Vanguard controversy

[FatherRob]

iguana_tonante said:

FatherRob said:
There are many Christians (myself included) who believe that all will have a chance to hear the real, honest to goodness, unadulterated message of God and will be given the chance to accept or reject it. That means that the primitive tribesman in Brazil who hasn't even developed a written language and who a missionary cannot contact has the chance.

Sorry to ask, but how?

I refuse to believe that God wouldn't give everyone a chance. All who died before Jesus, according to Peter's epistle (all those who had been waiting in prison since Noah's day) had the chance to hear the Gospel. Jews and Greeks, Barbarians and Zulus... everyone. No reason it won't be that way for those who haven't heard the message since Jesus' day.

You see, for all non-Christians there is the principal of natural law. Some would also say that the laws of the Noahic Covenant apply to all believers of any form.

Rob+

I'm not sure I understand. How could someone that have never heard of the Bible (and Noah in particular) be expected to respect its laws?

To me, the "natural law" argument is a fallacy, since no one agree of what is "natural law".

Noahic laws basically (with the exception of worshipping one God) form the foundation of all legal systems. Just as most ancient cultures have a flood myth of some form, most have some redaction of the Noahic law. Worship a creator/creators, treat others kindly, don't steal, don't kill, etc. These laws survive into the Trek era in fiction (I assume adultery, anyway, would get Pennington's wife a divorce decree in court!)

And there are certain things that are generally universal. The orderly way of the universe, etc. Those could often be touted as examples of Natural Law.

Anyway, how does this all relate to Trek in general, and to Vanguard in specific.

Vanguard is a series that, in spite of every effort not to be, is taking the air of a gutsy DS9. No, Reyes is no Sisko, and T'Prynn is no Worf, but we are seeing a dark, frontier existence where people who have strong beliefs find themselves comprimising them regularlly ... or find themselves paying the price for refusing to comprimise.

It reminds me of the American frontier, and the moral and ethical decisions they are making in Vanguard recall the many faithful or principled people who went west and either sacrificed it on the altar of progress, or who stood their ground and paid the price with their own lives, or the lives of others.

Rob+

 

[Mysterion]

FatherRob said:
Most modern Trek books, well, I wouldn't let my kids read them until they were teens.

That's a sadder commentary on Trek than any percieved promotion of 'lascivious' lifestyles or whatever you want to call them.

Rob+

Sad, or just the fact the Star Trek is growing up and/or maturing with its fanbase?

 

[flandry84]

I know t's a little off-topic but I agree with the previous commentary on the gratitous,nasty handling of the recent mirror-universe.
I hadn't seen this discussed anywhere else.
And before someone chimes in that "gratitous and nasty is he point of he MU" I know, but I'm calling it as I saw it.

 

[Baerbel Haddrell]

Mysterion said:

FatherRob said:
Most modern Trek books, well, I wouldn't let my kids read them until they were teens.

That's a sadder commentary on Trek than any percieved promotion of 'lascivious' lifestyles or whatever you want to call them.

Rob+

Sad, or just the fact the Star Trek is growing up and/or maturing with its fanbase?

My daughter is nearly five years old. I have heard from one parent that they wouldn`t even allow their child to watch Bambi and certainly not the news. Another parent was quite shocked when I told her that Jennifer watches Doctor Who and also the news with us.

What parents find suitable is an individual choice. My opinion is that there is no Star Trek book my daughter cannot read as soon as she is able to do so. I am not in favour of keeping children ignorant. I am in favour of keeping them informed and challenged, but that also means to discuss with children about what they read and watch.

I welcome it that also Star Trek books matured and are in many ways more realistic. Also young children should know that violence is not a video game and that there is nothing glamorous about it. I also think it is important to show children from early on that sex and relationships are nothing dirty and ugly when it happens with the right person. From early on they should be able to talk openly about it without any taboos.

My daughter was three years old when we watched an action scene on TV and her comment was: “I don`t like guns.”

In general, I see no reason to be sad about sex and violence in modern Star Trek, the contrary. The Mirror Universe is somewhat different. But the problem I have with a lot of the sexual and violent aspects in it is that too many of these characters tend to be reduced to that level and there is little else. Much too often MU characters are reduced to one-dimensional clichés I just find primitive. I can`t care for people who are defined by violence and sex and there is little to nothing I can sympathize with.

 

[Therin of Andor]

FatherRob said:
Most modern Trek books, well, I wouldn't let my kids read them until they were teens... That's a sadder commentary on Trek than any percieved promotion of 'lascivious' lifestyles or whatever you want to call them.

Now, I'm on record that my all-time favourite ST book is the novelization of ST:TMP. I read it when I was 21, a few days before the film first came out.

However, over the next few years, working as an elementary/primary teacher in over 100 schools, I was a bit stunned and amused to notice that most school libraries stocked that book, mainly because it was based on a very popular "G" rated movie!

And yet, in the book, Roddenberry mentions Kirk's reactions to the public rumour that he and Spock were homosexual lovers, Sulu getting an erection upon meeting Ilia, Deltan love slaves due to their pheromones, and the Ilia Probe's nakedness when it turns up in a sonic shower. Among many other raunchy asides.

Welcome to the "lascivious" 80s.

I also seem to recall Picard having sex in a tent in the novel "Masks", and people barely batted an eyelid over that one.

 

[RookieBatman]

^But it has become a bit more common in recent books.
And don't get me started on libraries' tendecy to indiscriminately categorize any Star Trek book as YA. That's long been a sore spot with me.

 

[tenmei]

My library when I was a teenager (about 12) classified all Star Trek books as being in the adult section and me, being about 12, was unable to take an adult book out and kept getting told to take books out of the kids section.

Of course, this being me who was revealed to have a reading age several years above my age, who got really bored with kids novels and kept having to borrow my grandads library card to get Star Trek books out.

They wouldn't even let me take Trek books out on my own library card when my mother was with me telling them she gave me permission to read them.

 

[donners22]

Mysterion said:

FatherRob said:
Most modern Trek books, well, I wouldn't let my kids read them until they were teens.

That's a sadder commentary on Trek than any percieved promotion of 'lascivious' lifestyles or whatever you want to call them.

Rob+

Sad, or just the fact the Star Trek is growing up and/or maturing with its fanbase?

Do you seriously think that the fanbase is any more mature or 'grown up" than it has been in the past? It strikes me more as Trek losing some of the things that made it distinctive, instead throwing familiar characters (indeed, these days, often unfamiliar characters) into stories in the style that could come from any other series.

An argument over "real Trek" is pointless, as it is a pretty subjective subject, but what you see as growth, I see as a loss of distinctiveness.

 

[Steve Roby]

FatherRob said:
My only real concern with Vanguard is that I could never in good conscience let an eight or ten year old read the book, which saddens me, because I remember picking up my first Star Trek novel in a small bookstore in Muncie, Indiana when I was about 7. Most modern Trek books, well, I wouldn't let my kids read them until they were teens.

That's a sadder commentary on Trek than any percieved promotion of 'lascivious' lifestyles or whatever you want to call them.

If that's something to be sad about, then we must be living in the happiest of times imaginable. There are still hundreds of Star Trek books without sex scenes. If there are a few that recognize that some Trek fans are adults, what's the problem? We've got some people complaining that a few Trek novels have some mature content in the same thread as people complaining about Trek books being perceived as YA books.

RookieBatman, there's no such person as Solomon Short. Gerrold has a tradition of borrowing ideas from Robert Heinlein. Heinlein had a character whose sayings apparently captured his philosophy; that character's name was Lazarus Long.

 

[Kevin Dilmore]

I freely and openly admit that I've more grazed this thread than read it, but one remark has spurred me to comment.

FatherRob said: My only real concern with Vanguard is that I could never in good conscience let an eight or ten year old read the book, which saddens me, because I remember picking up my first Star Trek novel in a small bookstore in Muncie, Indiana when I was about 7. Most modern Trek books, well, I wouldn't let my kids read them until they were teens.

That's a sadder commentary on Trek than any percieved promotion of 'lascivious' lifestyles or whatever you want to call them.

I've been a big Robert A. Heinlein fan my whole life. I'm not exactly sure what started me down that road, but I'm thinking it was back in grade school and seeing my older next-door-neighbor come home from school with a paperback of Tunnel in the Sky. I wanted that book, so I went to the library but it wasn't on the shelf. So, I grabbed another Heinlein book, thinking it must be a good one because there were multiple copies on the shelf. It was Stranger in a Strange Land. I took it to the desk and the librarian looked at it and looked at me and said, "I think you might like something different." And she directed me to Between Planets. Wow, did I love that book. And I read a mess of his other books but didn't try Stranger until I was in high school. In retrospect, I'm glad I got her advice when I did.

I don't think Stranger in a Strange Land being a bad fit for me in grade school should be construed as a sad commentary on how Heinlein's writing and thematic choices had changed from 1951 (when Between Planets was published) to 1961 (when Stranger was published). Both are great books, but one's better suited to a younger reader and the other to a more mature reader.

I don't think my 13-year-old daughters ought to read the Vanguard books. They would not get as much out of them as an older reader might. As for my 17-year-old daughter, I'm okay with it (she's read a few Chuck Palahniuk books, for crying out loud). As a parent, I inquire as to my girls' reading selections, and I direct them elsewhere on the occasions when I think they ought to be. If my daughters wanted to check out some of my comic books, I wouldn't show them much from my current pile and I sure wouldn't offer them Watchmen no matter how much I admire it. I might even have them try Silver-Age stories first, to be honest.

So, should you run across a younger reader looking to check out Star Trek in print, direct him or her to something less gritty than Vanguard. Even if you steer a kid all the way back to a Bantam-era novel, that's cool. But don't point to the Vanguard books as evidence that today's Star Trek fiction as a whole is inappropriate for younger readers. It's not fair to a great deal of other recent titles and the efforts of other writers.

Kevin

 

[iguana_tonante]

RookieBatman said:
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands."
David Gerrold actually made the comment (I can't remember if he was quoting Solomon Short, apparently his favorite philosopher) that "there are no atheists in space," because when you get out there and see the vastness and the beauty of it, you can't doubt God's existence. I'm sure many will disagree with that assertion, but that is, I believe, the essence of what FatherRob was saying.

Well, personally I'm one of those who strongly disagree with the sentiment. "No atheist in space" is as offensive as "no atheist in foxholes", because the first suggests that you can't appreciate the vastness and beauty of the cosmos without being a theist, which is patently false (I know, I'm a cosmologist!), in the same way the last suggests you can't be brave without believing in God.

But I understand what you mean, even if I disagree.

FatherRob said:

iguana_tonante said:

FatherRob said:
There are many Christians (myself included) who believe that all will have a chance to hear the real, honest to goodness, unadulterated message of God and will be given the chance to accept or reject it.

Sorry to ask, but how?

I refuse to believe that God wouldn't give everyone a chance. All who died before Jesus, according to Peter's epistle (all those who had been waiting in prison since Noah's day) had the chance to hear the Gospel. Jews and Greeks, Barbarians and Zulus... everyone. No reason it won't be that way for those who haven't heard the message since Jesus' day.

All right, I understand what you are saying. The answer is a little too much theological for my taste (since I don't believe in afterlife, it does make little sense to me), but I understand that is perfectly logical from your point of view, and it eliminates one of the biggest plot-holes in revelated religions (as opposed to aboriginal traditions).

To me, the "natural law" argument is a fallacy, since no one agree of what is "natural law".

Noahic laws basically (with the exception of worshipping one God) form the foundation of all legal systems. Just as most ancient cultures have a flood myth of some form, most have some redaction of the Noahic law. Worship a creator/creators, treat others kindly, don't steal, don't kill, etc.

And there are certain things that are generally universal.

Well, I agree there are some social norms shared between culture (don't steal, don't murder, don't do unto others, etc.). I just don't agree when "natural law" are extended to other fields, as sexual behavior, belief, etc.

The orderly way of the universe, etc. Those could often be touted as examples of Natural Law.

The universe is mathematically defined. Order is not much a concern (just look at quantum physics!).

It reminds me of the American frontier, and the moral and ethical decisions they are making in Vanguard recall the many faithful or principled people who went west and either sacrificed it on the altar of progress, or who stood their ground and paid the price with their own lives, or the lives of others.

When I think of the American frontier, I more often than not think about the principled people that already were there, and were eradicated to make rooms for people that thought themselves better than them.


Sorry for the theological digression!

 

[FatherRob]

Steve Roby said:
RookieBatman, there's no such person as Solomon Short. Gerrold has a tradition of borrowing ideas from Robert Heinlein. Heinlein had a character whose sayings apparently captured his philosophy; that character's name was Lazarus Long.

I just started re-reading "The Galactic Whirlpool" yesterday, and the Solomon Short quote was there. In fact, Gerrold has already quoted Short twice. Amazing how a fictional construct gets so much face time... oh, wait...

Rob+

 

[Mysterion]

donners22 said:

Do you seriously think that the fanbase is any more mature or 'grown up" than it has been in the past? It strikes me more as Trek losing some of the things that made it distinctive, instead throwing familiar characters (indeed, these days, often unfamiliar characters) into stories in the style that could come from any other series.

Sure, because seeing the same people doing the same thing the same over and over and over and over...and over again, is very entertaining over the long-run.

IMO, a big part of what Star Trek has always been is, in addition to telling good stories, is challenging the perceptions of the viewer. Look at some of the best epsidoes of TOS. Off the top of my head, "Arena". The conventional sci-fi plot would have been for Kirk to kill the Gorn and move on victorious. ST turns that perception on it's ear by having Kirk not do that, and then rub in the Metron's face.

Not trying to speak for the entire fanbase, and didn't mean to imply such in my earlier post.

for myself: My tastes have grown and expanded over the years, and I enjoy the fact that at least someaspects of Star Trek are also maturing and growing in new (and sometimes unexpected) directions. I don't think this makes it less "Star Trekish", I think it makes Star Trek more interesting and diverse, just like the universe it is telling stories about.

YMMV.

 

[phrog]

Mysterion said:

donners22 said:

Do you seriously think that the fanbase is any more mature or 'grown up" than it has been in the past? It strikes me more as Trek losing some of the things that made it distinctive, instead throwing familiar characters (indeed, these days, often unfamiliar characters) into stories in the style that could come from any other series.

Sure, because seeing the same people doing the same thing the same over and over and over and over...and over again, is very entertaining over the long-run.

IMO, a big part of what Star Trek has always been is, in addition to telling good stories, is challenging the perceptions of the viewer. Look at some of the best epsidoes of TOS. Off the top of my head, "Arena". The conventional sci-fi plot would have been for Kirk to kill the Gorn and move on victorious. ST turns that perception on it's ear by having Kirk not do that, and then rub in the Metron's face.

Not trying to speak for the entire fanbase, and didn't mean to imply such in my earlier post.

for myself: My tastes have grown and expanded over the years, and I enjoy the fact that at least someaspects of Star Trek are also maturing and growing in new (and sometimes unexpected) directions. I don't think this makes it less "Star Trekish", I think it makes Star Trek more interesting and diverse, just like the universe it is telling stories about.

YMMV.

Agreed. I find the continually expanding diversity and maturity being shown in the Trek fiction to be encouraging and after taking a look through this entire thread now, my interest in Vanguard has gone from basically nothing to a point where I am definetly interested in reading at least the first book to see if I like it. DS9 remains my favorite television series due to it's mature take on the universe and dealing with moral grey areas and controversial topics. I've always felt like that's what good Trek is about.

 

[RookieBatman]

Steve Roby said:
RookieBatman, there's no such person as Solomon Short. Gerrold has a tradition of borrowing ideas from Robert Heinlein. Heinlein had a character whose sayings apparently captured his philosophy; that character's name was Lazarus Long.

Good info, thanks! I was wondering why I had never heard of this so ubiquitous philosopher.

 

[RookieBatman]

FatherRob said:
I just started re-reading "The Galactic Whirlpool" yesterday, and the Solomon Short quote was there. In fact, Gerrold has already quoted Short twice. Amazing how a fictional construct gets so much face time... oh, wait...

Rob+

He is quoted three times, I believe, by three different people. Amazingly popular chap, that one.

 

[JWolf]

Maestro said:
Actually, the passage is telling the Corinthians that if they cannot handle minor squabbles within their community, they are not fit to spread the good news of Christ's judgement throughout the world. According to Paul, the unbelievers that he lists in 9-10 will not get into Heaven, but those who are washed in Christ Jesus need to be able to handle their own issues before they can deal with the unbelievers.

However, you do know that all the stuff about Christ is fiction. It's not in the proper version of the Bible.

 

[JWolf]

TheLonelySquire said:

tenmei said:
Why laugh at that statement?

Who's to say that the Vulcans and Klingons don't have a more open minded view than some people, that they don't see the big problem with a lesbian relationship.

My issue is that I believe conduct such as this is wrong. I don't enjoy reading about it. I returned the remaining books, plain and simple.

I'm not forcing my belief on anyone, so why is everyone getting their panties in a bunch here?

If you had continued to read the books, you would have found that

Spoiler: Lesbian relationship

The lesbian relationship is well and truly over.

Also, how can it be immoral? If you are truly religious, then you'll have to believe that God made humans with all the flaws humans have. God made humans who have a sexual preference for the same sex. It's that simple if you believe.

 

[FatherRob]

JWolf said:
If you are truly religious, then you'll have to believe that God made humans with all the flaws humans have.

No. It depends on the religion. I believe God created us with a free will but unflawed. We bear the mark of the flaw of Adam, i.e., sin and death.

Rob+

 

[Sci]

Question. Even if we presume that God made Humans naturally heterosexual and that thus homosexuality is a sin -- what if God made some Vulcans and Klingons naturally homosexual and for them God has not made it a sin?