Space chinese, were they not?
The Romulans and the Defiant's cloaking device.
- Thread starter t_smitts
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Space chinese, were they not?
I have always thought that the klingons were the russians and the romulans were the chinese because those were the two (other) powers that mattered in the 60s. But I have never looked out for specials hints about that in the way those were presented on screen. And I also haven't taken it too seriously but it makes sense if you saw the three powers in Star Trek as a metaphore (analogy) for the political world in 1966+.
As for the u-boat movie: Germany was the main factual enemy of the UK and the US in two world wars. Therefore the movies didn't deal with chinese. I don't know how many movies dealt with Japan as the enemy.
Those quirky Americans have a LOT to answer for...
I'm remembering that Star Fleet officer in Balance of Terror accusing Spock of being a Romulan.
Weird.
Weird.
The way I always saw it -
Klingons - based on Ancient fuedal Japan (Next gen era at least)
Romulans - Soviet Union, hovelled up behjind their 'berlin wall'
Cardassians - Nazis.
(Though, you could also compare Vulcan and Romulus as South and North Korea...with the latter hiding away all secretive like...and the former being all friendly to the 'space west'...)
There's also the matter of "under the raptor's wings" which is introduced later. Of course, many western powers (and Russia) use eagles as a symbol, it's not particularly common in Chinese symbology. The Eagle, in western civilization, is the bird of Zeus - representing the divine authority of the State as a servant of Zeus (Zeus had an Eagle that was his personal servant). This is why the Eagle is more common in western nations than other ones. Furthermore it was heavily preferred by fascism because of this connection with Ancient Rome, upon which fascism was partially modeled.
The fact is, notwithstanding the Chinese occupying Tibet, the imperialist nature of the Romulans doesn't quite fit with communist China. Regardless, there are no one-to-one allegories in Star Trek that play out as true for all episodes. As far as I've come to know the Romulans are very Roman and, as a result of this, pretty close to fascist. Of course, this is pre-Shinzon as Shinzon clearly has some sort of "bolshevik uprising."
For DS9 the Romulan city was designed with explicit orders to keep in mind the Roman-Fascist works of Albert Speer, Nazi architect.
Potatoes are not girlfriends.
I love how he makes it look like a bad thing to hate on the Nazis.
Also, don't pussyfoot around it with this "certain ethnicities" crap. If you're going to be a bigot, come right out and own it and say what you really mean. Anything else is cowardly on top of being a bigot.
Everyone hates Nazis.
The next guy in charge might be a German born Buddhist, and he's still going to hate the Nazis.
The next guy in charge might be a German born Buddhist, and he's still going to hate the Nazis.
Simply not true. Especially in the 60's when films like the U-Boat film about two soldiers on opposite sides of the war came out. General Patton was extremely opposed to "denazification" of the Germans after WWII. Many people during the 50's and 60's saw them as regular people who were soldiers on the other side of the war - which is in fact what they were. This is how we ended up importing many of them to work in the US Government, such as Wehner von Braun.
It has nothing to do with being a bigot and simply has to do with the political interests of Jews who have been the sole proprietors of the Star Trek franchise since Roddenberry's death. Berman controlled Star Trek for years, Nicholas Meyer is one of the most popular filmmakers of it next to Nimoy, JJ Abrams made the new movies, and Alan Kurtzman will be taking over CBS' new series - all Jews. Hence you won't get an exploration of Romulans like you got an exploration of Klingons.
Nazi is a political term that kinda spread out uncontrollably.
Does anyone call the US Army "Democrats" or "Republicans" depending on who is in office?
Forgiving Germany for basically being date raped by a couple bad eggs was a lengthy involved process.
Does anyone call the US Army "Democrats" or "Republicans" depending on who is in office?
Forgiving Germany for basically being date raped by a couple bad eggs was a lengthy involved process.
The Bajorans were in concentration camps.
Figuring out who the Cardassians where supposed to be didn't take much imagination.
Figuring out who the Cardassians where supposed to be didn't take much imagination.
No. That's neo-Nazi revisionist poppycock.
Au contraire, it is precisely bigotry.
In this particular context, it might be amusing to remember that a bunch of Jews did "Patterns of Force", and had great fun at it... Nazis are sexy, although generally only when they are presented through stereotypes. How can one go wrong with goose-stepping, shrieking guys in extremely tight pants and boots that make McCoy cry uncle?
Actually, they weren't. There was mention of one forced labor camp, with no mention on how one ended up being there (only a tiny majority of the Bajoran population obviously did), but generally the Occupation was a closer analogy to the earlier stages of Nazi tyranny, with the Cardassians seemingly actively throwing Bajorans off planet.
The writers really did hard work trying to exploit the Cardassians from every possible angle. They had seven years to do it, so naturally they occasionally managed to do more than the no-brainer Space Nazi thing. Essentially, though, we ought to remember that we don't remember the Nazi occupation particularly well. It's distant history that chiefly happened to the French and the Poles (in two very different fashions), and most of us are neither. So naturally the writers would get many of their cues from CNN and Fox and the ongoing occupations of our Earth.
Timo Saloniemi
Actually, they weren't. There was mention of one forced labor camp, with no mention on how one ended up being there (only a tiny majority of the Bajoran population obviously did), but generally the Occupation was a closer analogy to the earlier stages of Nazi tyranny, with the Cardassians seemingly actively throwing Bajorans off planet.
The writers really did hard work trying to exploit the Cardassians from every possible angle. They had seven years to do it, so naturally they occasionally managed to do more than the no-brainer Space Nazi thing. Essentially, though, we ought to remember that we don't remember the Nazi occupation particularly well. It's distant history that chiefly happened to the French and the Poles (in two very different fashions), and most of us are neither. So naturally the writers would get many of their cues from CNN and Fox and the ongoing occupations of our Earth.
Timo Saloniemi
