First we buy that drug for 100% pure gold because those people have never heard of latinum. We'll sell it to Klingons as an aphrodisiac. Next we'll take the addict's entire economic output for free, because we found out that industrial waste from theta radiation reclamation also satisfies the cravings. Yes, this will kill all the addicts, but we can't get away with that for long anyway and the drug is worth way more than they're able to pay.
That sounds vaguely like the plot of "On Basilisk Station"
Weren't they aware of the Prime Directive, and leaning on it hard to say "look, we both know what's really going on here, but your own laws say you can't do jack about it."?
Yeah, they were smugly telling Picard that he can't do anything due to the Prime Directive. And Picard eventually responds by saying "Quite right, we don't have to do anything. Including helping either of you."
They were, and they do. Or at least, the “dealers” were and do.
Still, practically you’re looking at a few million preventable deaths. At least. Which is…something, for a Starfleet Captain to walk away from.
I do like the meta idea, but the implementation and execution suck so badly.
I'm slowly making my way through DS9 and I'm really, really enjoying it. The first couple episodes I just wasn't sure if I enjoyed any of the characters other than Kira. But now I am really enjoying them all. Quark especially has turned around... since TNG was my first and only Star Trek I had a really bad impression of the Ferengi.
It had basic graphics... as in BASIC the computer Language with Letters for graphics. I later upgraded to a EGAtrek version, that had 16 colors and PC speakers sound(as in monotone beep beep noises), giving me a DOS 3.3 interface. I finally got a VGA windows 3.1 version, which was like this game only with colors and a couple of plotlines beyond kill Klingons (Tholians with Webs and Romulans appeared).
So yes I remember that game.
My first professional game was the 25th Anniversary costing me what is probably 200$ in todays money. Shit was expensive yo.
Ironically my first taste of TNG was A Final Unity, which I watched while not knowing anything about TNG apart from having watched Encounter at Farpoint. I did not get most of what the game was referencing, but it was an Adventure game and I knew enough that I could flub myself through.
It has Troi give useful advice at one point:
You have to calculate a starchart based on the fluctuations of a star that has collapsed into a blackhole. She suggest to warp far away enough that you can see the actual star pre-collapse. Since the star collapsed around 20-30 years ago, you only have to warp 25 LY to get the measurements. No technobabble, no weird maguffin particle measurement. Just plain basic science aka that the starlight we see can be hundreds of years old by the time it reaches us and with a FTL ship you can jump to an "earlier" time.
Its also the correct solution.
Still sticks with me after 25 years.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
+14
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
Weren't they aware of the Prime Directive, and leaning on it hard to say "look, we both know what's really going on here, but your own laws say you can't do jack about it."?
Yeah, they were smugly telling Picard that he can't do anything due to the Prime Directive. And Picard eventually responds by saying "Quite right, we don't have to do anything. Including helping either of you."
They were, and they do. Or at least, the “dealers” were and do.
Still, practically you’re looking at a few million preventable deaths. At least. Which is…something, for a Starfleet Captain to walk away from.
I do like the meta idea, but the implementation and execution suck so badly.
In addition, the Prime Directive shouldn't really apply when the planet in question calls up and explicitly asks for help. The way the Prime Directive prioritizes societies that can actually request help is a problem, but there's dozens of episodes of Star Trek that are a variation on "planet has a problem, calls in Starfleet to help", so obviously the Prime Directive doesn't prevent that. Even if they're not willing to ask for help immediately, leaving a metaphorical calling card behind seems like a no-brainer, as is directing Crusher to develop a non-addictive drug so it's ready the instant they request help. It's obvious that this is going to go south in, like, a week.
(Really, my feeling on that Episode was that they were somewhat disgusted at both sides. One side built their planet around creating an addictive chemical that they know has no useful purpose anymore. The other got addicted to what they thought was a treatment for a plague. But they're filthy addicts, and it's the 80s, so....)
I’m reminded of a Trek conservative I ran into a few weeks ago, who insisted Discovery was a massive failure and had already written its final episode. Naturally, he abandoned the thread when I asked for a source. He was only the latest in a long line of Trumpers certain that NuTrek's "wokeness" doomed it to financial failure.
I’m reminded of a Trek conservative I ran into a few weeks ago, who insisted Discovery was a massive failure and had already written its final episode. Naturally, he abandoned the thread when I asked for a source. He was only the latest in a long line of Trumpers certain that NuTrek's "wokeness" doomed it to financial failure.
Chuds like Midnight's Edge on Youtube have created an entire alternate reality where the new Trek series have been unmitigated failures and the entire franchise will be canceled soon due to a lack of viewers. Something, something, something, get woke, go broke.
In reality it seems that Star Trek is about the only thing holding Paramount's streaming service together. As much as I don't like STD, I can't deny that it's considered a success by the powers that be. There's no way you can say that it didn't drive subscribers on the CBS, now Paramount platform. It's also partially responsible for bringing Paramount and CBS back together.
Chuds like Midnight's Edge on Youtube have created an entire alternate reality where the new Trek series have been unmitigated failures and the entire franchise will be canceled soon due to a lack of viewers. Something, something, something, get woke, go broke.
See also: the Star Wars and Marvel.
And like Star Wars and Marvel, any failure Discovery comes to isn't going to be because they put a trans person there and dedicated a whole line of dialog to their pronouns any more than Star Wars because the space lady had purple hair or Marvel because I don't even know what they're on about these days, probably still Brie Larson.
I'd rather not relitigate all of Discovery's sins, but the show is less woke (motherfucker I hate this word and I'm going to type it like eight more times) than... Maybe all the rest of Star Trek. Definitely TNG. Definitely DS9. Definitely TOS and its ancillaries if we give credit "for the times" (granted the sexism aged like warm milk even by the 80's but it was still in your face revolutionary for 60's TV, when there were three channels and people were known to get bones broken over time slots). Maybe not Voyager, but that's because Jamake Highwater stuck his dick in the main recurring attempt.
If it is less popular than previous Star Treks it is definitely not because it's too woke, when the series that usually wins the popularity vote took a week out to make an episode about the plight of black creatives in 1950's America. DS9 sure as fuck got woke and it didn't go broke until the VFX bills came back and they realized they'd have to cut the final battle together from existing footage.
Hevach on
0
That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
I've said this before on other forums. Chuds lost the culture war. At this point they're just living in the ashes of their own self-delusion.
I am loving first season Picard’s attitude. He is Very Busy and Important, and absolutely not here for anyone’s nonsense. This abrasive Picard wouldn’t work long term I think, but is making me laugh far too hard in retrospect.
If it is less popular than previous Star Treks it is definitely not because it's too woke, when the series that usually wins the popularity vote took a week out to make an episode about the plight of black creatives in 1950's America. DS9 sure as fuck got woke and it didn't go broke until the VFX bills came back and they realized they'd have to cut the final battle together from existing footage.
It is pretty comical how so many people online spin up these vast cultural complaints about Trek shows instead of coming to the far easier and more obvious answer in that sometimes, a show just isn't very good. And that's really what Discovery's problem is.
I do find it really tiring how much time boomers and young white men spend finding every possible avenue to hate and write off any new trek show that comes down the pipe though.
My take is that Discovery is legitimately quite successful for the people making it and what they want from it. And also it's not very good, just like most of the recent Star Trek stuff.
I guess there's dumb complaints about the show too but I only hear them second hand in this thread and I refuse to engage with them.
I think Discovery will probably age pretty well in the end. It would be one of the best Trek's ever though if they'd just fix the issues with Burnham and stop writing the show by the seat of their pants.
My take is that Discovery is legitimately quite successful for the people making it and what they want from it. And also it's not very good, just like most of the recent Star Trek stuff.
I guess there's dumb complaints about the show too but I only hear them second hand in this thread and I refuse to engage with them.
Yeah, we get it. You hate black women.
ElJeffe on
0
That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
Burnham isn't the biggest issue, I think. Picard had a similar character focus and it comparatively worked because the cast and ship was small and the mission and stakes were very limited until the last 10 minutes of the season, and when the stakes did go off the rails it brought in Riker to handle that stuff in the background while Picard still dealt with deeply personal stakes in the Data emulator.
Burnham being the focus of A B and C plots is the problem it is because Discovery's stakes started at THE ENTIRE FEDERATION and had escalated to ALL LIFE IN EVERY UNIVERSE by the midpoint of season 1. It had a large cast of diverse and interesting characters who had a mix of leadership authority, complex backgrounds, and direct personal or professional connections to the macguffins and it let them all languish in the background for so long that by the time the one bridge officer's name was finally spoken aloud on camera in season goddamn 3 different actors pronounced it differently.
Hevach on
+3
That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
edited August 2021
Picard discovers some new war crimes too. :P
Edit: I guess some of them are just crimes against humanity.
Burnham isn't the biggest issue, I think. Picard had a similar character focus and it comparatively worked because the cast and ship was small and the mission and stakes were very limited until the last 10 minutes of the season, and when the stakes did go off the rails it brought in Riker to handle that stuff in the background while Picard still dealt with deeply personal stakes in the Data emulator.
Burnham being the focus of A B and C plots is the problem it is because Discovery's stakes started at THE ENTIRE FEDERATION and had escalated to ALL LIFE IN EVERY UNIVERSE by the midpoint of season 1. It had a large cast of diverse and interesting characters who had a mix of leadership authority, complex backgrounds, and direct personal or professional connections to the macguffins and it let them all languish in the background for so long that by the time the one bridge officer's name was finally spoken aloud on camera in season goddamn 3 different actors pronounced it differently.
what if I were to say that picard didn't work at all and is a bad show though?
Honestly, my biggest beef with Discovery is the writing is bad, for a multitude of reasons. The prequel mental gymastics (we don't want to deal with the old and busted technology so lets come up with a convoluted reasons why they have way better tech than in TOS) was bad and the desperate need to do serialized storytelling without giving those stories time to breath nor being able to stick the landing worth a shit just made sucked a lot of the enjoyment out of the series.
Also the spore drive is the stupidest thing to exist in all of Star Trek. Like, Spock's Brain looks like a reasonable episode compared to MAGIC MUSHROOM DRIVE THAT CAN DESTROY ALL LIFE IN EVERY REALITY. Like, god damn, you might be able to come up with a sillier reason to have a "go anywhere" drive, but why would you want to?
Honestly, given their disdain for TOS aesthetics and their willingness to redesign the Klingons after like 30 years of them looking like TNG Klingons, they really should have just done a complete, tits to taint reboot of the franchise. Or just set it in the future, which, IMO, the show got immeasurably better when they did that and were able to do all the wacky technology they obviously always wanted to do.
+2
MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
Picard (the show) completely and entirely gives up on the Federation as an aspirational ideal by, like, midway through the first episode, and it can absolutely fuck off for that alone.
+5
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Picard is good, actually.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
I liked (most of) the cast a lot, and I liked some scenes, but I had major issues with the plotting and characterisation of Picard, and I found the latter two shaky enough to undo the things I enjoyed.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
+1
HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
I liked (most of) the cast a lot, and I liked some scenes, but I had major issues with the plotting and characterisation of Picard, and I found the latter two shaky enough to undo the things I enjoyed.
all of nuTrek has fantastic casts, etc
It's the writing that is my beef
Hardtarget on
+7
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
I'm at the point where I'm starting to not really give credit for a great cast anymore because nearly every prestige drama these days is amazingly well-cast and yet so many of them just have this limp-ass noodle writing.
Picard is a really weird duck for me. Where the overall story is kind of butts and there are a lot of equally dumb scenes. But there are just as many great scenes, I like the cast, and even though I said I don't like the story, I can strangely see it actually existing in the Star Trek universe.
It's just that when you start getting into the details of why certain scenes are dumb, we get into that realm of... am I just being a pedantic nerd for complaining? I saw a few youtube videos that were just clips of TNG and Picard and just doing some basic comparing and contrasting. Showing the romulan defector telling Data that there's a team of romulan cyberneticists who would love to see him, followed by the clip saying romulans actually think anything AI is akin to a doomsday devil cult. Or showing the need to destroy the super Iconian teleporter, lest anybody get their hands on such dangerous tech... only to show that I guess all Borg cubes have this overpowered tech and only thought to use it as a glorified escape pod.
And just to give an example of the other side, there's the scene where Picard has a bow and arrow pointed at him, and he casually mentions that they should go for a headshot, because no way that thing is piercing his metal heart. And I'm just thinking... you did not have to mention that at all, and I fucking love that you did. And then there's basically every conversation with Riker. Just so damn good.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
Posts
That sounds vaguely like the plot of "On Basilisk Station"
They were, and they do. Or at least, the “dealers” were and do.
Still, practically you’re looking at a few million preventable deaths. At least. Which is…something, for a Starfleet Captain to walk away from.
I do like the meta idea, but the implementation and execution suck so badly.
Goodreads
SF&F Reviews blog
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
But
and Regis giving Quark Oo-mox on tv... filthy filthy Regis...
My first actual Trek Game was a Nettrek game!
It had basic graphics... as in BASIC the computer Language with Letters for graphics. I later upgraded to a EGAtrek version, that had 16 colors and PC speakers sound(as in monotone beep beep noises), giving me a DOS 3.3 interface. I finally got a VGA windows 3.1 version, which was like this game only with colors and a couple of plotlines beyond kill Klingons (Tholians with Webs and Romulans appeared).
So yes I remember that game.
My first professional game was the 25th Anniversary costing me what is probably 200$ in todays money. Shit was expensive yo.
Ironically my first taste of TNG was A Final Unity, which I watched while not knowing anything about TNG apart from having watched Encounter at Farpoint. I did not get most of what the game was referencing, but it was an Adventure game and I knew enough that I could flub myself through.
It has Troi give useful advice at one point:
Still sticks with me after 25 years.
In addition, the Prime Directive shouldn't really apply when the planet in question calls up and explicitly asks for help. The way the Prime Directive prioritizes societies that can actually request help is a problem, but there's dozens of episodes of Star Trek that are a variation on "planet has a problem, calls in Starfleet to help", so obviously the Prime Directive doesn't prevent that. Even if they're not willing to ask for help immediately, leaving a metaphorical calling card behind seems like a no-brainer, as is directing Crusher to develop a non-addictive drug so it's ready the instant they request help. It's obvious that this is going to go south in, like, a week.
(Really, my feeling on that Episode was that they were somewhat disgusted at both sides. One side built their planet around creating an addictive chemical that they know has no useful purpose anymore. The other got addicted to what they thought was a treatment for a plague. But they're filthy addicts, and it's the 80s, so....)
Boooooo
Yaaaaaaay.
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SF&F Reviews blog
-uuuuuns
Chuds like Midnight's Edge on Youtube have created an entire alternate reality where the new Trek series have been unmitigated failures and the entire franchise will be canceled soon due to a lack of viewers. Something, something, something, get woke, go broke.
In reality it seems that Star Trek is about the only thing holding Paramount's streaming service together. As much as I don't like STD, I can't deny that it's considered a success by the powers that be. There's no way you can say that it didn't drive subscribers on the CBS, now Paramount platform. It's also partially responsible for bringing Paramount and CBS back together.
See also: the Star Wars and Marvel.
And like Star Wars and Marvel, any failure Discovery comes to isn't going to be because they put a trans person there and dedicated a whole line of dialog to their pronouns any more than Star Wars because the space lady had purple hair or Marvel because I don't even know what they're on about these days, probably still Brie Larson.
I'd rather not relitigate all of Discovery's sins, but the show is less woke (motherfucker I hate this word and I'm going to type it like eight more times) than... Maybe all the rest of Star Trek. Definitely TNG. Definitely DS9. Definitely TOS and its ancillaries if we give credit "for the times" (granted the sexism aged like warm milk even by the 80's but it was still in your face revolutionary for 60's TV, when there were three channels and people were known to get bones broken over time slots). Maybe not Voyager, but that's because Jamake Highwater stuck his dick in the main recurring attempt.
If it is less popular than previous Star Treks it is definitely not because it's too woke, when the series that usually wins the popularity vote took a week out to make an episode about the plight of black creatives in 1950's America. DS9 sure as fuck got woke and it didn't go broke until the VFX bills came back and they realized they'd have to cut the final battle together from existing footage.
Goodreads
SF&F Reviews blog
It is pretty comical how so many people online spin up these vast cultural complaints about Trek shows instead of coming to the far easier and more obvious answer in that sometimes, a show just isn't very good. And that's really what Discovery's problem is.
I do find it really tiring how much time boomers and young white men spend finding every possible avenue to hate and write off any new trek show that comes down the pipe though.
I guess there's dumb complaints about the show too but I only hear them second hand in this thread and I refuse to engage with them.
Yeah, we get it. You hate black women.
They discover some new war crimes.
Burnham being the focus of A B and C plots is the problem it is because Discovery's stakes started at THE ENTIRE FEDERATION and had escalated to ALL LIFE IN EVERY UNIVERSE by the midpoint of season 1. It had a large cast of diverse and interesting characters who had a mix of leadership authority, complex backgrounds, and direct personal or professional connections to the macguffins and it let them all languish in the background for so long that by the time the one bridge officer's name was finally spoken aloud on camera in season goddamn 3 different actors pronounced it differently.
Edit: I guess some of them are just crimes against humanity.
Also the spore drive is the stupidest thing to exist in all of Star Trek. Like, Spock's Brain looks like a reasonable episode compared to MAGIC MUSHROOM DRIVE THAT CAN DESTROY ALL LIFE IN EVERY REALITY. Like, god damn, you might be able to come up with a sillier reason to have a "go anywhere" drive, but why would you want to?
Honestly, given their disdain for TOS aesthetics and their willingness to redesign the Klingons after like 30 years of them looking like TNG Klingons, they really should have just done a complete, tits to taint reboot of the franchise. Or just set it in the future, which, IMO, the show got immeasurably better when they did that and were able to do all the wacky technology they obviously always wanted to do.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
all of nuTrek has fantastic casts, etc
It's the writing that is my beef
It's just that when you start getting into the details of why certain scenes are dumb, we get into that realm of... am I just being a pedantic nerd for complaining? I saw a few youtube videos that were just clips of TNG and Picard and just doing some basic comparing and contrasting. Showing the romulan defector telling Data that there's a team of romulan cyberneticists who would love to see him, followed by the clip saying romulans actually think anything AI is akin to a doomsday devil cult. Or showing the need to destroy the super Iconian teleporter, lest anybody get their hands on such dangerous tech... only to show that I guess all Borg cubes have this overpowered tech and only thought to use it as a glorified escape pod.
And just to give an example of the other side, there's the scene where Picard has a bow and arrow pointed at him, and he casually mentions that they should go for a headshot, because no way that thing is piercing his metal heart. And I'm just thinking... you did not have to mention that at all, and I fucking love that you did. And then there's basically every conversation with Riker. Just so damn good.
Picard and Discovery are good, actually.
Goodreads
SF&F Reviews blog