Star Trek Discussion Thread

You arent missing anything by skipping Discovery or Picard, the former is absolute trash and the latter just seems offensive to me. Neither show understands what Trek is supposed to be about and are content being homogenised shlock designed to appeal to people who would otherwise never watch Trek, while using excessive fan service to make people think the writers understand Trek.

The best way to sum this up is by explaining a portion of Picard's plot. In it it turns out the Borg has access to an Iconian gateway. That's right, a gateway that allows instant travel to almost anywhere in the galaxy, even more efficient than a transwarp hub, and the Borg have it. But they dont use it to assimilate worlds, or even for recon, they, erm, they use it just to give the Queen a getaway if she needs it. The writers only put this in plot-wise to give the characters a getaway too, and they made it an Iconian gateway so people would clap and go "I RECOGNISE THIS! IT'S GOOD BECAUSE I KNOW THAT AN ICONIAN GATEWAY IS!!!!"

Fan pandering to this extent, when it is totally unearned and actively ruins previous setup, is one of the most obnoxious and irritating parts of modern storytelling to me. Who cares if what's happening makes no sense as long as it makes people go "wow!" right? Give me a damn break lol.

In my opinion, the only way to make it work over many seasons would be to really focus on the "stranded away from home without backup" thing, which they basically abandoned after only a few episodes in favour of making a lesser version of TNG. DS9 is the series with long-form storytelling but arguably Voyager needed it more because we needed to see long term consequences for things an we almost never did. In this hypothetical version of the show maybe there are less episodes per season, maybe half the usual amount. We want to keep things tight for this to work. Filler episodes dont work if you want people to take the premise seriously enough for their to be any tension.

My issue with this concept is I dont actually like it when Trek focuses on the same plot points for episode after episode unless there is a good reason to do so. Even during the Dominion War there is enough material there to make it work, but in order for Voyager to work you would need to narrow the focus to the point it could become boring to watch. Alternatively you try to change the status quo from season to season to keep things fresh in a more general sense, kinda like how season 4 of DS9 had the Klingon-Cardassian war going on in the background, Voyager could do much the same. Have individual episodes be affected by the season-wide shake-up. Maybe in one season it could be like Year of Hell, then in the next season they get back on their feet, maybe in one season they are in Borg territory and in another they are on some sort of specific mission. Something to maintain cohesion.

What?

 

Ah right fair enough. I think my favourite Trek dream was when the Trek universe and my own created universe (I'm an amateur writer) combined. That was rad.

 

For me I'm torn, because I think Star Trek works best with standalone episodes with overarching threads linking them. But this format doesnt work for Voyager because of the premise. Even when the filler episodes are good, and a lot are, you still have that thought in the back of your head that the episode doesnt fit within the context of the show.

I feel like I need to rewatch Voyager actually cause I only watched it once a few years ago. May start it after I finish DS9.

 

I looked it up and I mistakenly attributed the technology to the wrong alien species. The Borg do not have an Iconian gateway, they have a spatial trajector they assimilated from the Sikarians, a species that appear in an episode of Voyager. In essence the technology serves the same purpose, instant teleportation to anywhere within a range that is far beyond the usual transporter range (the wiki says it is 40,000 light years.)

Regardless of the origin of the technology, my point is the Borg having such technology and never using it to invade worlds is a plot hole. They already have transwarp technology, but that is limited to moving ships from one point to another within empty space, with this technology they could instantly transport drones into major cities on any world they chose within the radius. Theoretically they could assimilate every Federation world at the same time from a comfortable spot far outside Federation territory, and yet they dont. Within the context of the episode, the trajector is just used as a knowing wink to people who recognise it. Call it a cool homage or fan-pandering, the point is it's a massive can of worms.

 

Just finished watching the season 5 finale of DS9. The final exchange between Dukat and Weyoun gets me every time.

"I assume Captain Sisko removed or destroyed everything of value?"
"Not everything.""
"What is that?"
"A message from Sisko."
"I don't understand."
"He's letting me know… he'll be back."

 

I would have less of an issue if the technology was clearly explained to work a certain way that mitigated the potential plot hole. By trying to relate it back to past episodes you have the issue of people noticing an issue they may not have thought of. Would it have been that hard to just come up with a solution that doesnt ask more questions than it answers, especially when it only appears at all to act as a Deus Ex Machina as you stated? I don't think so.

I think this is the problem with pandering to fans too hard. There's a middle ground between shamelessly key-jangling with fan service and actively subverting to the point you begin to alienate, and that's without getting into issues you open up by referencing past events. Far too often shows/games/movies don't walk this line well enough, and err to close to one or the other for my tastes. I'm of the opinion we did not need a Picard show at all, in fact I don't even think the TNG movies were worth it, especially considering how good the actual ending to TNG was. But assuming for a moment the show has to happen, I would have preferred something more lowkey, maybe a very small-scale character study about Picard as a man and how his life is. Something devoid of over the top space opera drama. Something like the episode in season 4 where he meets his brother or something, that would have been great. Maybe too slow for the average viewer but perfect for a fan of classic Trek.

Either that or something with the classic episodic format. Not to go on another tangent but holy hell, why wont they just make a straightforward episodic series in the vein of every show pre-Discovery? Do they really believe people wont watch if they did? Cause I don't believe that for a moment. They keep saying the Pike spin-off will be in this style, but I have no reason to trust anything the writers say lol, cause they said the same thing about Discovery season 2 and 3 as well. Not everything needs to be balls to the wall serialised melodrama all the time.

 

Watched a few episodes of TOS and I quite like the dialogue but the premise is laughable. Unironic FALGSC lmao.

 

Star Trek is not communist, nor is it based in any kind of communist theory. The only people who think this are those who don't understand the shows or are projecting their own real life politics onto it. Star Trek is based on Utopianism, not any realistic political theory. If you like sci-fi I would recommend watching TNG.

 

Not the best rebuke as communism is commonly described/criticized as being unrealistic and utopian. A moneyless society devoid of scarcity where the main occupation of humanity is enlightened exploration of space ... I think it's fair to say that Marx, Kropotkin, etc. would at least not object to that.

To be clear I'm not placing Trek in an ideological category. It's just that the larger sociopolitical framing seems optimistic in a way that's familiar. I get that it's just the background and not the focus. Tolkien's Shire, which he clearly endorses, is an anarchy. But I wouldn't shelve LOTR as anarchist literature.

I already put TNG and DS9 on my may-watch list. The other series get mixed fan reactions so I'll probably avoid them.

 

I get that, but the Federation isnt actually a moneyless society, only Earth is. They quickly retconned the idea of the Federation at large being moneyless because it made no sense when they interacted with other species, all of whom use money. Society is also not really devoid of scarcity, the scarcity just comes from different places.

I suppose the point is you have to suspend your disbelief when watching Trek because at its core, it is extremely absurd. If I had to label the Federation though they are closer to Neo-lib than communist.

 

Yeah, I understand that. I'd love not to have to do that though. One of the most annoying loopholes in Star Trek and also most other sci-fi works is: the future tech is advanced enough for spacecraft to get faster-than-light engines but somehow they can't afford to install a few security cameras.

Are the new Jar Jar Abrams films worth watching?

 

In Trek's case, the reason for that is the Federation values individual rights too much to do such a thing, even if it is self-defeating at times. Humans especially would not stand for their privacy being invaded like that when they already wear badges that track them as part of the uniform.

There are a lot of ways you could rip apart any kind of sci-fi show, but I think doing so can just end up being reductionist. I mean, why in a galaxy like Star Wars do people own droids but live in mud huts like Arabic tribesmen? Ultimately who cares? That's just the way the universe is designed. At the end of the day, it is not reality. Fictional worlds don't have to follow our rules, they have to follow their own (not that Trek even does that a lot of the time lol.)

I kinda get the impression you are more of a Stargate kinda guy.

They are half decent action flicks, terrible Trek movies.

 

Also heavily influenced by Humanism.

 

Well they aren't cannon so go nuts with them. I enjoyed them for what they were but to call it Trek? I don't think so.