Well, okay...I don't stan them.
But I have mixed feelings about them.
As a kid I was really into Star Wars and looked up to the Jedi, so I think it's a hold over from that.
The Jedi are flawed, foolish, short-sighted and kind of cowardly (among other things) and The Republic is a stagnant beasts with an inefficient anachronistic and byzantine system where the worst kind of poverty has existed for millennia.
...But I still kind of like them, despite their tragic faults.
Well...Idk if I like The Republic as depicted in Star Wars, in some ways I hate it.
But the idea of a galactic society where hundreds if not thousands of peoples and cultures are brought together to coexist is one I really like, and I can understand in the early days why the Jedi would of supported the creation of such an organization.
Of course it is just that, an idea , and the lore is filled with the many ways The Republic as a bourgeoise order failed these ideals.
Ultimately I think the Jedi erred in so closely associating themselves with and mooring themselves to a state.
Their understanding of the force and themselves is also incomplete or lacking, I think.
But at the end of the day I still like the little space wizard monks.
I respect their aim in controlling their emotions (even if it often materializes in suppression instead) and in being diplomats and peacekeepers for the galaxy (even if it often materializes in propping up an unjust status quo).
But now I am starting to ramble about children's media, which is an unforgivable crime, so I'll stop.
Galactic Republic = 👎
United Federation Of Planets = 👍👍👍👍👍👍
I have seen some of TNG, and like...there is something compelling about The Federation, but at the same time Star Trek has always felt so sterile and uniform to me.
Most of the main aliens just seem like slightly different humans, I mean...Star Wars has a similar issue, but less so I feel like.
It also doesn't help that we view it all from the perspective of military officers in a state of the art spaceship.
Which I find less compelling then smugglers, rebels, and magic monk knights in junky starships.
Still want to check it out at some point though, and the society itself is more functional and better than The Republic.
The largest reason for this is budget, but yeah it's a valid critique!
It's also a major minunderstanding to think of TNG's Enterprise as a military ship. It's a science and exploration vessel before all else, and the vast majority of problems are solved via diplomacy. The reason their starship is so state of the art is because it's a vision of a post-scarcity society. It's an excessively optimistic show that has strong roots in communism being the correct version of the future.
I mean, I realize all of that, but it is still very rooted in a sort of military structure. It simultaneously interests me and deeply bores.
Like I remember one scene where like...Picard and Worf are arguing and grappling with the morality of a trial and I find that sort of conflict compelling in their universe where there is less material reasons for wars and stuff.
It's also interesting in how you as a post-scarcity society interact with other societies that aren't.
Like I said though, it can feel sterile, also lacks space magic.
I remember a scene from TNG that has always stuck with me, I have no idea what episode it was in or what it was about, but Riker goes to unwind after a long hard day of work, and he goes to his private cabin and turns on a video of a pair of women playing the harp.
And I just thought god, it would be so miserable if I spent my entire day working in the Navy and then what I did for fun was listen to a pair of women in togas play individual harp notes.
From what little I know I was under the impression that Riker fucks
Maybe so, but his idea of fun alone time is https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/8/87/Holographic_harps.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20120819183955&path-prefix=en
yeah, he fucks.
Frakes is cool and probably chose that himself just to fuck with us