"On Earth there is no crime, no poverty, no war. You look out the window and you see paradise. Well it's easy to be a Saint in paradise."
Even in TOS it is made abundantly clear to us that outside of Earth, humanity still has the same struggles as it always has done. We see mining colonists buying concubines (for lack of a better term), the use of currency, criminal smuggling (Harry Mudd, anyone?), etc. Heck, in TNG Tasha came from a planet which was so fracked up it seceded from the Federation and devolved into a state of gang warfare so intense it makes our failed states look stable by comparison. And that's in the Roddenberry era.
And most of these problems are easily solvable with an Industrial Replicator. In TOS, it is easily understandable about the mining colonists and Harry Mudd, but there is other problems why Tasha came from such a messed up world. TRIBBLE governments create TRIBBLE worlds.
The idea that the Federation is somewhat morally grey isn't new. Even in TOS it was hinted that the reason Earth was a "paradise" was that it was an oppressive ideocracy. How would people get to that point? By making a really long series of rules about what is allowable behavior in society, all labeled as "for the common good". Several of the characters on the colonies seen in TOS expressed a disdain for it and claimed it was something they wanted to avoid.
I couldn't get past the Vulcan Hello. The fact that a character thought it a good idea to mutiny when her captain disagreed with her was enough for me.
For the record, I wasn't a fan of the Dominion War arc, nor was I very happy with the Maquis. In both cases the events happened as they did because the writers wanted them to. The Maquis came about because the writers arbitrarily decided that peace negotiators were inept and the Dominion War came about because the Dominion was going to war no matter what and there was never an opportunity for peace until Section 31 attempted genocide.
So, while I respect others opinions, I'm of the opinion that the very worst Trek came about in the Bragga/Berman era. In my opinion, they intentionally set out to overturn every positive aspect of Trek and turn it into hypocrisy. The Federation says it has values, but when push comes to shove those values go out the window. If you don't adhere to you values when things are at their worst, you don't have values at all.
Burnham's entire speech to Admiral Cornwell about NOT annihilating Q'onos because "that's not who we are" and her dialogue to Lorca ("we would've helped you if you had asked") is a clear indication of how humanity has evolved.
It would be, if not for the fact that all of this is just empty phrasing because S31 lets it happen. Brian is right in that regard, ever since Section 31 became more than a villian to overcome in one short lived arc everything about the UFP is hypocrisy and only exists because it matches it's opponents in every regard. It's just preaching it's "holier than thou". Which is what a lot of people always wanted to see in it because they cannot fathom having strong ideals and actually sticking to it and winning the day this way.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
I'm not opposed to flexibility, and Lord knows I've fallen off the wagon my share of times. But it went from the occasional mistake or act of desperation to a full fledged theme. The Federation's much vaunted values exist only as propaganda. They are no better than Klingons.
For the record, the Klingons were originally analogues of 20th century humanity. They existed to show how much we've grown in the centuries between now and TOS.
I couldn't get past the Vulcan Hello. The fact that a character thought it a good idea to mutiny when her captain disagreed with her was enough for me.
Should have watched more. She did think it was a good idea at the time. And she was shown to be wrong, and was punished for it. She learned from this, acknowledged she was wrong, and when given the opportunity strove to show improvement.
And the existence of such an organization as S31 does not imply they "run things", any more than MI-6 "runs" the UK. The CIA has engaged in a tactic they call "extraordinary rendition" - does that mean that as a US citizen I approve of this, and only call it out as a "performance"? Or does it indicate that we have ideals, which we sometimes fail to live up to, so we get up and try again?
To quote Jim Kirk, "We can admit that we're killers - but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill - today!" And when some of us TRIBBLE that up, we can still help one another get back up and work on meeting our ideals again. Failure to be paragons does not mean we're evil b@stards.
See, jon, I agree with that. As I have stated, I've fallen short myself and had to try harder. Not just once or twice either. It's when you stop trying that I object to, and in so much of new Trek they just don't try. They pay lip service to the creed, and when it's inconvenient they discard it. To take your example, they are saying, "I won't kill tomorrow, maybe, if it's a good idea at the time."
As for Burnham, she shouldn't have even considered mutiny as a viable option. She had a difference of opinion! It wasn't a situation where her captain was acting irrationally. It wasn't an emergency situation where she had to act now or the ship would be destroyed. She had zero actual grounds to assume command. It wasn't a mistake, it was a crime. A person with that level of judgement should never have been a step away from the captain's chair. Starfleet's personnel process must have been operated by complete morons to have allowed Burnham to remain on the command track to have even been in a position to do what she did.
See, jon, I agree with that. As I have stated, I've fallen short myself and had to try harder. Not just once or twice either. It's when you stop trying that I object to, and in so much of new Trek they just don't try. They pay lip service to the creed, and when it's inconvenient they discard it. To take your example, they are saying, "I won't kill tomorrow, maybe, if it's a good idea at the time."
As for Burnham, she shouldn't have even considered mutiny as a viable option. She had a difference of opinion! It wasn't a situation where her captain was acting irrationally. It wasn't an emergency situation where she had to act now or the ship would be destroyed. She had zero actual grounds to assume command. It wasn't a mistake, it was a crime. A person with that level of judgement should never have been a step away from the captain's chair. Starfleet's personnel process must have been operated by complete morons to have allowed Burnham to remain on the command track to have even been in a position to do what she did.
Which is why she went to prison.
Also to your point that things not happened because the writers wanted it to....yeah it’s a tv show. Everything happens because a writer wants it to.
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
She had one of the most respected Vulcans in Federation history tell her this was how Vulcan had handled the Klimgons. The same man Jim Kirk stole a starship for. The same man Jean-Luc Picard risked his life and mind for. A man who had/will have the ear of the Federation President for over a century.
When Sarek speaks even his enemies listen.
She also had Sarek point out to her that trying to duplicate the "Vulcan hello" was very dangerous, Azrael. The whole point of that sequence is that Burnham wasn't right. Despite her attempts to "behave Vulcan" (IOW Martin-Green's often wooden acting as Burnham is a feature, not a bug: she's used to not expressing her emotions in deference to the Vulcan mores she was raised in), she made an emotional decision based on her own prejudices without thinking critically about the situation at hand. That's kind of the exact opposite of both Surakian ideals and the Federation's, not to mention being foolish in context and missing the key point that in the first Vulcan-Klingon encounter, the Klingons shot first and the Vulcans simply responded in kind in later altercations. (There's that whole "idealism doesn't require willful blindness" thing again.)
The real problem is that the series takes a lot of pains later on to validate the prejudices that motivated her decision in the first place: DSC Klingons really are little more than savages, there's no friendly, sympathetic or even enjoyable figures like Worf, Martok, Kor, or Gowron in the bunch.
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
She had one of the most respected Vulcans in Federation history tell her this was how Vulcan had handled the Klimgons. The same man Jim Kirk stole a starship for. The same man Jean-Luc Picard risked his life and mind for. A man who had/will have the ear of the Federation President for over a century.
When Sarek speaks even his enemies listen.
She also had Sarek point out to her that trying to duplicate the "Vulcan hello" was very dangerous, Azrael. The whole point of that sequence is that Burnham wasn't right. Despite her attempts to "behave Vulcan" (IOW Martin-Green's often wooden acting as Burnham is a feature, not a bug: she's used to not expressing her emotions in deference to the Vulcan mores she was raised in), she made an emotional decision based on her own prejudices without thinking critically about the situation at hand. That's kind of the exact opposite of both Surakian ideals and the Federation's, not to mention being foolish in context and missing the key point that in the first Vulcan-Klingon encounter, the Klingons shot first and the Vulcans simply responded in kind in later altercations. (There's that whole "idealism doesn't require willful blindness" thing again.)
The real problem is that the series takes a lot of pains later on to validate the prejudices that motivated her decision in the first place: DSC Klingons really are little more than savages, there's no friendly, sympathetic or even enjoyable figures like Worf, Martok, Kor, or Gowron in the bunch.
Can't honestly fault any of this. The Klingons really weren't written all that well. Hopefully that improves with Season 2.
Had she been raised by Humans on Vulcan, Burnham might well have known to temper her emotional reaction with Vulcan logic. However, she was raised by Vulcans on Vulcan, and thus was never taught Human methods of emotional direction and control. Instead, she felt an emotional reaction which she had no way to process, so she thought she was simply ignoring it while believing she was following the "superior" Vulcan protocols.
And she did indeed believe that the ship was in imminent danger, as her previous exposure to Klingons left her with the impression they were savage berserkers (both the raid in her childhood, and the fact that the Torchbearer's reaction to her presence was an attempt to eviscerate her on sight). Thus, in her opinion, which she falsely believed to be logically driven, mutiny was the correct course of action. She learned her mistake later, on reflection, and you can see her attempts to learn to be, well, more Human as the series progresses.
Are you going to tell me that you've never seen someone take up a position based almost completely on their emotional reactions, then try to defend it with "logic"? Burnham wants to think of herself as Vulcan, but she's strictly Human for all that.
Had she been raised by Humans on Vulcan, Burnham might well have known to temper her emotional reaction with Vulcan logic. However, she was raised by Vulcans on Vulcan, and thus was never taught Human methods of emotional direction and control. Instead, she felt an emotional reaction which she had no way to process, so she thought she was simply ignoring it while believing she was following the "superior" Vulcan protocols.
And she did indeed believe that the ship was in imminent danger, as her previous exposure to Klingons left her with the impression they were savage berserkers (both the raid in her childhood, and the fact that the Torchbearer's reaction to her presence was an attempt to eviscerate her on sight). Thus, in her opinion, which she falsely believed to be logically driven, mutiny was the correct course of action. She learned her mistake later, on reflection, and you can see her attempts to learn to be, well, more Human as the series progresses.
Are you going to tell me that you've never seen someone take up a position based almost completely on their emotional reactions, then try to defend it with "logic"? Burnham wants to think of herself as Vulcan, but she's strictly Human for all that.
No, I am saying that a person whose judgement and emotional control are so feeble should have been weeded out of the command track long before she became First Officer!
This wasn't a one-off issue. It was a pattern of behavior which, logically, culminated in her belief that her judgement was superior to that of her captain. If it was an attitude which could not be curbed in early training, it was certainly something which would disqualify her for command.
"He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader." It's not a new thought, and every officer training program I've ever heard of incorporates the concept at multiple levels.
Least likable? Nah, that one goes to T'kuvma, Empress Georgiou is somewhere towards the middle of the pack in that regard. Many of the worst people in real life have been very charismatic after all, even Vlad Tepes Drakulya has such said of him.
Vlad the Impaler isn't even one of the worst. His methods were extreme, but his motives were understandable.
Seeming how a lot of Starfleet Officers seem to go rogue maybe it’s a problem with the officer training program
Your pain runs deep.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
Prior to the Battle of the Binary Stars, her issues would have gone unnoticed, because Starfleet frequently suffers under the delusion that they're not a military force and thus don't have to worry about military issues.
"Feeble emotional control"? No. Human emotional control. You can see it around you every day. By Vulcan standards, we're all frantic children. (And by Andorian standards our very best warriors make poor soldiers. Whose standards control?)
...Her actions disrupted the functioning of the ship and crew in a high-stress environment that was also high-threat, this makes her at fault for the destruction of her ship-because she forced a situation where the crew could not perform due diligence in the face of the external threat, because they were busy and thrown off by her actions generating an internal threat.
The Klingons were going to start a war and destroy every ship they could no matter what. You can try to blame her for it from now until the end of time and it still won't make it true.
The truth of the Klingon's intentions has no bearing on the act Burnham performed. She had no way to know, no evidence, that their intentions were anything but the usual border raid stuff that had been going on since Enterprise. She acted on the arrogant assumption that she was wiser than her captain, whose greater experience alone deserved a degree of respect Burnham never acknowledged.
The result is irrelevant. Even had she stopped a war from happening, her actions were the actions of an insubordinate egotist who should never have been a heartbeat away from the captaincy. In fact, I would have had trouble with her scrubbing conduits in the engine room.
Comments
And most of these problems are easily solvable with an Industrial Replicator. In TOS, it is easily understandable about the mining colonists and Harry Mudd, but there is other problems why Tasha came from such a messed up world. TRIBBLE governments create TRIBBLE worlds.
My character Tsin'xing
For the record, I wasn't a fan of the Dominion War arc, nor was I very happy with the Maquis. In both cases the events happened as they did because the writers wanted them to. The Maquis came about because the writers arbitrarily decided that peace negotiators were inept and the Dominion War came about because the Dominion was going to war no matter what and there was never an opportunity for peace until Section 31 attempted genocide.
So, while I respect others opinions, I'm of the opinion that the very worst Trek came about in the Bragga/Berman era. In my opinion, they intentionally set out to overturn every positive aspect of Trek and turn it into hypocrisy. The Federation says it has values, but when push comes to shove those values go out the window. If you don't adhere to you values when things are at their worst, you don't have values at all.
It would be, if not for the fact that all of this is just empty phrasing because S31 lets it happen. Brian is right in that regard, ever since Section 31 became more than a villian to overcome in one short lived arc everything about the UFP is hypocrisy and only exists because it matches it's opponents in every regard. It's just preaching it's "holier than thou". Which is what a lot of people always wanted to see in it because they cannot fathom having strong ideals and actually sticking to it and winning the day this way.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
For the record, the Klingons were originally analogues of 20th century humanity. They existed to show how much we've grown in the centuries between now and TOS.
And the existence of such an organization as S31 does not imply they "run things", any more than MI-6 "runs" the UK. The CIA has engaged in a tactic they call "extraordinary rendition" - does that mean that as a US citizen I approve of this, and only call it out as a "performance"? Or does it indicate that we have ideals, which we sometimes fail to live up to, so we get up and try again?
To quote Jim Kirk, "We can admit that we're killers - but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill - today!" And when some of us TRIBBLE that up, we can still help one another get back up and work on meeting our ideals again. Failure to be paragons does not mean we're evil b@stards.
As for Burnham, she shouldn't have even considered mutiny as a viable option. She had a difference of opinion! It wasn't a situation where her captain was acting irrationally. It wasn't an emergency situation where she had to act now or the ship would be destroyed. She had zero actual grounds to assume command. It wasn't a mistake, it was a crime. A person with that level of judgement should never have been a step away from the captain's chair. Starfleet's personnel process must have been operated by complete morons to have allowed Burnham to remain on the command track to have even been in a position to do what she did.
Which is why she went to prison.
Also to your point that things not happened because the writers wanted it to....yeah it’s a tv show. Everything happens because a writer wants it to.
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
She also had Sarek point out to her that trying to duplicate the "Vulcan hello" was very dangerous, Azrael. The whole point of that sequence is that Burnham wasn't right. Despite her attempts to "behave Vulcan" (IOW Martin-Green's often wooden acting as Burnham is a feature, not a bug: she's used to not expressing her emotions in deference to the Vulcan mores she was raised in), she made an emotional decision based on her own prejudices without thinking critically about the situation at hand. That's kind of the exact opposite of both Surakian ideals and the Federation's, not to mention being foolish in context and missing the key point that in the first Vulcan-Klingon encounter, the Klingons shot first and the Vulcans simply responded in kind in later altercations. (There's that whole "idealism doesn't require willful blindness" thing again.)
The real problem is that the series takes a lot of pains later on to validate the prejudices that motivated her decision in the first place: DSC Klingons really are little more than savages, there's no friendly, sympathetic or even enjoyable figures like Worf, Martok, Kor, or Gowron in the bunch.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Can't honestly fault any of this. The Klingons really weren't written all that well. Hopefully that improves with Season 2.
Trials of Blood and Fire
Moving On Parts 1-3 - Part 4
In Cold Blood
And she did indeed believe that the ship was in imminent danger, as her previous exposure to Klingons left her with the impression they were savage berserkers (both the raid in her childhood, and the fact that the Torchbearer's reaction to her presence was an attempt to eviscerate her on sight). Thus, in her opinion, which she falsely believed to be logically driven, mutiny was the correct course of action. She learned her mistake later, on reflection, and you can see her attempts to learn to be, well, more Human as the series progresses.
Are you going to tell me that you've never seen someone take up a position based almost completely on their emotional reactions, then try to defend it with "logic"? Burnham wants to think of herself as Vulcan, but she's strictly Human for all that.
The least likable character on S-T-D gets her own show? Why Am I not surprised?
Co-Leader of Serenity's Grasp
No, I am saying that a person whose judgement and emotional control are so feeble should have been weeded out of the command track long before she became First Officer!
This wasn't a one-off issue. It was a pattern of behavior which, logically, culminated in her belief that her judgement was superior to that of her captain. If it was an attitude which could not be curbed in early training, it was certainly something which would disqualify her for command.
"He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader." It's not a new thought, and every officer training program I've ever heard of incorporates the concept at multiple levels.
My character Tsin'xing
Let us explore it... together. Each man hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be dragged from the darkness and forced into the light. Share your pain. Share your pain with me... and gain strength from the sharing.
"Feeble emotional control"? No. Human emotional control. You can see it around you every day. By Vulcan standards, we're all frantic children. (And by Andorian standards our very best warriors make poor soldiers. Whose standards control?)
The truth of the Klingon's intentions has no bearing on the act Burnham performed. She had no way to know, no evidence, that their intentions were anything but the usual border raid stuff that had been going on since Enterprise. She acted on the arrogant assumption that she was wiser than her captain, whose greater experience alone deserved a degree of respect Burnham never acknowledged.
The result is irrelevant. Even had she stopped a war from happening, her actions were the actions of an insubordinate egotist who should never have been a heartbeat away from the captaincy. In fact, I would have had trouble with her scrubbing conduits in the engine room.