Sisko never abandoned hope either. He was fighting for a world in which his son would never have to make the choices he did. And he wasn't just laying the groundwork for hope decades or centuries down the line - he fully expected to live to see that world.
I think I might use the Omega thing after all, only with someone discovering a new FTL method. Unfortunately, the new drive was discovered shortly before the Event, and the knowledge was never disseminated before the Collapse. Now a ragtag group (gotta have a ragtag group in any good post-apoc) has found the one prototype ship Starfleet built, the USS Highly Improbable (note: placeholder name), and set out to try to rebuild the old Federation or something vaguely like it.
Some short-range use of the old warp ships is still possible in limited areas; the Ferengi are holding on, barely, in a "trade empire" covering six systems, while their once-disregarded scientists tinker with a clumsy early version of the new drive, while the Andorians maintain an iron grip over their home system by restricting use of warp ships (which function only within the system) to the Guard. To their credit, Andorians have tried to hang onto some of the ideals of the Federation, although obviously they've relaxed restrictions against genetic modification, as it's the only way their species can survive (with their odd breeding patterns). Vulcan has become insular, with only a small clade of socially-isolated scientists even trying to go offworld any more. No one has heard from Earth, not even a maser message, since the Collapse. What's happened with the Klingons? The Romulans? The other Romulans? Who knows?
On the plus side, nobody's seen the Borg since then, either - the Event collapsed transwarp conduits as well, and might have been instituted deliberately to stop a Borg invasion. (Over the two or three centuries since the Collapse, the records have become somewhat unreliable. Have to make the span that long so there won't be any living Vulcans who were part of Starfleet.)
Why did the Event happen? No one knows for sure, although there are nearly as many theories as there are people. Some of the theories blame Earth, so Humans aren't terribly well-regarded in many areas (they've been officially barred from Tellar, for instance - "haven't those shaved apes done enough?"). Underlying the story will be a side-quest for that answer. Mostly, our protagonists will be trying to restore peace, and something resembling unity, to their part of the galaxy.
sounds good.
as for ship...if I were writing it...my ragtag team of heroes would find the Starlet mothball fleet and find one of the Enterprises...still in functioning form...maybe the A....I can't see them being able to run a Galaxy...or if you want to use the Galaxy than they only find the Saucer section and now have to search for the engineering section...but that's just me.
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.
At least for me, the way the guy was drawn looked like a walking Hollywood/comic book cliche, which made it worse. The scripts themselves I quite liked, though I would have changed the backgrounds of the characters so that some more diversity existed.
Now when it comes to Star Trek, I actually get annoyed with demographic skew for a very conservative reason as opposed to a liberal one (and recently opened a spreadsheet to try to help me make adjustments in my own universe). I don't care about notions of "privilege" or any other such garbage. I care about the fact that we are told the Federation operates on absolute equal opportunity where species, race, and region of origin simply do not enter into it. (Which IMO is how we should operate, with absolute blindness to such irrelevancies.) As such, Starfleet demographics should come closer to reflecting the total demographic makeup of the Federation, and world of origin ethnic statistics should reflect that world's overall population.
Quite simply, I am not bothered by overrepresentation in Star Trek on some sort of adversarial "privilege" or "class oppression" nonsense but on grounds of simple realism. Lack of diversity quite simply fails to pass any sort of realism test IMO based on the premises we are given about Earth and Federation society.
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At least for me, the way the guy was drawn looked like a walking Hollywood/comic book cliche, which made it worse. The scripts themselves I quite liked, though I would have changed the backgrounds of the characters so that some more diversity existed.
Now when it comes to Star Trek, I actually get annoyed with demographic skew for a very conservative reason as opposed to a liberal one (and recently opened a spreadsheet to try to help me make adjustments in my own universe). I don't care about notions of "privilege" or any other such garbage. I care about the fact that we are told the Federation operates on absolute equal opportunity where species, race, and region of origin simply do not enter into it. (Which IMO is how we should operate, with absolute blindness to such irrelevancies.) As such, Starfleet demographics should come closer to reflecting the total demographic makeup of the Federation, and world of origin ethnic statistics should reflect that world's overall population.
Quite simply, I am not bothered by overrepresentation in Star Trek on some sort of adversarial "privilege" or "class oppression" nonsense but on grounds of simple realism. Lack of diversity quite simply fails to pass any sort of realism test IMO based on the premises we are given about Earth and Federation society.
Said it way better than I could. One of my minor peeves with ENT was that every single human member of the senior staff was a white American male except Travis and Hoshi, when they were supposed to be representating Earth's WORLD government, not the United States. And that's a series with a logical in-universe reason for humans to be overrepresented over aliens--why (besides makeup budgets, which a cartoon or video game doesn't have) should a military purportedly representing a multi-species Federation be so top-heavy with humans, and white ones in particular?
"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"
to be fair it looks like the Final Frontier crew was going to be pretty diverse...sure it had a white lead but as far as I could tell he was the only one...the XO was black, the security officer was a woman and the chief engineer was an alien
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.
Said it way better than I could. One of my minor peeves with ENT was that every single human member of the senior staff was a white American male except Travis and Hoshi, when they were supposed to be representating Earth's WORLD government, not the United States. And that's a series with a logical in-universe reason for humans to be overrepresented over aliens--why (besides makeup budgets, which a cartoon or video game doesn't have) should a military purportedly representing a multi-species Federation be so top-heavy with humans, and white ones in particular?
Unless something happened in World War III to severely skew the population, we should have seen India, Indonesia, and China in particular heavily represented. Granted I don't reflect that exact demographic myself as fully as I think it would be, but I try to at least consider it.
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Unless something happened in World War III to severely skew the population, we should have seen India, Indonesia, and China in particular heavily represented. Granted I don't reflect that exact demographic myself as fully as I think it would be, but I try to at least consider it.
Given that World War III was a nuclear war that left 600 million people dead (for comparison, WWII was "only" 60 million dead), and this was after the Eugenics Wars of Trek's 1990s, itself a nuclear conflict with 30 million dead...I think quite a bit of population-skewing happened, though without knowing the particulars of it I can't guess as to what.
(Remember that Trek's 1990s were not like our 1990s. VOY's "Future's End" didn't mention the Eugenics Wars (1992-96)) - despite being set in 1996 - but we see a model of the Botany Bay and a photograph of its launch, meaning that "Future's End" didn't erase it from canon)
Given that World War III was a nuclear war that left 600 million people dead (for comparison, WWII was "only" 60 million dead), and this was after the Eugenics Wars of Trek's 1990s, itself a nuclear conflict with 30 million dead...I think quite a bit of population-skewing happened, though without knowing the particulars of it I can't guess as to what.
(Remember that Trek's 1990s were not like our 1990s)
Ironically, it is my personal, unproven suspicion that in a scenario like that, it would actually be the Anglosphere, Europe, and the Middle East that would have fared the worst, based on the damage we saw onscreen in the US, and Lily Sloan's angry and xenophobic reaction to Picard.
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Ironically, it is my personal, unproven suspicion that in a scenario like that, it would actually be the Anglosphere, Europe, and the Middle East that would have fared the worst, based on the damage we saw onscreen in the US, and Lily Sloan's angry and xenophobic reaction to Picard.
Except we know that probably isn't the case given the preponderance of white folk in Trek from TOS straight through to VOY. Unfortunately it rather seems more likely that North America and Europe did quite well for themselves, comparatively, in the Eugenics Wars and WWIII (the lack of any true evidence of the former beyond a model and a photograph in VOY "Future's End" would seem to support this well before we can start pointing fingers at ENT).
In other words, however bad Montana looks, places like Jakarta, Beijing, Addis Ababa, and so on, might be even worse.
Unfortunately I think we have to point the finger back at how the producers ran the casting calls, that they didn't catch the illogic of what they were doing compared to what their stated backstory made the most logical. The backstory of a truly equal world should IMO have triggered a bit more critical thinking by the writers and producers. Unfortunately in the 60's society could barely even handle Uhura (or for that matter, the Russian Chekov or the Japanese-American Sulu), let alone consider what even representation of the world population would look like. By the 80's, though, the oversight becomes more glaring. :-/
I think if they'd considered what they were doing (Roddenberry in later years, B&B, and JJ all), things would have looked different and would have been a great example of out-of-the-box thinking.
Though actually, I have to hand it to DS9: that's probably where they got the closest to getting it right. Of the humans on staff, the US, Ireland, and an unspecified Middle Eastern or North African country are represented, and there is also a higher percentage of aliens onscreen.
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There were never any dwarves on Star Trek. Should they make a new series with a dwarf as a Captain? I bet Warwick Davis would be awesome in the role!
Find me a little person who meets the physical fitness requirements and you're home free. I'd be happy with a Latina or Persian lead, myself.
"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"
Find me a little person who meets the physical fitness requirements and you're home free. I'd be happy with a Latina or Persian lead, myself.
Well, some species seem to work out with the same proportions and build--the Roylans, for one, apparently pass Starfleet physicals. (Keenser onscreen, Teeglar in my personal canon.) As far as humans, I'd have to see if a little person could pass the same standard the Roylan was passing, before I could say anything.
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If we're talking about a story or novel, then whoever writes it can make the captain whatever they want. Make it a Horta, who cares.
When talking about a TV show or a movie, however, different rules are in play. You need a lead who can get an audience, since more important than any message you want to tell is getting butts in seats watching the thing. And it is an unfortunate but true statement that white males lead to the largest number of butts in seats. Well, white males and Will Smith.
This isn't a good thing and it should be worked against...but, if we're talking about a new Trek TV show, then Trek isn't the place to do it: this would be the first Trek TV show in 10+ years and it'll need all the help it can get to launch. Putting an Eskimo or an African national in the lead would be very risky, and while I'm all for it, no network would be.
Said it way better than I could. One of my minor peeves with ENT was that every single human member of the senior staff was a white American male except Travis and Hoshi, when they were supposed to be representating Earth's WORLD government, not the United States. And that's a series with a logical in-universe reason for humans to be overrepresented over aliens--why (besides makeup budgets, which a cartoon or video game doesn't have) should a military purportedly representing a multi-species Federation be so top-heavy with humans, and white ones in particular?
NX-01s bridge crew have two americans, Tucker and Archer, Reed have British ancestors, he mention it in the romulan minefield episode
Hast thou not gone against sincerity
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
Unless something happened in World War III to severely skew the population, we should have seen India, Indonesia, and China in particular heavily represented. Granted I don't reflect that exact demographic myself as fully as I think it would be, but I try to at least consider it.
Don't know about India, but Chinas population is heavily concentrated in developed areas, so they are basically all bunched up together when nuke hit....
Hast thou not gone against sincerity
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
Don't know about India, but Chinas population is heavily concentrated in developed areas, so they are basically all bunched up together when nuke hit....
Depends on if the conflict was as severe in those areas or if any of them even managed to pull off neutrality. One or all of them could have actually succeeded in avoiding any "city-buster" strikes, to use the Mass Effect term for it, particularly if the conflict was indeed centered on the Anglosphere, Europe, and Middle East.
Personally if any of the three were going to get off the hook, I'd lay my bets on Indonesia...and on top of that, being Southern Hemisphere, there would probably be fewer places for fallout to drift in from, from other hot spots. India...being a nuclear power they are at the highest risk of the three but it depends on who started the war and for what reasons. China IMO comes next with fallout risk from Russia, India, Iran, and Pakistan being a consideration, but again if they managed to avoid being a direct party to the conflict, may not be looking at wholesale destruction.
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NX-01s bridge crew have two americans, Tucker and Archer, Reed have British ancestors, he mention it in the romulan minefield episode
Also there's his accent, which is a dead giveaway.
Specifically, Tucker is Floridian and Archer is a New Yorker but spent most of his life in California. Reed is not merely British but is in fact English (upper class at that, given the accent), while Travis is a Boomer and probably doesn't consider any country or race to be important (though his name suggests a Western origin, probably American, so let's call that half-American). Hoshi is Japanese (born in Kyoto), T'Pol is Vulcan, and Phlox is Denobulan.
Ethnically, the crew is five white folk (Archer, Reed, Trip, plus T'Pol's and Phlox's actors), an African, and an east Asian.
It's not particularly diverse, but it is no less so than any other Trek series.
Personally if any of the three were going to get off the hook, I'd lay my bets on Indonesia...and on top of that, being Southern Hemisphere, there would probably be fewer places for fallout to drift in from, from other hot spots. India...being a nuclear power they are at the highest risk of the three but it depends on who started the war and for what reasons. China IMO comes next with fallout risk from Russia, India, Iran, and Pakistan being a consideration, but again if they managed to avoid being a direct party to the conflict, may not be looking at wholesale destruction.
To be completely honest the big mystery to me is not such much who was involved in WWIII, so much as how the Hell South America was dragged into it when it managed to avoid WWI and WWII.
Riker states in First Contact that "every major city" is in ruins, so that would at least include Brasilia and Rio de Jeneiro in Brazil, Buenos Aires in Argentina, and Santiago in Chile, together the three most powerful countries in South America. I suppose WWIII might have driven the three of them to fight each other for one damn fool reason or another, though.
Other major cities worldwide would be Johannesberg, Abuja, Cairo, Addis Ababa, Mecca and Medina, basically every European capital that you've heard of, Delhi, Islamabad, Beijing, Shanghai, Tehran, Moscow, St. Petersberg, Vladivostok, Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Singapore, Canberra, Sydney, Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Sendai...
Jesus Christ, 800 million isn't really all that much, when you think about what WWIII must have entailed...
This isn't a good thing and it should be worked against...but, if we're talking about a new Trek TV show, then Trek isn't the place to do it: this would be the first Trek TV show in 10+ years and it'll need all the help it can get to launch. Putting an Eskimo or an African national in the lead would be very risky, and while I'm all for it, no network would be.
Wasn't TOS, which had none of the advantages of an established franchise, and social risks and censorship on a level we don't have today, about deliberately busting such barriers? It's sad to me to hear the sort of statement you made here associated with the Trek franchise, and as those who know me well can attest, I am a pretty cynical codger sometimes. :-/
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Wasn't TOS, which had none of the advantages of an established franchise, and social risks and censorship on a level we don't have today, about deliberately busting such barriers?
Sure it was, and Roddenberry had to fight tooth and nail each time, and frequently failed. That's why we didn't get the Star Trek with Pike having a woman first officer, that's why the gender split in Enterprise is 70% male - 30% female as opposed to the 50-50 Roddenberry wanted (although that may have been less about equality and more about how Roddenberry was quite the womanizer), and that's why of the principal cast, only Uhura and Sulu were minorities, and almost all background characters are white.
These days you'd have an easier time on the gender front and could probably swing in a Hispanic to any role you wanted save captain (maybe captain if you tried really, really hard and did some, ah, "favors" for some of the producers), but that's the sum total of the progress if you're looking to make a multi-ethnic show. I do not approve, but I also realize the reality of the situation.
(Also it's worth noting that this isn't because the producers themselves are necessarily racist. They're not, generally. What they are is mathematicians, of a sort. Their sole concern is viewership. Anything that gives more viewers is good, anything that gives less viewers is bad. If you could convince them that a Trek series that had a TRIBBLE chan-to-shen transsexual fat Andorian played by an Australian Aboriginal actor would result in 10 million viewers a night, they'd write you blank checks)
Sure it was, and Roddenberry had to fight tooth and nail each time, and frequently failed. That's why we didn't get the Star Trek with Pike having a woman first officer, that's why the gender split in Enterprise is 70% male - 30% female as opposed to the 50-50 Roddenberry wanted (although that may have been less about equality and more about how Roddenberry was quite the womanizer), and that's why of the principal cast, only Uhura and Sulu were minorities, and almost all background characters are white.
I don't think the fight would be as hard as it was in 2015 as it was in the 60's though. Added to that, if an incident like what you added into your most recent post occurred where something was denied on ethnic grounds, I think Hollywood at the least has to fear the Internet and the firestorms it can bring like no other medium. And Star Trek fans in particular are active there.
Incidentally while I am still trying to adjust it towards that point, I actually go for 60/40 on the gender split in my story fleet. I am not sure without the draft that preference for all careers will always be 50/50, but I think 60/40 with no glass ceiling will be enough to get the point across that all who wish to serve are welcome.
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Incidentally while I am still trying to adjust it towards that point, I actually go for 60/40 on the gender split in my story fleet. I am not sure without the draft that preference for all careers will always be 50/50, but I think 60/40 with no glass ceiling will be enough to get the point across that all who wish to serve are welcome.
For whatever reason I've always found it easier to write for women than men, despite being a straight male. So in my current story, of the bridge crew, three are women. Well, two women and an Andorian shen. And in STO itself all my toons are female, though admittedly that might be because, as mentioned, I'm a straight male, so if I'm gonna be playing a 3rd-person game I'd rather be staring at a woman's behind than a man's for the duration.
Over in MLP land I've got eight main characters in the Lunaverse, six of which are adult women (mares, whatever), one of which is a 12-year-old girl (filly, whatever), and one of which is a 40,000-year-old physical goddess of the night.
Could a Trek series really handle a post-apocalyptic universe?
"Star Trek" is based upon a post-apocalyptic universe.
Gene Roddenberry, as heard through the characters, explained how a large portion of the population had to die; thus, the tragedy of losing so much life changed humanity. It forced us to solve: world hunger, poverty, famine, etc... Gene believed it would take a nuclear war (World War III) to trigger a change in humanity.
Gene Roddenberry, as heard through the characters, explained how a large portion of the population had to die; thus, the tragedy of losing so much life changed humanity. It forced us to solve world hunger, clothing, shelter, etc... Gene believed it would take a nuclear war (World War III) to trigger a change in humanity.
Trek is more post-post apocalypse, since even by Enterprise's time the scars of WWIII are essentially gone. Post-apocalypse usually implies that the immediate results of the apocalypse and the destruction it caused are still very visible. A series about Zefram Cochrane building the Phoenix would be post-apocalypse.
Trek is more post-post apocalypse, since even by Enterprise's time the scars of WWIII are essentially gone. Post-apocalypse usually implies that the immediate results of the apocalypse and the destruction it caused are still very visible. A series about Zefram Cochrane building the Phoenix would be post-apocalypse.
We already have so many post-apocalyptic movies. Between the late 1980s and today, the movie industry has been injected with millions of apocalyptic type of movies.
"Star Trek" was build upon an optimistic perception of tomorrow.
Why inject misery and death into a franchise build upon 'hope'?
We already have so many post-apocalyptic movies. Between the late 1980s and today, the movie industry has been injected with millions of apocalyptic type of movies.
"Star Trek" was build upon an optimistic perception of tomorrow.
Why inject misery and death into a franchise build upon 'hope'?
That doesn't preclude a 'post-apocalyptic' scenario. The optimism can still be there in the characters that are using their ship to build a new federation
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.
For whatever reason I've always found it easier to write for women than men, despite being a straight male. So in my current story, of the bridge crew, three are women. Well, two women and an Andorian shen. And in STO itself all my toons are female, though admittedly that might be because, as mentioned, I'm a straight male, so if I'm gonna be playing a 3rd-person game I'd rather be staring at a woman's behind than a man's for the duration.
Over in MLP land I've got eight main characters in the Lunaverse, six of which are adult women (mares, whatever), one of which is a 12-year-old girl (filly, whatever), and one of which is a 40,000-year-old physical goddess of the night.
I definitely find it easier to write for men--so that has for me made it doubly important to be mindful of avoiding the wrong message coming across by allowing too much of a statistical skew. I don't quite have my balance at this time where I feel it should be, unfortunately, but that (and species balance, which is also not as good or in alignment with my vision as I thought it was) was the reason for opening up a tracking spreadsheet fairly recently, to hopefully help me address the issue.
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Why inject misery and death into a franchise build upon 'hope'?
I completely agree, and made a post on that exact subject a few pages ago. I'm just saying that Trek is not, itself, really post-apocalypse, despite WWIII in the backstory.
I definitely find it easier to write for men--so that has for me made it doubly important to be mindful of avoiding the wrong message coming across by allowing too much of a statistical skew. I don't quite have my balance at this time where I feel it should be, unfortunately, but that (and species balance, which is also not as good or in alignment with my vision as I thought it was) was the reason for opening up a tracking spreadsheet fairly recently, to hopefully help me address the issue.
At the moment I only have the one story going, and the crew (which represents a skeleton crew of 16 for the 50-person Gallant-class starship Hydra) was chosen based on my bridge crew plus my assigned duty officers rather than a deliberate effort to invoke any kind of equality (since I actually am of the opinion that forcing equality doesn't really help it...equality will be achieved, I feel, when, say, a woman being in command is unremarkable rather than laudable). Let's see, that gave me...
Comments
sounds good.
as for ship...if I were writing it...my ragtag team of heroes would find the Starlet mothball fleet and find one of the Enterprises...still in functioning form...maybe the A....I can't see them being able to run a Galaxy...or if you want to use the Galaxy than they only find the Saucer section and now have to search for the engineering section...but that's just me.
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.
At least for me, the way the guy was drawn looked like a walking Hollywood/comic book cliche, which made it worse. The scripts themselves I quite liked, though I would have changed the backgrounds of the characters so that some more diversity existed.
Now when it comes to Star Trek, I actually get annoyed with demographic skew for a very conservative reason as opposed to a liberal one (and recently opened a spreadsheet to try to help me make adjustments in my own universe). I don't care about notions of "privilege" or any other such garbage. I care about the fact that we are told the Federation operates on absolute equal opportunity where species, race, and region of origin simply do not enter into it. (Which IMO is how we should operate, with absolute blindness to such irrelevancies.) As such, Starfleet demographics should come closer to reflecting the total demographic makeup of the Federation, and world of origin ethnic statistics should reflect that world's overall population.
Quite simply, I am not bothered by overrepresentation in Star Trek on some sort of adversarial "privilege" or "class oppression" nonsense but on grounds of simple realism. Lack of diversity quite simply fails to pass any sort of realism test IMO based on the premises we are given about Earth and Federation society.
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— Sabaton, "Great War"
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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.
Unless something happened in World War III to severely skew the population, we should have seen India, Indonesia, and China in particular heavily represented. Granted I don't reflect that exact demographic myself as fully as I think it would be, but I try to at least consider it.
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Given that World War III was a nuclear war that left 600 million people dead (for comparison, WWII was "only" 60 million dead), and this was after the Eugenics Wars of Trek's 1990s, itself a nuclear conflict with 30 million dead...I think quite a bit of population-skewing happened, though without knowing the particulars of it I can't guess as to what.
(Remember that Trek's 1990s were not like our 1990s. VOY's "Future's End" didn't mention the Eugenics Wars (1992-96)) - despite being set in 1996 - but we see a model of the Botany Bay and a photograph of its launch, meaning that "Future's End" didn't erase it from canon)
Ironically, it is my personal, unproven suspicion that in a scenario like that, it would actually be the Anglosphere, Europe, and the Middle East that would have fared the worst, based on the damage we saw onscreen in the US, and Lily Sloan's angry and xenophobic reaction to Picard.
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Except we know that probably isn't the case given the preponderance of white folk in Trek from TOS straight through to VOY. Unfortunately it rather seems more likely that North America and Europe did quite well for themselves, comparatively, in the Eugenics Wars and WWIII (the lack of any true evidence of the former beyond a model and a photograph in VOY "Future's End" would seem to support this well before we can start pointing fingers at ENT).
In other words, however bad Montana looks, places like Jakarta, Beijing, Addis Ababa, and so on, might be even worse.
(I am not saying this is a good thing, mind)
I think if they'd considered what they were doing (Roddenberry in later years, B&B, and JJ all), things would have looked different and would have been a great example of out-of-the-box thinking.
Though actually, I have to hand it to DS9: that's probably where they got the closest to getting it right. Of the humans on staff, the US, Ireland, and an unspecified Middle Eastern or North African country are represented, and there is also a higher percentage of aliens onscreen.
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Find me a little person who meets the physical fitness requirements and you're home free. I'd be happy with a Latina or Persian lead, myself.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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Well, some species seem to work out with the same proportions and build--the Roylans, for one, apparently pass Starfleet physicals. (Keenser onscreen, Teeglar in my personal canon.) As far as humans, I'd have to see if a little person could pass the same standard the Roylan was passing, before I could say anything.
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Or someone of an Arab ethnicity...maybe an Inuit?
Anything but ANOTHER straight white male. Please.
When talking about a TV show or a movie, however, different rules are in play. You need a lead who can get an audience, since more important than any message you want to tell is getting butts in seats watching the thing. And it is an unfortunate but true statement that white males lead to the largest number of butts in seats. Well, white males and Will Smith.
This isn't a good thing and it should be worked against...but, if we're talking about a new Trek TV show, then Trek isn't the place to do it: this would be the first Trek TV show in 10+ years and it'll need all the help it can get to launch. Putting an Eskimo or an African national in the lead would be very risky, and while I'm all for it, no network would be.
NX-01s bridge crew have two americans, Tucker and Archer, Reed have British ancestors, he mention it in the romulan minefield episode
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
Don't know about India, but Chinas population is heavily concentrated in developed areas, so they are basically all bunched up together when nuke hit....
Hast thou not felt ashamed of thy words and deeds
Hast thou not lacked vigor
Hast thou exerted all possible efforts
Hast thou not become slothful
Depends on if the conflict was as severe in those areas or if any of them even managed to pull off neutrality. One or all of them could have actually succeeded in avoiding any "city-buster" strikes, to use the Mass Effect term for it, particularly if the conflict was indeed centered on the Anglosphere, Europe, and Middle East.
Personally if any of the three were going to get off the hook, I'd lay my bets on Indonesia...and on top of that, being Southern Hemisphere, there would probably be fewer places for fallout to drift in from, from other hot spots. India...being a nuclear power they are at the highest risk of the three but it depends on who started the war and for what reasons. China IMO comes next with fallout risk from Russia, India, Iran, and Pakistan being a consideration, but again if they managed to avoid being a direct party to the conflict, may not be looking at wholesale destruction.
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Also there's his accent, which is a dead giveaway.
Specifically, Tucker is Floridian and Archer is a New Yorker but spent most of his life in California. Reed is not merely British but is in fact English (upper class at that, given the accent), while Travis is a Boomer and probably doesn't consider any country or race to be important (though his name suggests a Western origin, probably American, so let's call that half-American). Hoshi is Japanese (born in Kyoto), T'Pol is Vulcan, and Phlox is Denobulan.
Ethnically, the crew is five white folk (Archer, Reed, Trip, plus T'Pol's and Phlox's actors), an African, and an east Asian.
It's not particularly diverse, but it is no less so than any other Trek series.
To be completely honest the big mystery to me is not such much who was involved in WWIII, so much as how the Hell South America was dragged into it when it managed to avoid WWI and WWII.
Riker states in First Contact that "every major city" is in ruins, so that would at least include Brasilia and Rio de Jeneiro in Brazil, Buenos Aires in Argentina, and Santiago in Chile, together the three most powerful countries in South America. I suppose WWIII might have driven the three of them to fight each other for one damn fool reason or another, though.
Other major cities worldwide would be Johannesberg, Abuja, Cairo, Addis Ababa, Mecca and Medina, basically every European capital that you've heard of, Delhi, Islamabad, Beijing, Shanghai, Tehran, Moscow, St. Petersberg, Vladivostok, Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Singapore, Canberra, Sydney, Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Sendai...
Jesus Christ, 800 million isn't really all that much, when you think about what WWIII must have entailed...
Wasn't TOS, which had none of the advantages of an established franchise, and social risks and censorship on a level we don't have today, about deliberately busting such barriers? It's sad to me to hear the sort of statement you made here associated with the Trek franchise, and as those who know me well can attest, I am a pretty cynical codger sometimes. :-/
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Sure it was, and Roddenberry had to fight tooth and nail each time, and frequently failed. That's why we didn't get the Star Trek with Pike having a woman first officer, that's why the gender split in Enterprise is 70% male - 30% female as opposed to the 50-50 Roddenberry wanted (although that may have been less about equality and more about how Roddenberry was quite the womanizer), and that's why of the principal cast, only Uhura and Sulu were minorities, and almost all background characters are white.
These days you'd have an easier time on the gender front and could probably swing in a Hispanic to any role you wanted save captain (maybe captain if you tried really, really hard and did some, ah, "favors" for some of the producers), but that's the sum total of the progress if you're looking to make a multi-ethnic show. I do not approve, but I also realize the reality of the situation.
(Also it's worth noting that this isn't because the producers themselves are necessarily racist. They're not, generally. What they are is mathematicians, of a sort. Their sole concern is viewership. Anything that gives more viewers is good, anything that gives less viewers is bad. If you could convince them that a Trek series that had a TRIBBLE chan-to-shen transsexual fat Andorian played by an Australian Aboriginal actor would result in 10 million viewers a night, they'd write you blank checks)
I don't think the fight would be as hard as it was in 2015 as it was in the 60's though. Added to that, if an incident like what you added into your most recent post occurred where something was denied on ethnic grounds, I think Hollywood at the least has to fear the Internet and the firestorms it can bring like no other medium. And Star Trek fans in particular are active there.
Incidentally while I am still trying to adjust it towards that point, I actually go for 60/40 on the gender split in my story fleet. I am not sure without the draft that preference for all careers will always be 50/50, but I think 60/40 with no glass ceiling will be enough to get the point across that all who wish to serve are welcome.
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For whatever reason I've always found it easier to write for women than men, despite being a straight male. So in my current story, of the bridge crew, three are women. Well, two women and an Andorian shen. And in STO itself all my toons are female, though admittedly that might be because, as mentioned, I'm a straight male, so if I'm gonna be playing a 3rd-person game I'd rather be staring at a woman's behind than a man's for the duration.
Over in MLP land I've got eight main characters in the Lunaverse, six of which are adult women (mares, whatever), one of which is a 12-year-old girl (filly, whatever), and one of which is a 40,000-year-old physical goddess of the night.
Gene Roddenberry, as heard through the characters, explained how a large portion of the population had to die; thus, the tragedy of losing so much life changed humanity. It forced us to solve: world hunger, poverty, famine, etc... Gene believed it would take a nuclear war (World War III) to trigger a change in humanity.
Trek is more post-post apocalypse, since even by Enterprise's time the scars of WWIII are essentially gone. Post-apocalypse usually implies that the immediate results of the apocalypse and the destruction it caused are still very visible. A series about Zefram Cochrane building the Phoenix would be post-apocalypse.
We already have so many post-apocalyptic movies. Between the late 1980s and today, the movie industry has been injected with millions of apocalyptic type of movies.
"Star Trek" was build upon an optimistic perception of tomorrow.
Why inject misery and death into a franchise build upon 'hope'?
That doesn't preclude a 'post-apocalyptic' scenario. The optimism can still be there in the characters that are using their ship to build a new federation
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.
I definitely find it easier to write for men--so that has for me made it doubly important to be mindful of avoiding the wrong message coming across by allowing too much of a statistical skew. I don't quite have my balance at this time where I feel it should be, unfortunately, but that (and species balance, which is also not as good or in alignment with my vision as I thought it was) was the reason for opening up a tracking spreadsheet fairly recently, to hopefully help me address the issue.
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I completely agree, and made a post on that exact subject a few pages ago. I'm just saying that Trek is not, itself, really post-apocalypse, despite WWIII in the backstory.
At the moment I only have the one story going, and the crew (which represents a skeleton crew of 16 for the 50-person Gallant-class starship Hydra) was chosen based on my bridge crew plus my assigned duty officers rather than a deliberate effort to invoke any kind of equality (since I actually am of the opinion that forcing equality doesn't really help it...equality will be achieved, I feel, when, say, a woman being in command is unremarkable rather than laudable). Let's see, that gave me...
Humans: 8; Andorians: 2; Vulcans: 2; Tellarites: 2; Ferengi: 1; Trill: 1
Male: 6; Female: 7; Shen: 1; Chan: 1