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Filthy Hans
Jun 27, 2008

by Fluffdaddy

(and can't post for 11 years!)

Hodgepodge posted:

isnt it the "doctor turns to stims due to overworking himself" plotline? because they literally do that with the nice old white doctor in bsg

i don't remember though maybe he just smokes space crack and it's super rascist

I don't remember the details, other than he goes on walkabout for a few episodes and that cures him of his cravings

regardless, "[x character] turns to stims due to overworking themself" could apply to any character but they picked the one black guy to be that character

I'll give the writers the benefit of the doubt because I don't think they deliberately promoted a racist stereotype, it was just really insensitive, I think the correct term would be implicit racism

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Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
Eh, it's a bit of a weird thing in the context of US racial and drug politics. Though I dunno if drug user stereotypes were as developed then as they are now, where using stimulants to deal with overwork is usually a white person thing, even back to moms stealing their kids' Ritalin. (and I'm wondering how how much of the ritalin overprescription craze was due to abuse of it, similar to opiates now) And it's an especially common thing with doctors in particular, since they can prescribe themselves. (see House about a decade later... and, of all things, a Transformers Prime episode)

Of course, in the 80s and 90s most Very Special Episodes would treat all drugs interchangeably and usually laughably inaccurately, which tended to completely undermine the message. Funny thing is that episodes where a fictional drug or analogous addictive habit is used to tend to actually come off better, since they're internally consisent, and sometimes even actually go into the motivations as to why the character uses it, the positive and negative effects it has on them, and since it's often a main character using it they can be treated sympathetically rather than becoming an irredeemable monster or dying.

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
There are only like 4 human characters to choose from and I think they were just struggling to find something for Franklin to DO.

Pierre McGuire
Oct 30, 2010
its weird that the aliens that carry out the mind prison sentence against O'Brien don't face any repercussions, diplomatic or otherwise, for committing a war crime against a Federation citizen

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
IIRC weren't they in the Gamma Quadrant? Possibly a Dominion world?

The actual circumstances of the mind-sentence weren't the emphasis, mind, and the episode made that clear.

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

I mean it's like that Angel One planet where Wesley almost got put to death for stepping on the flowers-- the Federation probably warns tourists off and doesn't give them good trade deals.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
Given it's established earlier on with Worf's brother that they do have memory wipe technology... but expecting a deus ex machina to carry over between episodes in Star Trek is silly.

FunkyAl
Mar 28, 2010

Your vitals soar.
That episode really upsets me. Three years later Worf is on the goddamn council

spankmeister
Jun 15, 2008






the one where obrien brilliantly escapes jem hadar capture but bashir orders him to stay because he wants to play benevolent doctor for a group of people who will kill them anyway

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


spankmeister posted:

the one where obrien brilliantly escapes jem hadar capture but bashir orders him to stay because he wants to play benevolent doctor for a group of people who will kill them anyway

lol just saw that one, it was great

I'm probably gonna ask this in more than one thread but like, why is O'Brien an NCO? Not like, what chain of causal events led O'Brien to not obtain a commission, I mean like, why does Starfleet have an entire category of rankings that seems to apply to only one person? As far as I can tell it's a shame pig thing?

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

It was pretty pretentious to invent a blue collar title for O'Brien and to try to make him a working man in Starfleet in a universe that bent over backwards to posture about how it was somehow beyond class and the chain of command existed solely on merit/aptitude. Functionally it didn't even make a difference-- he was shown to be on a peerage/competence level of everyone else and the title didn't really mean dick.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
They really wanted to use the NCO/officer dynamic for jokes, that's about it.

Maigius
Jun 29, 2013


Even weirder O'Brien seems to be some form of a lieutenant in TNG.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Maigius posted:

Even weirder O'Brien seems to be some form of a lieutenant in TNG.

there's no "seems to be" about it, there's a production reference document somewhere on the internet from the TNG costuming department that shows what pips/ranks each of the characters are supposed to have and O'Brien is explicitly listed as a lieutenant. they just retconned it starting in season 4.

Verviticus
Mar 13, 2006

I'm just a total piece of shit and I'm not sure why I keep posting on this site. Christ, I have spent years with idiots giving me bad advice about online dating and haven't noticed that the thread I'm in selects for people that can't talk to people worth a damn.
they talk about how obrien is a combat superstar and probably insanely good at leading ppl into fights and then they give command of the defiant to literally anyone but him despite using his expert testimony as a theoretical defiant commander to make worf look bad (which is easy to do)

Peachfart
Jan 21, 2017

The joke where Nog points out he outranks O'Brian is worth it though.

Apoplexy
Mar 9, 2003

by Shine

Hodgepodge posted:

isnt it the "doctor turns to stims due to overworking himself" plotline? because they literally do that with the nice old white doctor in bsg

i don't remember though maybe he just smokes space crack and it's super rascist

Cottle on BSG is not on crack or any other drug in any episode that I can recall. He's just a smoker. Like, cigarettes. Baltar smokes, too. Outside of any comical instance of Cottle dealing with a cancer patient while smoking or delivering a great line while one hangs from his mouth, though, it's not really there for any reason other than texture to the universe.

Funny aside about Doc Franklin on B5, though, that I KNOW everyone already likely knows already, is that the actor who played him was nearly entirely deaf and memorized basically everything to try and compensate for it. And died at loving 44 years old. Jesus, Babylon 5 is cursed.

Apoplexy fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Jun 6, 2020

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.

Verviticus posted:

they talk about how obrien is a combat superstar and probably insanely good at leading ppl into fights and then they give command of the defiant to literally anyone but him despite using his expert testimony as a theoretical defiant commander to make worf look bad (which is easy to do)

Smiley actually had Sisko command the mirror Defiant mind.

Thing is O'Brien basically got the Defiant from a barely functional prototype to a sleek killing machine, I'd say his work is done

Sanguinia
Jan 1, 2012

~Everybody wants to be a cat~
~Because a cat's the only cat~
~Who knows where its at~

Tulip posted:

I'm probably gonna ask this in more than one thread but like, why is O'Brien an NCO? Not like, what chain of causal events led O'Brien to not obtain a commission, I mean like, why does Starfleet have an entire category of rankings that seems to apply to only one person? As far as I can tell it's a shame pig thing?

Actually I believe the first time Star Trek established non-commisioned crew was in TNG's The Drumhead. Simon Tarses is Starfleet but he's a lab technician with no pips, not an officer. Picard directly asks him if he "ever thought about attending the academy and going the whole route." Tarses explains that he enlisted in Starfleet as non-commisioned crew because as a teenager he wasn't willing to wait four years of school, he wanted to get into space ASAP and do exploring. O'brien is still wearing officer pips in The Wounded just a couple of episodes before that.

Tsaedje
May 11, 2007

BRAWNY BUTTONS 4 LYFE
'Crewmen' are all over TOS but the understanding of the difference between officers and enlisted crew got lost or deliberately thrown out when TNG started.

Sanguinia
Jan 1, 2012

~Everybody wants to be a cat~
~Because a cat's the only cat~
~Who knows where its at~

Tsaedje posted:

'Crewmen' are all over TOS but the understanding of the difference between officers and enlisted crew got lost or deliberately thrown out when TNG started.

Apparently not by season 4, as I just said. Picard makes Tarses not being an academy grad and an officer very explicit, and there is a stated rational behind the difference, ie Time To Get Your Rank.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
I think it kinda helps to draw a distinction given a Starfleet Officer is meant to have a massively rounded skillset of science, engineering, diplomacy, medicine, history, culture and combat, but you still need to fill the crew with people who can do stuff like botany, engineering and other specialties without having a full on academy course.

Nog had an accelerated course given it was wartime, but I like the idea that given he came back with a solid understanding of The Great Material Continuum while earlier he had to have Jake teach him about commodity trading, that his course included studying his own culture and gave him a new perspective on it. (especially since aside from briefly in Keiko's school he hadn't really had much formal education til then)

Hodgepodge
Jan 29, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 272 days!
I think at some point O'Brien being supercompetent became part of the joke alongside "O'Brien must suffer" episodes being an explicit part of his everyman persona.

It's very out of place in terms of what Starfleet nominally is, but DS9 in particular is very much about neoliberalism.

Tsaedje
May 11, 2007

BRAWNY BUTTONS 4 LYFE

Sanguinia posted:

Apparently not by season 4, as I just said. Picard makes Tarses not being an academy grad and an officer very explicit, and there is a stated rational behind the difference, ie Time To Get Your Rank.

Yes, I wasn't disagreeing with the drumhead reintroducing enlisted crew to TNG, but I don't know why the decision was made not to have crewmen before then.

mossyfisk
Nov 8, 2010

FF0000
Gene's Vision

Verviticus
Mar 13, 2006

I'm just a total piece of shit and I'm not sure why I keep posting on this site. Christ, I have spent years with idiots giving me bad advice about online dating and haven't noticed that the thread I'm in selects for people that can't talk to people worth a damn.

Hodgepodge posted:

I think at some point O'Brien being supercompetent became part of the joke alongside "O'Brien must suffer" episodes being an explicit part of his everyman persona.

It's very out of place in terms of what Starfleet nominally is, but DS9 in particular is very much about neoliberalism.

basically the entire cast of ds9 is supercompetent at their respective fields except worf and sisko which i guess is the opposite of tng where i feel like picard was the superhuman and everyone else was alright, except worf

sisko is my favourite captain but whatever his skills other than leadership are, they arent really used other than him cooking, beating poo poo up and occasionally talking about ship design

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.

Verviticus posted:

basically the entire cast of ds9 is supercompetent at their respective fields except worf and sisko which i guess is the opposite of tng where i feel like picard was the superhuman and everyone else was alright, except worf

sisko is my favourite captain but whatever his skills other than leadership are, they arent really used other than him cooking, beating poo poo up and occasionally talking about ship design

Sisko came up on the engineering track and worked on the Defiant before it was mothballed. Everyone forgets the episode where he does a Space Kon Tiki with the Bajoran solar sail ship he built himself. Also that Smiley tapped him to finish the ISS Defiant since they ran into the same problems the prototype had.

spankmeister
Jun 15, 2008






Verviticus posted:

basically the entire cast of ds9 is supercompetent at their respective fields except worf and sisko which i guess is the opposite of tng where i feel like picard was the superhuman and everyone else was alright, except worf

sisko is my favourite captain but whatever his skills other than leadership are, they arent really used other than him cooking, beating poo poo up and occasionally talking about ship design

Worf just wants to shoot everything all the drat time.

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Sanguinia posted:

Actually I believe the first time Star Trek established non-commisioned crew was in TNG's The Drumhead. Simon Tarses is Starfleet but he's a lab technician with no pips, not an officer. Picard directly asks him if he "ever thought about attending the academy and going the whole route." Tarses explains that he enlisted in Starfleet as non-commisioned crew because as a teenager he wasn't willing to wait four years of school, he wanted to get into space ASAP and do exploring. O'brien is still wearing officer pips in The Wounded just a couple of episodes before that.

First mention was TNG Family when Worf's dad comes on board and recognizes O'Brien as a fellow enlisted person.

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

It's especially funny that like Dax and Bashir and Kira are all these hot shots in their fields and Worf, Garak, and Odo are these unicorns... and Sisko is literally designated "The Special," but all the marketing likes to make it seem like DS9 is this place for cast-offs.

I mean that's true if you focus solely on Garak, Odo, and Kira... and arguably Worf, but even when DS9 wasn't going to be anything but a Federation nannycam for the Bajor/Cardassian border, it wasn't like Starfleet was sending in the D-List.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
On paper, Jadzia and Bashir are fresh out of the academy, and Jadzia is literally just Joined. Kira was basically middle management as resistance fighters go, which albeit still makes her a badass, and given the job because the Provisional Government wanted her to stop yelling at them all the time. (Joke's on them, she has a phone) Sisko is a decorated officer on paper but he's also a burnout struggling with the trauma of losing his wife and wanting a quiet post to raise his son on. O'Brien is the experienced one, and he specifically says he transferred because he was bored on the Enterprise because everything worked too well. Worf shows up later when the importance of DS9 is well established, and his skillset is required.

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

You're not wrong, it's just that most of those things are done away with by the end of the first episode of DS9. Sisko's burnout is functionally gone. Jadzia and Bashir never really get to spend any time being too good/green for their surroundings. Kira never gets to voice her frustration at being punted into the corner by her bosses. It's just funny. I think that's a small part of why Garak and Quark work-- they're both actual cast offs who hosed up at their jobs elsewhere and truly have nowhere else to go.

GokuGoesSSj69
Apr 15, 2017
Weak people spend 10 dollars to gift titles about world leaders they dislike. The strong spend 10 dollars to gift titles telling everyone to play Deus Ex again
I got the impression Sisko's strongest skill was being really good at war strategy. He was one of the people in charge of strategy for the whole federation during the dominion war despite just being a captain wasn't he?

Sanguinia
Jan 1, 2012

~Everybody wants to be a cat~
~Because a cat's the only cat~
~Who knows where its at~

GokuGoesSSJ3 posted:

I got the impression Sisko's strongest skill was being really good at war strategy. He was one of the people in charge of strategy for the whole federation during the dominion war despite just being a captain wasn't he?

Sisko was promoted to a strategic command position after DS9 fell yeah. He was second to Admiral Ross, who was portrayed as one of the top command guys for Starfleet during the war.

That said, I always thought Sisko's strongest skill was his political acumen. The way he handles the constant schemes and crises that plague Bajoran and Cardassian space, how he navigates the 'cold war,' with the Dominion, how he handles the tightrope of his role as Emissary, it all takes a political mind that I would argue even outstrips Picard's.

Horizon Burning
Oct 23, 2019
:discourse:

Filthy Hans posted:

I don't remember the details, other than he goes on walkabout for a few episodes and that cures him of his cravings

regardless, "[x character] turns to stims due to overworking themself" could apply to any character but they picked the one black guy to be that character

I'll give the writers the benefit of the doubt because I don't think they deliberately promoted a racist stereotype, it was just really insensitive, I think the correct term would be implicit racism

i'm pretty sure that richard biggs (who played stephen franklin) was the one who wanted that plotline to happen much like how jerry doyle pushed for garibaldi's alcoholism to be a persistent, multi-season issue

Taintrunner
Apr 10, 2017

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

how the gently caress did barclay not get shitcanned for being a fuckin' creep who abused the holodeck to live out his pervert man fantasies

Tsaedje
May 11, 2007

BRAWNY BUTTONS 4 LYFE
'cause then they'd have to shitcan Geordi for doing the same

Reg at least kept it private

spankmeister
Jun 15, 2008






Taintrunner posted:

how the gently caress did barclay not get shitcanned for being a fuckin' creep who abused the holodeck to live out his pervert man fantasies

Tsaedje posted:

'cause then they'd have to shitcan Geordi for doing the same

Reg at least kept it private

Barclay and Geordie have access to Riker's holodeck logs...

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
Obligatory:

https://www.somethingawful.com/news/blue-stripe-life-4/

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mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

Sanguinia posted:

Sisko was promoted to a strategic command position after DS9 fell yeah. He was second to Admiral Ross, who was portrayed as one of the top command guys for Starfleet during the war.

That said, I always thought Sisko's strongest skill was his political acumen. The way he handles the constant schemes and crises that plague Bajoran and Cardassian space, how he navigates the 'cold war,' with the Dominion, how he handles the tightrope of his role as Emissary, it all takes a political mind that I would argue even outstrips Picard's.
Definitely. SFDebris described Picard as a 19th Century Model of a Modern Major General, riding in on a horse and riding out just as soon, fixing crisis points. Sisko is a trench worker who sleeps beside his men and insists on being the first over each hill. Both are good and necessary, but different.

If Picard had to deal with Sisko's docket, he'd burn out and corrupt in some really awful way under the pressure that would end-- at best-- with a hasty resignation. Meanwhile Sisko couldn't handle mobile missions, he'd get caught in some conflict bad enough that he wouldn't want to pull out even when all the smart money says that's the better long play. Before you say "he did that all the time with Gamma Quadrant stuff" bear in mind he had DS9 to anchor him. He always had some rats nest to navigate. A flagship like Enterprise is always on the move.

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