Spoilers Two steps forward, one step back? Thoughts on the world DSC presents

But as we are all aware, most does not equal all. I too have read well thought out criticisms of Discovery and a massive deluge of 'this isn't Star Trek because has never done this' arguments which ignore the fact that Star Trek had previously done what they were describing in spades. Along with many many many no-argument basic 'Disco sucks' comments since before even the first ep and still going on as many peoples primary assessment.

 

Thanks a lot. I'm fine with shades of gray in other things. Breaking Bad is amazing. I like my Star Trek straight up, though. Moral dilemmas that make ya think, sure. Tuvix, bring it on. Yet we still have, essentially, heroes going about doing good, if with feet of clay.

Others' mileage varies. Saul good, man.

 

Poor Kim...

 

Nor did I say it had "nothing" to do with the tone. I just expressed a skepticism at it being a sole reason or even majorly responsible. I have no doubt that feedback is important to them, just not to this degree.

Secondarily, and rather unfortunately, a lot of comments do come across as "Star Trek never did this before!" While I appreciate many individuals who discuss things with very respectful statements, those are few and far between in my experience around the fandom (here, Reddit, Ex Scienta Astris, among others). I simply have not had the experience that the majority of comments are constructive.

 

Fair enough.

 

Agree with you. Mirror!Georgiou is not a cannibal. She's an apex predator -- a caricature of real world humans.

Case in point: Cetaceans are both sentient and sapient, on our version of Earth as well as Trek's (at least Prime), and humans all over the world have eaten them and used byproducts... didn't whaling lead to the extinction of at least one whale species?

Both Western/colonial and Indigenous cultures have engaged in eating whales and using their bone and blubber for various purposes. While I've never indulged, there's also a case to be made about cephalopod intelligence, one that I dislike thinking about, because they are tasty and great with sauce. (Spoiler alert: not a vegan. Quite the contrary, much to my shame.)

tl;dr - Yes, millions of humans would eat Saru and the other Kelpiens, especially if we didn't quite understand their intelligence. At least, early 21st century humans would. After all, many of us quite enjoy eating other sentient Terrans.

My kingdom for this very thing! (Wrote and deleted a long and heartfelt response that I'll post once Picard gets his own forum...)

 

Looking forward to seeing it in the new forum eventually.

Too many people are saying they don't want to see the 25th Century because they think it'll be more of the same from the 24th. One of the main reasons I disagree (besides it being a different creative team) is because every new era is a reaction to the previous one. Just like every decade is a reaction to the one before it. Picard being in a different place and the Galaxy being in a different place all make sense, given everything that had happened.

All we really see of the Post-Dominion War Alpha Quadrant is the Voyager Pathfinder Project and Star Trek: Nemesis. Not exactly a lot to go off of. And even that was all before Romulus' Destruction to boot. So they can do anything they want and change the Federation and Quadrant to be however they want. Then have Picard react to it. Either by changing himself, not changing and saying this isn't the way it's supposed it to be, or both.

 

My post was "disrespectful" of posts, not of posters.

"STD sucks", and "NOPE", aren't what I'd call "thoughtful criticisms".

It seems that whenever a new Trek property comes out, some fans are simply unable to see anything right with it.

Just because someone may think your opinions are bunk, doesn't mean they're advocating silencing you.

 

Really? That's sad. I would definitely say that the majority of criticism about DSC last season was thoughtful and insightful. Iterations of "DSC sucks" or "that's not real Trek" are short and simple enough to scroll past and ignore, and while more aggressive attempts at trolling do tend to attract disproportionate attention, that still doesn't make them the majority.

Heck, just look at the OP of this thread. If that's not a carefully balanced and thought-provoking commentary, I don't know what is.

(And just to be fair, a lot of defenses of the show have been no more sophisticated than "this is what Trek is now, suck it up." There are thoughtless posters on both sides of any question.)

I can't agree with either your premises or your conclusions here. First of all, you must be using some definition of "sapient" I'm not familiar with, because whales don't qualify for the term as I understand it. (And even so, hunting them has been internationally banned for other reasons.) Second, Kelpiens are unquestionably sapient — they use sophisticated tools and language — and I honestly can't imagine modern humans being comfortable eating any species with those traits. (Heck, the revulsion it evokes is precisely why it was (over)used for shock value in DSC.)

 

Your assertion that "most" criticisms of DSC here weren't legitimate was what I was talking about. I don't think thoughtful criticisms were a tiny minority, as you seem to.

No, they're opinions with which you disagree. The fact they're not thoughtful doesn't make them any less valid.

Sometimes. And sometimes they just don't like what they see. It doesn't make them intractable or unreasonable. DSC is neither objectively good or bad. It's whatever you think it is.

I don't think anyone is advocating that. I think you made a generalized statement about DSC criticism here that isn't necessarily true. Does every critic of the show need to lay out outlined arguments so that you can determine the validity of their DSC antipathy? It's like the assertion that Discovery is a good show is a given to everyone with a brain, and it's up to its detractors to prove otherwise.

 

Oh, the ones that are "DSC sucks" are usually quite long, involve a lot of dialog around Klingons and their generally sucking, and the fact that change is bad. Some are well presented (such as the OP) but some miss the point. Unfortunately, as you note, this occurs on both sides of the discussion.

Now, I would love long and interesting discussions that involve the merits of both arguments. I have been intrigued by many here who discuss DSC's shortcomings, their experience that the Klingons are unnecessarily changed, that SMG is not an enjoyable actress as Michael Burnham, the concerns around many of design choices, among many many others. There are several posters here who present both thoughtful and insightful.

However, as I am trying to note, that is my general experience around in Trek fandom. Other sites are far less gracious at times, which has given me a healthy dose of skepticism. That's incredibly frustrating because I want to see all the different POVs but I also want to discuss them, rather than the lines being drawn and accusations of not being whatever the other side thinks of the opposition.

 

Well, in "general Trek fandom" as in SF overall, and as in political debate, and for that matter pretty much any human endeavor that's open to all comers, some variation on Sturgeon's Law applies. Fortunately, it's the thoughtful stuff that's memorable and worthwhile, and makes the rest worth putting up with.

 

Indeed, indeed. I have hope in humanity, but the Internet is not the source of it

But, I'm not going to labor under the auspicious idea that our fandom's ramblings somehow impacted Season 2 in a huge way.

And, while I would love to confine my comments to just the commentary I read on this BBS, past experience has taught me otherwise. Please do not read my "majority" comment as condemning of this BBS as a whole. That is neither the implication nor the intent.

 

There's shock value, yes, but as with all Trek, perhaps there's more at work here.

Of course the viewer is horrified by the spectacle of those dastardly DSC Terrans dining on Kelpiens. However, Kelpiens are not actually real. They've been anthropomorphized enough that we wouldn't. Anthropomorphic aliens are a huge thing in science fiction in general, and in Trek in general (hello, Preservers). We know that's Doug Jones under all the prosthetics, and ew... we're not cannibals.

To the Ba'ul, and to Mirrorverse Terrans, eating Kelpiens makes sense. To many real-life human omnivores, eating cetaceans (whales, dolphins) and cephalopods (squid, octopi) makes sense. What is "revolting" to one human culture is a great delicacy in another.

Yet scientists have observed intelligence, communication, and even culture in whales and dolphins. They're studying intelligence in octopi. Even as far back as when STIV was produced, the fact that whales were sentient was part of popular understanding -- hence, the premise of the movie -- but more recently, scientists have studied whale language and culture.

‘Whales and dolphins are ancient and wonderful sapient and sentient beings. How would we be judged by our great, great grandchildren and all unborn generations if, knowing what we do, we do not fight to prevent their extinction? The whales and dolphins need and deserve our help – now, before it is too late.’ --Jane Goodall

Sapient Cetaceans is an actual TV Trope as well, with STIV being a listed example.

We're starting to wake up. Whaling used to be a gigantic industry in the past. Whaling is how Arctic people sustained themselves. But in the 21st century, there's an international outcry -- the trend is moving toward leaving them alone.

By the 23rd century in our timeline, it's doubtful that any of our descendants will be eating animals. I expect that arguments against eating other animals, and using animal products, will eventually be won. I still consume meat and seafood, but in a century or two, we probably won't be killing and eating things, and the practice of doing so will be looked upon as barbaric.

We wouldn't eat Kelpiens, and we definitely wouldn't if our real-world First Contact was with a species like that. They walk upright, they have two eyes, they are graceful and tall and sound sort of like Doug Jones.

However, what if the first aliens we encountered looked more like whales or squid than us? What if they were tasty with marinara sauce? What then?

My point: If all Trek aliens are a commentary on some aspect of humanity, why then, even the Ba'ul (whoever they are) might be us. And not only the scary Worst of Us that we can push away... us us, the parts of ourselves that have enabled human evolution, the messiness that is at odds with Gene's vision, and the stuff that the best of Trek helps us reconcile.

DSC's put some thought into this. Can't wait until Thursday.

 

I always liked the twist that Picard's decision on Hugh ultimately backfired, and it made him uneasy to reconsider what he should have done.

Probably the most Ron Moore-esque line in the entire series.

I know we look to Trek for an optimistic vision of the future, but sometimes it's nice to take a step away from that on occasion because everything turning out perfectly fine just because everyone sticks by their moral principles becomes less interesting and believable. This is why episodes like "The City on the Edge of Forever" and the film THE WRATH OF KHAN are so popular because it pits the characters into situations where there is no "ideal" solution, and that's okay, because that's just part of life.

 

Likely why Picard didn't make admiral and Janeway did.

Hell I would of court martialed and kicked him out of star fleet for not destroying the borg when he had the chance.

It's likely why we never saw him fight the dominion! Starfleet where probably terrified he would order the fleet the to drop their shields and sing kumbaya.

 

I'm picturing that right now. XD

 

And you would have Riker smugly sitting next to Picard while the dominions invading earth insisting that Starfleets not a military so they shouldn't get involved.

 

I wholeheartedly agree... in fact, I suspect it'll be much sooner. However, I don't think this will be because of any wholesale moral re-thinking on the part of entire populations, but rather because we've engineered our way around the problem. Lab-grown meat that's indistinguishable from the natural (and violent) kind is very much on the way.

Meanwhile, I have tremendous respect for Jane Goodall, and I'm all for protecting endangered species, but nonetheless, in the quote you offer, I think she misuses the term "sapient." There is no other species on this planet besides Homo Sapiens that really meets any robust set of criteria for sapience.

It's not about what they look like, it's about intelligence. Do they use tools? Language? Clothing? Do they make art? Do they create lasting structures in their lived environment? Do they go beyond concrete operations to abstract thought? Do they accumulate wisdom and pass it from one generation to the next? That's what makes a species sapient in a way we can relate to.

 

Especially Season 1 Picard, who seemed to find the idea of any kind of defensive measures REPUGNANT.

Oh boy. Just imagine if this version of Picard persisted with the rest of the series, assuming his captaincy lasted seven seasons. When the Borg start beaming drones onto their ship Picard would tell security "don't fire on them, we don't want to appear provocative! We'll let them do what they want as a sign of good faith!" *one hour later everyone gets assimilated*