I completely agree, and made a post on that exact subject a few pages ago. I'm just saying that Trek is not, itself, really post-apocalypse, despite WWIII in the backstory.
That doesn't preclude a 'post-apocalyptic' scenario. The optimism can still be there in the characters that are using their ship to build a new federation
Meh... Just watch one of the billion other 'doom and gloom' movies that are in circulation.
I completely agree, and made a post on that exact subject a few pages ago. I'm just saying that Trek is not, itself, really post-apocalypse, despite WWIII in the backstory.
Right, Trek is post-post-apocalyptic. And technically, doesn't fit the vein of post-apocalyptic fiction easily because generally there's a sense of scraping a few more days before final death. Trek worked its way past it to the 'Earth greens anew' stage.
Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker
Member Access Denied Armada!
My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
At the moment I only have the one story going, and the crew (which represents a skeleton crew of 16 for the 50-person Gallant-class starship Hydra) was chosen based on my bridge crew plus my assigned duty officers rather than a deliberate effort to invoke any kind of equality (since I actually am of the opinion that forcing equality doesn't really help it...equality will be achieved, I feel, when, say, a woman being in command is unremarkable rather than laudable). Let's see, that gave me...
Actually, I agree about not forcing it and making it unremarkable IN-universe. Well, in most circumstances; my Devidian does face prejudice to the point of having to hide his nature from all but a few people with the right security clearance, and having had his career demonstrably hindered from the rate of progression it should have had based on skill and conduct. And recent wars can affect "even" the minds of the supposedly sophisticated in the 25th century.
What I mean about deliberately manipulating the statistics isn't an in-universe affirmative action process though. It's rather that I think a diverse/population-reflecting sample will be the result if irrelevant characteristics are truly ignored. The "forcing" is only an effort to override the biases the statistics I calculated revealed in my own 21st thinking despite myself. It is an effort to be realistic to the world of the story as I want it to be and to avoid unconsciously deviating from my objective. Does that make sense?
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damn I didn't even think about making a homosexual character.
My RP crew is CO is white male, XO is Korean Female, Chief Engineer is a black male cyborg, Senior Medical Officer is white female, Helm is a black female, Nav is a white male, Tac and security is a white male, science officer is white male and comms is an Andorian female
I have too many whites...and I am a black male?????
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.
damn I didn't even think about making a homosexual character.
Technically neither did I, but only because I didn't give romance of any sort any real thought. Right now none of my boffs or doffs have a defined orientation one way or another, though personally my approach to Star Trek is to deal with it the way I deal with it over in MLP-land: preferred choice in partners is approached like a discussion over favorite food. It's perfectly okay for a character to find being TRIBBLE "gross" but they find it "gross" the same way one might find avocados to be "gross." It's not a moral issue and hasn't been since before Archer's time.
Technically neither did I, but only because I didn't give romance of any sort any real thought. Right now none of my boffs or doffs have a defined orientation one way or another, though personally my approach to Star Trek is to deal with it the way I deal with it over in MLP-land: preferred choice in partners is approached like a discussion over favorite food. It's perfectly okay for a character to find being TRIBBLE "gross" but they find it "gross" the same way one might find avocados to be "gross." It's not a moral issue and hasn't been since before Archer's time.
Well I was thinking about it because my Captain and XO dated and broke up before this assignment. It was not a good break up. They have a lot of animosity. The XO intends to transfer after their first mission and it's the mission the takes them from the JJ-verse to the STO-verse.
My science officer is crushing on the Comms officer but she doesn't like him...sort of like early Bashir/Dax but not so pushy
I do think I will make my Nav homosexual or tactical badass character
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.
Some thoughts on how the various species could develop post-Omega apocalypse (that hopefully isn't as dumb as the Federation idea).
Earth, at the epicenter of the Omega disaster, should actually I think remain cut off from the rest of the galaxy, at least in the beginning. Ion storms, subspace distortion fields, nadion clouds, whatever. The point is, no one knows what's happened to nor what is happening on Earth, and figuring out a way to get to Earth is a major plot point of the series.
Alpha Centauri is the new center for humanity. The Centaurans are basically like the Federation we remember. Not the most interesting thing we could do with humanity, but it's important for the audience to have characters it can easily understand and relate to. The Centaurans are amongst the later of the former Federation worlds to gain warp travel again. The Centaurans have the greatest desire to rebuild the Federation both because humans like to build communities, and because of a fundamental desire to figure out how to reconnect with the human homeworld
Andorians have forged a new Andorian Empire. They were the first to be able to leave their homeworld and have taken advantage of this to become the most powerful of the former Federation worlds. The Andorians are rather enjoying being top dog. They're not blue-skinned Klingons and not necessarily villainous, though they are sometimes antagonistic. Basically the Andorians aren't joining the new Federation because they don't see a reason to: they're strong on their own, wealthy on their own, etc. But they don't bear the new Federation any ill will - as long as it doesn't threaten their own interests, anyway.
Vulcans were amongst the last to regain Warp travel. They have become very pacificstic and inward-focused, with little interest in the Galaxy at large: a planet of Sareks, basically (or at least Sarek from "Journey to Babel").
Tellarites gained warp travel around the same time as Centaurans and are very eager to rebuild the Federation, as their world did not fare well post-Omega disaster and they need help rebuilding. This is mostly because I want to see more Tellarites in Trek.
Klingons have fared poorly. The Omega disaster has Balkanized the Empire and their culture, and Klingons now run the gamut from traditionalists to TOS-style untrustworthy, honorless dogs to whatever you'd want to see. Qo'noS does not remain isolated as Earth does, but it no longer can claim to control much of an Empire beyond its immediate environs.
Romulans have fared better than the Klingons only because they've already been kicked around like nothing else. The Romulan Republic was mostly restricted to ch'Rihan'Mol already - they didn't have an interstellar nation to lose (or not much of one, anyway). However, through some quirk of stellar mechanics, the Omega effect repaired itself around the former Empire pretty quickly...meaning that the post-Omega Republic has spent most of its existence in continuous conflict with the former Star Empire, which, in isolation from forces that would work against it in the post-Omega galaxy, was able to regain strength.
Ferengi, sitting at the center of a massive trade empire as they were, did not take the collapse caused by Omega very well at all. This could be a chance to turn them into a third-world kleptocratic Hellhole; or a chance to turn them into the villains that they were originally intended to be. Your choice.
Don't have anything for the other races at the moment.
This is interesting right here. Kind of like Warhammer 40,000 meets the Star Trek Universe. Just without the extra heapings of grimdark.
This is interesting right here. Kind of like Warhammer 40,000 meets the Star Trek Universe. Just without the extra heapings of grimdark.
The Grimdark is what makes Warhammer 40K fun. That and hats. And METAL BAWKSES.
Although actually I was more channeling a combination of Andromeda and a similar-idea sci-fi setting I had called Phoenix Rising. Never went anywhere with that, though.
Putting some more thought into the post-apocalypse I posited. For the sake of this post we're gonna call it Star Trek: Federation. No real relation to the unmade series of the same name.
Anyway. So, in my last post, I defined Andorians, Ferengi, Humans, Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, and Tellarites, and in a subsequent post I suggested a use for the Tholians as the series' ultimate villains. So what are some other major possibilities?
The Alliance
The Alliance consists of Bajor, Cardassia, Trill Prime, and a few other minor states nearby. They recovered from the Omega disaster fairly quickly and banded together primarily out of concern about the Dominion and the Gorn. Initially the goal of the Alliance was to create a Federation-like nation, however over time this ideal has fallen by the wayside as a mixture of militarism and paranoia has overtaken the region that is surrounded by so many powerful enemies (notably the Dominion on the other side of the Bajoran wormhole). The Alliance is a sort of counter-Federation that the Dominion was supposed to be but never really was - a conglomeration of multiple races working together towards a common goal, but without the bright and sunny disposition of the Federation. Basically within the Alliance you can find the grimdark Federation that you'd want but which doesn't really belong across the whole series - conscription, rationing, setting aside what is right in order to do what is necessary, etc. Despite this, they're not evil, just paranoid. And also the Bajorans and Cardassians do genuinely get along with each other.
The Dominion
Entirely untouched by the Omega disaster, the Dominion was nevertheless cut off from the Alpha and Beta quadrants by that disaster as the Prophets sort of "cocooned" the wormhole for century or two. With the wormhole open again, and the Federtion, Klingons, and Romulans sundered, the Dominion is gearing up for Dominion War II: Electric Boogaloo. Of course, everyone knows that they're gearing up for it, and their only point of entry is through the wormhole, so...
The Gorn
The Gorn knew that the Omega disaster would subside, and as a result spent the intervening years preparing for an invasion to retake all their lost worlds. The principal foes of the Alliance have been the Gorn.
The Borg
Leave them out of this, they're overused. 8472, as well.
That's...kind of antithetical to the very idea of Star Trek. It's supposed to be a future that you would actually want to live in. You have Star Wars, Warhammer 40K, FarScape, Babylon 5, and countless other settings where you can have a negative or pragmatic future. Star Trek is supposed to be optimistic.
Which is why I don't think Trek could do post-apocalyptic, at least not in the traditional sense. You could get a Sci-Fi series that has Romulans and Klingons and Galaxy-classes and so on...but it wouldn't be Trek. Not really. Not if you're trying to extend a pall of pessimism across the entire setting.
I accept this and other similar critiques in the thread, and submit that I might have done a poor job of explaining my intentions. I can't say I won't make a further hash of it, but I shall try to clarify. My goal was not to say "dash all hope" but to say "strain it to the edge of breaking" but it holds. A "candle against the darkness" so to speak. History is full of such examples, often in war, but there are other areas, sickness & medicine for example.
"Star Trek" is based upon a post-apocalyptic universe.
Gene Roddenberry, as heard through the characters, explained how a large portion of the population had to die; thus, the tragedy of losing so much life changed humanity. It forced us to solve: world hunger, poverty, famine, etc... Gene believed it would take a nuclear war (World War III) to trigger a change in humanity.
I suppose also at the back of my mind was a concept that applies universally, but was expressed economically in the Motley Fool book Rule Breakers, Rule Makers. Essentially it is a "king of the hill" concept: once you've been on top for a time, you don't coast endlessly on your laurels. Instead a challenger comes to shake things up. One either adapts or is toppled. In the discussed post-apocalyptic scenario, a challenger (the big disaster, whatever it is), occurs and the results are so severe, hope is stretched to the limit. The goal in the storytelling of this scenario is to show, not the rise to the philosphy, but how the philosophical concepts weather such disaster and become better for it. There WILL be a renewed Federation, it will reach forth into the galaxy again, despite possibly looking somewhat different in configuration. The same will be true for the Klingons. In short, there will be hope, and not just at the end of the tale. To draw the final curtain on either still in gloom and doom would most certainly not be Star Trek.
There were never any dwarves on Star Trek. Should they make a new series with a dwarf as a Captain? I bet Warwick Davis would be awesome in the role!
YES! Yes he would. But frankly, I'm still waiting on them to make the realWild, Wild West movie and invite Warwick to play Miguelito Loveless. Well, him or Peter Dinklage. That is a really tough call for me.
Unless something happened in World War III to severely skew the population, we should have seen India, Indonesia, and China in particular heavily represented. Granted I don't reflect that exact demographic myself as fully as I think it would be, but I try to at least consider it.
Don't know about India, but Chinas population is heavily concentrated in developed areas, so they are basically all bunched up together when nuke hit....
It is non-canon, but the Earth ambassador to the Klingons in the book The Final Reflection is hinted to be Indian, and he comments at one point that his people were the second nation to launch nuclear weapons in war, but not the last people to do so. That could be seen as a factor in population changes in that part of the world.
NX-01s bridge crew have two americans, Tucker and Archer, Reed have British ancestors, he mention it in the romulan minefield episode
My bad; I forgot Reed. Still overloaded with white guys.
Contrast with the fan rewrite Reimagined Enterprise. The captain is Chinese, the chief engineer is a Latina, the communications officer is Indian, and the nurse is an Arab from Qatar. Now, which of these is more like what an actual United Earth would send into space?
I don't think the fight would be as hard as it was in 2015 as it was in the 60's though. Added to that, if an incident like what you added into your most recent post occurred where something was denied on ethnic grounds, I think Hollywood at the least has to fear the Internet and the firestorms it can bring like no other medium. And Star Trek fans in particular are active there.
That, plus as a franchise where the native market is Americans, they should be mindful of the fact that non-whites are on track to outnumber Caucasians in the US within only a few years (roughly the time a new show would actually launch if they were green-lit for preproduction now).
I personally like playing with diverse backgrounds. Takes more research to get right but it's worth it, IMHO. Eleya's crew:
Species: Two Bajorans (one from Bajor, the other from a colony), two Andorians, one joined Trill, one human (an Australian Aborigine born on a Fed colony)
Gender: two female, two male, one shen, one chaan
Sexual orientation: hasn't really been relevant outside of Eleya and Gaarra, both of whom are straight
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Okay POST Apocalypse. First the apocalypse. what would be a Sci-Fi feasible based on science catastrophe that would: Remove the Borg and Dominion from simply moving in? Be of sufficient scale to Disrupt the expanse of 8000 light years spanned by the Whole UFP and the areas of the neighbors as well? A scale like that would be.........about the only way to make things properly a mess so no one faction could insta-win is a cosmic scale everyone devastated. What would be a Trek equivalent of a "Dino Killer"?
How about an old ancient burned out pseudo galaxy that is nothing but black holes and Bosonic particles just WHIFFS right thru our galaxy. The black holes just Nom, nom the hell out of the galactic plane you end up with 20Ly wide "worm tunnels" thru the galactic disk, like the Enterprise lost that core of decks to the Borg Cube...... The Gravitic distortion and tugs on stars and systems would upset Millenia and Epochs old paths, wormholes and other mechanics. The Bosonic Distortion would cause massive "Subspace Storms" that could easily swallow whole fleets of ships using improperly protected warp drives......... Yet somehow pockets of civilization survive and in the face of a large natural threat and with intrepid and hopeful captains braving the techpirates, storms and general barbarized systems that have lost all but the barest minimum of warp capabilty and no sense of civilization......
Am I getting warm yet?
Oh and with CGI mapping done with actors, you wouldn't need to be so tediously "sensory/brain lump between 2 manipulative appendages with 2 locomotion appendages with bilateral symmetry with minimal hair" vapor locked either. As for the White Male North American stuff, I think a large variety of aliens would just make whatever "Human(s)" look like "just another species with some strange colors"......as it should be. I wonder if the Klingons had discrimination based on foreadridge patterns at one point? now in the face of other species not knowing the difference....... Heck you could drop in insectiods, Mr, Eriks types with 4 arms. How about a species that are "collective entities" that are so symbiotically interdependent that the collectives have to effectively "Orgy" to reproduce.......... Denobulan relationships are complex HA!
The Universe is a messy place, You are born a mess. Sustaining life usually involves cleaning up messes. You die and usually are a mess then too. All of these messes usually involve some blood- get over it.
My bad; I forgot Reed. Still overloaded with white guys.
Contrast with the fan rewrite Reimagined Enterprise. The captain is Chinese, the chief engineer is a Latina, the communications officer is Indian, and the nurse is an Arab from Qatar. Now, which of these is more like what an actual United Earth would send into space?
Even if you skewed the demographics at the very beginning of United Earth's space program towards nations that had space programs pre-WWIII, considering that India and China are in that number, this makes sense.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
The closest I can think of regarding post apocalyptic lately with Star Trek would have been the Destiny Trilogy of novels. Within the novels itself, it felt like actions had weight and consequence. Although after the trilogy was over with, it's debatable. I feel like things got better too quickly in the novels after Destiny concluded.
It's worth noting that Year of Hell in Voyager was originally supposed to be an entire season of Voyager, which could have been very interesting if handled properly.
Contrast with the fan rewrite Reimagined Enterprise. The captain is Chinese, the chief engineer is a Latina, the communications officer is Indian, and the nurse is an Arab from Qatar. Now, which of these is more like what an actual United Earth would send into space?
Maybe, but that depends on the economic and educational situation in many regions. Keep in mind that by the 2150s, even though the world is a much more equal place, I still believe there will be at least some disparity between groups. Plus, again, like I suggested and based on how pleasant California looks in 1996 in "Future's End," it could be that the Eugenics Wars of 1992-96 kind of really screwed over the Middle East and East Asia.
...on the other hand, when I play as the Terrans in Galactic Civilization II I tend to rename the leader Liu-Mei Banarjee.
Also, Reimagined Enterprise...is this the one from AlternateHistory.com? I have some...issues...with that one. Then again I also have some issues with the single most popular ASB thread on the site, Star Trek: A New Beginning. Some MAJOR issues.
That, plus as a franchise where the native market is Americans, they should be mindful of the fact that non-whites are on track to outnumber Caucasians in the US within only a few years (roughly the time a new show would actually launch if they were green-lit for preproduction now).
Eh...whites still comprise (as of 2010) about 63% of Americans, with African-Americans at about 12% and Hispanics/Latinos (who are, by the US census, a sub-group: you are "Hispanic white" or "Hispanic African", not simply "Hispanic") about 16%. I don't think white Americans will be losing our hegemony "within only a few years," unless blacks and Hispanics are breeding at levels that would make a rabbit blush.
Again, not saying this is a good thing, just stating the numbers.
I personally like playing with diverse backgrounds. Takes more research to get right but it's worth it.
Re: World War III, the Lost Era novel series (set between STVI and TNG) mention several cities known to have taken nuke hits. Offhand I know Tel Aviv and Mecca were nuked (looked them up on Mem Beta for projects).
Didn't meet physical fitness requirements. :P This isn't about affirmative action, it's about realism.
Contrast Stargate Atlantis, too. Because Stargate Command is a US agency based out of NORAD all the actual military guys are American, but the actual Atlantis expedition is international and the civilian characters reflect this (there's Canadian and Czech characters in the main cast off the top of my head).
"Great War! / And I cannot take more! / Great tour! / I keep on marching on / I play the great score / There will be no encore / Great War! / The War to End All Wars"
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Dwarfs are real and part of the world population. Shouldn't they get included too? Warwick Davis is perfectly fit to do quite a lot of things, including his own stunt work. He can command a starship just fine.
I know not everyone would be thrilled with me using the JJverse as evidence, but I have to point again to Keenser, a Roylan. Per Memory Alpha, he is actually tall for his species. There had to be some form of the Starfleet physical standard that Keenser passed to receive his commission.
The question remaining in that case for a human who is a little person would be whether any complications existed from the condition that caused that individual's dwarfism, and whether or not 25th century medicine was able to accomplish 100% resolution of any such issues. (Similar principle to IRL requiring that all pilots' vision be correctable to 20/20...doesn't mean you have to have 20/20 sight without any aids like glasses or contacts that you may use, but you must be able to perform the job to the identical standard as someone who does.) So to my mind, in Starfleet, which does seem to have more than one admission standard as opposed to IRL, whether or not Mr. Davis would be admitted to Starfleet--assuming the role he is playing is human--would require medical information that some people find extremely private and do not like to share about themselves.
So my final answer for Starfleet would be, "It depends."
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So it's ok to discriminate against dwarfs because they're small? No.
Melora on Deep Space Nine seemed to have no issues overcoming her physical limitations. No reason why dwarfs must be excluded from service. If you want to espouse a philosophy of "equality" in what is a "real" representation of humanity, then you can include a fully capable dwarf too.
I'm with Valoreah here. If a woman who literally can't stand up unassisted in standard Federation starship conditions can become an officer, there's nothing stopping a little person from becoming such.
I don't know or care if it would be allowed but the idea of Warwick Davis playing a federation captain is now stuck in my mind as part of the next film.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though. JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
So it's ok to discriminate against dwarfs because they're small? No.
Melora on Deep Space Nine seemed to have no issues overcoming her physical limitations. No reason why dwarfs must be excluded from service. If you want to espouse a philosophy of "equality" in what is a "real" representation of humanity, then you can include a fully capable dwarf too.
Melora illustrates the idea that there is more than one admission standard in Starfleet versus the one that most military services use today.
But overall, I'm afraid you are completely misreading what I am saying. Please go back and look again; I did not say "no, never, smallness alone is a reason to exclude from Starfleet." I even said specifically that the fact that a Roylan is seen onscreen serving explicitly rules out any sort of blanket "no."
In a Starfleet context the single question I would be asking is whether or not any other condition accompanying a particular human's dwarfism could not be satisfactorily addressed by medical or technological means. Even IRL little people's conditions are very, very individual. One person may be a star athlete with no complications whatsoever, and another person may have extremely serious and life threatening symptoms. So in Starfleet the question would boil down to health. If we assume "fully capable," then I think the Roylan standard applies and admission of an other-species little person is as likely as any cadet originating from Royla.
If a medical exclusion happens, it is no different IMO from an average sized person receiving a medical exclusion if something is absolutely beyond 25th century technology to remedy.
Now, the great thing about Star Trek is that a lot of things CAN be remedied or accommodated that cannot IRL, so the conditions resulting in medical exclusion are a lot narrower than IRL. But I do still have to say, "pending results of the flight physical."
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Given that a woman who was literally incapable of standing in standard gravity got in as an officer, I would suspect that those standards are pretty low.
MACO requirements, now--those are certainly a lot higher. But even I could probably be a Starfleet Captain, and my arms try to dislocate themselves on a daily basis (an incredibly nasty case of Tourette's Syndrome).
Contrast Stargate Atlantis, too. Because Stargate Command is a US agency based out of NORAD all the actual military guys are American, but the actual Atlantis expedition is international and the civilian characters reflect this (there's Canadian and Czech characters in the main cast off the top of my head).
A Russian team also operated from the SGC as well
Humanity would survive, history has shown time and time again that humanity has survived through many disasters and conflicts and come out even more resilient. Best example was the Toba eruption which decimated the human race down to only 10,000 in their early history yet they recovered and are thriving to this day.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Given that a woman who was literally incapable of standing in standard gravity got in as an officer, I would suspect that those standards are pretty low.
Into sciences, it's worth noting, not command. And Starfleet has allowed in others that no real-world military would - Barclay, for example, would never pass real-world mental health examinations to join the military (at least not going off of what he's like when we first met him), never mind reach the rank of lieutenant jr. grade. Palzar also, given her age, would have joined Starfleet Academy during a period of relative peace - i.e., during Season 2 or earlier of TNG, before the Borg showed up (or at least before they were widely known about) and started Borging things up.
(She's an ensign in 2370 and had previously been stationed on another ship. Assuming that she was on that ship for one year and assuming the Academy is a four-year course puts her joining Starfleet in 2365, only one year after the Farpoint mission in TNG)
Starfleet is not solely a military organization and, in fact by Picard's time is pretty obviously fairly demilitarized, given that they have ships flying around with notable civilian populations including children aboard. Lookin' at you,D.
Whatever physical examinations Melora somehow passed when joining Starfleet, I severely hope their standards had changed by the time the Borg started Borging things, the Dominion started Dominioning things, the Klingons got back to being Klingons, etc.
(But really, this is Starfleet's own fault for apparently being a relatively loose joint military-civilian organization)
I tend to think the standards are written on a species basis: what is health for X species and can someone either naturally or through corrective treatment or assistive technology, meet said standard? Starfleet, unlike IRL, does not seem to be very picky about how conformance is accomplished so long as it is by some means.
The reason I assume "by species" is that that prevents a human from being judged by, say, Vulcan standards. Melora is likely judged by a specific Elaysian standard of health, and in my own stories, Teeglar, Thraz, and Alyosha each meet standards written for their species. (For Alyosha since his species was unknown at time of admission, this was accomplished by submitting documentation showing that no evidence could be found of anything compromising observed normal functioning of his body.) Because of the diversity of standards versus a single one, there are probably occasions when people of one species are admitted successfully under the standard precedent of another species, as their capabilities are regarded as equivalent. For all we know, LaForge came in under an Aenar standard, since technology gave him an equivalent ability to serve as someone like Thraz.
Neurological things appear to be the Federation's weakest area in terms of medical technology, but I'd say we can't count anything out until we get a qualified canon Starfleet medical opinion (if that makes any sense).
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Into sciences, it's worth noting, not command. And Starfleet has allowed in others that no real-world military would - Barclay, for example, would never pass real-world mental health examinations to join the military (at least not going off of what he's like when we first met him), never mind reach the rank of lieutenant jr. grade. Palzar also, given her age, would have joined Starfleet Academy during a period of relative peace - i.e., during Season 2 or earlier of TNG, before the Borg showed up and started Borging things up.
(She's an ensign in 2370 and had previously been stationed on another ship. Assuming that she was on that ship for one year and assuming the Academy is a four-year course puts her joining Starfleet in 2365, only one year after the Farpoint mission in TNG)
Starfleet is not solely a military organization and, in fact by Picard's time is pretty obviously fairly demilitarized, given that they have ships flying around with notable civilian populations including children aboard. Lookin' at you,D.
Whatever physical examinations Melora somehow passed when joining Starfleet, I severely hope their standards had changed by the time the Borg started Borging things, the Dominion started Dominioning things, the Klingons got back to being Klingons, etc.
(But really, this is Starfleet's own fault for apparently being a relatively loose joint military-civilian organization)
This is true, after the destruction of Praxis, Starfleet began a "Demilitarization" effort of downsizing its warship compliment and troop recruitment numbers, which continued on until Picards "We have families aboard" era. Of course, in that same movie, Starfleet officers are working with Klingon officers for the sole purpose of preventing said Demilitarization (For some its fear of klingons, but for atleast one of the admirals he fears the effect of demilitarization making the Federation vulnerable to future enemies, and he was right).
Starfleet will never make that mistake again. Regardless, Starfleet is a Military organization and as such its primary duty is the safety of Federation territory and federation citizens, and as such all officers within Starfleet must meet the requirements necessary to accomplish those duties. Now, Requirements in the Navy are different from those for the Marines, but the navy still has requirements.
Also, there is the important question "Would dwarfs still exist"? Not likely, as we see in several episodes, the UFP utilizes a form of Genetic Screening to prevent any complications during pregnancy. This would prevent any of the abnormalities we see today. (I don't think they ever explain how Geordi was born blind, or why he's the only one in all of the Federation.)
It is funny however that people bring up "Promoting Equality", That's what the UFP does, not its military branch. Military's do not care about Political Correctness or equality, it's why the military gets pissed off every time politicians try to arbitrarily change the fitness requirements in order to please a voting base. They care about having a capable and effective fighting force capable of accomplishing all of its duties on a moments notice.
The best example is the United States Air Force. They spend a lot of their time doing Starfleet-like duties, monitoring satellites, assisting NASA in exploration, testing space-planes and drones, etc. etc. but their fitness standards several years ago had been *raised* higher than the Armies standards, because they knew at some point anyone in the AF may be called upon to serve in battle, because despite their day to day duties, they are still responsible for the Defense of the nation. It is no different with Starfleet, especially post Wolf-359 when 20 admirals sat around saying "So, demilitarization of the Military...bad idea? Bad idea."
a Post Apocalyptic Trek.. wow, that really does sound awesome, it may be the only thing left that will really work. everything else has pretty much been done and redone to death.. it is getting unrealistically to the point of galactic peace and harmony, well aside from the iconians. dont they say that its the journey that is important, currently how much travel do we have left? going all Post Apocalyptic would require a redrawing of maps and boundries, an initial contraction and consolidating of societies and species, working towards a point of being able to reach out, finding out how our neighbours are.. if they are! searching for any isolated remnants of our repsective associations. trying to recreate those associations, but instead creating totally new associations that are dependant on need and neccessity over canon. yup i could get behind that, while that may not look totally trek, i think it would definately feel more trek than what we have currently.
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Oh, okay. I must have missed the post.
Meh... Just watch one of the billion other 'doom and gloom' movies that are in circulation.
Right, Trek is post-post-apocalyptic. And technically, doesn't fit the vein of post-apocalyptic fiction easily because generally there's a sense of scraping a few more days before final death. Trek worked its way past it to the 'Earth greens anew' stage.
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My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
That said, my main crew (CO, senior officers, and other notable characters):
Species: 1 Romulan, 1 Reman, 1 Breen, 1 Jem'Hadar, 1 Lethean, 1 Nausicaan, 1 Ferasan, 1 Kobali, 1 turak.
Gender: 4 female, 4 male, 1 indeterminate.
Sexual orientation: 1 homosexual female, 3 heterosexual female, 1 asexual male, 1 asexual genderless, 2 homosexual male, 1 heterosexual male.
...which is more diverse than I thought, tbh.
Actually, I agree about not forcing it and making it unremarkable IN-universe. Well, in most circumstances; my Devidian does face prejudice to the point of having to hide his nature from all but a few people with the right security clearance, and having had his career demonstrably hindered from the rate of progression it should have had based on skill and conduct. And recent wars can affect "even" the minds of the supposedly sophisticated in the 25th century.
What I mean about deliberately manipulating the statistics isn't an in-universe affirmative action process though. It's rather that I think a diverse/population-reflecting sample will be the result if irrelevant characteristics are truly ignored. The "forcing" is only an effort to override the biases the statistics I calculated revealed in my own 21st thinking despite myself. It is an effort to be realistic to the world of the story as I want it to be and to avoid unconsciously deviating from my objective. Does that make sense?
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damn I didn't even think about making a homosexual character.
My RP crew is CO is white male, XO is Korean Female, Chief Engineer is a black male cyborg, Senior Medical Officer is white female, Helm is a black female, Nav is a white male, Tac and security is a white male, science officer is white male and comms is an Andorian female
I have too many whites...and I am a black male?????
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.
Technically neither did I, but only because I didn't give romance of any sort any real thought. Right now none of my boffs or doffs have a defined orientation one way or another, though personally my approach to Star Trek is to deal with it the way I deal with it over in MLP-land: preferred choice in partners is approached like a discussion over favorite food. It's perfectly okay for a character to find being TRIBBLE "gross" but they find it "gross" the same way one might find avocados to be "gross." It's not a moral issue and hasn't been since before Archer's time.
Well I was thinking about it because my Captain and XO dated and broke up before this assignment. It was not a good break up. They have a lot of animosity. The XO intends to transfer after their first mission and it's the mission the takes them from the JJ-verse to the STO-verse.
My science officer is crushing on the Comms officer but she doesn't like him...sort of like early Bashir/Dax but not so pushy
I do think I will make my Nav homosexual or tactical badass character
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.
This is interesting right here. Kind of like Warhammer 40,000 meets the Star Trek Universe. Just without the extra heapings of grimdark.
The Grimdark is what makes Warhammer 40K fun. That and hats. And METAL BAWKSES.
Although actually I was more channeling a combination of Andromeda and a similar-idea sci-fi setting I had called Phoenix Rising. Never went anywhere with that, though.
Anyway. So, in my last post, I defined Andorians, Ferengi, Humans, Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, and Tellarites, and in a subsequent post I suggested a use for the Tholians as the series' ultimate villains. So what are some other major possibilities?
The Alliance
The Alliance consists of Bajor, Cardassia, Trill Prime, and a few other minor states nearby. They recovered from the Omega disaster fairly quickly and banded together primarily out of concern about the Dominion and the Gorn. Initially the goal of the Alliance was to create a Federation-like nation, however over time this ideal has fallen by the wayside as a mixture of militarism and paranoia has overtaken the region that is surrounded by so many powerful enemies (notably the Dominion on the other side of the Bajoran wormhole). The Alliance is a sort of counter-Federation that the Dominion was supposed to be but never really was - a conglomeration of multiple races working together towards a common goal, but without the bright and sunny disposition of the Federation. Basically within the Alliance you can find the grimdark Federation that you'd want but which doesn't really belong across the whole series - conscription, rationing, setting aside what is right in order to do what is necessary, etc. Despite this, they're not evil, just paranoid. And also the Bajorans and Cardassians do genuinely get along with each other.
The Dominion
Entirely untouched by the Omega disaster, the Dominion was nevertheless cut off from the Alpha and Beta quadrants by that disaster as the Prophets sort of "cocooned" the wormhole for century or two. With the wormhole open again, and the Federtion, Klingons, and Romulans sundered, the Dominion is gearing up for Dominion War II: Electric Boogaloo. Of course, everyone knows that they're gearing up for it, and their only point of entry is through the wormhole, so...
The Gorn
The Gorn knew that the Omega disaster would subside, and as a result spent the intervening years preparing for an invasion to retake all their lost worlds. The principal foes of the Alliance have been the Gorn.
The Borg
Leave them out of this, they're overused. 8472, as well.
I accept this and other similar critiques in the thread, and submit that I might have done a poor job of explaining my intentions. I can't say I won't make a further hash of it, but I shall try to clarify. My goal was not to say "dash all hope" but to say "strain it to the edge of breaking" but it holds. A "candle against the darkness" so to speak. History is full of such examples, often in war, but there are other areas, sickness & medicine for example.
I suppose also at the back of my mind was a concept that applies universally, but was expressed economically in the Motley Fool book Rule Breakers, Rule Makers. Essentially it is a "king of the hill" concept: once you've been on top for a time, you don't coast endlessly on your laurels. Instead a challenger comes to shake things up. One either adapts or is toppled. In the discussed post-apocalyptic scenario, a challenger (the big disaster, whatever it is), occurs and the results are so severe, hope is stretched to the limit. The goal in the storytelling of this scenario is to show, not the rise to the philosphy, but how the philosophical concepts weather such disaster and become better for it. There WILL be a renewed Federation, it will reach forth into the galaxy again, despite possibly looking somewhat different in configuration. The same will be true for the Klingons. In short, there will be hope, and not just at the end of the tale. To draw the final curtain on either still in gloom and doom would most certainly not be Star Trek.
YES! Yes he would. But frankly, I'm still waiting on them to make the real Wild, Wild West movie and invite Warwick to play Miguelito Loveless. Well, him or Peter Dinklage. That is a really tough call for me.
It is non-canon, but the Earth ambassador to the Klingons in the book The Final Reflection is hinted to be Indian, and he comments at one point that his people were the second nation to launch nuclear weapons in war, but not the last people to do so. That could be seen as a factor in population changes in that part of the world.
Ah, yes, capnkirk, the bane of the time travel monitors everywhere. I believe they used the term "menace".
Contrast with the fan rewrite Reimagined Enterprise. The captain is Chinese, the chief engineer is a Latina, the communications officer is Indian, and the nurse is an Arab from Qatar. Now, which of these is more like what an actual United Earth would send into space?
That, plus as a franchise where the native market is Americans, they should be mindful of the fact that non-whites are on track to outnumber Caucasians in the US within only a few years (roughly the time a new show would actually launch if they were green-lit for preproduction now).
I personally like playing with diverse backgrounds. Takes more research to get right but it's worth it, IMHO. Eleya's crew:
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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How about an old ancient burned out pseudo galaxy that is nothing but black holes and Bosonic particles just WHIFFS right thru our galaxy. The black holes just Nom, nom the hell out of the galactic plane you end up with 20Ly wide "worm tunnels" thru the galactic disk, like the Enterprise lost that core of decks to the Borg Cube...... The Gravitic distortion and tugs on stars and systems would upset Millenia and Epochs old paths, wormholes and other mechanics. The Bosonic Distortion would cause massive "Subspace Storms" that could easily swallow whole fleets of ships using improperly protected warp drives......... Yet somehow pockets of civilization survive and in the face of a large natural threat and with intrepid and hopeful captains braving the techpirates, storms and general barbarized systems that have lost all but the barest minimum of warp capabilty and no sense of civilization......
Am I getting warm yet?
Oh and with CGI mapping done with actors, you wouldn't need to be so tediously "sensory/brain lump between 2 manipulative appendages with 2 locomotion appendages with bilateral symmetry with minimal hair" vapor locked either. As for the White Male North American stuff, I think a large variety of aliens would just make whatever "Human(s)" look like "just another species with some strange colors"......as it should be. I wonder if the Klingons had discrimination based on foreadridge patterns at one point? now in the face of other species not knowing the difference....... Heck you could drop in insectiods, Mr, Eriks types with 4 arms. How about a species that are "collective entities" that are so symbiotically interdependent that the collectives have to effectively "Orgy" to reproduce.......... Denobulan relationships are complex HA!
Even if you skewed the demographics at the very beginning of United Earth's space program towards nations that had space programs pre-WWIII, considering that India and China are in that number, this makes sense.
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It's worth noting that Year of Hell in Voyager was originally supposed to be an entire season of Voyager, which could have been very interesting if handled properly.
Maybe, but that depends on the economic and educational situation in many regions. Keep in mind that by the 2150s, even though the world is a much more equal place, I still believe there will be at least some disparity between groups. Plus, again, like I suggested and based on how pleasant California looks in 1996 in "Future's End," it could be that the Eugenics Wars of 1992-96 kind of really screwed over the Middle East and East Asia.
...on the other hand, when I play as the Terrans in Galactic Civilization II I tend to rename the leader Liu-Mei Banarjee.
Also, Reimagined Enterprise...is this the one from AlternateHistory.com? I have some...issues...with that one. Then again I also have some issues with the single most popular ASB thread on the site, Star Trek: A New Beginning. Some MAJOR issues.
Eh...whites still comprise (as of 2010) about 63% of Americans, with African-Americans at about 12% and Hispanics/Latinos (who are, by the US census, a sub-group: you are "Hispanic white" or "Hispanic African", not simply "Hispanic") about 16%. I don't think white Americans will be losing our hegemony "within only a few years," unless blacks and Hispanics are breeding at levels that would make a rabbit blush.
Again, not saying this is a good thing, just stating the numbers.
I totally agree with this.
Contrast Stargate Atlantis, too. Because Stargate Command is a US agency based out of NORAD all the actual military guys are American, but the actual Atlantis expedition is international and the civilian characters reflect this (there's Canadian and Czech characters in the main cast off the top of my head).
— Sabaton, "Great War"
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I know not everyone would be thrilled with me using the JJverse as evidence, but I have to point again to Keenser, a Roylan. Per Memory Alpha, he is actually tall for his species. There had to be some form of the Starfleet physical standard that Keenser passed to receive his commission.
The question remaining in that case for a human who is a little person would be whether any complications existed from the condition that caused that individual's dwarfism, and whether or not 25th century medicine was able to accomplish 100% resolution of any such issues. (Similar principle to IRL requiring that all pilots' vision be correctable to 20/20...doesn't mean you have to have 20/20 sight without any aids like glasses or contacts that you may use, but you must be able to perform the job to the identical standard as someone who does.) So to my mind, in Starfleet, which does seem to have more than one admission standard as opposed to IRL, whether or not Mr. Davis would be admitted to Starfleet--assuming the role he is playing is human--would require medical information that some people find extremely private and do not like to share about themselves.
So my final answer for Starfleet would be, "It depends."
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I'm with Valoreah here. If a woman who literally can't stand up unassisted in standard Federation starship conditions can become an officer, there's nothing stopping a little person from becoming such.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
JJ Trek The Kelvin Timeline is just Trek and it's fully canon... get over it. But I still prefer TAR.
#TASforSTO
'...I can tell you that we're not in the military and that we intend no harm to the whales.' Kirk: The Voyage Home
'Starfleet is not a military organisation. Its purpose is exploration.' Picard: Peak Performance
'This is clearly a military operation. Is that what we are now? Because I thought we were explorers!' Scotty: Into Darkness
'...The Federation. Starfleet. We're not a military agency.' Scotty: Beyond
'I'm not a soldier anymore. I'm an engineer.' Miles O'Brien: Empok Nor
'...Starfleet could use you... It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada...' Admiral Pike: Star Trek
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Melora illustrates the idea that there is more than one admission standard in Starfleet versus the one that most military services use today.
But overall, I'm afraid you are completely misreading what I am saying. Please go back and look again; I did not say "no, never, smallness alone is a reason to exclude from Starfleet." I even said specifically that the fact that a Roylan is seen onscreen serving explicitly rules out any sort of blanket "no."
In a Starfleet context the single question I would be asking is whether or not any other condition accompanying a particular human's dwarfism could not be satisfactorily addressed by medical or technological means. Even IRL little people's conditions are very, very individual. One person may be a star athlete with no complications whatsoever, and another person may have extremely serious and life threatening symptoms. So in Starfleet the question would boil down to health. If we assume "fully capable," then I think the Roylan standard applies and admission of an other-species little person is as likely as any cadet originating from Royla.
If a medical exclusion happens, it is no different IMO from an average sized person receiving a medical exclusion if something is absolutely beyond 25th century technology to remedy.
Now, the great thing about Star Trek is that a lot of things CAN be remedied or accommodated that cannot IRL, so the conditions resulting in medical exclusion are a lot narrower than IRL. But I do still have to say, "pending results of the flight physical."
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MACO requirements, now--those are certainly a lot higher. But even I could probably be a Starfleet Captain, and my arms try to dislocate themselves on a daily basis (an incredibly nasty case of Tourette's Syndrome).
A Russian team also operated from the SGC as well
Humanity would survive, history has shown time and time again that humanity has survived through many disasters and conflicts and come out even more resilient. Best example was the Toba eruption which decimated the human race down to only 10,000 in their early history yet they recovered and are thriving to this day.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Into sciences, it's worth noting, not command. And Starfleet has allowed in others that no real-world military would - Barclay, for example, would never pass real-world mental health examinations to join the military (at least not going off of what he's like when we first met him), never mind reach the rank of lieutenant jr. grade. Palzar also, given her age, would have joined Starfleet Academy during a period of relative peace - i.e., during Season 2 or earlier of TNG, before the Borg showed up (or at least before they were widely known about) and started Borging things up.
(She's an ensign in 2370 and had previously been stationed on another ship. Assuming that she was on that ship for one year and assuming the Academy is a four-year course puts her joining Starfleet in 2365, only one year after the Farpoint mission in TNG)
Starfleet is not solely a military organization and, in fact by Picard's time is pretty obviously fairly demilitarized, given that they have ships flying around with notable civilian populations including children aboard. Lookin' at you, D.
Whatever physical examinations Melora somehow passed when joining Starfleet, I severely hope their standards had changed by the time the Borg started Borging things, the Dominion started Dominioning things, the Klingons got back to being Klingons, etc.
(But really, this is Starfleet's own fault for apparently being a relatively loose joint military-civilian organization)
The reason I assume "by species" is that that prevents a human from being judged by, say, Vulcan standards. Melora is likely judged by a specific Elaysian standard of health, and in my own stories, Teeglar, Thraz, and Alyosha each meet standards written for their species. (For Alyosha since his species was unknown at time of admission, this was accomplished by submitting documentation showing that no evidence could be found of anything compromising observed normal functioning of his body.) Because of the diversity of standards versus a single one, there are probably occasions when people of one species are admitted successfully under the standard precedent of another species, as their capabilities are regarded as equivalent. For all we know, LaForge came in under an Aenar standard, since technology gave him an equivalent ability to serve as someone like Thraz.
Neurological things appear to be the Federation's weakest area in terms of medical technology, but I'd say we can't count anything out until we get a qualified canon Starfleet medical opinion (if that makes any sense).
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This is true, after the destruction of Praxis, Starfleet began a "Demilitarization" effort of downsizing its warship compliment and troop recruitment numbers, which continued on until Picards "We have families aboard" era. Of course, in that same movie, Starfleet officers are working with Klingon officers for the sole purpose of preventing said Demilitarization (For some its fear of klingons, but for atleast one of the admirals he fears the effect of demilitarization making the Federation vulnerable to future enemies, and he was right).
Starfleet will never make that mistake again. Regardless, Starfleet is a Military organization and as such its primary duty is the safety of Federation territory and federation citizens, and as such all officers within Starfleet must meet the requirements necessary to accomplish those duties. Now, Requirements in the Navy are different from those for the Marines, but the navy still has requirements.
Also, there is the important question "Would dwarfs still exist"? Not likely, as we see in several episodes, the UFP utilizes a form of Genetic Screening to prevent any complications during pregnancy. This would prevent any of the abnormalities we see today. (I don't think they ever explain how Geordi was born blind, or why he's the only one in all of the Federation.)
It is funny however that people bring up "Promoting Equality", That's what the UFP does, not its military branch. Military's do not care about Political Correctness or equality, it's why the military gets pissed off every time politicians try to arbitrarily change the fitness requirements in order to please a voting base. They care about having a capable and effective fighting force capable of accomplishing all of its duties on a moments notice.
The best example is the United States Air Force. They spend a lot of their time doing Starfleet-like duties, monitoring satellites, assisting NASA in exploration, testing space-planes and drones, etc. etc. but their fitness standards several years ago had been *raised* higher than the Armies standards, because they knew at some point anyone in the AF may be called upon to serve in battle, because despite their day to day duties, they are still responsible for the Defense of the nation. It is no different with Starfleet, especially post Wolf-359 when 20 admirals sat around saying "So, demilitarization of the Military...bad idea? Bad idea."