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Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost

Anonymous Zebra posted:

The Federation, Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians combined were no match for The Dominion. The combined powers didn't beat The Dominion, they beat a tiny fragment that was cut off from the rest by space gods living in a wormhole, and only at a huge cost. Remember, there was always an existential threat that MORE ships were just sitting on the other side of the wormhole, and the only thing stopping that was a minefield and later The Prophets.

There was no calculus The Founders needed to make. They were more technically advanced, had greater numbers, and their enemies were fragmented and easily swayed by Intel attacks. The only reason they lost (the tiny fragment of ships in the alpha, and 1 founder) was because of space gods that they couldn't have predicted would suddenly become active.

That's actually one of the biggest problems I have with the series. I mean imagine that the next generation had ended in an all out existential war with the borg, and when all seems lost, Q showed up and snapped his fingers and made all the borg go away

Except I would actually sort of makes sense and be thematic with the opening two partner, particularly because Picard had saved Q in the past and Q had learned quite a bit about compassion and also is the one who introduced the borg...

To me the prophets are even worse because we don't actually get a sense of what their personality is or anything about them or even why we should care about them beside the fact that they are powerful and useful

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Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
I don't know, to me the Dominion war is a mess.

It is also a mess because you have multiple episodes about how the Federation has to "make tough choices", and they are justified because tough choices had to be made, but other cultures get punished for essentially using the same rationale under similar circumstances

And don't get me started on the fact that Cardassia suffers unbelievable civilian casualties, because at the last minute they decided to "do the right thing" and switch sides. But if they had kept firing on the Federation, would the Federation have ever killed that many civilians? No way.

So did Damar's rebellion just result in massive civilian casualties for basically no reason? I mean you can do that as a writer but it's a weird thing to do without appearing to realize that you did it. And it's not because you would set so much in stone ahead of time, it's a decision that basically came through in the same loving episode

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
Bajoran culture gets riffed on a lot but the episode where it turns out they have a specific ceremony for a breakup seems surprisingly practical. I mean, compared to human culture which basically treats such a thing as not supposed to happen.

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
Yeah that parts pretty clever

Lead out in cuffs
Sep 18, 2012

"That's right. We've evolved."

"I can see that. Cool mutations."




Pick posted:

I don't know, to me the Dominion war is a mess.

It is also a mess because you have multiple episodes about how the Federation has to "make tough choices", and they are justified because tough choices had to be made, but other cultures get punished for essentially using the same rationale under similar circumstances

And don't get me started on the fact that Cardassia suffers unbelievable civilian casualties, because at the last minute they decided to "do the right thing" and switch sides. But if they had kept firing on the Federation, would the Federation have ever killed that many civilians? No way.

So did Damar's rebellion just result in massive civilian casualties for basically no reason? I mean you can do that as a writer but it's a weird thing to do without appearing to realize that you did it. And it's not because you would set so much in stone ahead of time, it's a decision that basically came through in the same loving episode

Eh, the whole push to include war in DS9 felt like a mess, especially re-watching now. I would've been quite happy if the later seasons could've been like the first few, with continuous character building that didn't need existential conflict to drive it.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
Since this is more or less the Star Trek thread, I'm reminded of this article:

http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2020/06/amish-in-space.html

tl;dr: the Federation, and most of its neighbours, are basically Space Amish, or at least have similar principles in service to what amounts to an extreme humanist philosophy. And quite possibly for understandable reasons. It also explains why they're so freaked out by genetic augmentation- basically the science of human inequality. And even then, it might not even be just because of humanity, but something developed between the Federation's founding cultures.

The way Star Trek treats Vulcans is also interesting; kinda gives the impression that despite what seems like a relatively small population, the Vulcans have a strong cultural impact on the Federation and surrounds, and many species including the Ferengi are fascinated by them. Reminded of when i played Star Trek Online, and Klingon captains can get card based crew members who are Klingons with the Logical trait- implicitly, Klingons who have embraced Vulcan philosophy or something similar to it.

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.

Anonymous Zebra posted:

The Federation, Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians combined were no match for The Dominion. The combined powers didn't beat The Dominion, they beat a tiny fragment that was cut off from the rest by space gods living in a wormhole, and only at a huge cost. Remember, there was always an existential threat that MORE ships were just sitting on the other side of the wormhole, and the only thing stopping that was a minefield and later The Prophets.

There was no calculus The Founders needed to make. They were more technically advanced, had greater numbers, and their enemies were fragmented and easily swayed by Intel attacks. The only reason they lost (the tiny fragment of ships in the alpha, and 1 founder) was because of space gods that they couldn't have predicted would suddenly become active.

sorta? how were they going to get those ships through to fight the war? the series kinda just forgets about the minefield and the other side of the wormhole, but as the events progressed, the dominion was never actually able to project enough force to take and hold ds9 which was fundamentally important to using the rest of their ships. the war started because the dominion actively started pushing ships through.

like if the prophets just gave up im sure they could have made a second minefield

Pick posted:

That's actually one of the biggest problems I have with the series. I mean imagine that the next generation had ended in an all out existential war with the borg, and when all seems lost, Q showed up and snapped his fingers and made all the borg go away

Except I would actually sort of makes sense and be thematic with the opening two partner, particularly because Picard had saved Q in the past and Q had learned quite a bit about compassion and also is the one who introduced the borg...

To me the prophets are even worse because we don't actually get a sense of what their personality is or anything about them or even why we should care about them beside the fact that they are powerful and useful

there was a really good post a number of pages back about how the prophets saving ds9 and the alpha quadrant was a pretty good/thematically consistent use of godly power rather than Q just snapping his fingers and saving the universe

Verviticus fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Aug 18, 2020

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost

Verviticus posted:

there was a really good post a number of pages back about how the prophets saving ds9 and the alpha quadrant was a pretty good/thematically consistent use of godly power rather than Q just snapping his fingers and saving the universe

I saw that and I vehemently disagreed, but I was on probation at the time. It's an ad-hoc justification, and as one of the relatively few openly religious people on this website I didn't feel it was in any way a meaningful exploration of faith

Impossibly Perfect Sphere
Nov 6, 2002

Dead? That's what they want you to think.
Having a deus ex machina of benevolent space gods is completely antithetical to Star Treks.

Barudak
May 7, 2007

I have always assumed the Vulcans saw their weak galactic position and made the only logical move; uplift a species of amenable, if violent and short sited shorter lived people and mold them into being basically their dogs.

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost

Barudak posted:

I have always assumed the Vulcans saw their weak galactic position and made the only logical move; uplift a species of amenable, if violent and short sited shorter lived people and mold them into being basically their dogs.

omg we're the krogan lol

Barudak
May 7, 2007

Pick posted:

omg we're the krogan lol

I thought you read my episode pitch exploring this very idea!!!

By creating a "federation" but built on Vulcan ideals, the Vulcan get tons of inbuilt legal and cultural advantages while offsetting other species ire on the humans, who conveniently, don't mind dying en masse to control space rocks and don't live long enough naturally to out maneuver Vulcan institutions. Vulcan in the show is treated a lot like monarch of a constitutional monarchy, they don't do much, get tons of tourism and respect, special treatment for even their failure children, and nobody blames them for what admirals and politicians get up to.

The important thing to this whole scenario is that humans are the only main space faring civ we've seen who would be ok with this, thats why they were chosen. Its all so, logical.

McSpanky
Jan 16, 2005






Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

that said, don't get me wrong, I broadly agree that the feds were brazen as gently caress

The Dominion: hi, we haven't marked any claimed territory or even made you aware of our existence until now but uh, this is all our stuff and also we just murdered a bunch of unarmed civilians, go away now kthxbye

Anonymous Zebra posted:

The Federation, Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians combined were no match for The Dominion. The combined powers didn't beat The Dominion, they beat a tiny fragment that was cut off from the rest by space gods living in a wormhole, and only at a huge cost. Remember, there was always an existential threat that MORE ships were just sitting on the other side of the wormhole, and the only thing stopping that was a minefield and later The Prophets.

There was no calculus The Founders needed to make. They were more technically advanced, had greater numbers, and their enemies were fragmented and easily swayed by Intel attacks. The only reason they lost (the tiny fragment of ships in the alpha, and 1 founder) was because of space gods that they couldn't have predicted would suddenly become active.

If the Dominion had actually done all the covert surveillance of the Alpha Quadrant they'd claimed, then they should have known that this end of space is lousy with capricious space gods that might snap them away on a whim and that that's one of the better outcomes of pissing them off.

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


Barudak posted:

The important thing to this whole scenario is that humans are the only main space faring civ we've seen who would be ok with this, thats why they were chosen. Its all so, logical.

I figure the Andorians would also go along with that, right?

Barudak
May 7, 2007

Tulip posted:

I figure the Andorians would also go along with that, right?

Andorians are shown in TOS and Enterprise as fighting against Vulcans, and not needing to be uplifted to have space travel either, so I think that rules them out. The Vulcan plan is two step; you need a mean son of a gun to be your guard dog but you also want one that feels like it owes you forever in a way it can't repay.

Schadenboner
Aug 15, 2011

by Shine

mysterious frankie posted:

IMO Data obviously needs stricter observation and restriction of duties that could impact the wellbeing of the crew. There’s a careless darkness in him evidenced by this almost accurate, but slightly augmented for convenience, Hawking.

Suffer not the silica animus to live, for ruin shall be its purpose.

I'm not saying we should go Butlerian on Data's pasty rear end, but we should go Butlerian on Data's pasty rear end.

mysterious frankie
Jan 11, 2009

This displeases Dev- ..van. Shut up.

McSpanky posted:

The Dominion: hi, we haven't marked any claimed territory or even made you aware of our existence until now but uh, this is all our stuff and also we just murdered a bunch of unarmed civilians, go away now kthxbye

Yeah would be a real stretch to say the Dominion was 100% justified in their aggression, based on the way they manage systems under their control in the quadrant. You can’t build an empire with secrecy and infojamming as its base and then be shocked when someone new shows up and starts touching all your stuff, as if they didn’t know it was your stuff.

Then again, they’ve been alone doing things their way for quite a while, so you can’t blame them for having diplomatic and administrative tendencies that seem alien to the Federation. But it’s hard to make them out as injured parties; more like extremely startled parties with methods of cohabitation that have thus far been untested by interaction outside of the system.

E: then THEN again they did find out the Dominion was a thing pretty early on and Quark had gotten some info from that wine merchant which indicated the Dominion leadership weren’t super big on chatting, and were a bit bigger on being left alone, so at that point they could have just restricted all traffic both ways in the wormhole and called it a day. “Ok, we know they’re there and they don’t want to talk to us. Blockade the shortcut to their territory and if the ever want to start diplomatic proceedings, we start diplomatic proceedings.” It’d definitely cause issues in the alpha quadrant, what with so many people hungry to start exploiting this new resource, but whatcha gonna do?

EE: then THEN then again, how could the entire Federation take action based on the hearsay of a rando Ferengi salesman? I think my ears are bleeding.

mysterious frankie fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Aug 18, 2020

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.

Barudak posted:

Andorians are shown in TOS and Enterprise as fighting against Vulcans, and not needing to be uplifted to have space travel either, so I think that rules them out. The Vulcan plan is two step; you need a mean son of a gun to be your guard dog but you also want one that feels like it owes you forever in a way it can't repay.

Also sometimes you gently caress the guard dog, though I suppose that's not out of step with the colonial metaphor.

I always read it more as humans being the Manic Pixie Dream Aliens for the stodgy uptight Vulcans.

Impossibly Perfect Sphere
Nov 6, 2002

Dead? That's what they want you to think.
Unsourced internet rumors saying that basically every current Trek show is about to be nuked - save Discovery - due to management shakeup at Paramount.

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.
probably a good thing?

Barudak
May 7, 2007

Finally, its time for a gritty reboot of DS9 where it shoots a missile barrage once an episode and the captain says gently caress

mysterious frankie
Jan 11, 2009

This displeases Dev- ..van. Shut up.

Barudak posted:

Finally, its time for a gritty reboot of DS9 where it shoots a missile barrage once an episode and the captain says gently caress

Sisko looks on with horror as the camera pans over a 4K cgi bajoran concentration camp.

He says the C word.

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
What horrifies me is the knowledge that if garak showed up again they would forget the most important thing that makes his character work: He has to be an awesome super talented super spy, and a complete lazy weirdo disaster of a person

Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


Pick posted:

What horrifies me is the knowledge that if garak showed up again they would forget the most important thing that makes his character work: He has to be an awesome super talented super spy, and a complete lazy weirdo disaster of a person

Garak will just be Jack Bauer.

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
nooooooooooooo

Barudak
May 7, 2007

Tulip posted:

Garak will just be Jack Bauer.

Oh goodness he absolutely would be.

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
Noooooooooooooo

Barudak
May 7, 2007

<phasers a romulan ambassador in the middle of saying "its a fake"> "I need a hacksaw! NOW!"

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
:cry:

Schadenboner
Aug 15, 2011

by Shine
Yikes, this thread kinda went to a dark place?

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
Might be just as well that NuTrek isn't the slightest interested in anything from DS9 except Section 31. (Quark barely counts, since he was on TNG and Voyager)

Musluk
May 23, 2011




Schadenboner
Aug 15, 2011

by Shine

But Bajor (and DS9) are on a 26 hour cycle?

Musluk
May 23, 2011



Schadenboner posted:

But Bajor (and DS9) are on a 26 hour cycle?

God damnit, okay, brb.

Musluk
May 23, 2011





There.

Schadenboner
Aug 15, 2011

by Shine

:laffo:

Aglet56
Sep 1, 2011
let's talk curzon dax

i'm watching blood oath from season 2 of ds9, which imo really plays up the trans subtext of jadzia early on. she's re-introducing herself to these klingon guys and telling them her new name and pronouns and so on; it's a really interesting 90s lgbt moment. but anyway the main conflict in this episode is whether jadzia will honor this promise he made to these klingon guys. curzon comes off as almost legendary in his accomplishments with the klingons, and ultimately jadzia decides to uphold curzon's promise and goes on a thrilling revenge mission. the continuity between curzon and jadzia is ultimately applauded.

but also in season 2 there's an episode where jadzia is counselling a trill guy who's about to be joined and she's talking about how her training with curzon was harsh and arguably abusive (sisko actually uses this word verbatim). it's incredibly uncomfortable in these 2020 times and sadly sisko comes off especially badly when he's like "but didn't you ultimately come out stronger due to curzon's punishments?" frankly this episode isn't that good and perhaps we shouldn't read too much into this detail but it seems to add a lot of color to jadzia's relationship with curzon. in this instance the break of identity between jadzia and curzon seems very distinct and in fact jadzia's main conflict here is about wanting to break from curzon's methods in how she trains this trill guy.

i think the whole dax concept is just really great, classic sci fi material that naturally lends itself to good storylines and lots of philosophical stuff about the relationship between memory and personality. i like sci fi that's very transparently exploring big, high-minded Concepts

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
One thing with sci-fi and fantasy allegories for social themes is that you can have analogies that are applicable to real world things, but they don't have to and arguably shouldn't be directly equivalent to them.

Lawman 0
Aug 17, 2010


I mean I don't really think that article is very fair because I think certain things it cites like gene modification and other sort of personal enchantments would break the democratic semi socialist nature of the society. It's also obvious to me imo that Starfleet is being used the gathering place for all the ambitious and extroverted people in the federation. If you just fully automated everything what would keep the federation together?

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Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
the curzon poo poo is gross because he ruined her life because he wanted to gently caress her and then without ever telling her that he eventually gets access to her body and soul via dax

gently caress curzon and gently caress sisko for being his apologist

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