This is Star Trek. I expect better of the politics.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
- Start date
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Even in a Star Trek future, where GeoPolitics are replaced by Grander Scale AstroPolitics.
Uhhh no.
Star Trek is grounded for the most part in scientific principles. It's a TV show where the focus is on human drama so yes there is technobabble, made up science, but yore dealing with budgets, telling a TV story in an hour, what's possible production wise, so sure you get Transporters and replicators that are technology of convenience.
Warp
Phasers
Artificial gravity
List goes on and on
Is it hard science fiction from a technology standpoint, no. But it's science fiction as anything ever created for TV or cinema. It literally created Space Opera as a sub genre of science fiction.
That doesn't make it hard sci-fi. And there's nothing wrong with that idea. Star Trek has always had a great mix of different concepts and stories, and human drama. Where the drama takes precedent, tech is going to get less grounded.
I prefer the realism and detail myself. Obviously for story telling purposes there can only be so much but I want it to sense, and I like the interconnectedness you get when you're able to connect dots from different parts of the Trek universe because there is some sense to it all.
Definitely a rare take. Season 1 of TNG is terrible in my opinion and I struggle to even watch the episodes. S3 might be the best, so I see you there.
I honestly don't understand how you can even prefer the early seasons of TNG, DS9, and VOY vs their later seasons. Though I understand from a story standpoint perhaps preferring their stories initially developing versus them in mid or closing arc.
plagiarism lawsuits?
Regarding Dax in "BLOOD OATH"...
The Albino and what he did was outside Federation jurisdiction (and likely Federation space). Sisko didn't really have any authority about her going with them, except for approving or denying a leave of absence. Obviously, he allowed the leave for her to go on the mission.
Regarding Worf in "Reunion"...
Picard gave him the reprimand because Worf took off his combadge while on duty. As he said, Worf ignored his duty. Removing your combadge and leaving the ship is going AWOL, and that was the issue.
The Albino and what he did was outside Federation jurisdiction (and likely Federation space). Sisko didn't really have any authority about her going with them, except for approving or denying a leave of absence. Obviously, he allowed the leave for her to go on the mission.
Regarding Worf in "Reunion"...
Picard gave him the reprimand because Worf took off his combadge while on duty. As he said, Worf ignored his duty. Removing your combadge and leaving the ship is going AWOL, and that was the issue.
When was the Buck Roger's disintegrater invented?
And to think, after all this time, I "thought" I chose my screen name to be a playful pun. Now...I...am...so...confused
NAH, just kidding
Worf RULES!
Later TNG feels overly stolid to me, while the early seasons - though much less tightly-written, perhaps - are a lot more creative and unpredictable. Picard's characterisation later on drives me up the wall too.
Other people can probably explain it better than me, it's an opinion I've seen on this site quite a bit lately.For DS9, the Dominion War just really didn't work for me and there's something about Behr's writing in particular that I just bounce off. Early DS9 is all over the place tonally but the Bajor/Cardassia stuff is pretty much the one long-running plot in the show that actually works for me, with stuff like "Duet" and "Cardassians" and "Destiny", and it gets basically abandoned in favour of the various war arcs (and then brought back as... Fire Caves). Season 6 and 7 of DS9 feels like Discovery to me, in that there's some ideas I like but taken as a whole it just feels like a very typical dark sci-fi show with Star Trek's name printed on it, and the serialisation aspect tends to just stretch bad ideas out way beyond their natural lifespan.
For Voyager, I do think it gets better when Seven joins (partly due to Seven herself, partly because they start going into overdrive with the fun pulpy plots), but the early seasons feel a little bit more like a true ensemble cast which I think gets lost later on.
TOS isn't my favourite Star Trek but something about the tone of the first season sticks with me in a way none of the Berman-era stuff does - space feels totally unknowable and unreal, and the ship feels almost like a floating theater stage that's drifting from one mythic morality play to another.
I like some of the Berman-era worldbuilding and more consistent political factions, and the quadrant model that lets writers place stories at certain points in the galaxy, but I think on the whole I prefer TOS' method of deliberately having almost no internal logic so that space just becomes a terrifying nightmare that's swallowed the ship whole, and the crew are less like "real" people and more like symbols of humanity set against a universe that seems almost designed to test them at every turn.
TNG Worf doesn't seem like a figure of hypermasculinity to me:
- Other than "The Outcast" (an awful episode for all sorts of reasons), he constantly defers to female authority figures and even says outright that men and women are completely equal in "Suddenly Human"
- He relies heavily on Troi when it comes to parenting Alexander, up to the scene in "Ethics" where he entrusts his care to her
- A great many of his plots involve him standing down from his initial position and coming to accept someone else's view (accepting K'Ehleyr's judgment in "The Emissary", relenting on sending Alexander away in "New Ground", backing down in "Ethics", etc)
- He frequently abandons his traditional views in order to embrace a more progressive or emotionally intelligent stance
DS9 Worf is a different thing entirely, but the TNG version of the character definitely doesn't strike me as a "hyper stylized version of masculinity". The part of your post I will agree with is that a huge number of the male viewership have homosexual feelings for Worf, because I mean, look at him.
In addition to the previously cited examples from Reunion and Blood Oath, in DS9 Sons of Mogh Sisko chewed Worf out for trying to kill Kurn in accordance to Klingon cultural practices, even saying he will not tolerate murder in the pursuit of respecting other cultures. Granted, Sisko did turn a blind eye to Worf later killing Gowron, but that had more to do wit Sisko's personal feelings on the matter rather than official Federation or Starfleet policy.
And of course the Federation was in a significant war which Gowron was being problematic. Not the first time Sisko acted against Federation ethics, policy, and likely law, for a greater cause.
The only thing Worf did wrong in "SONS OF MOGH" was he didn't perform the ritual OFF the station. Of course, then we wouldn't have that wonderful episode because Kurn would have been dead after the ritual.
That's the problem, you have to deal with Multiple Layers of Policy as a StarFleet Officer.
There's Cultural/Species Level, Federation Level, StarFleet Level, Your CO (Commanding Officers) Personal Feelings/Policy that might affect you.
We're lucky that it worked out in the end for Worf.
Considering the events and what was at stake, it was the right call. (Both for "TACKING INTO THE WIND" and "IN THE PALE MOONLIGHT".)
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