Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
A modern allegory here would be the Israeli "settlements".
I've be said it before in these threads but the assumption that as a Federation citizen you can simply live anywhere you want within Federation space is not supported by any television canon, and on its face runs counter to the principles of said Federation. You absolutely can be prevented from living somewhere, just like you absolutely can be forcibly removed if you are somewhere you shouldn't be, even if that is retroactive to your decision to live there in the first place.
Being a Federation citizen does not magically absolve you from having to face political reality, whether terrestrial or galactic.
No one is saying they don't have a right to be upset but they are literally killing people and fomenting war just because they happen to want to live on a particular planet in a post-scarcity society where literally hundreds of other options readily exist that are nearly identical to the one they want. When taken in context the Maquis are asinine, immature, and unequivocally dangerous criminals.
I mean, afaik the Maquis were invented for Voyager (who hilariously never used them) and were basically thrust upon TNG and DS9. Who then had to wrap the whole thing up in the middle of the story they actually wanted to tell.
Basically, Voyager left a flaming bag of poop on DS9's doorstep and they had to do their best to put it out without ruining their shoes.
this is also true
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I mean, afaik the Maquis were invented for Voyager (who hilariously never used them) and were basically thrust upon TNG and DS9. Who then had to wrap the whole thing up in the middle of the story they actually wanted to tell.
Basically, Voyager left a flaming bag of poop on DS9's doorstep and they had to do their best to put it out without ruining their shoes.
this is also true
Yeah, I super don't fault DS9 for the Maquis since it was never the DS9 writers' idea to begin with and they clearly just wanted it out of their hair.
I do kind of side-eye some of how they handed it. Sisko's oft-quoted "saints in paradise" speech comes from the Maquis episode and in context it's fucking ludicrous. "People on Earth don't understand what it's like to be a pioneer cosplayer picking fights with his neighbor." Obviously Behr was really big on Westerns and tried to cast everything (particularly in the early years) into that lens but the choice to act like the Maquis were heroic settlers being betrayed by the Uppity Folks Back East who wouldn't send the Army to help them kill the Indians was...unfortunate.
Frankly, it was unfortunate in Westerns, too, but I understand that that was a conversation that was unlikely to be had between a bunch of boomer white guys in a writer's room back in 1995.
for the record I think Sisko gas bombing planets was insane and over the top, and he should have been stripped of his command for it, but I stand behind my opinion of Eddington and the Maquis leaders
I mean, afaik the Maquis were invented for Voyager (who hilariously never used them) and were basically thrust upon TNG and DS9. Who then had to wrap the whole thing up in the middle of the story they actually wanted to tell.
Basically, Voyager left a flaming bag of poop on DS9's doorstep and they had to do their best to put it out without ruining their shoes.
this is also true
Yeah, I super don't fault DS9 for the Maquis since it was never the DS9 writers' idea to begin with and they clearly just wanted it out of their hair.
I do kind of side-eye some of how they handed it. Sisko's oft-quoted "saints in paradise" speech comes from the Maquis episode and in context it's fucking ludicrous. "People on Earth don't understand what it's like to be a pioneer cosplayer picking fights with his neighbor." Obviously Behr was really big on Westerns and tried to cast everything (particularly in the early years) into that lens but the choice to act like the Maquis were heroic settlers being betrayed by the Uppity Folks Back East who wouldn't send the Army to help them kill the Indians was...unfortunate.
Frankly, it was unfortunate in Westerns, too, but I understand that that was a conversation that was unlikely to be had between a bunch of boomer white guys in a writer's room back in 1995.
The colonists feel to me a lot like right wing nuts who are comically out of touch with the galactic situation, like they're the Federation's version of Libertarians who think that they're self made men while using a Federation Standard Issue Medkit to purge all diseases known to man from their bodies, designed by a scientific tradition of a hundred generations of scientists across dozens of worlds. They are rugged frontier individualists .... that needed to charter interstellar transport to go do Minecraft but in real life on empty worlds
If I was a Cardassian colonist with a Cardassian mindset I would assume that they obviously still had strong ties to their state and were a component in some future invasion plan, because as a Cardassian I can't imagine a people who don't act at the state's bidding
edit: I would have been absolutely cool with the entire plot line if it was clear that these people were just the equivilent of hawks in the Federation, because those do exist. "It's ridiculous that you gave the Cardassians favorable terms, they were the aggressors and if Starfleet mustered a true warfleet, it could wipe out every Cardassian warship in a month"
Or "superman could just laser the bad guy's face off"
I mean, afaik the Maquis were invented for Voyager (who hilariously never used them) and were basically thrust upon TNG and DS9. Who then had to wrap the whole thing up in the middle of the story they actually wanted to tell.
Basically, Voyager left a flaming bag of poop on DS9's doorstep and they had to do their best to put it out without ruining their shoes.
this is also true
Yeah, I super don't fault DS9 for the Maquis since it was never the DS9 writers' idea to begin with and they clearly just wanted it out of their hair.
I do kind of side-eye some of how they handed it. Sisko's oft-quoted "saints in paradise" speech comes from the Maquis episode and in context it's fucking ludicrous. "People on Earth don't understand what it's like to be a pioneer cosplayer picking fights with his neighbor." Obviously Behr was really big on Westerns and tried to cast everything (particularly in the early years) into that lens but the choice to act like the Maquis were heroic settlers being betrayed by the Uppity Folks Back East who wouldn't send the Army to help them kill the Indians was...unfortunate.
Frankly, it was unfortunate in Westerns, too, but I understand that that was a conversation that was unlikely to be had between a bunch of boomer white guys in a writer's room back in 1995.
I think most of the quoting is done without that context, though, because on its own it's a fantastic (and probably not entirely intentional) description of privilege. Particularly the sort that comes with being, say, a white American male in the 90s.
I think ultimately comparisons to real-world situations are hard to make with these kind of things. Because in the context of space colonization there actually exists a ton of empty space just sitting there to be colonized. There's no "indians". There's no morally problematic elements to colonization. And this isn't some weird invention of the writers either. Space is full of big empty rocks. At most they invented big empty habitable rocks. And there is simultaneously, within the specific context of the Federation being a society where no basic needs are unmet, no need to colonize either. It's just something you do because you want to. There's just not a lot of meaningful overlap there.
Ultimately it seems like the Maquis are a bunch of people who colonized some planets because they wanted to and there's really no reason they couldn't do that and then they got caught in the middle of something and decided their colony was worth killing for.
I think ultimately comparisons to real-world situations are hard to make with these kind of things. Because in the context of space colonization there actually exists a ton of empty space just sitting there to be colonized. There's no "indians". There's no morally problematic elements to colonization. And this isn't some weird invention of the writers either. Space is full of big empty rocks. At most they invented big empty habitable rocks. And there is simultaneously, within the specific context of the Federation being a society where no basic needs are unmet, no need to colonize either. It's just something you do because you want to. There's just not a lot of meaningful overlap there.
Ultimately it seems like the Maquis are a bunch of people who colonized some planets because they wanted to and there's really no reason they couldn't do that and then they got caught in the middle of something and decided their colony was worth killing for.
As soon as the Cardassian Government sponsored opposing colonies, it should be clear that while you may look at this as the frontier, to the local powers, this is where they live - and they don't take kindly to your presence.
Space is unimaginably huge, true, but the Federation colonies sure look an awful lot like an attempt at a foothold if I'm a Cardassian politician. I know my own people are always looking for an excuse to expand territory whenever possible - and I mean that collectively - Cardassians do not just "Decide" to go found a colony, the government tells them to go found a colony.
The Federation says these people are setting up colonies of their own accord, but from my point of view as a Cardassian, this is a deliberate provocation by a greater interstellar power that is unhappy with the terms of the treaty it signed. This doesn't make anything the Cardassians are doing right, but it is understandable from their point of view... imagine living in a struggling interstellar empire where food is still something you have to have money to have, and a nearby superpower where everything is literally free sets up "Farming colonies" on your border (yeah the element of trying to prove their strength by being violent against a greater power's people is also present, they are autocrats, but more reason not to expect anyone to die on your behalf if you cart your family to their border)
At the very least it complicates the sensitive issue of trying to bring the Cardassians into the greater interstellar community, instead of being space north korea
Since the Federation has extremely good public education, the Colonists have to be aware of all of this, they just don't care
It also never felt like they fully grasped the logistics of colonization. Deciding to stay or to move is a serious decision when there exists the extreme possibility that you might not even survive the damn trip. Stay and fight against the opposing force, or pack up and move in the middle of winter, yeah let's flip that coin. In an age where your entire community can be literally scooped up with a snap of ones fingers, and you travel in what is basically complete safety though? Yeah depending on the situation you just look like idiots.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
I think ultimately comparisons to real-world situations are hard to make with these kind of things. Because in the context of space colonization there actually exists a ton of empty space just sitting there to be colonized. There's no "indians". There's no morally problematic elements to colonization.
I think there's a case to be made that any act has a moral dimension, particularly one where you have a long-term impact on local ecology and evolution, regardless of whether there already exists "sentient" life. A loose analogy here would be human behavior that contribute to global warming. A closer analogy would be the Federation "ban" on travel beyond Warp [Whatever Number It Was].
Similarly, people choosing to live in any unoccupied space necessarily means that others cannot live there. It is a de facto form of property seizure, and therefore enters the realm of politics by default. The fact that there don't already exist people doesn't mean that you aren't having an impact on everything around you. See again: Israeli "settlements"
It also never felt like they fully grasped the logistics of colonization. Deciding to stay or to move is a serious decision when there exists the extreme possibility that you might not even survive the damn trip. Stay and fight against the opposing force, or pack up and move in the middle of winter, yeah let's flip that coin. In an age where your entire community can be literally scooped up with a snap of ones fingers, and you travel in what is basically complete safety though? Yeah depending on the situation you just look like idiots.
"But this is our RV campground, that we've fought and bled for! ... seriously, you should see the mosquitos we've got here."
I think ultimately comparisons to real-world situations are hard to make with these kind of things. Because in the context of space colonization there actually exists a ton of empty space just sitting there to be colonized. There's no "indians". There's no morally problematic elements to colonization.
I think there's a case to be made that any act has a moral dimension, particularly one where you have a long-term impact on local ecology and evolution, regardless of whether there already exists "sentient" life. A loose analogy here would be human behavior that contribute to global warming. A closer analogy would be the Federation "ban" on travel beyond Warp [Whatever Number It Was].
Similarly, people choosing to live in any unoccupied space necessarily means that others cannot live there. It is a de facto form of property seizure, and therefore enters the realm of politics by default. The fact that there don't already exist people doesn't mean that you aren't having an impact on everything around you. See again: Israeli "settlements"
if this was better thought out, the colonists would be Bajorans, who would have a solid claim that all of those worlds would have been colonized by them if Cardassia hadn't brutally crushed them and kept them under a boot for 50 years
Bajor would have a much better argument for why, treaties or no, the colonies should be theirs - if for nothing else as reparations, as large parts of their world are still in pretty bad straights after what the Cardassians did to it
It even make's Sisko's speech about "out here, the problems havent been solved yet" actually work (with detached starfleet admirals saying "we're helping your planet, just stay on it, I don't understand the problem")
It even makes the Maquis willing to attack Starfleet for not directly helping make more sense, because a lot of Bajorans see Starfleet as "Cardassian empire with better PR"
In your discounting of the Maquis, let's remember that a lot of these worlds (if not all of them) were settled before the Federation Cardassian war, and (like a number of Cardassian colonies) left on the wrong side of a negotiated border. Depending on how long they had been there pre-war, this could absolutely be what Trek claimed it to be and people not wanting to give up their homes just because they were told to. Post scarcity or not, it's not hard to imagine people having an emotional attachment to the place they live and possibly raise a family.
I think ultimately comparisons to real-world situations are hard to make with these kind of things. Because in the context of space colonization there actually exists a ton of empty space just sitting there to be colonized. There's no "indians". There's no morally problematic elements to colonization. And this isn't some weird invention of the writers either. Space is full of big empty rocks. At most they invented big empty habitable rocks. And there is simultaneously, within the specific context of the Federation being a society where no basic needs are unmet, no need to colonize either. It's just something you do because you want to. There's just not a lot of meaningful overlap there.
Ultimately it seems like the Maquis are a bunch of people who colonized some planets because they wanted to and there's really no reason they couldn't do that and then they got caught in the middle of something and decided their colony was worth killing for.
As soon as the Cardassian Government sponsored opposing colonies, it should be clear that while you may look at this as the frontier, to the local powers, this is where they live - and they don't take kindly to your presence.
Space is unimaginably huge, true, but the Federation colonies sure look an awful lot like an attempt at a foothold if I'm a Cardassian politician. I know my own people are always looking for an excuse to expand territory whenever possible - and I mean that collectively - Cardassians do not just "Decide" to go found a colony, the government tells them to go found a colony.
The Federation says these people are setting up colonies of their own accord, but from my point of view as a Cardassian, this is a deliberate provocation by a greater interstellar power that is unhappy with the terms of the treaty it signed. This doesn't make anything the Cardassians are doing right, but it is understandable from their point of view... imagine living in a struggling interstellar empire where food is still something you have to have money to have, and a nearby superpower where everything is literally free sets up "Farming colonies" on your border (yeah the element of trying to prove their strength by being violent against a greater power's people is also present, they are autocrats, but more reason not to expect anyone to die on your behalf if you cart your family to their border)
At the very least it complicates the sensitive issue of trying to bring the Cardassians into the greater interstellar community, instead of being space north korea
Since the Federation has extremely good public education, the Colonists have to be aware of all of this, they just don't care
Yeah, that's my point. The dimensions of the conflict are basically around who gets to own the rocks. The setting basically strips all the colonial dimensions from the conflict that you would see in any here-on-earth situation. In so far as their are parallels to Westerns, they don't carry over any of the more problematic elements. While also, as you note later, stripping away a lot of the problems with other elements too.
Honestly I kinda feel like the whole situation is Star Trek biting off more then it could chew in terms of political complexity.
I think ultimately comparisons to real-world situations are hard to make with these kind of things. Because in the context of space colonization there actually exists a ton of empty space just sitting there to be colonized. There's no "indians". There's no morally problematic elements to colonization.
I think there's a case to be made that any act has a moral dimension, particularly one where you have a long-term impact on local ecology and evolution, regardless of whether there already exists "sentient" life. A loose analogy here would be human behavior that contribute to global warming. A closer analogy would be the Federation "ban" on travel beyond Warp [Whatever Number It Was].
Similarly, people choosing to live in any unoccupied space necessarily means that others cannot live there. It is a de facto form of property seizure, and therefore enters the realm of politics by default. The fact that there don't already exist people doesn't mean that you aren't having an impact on everything around you. See again: Israeli "settlements"
if this was better thought out, the colonists would be Bajorans, who would have a solid claim that all of those worlds would have been colonized by them if Cardassia hadn't brutally crushed them and kept them under a boot for 50 years
Bajor would have a much better argument for why, treaties or no, the colonies should be theirs - if for nothing else as reparations, as large parts of their world are still in pretty bad straights after what the Cardassians did to it
It even make's Sisko's speech about "out here, the problems havent been solved yet" actually work (with detached starfleet admirals saying "we're helping your planet, just stay on it, I don't understand the problem")
It even makes the Maquis willing to attack Starfleet for not directly helping make more sense, because a lot of Bajorans see Starfleet as "Cardassian empire with better PR"
Hell, you could still even have a handful of ex-Starfleet officers join the Maquis in this setup, because they thought the Federation had been too reluctant to help the Bajorans during the occupation. Could have given a nice mirror to the DS9 crew, even.
I think making the Maquis be former Federation citizens is an important part of telling the story they wanted to tell, though. They wanted to bring the sort of conflict the Bajorans went through closer to home: in this situation it's our people that believe it's right to get violent, and we're struggling over the moral dilemma of telling them that they can't fight for their homes or what they believe is important to them.
The Maquis is just a hard problem to write in general, though, because you have to come up with a situation where the Maquis both feel largely justified in their actions from the viewer's point of view and still make it so that the moral calculus on the part of the Federation falls against them. I'm not surprised they ultimately failed to do that. And I do think the fact that they're Federation citizens makes it feel less like they're embedded in an important conflict to preserve their way of life or what have you and more like they're stubborn idiots.
I think one thing they could've done is go to much greater lengths to show that somehow these colonists really had a distinct culture to the rest of the Federation that was fundamentally based in these worlds. Perhaps show how these worlds were themselves very unique and shaped who the Maquis are in a way that makes the colonies that they live on a much bigger piece of their identity, and a much bigger loss to them in a way that would make us feel like they really lost something fundamental in that treaty.
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
IIRC wasn't one of the planets under dispute granted to an actual native tribe by the Federation a couple of generations previously or something, as recompense for everything they'd put up with during centuries of colonization on Earth?
Yeah, Journey's End. The idea was that this particular tribe had fucked off from Earth 200 years before because they wanted to preserve their culture (the nascent Federation implied to be not much better at wanting to assimilate other cultures than previous Earth governments). 20 years previously, they found a perfect planet, but were warned that being so close to the Cardassian border posed a risk, and they said "Yeah fine." Then the treaty granted their world to the Cardassians, and they refused to move.
After an initial escalation of hostilities, the natives agreed to live under Cardassian law, and the Cardassian commander, sick of war, thought he could convince the leadership to just leave them alone so long as they didn't make a nuisance of themselves.
In short, "We want to go here." "There may be consequences." "We'll deal." "Here are some consequences." "Thank you, they'll be lovely in the town square." "...okay good."
And then it turned out that other planets with Federation colonists on them were not so prepared to deal with the first freedom, the one that makes all the other ones possible, that is, the freedom to take the consequences of one's actions. Hence the Maquis. It's interesting that TNG did a story that basically undermined the whole idea of the Maquis, in order to set up the Maquis storyline. "If you want to live here you're under Cardassian law." Group 1: " 'kay." Group 2: "REBEL REBEL JERSEY REPRESENT AHHH"
And then it turned out Tom Jackson was secretly the magic pedoman from season 1 and offered to take Wesley away from all this...
I mean, afaik the Maquis were invented for Voyager (who hilariously never used them) and were basically thrust upon TNG and DS9. Who then had to wrap the whole thing up in the middle of the story they actually wanted to tell.
Basically, Voyager left a flaming bag of poop on DS9's doorstep and they had to do their best to put it out without ruining their shoes.
this is also true
Yeah, I super don't fault DS9 for the Maquis since it was never the DS9 writers' idea to begin with and they clearly just wanted it out of their hair.
I do kind of side-eye some of how they handed it. Sisko's oft-quoted "saints in paradise" speech comes from the Maquis episode and in context it's fucking ludicrous. "People on Earth don't understand what it's like to be a pioneer cosplayer picking fights with his neighbor." Obviously Behr was really big on Westerns and tried to cast everything (particularly in the early years) into that lens but the choice to act like the Maquis were heroic settlers being betrayed by the Uppity Folks Back East who wouldn't send the Army to help them kill the Indians was...unfortunate.
Frankly, it was unfortunate in Westerns, too, but I understand that that was a conversation that was unlikely to be had between a bunch of boomer white guys in a writer's room back in 1995.
And here I am as a People on Earth in the 2000s totally envious of their ability to explore a galaxy and can't understand why they decide to plant ass on one specific planet over any others. There are some things that don't resonate with me and somethings that next-level don't resonate and the complaints of a comparatively small population of stubborn people who really had no actual ties to those specific planets beyond "but we want these planets! /whine" is one of those things.
Edit: oh yeah they did do that Native American tribe thread too didn't they, that was sure a thing they did. But since they dropped that unfortunate portrayal like a hot potato after that episode, in a macro sense I'm unsympathetic about what the Maquis exist for.
The fact that it doesn't match what you want out of life is irrelevant. There are people as equally unimpressed by technology who think we are stupid silly for posting on forums. Doesn't make it any less viable. Also, we don't get a lot (that I remember) of indication how long people have lived in a place, but it wouldn't take more than a few years to be "home", and definitely not more than a few decades to really feel like you had roots. The Federation needs colonies, period. I think that's pretty obvious in any sci-fi system short of "galaxy is completely populated". Once people have settled there, and it's become home, just telling them "sucks to be you, get gone" is pretty shitty at best.
The fact that it doesn't match what you want out of life is irrelevant. There are people as equally unimpressed by technology who think we are stupid silly for posting on forums. Doesn't make it any less viable. Also, we don't get a lot (that I remember) of indication how long people have lived in a place, but it wouldn't take more than a few years to be "home", and definitely not more than a few decades to really feel like you had roots. The Federation needs colonies, period. I think that's pretty obvious in any sci-fi system short of "galaxy is completely populated". Once people have settled there, and it's become home, just telling them "sucks to be you, get gone" is pretty shitty at best.
Ok this is gonna sound real harsh but I'm not directing this at you, just the writing as they were trying to get me to feel about it. Here's the thing, based on context of the situation as I recall we're talking about Federation colonists who made the choice to continue settling in contested areas adjacent to an empire known from very early on in the colonizing efforts at the minimum(date of first contact was never established in canon) to be violently hostile, ignored/accepted the risks and then even after going into open war with the Cardassians for them still complain that the Federation isn't doing enough. I really don't have to have sympathy for that, how much the writing may claim that the Federation "needs" colonies of nebulously defined value located immediately next to hostile space not withstanding.
Now I'll grant that part of the blame does lie on the Federation for allowing the colonizing to continue to happen as long as it did, they should have hard-stopped letting anyone migrate once... you know, entire colony populations were being murdered. But at the end of the day the choice to go there was up to the colonists, and the colonists that are settling there are doing so in the name of the Federation - the territory doesn't belong to the colonists, it belongs to the Federation, hence the term Federation colonies. It's completely within the Federation's jurisdiction to do what they want with their territory and how upset the colonists think they get to be about that is really what's irrelevant. To their credit, being the kind of society they are the Federation is trying to be nice about the relocation arrangements even though they don't have to and putting way more effort into an amicable resolution than is probably deserved, but all things considered "sucks to be you, get gone" would IMO still have been within the list of appropriate(if tactless) responses.
the unspecified native tribe that was definitely not made up by their totally legit and authentic "consultant".
To be fair, it was made up by an actual consultant before Jamake Highwater got involved. That's why they were so different in Journey's End than in any of Chakotay's flashbacks.
In TNG, the only parts that were made up was the incorporation of aliens into their spiritual system. Which might be a little silly, but at least was an idea from an actual Native American historian who noted that many old world animals, plants, and races were incorporated similarly upon discovery because the entire idea of ambient spirituality is incompatible with a limit to some subset of everything.
In Voyager they were literally naked speechless animals scratching at the ground until they had sex with the magical white people from the sky, an idea from an Armenian immigrant who figured out that American white people in the 80's hated every race in the world but were all about Native American appropriation and positive racism.
The fact that it doesn't match what you want out of life is irrelevant. There are people as equally unimpressed by technology who think we are stupid silly for posting on forums. Doesn't make it any less viable. Also, we don't get a lot (that I remember) of indication how long people have lived in a place, but it wouldn't take more than a few years to be "home", and definitely not more than a few decades to really feel like you had roots. The Federation needs colonies, period. I think that's pretty obvious in any sci-fi system short of "galaxy is completely populated". Once people have settled there, and it's become home, just telling them "sucks to be you, get gone" is pretty shitty at best.
Ok this is gonna sound real harsh but I'm not directing this at you, just the writing as they were trying to get me to feel about it. Here's the thing, based on context of the situation as I recall we're talking about Federation colonists who made the choice to continue settling in contested areas adjacent to an empire known from very early on in the colonizing efforts at the minimum(date of first contact was never established in canon) to be violently hostile, ignored/accepted the risks and then even after going into open war with the Cardassians for them still complain that the Federation isn't doing enough. I really don't have to have sympathy for that, how much the writing may claim that the Federation "needs" colonies of nebulously defined value located immediately next to hostile space not withstanding.
Now I'll grant that part of the blame does lie on the Federation for allowing the colonizing to continue to happen as long as it did, they should have hard-stopped letting anyone migrate once... you know, entire colony populations were being murdered. But at the end of the day the choice to go there was up to the colonists, and the colonists that are settling there are doing so in the name of the Federation - the territory doesn't belong to the colonists, it belongs to the Federation, hence the term Federation colonies. It's completely within the Federation's jurisdiction to do what they want with their territory and how upset the colonists think they get to be about that is really what's irrelevant. To their credit, being the kind of society they are the Federation is trying to be nice about the relocation arrangements even though they don't have to and putting way more effort into an amicable resolution than is probably deserved, but all things considered "sucks to be you, get gone" would IMO still have been within the list of appropriate(if tactless) responses.
I've not argued the legality, presumably, the Federation is 100% within their rights to evict the colonists or give away the colonies. It doesn't change ANYTHING about whether or not the colonists consider it home enough to be worth fighting for. History is replete with border towns where this is a thing already. I've not said (or not meant to say I suppose) that the colonists were right, just that their reaction is believable and even understandable.
In a very generalized sense yes I get that they could have an attachment to where they are, but the thing is this situation precludes me caring about it even if I understood it. It is to stress again a problem of their own making, so whatever sense of attachment they may or may not have doesn't even factor into it for me.
Kind of amazed that after the Cardassians joined the Dominion and tried to supernova the Bajoran star Sisko still just straight up lets Gul Dukat and Weyoun onto the station. Like at this point how are they not explicitly at war?
The one saving grace of this is that it leads to Kira shattering a coffee mug against Gul Dukat's face.
Likely a big part of By Inferno's Light not starting a war right there was that the Romulans noped out after it fizzled and cut a deal with the Dominion. They could have been the most powerful member of the alliance if they were there right from the start and them backing out really fucks up the board.
The Dominion quickly made deals with a ton of power players after moving into Cardassia. A ton of old enemies like the Romulans and Tholians just cut a deal to leave the Dominion alone and do their own thing, but none of them did the same with the Federation, if they went to war they're facing the wild cards of Romulus at their backs and Tholia and Tzenketh on their flanks, none of whom are allied with the Dominion but all of which have a hands-off deal with the Dominion and bones to pick with the Federation and/or Klingons. Ask Germany how that situation ends for you, they've been in it like five times in history.
Basically the whole map just went yellow all at once and nobody except the Dominion was actually in a position to actually *start* a war.
the unspecified native tribe that was definitely not made up by their totally legit and authentic "consultant".
To be fair, it was made up by an actual consultant before Jamake Highwater got involved. That's why they were so different in Journey's End than in any of Chakotay's flashbacks.
In TNG, the only parts that were made up was the incorporation of aliens into their spiritual system. Which might be a little silly, but at least was an idea from an actual Native American historian who noted that many old world animals, plants, and races were incorporated similarly upon discovery because the entire idea of ambient spirituality is incompatible with a limit to some subset of everything.
In Voyager they were literally naked speechless animals scratching at the ground until they had sex with the magical white people from the sky, an idea from an Armenian immigrant who figured out that American white people in the 80's hated every race in the world but were all about Native American appropriation and positive racism.
Man, Fuck Jamake Highwater! No wonder Robert Beltran considers Voyager his greatest shame. The pain of having to cosplay racist fantasy version that some "expert" says is your culture.
I fully understand why he checked out of Voyagers last few seasons, Guy did more than what I would accept.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Kind of amazed that after the Cardassians joined the Dominion and tried to supernova the Bajoran star Sisko still just straight up lets Gul Dukat and Weyoun onto the station. Like at this point how are they not explicitly at war?
The one saving grace of this is that it leads to Kira shattering a coffee mug against Gul Dukat's face.
The Federation will do anything to avoid war, which is both its strength and its weakness.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
The gang and I did a very special Wednesday night Star Trek session and double-featured Spock's Brain and Sub Rosa. Also, I did edibles. My brain is now thoroughly beaten into submission.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Also there was general agreement that in spite of how infamous it is, Spock's Brain is about six hundred times less stupid than Sub Rosa. It's not really dumb so much as it's just insane.
Also there was general agreement that in spite of how infamous it is, Spock's Brain is about six hundred times less stupid than Sub Rosa. It's not really dumb so much as it's just insane.
Spock's brain is "brain checked out 10 minutes ago" stupid.
Sub-Rosa is "armed thugs broke into your skull and beat your brain senseless" stupid.
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MsAnthropyThe Lady of Pain Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the RhythmThe City of FlowersRegistered Userregular
When I explained the plot to my wife, the sentence “and then he effed her eyes green” was said.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Maybe it's because I read too many cheesy romance novels, but I don't think Sub Rosa is stupider than Spock's Brain.
That said, Spock's Brain is pretty great as a wtf episode, whereas Sub Rosa is just "why is this in Star Trek?"
Although at least Sub Rosa follows a plot that I, at least, want to see through to the end when I'm watching it. While Jeri Taylor's Janeway Lambda One gothic holodeck program was always just boring and never gave us any hooks to care about it. Then Jeri Taylor had the nerve to accuse the audience of being too unsophisticated to get it. No, dear, I love gothic romance novels. I read Jane Eyre in high school of my own volition, not as an assignment. Your holodeck story was just bad. I'm glad that when Voyager explored a holodeck program for an episode, it was the Adventures of Captain Proton, which is a hell of a lot more fun. Janeway as the Spider Queen is still the best.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
Janeway had the difficulty turned down to like 2.5 at most on that program. The guy basically introduces himself saying, "Hello player, I'll be your love interest. My children are the most efficient way to accomplish that."
Edit: oh, and the "I'm totally keeping something super weird on the 4th floor" thing they throw out in scene one. We're clearly supposed to wonder if it's a Dorian Grey, Christian Grey, or Norman Bates type dark secret but we're really wondering when the Doctor will come back.
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I've be said it before in these threads but the assumption that as a Federation citizen you can simply live anywhere you want within Federation space is not supported by any television canon, and on its face runs counter to the principles of said Federation. You absolutely can be prevented from living somewhere, just like you absolutely can be forcibly removed if you are somewhere you shouldn't be, even if that is retroactive to your decision to live there in the first place.
Being a Federation citizen does not magically absolve you from having to face political reality, whether terrestrial or galactic.
No one is saying they don't have a right to be upset but they are literally killing people and fomenting war just because they happen to want to live on a particular planet in a post-scarcity society where literally hundreds of other options readily exist that are nearly identical to the one they want. When taken in context the Maquis are asinine, immature, and unequivocally dangerous criminals.
this is also true
Yeah, I super don't fault DS9 for the Maquis since it was never the DS9 writers' idea to begin with and they clearly just wanted it out of their hair.
I do kind of side-eye some of how they handed it. Sisko's oft-quoted "saints in paradise" speech comes from the Maquis episode and in context it's fucking ludicrous. "People on Earth don't understand what it's like to be a pioneer cosplayer picking fights with his neighbor." Obviously Behr was really big on Westerns and tried to cast everything (particularly in the early years) into that lens but the choice to act like the Maquis were heroic settlers being betrayed by the Uppity Folks Back East who wouldn't send the Army to help them kill the Indians was...unfortunate.
Frankly, it was unfortunate in Westerns, too, but I understand that that was a conversation that was unlikely to be had between a bunch of boomer white guys in a writer's room back in 1995.
The colonists feel to me a lot like right wing nuts who are comically out of touch with the galactic situation, like they're the Federation's version of Libertarians who think that they're self made men while using a Federation Standard Issue Medkit to purge all diseases known to man from their bodies, designed by a scientific tradition of a hundred generations of scientists across dozens of worlds. They are rugged frontier individualists .... that needed to charter interstellar transport to go do Minecraft but in real life on empty worlds
If I was a Cardassian colonist with a Cardassian mindset I would assume that they obviously still had strong ties to their state and were a component in some future invasion plan, because as a Cardassian I can't imagine a people who don't act at the state's bidding
edit: I would have been absolutely cool with the entire plot line if it was clear that these people were just the equivilent of hawks in the Federation, because those do exist. "It's ridiculous that you gave the Cardassians favorable terms, they were the aggressors and if Starfleet mustered a true warfleet, it could wipe out every Cardassian warship in a month"
Or "superman could just laser the bad guy's face off"
I think most of the quoting is done without that context, though, because on its own it's a fantastic (and probably not entirely intentional) description of privilege. Particularly the sort that comes with being, say, a white American male in the 90s.
Ultimately it seems like the Maquis are a bunch of people who colonized some planets because they wanted to and there's really no reason they couldn't do that and then they got caught in the middle of something and decided their colony was worth killing for.
As soon as the Cardassian Government sponsored opposing colonies, it should be clear that while you may look at this as the frontier, to the local powers, this is where they live - and they don't take kindly to your presence.
Space is unimaginably huge, true, but the Federation colonies sure look an awful lot like an attempt at a foothold if I'm a Cardassian politician. I know my own people are always looking for an excuse to expand territory whenever possible - and I mean that collectively - Cardassians do not just "Decide" to go found a colony, the government tells them to go found a colony.
The Federation says these people are setting up colonies of their own accord, but from my point of view as a Cardassian, this is a deliberate provocation by a greater interstellar power that is unhappy with the terms of the treaty it signed. This doesn't make anything the Cardassians are doing right, but it is understandable from their point of view... imagine living in a struggling interstellar empire where food is still something you have to have money to have, and a nearby superpower where everything is literally free sets up "Farming colonies" on your border (yeah the element of trying to prove their strength by being violent against a greater power's people is also present, they are autocrats, but more reason not to expect anyone to die on your behalf if you cart your family to their border)
At the very least it complicates the sensitive issue of trying to bring the Cardassians into the greater interstellar community, instead of being space north korea
Since the Federation has extremely good public education, the Colonists have to be aware of all of this, they just don't care
I think there's a case to be made that any act has a moral dimension, particularly one where you have a long-term impact on local ecology and evolution, regardless of whether there already exists "sentient" life. A loose analogy here would be human behavior that contribute to global warming. A closer analogy would be the Federation "ban" on travel beyond Warp [Whatever Number It Was].
Similarly, people choosing to live in any unoccupied space necessarily means that others cannot live there. It is a de facto form of property seizure, and therefore enters the realm of politics by default. The fact that there don't already exist people doesn't mean that you aren't having an impact on everything around you. See again: Israeli "settlements"
"But this is our RV campground, that we've fought and bled for! ... seriously, you should see the mosquitos we've got here."
if this was better thought out, the colonists would be Bajorans, who would have a solid claim that all of those worlds would have been colonized by them if Cardassia hadn't brutally crushed them and kept them under a boot for 50 years
Bajor would have a much better argument for why, treaties or no, the colonies should be theirs - if for nothing else as reparations, as large parts of their world are still in pretty bad straights after what the Cardassians did to it
It even make's Sisko's speech about "out here, the problems havent been solved yet" actually work (with detached starfleet admirals saying "we're helping your planet, just stay on it, I don't understand the problem")
It even makes the Maquis willing to attack Starfleet for not directly helping make more sense, because a lot of Bajorans see Starfleet as "Cardassian empire with better PR"
Yeah, that's my point. The dimensions of the conflict are basically around who gets to own the rocks. The setting basically strips all the colonial dimensions from the conflict that you would see in any here-on-earth situation. In so far as their are parallels to Westerns, they don't carry over any of the more problematic elements. While also, as you note later, stripping away a lot of the problems with other elements too.
Honestly I kinda feel like the whole situation is Star Trek biting off more then it could chew in terms of political complexity.
“Oh, you can go to a holodeck and just not come out.”
“Nope, I am going straight to sickbay and telling the EMH to fix me and give me a whole body tune up.”
Further discussion led to how to sabotage the food replicators.
Hell, you could still even have a handful of ex-Starfleet officers join the Maquis in this setup, because they thought the Federation had been too reluctant to help the Bajorans during the occupation. Could have given a nice mirror to the DS9 crew, even.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
The Maquis is just a hard problem to write in general, though, because you have to come up with a situation where the Maquis both feel largely justified in their actions from the viewer's point of view and still make it so that the moral calculus on the part of the Federation falls against them. I'm not surprised they ultimately failed to do that. And I do think the fact that they're Federation citizens makes it feel less like they're embedded in an important conflict to preserve their way of life or what have you and more like they're stubborn idiots.
I think one thing they could've done is go to much greater lengths to show that somehow these colonists really had a distinct culture to the rest of the Federation that was fundamentally based in these worlds. Perhaps show how these worlds were themselves very unique and shaped who the Maquis are in a way that makes the colonies that they live on a much bigger piece of their identity, and a much bigger loss to them in a way that would make us feel like they really lost something fundamental in that treaty.
Yeah, Journey's End. The idea was that this particular tribe had fucked off from Earth 200 years before because they wanted to preserve their culture (the nascent Federation implied to be not much better at wanting to assimilate other cultures than previous Earth governments). 20 years previously, they found a perfect planet, but were warned that being so close to the Cardassian border posed a risk, and they said "Yeah fine." Then the treaty granted their world to the Cardassians, and they refused to move.
After an initial escalation of hostilities, the natives agreed to live under Cardassian law, and the Cardassian commander, sick of war, thought he could convince the leadership to just leave them alone so long as they didn't make a nuisance of themselves.
In short, "We want to go here." "There may be consequences." "We'll deal." "Here are some consequences." "Thank you, they'll be lovely in the town square." "...okay good."
And then it turned out that other planets with Federation colonists on them were not so prepared to deal with the first freedom, the one that makes all the other ones possible, that is, the freedom to take the consequences of one's actions. Hence the Maquis. It's interesting that TNG did a story that basically undermined the whole idea of the Maquis, in order to set up the Maquis storyline. "If you want to live here you're under Cardassian law." Group 1: " 'kay." Group 2: "REBEL REBEL JERSEY REPRESENT AHHH"
And then it turned out Tom Jackson was secretly the magic pedoman from season 1 and offered to take Wesley away from all this...
...yeah let's just forget that part of it all.
but they forgot that the native tribe existed except for literally just Chakotay after that one TNG episode
And here I am as a People on Earth in the 2000s totally envious of their ability to explore a galaxy and can't understand why they decide to plant ass on one specific planet over any others. There are some things that don't resonate with me and somethings that next-level don't resonate and the complaints of a comparatively small population of stubborn people who really had no actual ties to those specific planets beyond "but we want these planets! /whine" is one of those things.
Edit: oh yeah they did do that Native American tribe thread too didn't they, that was sure a thing they did. But since they dropped that unfortunate portrayal like a hot potato after that episode, in a macro sense I'm unsympathetic about what the Maquis exist for.
Ok this is gonna sound real harsh but I'm not directing this at you, just the writing as they were trying to get me to feel about it. Here's the thing, based on context of the situation as I recall we're talking about Federation colonists who made the choice to continue settling in contested areas adjacent to an empire known from very early on in the colonizing efforts at the minimum(date of first contact was never established in canon) to be violently hostile, ignored/accepted the risks and then even after going into open war with the Cardassians for them still complain that the Federation isn't doing enough. I really don't have to have sympathy for that, how much the writing may claim that the Federation "needs" colonies of nebulously defined value located immediately next to hostile space not withstanding.
Now I'll grant that part of the blame does lie on the Federation for allowing the colonizing to continue to happen as long as it did, they should have hard-stopped letting anyone migrate once... you know, entire colony populations were being murdered. But at the end of the day the choice to go there was up to the colonists, and the colonists that are settling there are doing so in the name of the Federation - the territory doesn't belong to the colonists, it belongs to the Federation, hence the term Federation colonies. It's completely within the Federation's jurisdiction to do what they want with their territory and how upset the colonists think they get to be about that is really what's irrelevant. To their credit, being the kind of society they are the Federation is trying to be nice about the relocation arrangements even though they don't have to and putting way more effort into an amicable resolution than is probably deserved, but all things considered "sucks to be you, get gone" would IMO still have been within the list of appropriate(if tactless) responses.
To be fair, it was made up by an actual consultant before Jamake Highwater got involved. That's why they were so different in Journey's End than in any of Chakotay's flashbacks.
In TNG, the only parts that were made up was the incorporation of aliens into their spiritual system. Which might be a little silly, but at least was an idea from an actual Native American historian who noted that many old world animals, plants, and races were incorporated similarly upon discovery because the entire idea of ambient spirituality is incompatible with a limit to some subset of everything.
In Voyager they were literally naked speechless animals scratching at the ground until they had sex with the magical white people from the sky, an idea from an Armenian immigrant who figured out that American white people in the 80's hated every race in the world but were all about Native American appropriation and positive racism.
I've not argued the legality, presumably, the Federation is 100% within their rights to evict the colonists or give away the colonies. It doesn't change ANYTHING about whether or not the colonists consider it home enough to be worth fighting for. History is replete with border towns where this is a thing already. I've not said (or not meant to say I suppose) that the colonists were right, just that their reaction is believable and even understandable.
The one saving grace of this is that it leads to Kira shattering a coffee mug against Gul Dukat's face.
The Dominion quickly made deals with a ton of power players after moving into Cardassia. A ton of old enemies like the Romulans and Tholians just cut a deal to leave the Dominion alone and do their own thing, but none of them did the same with the Federation, if they went to war they're facing the wild cards of Romulus at their backs and Tholia and Tzenketh on their flanks, none of whom are allied with the Dominion but all of which have a hands-off deal with the Dominion and bones to pick with the Federation and/or Klingons. Ask Germany how that situation ends for you, they've been in it like five times in history.
Basically the whole map just went yellow all at once and nobody except the Dominion was actually in a position to actually *start* a war.
Man, Fuck Jamake Highwater! No wonder Robert Beltran considers Voyager his greatest shame. The pain of having to cosplay racist fantasy version that some "expert" says is your culture.
I fully understand why he checked out of Voyagers last few seasons, Guy did more than what I would accept.
The Federation will do anything to avoid war, which is both its strength and its weakness.
"What's going on?"
"Irish sex ghost."
"No, really, it's ok if you spoil a little, who is that guy?"
"I'm spoiling a lot, Irish sex ghost."
Spock's brain is "brain checked out 10 minutes ago" stupid.
Sub-Rosa is "armed thugs broke into your skull and beat your brain senseless" stupid.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
That said, Spock's Brain is pretty great as a wtf episode, whereas Sub Rosa is just "why is this in Star Trek?"
Although at least Sub Rosa follows a plot that I, at least, want to see through to the end when I'm watching it. While Jeri Taylor's Janeway Lambda One gothic holodeck program was always just boring and never gave us any hooks to care about it. Then Jeri Taylor had the nerve to accuse the audience of being too unsophisticated to get it. No, dear, I love gothic romance novels. I read Jane Eyre in high school of my own volition, not as an assignment. Your holodeck story was just bad. I'm glad that when Voyager explored a holodeck program for an episode, it was the Adventures of Captain Proton, which is a hell of a lot more fun. Janeway as the Spider Queen is still the best.
Edit: oh, and the "I'm totally keeping something super weird on the 4th floor" thing they throw out in scene one. We're clearly supposed to wonder if it's a Dorian Grey, Christian Grey, or Norman Bates type dark secret but we're really wondering when the Doctor will come back.