I also am just baffled by people acting like the show is part of a SINISTER CONSPIRACY to LIE to the humble viewer.
I don't see it as anything of the sort. I guess I also just don't see anything inherently wrong with Starfleet being a military as well as being designated as such, since it performs all the basic functions of a military.
Let me turn that around - do you find anything wrong with not depicting it as a military? Do you perceive it as some kind of attack or slap in the face to the concept of a military that real-life people would choose to have characters in a show draw that distinction?
I get the sense from your second post, and feel free to correct me if I've got the wrong end of the stick here,
because they can't quite bring themselves to believe that any organization that fills some of the functions of a military could ever really, honestly be better
I think it starts with the bad faith premise that a society is somehow misguided or less enlightened for having a military. A military is a tool of society, a means to an end. It's neither good nor bad in and of itself. It's nice and all to imagine no longer needing armed forces but the whole point of Star Trek is that humanity has (mostly) figured things out in terms of achieving a peaceful, stable, driven society free of famine and disease in cooperation with numerous other species within the Federation, but there remain problems to solve and threats to confront outside the Federation, and so it makes sense to have the right tools for the job - including a military. I just don't like how "the military" somehow became a dirty word when soldiers do so much more than fight wars even today.
that that is indeed the case; you feel like the good name of militaries is being slandered by people not wanting to use the word. That's a coherent and straightforward position.
And I agree! I think Roddenberry. a veteran who before Trek had produced a TV show ("The Lieutenant") about Camp Pendleton, was definitely trying to signal something by saying this, particularly in the 1980s in the aftermath of Vietnam, the Grenada adventure, and the ongoing Iran-Contra scandal. I think he had mixed feelings, to say the least, about the institution he had been a part of. (Btw, an episode of The Lieutenant that he wrote was also forbidden by the Pentagon for being broadcast because it had a "shocking" extremely milquetoast anti-racism theme. I feel like that wouldn't help but color his feelings further!)
So I guess where I differ is that that agenda is not a problem to me. I don't encourage spitting on soldiers or ostracizing veterans or any of that nonsense but American culture is absolutely dominated by reflexive reverence to uniforms to a degree that's honestly uncomfortable and I think we can all grit our teeth and manfully bear thirteen or twenty hours a year of extremely gentle pushback on that.
For me personally, even as I happily allow that modern Western militaries are, by and large, the least barbaric and cruel and fucked-up such institutions have ever been in human history, I literally just yesterday morning clicked on some reportage in the Ukraine thread about how, during Gulf War I, our boys - our heroes - used plows to bury thousands of Iraqi troops alive in their own trenches, drove over the dirt piles to compact them, and then machine-gunned the dirt. I don't think of myself as a shrinking violet, but that's really fucked up! It's a horror, and it damages the people who do it even as it kills the enemy, and I don't think people who go "jesus christ, can we find a better way?" are being unreasonable, particularly in the US where Star Trek is made, where our use of military force has been far from universally just or well-advised.
And even as I allow that armed forces are certainly necessary and probably always will be, I'm also not thrilled with the outcomes I've seen in friends and family who have served, even in peacetime. I fundamentally don't think it's good for people to be brutalized into reflexive compliance to a hierarchy; I fundamentally don't think it's good that we have to train people to dehumanize their enemies so they can kill them more reflexively. And even if those things are necessary, which perhaps they are!, it sure would be nice if we paid even a scintilla of a fraction as much care to undoing some of that when they muster out.
So, to me, if a character in the show says "we aren't like that," there's plenty of extremely tangible things they could be referring to: the different values and culture of their institution, the fact that they're trained to value other lives (even enemies) almost as much as their own and their comrades', the fact that the institution seems to prize and encourage personal development even along lines that don't apply to combat effectiveness.
If those distinctions seem tiny or frou-frou to you, that's absolutely fine. But I think when internet people do the blow-air-out-through-puffed-cheeks SCOFF at the IDIOCY of these CUCK WRITERS, I wish they would instead sit down for a minute and think about what it could mean.
Honestly, having a better understanding of your position on this subject, I think we're more or less in agreement when it comes down to it. I certainly wouldn't want people using what I find to be an intriguing topic (Is Starfleet a military organization?) as some "gotcha" to try and undermine what Star Trek at its core is trying to do, which includes exploring the possibilities for both personal as well as societal growth and discovery.
To answer your question, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with not depicting Starfleet as a military, but then I suppose my question would be "What is it then?" If there's no present-day analogue for its function or role within the Federation, then military or "exploratory/humanitarian/security" arm is probably the best we can do. Or just "action agency" or something to that effect. I would posit, however, that while Starfleet is perhaps not appropriately analogous to any real-life military, it maybe represents a more idealized version of it - something all militaries should aspire to be (competent, humane, inquisitive, transparent, innovative, accountable, etc). And while its flaws, shortcomings and questionable measures are often a running theme, most glaringly in DS9, I think we can safely say that's part of exploring the concept and putting it to the test by challenging it with difficult dilemmas and extraordinary circumstances.
I'm reminded of Pike's problem when dealing with the child sacrifice or Picard's when he encountered a remorseful being that wiped out an entire species. In both scenarios, the only option seemed to be to walk away - whether it was because taking action would've made things worse or because no action was possible due to the situation being so far beyond the scope of humanity's ability to deal with it. "We are not qualified to be your judges. We have no law to fit your crime. You're free to return to the planet, and to make Rishon live again."
Completely off-topic (but maybe more appropriate as this thread has since moved on), I just learned today that Roga Danar and the Chief Medical Officer on Voyager before it was flung into the Delta Quadrant were played by the same actor. Almost makes me wish this was worked into the canon somehow, like Roga was infiltrating Starfleet and even went so far as to train to become a fully capable medical officer... only to be suddenly and unceremoniously killed off in the pilot with no one ever being the wiser. Probably work better as a Lower Decks episode.
Kai Winn was one of those DS9 standouts that played a compelling if not sympathetic villain.
And she was a clear cut villain, but not one of those that could be fought with phasers, technobabble or a speech. She was a villain to the audience, but to the Bajorans she was their spiritual guide and their equivalent of pope. To fight her, you needed subtle political maneuvering, because otherwise those Bajorans would see it as you attacking their religion.
She was actually more scary than the usual religious fanatic we got on trek, because it wasn't her faith that was bad, but her self-righteousness. She was a religious fanatic, but not in the cookie cutter burn the witch kind of way. She believed that her religious faith made her right and if that faith told her that she should have absolute power over Bajor, well it was in Bajor's best interest to give it to her. You couldn't argue with her, you couldn't disprove her faith with a bit of technobabble. You just had to deal with a passive aggressive villain that took any opposition as you being wrong.
Not only is this kind of fanatic much more common in the real world than the burn the witch type, but that kind of Narcissist... I don't think there have been many portrayals of such people in fiction ever.
the thing I love about Winn is that she didn't just walk into her self righteousness as nobility would, she gave comfort to the sick and desperate during the occupation, and if she was ever caught, she would have been put to death, after being tortured. When she talks about how her organization helped preserve Bajoran culture while the fascists were busy stealing or destroying it and death was an ever present threat, she isn't lying. She's a bonafide hero of the occupation as much as Kira is, and she is absolutely right that she isn't thought of in that way by most people because she wasn't willing to murder Cardassians, even if the risks to her life were just as real. The reason she has so much political sway is because the rest of the clergy know this and see her as a legitimate hero as much as any resistance fighter.
"What the fuck did this human commander do to be the emissary after I've nearly given everyone I care about for the prophets? Kira thinks she's better than me because she was better at murder? These humans are going to show up en masse and erase our cultural history with their education programs, and I'm supposed to thank them for doing what the Cardassians did but "nicer"? How can nobody see that The Federation is just colonialism with a smile?"
Absolutely none of this makes anything she did any better, she is still bad and a villain, but what I love about her is how I can absolutely work through the thought processes behind every one of her actions. She is driven by the above resentment so hard that it blocks any rationality that would have dissuaded her from doing the shittiest thing imaginable. If she was living for something instead of against things it might have been possible for her to be Opaka instead of Winn, and I think that's what makes her special as a character and kind of tragic - but still someone who absolutely needed to be opposed at every level
Kai Winn was one of those DS9 standouts that played a compelling if not sympathetic villain.
And she was a clear cut villain, but not one of those that could be fought with phasers, technobabble or a speech. She was a villain to the audience, but to the Bajorans she was their spiritual guide and their equivalent of pope. To fight her, you needed subtle political maneuvering, because otherwise those Bajorans would see it as you attacking their religion.
She was actually more scary than the usual religious fanatic we got on trek, because it wasn't her faith that was bad, but her self-righteousness. She was a religious fanatic, but not in the cookie cutter burn the witch kind of way. She believed that her religious faith made her right and if that faith told her that she should have absolute power over Bajor, well it was in Bajor's best interest to give it to her. You couldn't argue with her, you couldn't disprove her faith with a bit of technobabble. You just had to deal with a passive aggressive villain that took any opposition as you being wrong.
Not only is this kind of fanatic much more common in the real world than the burn the witch type, but that kind of Narcissist... I don't think there have been many portrayals of such people in fiction ever.
the thing I love about Winn is that she didn't just walk into her self righteousness as nobility would, she gave comfort to the sick and desperate during the occupation, and if she was ever caught, she would have been put to death, after being tortured. When she talks about how her organization helped preserve Bajoran culture while the fascists were busy stealing or destroying it and death was an ever present threat, she isn't lying. She's a bonafide hero of the occupation as much as Kira is, and she is absolutely right that she isn't thought of in that way by most people because she wasn't willing to murder Cardassians, even if the risks to her life were just as real. The reason she has so much political sway is because the rest of the clergy know this and see her as a legitimate hero as much as any resistance fighter.
"What the fuck did this human commander do to be the emissary after I've nearly given everyone I care about for the prophets? Kira thinks she's better than me because she was better at murder? These humans are going to show up en masse and erase our cultural history with their education programs, and I'm supposed to thank them for doing what the Cardassians did but "nicer"? How can nobody see that The Federation is just colonialism with a smile?"
Absolutely none of this makes anything she did any better, she is still bad and a villain, but what I love about her is how I can absolutely work through the thought processes behind every one of her actions. She is driven by the above resentment so hard that it blocks any rationality that would have dissuaded her from doing the shittiest thing imaginable. If she was living for something instead of against things it might have been possible for her to be Opaka instead of Wynn, and I think that's what makes her special as a character and kind of tragic - but still someone who absolutely needed to be opposed at every level
Wynn's tragedy is also the belief she was special but at the same time she is rejected by her gods. She is never given an orb experience. She is never given guidance. And she believes through it all. But in the end the one that gives her the recognition she really wanted was the evil gods. The devils and demons. If she got a single orb experience in her life so much of the pain and anger she built up would have disappeared.
She's also unwilling or unable to give up her personal power and ambition, even when Kira tells her point blank that's what she needs to do to get right with the Prophets.
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
The Prophets being all timey-wimey makes reading their part in this incredibly murky, but I do think Winn has quite a lot of moments where she knows what's right and then rationalizes abandoning that position. If I were writing, I would put that as the number one reason why Sisko, Kira, et al get orb visions and Winn doesn't. The Prophets acted to remove the doubt from their faithful. Winn never had any doubts about anything.
You can see it rankling her for the entire show that she's achieved pretty much the highest possible station on Bajor, a role where she should be The Authority to pretty much all Bajorans, only she has to deal with an alien who arguably outranks her.
She keeps trying to manipulate Sisko and complaining when he uses Starfleet rules as a reason he won't do her dirty work, but if he wasn't bound by those, he could have easily overthrown her. Or at the very least started a civil war, if the Kai and the Emissary publicly disagreed.
i think that's one of the real needles she feels. she KNOWS that sisko has the power and yet he doesn't use it like she would. It irks her to no end and thus, she never pleases the prophets.
I keep expecting one of the prophesies to read:
"And lo the celestial gates did open and from them came the Emissary, thusly he spoke to the congregation 'Hey you, yeah you with the pen, write this down exactly... no don't look at him, write this down! You see Winn or Dukat, shoot them! Forget the prime directive, just shoot them with a phasor, you'd be doing the universe a big favor!'. Then he punched a deacon in the face and buggered off"
i think that's one of the real needles she feels. she KNOWS that sisko has the power and yet he doesn't use it like she would. It irks her to no end and thus, she never pleases the prophets.
yeah they had that episode with the false emissary where he just dragged Bajor back a century socially with a word
The thing that probably rankles her more than anything at some level is that all it would take for Sisko to "Defeat" her would be to tell the vedic assembly to get rid of her
Literally one call from Sisko and her people would cast her aside, yet he doesn't, and it frustrates her. She seems to feel that Sisko is toying with or looking down on her in every interaction, and he's an alien. An alien whos people could have stopped the occupation at any time if they really wanted to - but they didn't, because of the same rules that ultimately prevent Sisko from telling the Bajoran people to toss her out of any position of power
Putting aside her regressive beliefs and ambition for power at any cost, imagine how absolutely psychotic this situation must be to her
Winn had her chance moment of faith when the prophets and the wraiths used Jake and Kira and she faltered.
Sisko was going to let the prophets use his son because he had more faith in them than she did even with them literally being there to be seen and heard and not just a religious concept.
She was always a fraud just using the prophets and their religion for her own success and renown.
She admits it to herself in the end where she says she’s finally rid herself of that “lifetime of hypocrisy”.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
i think that's one of the real needles she feels. she KNOWS that sisko has the power and yet he doesn't use it like she would. It irks her to no end and thus, she never pleases the prophets.
yeah they had that episode with the false emissary where he just dragged Bajor back a century socially with a word
The thing that probably rankles her more than anything at some level is that all it would take for Sisko to "Defeat" her would be to tell the vedic assembly to get rid of her
Literally one call from Sisko and her people would cast her aside, yet he doesn't, and it frustrates her. She seems to feel that Sisko is toying with or looking down on her in every interaction, and he's an alien. An alien whos people could have stopped the occupation at any time if they really wanted to - but they didn't, because of the same rules that ultimately prevent Sisko from telling the Bajoran people to toss her out of any position of power
Putting aside her regressive beliefs and ambition for power at any cost, imagine how much absolutely psychotic this situation must be to her
She just needs to chill out, take some time off, meet a hot single conservative farmer in her area, and bang out that frustration.
There's still the real disturbing aspect about the whole Bajor/Prophets thing and the fact that they're real. That your gods quantifiably exist, are on record having talked and interacted with multiple people... and won't talk to you. I don't think I'd say it justifies her in any way, but I don't think you can say that doesn't have any effect on her.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
With her ego, I'd expect her to use the reasoning that obviously she's doing everything exactly right, so there's no need for the Prophets to talk to her.
What are they going to say? "We come to offer guidance, but you're already so great there's nothing we can add, just you do you"? They're too busy re-writing Ferengi to be not greedy, and seizing control of alien women to RNG-manipulate their Emissary into spawning.
Her claiming that whatever she wants is clearly the Will Of The Prophets isn't far off that. I'm wondering how co-incidental it is that it sounds similar to the Cardassian justice system, where suspicion of guilt is all they need, because if they're not guilty, why would the investigator be suspicious?
If she wants this and the Prophets don't tell her off, she's clearly in the right.
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
edited September 2022
Rationalizing things so that she's doing a bang up job and the Prophets are willing to let her do her thing only goes so far though. It's not guidance or praise, or even chastisement that she wants. It's just plain acknowledgement that she... exists or something in their eyes. Nearly every other character seems to get quality facetime with the Prophets. The Grand Nagus rolls into the wormhole and annoys them enough that they muck with his brain, and the Quark rolls in to haggle at them until they undo it. Dukat tells Kira that he was banging her mom and she just puts in a request to use one of the Orbs and bammo it pops her to when she wants to be. It would have to be so galling to have spent her entire life in service to them (in her mind) and to be so ignored when they're so directly involved in the lives of everyone else to the point where it wouldn't be surprising if they showed up for an O'Brien kayaking session or something.
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Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
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MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
One of the things I really like about DS9 is just how fucking weird and inscrutable the Prophets are.
Pah-wraiths were a mistake though (they work as a one-off, making them a recurring big deal was dumb)
I enjoyed all of the movies and if they put out another one I'd watch it. Just, SNW isn't that far off the timeline of the movies so doing a film set at approximately the same time as that show with different actors for the shared characters and a wildly different set of events between the two points in time seems like it'd be alienating to anyone who got into Star Trek in the 6 years since Beyond. There've been... what, 10 and a half seasons of TV Trek across the different shows? since then; none of which has any relation to the Kelvin timeline.
One of the things I really like about DS9 is just how fucking weird and inscrutable the Prophets are.
Pah-wraiths were a mistake though (they work as a one-off, making them a recurring big deal was dumb)
Bajor and their relationship with the prophets is one of the best bits of Trek ever (again minus the whole pah-wraith thing), I think it might be the only time where it is explored in this way.
We've seen alien worlds with "Gods" before, but they were like, just more powerful humans or w/e, they were understandable and took a direct authoritarian interest in their subjects. The prophets OTOH, have no specific interest in how the Bajorans act but have definitely shaped their development and protected them
Like there's a secular case to be made that they are, in fact, Bajor's gods (as much as any entity could be)- even though a lot of the baggage that goes along with their religion is bullshit created by the Bajorans through misinterpretation of cosmic or natural events
I like the idea that, due to their weird unpinned relationship to time, the Prophets only ever did anything for Bajor because Sisko made them realize that linear-time organisms could be sentient beings on a comparable level to themselves.
The first time Sisko and Dax enter the wormhole, their presence causes the Prophets distress and their mere existence is treated as an aggressive action. That's not consistent with their history of peaceful and benevolent interaction with Bajorans through the orbs. But to them, that history didn't come before they met Sisko. But as they come to understand what Sisko is, and that there's a whole world of beings like him that they'd dismissed as some vaguely organic goo creatures, they then determined to reach out and know the Bajorans, forming a weird relationship where their outside perspective on time became a source of guidance. And because of their nonlinearity this is now how they always were and always will be, even though the formative event still has to be fixed at it's necessary point in linear time.
This gets very weird because it also implies that the Prophets possessed Sisko's mom and ensured his birth because they already knew him.
I like the idea that, due to their weird unpinned relationship to time, the Prophets only ever did anything for Bajor because Sisko made them realize that linear-time organisms could be sentient beings on a comparable level to themselves.
The first time Sisko and Dax enter the wormhole, their presence causes the Prophets distress and their mere existence is treated as an aggressive action. That's not consistent with their history of peaceful and benevolent interaction with Bajorans through the orbs. But to them, that history didn't come before they met Sisko. But as they come to understand what Sisko is, and that there's a whole world of beings like him that they'd dismissed as some vaguely organic goo creatures, they then determined to reach out and know the Bajorans, forming a weird relationship where their outside perspective on time became a source of guidance. And because of their nonlinearity this is now how they always were and always will be, even though the formative event still has to be fixed at it's necessary point in linear time.
This gets very weird because it also implies that the Prophets possessed Sisko's mom and ensured his birth because they already knew him.
Non-linear time organisms are a headache.
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
You could maybe sorta leap to the Prophets, having discovered linear time through Sisko, started interacting more throughout the timeline and possessed Sisko's mom to ensure that they didn't paradox themselves by accidentally deleting Sisko before he met them
You could maybe sorta leap to the Prophets, having discovered linear time through Sisko, started interacting more throughout the timeline and possessed Sisko's mom to ensure that they didn't paradox themselves by accidentally deleting Sisko before he met them
You have reminded me how much I hate that Jennifer thing. It is *all kinds* of body horror, layered over the top of a perfectly normal marriage for no real reason.
Not Jennifer, that's Jake's mom. Ben's mom was Sarah, who we only see in flashback and picture form. The first we hear about her is that she left as soon as Ben was born and his dad remarried (his stepmother is never named or shown and is passed, but was apparently a good wife and mother when she was alive). She was literally given a name and face only as setup for her being possessed by a space god.
Not Jennifer, that's Jake's mom. Ben's mom was Sarah, who we only see in flashback and picture form. The first we hear about her is that she left as soon as Ben was born and his dad remarried (his stepmother is never named or shown and is passed, but was apparently a good wife and mother when she was alive). She was literally given a name and face only as setup for her being possessed by a space god.
Yeah, the writers didn't do a good job with the Sisko women. Jennifer is a totem—they never even mention what she did for a living on screen,* much less anything about who she was outside of "tragically lost spouse." Sisko's birth mother and stepmother receive even less character development. Kassidy is better, but never really grows past "love interest." She gets part of the Maquis arc, sure, but compare that to Keiko or Leeta.
Also, today is the 35th anniversary of The Next Generation! That's pretty cool. Weird to think we're further away from TNG than TNG was from TOS.
*
The fourth edition of the Star Trek Encyclopedia, released 23 years after Jennifer's only appearance, states that she was a scientist. We still don't even know what kind. Compare that to how much we learn about Keiko's career. Now, it's true that Jennifer is an entirely posthumous character—but so are Ian Troi and Jack Crusher, and we know way more about them.
For those who don't want to click the link, apparently Q wasn't originally planned on being in the TNG pilot, but when it was expanded to a two parter Roddenberry added Q's story around the main story of Farpoint station.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Not Jennifer, that's Jake's mom. Ben's mom was Sarah, who we only see in flashback and picture form. The first we hear about her is that she left as soon as Ben was born and his dad remarried (his stepmother is never named or shown and is passed, but was apparently a good wife and mother when she was alive). She was literally given a name and face only as setup for her being possessed by a space god.
Yeah, the writers didn't do a good job with the Sisko women. Jennifer is a totem—they never even mention what she did for a living on screen,* much less anything about who she was outside of "tragically lost spouse." Sisko's birth mother and stepmother receive even less character development. Kassidy is better, but never really grows past "love interest." She gets part of the Maquis arc, sure, but compare that to Keiko or Leeta.
Also, today is the 35th anniversary of The Next Generation! That's pretty cool. Weird to think we're further away from TNG than TNG was from TOS.
*
The fourth edition of the Star Trek Encyclopedia, released 23 years after Jennifer's only appearance, states that she was a scientist. We still don't even know what kind. Compare that to how much we learn about Keiko's career. Now, it's true that Jennifer is an entirely posthumous character—but so are Ian Troi and Jack Crusher, and we know way more about them.
The most we know about Jennifer is from her Mirror Universe self
Kira was being played by a different actress. I was 50/50 on Quark being played by a different actor too.
Like, I know it's been 30 years. but man I was having trouble recognizing them.
I’ve heard Nana Visitor recently, and her voice has definitely changed since her DS9 days, so that didn’t throw me off. I wonder if Quark sounds different because of the lack of prosthetics, although he did throw in some of the particular lisps that Quark has.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
My personal theory is that the Prophets don't really care about Bajor all that much. They care about Sisko, and via timeywimey weirdness end up caring about Bajor, after a fashion, because he cares about it and because Bajor's existence/situation/history/whathaveyou are important to get Sisko to DS9 and enter the wormhole and do all the other stuff that have him being the Emissary and other timeywimey stuff. But they don't seem overly concerned about the actual well being of Bajor and Bajorans outside of that. Some of that might be because of the timeywimey weirdness, so they don't intervene when the Dominion attempted to blow up Bajor's sun because they knew it was covered; but things like sticking the Pah-Wraiths on Bajor and their reluctance to do something about the Dominion fleet until Sisko yelled at them... I'm not saying they're malicious, but their priorities are most definitely not the sort of priorities you expect from non-baddies in Star Trek.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
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My current system can't quite run it, much to my dismay.
It was like $20 but you could share a license on a local lan?
Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator
Honestly, having a better understanding of your position on this subject, I think we're more or less in agreement when it comes down to it. I certainly wouldn't want people using what I find to be an intriguing topic (Is Starfleet a military organization?) as some "gotcha" to try and undermine what Star Trek at its core is trying to do, which includes exploring the possibilities for both personal as well as societal growth and discovery.
To answer your question, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with not depicting Starfleet as a military, but then I suppose my question would be "What is it then?" If there's no present-day analogue for its function or role within the Federation, then military or "exploratory/humanitarian/security" arm is probably the best we can do. Or just "action agency" or something to that effect. I would posit, however, that while Starfleet is perhaps not appropriately analogous to any real-life military, it maybe represents a more idealized version of it - something all militaries should aspire to be (competent, humane, inquisitive, transparent, innovative, accountable, etc). And while its flaws, shortcomings and questionable measures are often a running theme, most glaringly in DS9, I think we can safely say that's part of exploring the concept and putting it to the test by challenging it with difficult dilemmas and extraordinary circumstances.
I'm reminded of Pike's problem when dealing with the child sacrifice or Picard's when he encountered a remorseful being that wiped out an entire species. In both scenarios, the only option seemed to be to walk away - whether it was because taking action would've made things worse or because no action was possible due to the situation being so far beyond the scope of humanity's ability to deal with it. "We are not qualified to be your judges. We have no law to fit your crime. You're free to return to the planet, and to make Rishon live again."
Completely off-topic (but maybe more appropriate as this thread has since moved on), I just learned today that Roga Danar and the Chief Medical Officer on Voyager before it was flung into the Delta Quadrant were played by the same actor. Almost makes me wish this was worked into the canon somehow, like Roga was infiltrating Starfleet and even went so far as to train to become a fully capable medical officer... only to be suddenly and unceremoniously killed off in the pilot with no one ever being the wiser. Probably work better as a Lower Decks episode.
the thing I love about Winn is that she didn't just walk into her self righteousness as nobility would, she gave comfort to the sick and desperate during the occupation, and if she was ever caught, she would have been put to death, after being tortured. When she talks about how her organization helped preserve Bajoran culture while the fascists were busy stealing or destroying it and death was an ever present threat, she isn't lying. She's a bonafide hero of the occupation as much as Kira is, and she is absolutely right that she isn't thought of in that way by most people because she wasn't willing to murder Cardassians, even if the risks to her life were just as real. The reason she has so much political sway is because the rest of the clergy know this and see her as a legitimate hero as much as any resistance fighter.
"What the fuck did this human commander do to be the emissary after I've nearly given everyone I care about for the prophets? Kira thinks she's better than me because she was better at murder? These humans are going to show up en masse and erase our cultural history with their education programs, and I'm supposed to thank them for doing what the Cardassians did but "nicer"? How can nobody see that The Federation is just colonialism with a smile?"
Absolutely none of this makes anything she did any better, she is still bad and a villain, but what I love about her is how I can absolutely work through the thought processes behind every one of her actions. She is driven by the above resentment so hard that it blocks any rationality that would have dissuaded her from doing the shittiest thing imaginable. If she was living for something instead of against things it might have been possible for her to be Opaka instead of Winn, and I think that's what makes her special as a character and kind of tragic - but still someone who absolutely needed to be opposed at every level
Wynn's tragedy is also the belief she was special but at the same time she is rejected by her gods. She is never given an orb experience. She is never given guidance. And she believes through it all. But in the end the one that gives her the recognition she really wanted was the evil gods. The devils and demons. If she got a single orb experience in her life so much of the pain and anger she built up would have disappeared.
She keeps trying to manipulate Sisko and complaining when he uses Starfleet rules as a reason he won't do her dirty work, but if he wasn't bound by those, he could have easily overthrown her. Or at the very least started a civil war, if the Kai and the Emissary publicly disagreed.
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
"And lo the celestial gates did open and from them came the Emissary, thusly he spoke to the congregation 'Hey you, yeah you with the pen, write this down exactly... no don't look at him, write this down! You see Winn or Dukat, shoot them! Forget the prime directive, just shoot them with a phasor, you'd be doing the universe a big favor!'. Then he punched a deacon in the face and buggered off"
yeah they had that episode with the false emissary where he just dragged Bajor back a century socially with a word
The thing that probably rankles her more than anything at some level is that all it would take for Sisko to "Defeat" her would be to tell the vedic assembly to get rid of her
Literally one call from Sisko and her people would cast her aside, yet he doesn't, and it frustrates her. She seems to feel that Sisko is toying with or looking down on her in every interaction, and he's an alien. An alien whos people could have stopped the occupation at any time if they really wanted to - but they didn't, because of the same rules that ultimately prevent Sisko from telling the Bajoran people to toss her out of any position of power
Putting aside her regressive beliefs and ambition for power at any cost, imagine how absolutely psychotic this situation must be to her
Sisko was going to let the prophets use his son because he had more faith in them than she did even with them literally being there to be seen and heard and not just a religious concept.
She was always a fraud just using the prophets and their religion for her own success and renown.
She admits it to herself in the end where she says she’s finally rid herself of that “lifetime of hypocrisy”.
She just needs to chill out, take some time off, meet a hot single conservative farmer in her area, and bang out that frustration.
No, Kai Winn, not like that!
What are they going to say? "We come to offer guidance, but you're already so great there's nothing we can add, just you do you"? They're too busy re-writing Ferengi to be not greedy, and seizing control of alien women to RNG-manipulate their Emissary into spawning.
Her claiming that whatever she wants is clearly the Will Of The Prophets isn't far off that. I'm wondering how co-incidental it is that it sounds similar to the Cardassian justice system, where suspicion of guilt is all they need, because if they're not guilty, why would the investigator be suspicious?
If she wants this and the Prophets don't tell her off, she's clearly in the right.
Pah-wraiths were a mistake though (they work as a one-off, making them a recurring big deal was dumb)
I think that makes the third balk on this project in less than a decade
i'm just still bummed over here we lost anton yelchin, what a freak accident
Bajor and their relationship with the prophets is one of the best bits of Trek ever (again minus the whole pah-wraith thing), I think it might be the only time where it is explored in this way.
We've seen alien worlds with "Gods" before, but they were like, just more powerful humans or w/e, they were understandable and took a direct authoritarian interest in their subjects. The prophets OTOH, have no specific interest in how the Bajorans act but have definitely shaped their development and protected them
Like there's a secular case to be made that they are, in fact, Bajor's gods (as much as any entity could be)- even though a lot of the baggage that goes along with their religion is bullshit created by the Bajorans through misinterpretation of cosmic or natural events
The first time Sisko and Dax enter the wormhole, their presence causes the Prophets distress and their mere existence is treated as an aggressive action. That's not consistent with their history of peaceful and benevolent interaction with Bajorans through the orbs. But to them, that history didn't come before they met Sisko. But as they come to understand what Sisko is, and that there's a whole world of beings like him that they'd dismissed as some vaguely organic goo creatures, they then determined to reach out and know the Bajorans, forming a weird relationship where their outside perspective on time became a source of guidance. And because of their nonlinearity this is now how they always were and always will be, even though the formative event still has to be fixed at it's necessary point in linear time.
This gets very weird because it also implies that the Prophets possessed Sisko's mom and ensured his birth because they already knew him.
Non-linear time organisms are a headache.
You have reminded me how much I hate that Jennifer thing. It is *all kinds* of body horror, layered over the top of a perfectly normal marriage for no real reason.
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Yeah, the writers didn't do a good job with the Sisko women. Jennifer is a totem—they never even mention what she did for a living on screen,* much less anything about who she was outside of "tragically lost spouse." Sisko's birth mother and stepmother receive even less character development. Kassidy is better, but never really grows past "love interest." She gets part of the Maquis arc, sure, but compare that to Keiko or Leeta.
Also, today is the 35th anniversary of The Next Generation! That's pretty cool. Weird to think we're further away from TNG than TNG was from TOS.
*
https://www.inverse.com/culture/star-trek-the-next-generation-35-anniversary/amp
For those who don't want to click the link, apparently Q wasn't originally planned on being in the TNG pilot, but when it was expanded to a two parter Roddenberry added Q's story around the main story of Farpoint station.
The most we know about Jennifer is from her Mirror Universe self
Like, I know it's been 30 years. but man I was having trouble recognizing them.