fantasy in Generations in the 24th century, instead of him going like "We already proved that Jesus was a fraud" so, within the Trek universe at least as of Generations, that hadn't been disproven yet.

 

[Fateor]

Controlled time travel doesn't happen until TOS though, Section 31 red angels aside. We know they meet Apollo in TOS. We don't know if the Fed starts poking around in Bethlehem or Nazareth for time travel missions, but keep in mind that Picard is still celebrating Christmas in a Nexus fantasy in Generations in the 24th century, instead of him going like "We already proved that Jesus was a fraud" so, within the Trek universe at least as of Generations, that hadn't been disproven yet.

Why would they need time travel when they have immortals and multi-thousand year old aliens around who would have lived it?

Also, Christmas isn't just a religious celebration at this point in history. So that's not really a good benchmark. (And there's no way something like that would have gotten past the network executives anyways.)