I think the biggest issue with DS9 at this point isn't exactly that it's GrimDark (tm), but that there's no real room for non Federation At War stories. You can't just have a episode where they encounter a Weird Space Thing and poke at it for an hour (with commercials), because the seasonal arc is the most important thing they should be doing. In earlier seasons you could have episodes focused on Bajor, exploring the Gamma Quadrant, various characters, something weird showing up at DS9, and so on, and all of those were interesting in their own way. Now, the war is omnipresent, and it's giving a bit of a sameness to all the episodes. I'm just not that interested in whatever the next episode is, because it's probably like the one I just watched, or the one before that, or so on.
This is coupled with the Dominion not being all that complex as antagonists. With most Star Trek wars, there's a sense that if you said the right thing, the war would end (and usually does). Here, the Dominion seems to be the second-best Star Trek aliens for guilt-free shooting. (The number one spot goes to the Borg, of course.) That's OK for an episode here and there, but I can get "shoot the alien or die" scifi in a lot of places. "Talk to the alien" scifi is much rarer, and something I come to Star Trek to get. (Also, I feel like I completely know the Dominion "culture" by now, so there's not even the enjoyment of learning about an alien culture.)
It's like if TNG decided to do a season-long Borg invasion story. Even if it wasn't GrimDark (tm), it still wouldn't be that interesting, because one of the main things I come to Star Trek for is exploration, both of alien civilizations, and Weird Space Things. With a season-long Borg story, I wouldn't get either of those.
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
I just rewatched that episode where Quark becomes an arms dealer and it remains one of my favorites. Haggath is such a good character.
As someone finishing off DS9 S6 right now, I don't really agree. There's tons of episodes that still have nothing to do with the war. The war is mentioned occasionally in most episodes but it's not central to them all and there's many that use the Dominion War as a backdrop but realistically would have fit right in with a show where that wasn't happening by just doing a quick swap out for some random aliens or some other thing. Which isn't to say they don't frequently use the Dominion well to add some flavour to these episodes, just that you could do the same story without it.
The show imo demonstrates pretty well that it can still tell all sorts of stories while the Federation is at war. And while it may tie those stories into the war for flavour, they aren't about it.
eg - O'Brien infiltrates a criminal gang. It turns out they are working with the Dominion, but that's not what the story is focused on or about or dependant on.
eg - Tiny crew members must rescue the Defiant after it's taken over by the Dominion. You could do this story with any antagonist with minor tweaks.
eg - Bashir is suspected of being a Dominion spy. Make it Romulan spy instead and the story barely changes.
eg - Who mourns for Morn? or The Reckoning or His Way or etc etc etc
Hell, I remember people actually complained when the show was airing that they kept having episodes that weren't about the war because "Why would you be doing X while a war is on?".
Leave for a couple days, come check out the thread.
Hundred and fifty-six new posts.
I laughed, I cried, I read the new movie rumor with all the excitement of someone who has heard good things about Legion but never watched it.
Here's an anecdote that is adjacent to Cambiata's table-cleaner from Use of Weapons:
Once, working as a mid-level code slinger in an office, I got up from my desk, went into the break room, and methodically did every single dish that others had left in the sink that day. The CTO walked in and said "hey, hlpr, that's really nice of you" and before I could begin to stop myself I blurted out "I'm not doing this for you; I'm doing this for me." You see, I had been wrestling with a race condition in some networking code all day and I knew that washing all the dishes was a task that had a beginning and an end, and that no matter how many times I scrubbed the dried-on coffee creamer out someone's mug and put it up to dry, that action would not cause more dirty mugs to appear in the sink. I needed that task, and thanks to my lazy-ass coworkers it was there for me in my moment of need.
Never change, Star Trek thread. There's days I for sure need you too.
_
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Also Picard was super justified in speaking down to the businessman. It's like if you unthawed a Southern slave owner.
If you unthawed Thomas Jefferson today he’d basically be worshiped tho
Sure, until he got canceled on twitter
Resurrected Jefferson's reputation would be balanced between the left hating him because he was a particularly scummy slave owner/rapist/pedophile, and the right hating him because he supported burning down the capitalist world through violent revolution.
That said, I just realized Star Trek should get some recognition for frequently using time travel and, as near as I can recall, never using it to do the "Have fun adventures with past famous people" plots. Well, unless you count DS9 visiting Kirk and co.
I am 90% certain TOS crew met Leonardo DaVinci and a bunch of other famous people. Well, technically one alien who was a bunch of famous people. The episode did not involve time travel though so it might still fit your thing? TOS had some fucking weird episodes.
TNG also worked in Mark Twain via time travel. Still, the series has shown remarkable constraint given that the instances seem limited to at most once per series.
IIRC the guy in that episode ("Requiem for Methuselah," from S3 of TOS) wasn't an alien but was just a normal guy from like ancient Sumer or something who had gained immortality somehow (I want to say because of a meteor, but I think I'm confusing him with the DC villain Vandal Savage there). But yeah, the idea was that he went on to be Caesar, Leonardo and a bunch of other people.
That episode's writer, Jerome Bixby, was kind of preoccupied with that idea and reworked it into an interesting little indie sci-fi movie about 20 years ago called The Man From Earth, about a guy in the present day who hosts a cocktail party for his friends and family and reveals to them that he's actually immortal and was Christ, Buddha, etc etc. I wouldn't call it a classic or anything but it's an interesting, meditative little movie if you're into something with a bit of a sentimental-but-Twilight Zoney kind of vibe.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Also in general I am 100% down for time traveling to meet historical figures in Star Trek as long as the historical figures are portrayed with reasonable accuracy and not like, their memetic, Vaudeville caricatures. (Mark Twain is ok because Mark Twain was literally an act that Samuel Clemens put on.)
Also Picard was super justified in speaking down to the businessman. It's like if you unthawed a Southern slave owner.
If you unthawed Thomas Jefferson today he’d basically be worshiped tho
Sure, until he got canceled on twitter
Resurrected Jefferson's reputation would be balanced between the left hating him because he was a particularly scummy slave owner/rapist/pedophile, and the right hating him because he supported burning down the capitalist world through violent revolution.
That said, I just realized Star Trek should get some recognition for frequently using time travel and, as near as I can recall, never using it to do the "Have fun adventures with past famous people" plots. Well, unless you count DS9 visiting Kirk and co.
I am 90% certain TOS crew met Leonardo DaVinci and a bunch of other famous people. Well, technically one alien who was a bunch of famous people. The episode did not involve time travel though so it might still fit your thing? TOS had some fucking weird episodes.
TNG also worked in Mark Twain via time travel. Still, the series has shown remarkable constraint given that the instances seem limited to at most once per series.
IIRC the guy in that episode ("Requiem for Methuselah," from S3 of TOS) wasn't an alien but was just a normal guy from like ancient Sumer or something who had gained immortality somehow (I want to say because of a meteor, but I think I'm confusing him with the DC villain Vandal Savage there). But yeah, the idea was that he went on to be Caesar, Leonardo and a bunch of other people.
That episode's writer, Jerome Bixby, was kind of preoccupied with that idea and reworked it into an interesting little indie sci-fi movie about 20 years ago called The Man From Earth, about a guy in the present day who hosts a cocktail party for his friends and family and reveals to them that he's actually immortal and was Christ, Buddha, etc etc. I wouldn't call it a classic or anything but it's an interesting, meditative little movie if you're into something with a bit of a sentimental-but-Twilight Zoney kind of vibe.
This is sort of close to the premise of The Immortal by Borges
Also Picard was super justified in speaking down to the businessman. It's like if you unthawed a Southern slave owner.
If you unthawed Thomas Jefferson today he’d basically be worshiped tho
Sure, until he got canceled on twitter
Resurrected Jefferson's reputation would be balanced between the left hating him because he was a particularly scummy slave owner/rapist/pedophile, and the right hating him because he supported burning down the capitalist world through violent revolution.
That said, I just realized Star Trek should get some recognition for frequently using time travel and, as near as I can recall, never using it to do the "Have fun adventures with past famous people" plots. Well, unless you count DS9 visiting Kirk and co.
I am 90% certain TOS crew met Leonardo DaVinci and a bunch of other famous people. Well, technically one alien who was a bunch of famous people. The episode did not involve time travel though so it might still fit your thing? TOS had some fucking weird episodes.
TNG also worked in Mark Twain via time travel. Still, the series has shown remarkable constraint given that the instances seem limited to at most once per series.
IIRC the guy in that episode ("Requiem for Methuselah," from S3 of TOS) wasn't an alien but was just a normal guy from like ancient Sumer or something who had gained immortality somehow (I want to say because of a meteor, but I think I'm confusing him with the DC villain Vandal Savage there). But yeah, the idea was that he went on to be Caesar, Leonardo and a bunch of other people.
That episode's writer, Jerome Bixby, was kind of preoccupied with that idea and reworked it into an interesting little indie sci-fi movie about 20 years ago called The Man From Earth, about a guy in the present day who hosts a cocktail party for his friends and family and reveals to them that he's actually immortal and was Christ, Buddha, etc etc. I wouldn't call it a classic or anything but it's an interesting, meditative little movie if you're into something with a bit of a sentimental-but-Twilight Zoney kind of vibe.
Huh, I didn't realize that was the same person. That makes sense though.
I enjoyed Quark pointing out that Ferengi haven't done half the heinous things that humans have done.
I fucking hhhhhhate that monologue. I have never turned so hard on what I used to think was a great moment in fiction. It's probably Behr's single biggest fuckup as a writer on DS9. Either that, or the most "Viewers don't actually get what the writer was going for" moment in DS9...which can still probably be laid at Behr's feet for not getting the right point across.
"We never had war" says the guy who's literally sold weapons to both sides of a war.
"We never had slavery" says the guy whose species regularly engages in slaving at other points in the franchise, and who personally advocates keeping half the populace of his species in gender-based slavery well after this episode.
"We're better than you" said the show's most prominent representative of the sole remaining purely capitalist power in a post-scarcity community.
Are we supposed to agree with such nonsense? Or are we not supposed to agree with him, but then they had to cut Sisko's clapback later in the ep? Either way, the show beefed it hard on that scene. Quark actually had a point with the "you look down on us in general and me in particular but you're willing to utilize our/my skills when necessary". That's a good and accurate assertion and fits the long-running theme of D9S.
Then he went and completely ruined it by linking the scenario to a grander comparison between the two species, which...spare me the cultural posturing from the hypercapitalist misogynist war profiteer, please.
Shadowen on
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
I think it's an interesting point. In many ways, ethics can be distilled into a question of the ends justifying the means. I don't think the point of the scene is that there's some sort of clear winner or loser in the Interspecies Rankings of Good Morality and that the Ferengi are clearly above humanity.
It depends how you take the scene. I thought Quark was full of shit in that scene like sometimes the humans are in the show when they're engaging with history and how people have treated things like the classics in the past few centuries. Eating up the romanticising and altered history which has been erased and reskinned however someoone wanted to promote whatever they chose. Like modern Brits and the Empire.
As noted it's difficult to believe what he says when the Ferengi are slaver mysogonists who's culture buys and sells anything to turn a profit and probably has a health system that makes the US one look sane. Quark is speaking from a position of privelege and doesn't know or care about it.
I think the point of that scene came across clearly: Don't judge me by you cultural standards. Ferengi fail Federation standards and vice versa. And both are willing to violate their own standards for what they believe to be a greater good.
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
Coming up on the end of DS9 it looks like
Good Lord, an 8-part storyline followed by a 2-part finale?
Did nobody tell the writers Star Trek is supposed to be episodic?
Also: LOL of course as soon as the Federation started winning the war with the Dominion we had to introduce a brand new existential threat joining forces with the Dominion. Gotta keep that war going.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I enjoyed Quark pointing out that Ferengi haven't done half the heinous things that humans have done.
I fucking hhhhhhate that monologue. I have never turned so hard on what I used to think was a great moment in fiction. It's probably Behr's single biggest fuckup as a writer on DS9. Either that, or the most "Viewers don't actually get what the writer was going for" moment in DS9...which can still probably be laid at Behr's feet for not getting the right point across.
"We never had war" says the guy who's literally sold weapons to both sides of a war.
"We never had slavery" says the guy whose species regularly engages in slaving at other points in the franchise, and who personally advocates keeping half the populace of his species in gender-based slavery well after this episode.
"We're better than you" said the show's most prominent representative of the sole remaining purely capitalist power in a post-scarcity community.
Are we supposed to agree with such nonsense? Or are we not supposed to agree with him, but then they had to cut Sisko's clapback later in the ep? Either way, the show beefed it hard on that scene. Quark actually had a point with the "you look down on us in general and me in particular but you're willing to utilize our/my skills when necessary". That's a good and accurate assertion and fits the long-running theme of D9S.
Then he went and completely ruined it by linking the scenario to a grander comparison between the two species, which...spare me the cultural posturing from the hypercapitalist misogynist war profiteer, please.
He’s still right though. What human beings have done and still do today is absolutely worse than anything that the Ferengi are depicted as doing in the show, even the very worst of it pales in comparison to what we are doing today.
Also, Quark is pointing out Federation privilege. Humans had to develop to the point where they realized everything they were doing was horrific. It’s a point we might actually never reach in reality. The Ferengi, by comparison, haven’t learned those lessons, but the Federation still looks down on them even when the Ferengi’s past is nowhere near as horrible as the one the humans had to go through to get to where they are.
We understand that the Ferengi are meant to be a caricature of who we are, but the truth is that the Ferengi are better than us. Real, modern humans are even worse than the Ferengi in every way.
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
Nah the Ferengi suck in general
The only decent ones are those who live largely outside Ferengi society, i.e. the ones we see most on DS9.
Their entire culture is built on exploitation. Not just the occasional genocidal despot or religious zealot that humans have.
The Ferengi view the exploitation and mistreatment of others as aspirational.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
The Grand Nagus has fucking nothing on Donald Trump.
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
Dukat: trades in the big ugly Cardassian prosthetics for the less intrusive Bajoran ones
The entire collection of Bajoran people, who were under his thumb for decades during the occupation: wow cool a brand new dude who looks exactly like a Bajoran version of our most hated enemy, this is not suspicious at all and we should definitely give him unfettered access to our space pope
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Also, Quark is pointing out Federation privilege. Humans had to develop to the point where they realized everything they were doing was horrific. It’s a point we might actually never reach in reality. The Ferengi, by comparison, haven’t learned those lessons, but the Federation still looks down on them even when the Ferengi’s past is nowhere near as horrible as the one the humans had to go through to get to where they are.
We understand that the Ferengi are meant to be a caricature of who we are, but the truth is that the Ferengi are better than us. Real, modern humans are even worse than the Ferengi in every way.
I mean, they're literally buying and selling women as property, and women are outright banned from many actions. You'd have to go to Saudi Arabia or the like to get anything even close to Ferengi treatment of women.
Also, Quark is pointing out Federation privilege. Humans had to develop to the point where they realized everything they were doing was horrific. It’s a point we might actually never reach in reality. The Ferengi, by comparison, haven’t learned those lessons, but the Federation still looks down on them even when the Ferengi’s past is nowhere near as horrible as the one the humans had to go through to get to where they are.
We understand that the Ferengi are meant to be a caricature of who we are, but the truth is that the Ferengi are better than us. Real, modern humans are even worse than the Ferengi in every way.
I mean, they're literally buying and selling women as property, and women are outright banned from many actions. You'd have to go to Saudi Arabia or the like to get anything even close to Ferengi treatment of women.
but that's not slavery, that's just how you treat females. :rotate:
Also, Quark is pointing out Federation privilege. Humans had to develop to the point where they realized everything they were doing was horrific. It’s a point we might actually never reach in reality. The Ferengi, by comparison, haven’t learned those lessons, but the Federation still looks down on them even when the Ferengi’s past is nowhere near as horrible as the one the humans had to go through to get to where they are.
We understand that the Ferengi are meant to be a caricature of who we are, but the truth is that the Ferengi are better than us. Real, modern humans are even worse than the Ferengi in every way.
I mean, they're literally buying and selling women as property, and women are outright banned from many actions. You'd have to go to Saudi Arabia or the like to get anything even close to Ferengi treatment of women.
As though our own horrible brand of hyper capitalism isn’t completely responsible for the current state of Saudi Arabia? And how can you deny that is not actively happening today?
As a device, all the Ferengi really fundamentally are is just pulling the worst qualities that are absolutely extant in modern society and putting them front and center.
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
The only decent ones are those who live largely outside Ferengi society, i.e. the ones we see most on DS9.
Their entire culture is built on exploitation. Not just the occasional genocidal despot or religious zealot that humans have.
The Ferengi view the exploitation and mistreatment of others as aspirational.
Knitdan...that is literally the world we live in
I’m talking about an entire culture, not just the people with wealth or those in charge.
The existence of socialism, for example, would not be allowed on Ferengully. It would be quickly stamped out. Things we take for granted, such as women wearing clothes or working, or unions, are explicitly illegal. There is an entire secret police dedicated to rooting out any Ferengi who fails to adequately exploit their workers.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
The only decent ones are those who live largely outside Ferengi society, i.e. the ones we see most on DS9.
Their entire culture is built on exploitation. Not just the occasional genocidal despot or religious zealot that humans have.
The Ferengi view the exploitation and mistreatment of others as aspirational.
Knitdan...that is literally the world we live in
I’m talking about an entire culture, not just the people with wealth or those in charge.
The existence of socialism, for example, would not be allowed on Ferengully. It would be quickly stamped out. Things we take for granted, such as women wearing clothes or working, or unions, are explicitly illegal. There is an entire secret police dedicated to rooting out any Ferengi who fails to adequately exploit their workers.
So many of these things are literally true in so many human cultures that exist on the planet right now
The only decent ones are those who live largely outside Ferengi society, i.e. the ones we see most on DS9.
Their entire culture is built on exploitation. Not just the occasional genocidal despot or religious zealot that humans have.
The Ferengi view the exploitation and mistreatment of others as aspirational.
Knitdan...that is literally the world we live in
I’m talking about an entire culture, not just the people with wealth or those in charge.
The existence of socialism, for example, would not be allowed on Ferengully. It would be quickly stamped out. Things we take for granted, such as women wearing clothes or working, or unions, are explicitly illegal. There is an entire secret police dedicated to rooting out any Ferengi who fails to adequately exploit their workers.
:whistle:
Peace to fashion police, I wear my heart
On my sleeve, let the runway start
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
But they’re not true for all of humanity.
For better or worse, Star Trek largely deals with intelligent species as monocultures. That means we don’t cherry-pick individual actions or even what humans would consider different cultures within their species. We look at what human culture values. Just as we do for Klingons, Vulcans, Bajorans, Cardassians, and Ferengi.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Knitdan this is a really hard conversation to have with you before you've watched the next to the last episode of the DS9 series! I'm going to go stand in the corner and twiddle my thumbs.
Peace to fashion police, I wear my heart
On my sleeve, let the runway start
For better or worse, Star Trek largely deals with intelligent species as monocultures. That means we don’t cherry-pick individual actions or even what humans would consider different cultures within their species. We look at what human culture values. Just as we do for Klingons, Vulcans, Bajorans, Cardassians, and Ferengi.
But you and I both understand that they’re depicted as monocultures for the convenience of relating the message they mean to relate, and the entire concept of the Ferengi is to point out the horrible aspects of us as we are today. I actually think it’s incredible how distanced you can feel from the actions of other humans that you would consider their actions to not represent “human values”. The worst of us represent all of us.
Posts
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Oh you'll wish he'd shut up by the end. Really a talker, that one
I think the biggest issue with DS9 at this point isn't exactly that it's GrimDark (tm), but that there's no real room for non Federation At War stories. You can't just have a episode where they encounter a Weird Space Thing and poke at it for an hour (with commercials), because the seasonal arc is the most important thing they should be doing. In earlier seasons you could have episodes focused on Bajor, exploring the Gamma Quadrant, various characters, something weird showing up at DS9, and so on, and all of those were interesting in their own way. Now, the war is omnipresent, and it's giving a bit of a sameness to all the episodes. I'm just not that interested in whatever the next episode is, because it's probably like the one I just watched, or the one before that, or so on.
This is coupled with the Dominion not being all that complex as antagonists. With most Star Trek wars, there's a sense that if you said the right thing, the war would end (and usually does). Here, the Dominion seems to be the second-best Star Trek aliens for guilt-free shooting. (The number one spot goes to the Borg, of course.) That's OK for an episode here and there, but I can get "shoot the alien or die" scifi in a lot of places. "Talk to the alien" scifi is much rarer, and something I come to Star Trek to get. (Also, I feel like I completely know the Dominion "culture" by now, so there's not even the enjoyment of learning about an alien culture.)
It's like if TNG decided to do a season-long Borg invasion story. Even if it wasn't GrimDark (tm), it still wouldn't be that interesting, because one of the main things I come to Star Trek for is exploration, both of alien civilizations, and Weird Space Things. With a season-long Borg story, I wouldn't get either of those.
The show imo demonstrates pretty well that it can still tell all sorts of stories while the Federation is at war. And while it may tie those stories into the war for flavour, they aren't about it.
eg - O'Brien infiltrates a criminal gang. It turns out they are working with the Dominion, but that's not what the story is focused on or about or dependant on.
eg - Tiny crew members must rescue the Defiant after it's taken over by the Dominion. You could do this story with any antagonist with minor tweaks.
eg - Bashir is suspected of being a Dominion spy. Make it Romulan spy instead and the story barely changes.
eg - Who mourns for Morn? or The Reckoning or His Way or etc etc etc
Hell, I remember people actually complained when the show was airing that they kept having episodes that weren't about the war because "Why would you be doing X while a war is on?".
Hundred and fifty-six new posts.
I laughed, I cried, I read the new movie rumor with all the excitement of someone who has heard good things about Legion but never watched it.
Here's an anecdote that is adjacent to Cambiata's table-cleaner from Use of Weapons:
Once, working as a mid-level code slinger in an office, I got up from my desk, went into the break room, and methodically did every single dish that others had left in the sink that day. The CTO walked in and said "hey, hlpr, that's really nice of you" and before I could begin to stop myself I blurted out "I'm not doing this for you; I'm doing this for me." You see, I had been wrestling with a race condition in some networking code all day and I knew that washing all the dishes was a task that had a beginning and an end, and that no matter how many times I scrubbed the dried-on coffee creamer out someone's mug and put it up to dry, that action would not cause more dirty mugs to appear in the sink. I needed that task, and thanks to my lazy-ass coworkers it was there for me in my moment of need.
Never change, Star Trek thread. There's days I for sure need you too.
Your Ad Here! Reasonable Rates!
IIRC the guy in that episode ("Requiem for Methuselah," from S3 of TOS) wasn't an alien but was just a normal guy from like ancient Sumer or something who had gained immortality somehow (I want to say because of a meteor, but I think I'm confusing him with the DC villain Vandal Savage there). But yeah, the idea was that he went on to be Caesar, Leonardo and a bunch of other people.
That episode's writer, Jerome Bixby, was kind of preoccupied with that idea and reworked it into an interesting little indie sci-fi movie about 20 years ago called The Man From Earth, about a guy in the present day who hosts a cocktail party for his friends and family and reveals to them that he's actually immortal and was Christ, Buddha, etc etc. I wouldn't call it a classic or anything but it's an interesting, meditative little movie if you're into something with a bit of a sentimental-but-Twilight Zoney kind of vibe.
This is sort of close to the premise of The Immortal by Borges
Who is the most OP officer, Spock or Data?
Spock can time travel whenever he feels like it while Data... Data is a flotation device, and that's good too I guess.
Huh, I didn't realize that was the same person. That makes sense though.
Dax.
Dax is cheating because you get like 7 extra people for free
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
One of them is a serial killer though, I feel like that lowers her overall power level.
On my sleeve, let the runway start
I fucking hhhhhhate that monologue. I have never turned so hard on what I used to think was a great moment in fiction. It's probably Behr's single biggest fuckup as a writer on DS9. Either that, or the most "Viewers don't actually get what the writer was going for" moment in DS9...which can still probably be laid at Behr's feet for not getting the right point across.
"We never had slavery" says the guy whose species regularly engages in slaving at other points in the franchise, and who personally advocates keeping half the populace of his species in gender-based slavery well after this episode.
"We're better than you" said the show's most prominent representative of the sole remaining purely capitalist power in a post-scarcity community.
Are we supposed to agree with such nonsense? Or are we not supposed to agree with him, but then they had to cut Sisko's clapback later in the ep? Either way, the show beefed it hard on that scene. Quark actually had a point with the "you look down on us in general and me in particular but you're willing to utilize our/my skills when necessary". That's a good and accurate assertion and fits the long-running theme of D9S.
Then he went and completely ruined it by linking the scenario to a grander comparison between the two species, which...spare me the cultural posturing from the hypercapitalist misogynist war profiteer, please.
As noted it's difficult to believe what he says when the Ferengi are slaver mysogonists who's culture buys and sells anything to turn a profit and probably has a health system that makes the US one look sane. Quark is speaking from a position of privelege and doesn't know or care about it.
Good Lord, an 8-part storyline followed by a 2-part finale?
Did nobody tell the writers Star Trek is supposed to be episodic?
Also: LOL of course as soon as the Federation started winning the war with the Dominion we had to introduce a brand new existential threat joining forces with the Dominion. Gotta keep that war going.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
He’s still right though. What human beings have done and still do today is absolutely worse than anything that the Ferengi are depicted as doing in the show, even the very worst of it pales in comparison to what we are doing today.
We understand that the Ferengi are meant to be a caricature of who we are, but the truth is that the Ferengi are better than us. Real, modern humans are even worse than the Ferengi in every way.
The only decent ones are those who live largely outside Ferengi society, i.e. the ones we see most on DS9.
Their entire culture is built on exploitation. Not just the occasional genocidal despot or religious zealot that humans have.
The Ferengi view the exploitation and mistreatment of others as aspirational.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Knitdan...that is literally the world we live in
The entire collection of Bajoran people, who were under his thumb for decades during the occupation: wow cool a brand new dude who looks exactly like a Bajoran version of our most hated enemy, this is not suspicious at all and we should definitely give him unfettered access to our space pope
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I mean, they're literally buying and selling women as property, and women are outright banned from many actions. You'd have to go to Saudi Arabia or the like to get anything even close to Ferengi treatment of women.
but that's not slavery, that's just how you treat females. :rotate:
As though our own horrible brand of hyper capitalism isn’t completely responsible for the current state of Saudi Arabia? And how can you deny that is not actively happening today?
As a device, all the Ferengi really fundamentally are is just pulling the worst qualities that are absolutely extant in modern society and putting them front and center.
I’m talking about an entire culture, not just the people with wealth or those in charge.
The existence of socialism, for example, would not be allowed on Ferengully. It would be quickly stamped out. Things we take for granted, such as women wearing clothes or working, or unions, are explicitly illegal. There is an entire secret police dedicated to rooting out any Ferengi who fails to adequately exploit their workers.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
So many of these things are literally true in so many human cultures that exist on the planet right now
:whistle:
On my sleeve, let the runway start
For better or worse, Star Trek largely deals with intelligent species as monocultures. That means we don’t cherry-pick individual actions or even what humans would consider different cultures within their species. We look at what human culture values. Just as we do for Klingons, Vulcans, Bajorans, Cardassians, and Ferengi.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
On my sleeve, let the runway start
But you and I both understand that they’re depicted as monocultures for the convenience of relating the message they mean to relate, and the entire concept of the Ferengi is to point out the horrible aspects of us as we are today. I actually think it’s incredible how distanced you can feel from the actions of other humans that you would consider their actions to not represent “human values”. The worst of us represent all of us.