You know, it's rather entertaining reading all of these threads, because it gives me insight to people no one specific, just people, especially when I apply my own biases. People in the 60s, around my age, saw TOS, and they were probably OMG this show is communism in disguise! (Lets face it, Roddenberry's idea of the future WAS socialism/communism without the human failing of power corrupting/yada.
TNG comes along. TOS fans are OMG! who is this bald guy who just TALKS? Where's the fistfights, torn uniforms and half naked (In 60s style) women? although the latter did make an appearance or four in the first couple of seasons. and other viewers were not fond of the sociopolitical mumbo jumbo. DS9 comes out, OMG it's A SPACE STATION, a B-5 Ripoff, where's the boldly going thing?!?!? Voyager, well, it was fun for the first few episodes to count how many of the limited photon torpedoes were used.. and then it was fun to watch Robert Beltran's hatred of the show leak through in his performance, and they saved the show with Jeri Ryan in a outfit so tight she LITERALLY was passing out on set... Enterprise comes along ripping "canon" to shred with T'Pol, because SPOCK WAS THE FIRST VULCAN TOS SAID SO!!! and now Disc... what is there to fault Disc? only one thing.. JJ Abrams. Even though the man has NOTHING to do with Disc, the hatred of what he did with ST has leaked over to Disc. after all the Klingons all look like Worf... except then didn't. by my count there are 4 disitnct verions of Klingons.. The Kang Kor Koloth guys... the Mark Lenard Klingons only seen in TMP, and the third gen, Starting with ST III.. call them the Berman Klingons, because he was helming the content while those guys were around.. then JJ came along and "effed" them all up. And Disc followed suit. adn the stigma follows. my point is, the people screaming about JJ, the Klingons, and the politically correctness of the current batch of Star Trek is just like the Hippie loving/commie Trekkies of the 60s.. except the people whining ARE the hippie/commies from the 60s... except wea re now running full tilt into ou late 50s- early 60s, and true to being human, WE are now the old folks crying how terrible the Original was...
I guess to wrap up the wall of text, is to quote Sgt Hulka.. to all the ranters and ravers of Picard and Disc..
LIGHTEN UP, Francis... because bad star Trek (if that is your opinion) is better than NO Star Trek. and for those of you born after 1979, yes it was pretty bleak from 1969-1973 and again from 1974 until The Motion Picture, because IF we were lucky we had 5 TV channels, and IF we were lucky, one of they re-ran Star Trek sometime in the afternoon, and if you were fsat enough you could get home from school just in time to catch the opening credits, assuming Mom wasn't watching The Edge of Night.
and to sound more and more like my Dad, You youngsters don't know how good you got it.
As one of those fans from the 60s - Um no; TOS fans didn't see TOS as "Communism in disguise..." because remember in TOS they still GOT PAID and USED MONEY and MADE PROFIT (see TOS S1: "Mudd's Women"; TOS S2 "I Mudd" and various othe episodes where they talk about money. Hell in "Errand Of Mercy" Kirk mentions that "Starfleet spent a lot on our traing..." and as Spock is about to provide the exact figure of that cost; Kirk cuts him off and says, "They're due for a return on their investment..."
So, yeah, - NO - TOS was hardly "Communism is disguise..." - Again, that's more TNG era with the Socialist notion that "No one uses or cares about money...everyone is provided for and we just work to improve ourselves..." - which Picard and others have stated in some form many times over the course of the TNG TV series and films...
Second - NOWHERE did TOS state that Spock was either the first or only Vulcan in Star Fleet in the 23rd century. In fact if you watch TOS S2 "The Immunity Syndrome" - in that episode the U.S.S, Intrepid (Manned by 430 Vulcans) in lost in the opening teaser and Spock senses their deaths across light years of space when it happens. Those 430 Vulcans were all Star Fleet personnel and the ship's Captain was also a Vulcan - and as he's a Captain, it most likely means he was serving in Sta Fleet BEFORE Spock joined.
The whole "Spock was the first Vulcan in Star Fleet..." was something some Spock fans liked to assume - but again, even back then someone would say: "Well, if that's so, how do you explain the 430 Vulcans serving aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid?"
So, yeah, while there's plenty of 'canon' ENT has contradicted (as EVERY OTHER Star Trek series has including TOS at times); T'Pol joining and being in Starfleet by ENT S4 isn't contradicting anything established in TOS.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
i am and will always be an OS fan, and yes, im showing my age as well. so no, the OS was not terrible. think about what they created given the state of the times. as such, there is no way one can compare OS to anything in todays market.
i enjoy the OS stuff in game so much that i make and run a new AoY toon every so often just to traverse and be in that time frame again.
but you misunderstand me.. the people in 1966 who are "our age", thought it whole thing was ludicrous, and some were openly hostile to the socialist overtones.. my grandparents among them. there seems to be a sweet spot for someone to become a fan, I'd say from about 13 to about 28. outside of those ages, too young to understand the more cerebral episodes, or too jaded to appreciate the show at all. thats JMHO though, no data to back it up. but as i said the older people in general get the more resistant they are to something new.
i am and will always be an OS fan, and yes, im showing my age as well. so no, the OS was not terrible. think about what they created given the state of the times. as such, there is no way one can compare OS to anything in todays market.
i enjoy the OS stuff in game so much that i make and run a new AoY toon every so often just to traverse and be in that time frame again.
but you misunderstand me.. the people in 1966 who are "our age", thought it whole thing was ludicrous, and some were openly hostile to the socialist overtones.. my grandparents among them. there seems to be a sweet spot for someone to become a fan, I'd say from about 13 to about 28. outside of those ages, too young to understand the more cerebral episodes, or too jaded to appreciate the show at all. thats JMHO though, no data to back it up. but as i said the older people in general get the more resistant they are to something new.
Some of the older people did, but not really enough to make that a good generalization. And your top end is way too low, when people went back and re-analyzed the viewer data using more modern techniques and templates it turns out the demographic TOS was most popular with in the 1960s was the male 18-34 bracket. Further, it turns out that NBC totally dropped the ball with their decision to shut down TOS because they were looking at the data in the wrong way and it was actually gaining popularity in that and several other important demographic brackets, not loosing it.
“> @captaincelestial said: > > TNG: Nostalgia was a huge part of the TV landscape at the time with remakes or attempted continuation of dead series, and most of them were failures. Esp. after Star Trek's Animated Series. The largest issue was going to be a remake/reboot of TOS, rather than be a new series. Until it went on air, very little was said of what to expect. > > I was surprised that CBS did not air TNG on their network, which goes to show they didn't have much confidence in the TV show. The station that I watched it was an independent TV station that would end up being bought by Fox. Sports programs regularly pre-empted TNG, which made it harder to watch regularly. Trying to stay up to around 2 or 4 in the morning wasn't an easy feat for a weeknight. By the time DS9 went on air, TNG finally was able to have a regular spot in the schedule with a reasonable time to watch it on the weekend when a game pre-empted it. > > What really helped the show from the start was giving it an 80 year jump from TOS. It propelled the storyline, and they were able to avoid (at least most) Canonical Entanglement. It enabled a curiosity in rediscovering the galaxy, and marvel at how much technology progressed since even the movies. >
CBS didn’t get embroiled in Trek until much later. At the time of TNG is was all Paramount. The reason TNG and DS9 didn’t have set stations is because Roddenberry sold it to syndication. Back before cable and streaming there was only a few networks and local stations needed something to fill the time slots. This is usually before the local news comes on and/or after the late news goes off. This way TNG wouldn’t be affected by ratings. Ratings had Trek taken from him twice (cancellation of TOS and TMP underperforming). He also had to set it 80 years after TOS because the TOS movies were still being made.
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.
i am and will always be an OS fan, and yes, im showing my age as well. so no, the OS was not terrible. think about what they created given the state of the times. as such, there is no way one can compare OS to anything in todays market.
i enjoy the OS stuff in game so much that i make and run a new AoY toon every so often just to traverse and be in that time frame again.
but you misunderstand me.. the people in 1966 who are "our age", thought it whole thing was ludicrous, and some were openly hostile to the socialist overtones.. my grandparents among them. there seems to be a sweet spot for someone to become a fan, I'd say from about 13 to about 28. outside of those ages, too young to understand the more cerebral episodes, or too jaded to appreciate the show at all. thats JMHO though, no data to back it up. but as i said the older people in general get the more resistant they are to something new.
Star Trek isn't socialist though. If people are watching it and getting that, then they don't understand it, or they don't understand socialism.
To be clear on the subject of Gatekeeping, many times people have used the "No true Scotsman" argument against people who don't agree with them as a form of attack, citing that "A TRUE Trek fan would not like X", and thus dictating who is and who isn't a Trek fan based on personal bias. And as mentioned above, it is alright to express your opinions. HOW you express them is what gets threads shut down. Rants tend to devolve into flame wars. If it is a civil debate highlighting things liked and not liked, its fine. But when it turns into "I'mma trash this and anyone who doesn't agree with me is THE ENEMY"... then we have problems.
As for people not liking Discovery... it follows the time tested pattern of not liking the new stuff.
TNG: Nothing like TOS
DS9: Not based on a starship.
Voyager: (Honestly don't remember)
Enterprise: Too advanced to look like its from "the past"
Kelvin Timeline: OMG THEY DESTROYED EVERYTHING WE KNOW!!! (despite the bone of Alternate Reality given) and Too advanced to look like TOS era
Discovery: Too advanced to look like its from "the past"
Now... if we look at those same shows...
TNG: Well liked now
DS9: Viewed as one of the best
Voyager: Eh... has its flaws
Enterprise: Has its flaws but no longer hated
Kelvin Timeline: Has its flaws but no longer hated
Discovery: STILL hated because its current.
The main reason we hear so much more about it is because of advancing technology has allowed people to voice their opinions a lot more openly now than they were able to back in 1987 when TNG first came out. And IMO a lot of the same arguments used against Enterprise were recycled for use against Discovery. Almost seemed like the second Discovery came out, Enterprise was forgotten about or just suddenly accepted as alright. Same with the Kelvin Timeline. Second Discovery came out... KT was fine.
Anyways... its not the CONTENT that is being modded, its the ATTITUDE.
Discovery will still be reviled 20 years from now, and the reason for that is simple: it's an objectively bad, illogical (verging on deranged) story showcasing highly unlikable, one dimensional characters, and designed as a vehicle for pushing an extremely progressive message that (unsurprisingly) about half of fans aren't really receptive towards.
It's nice that you're able to rationalize criticism against DSC as a part of some kind of curmudgeonly pattern (or even sinister scheme) by the fanbase, but the fact remains that TNG and DS9 were not being written by a hack staff obsessed with inserting modern-day agendas into every second of screen time, weren't telling a story about nothing, that routinely played fast and loose with its own world-building and laws (even rules that it itself established), and didn't take a dump on older material by consistently attempting to 'subvert expecations' (if anything, TNG and DS9 were absolutely reverent with regards to TOS; DSC retcons everything in sight). Thus, TNG and DS9 could win critical fans over with time because the stories being told we both narratively solid AND relatable to viewers even 10-20 years later.
It's for that reason that DSC will age very poorly, and will only be remembered as being a dumpster fire and zombie-progressive mouthpiece (if the Star Trek IP even survives the current incarnation... which seems pretty unlikely). Your efforts to write such a massive percentage of the fandom off in such simple manner speaks to a combination of personal desperation and disconnection from reality. Discovery isn't hated because it's secretly amazing and people aren't giving it a chance - it's hated because fans are all-too-well-informed about how bad it is (even going so far as to watch multiple seasons, hoping against hope that it would turn a corner) and reluctantly decided that the product has left them behind. Sorry that some of us actually have standards.
i am and will always be an OS fan, and yes, im showing my age as well. so no, the OS was not terrible. think about what they created given the state of the times. as such, there is no way one can compare OS to anything in todays market.
i enjoy the OS stuff in game so much that i make and run a new AoY toon every so often just to traverse and be in that time frame again.
but you misunderstand me.. the people in 1966 who are "our age", thought it whole thing was ludicrous, and some were openly hostile to the socialist overtones.. my grandparents among them. there seems to be a sweet spot for someone to become a fan, I'd say from about 13 to about 28. outside of those ages, too young to understand the more cerebral episodes, or too jaded to appreciate the show at all. thats JMHO though, no data to back it up. but as i said the older people in general get the more resistant they are to something new.
Star Trek isn't socialist though. If people are watching it and getting that, then they don't understand it, or they don't understand socialism.
Or possibly *you* don't understand socialism? The Federation utopia is all about providing everyone with their basic needs, so that they can devote their time to things they actually enjoy doing - the socialist (not Communist, that's a different thing) goal. It may only be possible in a post-scarcity society, as in the core Federation worlds, nobody actually has to work at anything unless they want to - foods can be provided by replicators, which can be produced in automated factories, all of which can be powered by cheap fusion.
Communism is about everyone working toward the common good, which in Marx's vision would be a common understanding among the proletariat, but in real-world terms tends to be defined by some central authority (because as Truman once said of economists, if you laid every human being end to end they'd point in all directions). Nobody gets to just sit around, or join Starfleet so they can explore the unknown and count nebulae - all work must be for the common good, and all must work toward it. It's a wonderful plan, if you happen to be a hive insect. Not so great for sapient apes, however.
I'm probably going to get zapped for saying this myself, but I can't help but notice any thread that's at all critical of Discovery gets locked or deleted. And anyone who makes a criticism of the show, even when it's a polite and intelligent reply or comment, gets banned.
I know that Cryptic is at the mercy of CBS and Discovery is CBS' pride and joy, but I do think we should be able to express an opinion, especially if they help to make changes for the better in Discovery.
For me personally I've never gotten infracted for my criticism...I keep it civil no matter where I am (even if the fans will call me every dirty word in the book and even go as far as to use me being trans in their attacks. Which low and unsurprisingly very un-Trek of them)
But I also often avoid such arguments because you can show mountains of evidence and they stick their fingers in their ears and yell nuh uh
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
I'm a TOS/TNG fan myself, and yet I love Discovery; just glad we finally went forward though.
At least with Strange New Worlds, having an iconic figure such as Spock (New Actor) yet it will still be interesting to see what adventures he got into earlier in his career. It's also nice that they are showing the Enterprise as a ship more from the era in which it should have always been from.
You know, it's rather entertaining reading all of these threads, because it gives me insight to people no one specific, just people, especially when I apply my own biases. People in the 60s, around my age, saw TOS, and they were probably OMG this show is communism in disguise! (Lets face it, Roddenberry's idea of the future WAS socialism/communism without the human failing of power corrupting/yada.
TNG comes along. TOS fans are OMG! who is this bald guy who just TALKS? Where's the fistfights, torn uniforms and half naked (In 60s style) women? although the latter did make an appearance or four in the first couple of seasons. and other viewers were not fond of the sociopolitical mumbo jumbo. DS9 comes out, OMG it's A SPACE STATION, a B-5 Ripoff, where's the boldly going thing?!?!? Voyager, well, it was fun for the first few episodes to count how many of the limited photon torpedoes were used.. and then it was fun to watch Robert Beltran's hatred of the show leak through in his performance, and they saved the show with Jeri Ryan in a outfit so tight she LITERALLY was passing out on set... Enterprise comes along ripping "canon" to shred with T'Pol, because SPOCK WAS THE FIRST VULCAN TOS SAID SO!!! and now Disc... what is there to fault Disc? only one thing.. JJ Abrams. Even though the man has NOTHING to do with Disc, the hatred of what he did with ST has leaked over to Disc. after all the Klingons all look like Worf... except then didn't. by my count there are 4 disitnct verions of Klingons.. The Kang Kor Koloth guys... the Mark Lenard Klingons only seen in TMP, and the third gen, Starting with ST III.. call them the Berman Klingons, because he was helming the content while those guys were around.. then JJ came along and "effed" them all up. And Disc followed suit. adn the stigma follows. my point is, the people screaming about JJ, the Klingons, and the politically correctness of the current batch of Star Trek is just like the Hippie loving/commie Trekkies of the 60s.. except the people whining ARE the hippie/commies from the 60s... except wea re now running full tilt into ou late 50s- early 60s, and true to being human, WE are now the old folks crying how terrible the Original was...
I guess to wrap up the wall of text, is to quote Sgt Hulka.. to all the ranters and ravers of Picard and Disc..
LIGHTEN UP, Francis... because bad star Trek (if that is your opinion) is better than NO Star Trek. and for those of you born after 1979, yes it was pretty bleak from 1969-1973 and again from 1974 until The Motion Picture, because IF we were lucky we had 5 TV channels, and IF we were lucky, one of they re-ran Star Trek sometime in the afternoon, and if you were fsat enough you could get home from school just in time to catch the opening credits, assuming Mom wasn't watching The Edge of Night.
and to sound more and more like my Dad, You youngsters don't know how good you got it.
As one of those fans from the 60s - Um no; TOS fans didn't see TOS as "Communism in disguise..." because remember in TOS they still GOT PAID and USED MONEY and MADE PROFIT (see TOS S1: "Mudd's Women"; TOS S2 "I Mudd" and various othe episodes where they talk about money. Hell in "Errand Of Mercy" Kirk mentions that "Starfleet spent a lot on our traing..." and as Spock is about to provide the exact figure of that cost; Kirk cuts him off and says, "They're due for a return on their investment..."
So, yeah, - NO - TOS was hardly "Communism is disguise..." - Again, that's more TNG era with the Socialist notion that "No one uses or cares about money...everyone is provided for and we just work to improve ourselves..." - which Picard and others have stated in some form many times over the course of the TNG TV series and films...
Second - NOWHERE did TOS state that Spock was either the first or only Vulcan in Star Fleet in the 23rd century. In fact if you watch TOS S2 "The Immunity Syndrome" - in that episode the U.S.S, Intrepid (Manned by 430 Vulcans) in lost in the opening teaser and Spock senses their deaths across light years of space when it happens. Those 430 Vulcans were all Star Fleet personnel and the ship's Captain was also a Vulcan - and as he's a Captain, it most likely means he was serving in Sta Fleet BEFORE Spock joined.
The whole "Spock was the first Vulcan in Star Fleet..." was something some Spock fans liked to assume - but again, even back then someone would say: "Well, if that's so, how do you explain the 430 Vulcans serving aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid?"
So, yeah, while there's plenty of 'canon' ENT has contradicted (as EVERY OTHER Star Trek series has including TOS at times); T'Pol joining and being in Starfleet by ENT S4 isn't contradicting anything established in TOS.
And this why these threads get locked: if ppl aren't gatekeeping about 'their' Trek, then the thread devolves into gatekeeping on how the other is not supposed to gatekeep. :P
I'm a TOS/TNG fan myself, and yet I love Discovery; just glad we finally went forward though.
At least with Strange New Worlds, having an iconic figure such as Spock (New Actor) yet it will still be interesting to see what adventures he got into earlier in his career. It's also nice that they are showing the Enterprise as a ship more from the era in which it should have always been from.
Personally I think it would have been more interesting if they had kept Number One as the augment (to use the term coined for them later) that she was in The Cage though it would probably have been too tricky having two non-cyborg transhuman types for Kurtzman's writers to handle since it would take more subtlety and finesse than they have shown so far.
Her reliance on Kantian ethics Deontological rules to control the downside of her augmentation contrasted with Spock's experimentation with human emotion and his Vulcan result-based Utilitarianism would have had a lot of possibilities and it would be a reasonable path to how Spock became the way he was in TOS (which mixed elements of both) if he picked up some of her techniques.
I am curious about the Enterprise part of your comment though, how would the TOS Enterprise's esthetics not have been appropriate for the Cage/TOS era? It is kind of like saying a P-38 Lightning in WWII should have looked like an F-14 Tomcat because the Tomcat is newer, regardless of the setting. The "Discoprise" is based on the esthetics of The Undiscovered Country which follows the mechanistic art deco style of the 2270s-2290s (and a lot of other Trek at random) rather than the natural googie aesthetics of the 2240s-2260s.
If you don't know what I am talking about there is an excellent page on the subject specifically concerning TOS and DSC Enterprises here:
Both ships look good in their own way (though personally I prefer the TOS version for the same reason as the article) but if Trek is not to be era-less and homogenized there needs to be at least subtle-but-instantly-identifiable differences in aesthetics over time, (and Kurtzman's bunch has proven that they are anything but subtle) whether it is googie, art deco, or something else in various periods.
i am and will always be an OS fan, and yes, im showing my age as well. so no, the OS was not terrible. think about what they created given the state of the times. as such, there is no way one can compare OS to anything in todays market.
i enjoy the OS stuff in game so much that i make and run a new AoY toon every so often just to traverse and be in that time frame again.
but you misunderstand me.. the people in 1966 who are "our age", thought it whole thing was ludicrous, and some were openly hostile to the socialist overtones.. my grandparents among them. there seems to be a sweet spot for someone to become a fan, I'd say from about 13 to about 28. outside of those ages, too young to understand the more cerebral episodes, or too jaded to appreciate the show at all. thats JMHO though, no data to back it up. but as i said the older people in general get the more resistant they are to something new.
Star Trek isn't socialist though. If people are watching it and getting that, then they don't understand it, or they don't understand socialism.
Or possibly *you* don't understand socialism? The Federation utopia is all about providing everyone with their basic needs, so that they can devote their time to things they actually enjoy doing - the socialist (not Communist, that's a different thing) goal. It may only be possible in a post-scarcity society, as in the core Federation worlds, nobody actually has to work at anything unless they want to - foods can be provided by replicators, which can be produced in automated factories, all of which can be powered by cheap fusion.
Communism is about everyone working toward the common good, which in Marx's vision would be a common understanding among the proletariat, but in real-world terms tends to be defined by some central authority (because as Truman once said of economists, if you laid every human being end to end they'd point in all directions). Nobody gets to just sit around, or join Starfleet so they can explore the unknown and count nebulae - all work must be for the common good, and all must work toward it. It's a wonderful plan, if you happen to be a hive insect. Not so great for sapient apes, however.
Socialism is government control of the means of production, either directly as in "communist" Soviet style states, or indirectly, where corporations exist but must dance to the state tune as in China or WW2 Germany (or even increasingly the modern US as some would say.)
Real communism, as you note, is a stateless utopian fantasy which fits Trek better than socialism, by far, however there is no communist state that has ever existed on earth, no matter what they call themselves. They are in fact socialist, as the state never dissolves away. Why would people in power give up that power? That is the key factor actual communists never understand, which is why the limiting and separation of power is the best means to ensure freedom, and free market capitalism is the best way to distribute resources.
People often point to money, to claim one way or the other, but money is only a trade medium, and has zero relevance as to whether there is socialism, capitalism or otherwise. Money exists because it needs to. Trading goats for a CPU is the absurd alternative.
The problem with socialism in Trek is that it has no reason to exist in a post scarcity society. The same goes for free market capitalism, as while it is the best way to fairly distribute limited resources, who needs it when resources are virtually limitless?
i am and will always be an OS fan, and yes, im showing my age as well. so no, the OS was not terrible. think about what they created given the state of the times. as such, there is no way one can compare OS to anything in todays market.
i enjoy the OS stuff in game so much that i make and run a new AoY toon every so often just to traverse and be in that time frame again.
but you misunderstand me.. the people in 1966 who are "our age", thought it whole thing was ludicrous, and some were openly hostile to the socialist overtones.. my grandparents among them. there seems to be a sweet spot for someone to become a fan, I'd say from about 13 to about 28. outside of those ages, too young to understand the more cerebral episodes, or too jaded to appreciate the show at all. thats JMHO though, no data to back it up. but as i said the older people in general get the more resistant they are to something new.
Star Trek isn't socialist though. If people are watching it and getting that, then they don't understand it, or they don't understand socialism.
Or possibly *you* don't understand socialism? The Federation utopia is all about providing everyone with their basic needs, so that they can devote their time to things they actually enjoy doing - the socialist (not Communist, that's a different thing) goal. It may only be possible in a post-scarcity society, as in the core Federation worlds, nobody actually has to work at anything unless they want to - foods can be provided by replicators, which can be produced in automated factories, all of which can be powered by cheap fusion.
Communism is about everyone working toward the common good, which in Marx's vision would be a common understanding among the proletariat, but in real-world terms tends to be defined by some central authority (because as Truman once said of economists, if you laid every human being end to end they'd point in all directions). Nobody gets to just sit around, or join Starfleet so they can explore the unknown and count nebulae - all work must be for the common good, and all must work toward it. It's a wonderful plan, if you happen to be a hive insect. Not so great for sapient apes, however.
Socialism is government control of the means of production, either directly as in "communist" Soviet style states, or indirectly, where corporations exist but must dance to the state tune as in China or WW2 Germany (or even increasingly the modern US as some would say.)
Real communism, as you note, is a stateless utopian fantasy which fits Trek better than socialism, by far, however there is no communist state that has ever existed on earth, no matter what they call themselves. They are in fact socialist, as the state never dissolves away. Why would people in power give up that power? That is the key factor actual communists never understand, which is why the limiting and separation of power is the best means to ensure freedom, and free market capitalism is the best way to distribute resources.
People often point to money, to claim one way or the other, but money is only a trade medium, and has zero relevance as to whether there is socialism, capitalism or otherwise. Money exists because it needs to. Trading goats for a CPU is the absurd alternative.
The problem with socialism in Trek is that it has no reason to exist in a post scarcity society. The same goes for free market capitalism, as while it is the best way to fairly distribute limited resources, who needs it when resources are virtually limitless?
A key problem with Star Trek's economic structure is that, given the relative technological parity of the major known races, all civilizations should probably be in a post-scarcity setup... but they aren't.
In fact, the Federation is really the outlier in that it has given up all money, while the majority of the remaining empires possess a form of currency. This becomes even more strange when you consider that the Federation still maintains heavy trade with other civilizations, implying not only that a) there are indeed still commodities that the Federation is short of (or possesses an abundance of); b) that there is still profit to be had (and thus currency to be exchanged) in maintaining trading links; but that c) at some level, the Federation does still place a value on items... just only on a macro scale. The last point would imply that the government is still, on some level, profiting from the deeds of its citizens, and the latter don't get paid for any of it.
An even more important question is: why do people within the Federation work at all? Are there rules that require them to maintain some kind of trade (thereby rendering them sort of cushy slaves)? Are they all volunteers? In the case of the latter, why would you enlist to perform many of the inane (and dangerous) tasks that would - by necessity - be required to maintain such an empire (automation or not, we know that people within Star Trek are still involved in dirty and perilous work). Why, even, join Starfleet? Aside from captains, you are likely to labor in almost complete anonymity until you retire, there's no prospect of loot, there's no pension you're working towards, and the business of serving on your average ship is just rife with danger (in the case of the bigger vessels, not only for yourself, but also your immediate family).
Natural human curiosity about the universe and a desire for adventure can only carry you so far when there's nothing to be gained from being away from home for years, and no light at the end of the tunnel in terms of compensation. This is especially true within the a-religous Federation, where atheism appears to abound. If you truly believe that you only have one life to live, why risk it at all for such trivial motivations?
Star Trek is decent fantasy, but its world building tends to fray a bit at the edges when you begin digging down more than a few inches into the topsoil. It's nice that Gene envisioned a universe in which much of human nature had been completely overturned within a few centuries' time, but it's pretty hard to believe that Star Trek's reality will ever come to pass given its rather tenuous foundations.
I am curious, Phoenix - you state with certainty that Number One was a cyborg. What is your source for this?
Not a cyborg, an augment similar to Khan's group. I used the term "non-cyborg" because in theory transhumans can be enhanced in several ways, including cyborg like DSC featured, or biologically like Khan's group.
There wasn't anything directly said in dialog about it if that is what you are asking for, and armchair canonistas usually just dismiss it since they are only interested in what is explicitly shown and hold that anything from behind the scenes as "never happened, doesn't exist" regardless of the fact that the writers wrote what was is seen with that behind the scenes information in mind which makes it useful in interpreting what is shown and said in the shows themselves.
The Cage, like many pilots, only introduces the characters deeply enough to (hopefully) interest the viewer and satisfy the needs of the episode itself and only hints at the depths of the various characters. Those hooks for Number One include the "superior intellect" line the Talosian says in his summary of attributes about the "new choices" Pike had for mates, and Number One's line about slavery as she sets the laser to explode, which pretty much comes straight out of Kant's Metaphysics of Morals books. The rest was supposed to come out bit by bit during later episodes which of course never happened since the pilot was rejected.
What the rest of it was is only known from interviews, convention panels, and similar non-canon sources (iirc Roddenberry talked a little about it in The Making of Star Trek for instance) because the subject of how the show would have been different had the first pilot been picked up came up quite frequently and Number One was to have figured into it in an important way.
Years ago when I was in college I could have given you the names of papers written about it that exactly detailed all the references but that would not do any good unless you had access to the same paid scholarly literature libraries the school used (which I don't have anymore either). I researched via those libraries both out of personal interest and because I was planning to write a term paper about it for one of my classes before I noticed a few others were doing Star Trek papers and switched to an analysis of the 2002 Birds of Prey and what went wrong with it behind the scenes.
Anyway, Roddenberry was a humanist and liked to explore the limits of humanism and it's more or less opposite transhumanism, and he also generally liked to turn notions inside out. Number One was the main-cast vehicle for that exploration of transhumanism, a pretty and comfortably human-looking woman who was actually in some ways more alien than the alien(s) on board, a sort of natural predator in human form (probably similar to the classic vampire character type though Roddenberry never used the word) kept in line by her iron-willed intellectual adherence to Kantian principles like Duty and Good Will.
Spock was the reverse, a way of exploring humanism via a "scary, devilish looking" alien who instead had a lot of human-like (or more to the point humanist philosophy) qualities. Together they formed the classic "angel on one shoulder (Spock), devil on the other (Number One)" pair as Pike's advisors, a theme that Roddenberry used quite a bit in other pilots and pitches over the years. In fact Pike, Number One, and Spock were essentially recycled in the rejected Genesis II pilot movie as Dylan Hunt, Lyra-a, and Isiah.
Why, even, join Starfleet? Aside from captains, you are likely to labor in almost complete anonymity until you retire, there's no prospect of loot, there's no pension you're working towards, and the business of serving on your average ship is just rife with danger (in the case of the bigger vessels, not only for yourself, but also your immediate family).
Why do people of above-average capability voluntarily enlist in the United States Marine Corps? It's dangerous, dirty, generally unappreciated work which pays the junior enlisted less than they'd make flipping burgers in several states. For four to six years at a time, enlisted personnel choose to surrender most of their autonomy, serving anonymously in places most folks either don't care about or don't think they should be. (For officers it's even worse - you get twenty to thirty years of pretty much the same thing but with better quarters and uniform, and usually the only way anyone knows your name is if you tribbled up bad.) So why do it?
If you can answer that, you might be able to answer your own question.
As for why people work at all, there's only so long most of us can tolerate eating lotus blossoms and contemplating our navels. After a while, humans generally feel a strong need to get up and do something.
Why, even, join Starfleet? Aside from captains, you are likely to labor in almost complete anonymity until you retire, there's no prospect of loot, there's no pension you're working towards, and the business of serving on your average ship is just rife with danger (in the case of the bigger vessels, not only for yourself, but also your immediate family).
Why do people of above-average capability voluntarily enlist in the United States Marine Corps? It's dangerous, dirty, generally unappreciated work which pays the junior enlisted less than they'd make flipping burgers in several states. For four to six years at a time, enlisted personnel choose to surrender most of their autonomy, serving anonymously in places most folks either don't care about or don't think they should be. (For officers it's even worse - you get twenty to thirty years of pretty much the same thing but with better quarters and uniform, and usually the only way anyone knows your name is if you tribbled up bad.) So why do it?
If you can answer that, you might be able to answer your own question.
As for why people work at all, there's only so long most of us can tolerate eating lotus blossoms and contemplating our navels. After a while, humans generally feel a strong need to get up and do something.
Yes, this is a great answer. Some people want to work, want to explore, want to see the world, or even just want the excitement and glory from a dangerous job. There is satisfaction when you can look at something and say you were a part of that, or you helped build that, or you helped discover that.
My father after he retired was bored out of his mind, and didn't take long before he went back to work part time. I'm sure some people would be happy to sit around all day and do nothing, but some people can't do that.
Star Trek also offers us the idea that humans have evolved mentally and emotionally, while also presenting a future where everyone likes their job. Robotics and computers can take a lot of the dull tasks, while you can still work with your hands if you want.
There's no question its an odd place with lots of questions on how it works, but while there aren't answers to all those questions, that is because it is a fiction. At some level it doesn't function the same as reality, and we just can't answer how it works.
You know, it's rather entertaining reading all of these threads, because it gives me insight to people no one specific, just people, especially when I apply my own biases. People in the 60s, around my age, saw TOS, and they were probably OMG this show is communism in disguise! (Lets face it, Roddenberry's idea of the future WAS socialism/communism without the human failing of power corrupting/yada.
TNG comes along. TOS fans are OMG! who is this bald guy who just TALKS? Where's the fistfights, torn uniforms and half naked (In 60s style) women? although the latter did make an appearance or four in the first couple of seasons. and other viewers were not fond of the sociopolitical mumbo jumbo. DS9 comes out, OMG it's A SPACE STATION, a B-5 Ripoff, where's the boldly going thing?!?!? Voyager, well, it was fun for the first few episodes to count how many of the limited photon torpedoes were used.. and then it was fun to watch Robert Beltran's hatred of the show leak through in his performance, and they saved the show with Jeri Ryan in a outfit so tight she LITERALLY was passing out on set... Enterprise comes along ripping "canon" to shred with T'Pol, because SPOCK WAS THE FIRST VULCAN TOS SAID SO!!! and now Disc... what is there to fault Disc? only one thing.. JJ Abrams. Even though the man has NOTHING to do with Disc, the hatred of what he did with ST has leaked over to Disc. after all the Klingons all look like Worf... except then didn't. by my count there are 4 disitnct verions of Klingons.. The Kang Kor Koloth guys... the Mark Lenard Klingons only seen in TMP, and the third gen, Starting with ST III.. call them the Berman Klingons, because he was helming the content while those guys were around.. then JJ came along and "effed" them all up. And Disc followed suit. adn the stigma follows. my point is, the people screaming about JJ, the Klingons, and the politically correctness of the current batch of Star Trek is just like the Hippie loving/commie Trekkies of the 60s.. except the people whining ARE the hippie/commies from the 60s... except wea re now running full tilt into ou late 50s- early 60s, and true to being human, WE are now the old folks crying how terrible the Original was...
I guess to wrap up the wall of text, is to quote Sgt Hulka.. to all the ranters and ravers of Picard and Disc..
LIGHTEN UP, Francis... because bad star Trek (if that is your opinion) is better than NO Star Trek. and for those of you born after 1979, yes it was pretty bleak from 1969-1973 and again from 1974 until The Motion Picture, because IF we were lucky we had 5 TV channels, and IF we were lucky, one of they re-ran Star Trek sometime in the afternoon, and if you were fsat enough you could get home from school just in time to catch the opening credits, assuming Mom wasn't watching The Edge of Night.
and to sound more and more like my Dad, You youngsters don't know how good you got it.
Um... where did this Communism BS come from, I leave the forums for a couple of days and this garbage shows up, The Federation was never a Communist state, the UFP was a Centrist and Egalitarian government, anyone who thinks that it's communist government doesn't understand Star Trek and needs to re-evaluate their lives, I'm in my 20s (27 to be exact) and I know 100% that it wasn't communism in disguise.
im really trying to figure out when entertainment became a hidden agenda.
its a show. a friggin show. its not a parcel of land on the map that either is a communist nation or something else.
if you should choose to see certain things, thats on you. hell, i can look at a cloud and see many things...but its just a cloud overall. my inferred vision doesnt make it what i see.
Depends on the time and the author - but probably going all the way back to when the Greek Tragedies were originally performed on stage.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
I'm probably going to get zapped for saying this myself, but I can't help but notice any thread that's at all critical of Discovery gets locked or deleted. And anyone who makes a criticism of the show, even when it's a polite and intelligent reply or comment, gets banned.
I know that Cryptic is at the mercy of CBS and Discovery is CBS' pride and joy, but I do think we should be able to express an opinion, especially if they help to make changes for the better in Discovery.
Firstly, I am honestly tired of seeing all the hate towards DSC (Discovery), and the amount of threads that pop up each time something new from DSC gets added. Its the newest show, ofcause they are gonna add things from it.
Also its a new show made in modern times, and like anything else made at a newer date than the previous past shows, they will change the style its made in, to fit with the current times.
Yeah its not the Star Trek I grew up with either, but the Star Trek I grew up with isn't the same as previous Star Trek either.
TNG(The Next Generation) also had a ton of hate from TOS(The Original Series) fans when it first aired. I know of plenty of people that still refuse to watch the first season of TNG since they don't like it.
Also seen plenty of people claim they refuse to watch the first few seasons DS9 until the episodes where Sisko shaves his head and grows a beard.
Seen people that refuse to watch Voyager entirely, calling it the worst. While other praise it for being the best.
And seen some people don't think Enterprise is Star Trek at all.
And don't forget how much people complained about the J.J. Abrams movies (Kelvin timeline) when they came out, saying it was too diffrent.
Discovery is just the newest series to be on the receiving end of this. And due to social medias and the internet being more open to everyone and the fact its currently happening, it feels like its the most hated Star Trek ever... Dispite lots of people forget that the hate for TNG made the News back when it first aired, and there was not really any social medias places for the News to pick up on the hate for it back then , but the hate was so big it was noticed and considered News worthy.
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Secondly, this isn't some public space, its a forum owned by a private company and they are allowed to close threads as they feel like. Same way Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook are.
And almost all of those "DSC hate" threads, no matter how serious and peaceful they start, kinda turn into a spam fest a few posts into it, or an echo chamber.
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Thirdly, CBS has no control over this forum, they get a say about ships and content being added to the game. But they don't really control the topics happening on this forum.
"Please, Captain, not in front of the Klingons." Spock to Kirk, as Kirk is about to hug him.
Star Trek V: "The Final Frontier"
To be clear on the subject of Gatekeeping, many times people have used the "No true Scotsman" argument against people who don't agree with them as a form of attack, citing that "A TRUE Trek fan would not like X", and thus dictating who is and who isn't a Trek fan based on personal bias. And as mentioned above, it is alright to express your opinions. HOW you express them is what gets threads shut down. Rants tend to devolve into flame wars. If it is a civil debate highlighting things liked and not liked, its fine. But when it turns into "I'mma trash this and anyone who doesn't agree with me is THE ENEMY"... then we have problems.
As for people not liking Discovery... it follows the time tested pattern of not liking the new stuff.
TNG: Nothing like TOS
DS9: Not based on a starship.
Voyager: (Honestly don't remember)
Enterprise: Too advanced to look like its from "the past"
Kelvin Timeline: OMG THEY DESTROYED EVERYTHING WE KNOW!!! (despite the bone of Alternate Reality given) and Too advanced to look like TOS era
Discovery: Too advanced to look like its from "the past"
Now... if we look at those same shows...
TNG: Well liked now
DS9: Viewed as one of the best
Voyager: Eh... has its flaws
Enterprise: Has its flaws but no longer hated
Kelvin Timeline: Has its flaws but no longer hated
Discovery: STILL hated because its current.
The main reason we hear so much more about it is because of advancing technology has allowed people to voice their opinions a lot more openly now than they were able to back in 1987 when TNG first came out. And IMO a lot of the same arguments used against Enterprise were recycled for use against Discovery. Almost seemed like the second Discovery came out, Enterprise was forgotten about or just suddenly accepted as alright. Same with the Kelvin Timeline. Second Discovery came out... KT was fine.
Anyways... its not the CONTENT that is being modded, its the ATTITUDE.
Im not sure your analysis is completely accurate. Here is my take.
TNG: Dont remember too much backlash over that show, in part because the internet wasnt a thing then. Also people had gone so long without a ST show they were happy to get something. Yes there were criticizisms and they did compare it to the original, but overall I think the show was well liked from the start.
DS9: It also suffered from the fact that it was called out as a complete ripoff of Babylon 5. Many B5 fans refused to watch the show, because CBS had obviously ripped off the show from Strasinsky after he pitched it to them and they said no.
Voyager: Had weird premises going on alot and got fairly convoluted. Generally it was a story telling issue in my opinion.
Enterprise: Agree, plus its always tricky to do a show based in the past of an established franchise. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place, because you want to do new and interesting stories but they may interfere with established lore. In general its much safer to just progress a story than to go back and fill in the gaps, particularly if your doing it with something that you want to occur weekly and go on for seven years. A movie works better as its just one 2 hour show vs a series that could go on for hundreds of hours.
Kelvin Timeline: Going by ingame chat its still hated. Also I would say that it would be more accepted if they didnt try to redo classic stories like Wrath of Khan. The first movie was much better than the second, because of this. The third suffered from bad writing but had its good points like how they handled Nimoys death.
Discovery: Its still hated because its awful writing, and the way it inserts modern politics into the storylines. The fact that Orville is considered more Star Trek than Discovery is should tell you something. In general I would say the phrase of go woke go broke applies more to Discovery, than the idea that its hated because its different and current. Like Enterprise though it will have to deal with many of the same issues like how to do stories without breaking existing lore.
In the end I dont think down the road that Voyager will be loved or hated, I think it and its characters will just be forgotten. Much like in Star Wars, Han, Lea, and Luke are known around the world, but in 10 years Po, Rea, and Fin wont even be remembered.
I'm probably going to get zapped for saying this myself, but I can't help but notice any thread that's at all critical of Discovery gets locked or deleted. And anyone who makes a criticism of the show, even when it's a polite and intelligent reply or comment, gets banned.
I know that Cryptic is at the mercy of CBS and Discovery is CBS' pride and joy, but I do think we should be able to express an opinion, especially if they help to make changes for the better in Discovery.
Firstly, I am honestly tired of seeing all the hate towards DSC (Discovery), and the amount of threads that pop up each time something new from DSC gets added. Its the newest show, ofcause they are gonna add things from it.
Also its a new show made in modern times, and like anything else made at a newer date than the previous past shows, they will change the style its made in, to fit with the current times.
Yeah its not the Star Trek I grew up with either, but the Star Trek I grew up with isn't the same as previous Star Trek either.
TNG(The Next Generation) also had a ton of hate from TOS(The Original Series) fans when it first aired. I know of plenty of people that still refuse to watch the first season of TNG since they don't like it.
Also seen plenty of people claim they refuse to watch the first few seasons DS9 until the episodes where Sisko shaves his head and grows a beard.
Seen people that refuse to watch Voyager entirely, calling it the worst. While other praise it for being the best.
And seen some people don't think Enterprise is Star Trek at all.
And don't forget how much people complained about the J.J. Abrams movies (Kelvin timeline) when they came out, saying it was too diffrent.
Discovery is just the newest series to be on the receiving end of this. And due to social medias and the internet being more open to everyone and the fact its currently happening, it feels like its the most hated Star Trek ever... Dispite lots of people forget that the hate for TNG made the News back when it first aired, and there was not really any social medias places for the News to pick up on the hate for it back then , but the hate was so big it was noticed and considered News worthy.
DSC is made in the 'modern times' but it does not follow real world style cues at all, it is completely derivative and backward in that respect. That was true right from the start and after three years they still have not caught up to 2017 yet.
Take the first season uniforms for instance. Top of the real world fashions in 2016-2017 (and still popular enough today) when the series was being put together and launched trended to miniskirts, minidresses, and velvet for women, and velvet pullover shirts for men similar to the uniform from TOS as these pictures from current fashion catalogs show:
Now be honest, does that look more like TOS or more like DSC? Style-wise first season DSC uniforms were mired in 1980s spandex made even Kitschier with 3D printed ersatz bedazzling from around the same period.
All they would have had to do to update the TOS uniforms would have been to use real deep pile velvet that the nap does not curl up and dull out after the first few cleanings, adjust a few cuts (maybe make the skirt asymmetric, but keep the raglan sleeves for both women's and men's uniforms as a callback to TOS) and they would have had uniforms that were far more modern and trendy looking than those embarrassingly retro blue disasters they used.
Anyway, the point is that the argument that DSC was "updated for modern viewers" is utter rubbish, it was simply changed because Moonves hated TOS and he put people (like Kurtzman) in charge of it who let contempt for TOS override any other considerations. Visual updates would have been to upgrade the production values to modern standards and tweak the look a bit, not trash it altogether and start with a mix of The Undiscovered Country and the Kelvin movies like they did for the tech, and that silly uptight '80s look for the uniforms.
But the main objection the traditional fans have isn't even about the looks (annoying as the fashion gaff is in its own right), it is about the way the "NuTrek" is written. Technically they are not even the same subgenre, TOS and the Berman Trek were soft sci-fi dramas while DSC is a space opera, essentially an action movie stretched out to about thirteen to fifteen hours and chopped up into approximately hour long segments. I already went into the difference between the two subgenres in an earlier comment in this thread so I will not bore anyone going over it again in this one (especially since it another long one).
Long time Trek fans expect deeper (even clever) plots along with dramatic dialog, not the shallow generic dark space fantasy romps with little or no depth and silly melodramatic dialog that the current Treks feature.
Why, even, join Starfleet? Aside from captains, you are likely to labor in almost complete anonymity until you retire, there's no prospect of loot, there's no pension you're working towards, and the business of serving on your average ship is just rife with danger (in the case of the bigger vessels, not only for yourself, but also your immediate family).
Why do people of above-average capability voluntarily enlist in the United States Marine Corps? It's dangerous, dirty, generally unappreciated work which pays the junior enlisted less than they'd make flipping burgers in several states. For four to six years at a time, enlisted personnel choose to surrender most of their autonomy, serving anonymously in places most folks either don't care about or don't think they should be. (For officers it's even worse - you get twenty to thirty years of pretty much the same thing but with better quarters and uniform, and usually the only way anyone knows your name is if you tribbled up bad.) So why do it?
If you can answer that, you might be able to answer your own question.
As for why people work at all, there's only so long most of us can tolerate eating lotus blossoms and contemplating our navels. After a while, humans generally feel a strong need to get up and do something.
Yes, this is a great answer. Some people want to work, want to explore, want to see the world, or even just want the excitement and glory from a dangerous job. There is satisfaction when you can look at something and say you were a part of that, or you helped build that, or you helped discover that.
My father after he retired was bored out of his mind, and didn't take long before he went back to work part time. I'm sure some people would be happy to sit around all day and do nothing, but some people can't do that.
Star Trek also offers us the idea that humans have evolved mentally and emotionally, while also presenting a future where everyone likes their job. Robotics and computers can take a lot of the dull tasks, while you can still work with your hands if you want.
There's no question its an odd place with lots of questions on how it works, but while there aren't answers to all those questions, that is because it is a fiction. At some level it doesn't function the same as reality, and we just can't answer how it works.
Except that it really wasn't a great answer.
First of all, almost nobody is actually serving on star ships. Star Trek itself paints the academy/active service as extremely selective posting typically reserved for people who are genius-level or above (so, in addition to being the [potentially, if you're the captain] most glamorous line of work around, it's an elitist old-boys club). The vast - vast - majority of people who apply are therefore declined - they have to work in mundane positions, like serving as guards with funny hats in windowless rooms, or being the unfortunate person who cleans the latrines (or repairs the robots who clean the latrines).
Second, the answer assumes that nobody is capable of entertaining themselves - or deriving pleasure from life - bereft of the stimulus provided by labor. I'm sorry, but we're not all simpletons - people have consuming hobbies that don't in any way qualify (nor could they be creatively described) as "work;" people have interests that, if given the chance, could consume every bit of their spare time. We do not all have hollow, echoing voids at our core, desperate for some - really, any - form of banal work to fill. Not everyone is a good little slave in search of a trivial 'purpose.' More to the point, my guess (based on years of observing what the modern man does in their off time) is that most people would prefer a day populated by nothing than one filled with mind-numbing repetition (for no pay).
Finally, it did nothing to explain why people should be assuming enormous risk for no reward. I don't deny that there are high voltage electric linesmen (the guys who climb the 150-foot power towers) or deep sea fishermen who genuinely enjoy their fields (there certainly are [and there are probably an equal number of those who don't ]), but the pay for most risky lines of work is commensurate with the danger - there's a fat paycheck waiting for these people when they get home. You assume that human nature would change so much in the span of... about 150 years now until the first Star Trek?... that nobody is going to want any kind of reward for doing the ultra-perilous, largely anonymous/thankless work that is required to keep any civilization on its feet? In fact, they're all - every one of them - there because their lives are so meaningless and empty that they're willing to imperil them 'because reasons?'
You are giving way too much credit to the resident 'deep thinker' of the forums. The guy is not a sage.
Why, even, join Starfleet? Aside from captains, you are likely to labor in almost complete anonymity until you retire, there's no prospect of loot, there's no pension you're working towards, and the business of serving on your average ship is just rife with danger (in the case of the bigger vessels, not only for yourself, but also your immediate family).
Why do people of above-average capability voluntarily enlist in the United States Marine Corps? It's dangerous, dirty, generally unappreciated work which pays the junior enlisted less than they'd make flipping burgers in several states. For four to six years at a time, enlisted personnel choose to surrender most of their autonomy, serving anonymously in places most folks either don't care about or don't think they should be. (For officers it's even worse - you get twenty to thirty years of pretty much the same thing but with better quarters and uniform, and usually the only way anyone knows your name is if you tribbled up bad.) So why do it?
If you can answer that, you might be able to answer your own question.
As for why people work at all, there's only so long most of us can tolerate eating lotus blossoms and contemplating our navels. After a while, humans generally feel a strong need to get up and do something.
Yes, this is a great answer. Some people want to work, want to explore, want to see the world, or even just want the excitement and glory from a dangerous job. There is satisfaction when you can look at something and say you were a part of that, or you helped build that, or you helped discover that.
My father after he retired was bored out of his mind, and didn't take long before he went back to work part time. I'm sure some people would be happy to sit around all day and do nothing, but some people can't do that.
Star Trek also offers us the idea that humans have evolved mentally and emotionally, while also presenting a future where everyone likes their job. Robotics and computers can take a lot of the dull tasks, while you can still work with your hands if you want.
There's no question its an odd place with lots of questions on how it works, but while there aren't answers to all those questions, that is because it is a fiction. At some level it doesn't function the same as reality, and we just can't answer how it works.
Except that it really wasn't a great answer.
First of all, almost nobody is actually serving on star ships. Star Trek itself paints the academy/active service as extremely selective posting typically reserved for people who are genius-level or above (so, in addition to being the [potentially, if you're the captain] most glamorous line of work around, it's an elitist old-boys club). The vast - vast - majority of people who apply are therefore declined - they have to work in mundane positions, like serving as guards with funny hats in windowless rooms, or being the unfortunate person who cleans the latrines (or repairs the robots who clean the latrines).
Second, the answer assumes that nobody is capable of entertaining themselves - or deriving pleasure from life - bereft of the stimulus provided by labor. I'm sorry, but we're not all simpletons - people have consuming hobbies that don't in any way qualify (nor could they be creatively described) as "work;" people have interests that, if given the chance, could consume every bit of their spare time. We do not all have hollow, echoing voids at our core, desperate for some - really, any - form of banal work to fill. Not everyone is a good little slave in search of a trivial 'purpose.' More to the point, my guess (based on years of observing what the modern man does in their off time) is that most people would prefer a day populated by nothing than one filled with mind-numbing repetition (for no pay).
Finally, it did nothing to explain why people should be assuming enormous risk for no reward. I don't deny that there are high voltage electric linesmen (the guys who climb the 150-foot power towers) or deep sea fishermen who genuinely enjoy their fields (there certainly are [and there are probably an equal number of those who don't ]), but the pay for most risky lines of work is commensurate with the danger - there's a fat paycheck waiting for these people when they get home. You assume that human nature would change so much in the span of... about 150 years now until the first Star Trek?... that nobody is going to want any kind of reward for doing the ultra-perilous, largely anonymous/thankless work that is required to keep any civilization on its feet? In fact, they're all - every one of them - there because their lives are so meaningless and empty that they're willing to imperil them 'because reasons?'
You are giving way too much credit to the resident 'deep thinker' of the forums. The guy is not a sage.
What makes you think that everyone just gets the basic living stipend and no more no matter what they do? There are references scattered around in the various series (even in TOS) about things like hazard pay, and even that inventing things that catch on and similarly useful pursuits brings more rewards than just recognition, just not to the extreme degree it does nowadays. The WWIII survivors realization that elitism and greed nearly wiped humans out set a tremendous peer pressure against conspicuous consumption that persisted for quite a while, so hoarding money was not much of a thing anymore.
And they do have currency, "Federation credits", it is just that the post-scarcity economy makes everyday needs a trivial expense and they don't have to carry credit cards when the replicators can simply scan the person for genetic-deep biometric identification.
Also, Starfleet personnel are not necessarily "the best of the best" as the saying goes, a few of them are obviously dumb as posts for instance. The main difference is that they are all motivated and want to be there.
Also, Starfleet Academy is not monolithic, it is more like a university in that it is divided up into separate schools on the campus. The basic program turns out ensigns (and possibly a lieutenant jg if there is an exceptional cadet) who go out and serve on ships until they are ready to be promoted to full lieutenant, at which point they rotate back to the Academy, this time in the command/department head school and come out as that rank. In theory some would wash out, they would probably either go back to service without the promotion or leave it entirely though they never really did much with that point so it is a gray area.
To be clear on the subject of Gatekeeping, many times people have used the "No true Scotsman" argument against people who don't agree with them as a form of attack, citing that "A TRUE Trek fan would not like X", and thus dictating who is and who isn't a Trek fan based on personal bias. And as mentioned above, it is alright to express your opinions. HOW you express them is what gets threads shut down. Rants tend to devolve into flame wars. If it is a civil debate highlighting things liked and not liked, its fine. But when it turns into "I'mma trash this and anyone who doesn't agree with me is THE ENEMY"... then we have problems.
As for people not liking Discovery... it follows the time tested pattern of not liking the new stuff.
TNG: Nothing like TOS
DS9: Not based on a starship.
Voyager: (Honestly don't remember)
Enterprise: Too advanced to look like its from "the past"
Kelvin Timeline: OMG THEY DESTROYED EVERYTHING WE KNOW!!! (despite the bone of Alternate Reality given) and Too advanced to look like TOS era
Discovery: Too advanced to look like its from "the past"
Now... if we look at those same shows...
TNG: Well liked now
DS9: Viewed as one of the best
Voyager: Eh... has its flaws
Enterprise: Has its flaws but no longer hated
Kelvin Timeline: Has its flaws but no longer hated
Discovery: STILL hated because its current.
The main reason we hear so much more about it is because of advancing technology has allowed people to voice their opinions a lot more openly now than they were able to back in 1987 when TNG first came out. And IMO a lot of the same arguments used against Enterprise were recycled for use against Discovery. Almost seemed like the second Discovery came out, Enterprise was forgotten about or just suddenly accepted as alright. Same with the Kelvin Timeline. Second Discovery came out... KT was fine.
Anyways... its not the CONTENT that is being modded, its the ATTITUDE.
Im not sure your analysis is completely accurate. Here is my take.
TNG: Dont remember too much backlash over that show, in part because the internet wasnt a thing then. Also people had gone so long without a ST show they were happy to get something. Yes there were criticizisms and they did compare it to the original, but overall I think the show was well liked from the start.
DS9: It also suffered from the fact that it was called out as a complete ripoff of Babylon 5. Many B5 fans refused to watch the show, because CBS had obviously ripped off the show from Strasinsky after he pitched it to them and they said no.
Voyager: Had weird premises going on alot and got fairly convoluted. Generally it was a story telling issue in my opinion.
Enterprise: Agree, plus its always tricky to do a show based in the past of an established franchise. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place, because you want to do new and interesting stories but they may interfere with established lore. In general its much safer to just progress a story than to go back and fill in the gaps, particularly if your doing it with something that you want to occur weekly and go on for seven years. A movie works better as its just one 2 hour show vs a series that could go on for hundreds of hours.
Kelvin Timeline: Going by ingame chat its still hated. Also I would say that it would be more accepted if they didnt try to redo classic stories like Wrath of Khan. The first movie was much better than the second, because of this. The third suffered from bad writing but had its good points like how they handled Nimoys death.
Discovery: Its still hated because its awful writing, and the way it inserts modern politics into the storylines. The fact that Orville is considered more Star Trek than Discovery is should tell you something. In general I would say the phrase of go woke go broke applies more to Discovery, than the idea that its hated because its different and current. Like Enterprise though it will have to deal with many of the same issues like how to do stories without breaking existing lore.
In the end I dont think down the road that Voyager will be loved or hated, I think it and its characters will just be forgotten. Much like in Star Wars, Han, Lea, and Luke are known around the world, but in 10 years Po, Rea, and Fin wont even be remembered.
I recommend watching a documentary “Chaos of the Bridge”. It looks into the behind the scenes on the first two seasons of TNG. They talk about the amount of hate mail (as in snail mail) they received.
Star Trek has always inserted modern politics into its stories. TOS had a black woman on the bridge of the ship during a time that black people couldnt drink from the same water fountain, eat at the same restaurants…this happened at the height of the civil rights movement. They had a Russian crew member at the height of the Cold War with Russia. There are episodes that talk about classism, America’s actions in south east Asia.
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Phoenix, for the 93rd time, I would ask you to kindly stop referring to "the traditional fans". I'm about as traditional as fans get, been watching this since TOS was still on NBC, and I'm really digging DSC. Stop trying to claim that we're all haters. It's one of the most annoying forms of gatekeeping we get here - even worst than that "true Star Trek fans" TRIBBLE.
To be clear on the subject of Gatekeeping, many times people have used the "No true Scotsman" argument against people who don't agree with them as a form of attack, citing that "A TRUE Trek fan would not like X", and thus dictating who is and who isn't a Trek fan based on personal bias. And as mentioned above, it is alright to express your opinions. HOW you express them is what gets threads shut down. Rants tend to devolve into flame wars. If it is a civil debate highlighting things liked and not liked, its fine. But when it turns into "I'mma trash this and anyone who doesn't agree with me is THE ENEMY"... then we have problems.
As for people not liking Discovery... it follows the time tested pattern of not liking the new stuff.
TNG: Nothing like TOS
DS9: Not based on a starship.
Voyager: (Honestly don't remember)
Enterprise: Too advanced to look like its from "the past"
Kelvin Timeline: OMG THEY DESTROYED EVERYTHING WE KNOW!!! (despite the bone of Alternate Reality given) and Too advanced to look like TOS era
Discovery: Too advanced to look like its from "the past"
Now... if we look at those same shows...
TNG: Well liked now
DS9: Viewed as one of the best
Voyager: Eh... has its flaws
Enterprise: Has its flaws but no longer hated
Kelvin Timeline: Has its flaws but no longer hated
Discovery: STILL hated because its current.
The main reason we hear so much more about it is because of advancing technology has allowed people to voice their opinions a lot more openly now than they were able to back in 1987 when TNG first came out. And IMO a lot of the same arguments used against Enterprise were recycled for use against Discovery. Almost seemed like the second Discovery came out, Enterprise was forgotten about or just suddenly accepted as alright. Same with the Kelvin Timeline. Second Discovery came out... KT was fine.
Anyways... its not the CONTENT that is being modded, its the ATTITUDE.
Im not sure your analysis is completely accurate. Here is my take.
TNG: Dont remember too much backlash over that show, in part because the internet wasnt a thing then. Also people had gone so long without a ST show they were happy to get something. Yes there were criticizisms and they did compare it to the original, but overall I think the show was well liked from the start.
DS9: It also suffered from the fact that it was called out as a complete ripoff of Babylon 5. Many B5 fans refused to watch the show, because CBS had obviously ripped off the show from Strasinsky after he pitched it to them and they said no.
Voyager: Had weird premises going on alot and got fairly convoluted. Generally it was a story telling issue in my opinion.
Enterprise: Agree, plus its always tricky to do a show based in the past of an established franchise. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place, because you want to do new and interesting stories but they may interfere with established lore. In general its much safer to just progress a story than to go back and fill in the gaps, particularly if your doing it with something that you want to occur weekly and go on for seven years. A movie works better as its just one 2 hour show vs a series that could go on for hundreds of hours.
Kelvin Timeline: Going by ingame chat its still hated. Also I would say that it would be more accepted if they didnt try to redo classic stories like Wrath of Khan. The first movie was much better than the second, because of this. The third suffered from bad writing but had its good points like how they handled Nimoys death.
Discovery: Its still hated because its awful writing, and the way it inserts modern politics into the storylines. The fact that Orville is considered more Star Trek than Discovery is should tell you something. In general I would say the phrase of go woke go broke applies more to Discovery, than the idea that its hated because its different and current. Like Enterprise though it will have to deal with many of the same issues like how to do stories without breaking existing lore.
In the end I dont think down the road that Voyager will be loved or hated, I think it and its characters will just be forgotten. Much like in Star Wars, Han, Lea, and Luke are known around the world, but in 10 years Po, Rea, and Fin wont even be remembered.
I recommend watching a documentary “Chaos of the Bridge”. It looks into the behind the scenes on the first two seasons of TNG. They talk about the amount of hate mail (as in snail mail) they received.
Star Trek has always inserted modern politics into its stories. TOS had a black woman on the bridge of the ship during a time that black people couldnt drink from the same water fountain, eat at the same restaurants…this happened at the height of the civil rights movement. They had a Russian crew member at the height of the Cold War with Russia. There are episodes that talk about classism, America’s actions in south east Asia.
I'm guessing here, but if they'd made Star Trek: Phase II instead of The Motion Picture...I don't think there was enough of a fanbase to generate hate. By '87, you had a whole new generation (no pun intended) or TOS and Kirk/Spock fans and also, TNG really hadn't found its feet. The first two seasons had the bones (no pun intended again) of something great, but the characters weren't flushed out, you had Diana REALLY throwing things off for me personally in season two and everyone found love from season three onwards. The films had well and truly peaked and TNG was going strong with well-rounded characters and strong plots.
Comments
As one of those fans from the 60s - Um no; TOS fans didn't see TOS as "Communism in disguise..." because remember in TOS they still GOT PAID and USED MONEY and MADE PROFIT (see TOS S1: "Mudd's Women"; TOS S2 "I Mudd" and various othe episodes where they talk about money. Hell in "Errand Of Mercy" Kirk mentions that "Starfleet spent a lot on our traing..." and as Spock is about to provide the exact figure of that cost; Kirk cuts him off and says, "They're due for a return on their investment..."
So, yeah, - NO - TOS was hardly "Communism is disguise..." - Again, that's more TNG era with the Socialist notion that "No one uses or cares about money...everyone is provided for and we just work to improve ourselves..." - which Picard and others have stated in some form many times over the course of the TNG TV series and films...
Second - NOWHERE did TOS state that Spock was either the first or only Vulcan in Star Fleet in the 23rd century. In fact if you watch TOS S2 "The Immunity Syndrome" - in that episode the U.S.S, Intrepid (Manned by 430 Vulcans) in lost in the opening teaser and Spock senses their deaths across light years of space when it happens. Those 430 Vulcans were all Star Fleet personnel and the ship's Captain was also a Vulcan - and as he's a Captain, it most likely means he was serving in Sta Fleet BEFORE Spock joined.
The whole "Spock was the first Vulcan in Star Fleet..." was something some Spock fans liked to assume - but again, even back then someone would say: "Well, if that's so, how do you explain the 430 Vulcans serving aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid?"
So, yeah, while there's plenty of 'canon' ENT has contradicted (as EVERY OTHER Star Trek series has including TOS at times); T'Pol joining and being in Starfleet by ENT S4 isn't contradicting anything established in TOS.
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but you misunderstand me.. the people in 1966 who are "our age", thought it whole thing was ludicrous, and some were openly hostile to the socialist overtones.. my grandparents among them. there seems to be a sweet spot for someone to become a fan, I'd say from about 13 to about 28. outside of those ages, too young to understand the more cerebral episodes, or too jaded to appreciate the show at all. thats JMHO though, no data to back it up. but as i said the older people in general get the more resistant they are to something new.
Some of the older people did, but not really enough to make that a good generalization. And your top end is way too low, when people went back and re-analyzed the viewer data using more modern techniques and templates it turns out the demographic TOS was most popular with in the 1960s was the male 18-34 bracket. Further, it turns out that NBC totally dropped the ball with their decision to shut down TOS because they were looking at the data in the wrong way and it was actually gaining popularity in that and several other important demographic brackets, not loosing it.
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> TNG: Nostalgia was a huge part of the TV landscape at the time with remakes or attempted continuation of dead series, and most of them were failures. Esp. after Star Trek's Animated Series. The largest issue was going to be a remake/reboot of TOS, rather than be a new series. Until it went on air, very little was said of what to expect.
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> I was surprised that CBS did not air TNG on their network, which goes to show they didn't have much confidence in the TV show. The station that I watched it was an independent TV station that would end up being bought by Fox. Sports programs regularly pre-empted TNG, which made it harder to watch regularly. Trying to stay up to around 2 or 4 in the morning wasn't an easy feat for a weeknight. By the time DS9 went on air, TNG finally was able to have a regular spot in the schedule with a reasonable time to watch it on the weekend when a game pre-empted it.
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> What really helped the show from the start was giving it an 80 year jump from TOS. It propelled the storyline, and they were able to avoid (at least most) Canonical Entanglement. It enabled a curiosity in rediscovering the galaxy, and marvel at how much technology progressed since even the movies.
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CBS didn’t get embroiled in Trek until much later. At the time of TNG is was all
Paramount. The reason TNG and DS9 didn’t have set stations is because Roddenberry sold it to syndication. Back before cable and streaming there was only a few networks and local stations needed something to fill the time slots. This is usually before the local news comes on and/or after the late news goes off. This way TNG wouldn’t be affected by ratings. Ratings had Trek taken from him twice (cancellation of TOS and TMP underperforming). He also had to set it 80 years after TOS because the TOS movies were still being made.
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Star Trek isn't socialist though. If people are watching it and getting that, then they don't understand it, or they don't understand socialism.
Discovery will still be reviled 20 years from now, and the reason for that is simple: it's an objectively bad, illogical (verging on deranged) story showcasing highly unlikable, one dimensional characters, and designed as a vehicle for pushing an extremely progressive message that (unsurprisingly) about half of fans aren't really receptive towards.
It's nice that you're able to rationalize criticism against DSC as a part of some kind of curmudgeonly pattern (or even sinister scheme) by the fanbase, but the fact remains that TNG and DS9 were not being written by a hack staff obsessed with inserting modern-day agendas into every second of screen time, weren't telling a story about nothing, that routinely played fast and loose with its own world-building and laws (even rules that it itself established), and didn't take a dump on older material by consistently attempting to 'subvert expecations' (if anything, TNG and DS9 were absolutely reverent with regards to TOS; DSC retcons everything in sight). Thus, TNG and DS9 could win critical fans over with time because the stories being told we both narratively solid AND relatable to viewers even 10-20 years later.
It's for that reason that DSC will age very poorly, and will only be remembered as being a dumpster fire and zombie-progressive mouthpiece (if the Star Trek IP even survives the current incarnation... which seems pretty unlikely). Your efforts to write such a massive percentage of the fandom off in such simple manner speaks to a combination of personal desperation and disconnection from reality. Discovery isn't hated because it's secretly amazing and people aren't giving it a chance - it's hated because fans are all-too-well-informed about how bad it is (even going so far as to watch multiple seasons, hoping against hope that it would turn a corner) and reluctantly decided that the product has left them behind. Sorry that some of us actually have standards.
Communism is about everyone working toward the common good, which in Marx's vision would be a common understanding among the proletariat, but in real-world terms tends to be defined by some central authority (because as Truman once said of economists, if you laid every human being end to end they'd point in all directions). Nobody gets to just sit around, or join Starfleet so they can explore the unknown and count nebulae - all work must be for the common good, and all must work toward it. It's a wonderful plan, if you happen to be a hive insect. Not so great for sapient apes, however.
For me personally I've never gotten infracted for my criticism...I keep it civil no matter where I am (even if the fans will call me every dirty word in the book and even go as far as to use me being trans in their attacks. Which low and unsurprisingly very un-Trek of them)
But I also often avoid such arguments because you can show mountains of evidence and they stick their fingers in their ears and yell nuh uh
At least with Strange New Worlds, having an iconic figure such as Spock (New Actor) yet it will still be interesting to see what adventures he got into earlier in his career. It's also nice that they are showing the Enterprise as a ship more from the era in which it should have always been from.
you know you just proved his point, Right?
Personally I think it would have been more interesting if they had kept Number One as the augment (to use the term coined for them later) that she was in The Cage though it would probably have been too tricky having two non-cyborg transhuman types for Kurtzman's writers to handle since it would take more subtlety and finesse than they have shown so far.
Her reliance on Kantian ethics Deontological rules to control the downside of her augmentation contrasted with Spock's experimentation with human emotion and his Vulcan result-based Utilitarianism would have had a lot of possibilities and it would be a reasonable path to how Spock became the way he was in TOS (which mixed elements of both) if he picked up some of her techniques.
I am curious about the Enterprise part of your comment though, how would the TOS Enterprise's esthetics not have been appropriate for the Cage/TOS era? It is kind of like saying a P-38 Lightning in WWII should have looked like an F-14 Tomcat because the Tomcat is newer, regardless of the setting. The "Discoprise" is based on the esthetics of The Undiscovered Country which follows the mechanistic art deco style of the 2270s-2290s (and a lot of other Trek at random) rather than the natural googie aesthetics of the 2240s-2260s.
If you don't know what I am talking about there is an excellent page on the subject specifically concerning TOS and DSC Enterprises here:
https://fanfilmfactor.com/2018/05/16/the-enterprise-the-disco-prise-and-the-golden-ratio-mind-blowing-editorial/
Both ships look good in their own way (though personally I prefer the TOS version for the same reason as the article) but if Trek is not to be era-less and homogenized there needs to be at least subtle-but-instantly-identifiable differences in aesthetics over time, (and Kurtzman's bunch has proven that they are anything but subtle) whether it is googie, art deco, or something else in various periods.
Socialism is government control of the means of production, either directly as in "communist" Soviet style states, or indirectly, where corporations exist but must dance to the state tune as in China or WW2 Germany (or even increasingly the modern US as some would say.)
Real communism, as you note, is a stateless utopian fantasy which fits Trek better than socialism, by far, however there is no communist state that has ever existed on earth, no matter what they call themselves. They are in fact socialist, as the state never dissolves away. Why would people in power give up that power? That is the key factor actual communists never understand, which is why the limiting and separation of power is the best means to ensure freedom, and free market capitalism is the best way to distribute resources.
People often point to money, to claim one way or the other, but money is only a trade medium, and has zero relevance as to whether there is socialism, capitalism or otherwise. Money exists because it needs to. Trading goats for a CPU is the absurd alternative.
The problem with socialism in Trek is that it has no reason to exist in a post scarcity society. The same goes for free market capitalism, as while it is the best way to fairly distribute limited resources, who needs it when resources are virtually limitless?
A key problem with Star Trek's economic structure is that, given the relative technological parity of the major known races, all civilizations should probably be in a post-scarcity setup... but they aren't.
In fact, the Federation is really the outlier in that it has given up all money, while the majority of the remaining empires possess a form of currency. This becomes even more strange when you consider that the Federation still maintains heavy trade with other civilizations, implying not only that a) there are indeed still commodities that the Federation is short of (or possesses an abundance of); b) that there is still profit to be had (and thus currency to be exchanged) in maintaining trading links; but that c) at some level, the Federation does still place a value on items... just only on a macro scale. The last point would imply that the government is still, on some level, profiting from the deeds of its citizens, and the latter don't get paid for any of it.
An even more important question is: why do people within the Federation work at all? Are there rules that require them to maintain some kind of trade (thereby rendering them sort of cushy slaves)? Are they all volunteers? In the case of the latter, why would you enlist to perform many of the inane (and dangerous) tasks that would - by necessity - be required to maintain such an empire (automation or not, we know that people within Star Trek are still involved in dirty and perilous work). Why, even, join Starfleet? Aside from captains, you are likely to labor in almost complete anonymity until you retire, there's no prospect of loot, there's no pension you're working towards, and the business of serving on your average ship is just rife with danger (in the case of the bigger vessels, not only for yourself, but also your immediate family).
Natural human curiosity about the universe and a desire for adventure can only carry you so far when there's nothing to be gained from being away from home for years, and no light at the end of the tunnel in terms of compensation. This is especially true within the a-religous Federation, where atheism appears to abound. If you truly believe that you only have one life to live, why risk it at all for such trivial motivations?
Star Trek is decent fantasy, but its world building tends to fray a bit at the edges when you begin digging down more than a few inches into the topsoil. It's nice that Gene envisioned a universe in which much of human nature had been completely overturned within a few centuries' time, but it's pretty hard to believe that Star Trek's reality will ever come to pass given its rather tenuous foundations.
Not a cyborg, an augment similar to Khan's group. I used the term "non-cyborg" because in theory transhumans can be enhanced in several ways, including cyborg like DSC featured, or biologically like Khan's group.
There wasn't anything directly said in dialog about it if that is what you are asking for, and armchair canonistas usually just dismiss it since they are only interested in what is explicitly shown and hold that anything from behind the scenes as "never happened, doesn't exist" regardless of the fact that the writers wrote what was is seen with that behind the scenes information in mind which makes it useful in interpreting what is shown and said in the shows themselves.
The Cage, like many pilots, only introduces the characters deeply enough to (hopefully) interest the viewer and satisfy the needs of the episode itself and only hints at the depths of the various characters. Those hooks for Number One include the "superior intellect" line the Talosian says in his summary of attributes about the "new choices" Pike had for mates, and Number One's line about slavery as she sets the laser to explode, which pretty much comes straight out of Kant's Metaphysics of Morals books. The rest was supposed to come out bit by bit during later episodes which of course never happened since the pilot was rejected.
What the rest of it was is only known from interviews, convention panels, and similar non-canon sources (iirc Roddenberry talked a little about it in The Making of Star Trek for instance) because the subject of how the show would have been different had the first pilot been picked up came up quite frequently and Number One was to have figured into it in an important way.
Years ago when I was in college I could have given you the names of papers written about it that exactly detailed all the references but that would not do any good unless you had access to the same paid scholarly literature libraries the school used (which I don't have anymore either). I researched via those libraries both out of personal interest and because I was planning to write a term paper about it for one of my classes before I noticed a few others were doing Star Trek papers and switched to an analysis of the 2002 Birds of Prey and what went wrong with it behind the scenes.
Anyway, Roddenberry was a humanist and liked to explore the limits of humanism and it's more or less opposite transhumanism, and he also generally liked to turn notions inside out. Number One was the main-cast vehicle for that exploration of transhumanism, a pretty and comfortably human-looking woman who was actually in some ways more alien than the alien(s) on board, a sort of natural predator in human form (probably similar to the classic vampire character type though Roddenberry never used the word) kept in line by her iron-willed intellectual adherence to Kantian principles like Duty and Good Will.
Spock was the reverse, a way of exploring humanism via a "scary, devilish looking" alien who instead had a lot of human-like (or more to the point humanist philosophy) qualities. Together they formed the classic "angel on one shoulder (Spock), devil on the other (Number One)" pair as Pike's advisors, a theme that Roddenberry used quite a bit in other pilots and pitches over the years. In fact Pike, Number One, and Spock were essentially recycled in the rejected Genesis II pilot movie as Dylan Hunt, Lyra-a, and Isiah.
If you can answer that, you might be able to answer your own question.
As for why people work at all, there's only so long most of us can tolerate eating lotus blossoms and contemplating our navels. After a while, humans generally feel a strong need to get up and do something.
Yes, this is a great answer. Some people want to work, want to explore, want to see the world, or even just want the excitement and glory from a dangerous job. There is satisfaction when you can look at something and say you were a part of that, or you helped build that, or you helped discover that.
My father after he retired was bored out of his mind, and didn't take long before he went back to work part time. I'm sure some people would be happy to sit around all day and do nothing, but some people can't do that.
Star Trek also offers us the idea that humans have evolved mentally and emotionally, while also presenting a future where everyone likes their job. Robotics and computers can take a lot of the dull tasks, while you can still work with your hands if you want.
There's no question its an odd place with lots of questions on how it works, but while there aren't answers to all those questions, that is because it is a fiction. At some level it doesn't function the same as reality, and we just can't answer how it works.
Um... where did this Communism BS come from, I leave the forums for a couple of days and this garbage shows up, The Federation was never a Communist state, the UFP was a Centrist and Egalitarian government, anyone who thinks that it's communist government doesn't understand Star Trek and needs to re-evaluate their lives, I'm in my 20s (27 to be exact) and I know 100% that it wasn't communism in disguise.
Depends on the time and the author - but probably going all the way back to when the Greek Tragedies were originally performed on stage.
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Firstly, I am honestly tired of seeing all the hate towards DSC (Discovery), and the amount of threads that pop up each time something new from DSC gets added. Its the newest show, ofcause they are gonna add things from it.
Also its a new show made in modern times, and like anything else made at a newer date than the previous past shows, they will change the style its made in, to fit with the current times.
Yeah its not the Star Trek I grew up with either, but the Star Trek I grew up with isn't the same as previous Star Trek either.
TNG(The Next Generation) also had a ton of hate from TOS(The Original Series) fans when it first aired. I know of plenty of people that still refuse to watch the first season of TNG since they don't like it.
Also seen plenty of people claim they refuse to watch the first few seasons DS9 until the episodes where Sisko shaves his head and grows a beard.
Seen people that refuse to watch Voyager entirely, calling it the worst. While other praise it for being the best.
And seen some people don't think Enterprise is Star Trek at all.
And don't forget how much people complained about the J.J. Abrams movies (Kelvin timeline) when they came out, saying it was too diffrent.
Discovery is just the newest series to be on the receiving end of this. And due to social medias and the internet being more open to everyone and the fact its currently happening, it feels like its the most hated Star Trek ever... Dispite lots of people forget that the hate for TNG made the News back when it first aired, and there was not really any social medias places for the News to pick up on the hate for it back then , but the hate was so big it was noticed and considered News worthy.
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Secondly, this isn't some public space, its a forum owned by a private company and they are allowed to close threads as they feel like. Same way Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook are.
And almost all of those "DSC hate" threads, no matter how serious and peaceful they start, kinda turn into a spam fest a few posts into it, or an echo chamber.
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Thirdly, CBS has no control over this forum, they get a say about ships and content being added to the game. But they don't really control the topics happening on this forum.
Spock to Kirk, as Kirk is about to hug him.
Star Trek V: "The Final Frontier"
Im not sure your analysis is completely accurate. Here is my take.
TNG: Dont remember too much backlash over that show, in part because the internet wasnt a thing then. Also people had gone so long without a ST show they were happy to get something. Yes there were criticizisms and they did compare it to the original, but overall I think the show was well liked from the start.
DS9: It also suffered from the fact that it was called out as a complete ripoff of Babylon 5. Many B5 fans refused to watch the show, because CBS had obviously ripped off the show from Strasinsky after he pitched it to them and they said no.
Voyager: Had weird premises going on alot and got fairly convoluted. Generally it was a story telling issue in my opinion.
Enterprise: Agree, plus its always tricky to do a show based in the past of an established franchise. You are stuck between a rock and a hard place, because you want to do new and interesting stories but they may interfere with established lore. In general its much safer to just progress a story than to go back and fill in the gaps, particularly if your doing it with something that you want to occur weekly and go on for seven years. A movie works better as its just one 2 hour show vs a series that could go on for hundreds of hours.
Kelvin Timeline: Going by ingame chat its still hated. Also I would say that it would be more accepted if they didnt try to redo classic stories like Wrath of Khan. The first movie was much better than the second, because of this. The third suffered from bad writing but had its good points like how they handled Nimoys death.
Discovery: Its still hated because its awful writing, and the way it inserts modern politics into the storylines. The fact that Orville is considered more Star Trek than Discovery is should tell you something. In general I would say the phrase of go woke go broke applies more to Discovery, than the idea that its hated because its different and current. Like Enterprise though it will have to deal with many of the same issues like how to do stories without breaking existing lore.
In the end I dont think down the road that Voyager will be loved or hated, I think it and its characters will just be forgotten. Much like in Star Wars, Han, Lea, and Luke are known around the world, but in 10 years Po, Rea, and Fin wont even be remembered.
DSC is made in the 'modern times' but it does not follow real world style cues at all, it is completely derivative and backward in that respect. That was true right from the start and after three years they still have not caught up to 2017 yet.
Take the first season uniforms for instance. Top of the real world fashions in 2016-2017 (and still popular enough today) when the series was being put together and launched trended to miniskirts, minidresses, and velvet for women, and velvet pullover shirts for men similar to the uniform from TOS as these pictures from current fashion catalogs show:
Now be honest, does that look more like TOS or more like DSC? Style-wise first season DSC uniforms were mired in 1980s spandex made even Kitschier with 3D printed ersatz bedazzling from around the same period.
All they would have had to do to update the TOS uniforms would have been to use real deep pile velvet that the nap does not curl up and dull out after the first few cleanings, adjust a few cuts (maybe make the skirt asymmetric, but keep the raglan sleeves for both women's and men's uniforms as a callback to TOS) and they would have had uniforms that were far more modern and trendy looking than those embarrassingly retro blue disasters they used.
Anyway, the point is that the argument that DSC was "updated for modern viewers" is utter rubbish, it was simply changed because Moonves hated TOS and he put people (like Kurtzman) in charge of it who let contempt for TOS override any other considerations. Visual updates would have been to upgrade the production values to modern standards and tweak the look a bit, not trash it altogether and start with a mix of The Undiscovered Country and the Kelvin movies like they did for the tech, and that silly uptight '80s look for the uniforms.
But the main objection the traditional fans have isn't even about the looks (annoying as the fashion gaff is in its own right), it is about the way the "NuTrek" is written. Technically they are not even the same subgenre, TOS and the Berman Trek were soft sci-fi dramas while DSC is a space opera, essentially an action movie stretched out to about thirteen to fifteen hours and chopped up into approximately hour long segments. I already went into the difference between the two subgenres in an earlier comment in this thread so I will not bore anyone going over it again in this one (especially since it another long one).
Long time Trek fans expect deeper (even clever) plots along with dramatic dialog, not the shallow generic dark space fantasy romps with little or no depth and silly melodramatic dialog that the current Treks feature.
Except that it really wasn't a great answer.
First of all, almost nobody is actually serving on star ships. Star Trek itself paints the academy/active service as extremely selective posting typically reserved for people who are genius-level or above (so, in addition to being the [potentially, if you're the captain] most glamorous line of work around, it's an elitist old-boys club). The vast - vast - majority of people who apply are therefore declined - they have to work in mundane positions, like serving as guards with funny hats in windowless rooms, or being the unfortunate person who cleans the latrines (or repairs the robots who clean the latrines).
Second, the answer assumes that nobody is capable of entertaining themselves - or deriving pleasure from life - bereft of the stimulus provided by labor. I'm sorry, but we're not all simpletons - people have consuming hobbies that don't in any way qualify (nor could they be creatively described) as "work;" people have interests that, if given the chance, could consume every bit of their spare time. We do not all have hollow, echoing voids at our core, desperate for some - really, any - form of banal work to fill. Not everyone is a good little slave in search of a trivial 'purpose.' More to the point, my guess (based on years of observing what the modern man does in their off time) is that most people would prefer a day populated by nothing than one filled with mind-numbing repetition (for no pay).
Finally, it did nothing to explain why people should be assuming enormous risk for no reward. I don't deny that there are high voltage electric linesmen (the guys who climb the 150-foot power towers) or deep sea fishermen who genuinely enjoy their fields (there certainly are [and there are probably an equal number of those who don't ]), but the pay for most risky lines of work is commensurate with the danger - there's a fat paycheck waiting for these people when they get home. You assume that human nature would change so much in the span of... about 150 years now until the first Star Trek?... that nobody is going to want any kind of reward for doing the ultra-perilous, largely anonymous/thankless work that is required to keep any civilization on its feet? In fact, they're all - every one of them - there because their lives are so meaningless and empty that they're willing to imperil them 'because reasons?'
You are giving way too much credit to the resident 'deep thinker' of the forums. The guy is not a sage.
What makes you think that everyone just gets the basic living stipend and no more no matter what they do? There are references scattered around in the various series (even in TOS) about things like hazard pay, and even that inventing things that catch on and similarly useful pursuits brings more rewards than just recognition, just not to the extreme degree it does nowadays. The WWIII survivors realization that elitism and greed nearly wiped humans out set a tremendous peer pressure against conspicuous consumption that persisted for quite a while, so hoarding money was not much of a thing anymore.
And they do have currency, "Federation credits", it is just that the post-scarcity economy makes everyday needs a trivial expense and they don't have to carry credit cards when the replicators can simply scan the person for genetic-deep biometric identification.
Also, Starfleet personnel are not necessarily "the best of the best" as the saying goes, a few of them are obviously dumb as posts for instance. The main difference is that they are all motivated and want to be there.
Also, Starfleet Academy is not monolithic, it is more like a university in that it is divided up into separate schools on the campus. The basic program turns out ensigns (and possibly a lieutenant jg if there is an exceptional cadet) who go out and serve on ships until they are ready to be promoted to full lieutenant, at which point they rotate back to the Academy, this time in the command/department head school and come out as that rank. In theory some would wash out, they would probably either go back to service without the promotion or leave it entirely though they never really did much with that point so it is a gray area.
I recommend watching a documentary “Chaos of the Bridge”. It looks into the behind the scenes on the first two seasons of TNG. They talk about the amount of hate mail (as in snail mail) they received.
Star Trek has always inserted modern politics into its stories. TOS had a black woman on the bridge of the ship during a time that black people couldnt drink from the same water fountain, eat at the same restaurants…this happened at the height of the civil rights movement. They had a Russian crew member at the height of the Cold War with Russia. There are episodes that talk about classism, America’s actions in south east Asia.
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I'm guessing here, but if they'd made Star Trek: Phase II instead of The Motion Picture...I don't think there was enough of a fanbase to generate hate. By '87, you had a whole new generation (no pun intended) or TOS and Kirk/Spock fans and also, TNG really hadn't found its feet. The first two seasons had the bones (no pun intended again) of something great, but the characters weren't flushed out, you had Diana REALLY throwing things off for me personally in season two and everyone found love from season three onwards. The films had well and truly peaked and TNG was going strong with well-rounded characters and strong plots.