NuTrek asking deep questions like "Can you really call war crimes bad?" and has silly moments like doing war crimes
The morale of Season 1 finale of Discovery is that omnicidal destruction of a planet is bad but enacting a regime change with the threat of omnicidal destruction of a planet is the kind of morals the Federation was built on.
Season 2 teaches us that people who think minorities want us dead are correct, but if you do a speech they will decide to not genocide you. It literally blames the actions of the minority for the hatred they receive.
So I think a lot of the communism happens back home on earth/other planets. This is a bit of a problem with some other socialist utopia scifi like The Culture novels and the Lancer RPG: socialism and sci-fi super tech, in concert especially, removes a lot of struggles which is great for the beneficiaries of it, but bad for compelling fiction, so a lot of the stories end up being about people on the fringes of the society (ambassadors, spies, soldiers, explorers) who have to interact with capitalist/feudal forces outside the socialist society.
EDIT: also, personally I don't know about any exceptions to this, sorry
The Dispossessed features active tension within a socialist society. these active contradictions push the main character to defect - it's one of the first things you learn in the novel. the story alternates between the plot at home in the socialist world that drove him to leave, and the consequences of his defection on his life and within the capitalist society he visits.
Oh wow, can't believe I forgot The Dispossessed, loved that book/her stuff in general back in the day.
We need more ds9 emotes. We only have :rommunism: :quark: and :dax-stoked:
:dukat: :kira: :sisko: :punished-obrian:
guess I need to start messing around in krita...
This is my submission for Punished O'brien
And I really think :Sisko-Yes: has legs
I think :Attention-Bajoran-Workers: would be great for Dukat, need to find a pic for it
and I would also like to see :humble-tailor: for personal reasons
It's overstated by the fans. Gene Roddenberry was a lib with a very utopian vision of humanity's social evolution - he recognized that no poverty meant no capitalism, but he didn't really have a coherent idea of how it got there or how it maintained equality. Just that at some point the nukes started flying and then we met aliens and then we got our collective shit together. So that's why Trek is often extremely lib despite the foundations of its universe implying the existence of galactic communism.
TNG is socialist but you are just supposed to accept the premise, TNG is a far more philosophical show than DS9. Picard says we don't need money anymore and that we "grew up" and you just accept it. At one point a time traveler from the 20th century appears and he starts asking about his stocks and investments and the crew just pities and laughs at the guy. The Ferengi are not particularly great yet(better on DS9) but they are obviously a take on capitalists.
Nobody ever said TNG is gay, in fact there was a pretty controversial episode about gender where Frakes felt it could have been handled better but TNG was not that liberal about it.
DS9 is where the gay realy starts. The actor who played Garak explicitly tried to make him gay towards to Bashir. Then there is the mirror universe plot. And then there is the whole Jadzia Dax character, Sisko regularly refers to Jadzia Dax as "old man" because he is referring to Curzon Dax the previous male host. Jadzia is straight though.
The main thing about Trek communism is there is very little time spent explaining how Earth realy works and how it looks like.
The best Earth episodes are on DS9 and they tackled the mass unrest and collapse of today, Homefront is realy about 9/11 before it happened. But it is important because Sisko's father explains how and why he still works, what it means to live on Earth etc.
Past Tense is realy probably the most politicaly relevant Trek episode ever, basicaly the Bell riots is the major historical turning point. This is a major indictment of modern capitalism, realy the episode may as well be filmed today because it is so fucking on point.
And then the "meme" episode Bar Association where they quote the communist manifesto and form a union.
Eh, sometimes. Part 4 and 5(arguably part 8)of jojo are way lower stakes than the other parts, but people love them just the same
It's annoying when it's the inevitable hot springs/beach fanservice episode that is weirdly disconnected from all prior action
This is also what made The X-Files (and, to a lesser extent, Fringe) so great.
I know this is twitter but the comments read like tumblr posts which used to feel so much more.. of a certain kind of sincerity I don't have the words to describe. I'm aware of its flaws, but I guess I'm just feeling nostalgic for a social media that wasn't quite so hollowed out by profit seeking.
I could be wrong, twitter won't let me make an account so I don't know how it looks :shrug-outta-hecks:
No it's dead, everyone using Twitter please stay there and keep tumblr pure.
Strange New Worlds had an episode where the cast all get a medieval fantasy wardrobe and temporarily forget that they are navy-astronauts. There's even set decorations and dry ice!
It was kind of a boring episode though imo and tbh I kinda don't like mbenga/his actor, he has essentially one tone of voice in like every scene he's in. I'm hoping he becomes a more dynamic character now that he's not essentially defined by his relationship with his daughter but idk
Strange New Worlds has been okay but also shitty, I wish there were a law preventing writers from straight up plagiarizing old episodes i.e. episode 4 is just another TOS "we're in space but it's a submarine battle" episode. I haven't watched episode 10 but apparently they literally just re-do Balance of Terror except diplomacy works except that's bad because romulans don't respect it and restart war with earth so i guess the moral is we need to blow stuff up for peace or something.
One episode would have been great but only because it was a rip off of The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas but then they fucking Lib it up by refusing to flatly answer "No, our society is beyond such horrors" when they go "are there really no children in misery in the federation?"
I've heard The Orville has shed much of its Seth MacFarlane family guy bullshit so I guess it's the only good new star Trek we're ever gonna get
The first season of Orville was practically Friends, what with how much time they fixated on the sexual tension between the various crew members. But it still managed to do good Sci-Fi in between MacFarlane's cheesy jokes.
Second Season Orville was TNG quality episodes with MacFarlane playing it more-or-less straight the whole time. The rest of the cast is great. The writing is solid. The story arcs keep you invested in the overall plot, without denying the show the ability to be episodic in the mid-season.
Third Season is flat out great. High Sci-Fi premise, uncompromisingly good politics, excellent acting, excellent special effects. They do send the entire officer's crew into a giant space anus without giving them so much as space suits, but if you kinda try not to think about that too much, its a flawless Star Trek spin-off.
They do send the entire officer’s crew into a giant space anus without giving them so much as space suits, but if you kinda try not to think about that too much, its a flawless Star Trek spin-off.
Wow it's just like Star Trek :strangelove-wow:
Strange New Worlds is definitely the best of the modern Treks (admittedly a low bar) which makes its disappointing moments all the more sad. I don't even mind plagiarizing old episodes, tbh. It sort of reminds me how retelling classic fables or myths can be fun - I'm thinking of things like the game Hades which used characters we're all familiar with in a really unique way.
Episode 10 spoilers
They just can't fucking get away from the "save the universe" plot can they? One of the reasons why I thought SNW was refreshing was because it seemed to have shed the idea that every episode and season must constantly escalate to higher and higher stakes, but then episode 10 comes along and makes Spock a Vulcan Messiah. It's really tiring how limited the writers' imaginations are with all of these prequels and sequels.
I tried giving The Orville a shot but I hate Seth McFarlane's style so much that I stopped after an episode
Just jump straight to Season 2. MacFarlane dumps his shtick somewhere around the halfway mark of Season 1 and the rest of the cast carries the show past him. By Season 3, he's just another Star Trek Officer Guy played completely straight.
The show is too good to miss just because it was birthed out of the Family Guy womb and still has a bit of placenta sticking to it.
Just want to second zifnab that it might be worth skipping to later episodes of the orville because it does get less bothersome with the humor and the divorcee-bickering bullshit
