Sure a Galaxy Class ship could have a lifespan of a hundred years but that doesn't mean everyone build would last that long. But if Starfleet/Federation had entered a relatively peaceful era in the early 24th century due to things such as the Romulan's retreating into their borders etc.. that might influence desing concepts as threats start to emerge, The Romulans returning, border skirmishe's a war with the Cardassians, the Brg threat etc.. would designers start to factor that in when designing tech?
When did Trek fandom start changing?
- Thread starter Phantom
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Sure a Galaxy Class ship could have a lifespan of a hundred years but that doesn't mean everyone build would last that long. But if Starfleet/Federation had entered a relatively peaceful era in the early 24th century due to things such as the Romulan's retreating into their borders etc.. that might influence desing concepts as threats start to emerge, The Romulans returning, border skirmishe's a war with the Cardassians, the Brg threat etc.. would designers start to factor that in when designing tech?
No. The messed up first contact with the Klingons motivated Starfleet/the Federation to send in observation teams to learn about newly discovered races and their culture. If the intel provides positive results, official contact is made.
Enterprise seems to imply the Prime Directive started as a Vulcan thing which was presumably adopted by Starfleet after the Federation was formed and the Vulcan, Andorian and Tellarite space services were all merged with Starfleet.
Some people have fond memories of a golden era in which all Trek fans were 100% united, agreeing on everything and accepting every single episode as infallible gospel, and joining hands to sing Kumbaya.
I'm not sure such a time ever really existed.
It didn't. Even back in the 70's, pre-TAS, when I was first a fan there was plenty of stuff people disagreed about regarding Trek. It's always been there, always will be.
THink about it, the original series comepeted with news reels of Vietnam on the nightly news if I recall. TNG had the gulf war.. no contest there. They did get somewhat dark with tng during peace time.
DS9 was dark most of the time, regardless of what conflicts were happening. I think the weird stuff on DS( coinciding with ethnic cleansing in the world at the time was one thing I hated..
When star trek becomes about bombarding planets with photon torpedoes and not about discovery,,, that's when fandom changed.
Look at the fan fiction. Most fanfiction is all military based. For every series. That I think happened when DS9 came out with the dominion war crap. Suddenly everyone needed to have combat in their stories to stay "up to date". However the best of the trek fandom writing has always been discovery of new planets, aliens, items, and self discovery.
The episode of enterprise where the two idiots are trapped in a shuttle craft wondering why they found the piece of wreckage from enterprise... is classic trek. in feel and thinking. just not in actual effect though.
Most of the beloved TOS and TNG episodes are all about racing off to save the colonist from destruction. The most un loved episodes are the dominion war.
DS9 was dark most of the time, regardless of what conflicts were happening. I think the weird stuff on DS( coinciding with ethnic cleansing in the world at the time was one thing I hated..
When star trek becomes about bombarding planets with photon torpedoes and not about discovery,,, that's when fandom changed.
Look at the fan fiction. Most fanfiction is all military based. For every series. That I think happened when DS9 came out with the dominion war crap. Suddenly everyone needed to have combat in their stories to stay "up to date". However the best of the trek fandom writing has always been discovery of new planets, aliens, items, and self discovery.
The episode of enterprise where the two idiots are trapped in a shuttle craft wondering why they found the piece of wreckage from enterprise... is classic trek. in feel and thinking. just not in actual effect though.
Most of the beloved TOS and TNG episodes are all about racing off to save the colonist from destruction. The most un loved episodes are the dominion war.
I think that depends on the person you ask.
Starfleet had a militaristic side long before DS9 or the Dominion War came along. It was in TOS where Kirk threatened to annihilate all life on an inhabited world. On top of that, Starfleet General Order 24 even authorizes him to do such a thing. Hell, Kirk himself does identify himself as a soldier in Errand of Mercy.
And one of the most popular episodes of TNG is the one set in an alternate timeline where the Federation is at war with the Klingons, Starfleet is purely militaristic, and the Enterprise is a warship.
Also, it was the FASA RPGs of the 70s or 80s that first toyed with the idea of a Starfleet Marine Corps, which may or may not canonically exist. Behind the scenes sources for Trek V suggest the blue shirted officers in the Nimbus III assault were Marines, but they are never identified as such in the movie itself
I'm old enough to have once belonged to a computer user-group. Remember them? Before the internet if you were into geeky things you had to go seek out groups in order to congregate face-to-face. That's what Trek conventions were meant to be, a place where misfits could come together and not feel so alone in being a misfit. So I think there was far more of a sense of identification with other fans. We all probably hadn't "kissed a girl" as Shatner nailed us on, and we were not going to bash other fans over our inadequacies because that would be throwing stones in glass houses.
Today, however, geek is now mainstream and fandom includes the sorts of people who probably mercilessly beat up Trek fans as kids but now like it for one reason or another. So you throw these people into an anonymous forum like this and expect a lot of conflict.
Today, however, geek is now mainstream and fandom includes the sorts of people who probably mercilessly beat up Trek fans as kids but now like it for one reason or another. So you throw these people into an anonymous forum like this and expect a lot of conflict.
That seems like a broad generalization of both past and present day fans. Fandom has probably always included all sorts of people, not just the skinny bookish socially awkward stereotype.
Precisely so. The idea that fandom, of anything but for this purpose Star Trek, was a unified whole is, as stated, a generalization that I think may only have been true when TOS was the only Trek. I didn't grow up when TOS first ran, but I discovered it when I was younger. My dad enjoyed it and had the Concordance and episodes recorded on VHS. I was glad to discover friends in middle school who liked Star Trek, but even they made fun of me from time to time, for various differences that we had over TOS vs. TNG (no other options).
To this day, my dad has not seen TNG nor has a desire to watch it, and I have other friends that are his age that feel similarly, though they like Abrams films well enough (the phrase, "Not your father's Star Trek" felt odd to me because of this).
I don't think its a matter of fans entering who might have mocked Star Trek when they were younger. I think the fact is that there is a variety of Star Trek out there now, and that there are preferences. People don't like war episodes? "Errand of Mercy" where Kirk identifies as a "soldier" is one of my favorites, followed closely by "Day of the Dove" and "Balance of Terror," the later of which is submarine warfare without the water.
The idea that DS9 is solely responsible for "darker Trek" is also hard for me to reconcile. Look at TWOK and the near horror style moments on Regula 1, or Terrell's murder of a scientist on screen. How about TUC where Starfleet Admirals conspire to assassinate heads of state? Even TNG was not spared darker facets, between the Borg and Cardassian hostilities.
As much as I would prefer a unified fandom, in this day and age, where there is so much variety, it simply is not possible. There will be divisions, disagreements, agree to disagree moments, and the like. Abrams Trek wasn't the first and it won't be the last.
cardasians and the borg, on tng, were more the little seen, but much talked about bogey man.
on ds9 we had what, 4 seasons that were pure military driven, and rather dark.
I remember when people were griping and a bitching about the overall dark sets and dark lighting on first contact being odd and against the foundation of star trek. compared to voyager, tos, the majority of tng.
on ds9 we had what, 4 seasons that were pure military driven, and rather dark.
I remember when people were griping and a bitching about the overall dark sets and dark lighting on first contact being odd and against the foundation of star trek. compared to voyager, tos, the majority of tng.
They are? Can you name a few?
And DS9 explored the Cardassians more fully, as well as the consequences of the Borg attack.
As for the foundations of Trek, there should be some challenges to our heroes and the idealism that is presented. Especially in TNG, when humanity has supposedly evolved, and I'm supposed to accept that as fact. Personally, while I don't enjoy darker stories all the time, I do like the idea of exploring consequences, and challenges that characters have to go through. Otherwise, it feels a bit like a fairly tale and the coda at the end of the episode is the "happily ever after."
It's a fine balancing act, and DS9 may have gone over on the too dark side a couple of times, but that doesn't make at odds with the foundations of Trek. It just means that the writers were willing to explore a side of the universe that we had only seen glimpses of before.
