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I think the moral dilemma was played well, it's clearly an emotional decision on Mercer's part and arguably the wrong one. Like, all Krill are evil in this universe, so those kids are just going to grow up to be evil Krill, the "pragmatic" move would be to wipe out as many as possible. But of course, the whole point of stealing their bible is to try to find a way to achieve peace, so we should have faith that these kids might end up being part of a more peaceful Krill in the future. And of course, due to Mercer's actions, all he's done is ensure that these kids will end up being the Krill equivalent of Red Squad.
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Oct 17, 2017 09:44
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I'd have to seriously challenge anyone who'd argue that Ed should have let those die. Intentionally killing the enemy's children sends a message that you are not even open to the possibility of a future peace with them. It's a great way to get more of your own children killed. The second Ed saw that the children were essentially the same as human children, innocent and curious. That instant proves the krill are taught to hate, not born to hate. The pragmatic option is still to leave as many diplomatic options available, because committing to a genocidal total war is incredibly costly and risky.
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Oct 17, 2017 10:30
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Fasdar posted:And yet, it is still the dumbest religion ever depicted in Trek. Yeah, their gods might have been real, but that's not the same thing as religion. They were basically a theocracy run by corrupt priests IRC. Similarly, there probably really was some pacifistic cult leader two thousand years ago wandering around Israel and preaching some decent Buddhism-lite philosophy. Despite this, so much of modern evangelical Christianity is complete and utter garbage and should be shot into the sun 
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Oct 17, 2017 11:18
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Raspberry Jam It In Me posted:Yeah, their gods might have been real, but that's not the same thing as religion. They were basically a theocracy run by corrupt priests IRC. Errrr......
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Oct 17, 2017 11:46
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WampaLord posted:Ironically, TNG's Enterprise does the exact same thing. Enterprise wasn't a full time warship, also even though they kinda stopped doing it the saucer separation made sense for them to send the families away when battle was coming.
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Oct 17, 2017 13:12
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Zoro posted:TV Guide from 1963: So... the pilot of TNG? Zebulon posted:Doesn't help that Bajorans are insufferable and probably the worst species/culture Star Trek introduced. Not while the Kazon exist.
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Oct 17, 2017 14:50
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No culture with Kira Nerys can be all that bad.
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Oct 17, 2017 14:52
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WampaLord posted:Ironically, TNG's Enterprise does the exact same thing. Warning: Extreme Nerd Post Ahead The whole thing behind that was less than a decade before the start of TNG in-universe, the Federation had just wrapped up a major war with the Cardassians (well, it was a World War II-esque total war for them, but more of a regional Vietnam war for the Federation) that was brutal enough that it basically gave the Federation a kind of cultural PTSD. They overcompensated in the extreme with all the new ships being basically luxury liners, with families on board, and a focus on science at the exclusion of all else to such a degree that some Starfleet officers were openly disdainful of practicing their military skills. And why not? The Cardassians were appeased, the Klingons were allies, and the Romulans had been in extreme isolation for 60-70ish years. The point of all that was to say that there was another Galaxy-class ship, the Yamato, that was shown in early TNG that would have been identically crewed when it exploded on screen. So Star Trek totally showed you kids dying by implication.
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Oct 17, 2017 14:55
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The borg have the best morality because their technological adaptiveness and drive to unify the Milky Way may create the most resilient polity that can deal with galaxy-wide or even intergalactic problems.
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Oct 17, 2017 14:56
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Caufman posted:The borg have the best morality because their technological adaptiveness and drive to unify the Milky Way may create the most resilient polity that can deal with galaxy-wide or even intergalactic problems. Morality necessarily involves consideration of individuals. The borg are purely amoral and are essentially a programming/memetic feedback loop that created a force of nature. The borg are a space wildfire that needs to be contained, redirected, or eradicated. That was actually what made them cool and terrifying. I have mixed opinions about their treatment in and after First Contact in relation to this.
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Oct 17, 2017 15:04
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OB_Juan posted:Not while the Kazon exist. I love that the Borg will assimilate Pakleds, but refuse to assimilate Kazon due to just how god drat useless they are. While the Kazon are just second-rate Klingons that are too stupid to live, the Bajorans are actively obnoxious and antagonistic to the very people that saved them from extermination, while also pushing away other species in need in circumstances just like their own and trying to restart a religious caste system all of a few years tops after their literal holocaust.
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Oct 17, 2017 15:09
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The Bloop posted:Morality necessarily involves consideration of individuals. The borg are purely amoral and are essentially a programming/memetic feedback loop that created a force of nature. The borg are a space wildfire that needs to be contained, redirected, or eradicated. It has the ability to form a recognizable, executive function: namely the Queen. She directs the operations of the collective. Timetables are moral documents. Sometimes I felt like the Federation was fearfully holding onto their individuality like a baby boomer. The Borg Queen is cold and calculating, but she does nothing deliberately cruel or without purpose. I give consideration to voluntarily joining the collective.
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Oct 17, 2017 15:16
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IMHO, it's important to look at any group enemy in media with a critical eye since so much of it has been purposefully or unconsciously geared towards helping people create the narrative of the other that drives modern American empire. I'm less critical of Orville's Krill than STD's Klingons because Orville aims for schlock and seems to embody less anxiety about the physical bodies of the evil Oriental, but it's still worth criticism.
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Oct 17, 2017 15:26
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Caufman posted:I give consideration to voluntarily joining the collective. A pro-Borg Federation subculture would be worth an episode, maybe an arc if it really caught the writers' imagination.
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Oct 17, 2017 15:27
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Caufman posted:It has the ability to form a recognizable, executive function: namely the Queen. She directs the operations of the collective. Timetables are moral documents. Voyager's take on the Borg and Borg Queen was completely inconsistent and so no argument for either side can really utilize it, so I'll try to avoid it if possible. From the perspective of First Contact, "She directs the operations of the collective" is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Borg and she herself makes that point. She doesn't direct the collective, she IS the collective. She is an embodiment, an avatar, of the collective consciousness. Timetables are only moral documents as they relate to moral beings. Although not literal spreadsheets, many animals operate on predictable and complex timetables. That doesn't make them moral agents. See also: chemical reactions, software.
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Oct 17, 2017 15:28
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I would like to see some demographic correlates of who posts in this thread vs the other two or three official trek threads. What kind of trek fan prefers talking about their fav Klingon drinking games here vs in the discovery thread?
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Oct 17, 2017 15:31
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If the borg took over the galaxy, you'd have the exact same type of peace as you'd have if every intelligent life in the galaxy died. Mere continued existence is not the human condition, it is the bacterial condition.
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Oct 17, 2017 15:38
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I post in all three threads. I want to like discovery and I watch TV to enjoy it (I don't hatewatch) and so I don't hate discovery but I am going to be a very critical viewer of the newest installment in a franchise rooted in values I don't think Discovery lives up to (yet) The Orville is fun, positive, and bright. It is a good Trek show. Sort of an alternate universe Trek. It could be another layer of the mirror universes in Trek and be just fine. I also like discussing the minutiae of OG treks and have fun reliving through other goons first watchings and trip reports in the main Trek thread. GBS is a flaming radioactive tumor and the Trek thread(s) there are mostly "ironic" shitposting and fan-mockery so I try to avoid it.
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Oct 17, 2017 15:39
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Zebulon posted:I love that the Borg will assimilate Pakleds, but refuse to assimilate Kazon due to just how god drat useless they are. While the Kazon are just second-rate Klingons that are too stupid to live, the Bajorans are actively obnoxious and antagonistic to the very people that saved them from extermination, while also pushing away other species in need in circumstances just like their own and trying to restart a religious caste system all of a few years tops after their literal holocaust. The Bajorans were never at risk of extermination. They were enslaved and their civilization was broken, but remarkably the Cardassians only killed 15 million Bajorans throughout the entire 50 year occupation.
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Oct 17, 2017 15:44
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OB_Juan posted:A pro-Borg Federation subculture would be worth an episode, maybe an arc if it really caught the writers' imagination. I would be not surprised if that's already in a book somewhere. Seemed reasonable to me when I was a kid, but then again we were all being raised to become drones for a greater good* *the good is debatable The Bloop posted:Voyager's take on the Borg and Borg Queen was completely inconsistent and so no argument for either side can really utilize it, so I'll try to avoid it if possible. Understood. Though I still characterize the collective or the queen as its embodiment as a decision-making entity (and fwiw the Star Trek wiki uses that term). As such it decides what to focus on. Conquest is a given. But survival matters to them, and they can put aside conquest to form temporary alliances. The ethics question I have for an uncollective individual is whether they believe a fractured Milky Way is better prepared to deal with intergalactic threats to life we can see coming, like heat death, or if the collective's better cohesion and technological adaptability will be a better guardian of life, even if that life is no longer completely biological or individualized. The argument I can see made is that the uniqueness of many individual minds freely working towards problems will generate better ideas than one massive ultracomputer crunching through all their predictive models. Dietrich posted:If the borg took over the galaxy, you'd have the exact same type of peace as you'd have if every intelligent life in the galaxy died. Mere continued existence is not the human condition, it is the bacterial condition. I'd have to see it for myself if such a galaxy is so different from nirvana and the eternal existence of no attachments.
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Oct 17, 2017 15:45
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Grand Fromage posted:Tardigrades just have all kinds of weirdass adaptations, and they're interesting because some of their survival adaptations don't make any sense. Why are they so hardened to radiation? There's no environment on Earth where that matters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor 
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Oct 17, 2017 15:47
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Grand Fromage posted:Tardigrades just have all kinds of weirdass adaptations, and they're interesting because some of their survival adaptations don't make any sense. Why are they so hardened to radiation? There's no environment on Earth where that matters. That's not the attitude of someone who wants their species to be around for a million years.
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Oct 17, 2017 15:59
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Zebulon posted:I love that the Borg will assimilate Pakleds, but refuse to assimilate Kazon due to just how god drat useless they are. While the Kazon are just second-rate Klingons that are too stupid to live, the Bajorans are actively obnoxious and antagonistic to the very people that saved them from extermination, while also pushing away other species in need in circumstances just like their own and trying to restart a religious caste system all of a few years tops after their literal holocaust. You'd push those people away too. Their only characteristic was "smells bad, skin flakes off, close talkers, entitled whiners". Really the while gamma quadrant is garbage, the Dominion made any decent alien species servant states and the rest suck. The only cool guy to come from the gamma quadrant is that merchant Quark deals with and the hunted dude O'Brien helps. Everyone else is total assholes with nothing of value to contribute to the Alpha Quadrant.
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Oct 17, 2017 16:00
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Caufman posted:
This is an interesting question although in Trek I don't think worrying about anything more dangerous than the various Qs and Kevin Uxbridges around is probably worthwhile. The borg, according to everything we've seen, would just arrogantly state that they are superior to any threat. I don't think they "prepare" for anything per se
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Oct 17, 2017 16:20
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Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I'd really prefer Trek chat be limited to only subjects that relate directly to episodes of Orville. This page is just 90% Trek talk, and is a few too many steps away from the subject of the thread. Aren't there other places you could talk about this stuff?
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Oct 17, 2017 17:30
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No. If you have something orville related to talk about, then talk about it. But it seems like last week's episode has been thoroughly discussed so now we are talking about other things related to something in The Orville.
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Oct 17, 2017 17:33
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Al Borland Corp. posted:You'd push those people away too. Their only characteristic was "smells bad, skin flakes off, close talkers, entitled whiners". Really the while gamma quadrant is garbage, the Dominion made any decent alien species servant states and the rest suck. The only cool guy to come from the gamma quadrant is that merchant Quark deals with and the hunted dude O'Brien helps. Everyone else is total assholes with nothing of value to contribute to the Alpha Quadrant. The characteristic you missed was that they were apparently amazingly good farmers, and offering to use an entire continent the Bajorans had written off as unusable, make it farmable, and share the results with the Bajorans while asking for no assistance outside the use of that land.
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Oct 17, 2017 17:36
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FELD1 posted:Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I'd really prefer Trek chat be limited to only subjects that relate directly to episodes of Orville. This page is just 90% Trek talk, and is a few too many steps away from the subject of the thread. Aren't there other places you could talk about this stuff? I mean, it's going to come up constantly, if it really bothers you, just skip those posts or wait until a new episode airs, when the bulk of the discussion will be primarily about The Orville.
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Oct 17, 2017 17:37
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WampaLord posted:I think the moral dilemma was played well, it's clearly an emotional decision on Mercer's part and arguably the wrong one. That's pretty deterministic and one-sided. You're taking the Krill teacher's word for it, but at least the one kid was really curious and seemed reachable. I could easily see him being devastated but also confused about why this (so he's been told) evil alien spared him and the other kids. He seemed what, maybe equivalent of about 10 years old for a human, certainly old enough to be able to reflect and ponder these things. It's not at all a given.
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Oct 17, 2017 17:57
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Yeah but, I mean, they killed his parents...
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Oct 17, 2017 18:01
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turn left hillary!! noo posted:That's pretty deterministic and one-sided. You're taking the Krill teacher's word for it, but at least the one kid was really curious and seemed reachable. I could easily see him being devastated but also confused about why this (so he's been told) evil alien spared him and the other kids. He seemed what, maybe equivalent of about 10 years old for a human, certainly old enough to be able to reflect and ponder these things. It's not at all a given. The kids would have grown up to be indoctrinated racists anyway, with or without saving 100,000 people on the colony.
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Oct 17, 2017 18:03
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Snak posted:Yeah but, I mean, they killed his parents... His parents weren't on the ship possibly. At the end Mercer said they'd made arrangements for the children to be returned to their Krill parents in Krill space. They may have been at the equivalent of academy or camp.
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Oct 17, 2017 18:05
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Caufman posted:I'd have to seriously challenge anyone who'd argue that Ed should have let those die. Intentionally killing the enemy's children sends a message that you are not even open to the possibility of a future peace with them. It's a great way to get more of your own children killed. The second Ed saw that the children were essentially the same as human children, innocent and curious. That instant proves the krill are taught to hate, not born to hate. The pragmatic option is still to leave as many diplomatic options available, because committing to a genocidal total war is incredibly costly and risky. Would the Krill even know that it was an intentional attempt to kill them, and not a tragic misfire of their experimental superweapon?
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Oct 17, 2017 18:06
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I'll be honest, lots of times I don't even notice which thread I'm in anymore. That goes for more than just trek/Orville threads... It's all metadiscussion with repeat patterns now.
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Oct 17, 2017 18:07
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Al Borland Corp. posted:His parents weren't on the ship possibly. At the end Mercer said they'd made arrangements for the children to be returned to their Krill parents in Krill space. They may have been at the equivalent of academy or camp. Did he say parents or families? It would be extra weird if kids were arbitrarily taken on military ships for education, rather than being there because one or more parent was serving on board.
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Oct 17, 2017 18:08
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Al Borland Corp. posted:His parents weren't on the ship possibly. At the end Mercer said they'd made arrangements for the children to be returned to their Krill parents in Krill space. They may have been at the equivalent of academy or camp. He didn't say parents, he said families. As in, probably aunts/uncles/grandparents/cousins.
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Oct 17, 2017 18:15
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FELD1 posted:Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I'd really prefer Trek chat be limited to only subjects that relate directly to episodes of Orville. This page is just 90% Trek talk, and is a few too many steps away from the subject of the thread. Aren't there other places you could talk about this stuff? This is the Good Trek thread, all good Trekkie things are related and welcome. Rename this to : Good Trek: [The Orville] Generation
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Oct 17, 2017 18:28
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turn left hillary!! noo posted:That's pretty deterministic and one-sided. You're taking the Krill teacher's word for it, but at least the one kid was really curious and seemed reachable. I could easily see him being devastated but also confused about why this (so he's been told) evil alien spared him and the other kids. He seemed what, maybe equivalent of about 10 years old for a human, certainly old enough to be able to reflect and ponder these things. It's not at all a given. I'm kinda playing Devil's Advocate a bit, obviously I'm not condoning child murder, but it's a pretty interesting ethical question. If you can be effectively 100% sure that they're going to become your enemy, why not just deal with it now? Obviously, Mercer made the right call because no one can ever be 100% sure of something like that, but also he had an emotional attachment to the concept of "but they're kids!" Interesting how that didn't stop him from killing the entire rest of the crew, even knowing that many of them were mothers and fathers and had children of their own. It'll be cool to see how the Krill arc plays out, I assume it's going to be revisited in the future.
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Oct 17, 2017 18:32
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WampaLord posted:I'm kinda playing Devil's Advocate a bit, obviously I'm not condoning child murder, but it's a pretty interesting ethical question. If you can be effectively 100% sure that they're going to become your enemy, why not just deal with it now? Because even if they grow up to hate humans, they aren't guaranteed to go to war with you. If your plan is to develop relations with the krill, then the was will be over before they are old enough to fight. Even if it isn't they might go on to undertake all manner of non-war related activities.
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Oct 17, 2017 18:43
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I kept flashing back during that episode to the scene in the pilot where the Krill guy onscreen seemed to have a pretty healthy view of the dynamics of marriage.
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