What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Tallguy]

Good answer. I think @Shawnster had a good answer with plenty of specifics as well. And I'm pretty sure those footsteps behind us are a mod.

 

[Sci]

Good answer. I think @Shawnster had a good answer with plenty of specifics as well. And I'm pretty sure those footsteps behind us are a mod.

Yeah, if we want to head off a mod we all might want to just pre-emptively agree to set aside the "is the U.S. a democracy?" tangent.

 

[Ovation]

Good answer. I think @Shawnster had a good answer with plenty of specifics as well. And I'm pretty sure those footsteps behind us are a mod.

They might stay “behind” as long as nothing goes beyond the relatively academic poli-sci type back and forth currently going on (as a guess, not a stance of mine) but…it is the internet, so…

 

[Shawnster]

In this context, when @Shawnster said it, it was a meaningless statement, because he then immediately defined "republic" as "a form of government in which the people hold power, but elect representatives to exercise that power." But that's not what "republic" means; again, a republic is just a sovereign state that isn't formally a monarchy. China is a republic, but no reasonable person would say the people hold power.

Good answer. I think @Shawnster had a good answer with plenty of specifics as well. And I'm pretty sure those footsteps behind us are a mod.

Actually, all I did was share how the US government defines itself. The paragraph I shared is from the source I linked.

Not my words. Not my opinion. It's how the US government self identifies.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Starfleet officers serve the Federation. It's canonical that the Federation pays their officers in Federation credits. Earth pays humans nothing.

 

[cooleddie74]

The replicated snozzberries taste....mostly like snozzberries!

 

[fireproof78]

Gross.

 

[Quantum21]

Actually, all I did was share how the US government defines itself. The paragraph I shared is from the source I linked.

Not my words. Not my opinion. It's how the US government self identifies.

As is often the case such things are not totally clear.

https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https://www....ve/2020/11/yes-constitution-democracy/616949/

 

[Grendelsbayne]

The one thing that makes me hesitant to call a system that elects somebody for life truly democratic is that I think it would give too little power to the opposition and too little chance for them to get into power.
Plus there's there's several dangers of electing somebody for life; it basically gives them a free run to do whatever they like and even if their intentions are benevolent in the beginning, a person can change during their lifetime and the person in power 40 years later might not be the same person the populace voted for (let alone that in the meantime a good portion of the planet's populace would have grown into adulthood and never had a say in who governs them)

Imagine your planet requires you to be 18 to vote. You are 17 when the new king/queen gets elected, the new monarch is fairly young and lives to an advanced age, eventually dying 50 years later. You are now 67 and only now you are allowed to vote for the first time, up until then you had no say. That's just not very democratic.

This is still all fundamentally assuming that systems can only exist in the configurations we know them. Star Trek is a fictional world full of literal alien civilizations that could very easily have the technology and/or genuinely alien cultural tendencies to make theoretical systems that we can't accomplish possible.

For instance, they could have the capability to allow all citizens to respond directly to Govt. decisions in a way that can't be stifled, and so might find it eminently democratic to say that their ruler can rule for as long as the majority accepts that rule and will be removed as soon as the majority wants it to happen, without ever holding anything we would recognize as an election.

 

[Imaus]

Parliamentary "dictatorship?"

But yeah, I would infer the Andorian Empire is a parliamentary democracy of some kind and that its name is ceremonial rather than practical. That's exactly the case in the 2000-2021 novel continuity; the head of state is the Empty Throne, a monarchy that was deliberately left empty by the founding monarch who united the warring clans and ceded power to the Parliament Andoria, the legislature. The head of government is the Presider of the Parliament Andoria, who's basically the prime minister.

I call it a 'parliamentary dictatorship' because I was sure they have a Chancellor, than an Emperor, much like the Klingon Empire, at least, the Andorian Emperor is non-existent by the time of the Federation.

 

[FederationHistorian]

Twenty years is hardly adequate. That's only one election a generation. People change their minds. Circumstances change. A democratic mandate cannot reasonably extend much more than half a decade.

It does not consider that these various planets approach democracy like the Klingons do; that they experimented with them once, consider them “the dark times” and won’t look back. So, they’ll created a political system that works for themselves, like suggested above with an election every twenty years, or have rotating monarchs have unlimited non-consecutive seven-year terms. And for whatever reason, democratic mandates of 4/5/6/7 years are unreasonable and off the table.

Some planets might be completely fine with a democratic dictatorship, and do not view the Federation ideals as absolute.

If every official except the monarch is popularly elected but the monarch's rule is anything more than ceremonial, then you are describing a hybrid regime like Iran's that contains both democratic and anti-democratic elements.

And how much democracy does the Federation need in order for a planet to be a member then?

 

[Orphalesion]

This is still all fundamentally assuming that systems can only exist in the configurations we know them. Star Trek is a fictional world full of literal alien civilizations that could very easily have the technology and/or genuinely alien cultural tendencies to make theoretical systems that we can't accomplish possible.

For instance, they could have the capability to allow all citizens to respond directly to Govt. decisions in a way that can't be stifled, and so might find it eminently democratic to say that their ruler can rule for as long as the majority accepts that rule and will be removed as soon as the majority wants it to happen, without ever holding anything we would recognize as an election.

The post I responded to was specifically talking about leaders being elected for life.

 

[Farscape One]

Another thing to remember is that different races have much longer lifespans than humans. Vulcans, for example, can live to be over 200 years old, easily. So while holding an election every 4-6 years might make sense for humans, that might be too chaotic for others with much longer lifespans.

 

[1001001]

 

[Tallguy]

Pure. Energy. Imagination.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I think Picard I and Picard III both started out with amazing promise.

And I think they both crashed and burned toward the end.

Picard II was a shit show from the beginning. Such a terrible waste.

Agreed and co-signed.

I hated the ending of PIC S1. If Picard is now just an synthetic golem version of the original Jean-Luc Picard, why should I care about anything that happens to him from that point on?

PIC S3 just devolved into constant fan service without doing much of anything new with the characters.

"Hey, remember this character? Well, how about this character? Can you believe we got THIS actor back to reprise their role? What about the Borg? Are ya sick of the Borg yet? How about the Changelings on DS9? You liked them, right? You liked Christopher Plummer in Star Trek VI, didn't ya? Well, we've got his daughter Amanda to be the big bad for Picard's crew from TNG! Isn't that neat? Hey, wasn't it cool when Sisko hated Picard in the first episode of DS9? How about we give another character the exact same backstory as the reason why HE hates Picard? That'll work just as well the second time around, right? And hey, what if we resurrected Data for the sixth time?"

I'd argue the eyeball ripping "Stardust City Rag" from PICARD (Season 1 of course) is far worse.

I had the misfortune of eating pasta when I first saw that teaser.

I don't know why anyone other than executives, shareholders and investors cares for these numbers. ST6 is considered one of the best movies and is at the bottom of the list. Into Darkess is the opposite. I therefore conclude there's no relation between quality of a film and box office results.

I think you could make a good argument that the box office returns of each film are in part a reaction to the last film. Lots of people came out to see Into Darkness in the theater because they really liked the 2009 film. And then they didn't come out for Star Trek Beyond because STID turned out to be such a stinker.

I consider myself to be at least in the C-suite of the "Starfleet is a Military" club. But citing a Nicholas Meyer script is not necessarily the strongest leg to stand on. OTOH, it just occurred to me that Nick Meyer wrote "There is no money in the future" and everybody ran with that one. So sure, go with it.

My head canon is/was/has always been that line meant the 23rd century was a cashless society, whereas 1980s Earth definitely wasn't

Yeah, all those "We don't have money in the future" lines ever meant was they don't have cash money in the 23rd Century, which they don't.

The MCU movies don't show the origin story, he's just already Spider-Man when he first shows up.
I can't remember if it's ever brought up in conversation on how he became Spider-Man.

Peter Parker tells Tony Stark when he meets him in Civil War that he's had his powers for six months and he tells Ned Needs in Spider-Man: Homecoming that he got his powers when he was bitten by a radioactive spider. There are also some subtle allusions to Peter's dead uncle Ben Parker, but they never outright say that he was killed by a criminal that Peter failed to stop.

 

[BillJ]

Yeah, all those "We don't have money in the future" lines ever meant was they don't have cash money in the 23rd Century, which they don't.

Well, except Latinum.

 

[Nyotarules]

In the United Kingdom, there has to be a General Election for a new Parliament every five years; the only exception is when there's a truly existential threat, like World War II. (And the U.K. held a General Election literally as soon as it was possible to do so, even before that war was fully over.)

This was a recent event, The Fixed Term Parliment Act 2011, prior to this the P.M could call a general election whenever they wanted to , so if the polls were in their favour they could call a GE, it is what Thatcher did after the Falklands War gave her a stomping victory. Boris Johson's government repealed the act in 2022 so there no longer has to be a GE every five years anymore.

 

[Nyotarules]

Another thing to remember is that different races have much longer lifespans than humans. Vulcans, for example, can live to be over 200 years old, easily. So while holding an election every 4-6 years might make sense for humans, that might be too chaotic for others with much longer lifespans.

In the Trek universe humans also live longer, so a GE might be called every 7 years instead. Humans are not expected to drop dead at 75 or even 95, that is probably the retirement age.
Crusher had her second son in her late 50's or early 60's, it was no big deal or surprise to anyone.

 

[FederationHistorian]

PIC S3 just devolved into constant fan service without doing much of anything new with the characters.

"Hey, remember this character? Well, how about this character? Can you believe we got THIS actor back to reprise their role? What about the Borg? Are ya sick of the Borg yet? How about the Changelings on DS9? You liked them, right? You liked Christopher Plummer in Star Trek VI, didn't ya? Well, we've got his daughter Amanda to be the big bad for Picard's crew from TNG! Isn't that neat? Hey, wasn't it cool when Sisko hated Picard in the first episode of DS9? How about we give another character the exact same backstory as the reason why HE hates Picard? That'll work just as well the second time around, right? And hey, what if we resurrected Data for the sixth time?"

That’s on the fans that disliked S1.

They want the warm, and fuzzy, and familiar. Instead of what they came up with, that dared to do different things with Picard, Seven, Riker & Troi. Its probably a factor as to why the writers never built upon the threads from S1, leading to a dreadful second season with no real connection to the prior season.

Had the fans not been so harsh, the writers could have taken even bigger risks and could have led to an even better S3 than it was.

We could have seen Kira in the Vadic role, and Harry Kim in the Liam Shaw role. One of those cadets could have been replaced by Jake Sisko. One of the Fenris Rangers that boarded the Eleos could have been Naomi Wildman. Seeing all these characters in different stages of their lives, and would make fans even more excited for Legacy. Maybe we would have gotten the Luna-class Titan going on one final mission, instead of the Connie III Titan-A that get rechristened into the Ent-G.

And even with S3, some fans complained about Beverly’s use of a phaser rifle, when we saw Beverly use a phaser and was the heroine in “Conspiracy”, and was involved in the black ops mission with Pciard and Worf, and has always been badass.

Its hard to get anything new when a number of fans don't want to try anything new.