You know what I want? A story to explain how the fuck the Ferengi have such a low Borg designation. 180! How?! I can only assume temporal hijinks were involved--and a healthy does of extremely good or extremely bad luck, depending if they were actually assimilated.
there's a good story there, I bet, the ultimate capitalists vs the ultimate socialists
The Borg absorbing Ferengi culture would, presumably, make the Borg more capitalist. More daring opportunities would be pursued, subterfuge would be used against enemies, the traditional Borg Cube might be reshaped into a giant coin after billions of Ferengi brains add their thoughts and values to the Collective.
You know what I want? A story to explain how the fuck the Ferengi have such a low Borg designation. 180! How?! I can only assume temporal hijinks were involved--and a healthy does of extremely good or extremely bad luck, depending if they were actually assimilated.
there's a good story there, I bet, the ultimate capitalists vs the ultimate socialists
I'm also curious how bad the Kazon screwed up the collective to get them put on the "Not worth the effort" list.
Picard and Discovery are joyless reflections on misery and despair. utter trash.
Gonna have to hard disagree there. Both shows are dark, but ultimately reflect the same optimism and humanity as every other Trek.
Discovery:
Burnham's actions in the premiere, and Lorca's whole character, represent the cynical realpolitik that dominates modern science fiction. The first season finale is a direct refutation of that philosophy, as Burnham and Discovery risk everything because they still believe in the ideals on which the Federation was founded--that war, barbarism, and violence are not the answer. Burnham's arc is explicitly one of redemption, wrapped in classic Trek philosophy.
Season 2 continues that trend from the start. Pike, literally original Captain, is stated in text to be the "best of Starfleet." The crew spends the whole season working to preserve life, explore, and find peaceful solutions to conflict. Section 31 is shown to be a reckless collection of fools that nearly doom the galaxy. The heroes only win in the end because of the connections they made with disparate, alien cultures--connections made at great risk to themselves.
Picard:
Every dark element in the story is explicitly tied to Starfleet's failure to uphold its ideals. Every good thing that happens stems from Picard's efforts to keep those ideals alive. At the climax Starfleet, which occupies an antagonistic role in the first act, redeems itself by defending people who cannot defend themselves. Picard, embodying the "best of Starfleet," is literally given a new lease on life.
You can argue whether New Trek is well-crafted, but labeling it "joyless reflections on misery and despair" doesn't hold up to what's actually shown on screen.
But, at least for Picard since I can't speak for Discovery, you point out exactly why this doesn't really work in your own explanation.
Picard explicitly frames Starfleet and the Federation as the villain. On basically every level. At every turn Picard finds Starfleet and Federation society in his way. Even at the end it's not Starfleet, but Will Riker, Picard's buddy who we spend a whole episode reconnecting with that saves the day. And it's not just Picard either, as we see with Seven's story. The show is full of outcasts.
Picard wants to frame Picard as the Big Moral Centre of the story. He's the one that saves the day by standing up for what's right. But in order to elevate him, they story reframes everything else about the Star Trek setting in a negative light.
More then anything I'd say it's a conflict between Star Trek as a franchise, even when it was TNG, being about more then just Picard. But ST: Picard, fairly obviously from the title, wants to be all about Picard. And if the audience is invested in more then just Picard the character, or at best the TNG cast, then the whole thing comes off as pretty negative.
You’re forgetting a couple of things.
1. Starfleet and the Federation only play a negative role because they abandoned their ideals—and were led astray by a traitor in the form of Oh. At the end, when Oh is expelled, they reclaim their moral stance and save the day.
It’s important that Picard defenses the synths by invoking Federation law.
2. Sure, Riker leads the fleet—but it’s only there in the first place because of Admiral Clancy. She castigated Picard in the opening of the story but, when presented with evidence that Picard is right, immediately does the right thing. If the story intended for Starfleet to remain antagonistic, Clancy would’ve rebuffed Picard regardless of the facts—or worse, joined forces with Oh.
3. Yes, Picard is the lead character—and his purpose is to lead the other characters back to who they are meant to be. Raffi, Rios, Seven, and Elnor become better people due to Picard’s presence, their choice to follow his quest. Picard’s influence, as the embodiment of Starfleet, literally saved the universe.
Except that's not how it plays out.
Picard is right, Starfleet and the Federation are wrong. Like, the very idea that they abandoned their ideals is the entire point. And in the end it's Riker who comes to save him. Riker, who he basically convinces out of retirement, comes to bail his ass out. There's no feeling of grand reversal here from the fundamental shift in tone the series has shown for the Federation on multiple occasions at multiple levels. It's not just about them not giving Picard a ship.
As I said, I'm pretty sure this is entirely because the series was spawned from an idea of making this series about Picard as the absolute moral centre of the story. And the consequence of that is it ends up painting everything around him in a bad light in order to make that happen. As I mentioned after first watching the series, Picard often feels like one of those "dark future" flash-forward episodes from sci-fi series. And people notice that. Because for a lot of people attached to the franchise, Star Trek isn't about Picard being better, it's about a ton of things and people and characters being better.
Basically, you can't make a show centred around how the Federation fucked everything up, abandoned it's ideals in really fundamental ways at multiple points throughout the show and literally yells in your main character's face at every turn and then wonder why people find it a downer. That's the show you made man. People feel it. They notice the tone.
You seem to conflate the Federation/Starfleet with Trek's ideals. They are not, and never were, the same thing.
Picard shows that the Federation and Starfleet have abandoned Trek idealism for realpolitik. This does not disregard those ideals because they were wrong to do so. They story leaves no ambiguity that it was a mistake for Starfleet to abandon the Romulans, that it was a mistake for the Federation to ban synths, and that the Zhat Vash is unequivocally evil for advocating genocide.
You can argue over the quality of the story, but "prevent genocide and peacefully deescalate conflict" is absolutely in line with the franchise's idealism.
Compare how Picard ended with "In the Pale Moonlight." Sisko and Garak's plan is the height of realpolitik. It is a direct refutation of Trek idealism--and it is presented as the right choice. Without the Romulans, the Alpha Quadrant falls to slavery and genocide. There was no way to secure Romulan support without underhanded means. Sisko's actions saved the Fedeation. That's going against the franchise's standard philosophy.
Arguing that Picard, as a whole, is grimdark or anti-Trek ignores what's actually shown on-screen.
No dude, Federation/Star Fleet ideals are Trek's ideals. That's the entire point. And that's the point of what I'm saying. The ideals of Star Trek, as vague as they are, are larger then just one man. The characters embody the best ideals of their society as much as they can. That's the whole thing. Sometimes people fail or institutions fail but they are pulled back to those ideals and we wave little flags and celebrate the victory.
But Picard wants to have it the other way in a lot of ways. And that's why people view it and think it's dark or cynical or whatever other word you wanna use. Because the way they set up the show has the Federation as a whole abandon it's core ideals in a very fundamental way. For like 2 decades or something. And this is reinforced in several places throughout the show. The Federation just decided, fuck it, it doesn't want to help other people anymore. It's not surprising people reacted to that and label it "dark" or whatever. That's a pretty fundamentally "dark" idea for Star Trek in a way you don't really see in other series.
It all exists in service to Picard being the one to show everyone else the right way. And like with a lot of other shit in the series, it feels the need to go really really big with this idea. And so to do that the Federation and Star Fleet have to abandon their ideals in a really big way. (like with the main plot of the show, I think it's a general problem with the show being unable to tone the stakes down a few notches)
You know what I want? A story to explain how the fuck the Ferengi have such a low Borg designation. 180! How?! I can only assume temporal hijinks were involved--and a healthy does of extremely good or extremely bad luck, depending if they were actually assimilated.
there's a good story there, I bet, the ultimate capitalists vs the ultimate socialists
The Borg absorbing Ferengi culture would, presumably, make the Borg more capitalist. More daring opportunities would be pursued, subterfuge would be used against enemies, the traditional Borg Cube might be reshaped into a giant coin after billions of Ferengi brains add their thoughts and values to the Collective.
Resistance is futile, you will enjoy the great taste of Slug-o-Cola! The slimiest cola in the galaxy!
Picard and Discovery are joyless reflections on misery and despair. utter trash.
Gonna have to hard disagree there. Both shows are dark, but ultimately reflect the same optimism and humanity as every other Trek.
Discovery:
Burnham's actions in the premiere, and Lorca's whole character, represent the cynical realpolitik that dominates modern science fiction. The first season finale is a direct refutation of that philosophy, as Burnham and Discovery risk everything because they still believe in the ideals on which the Federation was founded--that war, barbarism, and violence are not the answer. Burnham's arc is explicitly one of redemption, wrapped in classic Trek philosophy.
Season 2 continues that trend from the start. Pike, literally original Captain, is stated in text to be the "best of Starfleet." The crew spends the whole season working to preserve life, explore, and find peaceful solutions to conflict. Section 31 is shown to be a reckless collection of fools that nearly doom the galaxy. The heroes only win in the end because of the connections they made with disparate, alien cultures--connections made at great risk to themselves.
Picard:
Every dark element in the story is explicitly tied to Starfleet's failure to uphold its ideals. Every good thing that happens stems from Picard's efforts to keep those ideals alive. At the climax Starfleet, which occupies an antagonistic role in the first act, redeems itself by defending people who cannot defend themselves. Picard, embodying the "best of Starfleet," is literally given a new lease on life.
You can argue whether New Trek is well-crafted, but labeling it "joyless reflections on misery and despair" doesn't hold up to what's actually shown on screen.
But, at least for Picard since I can't speak for Discovery, you point out exactly why this doesn't really work in your own explanation.
Picard explicitly frames Starfleet and the Federation as the villain. On basically every level. At every turn Picard finds Starfleet and Federation society in his way. Even at the end it's not Starfleet, but Will Riker, Picard's buddy who we spend a whole episode reconnecting with that saves the day. And it's not just Picard either, as we see with Seven's story. The show is full of outcasts.
Picard wants to frame Picard as the Big Moral Centre of the story. He's the one that saves the day by standing up for what's right. But in order to elevate him, they story reframes everything else about the Star Trek setting in a negative light.
More then anything I'd say it's a conflict between Star Trek as a franchise, even when it was TNG, being about more then just Picard. But ST: Picard, fairly obviously from the title, wants to be all about Picard. And if the audience is invested in more then just Picard the character, or at best the TNG cast, then the whole thing comes off as pretty negative.
You’re forgetting a couple of things.
1. Starfleet and the Federation only play a negative role because they abandoned their ideals—and were led astray by a traitor in the form of Oh. At the end, when Oh is expelled, they reclaim their moral stance and save the day.
It’s important that Picard defenses the synths by invoking Federation law.
2. Sure, Riker leads the fleet—but it’s only there in the first place because of Admiral Clancy. She castigated Picard in the opening of the story but, when presented with evidence that Picard is right, immediately does the right thing. If the story intended for Starfleet to remain antagonistic, Clancy would’ve rebuffed Picard regardless of the facts—or worse, joined forces with Oh.
3. Yes, Picard is the lead character—and his purpose is to lead the other characters back to who they are meant to be. Raffi, Rios, Seven, and Elnor become better people due to Picard’s presence, their choice to follow his quest. Picard’s influence, as the embodiment of Starfleet, literally saved the universe.
Except that's not how it plays out.
Picard is right, Starfleet and the Federation are wrong. Like, the very idea that they abandoned their ideals is the entire point. And in the end it's Riker who comes to save him. Riker, who he basically convinces out of retirement, comes to bail his ass out. There's no feeling of grand reversal here from the fundamental shift in tone the series has shown for the Federation on multiple occasions at multiple levels. It's not just about them not giving Picard a ship.
As I said, I'm pretty sure this is entirely because the series was spawned from an idea of making this series about Picard as the absolute moral centre of the story. And the consequence of that is it ends up painting everything around him in a bad light in order to make that happen. As I mentioned after first watching the series, Picard often feels like one of those "dark future" flash-forward episodes from sci-fi series. And people notice that. Because for a lot of people attached to the franchise, Star Trek isn't about Picard being better, it's about a ton of things and people and characters being better.
Basically, you can't make a show centred around how the Federation fucked everything up, abandoned it's ideals in really fundamental ways at multiple points throughout the show and literally yells in your main character's face at every turn and then wonder why people find it a downer. That's the show you made man. People feel it. They notice the tone.
You seem to conflate the Federation/Starfleet with Trek's ideals. They are not, and never were, the same thing.
Picard shows that the Federation and Starfleet have abandoned Trek idealism for realpolitik. This does not disregard those ideals because they were wrong to do so. They story leaves no ambiguity that it was a mistake for Starfleet to abandon the Romulans, that it was a mistake for the Federation to ban synths, and that the Zhat Vash is unequivocally evil for advocating genocide.
You can argue over the quality of the story, but "prevent genocide and peacefully deescalate conflict" is absolutely in line with the franchise's idealism.
Compare how Picard ended with "In the Pale Moonlight." Sisko and Garak's plan is the height of realpolitik. It is a direct refutation of Trek idealism--and it is presented as the right choice. Without the Romulans, the Alpha Quadrant falls to slavery and genocide. There was no way to secure Romulan support without underhanded means. Sisko's actions saved the Fedeation. That's going against the franchise's standard philosophy.
Arguing that Picard, as a whole, is grimdark or anti-Trek ignores what's actually shown on-screen.
No dude, Federation/Star Fleet ideals are Trek's ideals. That's the entire point. And that's the point of what I'm saying. The ideals of Star Trek, as vague as they are, are larger then just one man. The character embody the best ideals of their society as much as they can. That's the whole thing. Sometimes people fail or institutions fail but they are pulled back to those ideals.
But Picard wants to have it the other way in a lot of ways. And that's why people view it and think it's dark or cynical or whatever other word you wanna use. Because the way they set up the show has the Federation as a whole abandon it's core ideals in a very fundamental way. For like 2 decades or something. And this is reinforced in several places throughout the show. The Federation just decided, fuck it, it doesn't want to help other people anymore. It's not surprising people reacted to that and label it "dark" or whatever. That's a pretty fundamentally "dark" idea for Star Trek in a way you don't really see in other series.
It all exists in service to Picard being the one to show everyone else the right way. And like with a lot of other shit in the series, it feels the need to go really really big with this idea. And so to do that the Federation and Star Fleet have to abandon their ideals in a really big way. (like with the main plot of the show, I think it's a general problem with the show being unable to tone the stakes down a few notches)
Well, except for the time Starfleet wanted to commit genocide against the Borg, or when they violated intergalactic treaty by developing a cloaking device, or abandoned its citizens to a fascist regime for the sake of a bad treaty and then labeled those citizens terrorists when they defended themselves, or ordered the forced relocation of an independent society because they wanted its resources, or the time they conspired to have a foreign politician imprisoned and/or executed so they could put a spy in her place, or the time they tried to commit genocide against the Founders.
You'll note that in every one of those instances, Starfleet was either stopped or called out by individual Starfleet members who cleaved to its ideals better than the institution did. And, in all but three of those instances, the Starfleet member in question was Jean-Luc Picard.
Edit:
Oh, I forgot that time the Federation Council decided to commit genocide against the Klingons on the advice of a literal evil Emperor.
Picard and Discovery are joyless reflections on misery and despair. utter trash.
Gonna have to hard disagree there. Both shows are dark, but ultimately reflect the same optimism and humanity as every other Trek.
Discovery:
Burnham's actions in the premiere, and Lorca's whole character, represent the cynical realpolitik that dominates modern science fiction. The first season finale is a direct refutation of that philosophy, as Burnham and Discovery risk everything because they still believe in the ideals on which the Federation was founded--that war, barbarism, and violence are not the answer. Burnham's arc is explicitly one of redemption, wrapped in classic Trek philosophy.
Season 2 continues that trend from the start. Pike, literally original Captain, is stated in text to be the "best of Starfleet." The crew spends the whole season working to preserve life, explore, and find peaceful solutions to conflict. Section 31 is shown to be a reckless collection of fools that nearly doom the galaxy. The heroes only win in the end because of the connections they made with disparate, alien cultures--connections made at great risk to themselves.
Picard:
Every dark element in the story is explicitly tied to Starfleet's failure to uphold its ideals. Every good thing that happens stems from Picard's efforts to keep those ideals alive. At the climax Starfleet, which occupies an antagonistic role in the first act, redeems itself by defending people who cannot defend themselves. Picard, embodying the "best of Starfleet," is literally given a new lease on life.
You can argue whether New Trek is well-crafted, but labeling it "joyless reflections on misery and despair" doesn't hold up to what's actually shown on screen.
But, at least for Picard since I can't speak for Discovery, you point out exactly why this doesn't really work in your own explanation.
Picard explicitly frames Starfleet and the Federation as the villain. On basically every level. At every turn Picard finds Starfleet and Federation society in his way. Even at the end it's not Starfleet, but Will Riker, Picard's buddy who we spend a whole episode reconnecting with that saves the day. And it's not just Picard either, as we see with Seven's story. The show is full of outcasts.
Picard wants to frame Picard as the Big Moral Centre of the story. He's the one that saves the day by standing up for what's right. But in order to elevate him, they story reframes everything else about the Star Trek setting in a negative light.
More then anything I'd say it's a conflict between Star Trek as a franchise, even when it was TNG, being about more then just Picard. But ST: Picard, fairly obviously from the title, wants to be all about Picard. And if the audience is invested in more then just Picard the character, or at best the TNG cast, then the whole thing comes off as pretty negative.
You’re forgetting a couple of things.
1. Starfleet and the Federation only play a negative role because they abandoned their ideals—and were led astray by a traitor in the form of Oh. At the end, when Oh is expelled, they reclaim their moral stance and save the day.
It’s important that Picard defenses the synths by invoking Federation law.
2. Sure, Riker leads the fleet—but it’s only there in the first place because of Admiral Clancy. She castigated Picard in the opening of the story but, when presented with evidence that Picard is right, immediately does the right thing. If the story intended for Starfleet to remain antagonistic, Clancy would’ve rebuffed Picard regardless of the facts—or worse, joined forces with Oh.
3. Yes, Picard is the lead character—and his purpose is to lead the other characters back to who they are meant to be. Raffi, Rios, Seven, and Elnor become better people due to Picard’s presence, their choice to follow his quest. Picard’s influence, as the embodiment of Starfleet, literally saved the universe.
Except that's not how it plays out.
Picard is right, Starfleet and the Federation are wrong. Like, the very idea that they abandoned their ideals is the entire point. And in the end it's Riker who comes to save him. Riker, who he basically convinces out of retirement, comes to bail his ass out. There's no feeling of grand reversal here from the fundamental shift in tone the series has shown for the Federation on multiple occasions at multiple levels. It's not just about them not giving Picard a ship.
As I said, I'm pretty sure this is entirely because the series was spawned from an idea of making this series about Picard as the absolute moral centre of the story. And the consequence of that is it ends up painting everything around him in a bad light in order to make that happen. As I mentioned after first watching the series, Picard often feels like one of those "dark future" flash-forward episodes from sci-fi series. And people notice that. Because for a lot of people attached to the franchise, Star Trek isn't about Picard being better, it's about a ton of things and people and characters being better.
Basically, you can't make a show centred around how the Federation fucked everything up, abandoned it's ideals in really fundamental ways at multiple points throughout the show and literally yells in your main character's face at every turn and then wonder why people find it a downer. That's the show you made man. People feel it. They notice the tone.
You seem to conflate the Federation/Starfleet with Trek's ideals. They are not, and never were, the same thing.
Picard shows that the Federation and Starfleet have abandoned Trek idealism for realpolitik. This does not disregard those ideals because they were wrong to do so. They story leaves no ambiguity that it was a mistake for Starfleet to abandon the Romulans, that it was a mistake for the Federation to ban synths, and that the Zhat Vash is unequivocally evil for advocating genocide.
You can argue over the quality of the story, but "prevent genocide and peacefully deescalate conflict" is absolutely in line with the franchise's idealism.
Compare how Picard ended with "In the Pale Moonlight." Sisko and Garak's plan is the height of realpolitik. It is a direct refutation of Trek idealism--and it is presented as the right choice. Without the Romulans, the Alpha Quadrant falls to slavery and genocide. There was no way to secure Romulan support without underhanded means. Sisko's actions saved the Fedeation. That's going against the franchise's standard philosophy.
Arguing that Picard, as a whole, is grimdark or anti-Trek ignores what's actually shown on-screen.
No dude, Federation/Star Fleet ideals are Trek's ideals. That's the entire point. And that's the point of what I'm saying. The ideals of Star Trek, as vague as they are, are larger then just one man. The character embody the best ideals of their society as much as they can. That's the whole thing. Sometimes people fail or institutions fail but they are pulled back to those ideals.
But Picard wants to have it the other way in a lot of ways. And that's why people view it and think it's dark or cynical or whatever other word you wanna use. Because the way they set up the show has the Federation as a whole abandon it's core ideals in a very fundamental way. For like 2 decades or something. And this is reinforced in several places throughout the show. The Federation just decided, fuck it, it doesn't want to help other people anymore. It's not surprising people reacted to that and label it "dark" or whatever. That's a pretty fundamentally "dark" idea for Star Trek in a way you don't really see in other series.
It all exists in service to Picard being the one to show everyone else the right way. And like with a lot of other shit in the series, it feels the need to go really really big with this idea. And so to do that the Federation and Star Fleet have to abandon their ideals in a really big way. (like with the main plot of the show, I think it's a general problem with the show being unable to tone the stakes down a few notches)
Well, except for the time Starfleet wanted to commit genocide against the Borg, or when they violated intergalactic treaty by developing a cloaking device, or abandoned its citizens to a fascist regime for the sake of a bad treaty and then labeled those citizens terrorists when they defended themselves, or ordered the forced relocation of an independent society because they wanted its resources, or the time they conspired to have a foreign politician imprisoned and/or executed so they could put a spy in her place, or the time they tried to commit genocide against the Founders.
You'll note that in every one of those instances, Starfleet was either stopped or called out by individual Starfleet members who cleaved to its ideals better than the institution did. And, in all but three of those instances, the Starfleet member in question was Jean-Luc Picard.
Yes, and he called them back to the Federations ideals. Because those are the ideals of Star Trek. And it was the opposite of the setup of Picard. It was "this small group of people are pushing this way, we must show them they are wrong". It wasn't "All of the Federation, for like multiple decades, on basically every level". Like seriously, you cannot gloss over this shit. The entire setup of Picard depends on the idea that the Federation just decides, for some long-ass amount of time, that they just don't give a shit about helping people anymore. It inverts the framing of the story device that has been used previously which is why people react to it.
Also "the things Section 31" did is kinda silly to include in any list since they are explicitly characterized in DS9 as being, you know, not good people and someone who's existence stands in violation of the very ideals of the Federation and who basically nobody knows about.
Picard and Discovery are joyless reflections on misery and despair. utter trash.
Gonna have to hard disagree there. Both shows are dark, but ultimately reflect the same optimism and humanity as every other Trek.
Discovery:
Burnham's actions in the premiere, and Lorca's whole character, represent the cynical realpolitik that dominates modern science fiction. The first season finale is a direct refutation of that philosophy, as Burnham and Discovery risk everything because they still believe in the ideals on which the Federation was founded--that war, barbarism, and violence are not the answer. Burnham's arc is explicitly one of redemption, wrapped in classic Trek philosophy.
Season 2 continues that trend from the start. Pike, literally original Captain, is stated in text to be the "best of Starfleet." The crew spends the whole season working to preserve life, explore, and find peaceful solutions to conflict. Section 31 is shown to be a reckless collection of fools that nearly doom the galaxy. The heroes only win in the end because of the connections they made with disparate, alien cultures--connections made at great risk to themselves.
Picard:
Every dark element in the story is explicitly tied to Starfleet's failure to uphold its ideals. Every good thing that happens stems from Picard's efforts to keep those ideals alive. At the climax Starfleet, which occupies an antagonistic role in the first act, redeems itself by defending people who cannot defend themselves. Picard, embodying the "best of Starfleet," is literally given a new lease on life.
You can argue whether New Trek is well-crafted, but labeling it "joyless reflections on misery and despair" doesn't hold up to what's actually shown on screen.
But, at least for Picard since I can't speak for Discovery, you point out exactly why this doesn't really work in your own explanation.
Picard explicitly frames Starfleet and the Federation as the villain. On basically every level. At every turn Picard finds Starfleet and Federation society in his way. Even at the end it's not Starfleet, but Will Riker, Picard's buddy who we spend a whole episode reconnecting with that saves the day. And it's not just Picard either, as we see with Seven's story. The show is full of outcasts.
Picard wants to frame Picard as the Big Moral Centre of the story. He's the one that saves the day by standing up for what's right. But in order to elevate him, they story reframes everything else about the Star Trek setting in a negative light.
More then anything I'd say it's a conflict between Star Trek as a franchise, even when it was TNG, being about more then just Picard. But ST: Picard, fairly obviously from the title, wants to be all about Picard. And if the audience is invested in more then just Picard the character, or at best the TNG cast, then the whole thing comes off as pretty negative.
You’re forgetting a couple of things.
1. Starfleet and the Federation only play a negative role because they abandoned their ideals—and were led astray by a traitor in the form of Oh. At the end, when Oh is expelled, they reclaim their moral stance and save the day.
It’s important that Picard defenses the synths by invoking Federation law.
2. Sure, Riker leads the fleet—but it’s only there in the first place because of Admiral Clancy. She castigated Picard in the opening of the story but, when presented with evidence that Picard is right, immediately does the right thing. If the story intended for Starfleet to remain antagonistic, Clancy would’ve rebuffed Picard regardless of the facts—or worse, joined forces with Oh.
3. Yes, Picard is the lead character—and his purpose is to lead the other characters back to who they are meant to be. Raffi, Rios, Seven, and Elnor become better people due to Picard’s presence, their choice to follow his quest. Picard’s influence, as the embodiment of Starfleet, literally saved the universe.
Except that's not how it plays out.
Picard is right, Starfleet and the Federation are wrong. Like, the very idea that they abandoned their ideals is the entire point. And in the end it's Riker who comes to save him. Riker, who he basically convinces out of retirement, comes to bail his ass out. There's no feeling of grand reversal here from the fundamental shift in tone the series has shown for the Federation on multiple occasions at multiple levels. It's not just about them not giving Picard a ship.
As I said, I'm pretty sure this is entirely because the series was spawned from an idea of making this series about Picard as the absolute moral centre of the story. And the consequence of that is it ends up painting everything around him in a bad light in order to make that happen. As I mentioned after first watching the series, Picard often feels like one of those "dark future" flash-forward episodes from sci-fi series. And people notice that. Because for a lot of people attached to the franchise, Star Trek isn't about Picard being better, it's about a ton of things and people and characters being better.
Basically, you can't make a show centred around how the Federation fucked everything up, abandoned it's ideals in really fundamental ways at multiple points throughout the show and literally yells in your main character's face at every turn and then wonder why people find it a downer. That's the show you made man. People feel it. They notice the tone.
You seem to conflate the Federation/Starfleet with Trek's ideals. They are not, and never were, the same thing.
Picard shows that the Federation and Starfleet have abandoned Trek idealism for realpolitik. This does not disregard those ideals because they were wrong to do so. They story leaves no ambiguity that it was a mistake for Starfleet to abandon the Romulans, that it was a mistake for the Federation to ban synths, and that the Zhat Vash is unequivocally evil for advocating genocide.
You can argue over the quality of the story, but "prevent genocide and peacefully deescalate conflict" is absolutely in line with the franchise's idealism.
Compare how Picard ended with "In the Pale Moonlight." Sisko and Garak's plan is the height of realpolitik. It is a direct refutation of Trek idealism--and it is presented as the right choice. Without the Romulans, the Alpha Quadrant falls to slavery and genocide. There was no way to secure Romulan support without underhanded means. Sisko's actions saved the Fedeation. That's going against the franchise's standard philosophy.
Arguing that Picard, as a whole, is grimdark or anti-Trek ignores what's actually shown on-screen.
No dude, Federation/Star Fleet ideals are Trek's ideals. That's the entire point. And that's the point of what I'm saying. The ideals of Star Trek, as vague as they are, are larger then just one man. The character embody the best ideals of their society as much as they can. That's the whole thing. Sometimes people fail or institutions fail but they are pulled back to those ideals.
But Picard wants to have it the other way in a lot of ways. And that's why people view it and think it's dark or cynical or whatever other word you wanna use. Because the way they set up the show has the Federation as a whole abandon it's core ideals in a very fundamental way. For like 2 decades or something. And this is reinforced in several places throughout the show. The Federation just decided, fuck it, it doesn't want to help other people anymore. It's not surprising people reacted to that and label it "dark" or whatever. That's a pretty fundamentally "dark" idea for Star Trek in a way you don't really see in other series.
It all exists in service to Picard being the one to show everyone else the right way. And like with a lot of other shit in the series, it feels the need to go really really big with this idea. And so to do that the Federation and Star Fleet have to abandon their ideals in a really big way. (like with the main plot of the show, I think it's a general problem with the show being unable to tone the stakes down a few notches)
Well, except for the time Starfleet wanted to commit genocide against the Borg, or when they violated intergalactic treaty by developing a cloaking device, or abandoned its citizens to a fascist regime for the sake of a bad treaty and then labeled those citizens terrorists when they defended themselves, or ordered the forced relocation of an independent society because they wanted its resources, or the time they conspired to have a foreign politician imprisoned and/or executed so they could put a spy in her place, or the time they tried to commit genocide against the Founders.
You'll note that in every one of those instances, Starfleet was either stopped or called out by individual Starfleet members who cleaved to its ideals better than the institution did. And, in all but three of those instances, the Starfleet member in question was Jean-Luc Picard.
Yes, and he called them back to the Federations ideals. Because those are the ideals of Star Trek. And it was the opposite of the setup of Picard. It was "this small group of people are pushing this way, we must show them they are wrong". It wasn't "All of the Federation, for like multiple decades, on basically every level". Like seriously, you cannot gloss over this shit. The entire setup of Picard depends on the idea that the Federation just decides, for some long-ass amount of time, that they just don't give a shit about helping people anymore. It inverts the framing of the story device that has been used previously which is why people react to it.
Also "the things Section 31" did is kinda silly to include in any list since they are explicitly characterized in DS9 as being, you know, not good people and someone who's existence stands in violation of the very ideals of the Federation and who basically nobody knows about.
The entire Federation government supported the Cardassian Treaty and all its aftereffects, and there's nothing on screen* to suggest Section 31 was involved in the Pegasus experiment or the Bak'u Incident. The duping of Senator Cretak and the poisoning of the Founders explicitly occurred under Admiral Ross' purview, with no indication that he was hiding his activities from Federation leadership.
I only included instances where official involvement was directly stated or heavily implied; if I tried to list every rogue officer, I'd have to list basically every appearance of a flag officer and every Sisko episode after For the Uniform.
And, like those instances, Picard does call the Federation back to its ideals.
The climax is not like Insurrection or Pegasus; the heroes are not going rogue or otherwise thumbing their nose at unjust Federation objectives. Riker showed up at Ghulion IV because the head of Starfleet listened to Picard and decided he was right. That's not implied or merely suggested; it's on-screen. Ghulion IV and the synths survive the Zhat Vash because the Federation invoked its laws to protect them.
Picard's arc is one of redemption, and its shared by Starfleet as an institution. At the beginning, Picard has abandoned his duty, abandoned the people who depended on him, all while blaming outside forces for his choice--just as Admiral Clancy abandoned the Romulans and the synths, all while blaming political realities. Picard reclaims those ideals for himself and, in the end, convinces Starfleet to do the same. His personal redemption and rediscovery of his ideals inspires Raffi, Rios, and Soji to be better people than they think they are.
And all of this is directly in line with previous incarnations of the franchise.
Star Trek has never been about institutions. How long did it take for TOS to even coin the terms "Federation" or "Starfleet?" Star Trek is about ideals, filtered through individual people and their struggle to uphold them. Everything else in the franchise, whether it's concepts like Starfleet and the Federation or themes like war and imperialism, only exist to serve that purpose.
*
To be fair, that's because Section 31 didn't exist when they wrote the Maquis storyline or Pegasus, and the movies could barely manage to mention the Dominion War, much less continue its subplots. But such is life.
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I'm not sure the Borg are the example enemy you want to use when it comes to the Federation committing war crimes...
You know what I want? A story to explain how the fuck the Ferengi have such a low Borg designation. 180! How?! I can only assume temporal hijinks were involved--and a healthy does of extremely good or extremely bad luck, depending if they were actually assimilated.
Also, for Riker to get a better Titan series now that the post-Nemesis books have been retconned out of existence.
They explain it a bit in DS9. The Ferengi are really bad at tech and have bought or borrowed most of theirs. Rom even comments at one point they didn't even invent their own warpdrive
I'm not sure the Borg are the example enemy you want to use when it comes to the Federation committing war crimes...
Neither are the Founders, but the episodes in questions still painted the Federation's actions as anathema to its ideals.
A consistent thread in Trek is "we shouldn't stoop to their level, their methods, in order to win." And the writers (eventually) conveniently arrange things to allow this - the Federation gets to win and keep (or reclaim, if they briefly stumbled, overreached, or stepped down from it in desperation) the moral high ground.
You know what I want? A story to explain how the fuck the Ferengi have such a low Borg designation. 180! How?! I can only assume temporal hijinks were involved--and a healthy does of extremely good or extremely bad luck, depending if they were actually assimilated.
Also, for Riker to get a better Titan series now that the post-Nemesis books have been retconned out of existence.
They explain it a bit in DS9. The Ferengi are really bad at tech and have bought or borrowed most of theirs. Rom even comments at one point they didn't even invent their own warpdrive
Yeah, the Borg already just steal all their technology, they don't need to snap up another species that does the same thing. And it's not like the Borg need Rules of Acquisition, seeing as their one rule of acquisition is "if we don't have it, acquire it".
Picard and Discovery are joyless reflections on misery and despair. utter trash.
Gonna have to hard disagree there. Both shows are dark, but ultimately reflect the same optimism and humanity as every other Trek.
Discovery:
Burnham's actions in the premiere, and Lorca's whole character, represent the cynical realpolitik that dominates modern science fiction. The first season finale is a direct refutation of that philosophy, as Burnham and Discovery risk everything because they still believe in the ideals on which the Federation was founded--that war, barbarism, and violence are not the answer. Burnham's arc is explicitly one of redemption, wrapped in classic Trek philosophy.
Season 2 continues that trend from the start. Pike, literally original Captain, is stated in text to be the "best of Starfleet." The crew spends the whole season working to preserve life, explore, and find peaceful solutions to conflict. Section 31 is shown to be a reckless collection of fools that nearly doom the galaxy. The heroes only win in the end because of the connections they made with disparate, alien cultures--connections made at great risk to themselves.
Picard:
Every dark element in the story is explicitly tied to Starfleet's failure to uphold its ideals. Every good thing that happens stems from Picard's efforts to keep those ideals alive. At the climax Starfleet, which occupies an antagonistic role in the first act, redeems itself by defending people who cannot defend themselves. Picard, embodying the "best of Starfleet," is literally given a new lease on life.
You can argue whether New Trek is well-crafted, but labeling it "joyless reflections on misery and despair" doesn't hold up to what's actually shown on screen.
But, at least for Picard since I can't speak for Discovery, you point out exactly why this doesn't really work in your own explanation.
Picard explicitly frames Starfleet and the Federation as the villain. On basically every level. At every turn Picard finds Starfleet and Federation society in his way. Even at the end it's not Starfleet, but Will Riker, Picard's buddy who we spend a whole episode reconnecting with that saves the day. And it's not just Picard either, as we see with Seven's story. The show is full of outcasts.
Picard wants to frame Picard as the Big Moral Centre of the story. He's the one that saves the day by standing up for what's right. But in order to elevate him, they story reframes everything else about the Star Trek setting in a negative light.
More then anything I'd say it's a conflict between Star Trek as a franchise, even when it was TNG, being about more then just Picard. But ST: Picard, fairly obviously from the title, wants to be all about Picard. And if the audience is invested in more then just Picard the character, or at best the TNG cast, then the whole thing comes off as pretty negative.
You’re forgetting a couple of things.
1. Starfleet and the Federation only play a negative role because they abandoned their ideals—and were led astray by a traitor in the form of Oh. At the end, when Oh is expelled, they reclaim their moral stance and save the day.
It’s important that Picard defenses the synths by invoking Federation law.
2. Sure, Riker leads the fleet—but it’s only there in the first place because of Admiral Clancy. She castigated Picard in the opening of the story but, when presented with evidence that Picard is right, immediately does the right thing. If the story intended for Starfleet to remain antagonistic, Clancy would’ve rebuffed Picard regardless of the facts—or worse, joined forces with Oh.
3. Yes, Picard is the lead character—and his purpose is to lead the other characters back to who they are meant to be. Raffi, Rios, Seven, and Elnor become better people due to Picard’s presence, their choice to follow his quest. Picard’s influence, as the embodiment of Starfleet, literally saved the universe.
Except that's not how it plays out.
Picard is right, Starfleet and the Federation are wrong. Like, the very idea that they abandoned their ideals is the entire point. And in the end it's Riker who comes to save him. Riker, who he basically convinces out of retirement, comes to bail his ass out. There's no feeling of grand reversal here from the fundamental shift in tone the series has shown for the Federation on multiple occasions at multiple levels. It's not just about them not giving Picard a ship.
As I said, I'm pretty sure this is entirely because the series was spawned from an idea of making this series about Picard as the absolute moral centre of the story. And the consequence of that is it ends up painting everything around him in a bad light in order to make that happen. As I mentioned after first watching the series, Picard often feels like one of those "dark future" flash-forward episodes from sci-fi series. And people notice that. Because for a lot of people attached to the franchise, Star Trek isn't about Picard being better, it's about a ton of things and people and characters being better.
Basically, you can't make a show centred around how the Federation fucked everything up, abandoned it's ideals in really fundamental ways at multiple points throughout the show and literally yells in your main character's face at every turn and then wonder why people find it a downer. That's the show you made man. People feel it. They notice the tone.
You seem to conflate the Federation/Starfleet with Trek's ideals. They are not, and never were, the same thing.
Picard shows that the Federation and Starfleet have abandoned Trek idealism for realpolitik. This does not disregard those ideals because they were wrong to do so. They story leaves no ambiguity that it was a mistake for Starfleet to abandon the Romulans, that it was a mistake for the Federation to ban synths, and that the Zhat Vash is unequivocally evil for advocating genocide.
You can argue over the quality of the story, but "prevent genocide and peacefully deescalate conflict" is absolutely in line with the franchise's idealism.
Compare how Picard ended with "In the Pale Moonlight." Sisko and Garak's plan is the height of realpolitik. It is a direct refutation of Trek idealism--and it is presented as the right choice. Without the Romulans, the Alpha Quadrant falls to slavery and genocide. There was no way to secure Romulan support without underhanded means. Sisko's actions saved the Fedeation. That's going against the franchise's standard philosophy.
Arguing that Picard, as a whole, is grimdark or anti-Trek ignores what's actually shown on-screen.
No dude, Federation/Star Fleet ideals are Trek's ideals. That's the entire point. And that's the point of what I'm saying. The ideals of Star Trek, as vague as they are, are larger then just one man. The character embody the best ideals of their society as much as they can. That's the whole thing. Sometimes people fail or institutions fail but they are pulled back to those ideals.
But Picard wants to have it the other way in a lot of ways. And that's why people view it and think it's dark or cynical or whatever other word you wanna use. Because the way they set up the show has the Federation as a whole abandon it's core ideals in a very fundamental way. For like 2 decades or something. And this is reinforced in several places throughout the show. The Federation just decided, fuck it, it doesn't want to help other people anymore. It's not surprising people reacted to that and label it "dark" or whatever. That's a pretty fundamentally "dark" idea for Star Trek in a way you don't really see in other series.
It all exists in service to Picard being the one to show everyone else the right way. And like with a lot of other shit in the series, it feels the need to go really really big with this idea. And so to do that the Federation and Star Fleet have to abandon their ideals in a really big way. (like with the main plot of the show, I think it's a general problem with the show being unable to tone the stakes down a few notches)
Well, except for the time Starfleet wanted to commit genocide against the Borg, or when they violated intergalactic treaty by developing a cloaking device, or abandoned its citizens to a fascist regime for the sake of a bad treaty and then labeled those citizens terrorists when they defended themselves, or ordered the forced relocation of an independent society because they wanted its resources, or the time they conspired to have a foreign politician imprisoned and/or executed so they could put a spy in her place, or the time they tried to commit genocide against the Founders.
You'll note that in every one of those instances, Starfleet was either stopped or called out by individual Starfleet members who cleaved to its ideals better than the institution did. And, in all but three of those instances, the Starfleet member in question was Jean-Luc Picard.
Yes, and he called them back to the Federations ideals. Because those are the ideals of Star Trek. And it was the opposite of the setup of Picard. It was "this small group of people are pushing this way, we must show them they are wrong". It wasn't "All of the Federation, for like multiple decades, on basically every level". Like seriously, you cannot gloss over this shit. The entire setup of Picard depends on the idea that the Federation just decides, for some long-ass amount of time, that they just don't give a shit about helping people anymore. It inverts the framing of the story device that has been used previously which is why people react to it.
Also "the things Section 31" did is kinda silly to include in any list since they are explicitly characterized in DS9 as being, you know, not good people and someone who's existence stands in violation of the very ideals of the Federation and who basically nobody knows about.
The entire Federation government supported the Cardassian Treaty and all its aftereffects, and there's nothing on screen* to suggest Section 31 was involved in the Pegasus experiment or the Bak'u Incident. The duping of Senator Cretak and the poisoning of the Founders explicitly occurred under Admiral Ross' purview, with no indication that he was hiding his activities from Federation leadership.
I only included instances where official involvement was directly stated or heavily implied; if I tried to list every rogue officer, I'd have to list basically every appearance of a flag officer and every Sisko episode after For the Uniform.
And, like those instances, Picard does call the Federation back to its ideals.
The climax is not like Insurrection or Pegasus; the heroes are not going rogue or otherwise thumbing their nose at unjust Federation objectives. Riker showed up at Ghulion IV because the head of Starfleet listened to Picard and decided he was right. That's not implied or merely suggested; it's on-screen. Ghulion IV and the synths survive the Zhat Vash because the Federation invoked its laws to protect them.
Picard's arc is one of redemption, and its shared by Starfleet as an institution. At the beginning, Picard has abandoned his duty, abandoned the people who depended on him, all while blaming outside forces for his choice--just as Admiral Clancy abandoned the Romulans and the synths, all while blaming political realities. Picard reclaims those ideals for himself and, in the end, convinces Starfleet to do the same. His personal redemption and rediscovery of his ideals inspires Raffi, Rios, and Soji to be better people than they think they are.
And all of this is directly in line with previous incarnations of the franchise.
Star Trek has never been about institutions. How long did it take for TOS to even coin the terms "Federation" or "Starfleet?" Star Trek is about ideals, filtered through individual people and their struggle to uphold them. Everything else in the franchise, whether it's concepts like Starfleet and the Federation or themes like war and imperialism, only exist to serve that purpose.
*
To be fair, that's because Section 31 didn't exist when they wrote the Maquis storyline or Pegasus, and the movies could barely manage to mention the Dominion War, much less continue its subplots. But such is life.
Nah. The entire point was that these character embodied the ideals of a better society, that they lived in. Star Trek was never about people rising above their society, but embodying it. Just as an easy example:
PICARD: That's what this is all about. A lot has changed in the past three hundred years. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things. We've eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions. We have grown out of our infancy.
This is a statement about society, not people. And that's fundamental to the Star Trek view of the future and the Federation in general. It's always been about the whole. It's not "our characters are good people in an imperfect world", it's "our character embody the characteristics of a better society".
And again, trying to compare this to shit like the Cardassian treaty is the point. This isn't "Oh, we've had to make some compromises and maybe relocate some people". It's literally "We aren't gonna stop a species from potentially going extinct because, fuck it, we just don't feel like it". And that this persists. For like decades. The plot of Picard the show suggests a long term and accepted fundamental shift in the outlook of the Federation in a way that none of your examples do. There's no compromises here, no "we had to make hard choices", there's just walking away from an ideal. And they emphasize this too in other ways.
It's all in service to a specific story structure they want to use and then crank to 11 because, as with the main plot, dialing it back a few notches and telling a smaller story seems like something they are incapable of doing. Every threat, moral or physical or whatever, has to be the Biggest One Ever.
You know what I want? A story to explain how the fuck the Ferengi have such a low Borg designation. 180! How?! I can only assume temporal hijinks were involved--and a healthy does of extremely good or extremely bad luck, depending if they were actually assimilated.
Also, for Riker to get a better Titan series now that the post-Nemesis books have been retconned out of existence.
They explain it a bit in DS9. The Ferengi are really bad at tech and have bought or borrowed most of theirs. Rom even comments at one point they didn't even invent their own warpdrive
it's not a ranking order, it's by order of assimilation. So that means with the shittiest tech* they somehow managed to get to the Delta Quadrant and get assimilated before a lot of the natives of the region.
*I assume some sort of wooden ship with solar sails or something.
What would Picard have done if he found out about the events of In the Pale Moonlight after the Romulans entered the war, but before the war was over?
Questions like that are why I wish DS9 had been able to bring the TNG cast into the war arc.
I was actually brainstorming this the other day, what if the Dominion War was like the MCU or a CW-style crossover.
1. The Enterprise is assigned to DS9, since that's the key to the whole war and the alliance's primary staging area. It makes no sense in-fiction for the most advanced ship in the fleet, commanded by its greatest captain, would not be there. That'd correct one of DS9's great missing moments--Picard and Sisko interacting after Sisko has healed from Wolf 359 and found himself again.
2. Riker gets promoted to captain whether he wants it or not; starship commanders are at a premium, those with combat experience in moreso. I'd split the TNG crew, some following Riker and others staying on the Enterprise. Maybe have Geordi wear two hats as Chief Engineer and Riker's XO; the battle scene in Insurrection makes me think they'd be a really good combo.
3. Troi is assigned to the station--we'd finally get to see her to do her actual job as counselor. DS9 touched on the horrors of war in a few episodes, but I really think there's solid ground here storytelling, a chance to tell audiences things they really need to hear about what people go through in war.
4. We'd actually see the Battle of Betazed; it could even be a multi-episode arc like Operation Return.
5. To answer your question, here's my theory: Picard finds out and immediately blows the whistle, likely including an epic dressing-down of Sikso. And then...nothing happens. The Federation Council doesn't want to act on it because doing so means losing the war. The Romulans don't want to act on it because admitting they were duped by the Federation would destroy their government's legitimacy--and now the Dominion is gunning for them anyway. The episode tests Picard's faith to the breaking point, and ends with a second confrontation with Sisko--this one quiet, as both men try to figure out how to live with what happened. You could also use it to help setup the Picard series--his actions, though futile, earned him a lot of trust within the Empire.
Picard and Discovery are joyless reflections on misery and despair. utter trash.
Gonna have to hard disagree there. Both shows are dark, but ultimately reflect the same optimism and humanity as every other Trek.
Discovery:
Burnham's actions in the premiere, and Lorca's whole character, represent the cynical realpolitik that dominates modern science fiction. The first season finale is a direct refutation of that philosophy, as Burnham and Discovery risk everything because they still believe in the ideals on which the Federation was founded--that war, barbarism, and violence are not the answer. Burnham's arc is explicitly one of redemption, wrapped in classic Trek philosophy.
Season 2 continues that trend from the start. Pike, literally original Captain, is stated in text to be the "best of Starfleet." The crew spends the whole season working to preserve life, explore, and find peaceful solutions to conflict. Section 31 is shown to be a reckless collection of fools that nearly doom the galaxy. The heroes only win in the end because of the connections they made with disparate, alien cultures--connections made at great risk to themselves.
Picard:
Every dark element in the story is explicitly tied to Starfleet's failure to uphold its ideals. Every good thing that happens stems from Picard's efforts to keep those ideals alive. At the climax Starfleet, which occupies an antagonistic role in the first act, redeems itself by defending people who cannot defend themselves. Picard, embodying the "best of Starfleet," is literally given a new lease on life.
You can argue whether New Trek is well-crafted, but labeling it "joyless reflections on misery and despair" doesn't hold up to what's actually shown on screen.
But, at least for Picard since I can't speak for Discovery, you point out exactly why this doesn't really work in your own explanation.
Picard explicitly frames Starfleet and the Federation as the villain. On basically every level. At every turn Picard finds Starfleet and Federation society in his way. Even at the end it's not Starfleet, but Will Riker, Picard's buddy who we spend a whole episode reconnecting with that saves the day. And it's not just Picard either, as we see with Seven's story. The show is full of outcasts.
Picard wants to frame Picard as the Big Moral Centre of the story. He's the one that saves the day by standing up for what's right. But in order to elevate him, they story reframes everything else about the Star Trek setting in a negative light.
More then anything I'd say it's a conflict between Star Trek as a franchise, even when it was TNG, being about more then just Picard. But ST: Picard, fairly obviously from the title, wants to be all about Picard. And if the audience is invested in more then just Picard the character, or at best the TNG cast, then the whole thing comes off as pretty negative.
You’re forgetting a couple of things.
1. Starfleet and the Federation only play a negative role because they abandoned their ideals—and were led astray by a traitor in the form of Oh. At the end, when Oh is expelled, they reclaim their moral stance and save the day.
It’s important that Picard defenses the synths by invoking Federation law.
2. Sure, Riker leads the fleet—but it’s only there in the first place because of Admiral Clancy. She castigated Picard in the opening of the story but, when presented with evidence that Picard is right, immediately does the right thing. If the story intended for Starfleet to remain antagonistic, Clancy would’ve rebuffed Picard regardless of the facts—or worse, joined forces with Oh.
3. Yes, Picard is the lead character—and his purpose is to lead the other characters back to who they are meant to be. Raffi, Rios, Seven, and Elnor become better people due to Picard’s presence, their choice to follow his quest. Picard’s influence, as the embodiment of Starfleet, literally saved the universe.
Except that's not how it plays out.
Picard is right, Starfleet and the Federation are wrong. Like, the very idea that they abandoned their ideals is the entire point. And in the end it's Riker who comes to save him. Riker, who he basically convinces out of retirement, comes to bail his ass out. There's no feeling of grand reversal here from the fundamental shift in tone the series has shown for the Federation on multiple occasions at multiple levels. It's not just about them not giving Picard a ship.
As I said, I'm pretty sure this is entirely because the series was spawned from an idea of making this series about Picard as the absolute moral centre of the story. And the consequence of that is it ends up painting everything around him in a bad light in order to make that happen. As I mentioned after first watching the series, Picard often feels like one of those "dark future" flash-forward episodes from sci-fi series. And people notice that. Because for a lot of people attached to the franchise, Star Trek isn't about Picard being better, it's about a ton of things and people and characters being better.
Basically, you can't make a show centred around how the Federation fucked everything up, abandoned it's ideals in really fundamental ways at multiple points throughout the show and literally yells in your main character's face at every turn and then wonder why people find it a downer. That's the show you made man. People feel it. They notice the tone.
You seem to conflate the Federation/Starfleet with Trek's ideals. They are not, and never were, the same thing.
Picard shows that the Federation and Starfleet have abandoned Trek idealism for realpolitik. This does not disregard those ideals because they were wrong to do so. They story leaves no ambiguity that it was a mistake for Starfleet to abandon the Romulans, that it was a mistake for the Federation to ban synths, and that the Zhat Vash is unequivocally evil for advocating genocide.
You can argue over the quality of the story, but "prevent genocide and peacefully deescalate conflict" is absolutely in line with the franchise's idealism.
Compare how Picard ended with "In the Pale Moonlight." Sisko and Garak's plan is the height of realpolitik. It is a direct refutation of Trek idealism--and it is presented as the right choice. Without the Romulans, the Alpha Quadrant falls to slavery and genocide. There was no way to secure Romulan support without underhanded means. Sisko's actions saved the Fedeation. That's going against the franchise's standard philosophy.
Arguing that Picard, as a whole, is grimdark or anti-Trek ignores what's actually shown on-screen.
No dude, Federation/Star Fleet ideals are Trek's ideals. That's the entire point. And that's the point of what I'm saying. The ideals of Star Trek, as vague as they are, are larger then just one man. The character embody the best ideals of their society as much as they can. That's the whole thing. Sometimes people fail or institutions fail but they are pulled back to those ideals.
But Picard wants to have it the other way in a lot of ways. And that's why people view it and think it's dark or cynical or whatever other word you wanna use. Because the way they set up the show has the Federation as a whole abandon it's core ideals in a very fundamental way. For like 2 decades or something. And this is reinforced in several places throughout the show. The Federation just decided, fuck it, it doesn't want to help other people anymore. It's not surprising people reacted to that and label it "dark" or whatever. That's a pretty fundamentally "dark" idea for Star Trek in a way you don't really see in other series.
It all exists in service to Picard being the one to show everyone else the right way. And like with a lot of other shit in the series, it feels the need to go really really big with this idea. And so to do that the Federation and Star Fleet have to abandon their ideals in a really big way. (like with the main plot of the show, I think it's a general problem with the show being unable to tone the stakes down a few notches)
Well, except for the time Starfleet wanted to commit genocide against the Borg, or when they violated intergalactic treaty by developing a cloaking device, or abandoned its citizens to a fascist regime for the sake of a bad treaty and then labeled those citizens terrorists when they defended themselves, or ordered the forced relocation of an independent society because they wanted its resources, or the time they conspired to have a foreign politician imprisoned and/or executed so they could put a spy in her place, or the time they tried to commit genocide against the Founders.
You'll note that in every one of those instances, Starfleet was either stopped or called out by individual Starfleet members who cleaved to its ideals better than the institution did. And, in all but three of those instances, the Starfleet member in question was Jean-Luc Picard.
Yes, and he called them back to the Federations ideals. Because those are the ideals of Star Trek. And it was the opposite of the setup of Picard. It was "this small group of people are pushing this way, we must show them they are wrong". It wasn't "All of the Federation, for like multiple decades, on basically every level". Like seriously, you cannot gloss over this shit. The entire setup of Picard depends on the idea that the Federation just decides, for some long-ass amount of time, that they just don't give a shit about helping people anymore. It inverts the framing of the story device that has been used previously which is why people react to it.
Also "the things Section 31" did is kinda silly to include in any list since they are explicitly characterized in DS9 as being, you know, not good people and someone who's existence stands in violation of the very ideals of the Federation and who basically nobody knows about.
The entire Federation government supported the Cardassian Treaty and all its aftereffects, and there's nothing on screen* to suggest Section 31 was involved in the Pegasus experiment or the Bak'u Incident. The duping of Senator Cretak and the poisoning of the Founders explicitly occurred under Admiral Ross' purview, with no indication that he was hiding his activities from Federation leadership.
I only included instances where official involvement was directly stated or heavily implied; if I tried to list every rogue officer, I'd have to list basically every appearance of a flag officer and every Sisko episode after For the Uniform.
And, like those instances, Picard does call the Federation back to its ideals.
The climax is not like Insurrection or Pegasus; the heroes are not going rogue or otherwise thumbing their nose at unjust Federation objectives. Riker showed up at Ghulion IV because the head of Starfleet listened to Picard and decided he was right. That's not implied or merely suggested; it's on-screen. Ghulion IV and the synths survive the Zhat Vash because the Federation invoked its laws to protect them.
Picard's arc is one of redemption, and its shared by Starfleet as an institution. At the beginning, Picard has abandoned his duty, abandoned the people who depended on him, all while blaming outside forces for his choice--just as Admiral Clancy abandoned the Romulans and the synths, all while blaming political realities. Picard reclaims those ideals for himself and, in the end, convinces Starfleet to do the same. His personal redemption and rediscovery of his ideals inspires Raffi, Rios, and Soji to be better people than they think they are.
And all of this is directly in line with previous incarnations of the franchise.
Star Trek has never been about institutions. How long did it take for TOS to even coin the terms "Federation" or "Starfleet?" Star Trek is about ideals, filtered through individual people and their struggle to uphold them. Everything else in the franchise, whether it's concepts like Starfleet and the Federation or themes like war and imperialism, only exist to serve that purpose.
*
To be fair, that's because Section 31 didn't exist when they wrote the Maquis storyline or Pegasus, and the movies could barely manage to mention the Dominion War, much less continue its subplots. But such is life.
Nah. The entire point was that these character embodied the ideals of a better society, that they lived in. Star Trek was never about people rising above their society, but embodying it. Just as an easy example:
PICARD: That's what this is all about. A lot has changed in the past three hundred years. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things. We've eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions. We have grown out of our infancy.
This is a statement about society, not people. And that's fundamental to the Star Trek view of the future and the Federation in general. It's always been about the whole. It's not "our characters are good people in an imperfect world", it's "our character embody the characteristics of a better society".
And again, trying to compare this to shit like the Cardassian treaty is the point. This isn't "Oh, we've had to make some compromises and maybe relocate some people". It's literally "We aren't gonna stop a species from potentially going extinct because, fuck it, we just don't feel like it". And that this persists. For like decades. The plot of Picard the show suggests a long term and accepted fundamental shift in the outlook of the Federation in a way that none of your examples do. There's no compromises here, no "we had to make hard choices", there's just walking away from an ideal. And they emphasize this too in other ways.
It's all in service to a specific story structure they want to use and then crank to 11 because, as with the main plot, dialing it back a few notches and telling a smaller story seems like something they are incapable of doing. Every threat, moral or physical or whatever, has to be the Biggest One Ever.
Yeah, I'll have to disagree there. Institutions like the Federation and Starfleet are only important in-story when they serve the story--a story which always places individual characters at the forefront. That's why we know so little about how the Federation works, what life is like for the regular person, despite the franchise having existed for more than 50 years. To tie it back to TNG: the series is ultimately Q testing humanity...by engaging with one person, Jean-Luc Picard. The Federation and Starfleet, along with the other nations in the universe, are important--but Trek is about the characters. Like most other stories.
Also, there were absolutely "hard choices" in the Federation's decision to abandon the Romulans.
In the second epsiode, Admiral Clancy says "The Romulans were our enemies, and we tried to help them for as long as we could, but even before the synthetics attacked Mars, fourteen species within the Federation said 'Cut the Romulans loose, or we'll pull out.' It was a choice between allowing the Federation to implode, or letting the Romulans go."
It doesn't get any more hard choice than "this risks our continued existence," and I wouldn't necessarily classify their decision as "we just don't feel like it." There was a lot more going on, and that isn't supposition or opinion, it's what's directly stated on-screen.
My point through this whole argument is that Picard, though dark, is ultimately not at odds with previous Trek ideals nor does it attempt to refute them. In fact, the entire climax is about upholding those ideals. And, as the examples I mentioned show, the Federation being flawed, or making mistakes, is a perennial theme throughout the franchise.
You know what I want? A story to explain how the fuck the Ferengi have such a low Borg designation. 180! How?! I can only assume temporal hijinks were involved--and a healthy does of extremely good or extremely bad luck, depending if they were actually assimilated.
Also, for Riker to get a better Titan series now that the post-Nemesis books have been retconned out of existence.
They explain it a bit in DS9. The Ferengi are really bad at tech and have bought or borrowed most of theirs. Rom even comments at one point they didn't even invent their own warpdrive
The Ferengi being high in the order of assimilation makes sense. One good way of getting rich, if you've got the guts for it, is to travel well beyond chartered waters (or spaces) and bring back unique artefacts to sell and cool stories to publish. One of these explorers probably got picked up by the Borg.
The Ferengi being shitty at tech makes little sense though. I mean, sure, as Quark said small incremental tech improvements you can profit on every step of the way are preferred, as is buying out any promising start-up that encroaches on your market. But at the same time, taking over an existing market from your competitors thanks to superior tech is a very very profitable move. We saw it with Apple and the iPhone, and with Tesla. How can the ultra-capitalist Ferengi society not give rise to some of our shittiest human capitalists like Jobs and Musk?
How can the ultra-capitalist Ferengi society not give rise to some of our shittiest human capitalists like Jobs and Musk?
Ferengis have principles and know about ethics ?
They know about ethics in the same way that I know about loop quantum gravity. I've heard the term and read half of a blog post about it a few years ago but that's about where it ends.
You know what I want? A story to explain how the fuck the Ferengi have such a low Borg designation. 180! How?! I can only assume temporal hijinks were involved--and a healthy does of extremely good or extremely bad luck, depending if they were actually assimilated.
Also, for Riker to get a better Titan series now that the post-Nemesis books have been retconned out of existence.
They explain it a bit in DS9. The Ferengi are really bad at tech and have bought or borrowed most of theirs. Rom even comments at one point they didn't even invent their own warpdrive
The Ferengi being high in the order of assimilation makes sense. One good way of getting rich, if you've got the guts for it, is to travel well beyond chartered waters (or spaces) and bring back unique artefacts to sell and cool stories to publish. One of these explorers probably got picked up by the Borg.
The Ferengi being shitty at tech makes little sense though. I mean, sure, as Quark said small incremental tech improvements you can profit on every step of the way are preferred, as is buying out any promising start-up that encroaches on your market. But at the same time, taking over an existing market from your competitors thanks to superior tech is a very very profitable move. We saw it with Apple and the iPhone, and with Tesla. How can the ultra-capitalist Ferengi society not give rise to some of our shittiest human capitalists like Jobs and Musk?
Makes even more sense if you assume they're using a shiny new warp drive they just bought and strapped to the nearest space worthy hull and slapping the "Go FAST" button without reading the manual.
Or poking their nose into any negative space wedgie in case it turns out to be valuable.
Heck, considering how many times assorted Enterprises wound up in weird times and places due to the NSW of the week, Ferengi (or at least Ferengi bodies) should be scattered across the galaxy.
How can the ultra-capitalist Ferengi society not give rise to some of our shittiest human capitalists like Jobs and Musk?
Ferengis have principles and know about ethics ?
They know about ethics in the same way that I know about loop quantum gravity. I've heard the term and read half of a blog post about it a few years ago but that's about where it ends.
Exactly! Ferengis know to much about ethics to create a Jobs or a Musk.
You know what I want? A story to explain how the fuck the Ferengi have such a low Borg designation. 180! How?! I can only assume temporal hijinks were involved--and a healthy does of extremely good or extremely bad luck, depending if they were actually assimilated.
Also, for Riker to get a better Titan series now that the post-Nemesis books have been retconned out of existence.
They explain it a bit in DS9. The Ferengi are really bad at tech and have bought or borrowed most of theirs. Rom even comments at one point they didn't even invent their own warpdrive
it's not a ranking order, it's by order of assimilation. So that means with the shittiest tech* they somehow managed to get to the Delta Quadrant and get assimilated before a lot of the natives of the region.
*I assume some sort of wooden ship with solar sails or something.
Two of them end up stranded in the Delta Quadrant on the other side of the Barzan wormhole in TNG. Voyager finds those same two ruling some backwater planet years later.The Grand Nagus manages to worm his way into a meeting with the Bajoran wormhole aliens. Quark, Rom, and Nog end up being the Area 51 aliens in 1947 on Earth because Quark's cousin tried to kill him. It's totally feasible they have explored the farthest regions of space, often by accident, in the pursuit of profit.
I always kind of adored the duality of the Ferengi and sort of unspoken commentary on capitalism they are. They end up a major player in the galaxy based on a ruthless pursuit of profit, but as a result are one of the most culturally bankrupt and technologically stifled civilizations there is. There's no innovation, they're at the mercy of whatever they can buy or steal from their neighbors, and as much as their capitalistic ideal has put them ahead of so many others, it's also held them back.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
How can the ultra-capitalist Ferengi society not give rise to some of our shittiest human capitalists like Jobs and Musk?
Ferengis have principles and know about ethics ?
They know about ethics in the same way that I know about loop quantum gravity. I've heard the term and read half of a blog post about it a few years ago but that's about where it ends.
Exactly! Ferengis know to much about ethics to create a Jobs or a Musk.
Their whole society is run by Jobstimus Prime, the one guy so cutthroat, unethical, and successful at making profit from everything while building monopolies that other Ferengi are willing to pay the guy in the hopes of doing so will make them more money.
Ferengi society is what you get when "vote with your wallet" is the only voting at all. The biggest monster is the biggest boss.
Picard and Discovery are joyless reflections on misery and despair. utter trash.
Gonna have to hard disagree there. Both shows are dark, but ultimately reflect the same optimism and humanity as every other Trek.
Discovery:
Burnham's actions in the premiere, and Lorca's whole character, represent the cynical realpolitik that dominates modern science fiction. The first season finale is a direct refutation of that philosophy, as Burnham and Discovery risk everything because they still believe in the ideals on which the Federation was founded--that war, barbarism, and violence are not the answer. Burnham's arc is explicitly one of redemption, wrapped in classic Trek philosophy.
Season 2 continues that trend from the start. Pike, literally original Captain, is stated in text to be the "best of Starfleet." The crew spends the whole season working to preserve life, explore, and find peaceful solutions to conflict. Section 31 is shown to be a reckless collection of fools that nearly doom the galaxy. The heroes only win in the end because of the connections they made with disparate, alien cultures--connections made at great risk to themselves.
Picard:
Every dark element in the story is explicitly tied to Starfleet's failure to uphold its ideals. Every good thing that happens stems from Picard's efforts to keep those ideals alive. At the climax Starfleet, which occupies an antagonistic role in the first act, redeems itself by defending people who cannot defend themselves. Picard, embodying the "best of Starfleet," is literally given a new lease on life.
You can argue whether New Trek is well-crafted, but labeling it "joyless reflections on misery and despair" doesn't hold up to what's actually shown on screen.
But, at least for Picard since I can't speak for Discovery, you point out exactly why this doesn't really work in your own explanation.
Picard explicitly frames Starfleet and the Federation as the villain. On basically every level. At every turn Picard finds Starfleet and Federation society in his way. Even at the end it's not Starfleet, but Will Riker, Picard's buddy who we spend a whole episode reconnecting with that saves the day. And it's not just Picard either, as we see with Seven's story. The show is full of outcasts.
Picard wants to frame Picard as the Big Moral Centre of the story. He's the one that saves the day by standing up for what's right. But in order to elevate him, they story reframes everything else about the Star Trek setting in a negative light.
More then anything I'd say it's a conflict between Star Trek as a franchise, even when it was TNG, being about more then just Picard. But ST: Picard, fairly obviously from the title, wants to be all about Picard. And if the audience is invested in more then just Picard the character, or at best the TNG cast, then the whole thing comes off as pretty negative.
You’re forgetting a couple of things.
1. Starfleet and the Federation only play a negative role because they abandoned their ideals—and were led astray by a traitor in the form of Oh. At the end, when Oh is expelled, they reclaim their moral stance and save the day.
It’s important that Picard defenses the synths by invoking Federation law.
2. Sure, Riker leads the fleet—but it’s only there in the first place because of Admiral Clancy. She castigated Picard in the opening of the story but, when presented with evidence that Picard is right, immediately does the right thing. If the story intended for Starfleet to remain antagonistic, Clancy would’ve rebuffed Picard regardless of the facts—or worse, joined forces with Oh.
3. Yes, Picard is the lead character—and his purpose is to lead the other characters back to who they are meant to be. Raffi, Rios, Seven, and Elnor become better people due to Picard’s presence, their choice to follow his quest. Picard’s influence, as the embodiment of Starfleet, literally saved the universe.
Except that's not how it plays out.
Picard is right, Starfleet and the Federation are wrong. Like, the very idea that they abandoned their ideals is the entire point. And in the end it's Riker who comes to save him. Riker, who he basically convinces out of retirement, comes to bail his ass out. There's no feeling of grand reversal here from the fundamental shift in tone the series has shown for the Federation on multiple occasions at multiple levels. It's not just about them not giving Picard a ship.
As I said, I'm pretty sure this is entirely because the series was spawned from an idea of making this series about Picard as the absolute moral centre of the story. And the consequence of that is it ends up painting everything around him in a bad light in order to make that happen. As I mentioned after first watching the series, Picard often feels like one of those "dark future" flash-forward episodes from sci-fi series. And people notice that. Because for a lot of people attached to the franchise, Star Trek isn't about Picard being better, it's about a ton of things and people and characters being better.
Basically, you can't make a show centred around how the Federation fucked everything up, abandoned it's ideals in really fundamental ways at multiple points throughout the show and literally yells in your main character's face at every turn and then wonder why people find it a downer. That's the show you made man. People feel it. They notice the tone.
You seem to conflate the Federation/Starfleet with Trek's ideals. They are not, and never were, the same thing.
Picard shows that the Federation and Starfleet have abandoned Trek idealism for realpolitik. This does not disregard those ideals because they were wrong to do so. They story leaves no ambiguity that it was a mistake for Starfleet to abandon the Romulans, that it was a mistake for the Federation to ban synths, and that the Zhat Vash is unequivocally evil for advocating genocide.
You can argue over the quality of the story, but "prevent genocide and peacefully deescalate conflict" is absolutely in line with the franchise's idealism.
Compare how Picard ended with "In the Pale Moonlight." Sisko and Garak's plan is the height of realpolitik. It is a direct refutation of Trek idealism--and it is presented as the right choice. Without the Romulans, the Alpha Quadrant falls to slavery and genocide. There was no way to secure Romulan support without underhanded means. Sisko's actions saved the Fedeation. That's going against the franchise's standard philosophy.
Arguing that Picard, as a whole, is grimdark or anti-Trek ignores what's actually shown on-screen.
No dude, Federation/Star Fleet ideals are Trek's ideals. That's the entire point. And that's the point of what I'm saying. The ideals of Star Trek, as vague as they are, are larger then just one man. The character embody the best ideals of their society as much as they can. That's the whole thing. Sometimes people fail or institutions fail but they are pulled back to those ideals.
But Picard wants to have it the other way in a lot of ways. And that's why people view it and think it's dark or cynical or whatever other word you wanna use. Because the way they set up the show has the Federation as a whole abandon it's core ideals in a very fundamental way. For like 2 decades or something. And this is reinforced in several places throughout the show. The Federation just decided, fuck it, it doesn't want to help other people anymore. It's not surprising people reacted to that and label it "dark" or whatever. That's a pretty fundamentally "dark" idea for Star Trek in a way you don't really see in other series.
It all exists in service to Picard being the one to show everyone else the right way. And like with a lot of other shit in the series, it feels the need to go really really big with this idea. And so to do that the Federation and Star Fleet have to abandon their ideals in a really big way. (like with the main plot of the show, I think it's a general problem with the show being unable to tone the stakes down a few notches)
Well, except for the time Starfleet wanted to commit genocide against the Borg, or when they violated intergalactic treaty by developing a cloaking device, or abandoned its citizens to a fascist regime for the sake of a bad treaty and then labeled those citizens terrorists when they defended themselves, or ordered the forced relocation of an independent society because they wanted its resources, or the time they conspired to have a foreign politician imprisoned and/or executed so they could put a spy in her place, or the time they tried to commit genocide against the Founders.
You'll note that in every one of those instances, Starfleet was either stopped or called out by individual Starfleet members who cleaved to its ideals better than the institution did. And, in all but three of those instances, the Starfleet member in question was Jean-Luc Picard.
Yes, and he called them back to the Federations ideals. Because those are the ideals of Star Trek. And it was the opposite of the setup of Picard. It was "this small group of people are pushing this way, we must show them they are wrong". It wasn't "All of the Federation, for like multiple decades, on basically every level". Like seriously, you cannot gloss over this shit. The entire setup of Picard depends on the idea that the Federation just decides, for some long-ass amount of time, that they just don't give a shit about helping people anymore. It inverts the framing of the story device that has been used previously which is why people react to it.
Also "the things Section 31" did is kinda silly to include in any list since they are explicitly characterized in DS9 as being, you know, not good people and someone who's existence stands in violation of the very ideals of the Federation and who basically nobody knows about.
The entire Federation government supported the Cardassian Treaty and all its aftereffects, and there's nothing on screen* to suggest Section 31 was involved in the Pegasus experiment or the Bak'u Incident. The duping of Senator Cretak and the poisoning of the Founders explicitly occurred under Admiral Ross' purview, with no indication that he was hiding his activities from Federation leadership.
I only included instances where official involvement was directly stated or heavily implied; if I tried to list every rogue officer, I'd have to list basically every appearance of a flag officer and every Sisko episode after For the Uniform.
And, like those instances, Picard does call the Federation back to its ideals.
The climax is not like Insurrection or Pegasus; the heroes are not going rogue or otherwise thumbing their nose at unjust Federation objectives. Riker showed up at Ghulion IV because the head of Starfleet listened to Picard and decided he was right. That's not implied or merely suggested; it's on-screen. Ghulion IV and the synths survive the Zhat Vash because the Federation invoked its laws to protect them.
Picard's arc is one of redemption, and its shared by Starfleet as an institution. At the beginning, Picard has abandoned his duty, abandoned the people who depended on him, all while blaming outside forces for his choice--just as Admiral Clancy abandoned the Romulans and the synths, all while blaming political realities. Picard reclaims those ideals for himself and, in the end, convinces Starfleet to do the same. His personal redemption and rediscovery of his ideals inspires Raffi, Rios, and Soji to be better people than they think they are.
And all of this is directly in line with previous incarnations of the franchise.
Star Trek has never been about institutions. How long did it take for TOS to even coin the terms "Federation" or "Starfleet?" Star Trek is about ideals, filtered through individual people and their struggle to uphold them. Everything else in the franchise, whether it's concepts like Starfleet and the Federation or themes like war and imperialism, only exist to serve that purpose.
*
To be fair, that's because Section 31 didn't exist when they wrote the Maquis storyline or Pegasus, and the movies could barely manage to mention the Dominion War, much less continue its subplots. But such is life.
Nah. The entire point was that these character embodied the ideals of a better society, that they lived in. Star Trek was never about people rising above their society, but embodying it. Just as an easy example:
PICARD: That's what this is all about. A lot has changed in the past three hundred years. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things. We've eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions. We have grown out of our infancy.
This is a statement about society, not people. And that's fundamental to the Star Trek view of the future and the Federation in general. It's always been about the whole. It's not "our characters are good people in an imperfect world", it's "our character embody the characteristics of a better society".
And again, trying to compare this to shit like the Cardassian treaty is the point. This isn't "Oh, we've had to make some compromises and maybe relocate some people". It's literally "We aren't gonna stop a species from potentially going extinct because, fuck it, we just don't feel like it". And that this persists. For like decades. The plot of Picard the show suggests a long term and accepted fundamental shift in the outlook of the Federation in a way that none of your examples do. There's no compromises here, no "we had to make hard choices", there's just walking away from an ideal. And they emphasize this too in other ways.
It's all in service to a specific story structure they want to use and then crank to 11 because, as with the main plot, dialing it back a few notches and telling a smaller story seems like something they are incapable of doing. Every threat, moral or physical or whatever, has to be the Biggest One Ever.
Um, isn't this literally the dominant interpretation of the Prime Directive in the TNG era? Including the part where it's invoked to justify "non-interference" in not just pre-warp societies, but even other major galactic powers, like the Klingons and their civil war?
Starfleet/the Federation's official stance, for decades, has been "if they die, they die." It's the protagonists, again and again, who take issue with this.
Like the entire point of the Prime Directive from a story perspective was to show our heroes rising above the cold logic of it and showing compassion and - for lack of a better term - humanity. It was created to be subverted.
... Until you get to Voyager and Enterprise where it becomes complete gospel.
In TOS, for all that Kirk talked about it being an absolute rule that captains and crews were expected to lay down their lives for, it sure wasn't treated like that, and had two significant exceptions: if the culture wasn't developing "naturally" or had "stagnated" (usually under the control of some machine, because humanism), or what we see in "The Paradise Syndrome" et al (including Into Darkness, until they screw up), which is "so don't let the natives catch you doing it."
It was TNG and later series that elevated it to the level of dogma and/or superstition (we dare not interfere with destiny, lest we be smote for our hubris!).
Since I bought the Star Trek RPG books but have no one I can convince to play. I started searching youtube for gaming sessions of it. I found one where even though I didn't really click with the players and/or their acting. (which it was the first episode/session and those are always awkward) the minute the game master started giving the main plot points I was instantly hooked in. Doesn't matter the venue, I just can never get enough of a decent Star Trek story.
Since I bought the Star Trek RPG books but have no one I can convince to play. I started searching youtube for gaming sessions of it. I found one where even though I didn't really click with the players and/or their acting. (which it was the first episode/session and those are always awkward) the minute the game master started giving the main plot points I was instantly hooked in. Doesn't matter the venue, I just can never get enough of a decent Star Trek story.
See the PA strip for ST Bridge Crew, where even random pick-up groups have instant buy-in to the premise and how Starfleet officers are supposed to talk.
Since I bought the Star Trek RPG books but have no one I can convince to play. I started searching youtube for gaming sessions of it. I found one where even though I didn't really click with the players and/or their acting. (which it was the first episode/session and those are always awkward) the minute the game master started giving the main plot points I was instantly hooked in. Doesn't matter the venue, I just can never get enough of a decent Star Trek story.
See the PA strip for ST Bridge Crew, where even random pick-up groups have instant buy-in to the premise and how Starfleet officers are supposed to talk.
For what it’s worth, I also bought the books, and if I can read them fast enough, I might try and run a couple of pick-up sessions over video, before the baby arrives.
It was TNG and later series that elevated it to the level of dogma and/or superstition (we dare not interfere with destiny, lest we be smote for our sheer... fucking... hubris!).
I too have bought nearly all the RPG books and have no local tabletop group. I cannot guarantee that I have a ton of time but I'd be happy to try and make time if a group does indeed get started up from discussion in the thread.
_
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Since I bought the Star Trek RPG books but have no one I can convince to play. I started searching youtube for gaming sessions of it. I found one where even though I didn't really click with the players and/or their acting. (which it was the first episode/session and those are always awkward) the minute the game master started giving the main plot points I was instantly hooked in. Doesn't matter the venue, I just can never get enough of a decent Star Trek story.
See the PA strip for ST Bridge Crew, where even random pick-up groups have instant buy-in to the premise and how Starfleet officers are supposed to talk.
This really happens, btw. It's pretty cool to see.
It was TNG and later series that elevated it to the level of dogma and/or superstition (we dare not interfere with destiny, lest we be smote for our hubris!).
TNG treated it fairly close to TOS with some more somber introspection. Like Pen Pals - they had a meeting, discussed it, somebody threw out the Space God's Plan bullshit (which was new and a shadow of things to come), Picard shot it down, ultimately the decision was made to intervene. The Klingon Civil War, they loopholed things, defending the Empire against Romulan incursion was technically the purpose of the alliance, but it was still acting in such a way as to determine the outcome of internal events.
Voyager treats it good bad ugly, just all over the place. but if you view it through the lens of Janeway never actually being a Picard-tier captain it makes more sense. Janeway has meetings and entertains opinions every time it comes up, but usually in the end she flexes rank and does what she fucking wants, equally likes to doom a world because of it as to save one in spite of it.
Enterprise got consistently bad... but interestingly it wasn't humans embracing it, the humans *mostly* resisted it. We see it pushed from two sources: Vulcans in general and T'pol in particular, and Phlox. Denobulans were another species in the Vulcan sphere of influence just like humans, so it's conceivable they adopted Vulcan dogma on this with less resistance than humans.
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HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
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The Borg absorbing Ferengi culture would, presumably, make the Borg more capitalist. More daring opportunities would be pursued, subterfuge would be used against enemies, the traditional Borg Cube might be reshaped into a giant coin after billions of Ferengi brains add their thoughts and values to the Collective.
No dude, Federation/Star Fleet ideals are Trek's ideals. That's the entire point. And that's the point of what I'm saying. The ideals of Star Trek, as vague as they are, are larger then just one man. The characters embody the best ideals of their society as much as they can. That's the whole thing. Sometimes people fail or institutions fail but they are pulled back to those ideals and we wave little flags and celebrate the victory.
But Picard wants to have it the other way in a lot of ways. And that's why people view it and think it's dark or cynical or whatever other word you wanna use. Because the way they set up the show has the Federation as a whole abandon it's core ideals in a very fundamental way. For like 2 decades or something. And this is reinforced in several places throughout the show. The Federation just decided, fuck it, it doesn't want to help other people anymore. It's not surprising people reacted to that and label it "dark" or whatever. That's a pretty fundamentally "dark" idea for Star Trek in a way you don't really see in other series.
It all exists in service to Picard being the one to show everyone else the right way. And like with a lot of other shit in the series, it feels the need to go really really big with this idea. And so to do that the Federation and Star Fleet have to abandon their ideals in a really big way. (like with the main plot of the show, I think it's a general problem with the show being unable to tone the stakes down a few notches)
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Well, except for the time Starfleet wanted to commit genocide against the Borg, or when they violated intergalactic treaty by developing a cloaking device, or abandoned its citizens to a fascist regime for the sake of a bad treaty and then labeled those citizens terrorists when they defended themselves, or ordered the forced relocation of an independent society because they wanted its resources, or the time they conspired to have a foreign politician imprisoned and/or executed so they could put a spy in her place, or the time they tried to commit genocide against the Founders.
You'll note that in every one of those instances, Starfleet was either stopped or called out by individual Starfleet members who cleaved to its ideals better than the institution did. And, in all but three of those instances, the Starfleet member in question was Jean-Luc Picard.
Edit:
Yes, and he called them back to the Federations ideals. Because those are the ideals of Star Trek. And it was the opposite of the setup of Picard. It was "this small group of people are pushing this way, we must show them they are wrong". It wasn't "All of the Federation, for like multiple decades, on basically every level". Like seriously, you cannot gloss over this shit. The entire setup of Picard depends on the idea that the Federation just decides, for some long-ass amount of time, that they just don't give a shit about helping people anymore. It inverts the framing of the story device that has been used previously which is why people react to it.
Also "the things Section 31" did is kinda silly to include in any list since they are explicitly characterized in DS9 as being, you know, not good people and someone who's existence stands in violation of the very ideals of the Federation and who basically nobody knows about.
The entire Federation government supported the Cardassian Treaty and all its aftereffects, and there's nothing on screen* to suggest Section 31 was involved in the Pegasus experiment or the Bak'u Incident. The duping of Senator Cretak and the poisoning of the Founders explicitly occurred under Admiral Ross' purview, with no indication that he was hiding his activities from Federation leadership.
I only included instances where official involvement was directly stated or heavily implied; if I tried to list every rogue officer, I'd have to list basically every appearance of a flag officer and every Sisko episode after For the Uniform.
And, like those instances, Picard does call the Federation back to its ideals.
Picard's arc is one of redemption, and its shared by Starfleet as an institution. At the beginning, Picard has abandoned his duty, abandoned the people who depended on him, all while blaming outside forces for his choice--just as Admiral Clancy abandoned the Romulans and the synths, all while blaming political realities. Picard reclaims those ideals for himself and, in the end, convinces Starfleet to do the same. His personal redemption and rediscovery of his ideals inspires Raffi, Rios, and Soji to be better people than they think they are.
And all of this is directly in line with previous incarnations of the franchise.
*
Neither are the Founders, but the episodes in questions still painted the Federation's actions as anathema to its ideals.
They explain it a bit in DS9. The Ferengi are really bad at tech and have bought or borrowed most of theirs. Rom even comments at one point they didn't even invent their own warpdrive
A consistent thread in Trek is "we shouldn't stoop to their level, their methods, in order to win." And the writers (eventually) conveniently arrange things to allow this - the Federation gets to win and keep (or reclaim, if they briefly stumbled, overreached, or stepped down from it in desperation) the moral high ground.
Per the original poster, elsewhere: "Totally read this in his voice."
Yeah, the Borg already just steal all their technology, they don't need to snap up another species that does the same thing. And it's not like the Borg need Rules of Acquisition, seeing as their one rule of acquisition is "if we don't have it, acquire it".
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Nah. The entire point was that these character embodied the ideals of a better society, that they lived in. Star Trek was never about people rising above their society, but embodying it. Just as an easy example: This is a statement about society, not people. And that's fundamental to the Star Trek view of the future and the Federation in general. It's always been about the whole. It's not "our characters are good people in an imperfect world", it's "our character embody the characteristics of a better society".
And again, trying to compare this to shit like the Cardassian treaty is the point. This isn't "Oh, we've had to make some compromises and maybe relocate some people". It's literally "We aren't gonna stop a species from potentially going extinct because, fuck it, we just don't feel like it". And that this persists. For like decades. The plot of Picard the show suggests a long term and accepted fundamental shift in the outlook of the Federation in a way that none of your examples do. There's no compromises here, no "we had to make hard choices", there's just walking away from an ideal. And they emphasize this too in other ways.
It's all in service to a specific story structure they want to use and then crank to 11 because, as with the main plot, dialing it back a few notches and telling a smaller story seems like something they are incapable of doing. Every threat, moral or physical or whatever, has to be the Biggest One Ever.
it's not a ranking order, it's by order of assimilation. So that means with the shittiest tech* they somehow managed to get to the Delta Quadrant and get assimilated before a lot of the natives of the region.
*I assume some sort of wooden ship with solar sails or something.
Questions like that are why I wish DS9 had been able to bring the TNG cast into the war arc.
I was actually brainstorming this the other day, what if the Dominion War was like the MCU or a CW-style crossover.
2. Riker gets promoted to captain whether he wants it or not; starship commanders are at a premium, those with combat experience in moreso. I'd split the TNG crew, some following Riker and others staying on the Enterprise. Maybe have Geordi wear two hats as Chief Engineer and Riker's XO; the battle scene in Insurrection makes me think they'd be a really good combo.
3. Troi is assigned to the station--we'd finally get to see her to do her actual job as counselor. DS9 touched on the horrors of war in a few episodes, but I really think there's solid ground here storytelling, a chance to tell audiences things they really need to hear about what people go through in war.
4. We'd actually see the Battle of Betazed; it could even be a multi-episode arc like Operation Return.
5. To answer your question, here's my theory: Picard finds out and immediately blows the whistle, likely including an epic dressing-down of Sikso. And then...nothing happens. The Federation Council doesn't want to act on it because doing so means losing the war. The Romulans don't want to act on it because admitting they were duped by the Federation would destroy their government's legitimacy--and now the Dominion is gunning for them anyway. The episode tests Picard's faith to the breaking point, and ends with a second confrontation with Sisko--this one quiet, as both men try to figure out how to live with what happened. You could also use it to help setup the Picard series--his actions, though futile, earned him a lot of trust within the Empire.
Yeah, I'll have to disagree there. Institutions like the Federation and Starfleet are only important in-story when they serve the story--a story which always places individual characters at the forefront. That's why we know so little about how the Federation works, what life is like for the regular person, despite the franchise having existed for more than 50 years. To tie it back to TNG: the series is ultimately Q testing humanity...by engaging with one person, Jean-Luc Picard. The Federation and Starfleet, along with the other nations in the universe, are important--but Trek is about the characters. Like most other stories.
Also, there were absolutely "hard choices" in the Federation's decision to abandon the Romulans.
It doesn't get any more hard choice than "this risks our continued existence," and I wouldn't necessarily classify their decision as "we just don't feel like it." There was a lot more going on, and that isn't supposition or opinion, it's what's directly stated on-screen.
My point through this whole argument is that Picard, though dark, is ultimately not at odds with previous Trek ideals nor does it attempt to refute them. In fact, the entire climax is about upholding those ideals. And, as the examples I mentioned show, the Federation being flawed, or making mistakes, is a perennial theme throughout the franchise.
The Ferengi being high in the order of assimilation makes sense. One good way of getting rich, if you've got the guts for it, is to travel well beyond chartered waters (or spaces) and bring back unique artefacts to sell and cool stories to publish. One of these explorers probably got picked up by the Borg.
The Ferengi being shitty at tech makes little sense though. I mean, sure, as Quark said small incremental tech improvements you can profit on every step of the way are preferred, as is buying out any promising start-up that encroaches on your market. But at the same time, taking over an existing market from your competitors thanks to superior tech is a very very profitable move. We saw it with Apple and the iPhone, and with Tesla. How can the ultra-capitalist Ferengi society not give rise to some of our shittiest human capitalists like Jobs and Musk?
They know about ethics in the same way that I know about loop quantum gravity. I've heard the term and read half of a blog post about it a few years ago but that's about where it ends.
Makes even more sense if you assume they're using a shiny new warp drive they just bought and strapped to the nearest space worthy hull and slapping the "Go FAST" button without reading the manual.
Or poking their nose into any negative space wedgie in case it turns out to be valuable.
Heck, considering how many times assorted Enterprises wound up in weird times and places due to the NSW of the week, Ferengi (or at least Ferengi bodies) should be scattered across the galaxy.
Exactly! Ferengis know to much about ethics to create a Jobs or a Musk.
Two of them end up stranded in the Delta Quadrant on the other side of the Barzan wormhole in TNG. Voyager finds those same two ruling some backwater planet years later.The Grand Nagus manages to worm his way into a meeting with the Bajoran wormhole aliens. Quark, Rom, and Nog end up being the Area 51 aliens in 1947 on Earth because Quark's cousin tried to kill him. It's totally feasible they have explored the farthest regions of space, often by accident, in the pursuit of profit.
I always kind of adored the duality of the Ferengi and sort of unspoken commentary on capitalism they are. They end up a major player in the galaxy based on a ruthless pursuit of profit, but as a result are one of the most culturally bankrupt and technologically stifled civilizations there is. There's no innovation, they're at the mercy of whatever they can buy or steal from their neighbors, and as much as their capitalistic ideal has put them ahead of so many others, it's also held them back.
Their whole society is run by Jobstimus Prime, the one guy so cutthroat, unethical, and successful at making profit from everything while building monopolies that other Ferengi are willing to pay the guy in the hopes of doing so will make them more money.
Ferengi society is what you get when "vote with your wallet" is the only voting at all. The biggest monster is the biggest boss.
In which Mike Stoklasa and Rich Evans discuss their favorite TNG episodes.
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Um, isn't this literally the dominant interpretation of the Prime Directive in the TNG era? Including the part where it's invoked to justify "non-interference" in not just pre-warp societies, but even other major galactic powers, like the Klingons and their civil war?
Starfleet/the Federation's official stance, for decades, has been "if they die, they die." It's the protagonists, again and again, who take issue with this.
... Until you get to Voyager and Enterprise where it becomes complete gospel.
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It was TNG and later series that elevated it to the level of dogma and/or superstition (we dare not interfere with destiny, lest we be smote for our hubris!).
aaaand we've had this discussion before. :P
See the PA strip for ST Bridge Crew, where even random pick-up groups have instant buy-in to the premise and how Starfleet officers are supposed to talk.
For what it’s worth, I also bought the books, and if I can read them fast enough, I might try and run a couple of pick-up sessions over video, before the baby arrives.
...gotta read faster.
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Sorry, had to
Possibly to represent a Doomsday Device.
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This really happens, btw. It's pretty cool to see.
TNG treated it fairly close to TOS with some more somber introspection. Like Pen Pals - they had a meeting, discussed it, somebody threw out the Space God's Plan bullshit (which was new and a shadow of things to come), Picard shot it down, ultimately the decision was made to intervene. The Klingon Civil War, they loopholed things, defending the Empire against Romulan incursion was technically the purpose of the alliance, but it was still acting in such a way as to determine the outcome of internal events.
Voyager treats it good bad ugly, just all over the place. but if you view it through the lens of Janeway never actually being a Picard-tier captain it makes more sense. Janeway has meetings and entertains opinions every time it comes up, but usually in the end she flexes rank and does what she fucking wants, equally likes to doom a world because of it as to save one in spite of it.
Enterprise got consistently bad... but interestingly it wasn't humans embracing it, the humans *mostly* resisted it. We see it pushed from two sources: Vulcans in general and T'pol in particular, and Phlox. Denobulans were another species in the Vulcan sphere of influence just like humans, so it's conceivable they adopted Vulcan dogma on this with less resistance than humans.
looks like it'll be fun
also also also HOLY SHIT I just found out that the creator of Lower Decks is the guy who ran the TNG_S8 twitter account, which was always AMAZING