What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[drt]

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.

The first two seasons of TNG are also more like this. Might be a reason I also like them more than most.

 

[Commander Troi]

Until he was writing the intro to The Rocketeer. Then Raiders was soulless and dead and running on lifeless nostalgia. He really didn't seem to be able to love something without hating something else.

Huh. I didn't know that. Damn shame.

 

[1001001]

Met Ellison once, when I was in school. Was smitten.

I always just assumed he was your spirit guide…

 

[Cap'n Calhoun]

Was there anything that Harlan did like, besides being an insufferable curmudgeon?

I mean, he seemed to get along with J. Michael Straczynski well enough. He worked on all five seasons of Babylon 5, and he was one of the few to write scripts for the final season other than JMS himself.

And the late Peter David and Harlan seemed to have a really solid friendship. Harlan was even the best man at David's wedding.

But, also, he did also really seem to like being an insufferable curmudgeon.

 

[Nerys Myk]

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.

Space Opera was a thing long before Star Trek was a gleam in Gene Roddenberry's eye,

 

[The Wormhole]

That's the problem, you have to deal with Multiple Layers of Policy as a StarFleet Officer.

No, Starfleet policy is pretty clear cut on the matter of murder, even if it aligns with another culture's beliefs. In Amok Time when Spock believed he killed Kirk, he was going to surrender to Starfleet and accept court martial and prison time for it, even though it was sanctioned on Vulcan as part of a ponn farr ritual. The difference in times like Tacking Into the Wind, individual officers make judgment calls whether to adhere to these policies or not.

the Gowron thing…I mean…Sisko didn’t just turn a blind eye, he basically orders the Code Red himself. So I’m sure Sisko knew he could sell it to Command if they had questions. Like he did with the Romulans.

I doubt Sisko told Admiral Ross or anyone that he nudged Worf into killing Gowron. And in the case of the Romulans, the only thing Command authorized was using a fake holorecording to make the Romulans believe the Dominion were planning an attack. They certainly didn't condone Vreenak's murder, and I'm pretty sure Sisko never admitted his role in that to them.