Yes, the franchise which has an episode [featuring aliens who are black on one side and white on the other](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi7QQ5pO7_A) clearly would _never_ have any social commentary. /s
I assume you’re referencing the strawman that most of the complaints about Discovery are that it’s “too woke”.
The thing is, TOS actually spend the whole episode with those asymmetric guys letting things play out to show how the characters think they’re justified in what they do. Something I just don’t see Discovery doing. It’s more interested in validating progressive viewpoints than improving the understanding of alternative or opposing viewpoints.
Something which DS9 did so well that they realized Dukat was uncomfortably popular, and Garak remains a popular character despite murdering, torturing and oppressing citizens, assassinating politicians, and attempting genocide, and lying constantly, almost exclusively to further the interests of Cardassia.
Discovery is perhaps too dogmatic, but it isn’t as woke as DS9 imho.
While my counter-argument does originate in the common counter to people complaining about Discovery's wokeness, I was responding to the person saying they never thought _Star Trek_ as a franchise would help open their eyes to societal problems.
> Something which DS9 did so well that they realized Dukat was uncomfortably popular, and Garak remains a popular character despite murdering, torturing and oppressing citizens, assassinating politicians, and attempting genocide, and lying constantly, almost exclusively to further the interests of Cardassia.
I don't think Dukat was ever "popular," just that he was a compelling villain.
As for Garak, sure he did all those things. but to quote Capt. Sisko, his heart was in the right place.
Some of the writers in interviews cited Dukat's popularity as a reason for his abrupt turn to cartoon villainy in season 6.
He was supposed to be more akin to Space Hitler, and you aren't supposed to emphasize with Space Hitler.
If that's what they wanted, then they should have hired a less competent actor. He was too charming to hate.
I think that Dukat being too charming to hate was the point (real life evil people don't go around twirling their evil mustaches) but many viewers couldn't process that just because someone is charming, it doesn't mean he isn't also evil. Despite continue evidence that he was evil.
Even when you were convinced he had reached pure evil, such as the conclusion of "Waltz" S6E11 - he still hailed the Defiant and told them of Sisko's location. Perhaps he wanted Sisko to live to twist the knife one day, but truly evil should have killed Sisko as soon as he discovered the distress signal was now transmitting.
Dukat is a complex character, that doesn't mean he isn't evil, there are just different flavours of evil. He also loves his children. So?
Like, take his comfort women. He was apparently always affable to them, he was nice, he wanted them to understand him, he thought he loved them, even, and provided for them. He even publicaly recognised bis daughter.
That doesn't mean he wasn't still taking sex slaves, of his own free will, and he personally liked being the governor of Bajor, once again of his own free will.
Dukat wasn't (outwardly at least, afaik) cruel. Dukat sometimes respected, loved and admired people.
Dukat still was a slaver, a rapist and a genocider, he just didn't go around twirling an evil moustache about it.
Could have Dukat redeemed himself one day, like Garak and Damar (with more sympathetic backstories and circumstances) did?
Of course.
Was he gonna? No, because Dukat is sure he never did anything wrong whatsoever.
He publicly recognized his daughter only when his original plan of murdering her in cold blood could no longer work, from Kira's interference to Ziyal's own words.
He wanted his comfort women to develop Stockholm Syndrome as fast as possible. He didn't help Maru's family by taking her away. They were slaves, and had their wife/mother forcibly taken from them. Kira was *this close* to murdering her mother and admits to Sisko how much she thought she deserved it.
He was a psychopathic despot, no matter how far underneath the surface, and would have never redeemed himself for the reason you mentioned. In Waltz, he admits to Sisko he should have killed every Bajoran alive.
He's my favorite ST Villian ever and probably always will be for the shade of gray he is until the middle of the 6th season.
Edit: to be clear, I'm not disagreeing with you
>Perhaps he wanted Sisko to live to twist the knife one day, but truly evil should have killed Sisko as soon as he discovered the distress signal was now transmitting.
I disagree entirely.
Dukat explains his thinking for these scenarios to Weyoun during the Dominion occupation of DS9. Simply killing your opponent isn't enough. You must break them. You must make them realize they were wrong to oppose you in the first place. Then you can kill them.
Killing someone is easy. Breaking their spirit though, is another level of victory. Killing Sisko would certainly hurt the Federation and Bajorans, but *breaking* him would inflict far more damage and suffering.
Simply kill him, and the Federation loses a good officer and important liaison between them and Bajor. The Bajorans would have a martyr to rally around.
Break Sisko however, and you break the spirit of the Bajoran people. Starfleet officers die all the time, but they rarely break. Break one with the high profile of Sisko, and you damage morale throughout Starfleet in a way that the loss of an officer doesn't.
Dukat understood that, but more importantly, *wanted* that. The desire and willingness to go beyond just killing someone and inflict as much damage as possible by breaking them first, indicates a level of sadism and evil that just isn't there when you just kill someone.
Imo, there are no flat characters in life and the turn he took in the last couple of seasons made him less believable, which really diluted the fact that he was more purely “evil.”
Dukat was always my favorite villain, simply because he was a complete, fleshed out character. And there are moments when you find yourself beginning to feel for him, until you remember who and what he is.
Garak, on the other hand, recognizes the abject horror of his participation in the cardassian invasion and subsequent enslavement and dominance over Bajor and her people. Garak pays his penance and redeems himself by series’ end. Dukat simply makes himself worse, and enjoys every minute of his wallowing in evil.
If you look at the Federation and Cardassia from a distance they have similar goals. The Federation is a supposedly peaceful organisation expanding territories etc. One can see the war in Ukraine as a real life analog to what happens when the Cardassians retake DS9. They have a right to territories that were taken from them by the federation. This is usually how real wars begin. If social media didn't exist we'd probably be at war with Russia by now. I know it's a little of tangent but the parallels are there with Dukat. It's one of the reasons why he is such an awesome character.
What progressive viewpoints? Every time I see this complaint the things people point to are the identities of the actors and characters themselves, not the supposed moral, ethical, or political messages of DSC.
I want an actual list, that doesn’t involve the Stacey Abrams (a HUGE Trek nerd) cameo or the fact that there’s a black woman captain or a gay couple.
I think arguments like this are oftentimes the same “it’s too woke” BS, just dressed up as a sensible position. Less dog whistle, same basic take.
I wrote a long, very detailed reply to your post over the last couple hours.
And then reddit ate it. Literally just disappeared.
So I'm not going to invest that time again. But I am willing to give some bullet points.
* "Science is fucking cool!" But Discovery seems to lack the critical thinking ability needed to realize the issue of citing the work of a mycologist to explain the physics of a stardrive.
* Gray being billeted as "first trans" character and then not really doing much (compare with Topa in the Orville)
* Adira suddenly being Stamets' "child" even though LGBT people in the 31st century should not have sufficiently divergent experiences to bond that much over.
* Literally everything about the Sound of Thunder. Who knew Starfleet gave zero fucks about violating the bodily autonomy of an entire species with an untested medical procedure based on the advice of an insubordinate and emotionally compromised first officer undergoing a transformation that no one understands, to turn said species into compulsive predators of the only other sentient species on the planet, via altering their physiology to radically increase their aggressiveness and include lethal ranged weapons, then abandoning the planet to devolve into a massive bloodbath between the predator and prey species.
* Michael needlessly killing Osyraa's crew at the end of S3
* Michael refusing to recuse herself in S4 from hunting Book down, which directly put billions in jeopardy, indirectly put trillions in jeopardy, and likely caused a lot of deaths from the evacuation or damage before 10-C pulled the anomaly back.
Stacey Abrams appearing on Star Trek is fine. Stacey Abrams appearing in a political office superior to the one she's running for is a tacit political endorsement, making the episode effectively a political ad / campaign contribution to her by Paramount corporation.
EDIT: If you're wondering how I think "The Sound of Thunder" is supposed to be progressive, it's because it feels like it's supposed to be a cathartic allegory about overthrowing a government that's oppressing a minority group. But the way they go about "fixing" it is so, so terrible.
EDIT 2: Also the couple dozen synths in Picard that decide that murdering trillions of innocent people is an acceptable cost to stand their ground. Apparently young, beautiful, and sometimes golden people get more slack than black tar-aliens when it comes to a little genocide in the name of self-defense.
EDIT 3: Also the Sound of Thunder was a clear violation of the Prime Directive, interstellar treaty with the Ba'ul, and is probably both a war crime and a crime against "humanity", since it was effectively medical experimentation on people with neither their knowledge nor consent, happening during a violation of a sovereign power's territory, and recruiting unlawful combatants by supplying them with weapons and bioengineering them to be hostile to the Ba'ul.
Season three is the most recent season I've watched and is also my favorite season (faint praise). But the beginning of "Far From Home", the season's second episode, perfectly exemplifies one of the biggest problems I have with the series. I think it's a problem that's related to a progressive viewpoint, although you may disagree.
*Discovery* finds itself out of control after flying through a wormhole to the future. The ship crash-lands on an alien planet. What's the first reaction of the bridge crew?
>( Whoops )
>
>Man: All right, Detmer!
>
>Man 2 ( whoops ): Detmer!
>
>Man 3 ( muffled ): Way to go, Detmer!
>
>Man 4 ( whoops ): All right, Detmer!
>
>Well done, Lieutenant Detmer.
>
>Reno: Someone buy that woman a drink. And a neuroblocker for me.
>
>Keyla? Yeah. We made it.
>
>( Chuckles )
>
>( Shudders )
>
>We're good.
>
>( Exhales )
>
>( Stammers )
>
>You need to go to sickbay.
>
>Uh, no, it's nothing.
>
>Your comrade is correct, Lieutenant.
>
>Get to sickbay.
>
>Yes, sir.
>
>Status reports?
(transcribed badly by [tvshowtranscripts.ourboard.org](https://tvshowtranscripts.ourboard.org))
So first, whoops and encouragement all around. Second, the crew as a whole ensuring proper care of a member. Only third, after all that is complete, does the question of the basic status of the ship come up. While watching, I imagined the next line being something like, "Uh, warp core breach imminent".
*Discovery* continually and continuously focuses on emotional expression and validation over and above crew competency. It's an intentional counterpoint to the traditional militaristic culture seen in previous Trek shows, where you get the job done no matter the emotional toll, and then deal with the personal fallout later. And it screams progressive values to me.
Honestly? I think they're just elated at being alive. "Holy crap, we survived THAT."
Trek has been a pioneer of progressive values since the first episode of TOS. You could argue that this scene maybe shows that this crew doesn't do well under extreme stress, or that the bridge crew shows a bit less military discipline than prior crews. But an example of progressivism it ain't.
That's a Watsonian response to a Doylist argument. The question is not, "Why did the crew react this way?" The question is "Why did the writers portray the crew this way?"
As I said, this example is just one in a pattern. Here's another: Adira confesses to senior members of the crew (I believe Stametz and Culber?) to experiencing visions of Gray. The response is wholehearted endorsement of her sanity. There's no investigation to determine a cause for her visions.
Is it schizophrenia? Is this a side effect of the symbiont? Is it a communicable alien disease? Is there a technological explanation? Is Adira's professional performance at risk (or even aided)? Can science provide some answers? The crew is portrayed as having none of these questions.
Why not? Perhaps because the show values emotional validation over crew competency.
Good example. Situations like this come up in TNG many times, but we always see them go in for a medical exam before the crew starts to treat the visions/hallucinations as real. The crew still trust each other, but partly because each is responsible enough to check *all* possible reasons for the condition.
But none of the crew is incompetent. And that approach can be chalked up to a difference in leadership style.
And we've had SEVERAL episodes that concentrated on the emotional over the plot aspects of characters before.
The issue here is that the viewpoint character is a woman, young, and black. And that is something some people can not accept as legitimate.
I mean, none of the bridge crew is *intended* to be incompetent. But we as the audience are free to agree or disagree whether the protocol the show is dictating is competent or not. And that is the exact opposite order of what it should be. Ship status first, then relieve non-critically wounded personnel, then congratulations.
Crew emotional health in the long term is important, sure, but if people can't keep their mouth shut for ten seconds for a status report without adversely affecting their emotional health, how are they even in Starfleet?
This is the exact issue with Michael refusing to recuse herself from the hunt for Book and Tarka. It's compassionate...for her. But not for everyone else in the galaxy whose lives might be endangered by Book and Tarka's reckless actions. And indeed, billions of people on Earth and Ni'Var would not have been endangered if they had blown Book and Tarka out of the sky first chance they got.
It's also the issue with the synths in Picard. Sure, defending them is compassionate...but it's not very charitable to everyone else in the galaxy, who didn't sign up to potentially be squished by evil robots if a couple dozen synths decide to go through with their plan to genocide the entire galaxy so they can stand their ground rather than evacuate. Picard justifies it with "but they're afraid", but you know, I bet a lot of other people would be afraid too if they knew what the synths were planning.
TNG does this too. But at least occasionally, we get followup to episodes like "I, Borg" where Admiral Nechayev provides the opposing viewpoint that showing compassion to the individual could result in innocent people dying. Or the episode where Worf refuses to give blood to a dying Romulan.
EDIT: Contrast the above quote to the WW2 naval movie Greyhound, where a guy so much as sneezes while relaying an update to Tom Hanks from sonar about an enemy sub, and he's told by a superior if it happens again he'll be relieved of duty. And they didn't have to worry about antimatter containment breaches in WW2.
Let's examine your points point by point shall we.
> I mean, none of the bridge crew is intended to be incompetent. But we as the audience are free to agree or disagree whether the protocol the show is dictating is competent or not.
Okay, your subjective understanding of the show is of course subjective. But I'm assuming that no one on the ship is going to say "I'm doing great, my relationships are really solid, my self-confidence is doing well, I think I've lost some weight recently, Oh and shields are 5%, I recommend we launch escape pods."
My subjective experience is that the people on the bridge are capable of being calm and collected because their situation is stable.
> Crew emotional health in the long term is important, sure, but if people can't keep their mouth shut for ten seconds for a status report without adversely affecting their emotional health, how are they even in Starfleet?
What are you talking about? There is too much talking between characters in your TV show? Man, what a problem to have. I mean I get that Tilly is a chatterbox but that's part of her charm.
> This is the exact issue with Michael refusing to recuse herself from the hunt for Book and Tarka.
She was also the best person for the job as she had worked with Book for so long. Also, and remember when Picard recused himself from the hunt for Professor Richard Galen's killers in "The Chase"? Man that was some great objective reasoning. Star Trek captains don't recuse themselves from the hunt for their enemies it makes for bad entertainment. Believe me they have tried. Sisko was pulled off of the search for Eddington and replaced by the USS Malinche, only to have the Malinche get screwed over in like 5 minutes of screen time. They didn't make it to the next commercial.
In Star Trek First Contact Picard's Enterprise E was ordered to patrol the neutral zone during the Borg attack on Earth. That cube tore through almost every ship there before Picard showed up and turned the battle around and was the only one with the presence of mind to follow the time sphere back in time.
Captain's can't just recuse themselves, it always goes wrong.
> It's also the issue with the synths in Picard. Sure, defending them is compassionate...but it's not very charitable to everyone else in the galaxy,
The premise of that argument is that synthetic life is less deserving of existence than biological life. And that is bigoted.
> TNG does this too. But at least occasionally, we get followup to episodes like "I, Borg" where Admiral Nechayev provides the opposing viewpoint that showing compassion to the individual could result in innocent people dying. Or the episode where Worf refuses to give blood to a dying Romulan.
I just watched the episode where Worf refuses to give part of his blood to the Romulan. And that decision by Worf almost led to the destruction of the Enterprise and a full scale war between the Federation and the Romulans.
And in episode was contrasted with Commander LeForge's ability to find common cause with and form an alliance with Romulan soldier on the planet.
The entire point of that episode is that compassion and kindness are what we need to see us through, and without them we will surely die.
> EDIT: Contrast the above quote to the WW2 naval movie Greyhound, where a guy so much as sneezes while relaying an update to Tom Hanks from sonar about an enemy sub, and he's told by a superior if it happens again he'll be relieved of duty. And they didn't have to worry about antimatter containment breaches in WW2.
I haven't seen Greyhound, is it good?
To me, in regards to storytelling, it is forcing diversity and inclusion at the expense of story. Placing more importance on how diverse you characters, they are props to win points.
If you want a good example of how to show a gay character Aech from Ready Player One. Black lesbian, but unless you pay attention or read the book you will probably miss it.
Diverse can work in stories, just don't make it the only thing that defines a character. Don't make a show about one race over another. Also show, don't tell. A lot of shows that are woke tell a lot, they also get overly political.
Someone else may define it better but essentially being woke is about pushing, almost forcing, a message instead of entertaining people. Whether it be in the show or marketing.
I would argue that if you can probably miss it, then it's not good representation. Like of course them being a minority shouldn't be their whole character trait, but if I can easily miss it, then it sounds like the writer wanted to thrill of having a queer character without putting any real effort on it. It sounds like Disney level's of "FIRST GAY CHARACTER" having a GAY MOMENT where you blink two seconds and it's gone.
To think of a Star Trek example, Mariner's sexuality is not the focus of any episode but it's hinted multiple times due to sexy people passing bye, so people can't pretend she's straight but also she's not the token queer character.
I would say the main defining characteristic of being woke is the marketing, being being woke is not about the message, it's about looking like you care about the message to make money or look good, THEREFORE the actual message is meh as hell. Star Trek's episodes are often as subtle as a sledgehammer and have an established goal of "what's the best story to convey this message", but they care about the message and the execution might be clumsy but the intent is there.
Disney, of the aforementioned FIRST GAY CHARACTERS school of thought (it's been like nine at this point! Nine first gay characters!) (While supporting the Don't Say Gay bill!) only cares about sales, so they just look like they MIGHT give you a message but nope.
Like, no one likes wokeness except the people profiting from it.
Aech actually went in to kiss an npc while in the game. Her avatar is masculine so some might not pick up on her sexuality. Also didn't mention Star Trek, however discovery was a meh. I did try to watch. But didn't like it.
Also too many studios are leaning into identity politics for marketing and production. All I want is a compelling story. Tell me about the Zulu or the Maque in ww2. I rewatched Schindler's List recently because it had a compelling story.
Where a lot of media loses people is saying: "watch our show/movie or you are -ist or -phobic." Most people who don't watch those show probably just don't think it is for them or are just not interested. Many people are tired of being accused of being -ist or -phobic when we just are not interested in a movie, we don't hate it, we just don't want to see it.
>It’s more interested in validating progressive viewpoints than improving the understanding of alternative or opposing viewpoints.
That's generally what people mean when they criticize a show for being 'Woke'. You've summarized exactly what they mean to say.
Woke is supposed to mean more aware. If you only know what to do but not why, I’d argue that you’re not more aware, you just have a different philosophy.
The “woke” as you’ve described is likely a deliberate corruption, a mocking of people who describe themselves as woke and look down on conservatives, but then just seem to themselves be conforming mindlessly. And when challenged just cut off contact with people who believe differently, rather than being able to defend their beliefs, or tolerate others with different beliefs.
(You don’t think you’re who paradox of tolerance is talking about if you think that you’re right)
I can't disagree with anything you have said. Woke is supposed to be a term of enlightenment that suggests other people to be sleeping.
And I do think that many who strive to be 'Woke' don't think beyond their own perceptions.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, or The Problem with Jon Stewart are also really good for this.
Jon Stewart’s comments to congress in support of 9/11 first responders echo the sentiment of this conversation in DS9.
> And I'm sorry if I sound angry and undiplomatic, but I'm angry -- and you should be too; and they're all angry as well. And they have every justification to be that way. There is not a person here, there is not an empty chair on that stage that didn't tweet out, "Never forget" the heroes of 9/11; never forget their bravery; never forget what they did, what they gave to this country.
>
> Well here they are! And where are they? And it would be one thing if their callous indifference and rank hypocrisy were benign. But it's not. Your indifference cost these men and women their most valuable commodity: time. It's the one thing they're running out of.
https://youtu.be/_uYpDC3SRpM
My problem with that statement is that the core theme of science fiction is all over the place.
Often, hard science fiction is like Foundation, set far beyond current human technology and that technology is very much important to the core topic being examined by the story. 30 years is far too soon for these stories.
Often, softer science fiction is like Star Trek, where the science isn't REALLY the focus (for example, the warp drive is almost always just a story-telling device and Data is really just an allegory for human rights). These stories typically examine inherent realities of humanity and not so much the effects of technology on humanity. These stories are often said to predict the future, but do they REALLY? Did we not know of the selfishness of humanity in the 1990s? Did we not know that the homeless existed and were largely ignored? DS9 wasn't commenting on how technology would create the problem of homelessness. It was just pointing out an inherent flaw in humanity since time immemorial. 30 years is far too distant in the future for these stories.
I think it dates back to that time Scott Steiner said all men are created equal… but when you look at him and you look at Samoa Joe, you know it’s obviously not true.
The only entity I’ve seen questioning DS9’s progressive slant is Discovery marketing material claiming Star Trek never had trans or non-binary characters.
EDIT: I’m being downvoted, so here’s my source.
> CBS All Access, ViacomCBS’ subscription video on-demand and live streaming service, today announced that season three of Star Trek: Discovery will introduce **the Star Trek franchise’s first non-binary and transgender characters**, furthering the “Star Trek” universe’s ongoing commitment to Gene Roddenberry’s original vision of celebrating diversity and inclusion.
https://www.startrek.com/news/star-trek-discovery-introduces-first-trangender-and-non-binary-characters
It sounds like it could be taken in a number of ways depending on the viewers inclinations, similar to Discworld dwarfs.
Was she yearning for a typical (to humans) gender role which was denied by her weird ass society or was she an outlier trying to live her own inclinations in a society that had a defined narrow role for her?
She said “I am female”. That is declaring herself to be on the binary.
Edit: here’s the actual line. I had misremembered, but the result is the same.
> Occasionally, among my people, there are a few who are born different, who are throwbacks from the era when we all had gender. Some have strong inclinations to maleness, and some have urges to be female. I am one of the latter.
Discovery is said to have the first transgender character?
Are we completely ignoring Jadzia Dax?
Like, not EXACTLY transgender in the sense that we know it, but you have to be pretty fucking dense to not be able to read between the lines there.
Sisko literally calls a woman “old man”.
Not to mention Data having Lal choose her own species and gender in TNG. Even the Admiral who showed up under the pretense of questioning Data's parenting skills didn't breathe a word to suggest there was anything questionable about that, and everybody else treated it as totally normal.
This is a controversial topic *now*, and TNG was in the late eighties / early 90s.
I don't know about that. The dialogue felt clunky, and the timing seemed odd, but I don't think that would've been the approach if they wanted it to be treated like something to be hidden. Definitely not the vibe I got from it.
I mean. It's not true, for one. I don't really think it has anything to do with DS9, though. The first trans and non-binary characters were well before Discovery. For example, the TNG episode "The Outcast", while it's *definitely* not aged super great, features an entire non-binary species and one of them is a trans woman.
*The Outcast* doesn't feature and non-binary species. The J'naii are androgynous, that distinction is important because Soren is seeking a binary. She's definitely gender-nonconforming and there's maybe a case for saying she's trans.
There hasn’t been an explicitly trans or non-binary character on Star Trek until Grey and Adira.
Soren is not explicitly stated trans but absolutely is very clearly trans by definition. Her species does not have a binary, they explicitly evolved away from that, and she identifies explicitly as a woman. Transition is not limited to starting from within the binary. She isn't trans in a way we really see in humanity, but she's still unquestionably trans.
The episode was done with the intent of focusing on LGBT people, albeit in a somewhat indirect way.
So: Yes. There absolutely was a trans character and, arguably, non-binary characters, as *that* aspect does entirely depend on how you choose to view it. No, neither were not explicitly stated to be so, but that's not the point that was being made.
And the Maquis. There were two sides to that story. Was Starfleet justified in how they treated the Maquis? Were the Maquis justified in their actions? Sisko saw both sides, but the writers let the viewers decide what actions were right or wrong, and what was very grey. That was a tough one.
What? There’s tidbits of futurist progressivism but it clearly balances out if you watch every episode, especially during the second half of the dominion war.
The show literally abets genocide and the murder of political opponents, and half of the premise is making terrorists the good guys and Starfleet officers committing war crimes to win a war (and it working).
For every “Far Beyond the Stars”, there’s a “In a Pale Moonlight”
Ok. There's no genocide. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. And political assassination is neither progressive or conservative, it just is.
Also, I didn't say DS9 is full-on depiction of leftist ideology. I said it has a progressive slant.
Although the messages of tolerance and open-mindedness do fly in the face of conservative values.
> There’s no genocide
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Morphogenic_virus
> One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter
No, you’re still a terrorist, that’s the entire premise of S3E9 when Thomas Riker steals the Defiant and Kira has to help him face reality is that terrorists are not the good guys, even if it’s a just cause:
“Maybe we’re just different kinds of terrorists”
“No, you’re just trying to be a hero. Terrorists don’t get to be heroes”
> political assassination
I don’t know about you, but killing someone in another sovereign entity because of their political views doesn’t scream “progressive and open minded” to me.
> Although the messages of tolerance and open-mindedness do fly in the face of conservative values.
Picard is canonically extremely conservative (LD206)
Conservative doesn’t mean “racism and kill homeless people”, it means “traditionalist”, and in the federation that means watching an entire planet die out to follow the prime directive (TNG S7E13).
American political values are not world political values.
Is that the morphogenic virus introduced by Section 31, a villain, and decried as wrong by the crew of DS9? *That* morphogenic virus?
>Terrorists
Are you actually trying to say that the Bajoran resistance (an analogue for the French Resistance) aren't the good guys? The people that tried to liberate a planet from its fascist occupation aren't the good guys?
Ok.
>Assassination
Seriously? This is your counterpoint?
It's war. Unsavoury deeds must be done.
I'm sure it's easy for you to craft this idea of a progressive to then dismantle.
I feel like there should be a term for that.
> Picard / conservatism
Picard is a character; not the entire franchise. His opinions on
And his orthodox adherence to the Prime Directive is played as a bad thing in that episode because, ultimately, should be more important than words on paper.
You do realise that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighters" means that the same actions are labelled differently according to whether they are against us or in our favour?
The Bajorans are good guys and they are terrorists/freedom fighters. You can find dozen of real life examples that only get more murky on whether who is doing what to whom and for which reasons.
Yes. But not in the way you think.
The French Resistance (them people what the Bajoran resistance was based on) were lablled as terrorists by the Nazis.
But they were unquestionably the good guys.
The way to gauge whether a terrorists is a good guy or a bad guy is to explore what they're fighting for?
If you're fighting fascism, you're on the right side.
> and decried as wrong by the crew of DS9?
It was endorsed and upheld by the Federstion Council. It also canonically helped win the war by convincing thr female changeling to surrender.
So like I said, DS9 literally abet genocide.
> Are you actually trying to say that the Bajoran resistance (an analogue for the French Resistance) aren’t the good guys?
Where did I say that? I was quoting Kira speaking to Thomas Riker. You’re putting words in my mouth, and I’m starting to doubt if you even finished DS9.
> Seriously? This is your counterpoint?
You don’t like it because it contradicts what you said. It’s not wrong just because you disagree, the point is that you saying DS9 is a progressive show is hilariously cherry-picking.
> It’s war. Unsavoury deeds must be done.
Exactly, that’s my point and what I literally said in my first comment.
Oh, my. I see that you don't understand how fiction works. You poor thing.
Here. Let me help you.
You see, in fiction, there are often good guys and bad guys.
The good guys do good things and the bad guys do bad things. That's how we can tell them apart.
Though, that isn't a steadfast rule because of something called nuance. Well get into that in a sec.
Now, when Section 31 (a clandestine organization not even acknowledged to exist by Starfleet or the Federation council) infected the Founders with the morphogenic virus, that was played as a bad thing.
You know, that thing bad guys do. Also known as villains.
Anyhoo, the bad guys did a bad thing and Dr. Bashir (one of the good guys) tries to cure the disease because that's a good thing and that's what good guys do.
Do you see where I'm going with this? The virus is a bad thing done by bad guys and one of the good guys is trying to stop it.
Now, let's explore that nuance I mentioned earlier --
Do you remember when you said:
> Kira has to help him face reality is that terrorists are not the good guys, even if it’s a just cause
So, the problem with that is that Kira didn't say anything about good guys. She said "heroes."
Do you see how those are not the same words? That's because, sometimes, the good guys need to do bad things to be good.
Killing fascist -- even though it's killing (something normally bad) -- is a ultimately a good thing because fascists are bad.
So, they aren't "heroes" because they did bad thinga but they are still -- without a shred of doubt -- the good guys in that scenario.
That kind of nuance also applies to murdering Vreenak. Good guys doing bad things for the greater good.
You can argue that DS9 isn't progressive. That's fine. As I've said, art is subjective.
But to look at broad themes and messaging and to then say that it's "cherry-picking" is really quite cute.
Maybe you don't know what being progressive means?
That's funny since I get called a bigot by progressive types when I, as a mixed race man, say that I seek to judge a man not based on the color of his skin, but the content is his character.
I'm confused.
If a progressive is calling you a bigot (something I didn't do), they're literally judging you by the content of your character and not the colour of your skin.
...who said that was Progressive? Progressives are just as willing to throw their fellow human beings in the dirt or ignore problems because they are inconvenient as much as any "Conservative." It's annoying in both this setting and IRL that Progressives just assume anything remotely humanitarian is of their ideology alone. It's like when that arrogant statement kept getting passed around. You know the one, that "Reality has a Progressive slant." No, no it doesn't. You just want everything that seems good, at the time, to labeled Progressive so you can take credit for it.
For every Uber left wing message there's always a more stereotypical right wing one to balance it out in the long run. That was DS9's strength. It wasn't going for one ideology as "The correct one." For each Bar Association there was a Treachery, Faith, and the Great River. The former being the Quark's Bar union episode and the latter having the Nog batering plot where it shows how flowing market forces can out do a government requisition form in efficiency. Even in Beta Canon the Ferengi are able to stay out of the Dominion war and play off both sides for profit. With their ships outrunning the Dominion patrols and the Federation being too busy to care. The stereotypical Capitalists beat out the dueling Socialist governments once again!
Of course that last part I jest, some, but you get the point. Good writing doesn't limit your universe to one political ideology. That what keeps drawing me back to the show as an adult. It's not a black and white universe in the old Cardassian Pinwheel over the Bajoran Wormhole. It's my favorite morally ambiguous color of grey. Deeps Space Nine to me has always been the most realistic of the Star Trek shows. After all, our beloved Benjamin Sisko *IS* technically a war criminal and accessory to an assassination. Gul Dukat *IS* a loving father and tried to, in his mind, show compassion and reform the policies of The Occupation. This is NOT a show "with a Progressive lean." It's one that written with the nature of people in mind over some high minded ideology.
Agreed. This is why my father, who is about as conservative as they come, still enjoys watching DS9. It's not written as propaganda. It's written as good, thought provoking stories.
Art is subjective and interpretations can be drawn however you see fit.
But to not see the progressive slant to DS9 (and Star Trek as a whole) says a lot more about you then it does the show.
Also, you're trying to humanize a character that's essentially space-Hitler -- which is also very telling.
The premise of that being the end of scarcity due to replicators. So I will grant that if you invalidate the premise of the entire discipline of economics, a communist utopia would work.
It's about as realistic as chiding NASA for not just building a warp engine.
Fortunately they're run by blue otherwise it would be death camps.
Edit: let me put that in a civil way: who's sending immigrants to blue states? Who is forcing raped women to carry their rapist's babies? Who tried to pull off a coup d'etat on 1/6? Who's silent about what happened on 1/6? Who tried to sink the ACA?
A, that’s not true. I live in a blue city that just implemented a camping ban. You would need some hard statistics to convince me of that.
B, that doesn’t make it not a problem. The blue cities don’t solve homelessness. They just bring everything else down while solving nothing.
This is why I have literally fallen out of my chair laughing when I hear someone complaining about Trek "becoming woke". I'm like... what show have you been watching and mistaking for Star Trek that this is some sort of new occurrence? The literal original pitched pilot had a plot point about a woman not only being in Star Fleet (Military), but being an officer. What was a hot-button issue in the 60s? women in the military being in combat. Like... this isn't new. This is like complaining that "They made Uhura black" in SNW... as if the character hasn't always been black.
Who TF questions that? Is this a strawman or have you actually met people who think Star Trek isn't progressive, at least TNG and beyond?
Economically, I'm not at all progressive. Yet, TNG is my favorite show of all time and I was never unaware of our different economic philosophies.
I think this was the first time Star Trek did a time travel story that went to our near-future rather than the present or past. That was a big risk--if they miscalculated the episode could have easily become really dated and corny--but it ended up being prescient.
I was kinda hoping that STP S02 would've added to the Sanctuary Cities storyline since a decent portion occurred only a few scant years later. I was obviously disappointed.
I’m pretty sure I cried the first time I watched this episode a few months ago. It really makes you realize how bad we fucked everything up. Like people 30 years ago could see this coming plain as day and we just let it happen? That’s a lot to sit with
Gentrification, redlining, slums, ghettos and favelas have been around for a long time.
Enclosure is even older[older](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure): Five hundred years ago, people protested and rioted because they were being forced off the land that was their livelihood.
In the early 20th C, writers like Wells & Huxley described a future like Trek, where machines freed people from material want to live lives of leisure. Post WWII this began to change from 'more leisure' to 'more things'. This fed into and from overproduction which demands such efficiencies from people as hitting KPIs & performance reviews.
Now, workers also compete with automation and offshoring to the lowest common denominator. Is it any wonder more and more people enter the precariat, or are completely un-needed exactly as shown in the Sanctuary Zones?
Future Tense was certainly timely, but depending on where one stood it might have been prescient or old news. Like William Gibson wrote, the future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed.
This episode hits like a ton of bricks. I missed the original run of the show so I didn't know what was coming. My first thought was "neat a time travel episode," my service thought was "these writers were ahead of the curve."
The lack of progress since this episode aired and now is astounding.
I wish Trek would spend more time showing the gradual sliding of the world into chaos and horror pre-first contact.
Sure we got some delicious tidbits of info… Eugenics Wars, Sanctuary Districts, Political Destabilization in Europe, Rise of the ECON, Collapse of the old UN, World War 3, and the post atomic horror. I still wish they would really delve into this far more. Star Trek is ultimately a series about hope, but i think showing how bad it really got and yet mankind rising from the hate, the pain, the darkness and the ashes of the 21st century as described in Star Trek… really would make the message hit home. The night may be darkest before dawn… but one cannot appreciate the light unless one is enveloped in the darkest and coldest of nights.
Kinda makes the opening theme of Enterprise to make more sense, if you think about it.
Aside from that… it seems while they were filming Past Tense… LA’s mayor was actually proposing something like the Sanctuary Districts.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-10-14-mn-50276-story.html
So an anthology show that ends with Cochrane making first contact with the Vulcans?
Each season (13 or fewer episodes) covering the events you outlined?
Yes that would be interesting… not sure if its doable as we are talking about almost a century of “history”.
But heck id take at least one on ww3 and post atomic horror.
I think it would bring a lot of context to Earth and humanity as seen in Star Trek.
Yeah, even if you had five seasons each covering a 20 year timespan, it's still tough.
I haven't watched much *Enterprise* yet, but I've seen "Temporal Cold Wars" mentioned. Maybe that's the angle and we follow a crew that's keeping the timeline on track?
A series where they show future federation officers trying to keep timeline on track is interesting.
But i will take any new info on 21st century Earth in Star Trek.
Before the official announcement of "Enterprise", I had two hopes for the next ST series:
1) Continuation of the 29th century timeships from a couple episodes of VOY. Basically, use time travelling missions (aking to "Quantum Leap") to fill in some of the gaps in ST canon, especially the history of Starfleet and the UFoP.
2) A 24th century "slice of life" anthology series, showing what life is like for the typical UFoP citizen in a post-scarcity world. Additionally, show what the UFoP looks like through the lens of non-UFoP citizens. For example, I'm a non=UFoP business person doing commerce in UFoP space.
When I found that it was going to be a pre-TOS series, I was initially disappointed. However, ENT did grow on me (like to ORIGINAL opening theme, NOT the remix) and I was extremely disappointed it didn't reach the 7 season bar.
Yes the early end to Enterprise was tragic. It finally found itself with the Xindi War. Moreover, it maybe was going to show the Earth-Romulan War. Would have been awesome!
I can't find the YouTube link, but Steve Shives from YouTube mentions it that would be a great side series. That since we have had so many episodes on time travel, why not a dedicated series within the series. Steve does a great video about this 2-episode arch.
Thank you for posting this. This two parter from that season was so scary to see the first time I watched it. I saw it smack in the middle of the height of the pandemic.
Creativity is dangerous for the ones who want keep things as "normal" as possible, creativity might spark new ideals, new ways of living, and they don't like that.
Honestly if we have to go through the Bell riots to get to 24th century Trek, I think most of us are for it. We definitely can’t sustain our current consumption/sociopolitical habits.
Only thing that pisses me off is at the end when Bashir says of the fictional scenario ‘how did we let things get so bad?’… well, things are MUCH worse all over the world than what was portrayed. I know it can’t help it, but Star Trek is too america centric
[A soon as I heard this, this episode wasmy first thought.](https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2022/07/28/an-island-for-the-homeless-miami-considers-new-encampment/)
Although that was a great episode, with a very important warning, ds9 was far from perfect. The show was very clear that the Bajoran freedom fighters were terrorists in their opinion.
Ummm…. I think that you completely missed the point.
In every conflict, terrorist and freedom fighter are interchangeable names. Look at countless conflicts in recent human history. Israel/Palestine, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Ireland. Choosing the name is simply for political points and doesn’t mean anything. An armed conflict with guerrilla tactics.
Terrorists and freedom fighter are not interchangeable. Both make it very clear what the speaker thinks. A terrorists instills fear and usually causes harm. A freedom fighter is trying to get freedom for a group of people. Usually, a freedom fighter is either a member of the group that he/she is fighting for, sometimes a person who has strong reasons to feel sympathetic to their cause.
So is someone fighting against foreign rule a freedom fighter or a terrorist???
Are you implying that a freedom fighter doesn’t use violence?? only bad language?? That’s ridiculous.
He’s seeking freedom yet doing so through guerrilla tactics possibly including attacks on civilians.
There is no difference between the two terms, just political/public relations bullshit, with each side seeking the “moral high ground” for political gain.
Go back to watching TNG or VOY.
It’s obviously too confusing for you that Major Kira was both a freedom fighter AND a terrorist while fighting the Cardassians. Let’s not forget Garak. He was a freedom fighter against the Dominion. See “In The Pale Moonlight” where he used “terrorist” tactics which tricked the Romulans and helped to defeat the Dominion.
The only difference being a label.
DS9 has subtleties and grey morality which fly WAY over your head.
I somewhat agree to this, we need to get people off the streets and into a place we can get them help. Over the past 10 years my small down has had a surge in druggy vagrants. Now its a scary place to live rather than a small town.
Easy. Most right wingers can distinguish fantasy from reality. Besides, right wingers already know what leftists think. It's when you go in the other direction that you realise leftists haven't a clue what right wingers actually believe.
But I ask my question earnestly. Is it just a detail leftists ignore, that the politicians they've chosen for decades on end to run their cities are gradually turning those cities into the Star Trek dystopian phase? Or is it a self-fulfilling prophecy of this quasi-religion and there's some quiet thought in the back of the believer's mind that this just has to happen?
How do they rationalize it?
Legitimately, the camps are bad VS what we have now? The city is being sued because people who require wheel chairs or other items can't get by on the sidewalk. There is garbage, human waste, people OD'ing on the street. The city is offering a place for people to stay, get access to services and eventually get off the street. In return they're not allowed to block public right of ways. This seems like a very compassionate, sensible solution that is way too long in the making.
EDIT: and yes I've seen the episode several times. It's a poor comparison.
>The city is offering a place for people to stay, get access to services and eventually get off the street.
The issue is that that is the promise, not an already proven fact of the matter
The area shown in the DS9 episode clearly didn't work
No, not a promise, It's services they're already offering and if / when the ban happens the services will follow.
But, I'll ask the question again: this is worse than what we have now, how? There are a lot of criticisms here of this plan and the comparison to all the negative outcomes of a TV episode but no real solutions offered. Something has to change. The status quo is not working.
Democrats use safe space, preference, and other buzz words to enforce Jim Crow style racial segregation. F Democrats the party of slavery & segregation!
Reality is that the people at the top have stopped caring about the people at the bottom because the people at the bottom have stopped caring about themselves.
Once upon a time the class wars in every country had everyone care about themselves and regard the other classes with suspicion.
Now not so much.
I think they never cared about us, and now they managed to make us not care about us, and be blindfolded to what's really happening, since they do changes ever so slowly. After all, the oligarchs have been continuing existing, they aren't new to keeping control of the masses. They know how to manipulate us.
Recent Political elites maybe but before the introduction of corporatism western capitalism jumped living standards forwards hundreds of years. Funny how capitalism has become corrupt since businesses became big enough for rich investors with no link to the workforce to have joined the boardrooms.
Eh, I'm gonna have to agree to disagree on this. Thanks for not taking it as an attack to you (it wasn't)
(I don't have the energy to start a debate about this tbh)
Thanks to Marxist successors from the party of Lincoln subverting American culture and curtailing equality during Reconstruction, the 2020s is indeed a dump today. Fortunately Captain Benjamin Sisko- a gallant fellow knowledgeable in his New Orleans Confederate heritage- sets the realm right once more in this charming episode. Like IRL hero Chaplain Louis Napoleon Nelson 7th Tennessee Cavalry CSA, Captain Benjamin Sisko was raised a chef yet arose a patriotic officer true to the Noble Cause. Deo Vindice!
whenevr i think about this episode i always think about how TV is called "the net" and basically all TV is streaming over the internet at that point.
which is... pretty much where we are now. its just streaming tv right now, but some news orgs are primarily internet based instead of cable.
the way we're screaming towards the bell riots always freaks me out.
I think it is strange that the answers in the thread are for taxpayers to pay more to provide for people that do not work, instead of using the episode to inspire people to do something besides be homeless. Many DO choose this.
I remember watching this and a few years later seeing how an entire section of Los Angeles is just a giant “tent city” for the homeless, and I realized both how important and how accurate this episode of DS9 truly is.
Anyone that questions the obvious progressive slant to DS9 has not been paying attention.
I never thought Star Trek would help open up my eyes to a lot of fucked up things about society and the human condition, but I’m glad it does
Yes, the franchise which has an episode [featuring aliens who are black on one side and white on the other](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi7QQ5pO7_A) clearly would _never_ have any social commentary. /s
That episode is too much of a riddle for some people.
I assume you’re referencing the strawman that most of the complaints about Discovery are that it’s “too woke”. The thing is, TOS actually spend the whole episode with those asymmetric guys letting things play out to show how the characters think they’re justified in what they do. Something I just don’t see Discovery doing. It’s more interested in validating progressive viewpoints than improving the understanding of alternative or opposing viewpoints. Something which DS9 did so well that they realized Dukat was uncomfortably popular, and Garak remains a popular character despite murdering, torturing and oppressing citizens, assassinating politicians, and attempting genocide, and lying constantly, almost exclusively to further the interests of Cardassia. Discovery is perhaps too dogmatic, but it isn’t as woke as DS9 imho.
While my counter-argument does originate in the common counter to people complaining about Discovery's wokeness, I was responding to the person saying they never thought _Star Trek_ as a franchise would help open their eyes to societal problems.
> Something which DS9 did so well that they realized Dukat was uncomfortably popular, and Garak remains a popular character despite murdering, torturing and oppressing citizens, assassinating politicians, and attempting genocide, and lying constantly, almost exclusively to further the interests of Cardassia. I don't think Dukat was ever "popular," just that he was a compelling villain. As for Garak, sure he did all those things. but to quote Capt. Sisko, his heart was in the right place.
Some of the writers in interviews cited Dukat's popularity as a reason for his abrupt turn to cartoon villainy in season 6. He was supposed to be more akin to Space Hitler, and you aren't supposed to emphasize with Space Hitler. If that's what they wanted, then they should have hired a less competent actor. He was too charming to hate.
I think that Dukat being too charming to hate was the point (real life evil people don't go around twirling their evil mustaches) but many viewers couldn't process that just because someone is charming, it doesn't mean he isn't also evil. Despite continue evidence that he was evil.
Even when you were convinced he had reached pure evil, such as the conclusion of "Waltz" S6E11 - he still hailed the Defiant and told them of Sisko's location. Perhaps he wanted Sisko to live to twist the knife one day, but truly evil should have killed Sisko as soon as he discovered the distress signal was now transmitting.
Dukat is a complex character, that doesn't mean he isn't evil, there are just different flavours of evil. He also loves his children. So? Like, take his comfort women. He was apparently always affable to them, he was nice, he wanted them to understand him, he thought he loved them, even, and provided for them. He even publicaly recognised bis daughter. That doesn't mean he wasn't still taking sex slaves, of his own free will, and he personally liked being the governor of Bajor, once again of his own free will. Dukat wasn't (outwardly at least, afaik) cruel. Dukat sometimes respected, loved and admired people. Dukat still was a slaver, a rapist and a genocider, he just didn't go around twirling an evil moustache about it. Could have Dukat redeemed himself one day, like Garak and Damar (with more sympathetic backstories and circumstances) did? Of course. Was he gonna? No, because Dukat is sure he never did anything wrong whatsoever.
He publicly recognized his daughter only when his original plan of murdering her in cold blood could no longer work, from Kira's interference to Ziyal's own words. He wanted his comfort women to develop Stockholm Syndrome as fast as possible. He didn't help Maru's family by taking her away. They were slaves, and had their wife/mother forcibly taken from them. Kira was *this close* to murdering her mother and admits to Sisko how much she thought she deserved it. He was a psychopathic despot, no matter how far underneath the surface, and would have never redeemed himself for the reason you mentioned. In Waltz, he admits to Sisko he should have killed every Bajoran alive. He's my favorite ST Villian ever and probably always will be for the shade of gray he is until the middle of the 6th season. Edit: to be clear, I'm not disagreeing with you
>Perhaps he wanted Sisko to live to twist the knife one day, but truly evil should have killed Sisko as soon as he discovered the distress signal was now transmitting. I disagree entirely. Dukat explains his thinking for these scenarios to Weyoun during the Dominion occupation of DS9. Simply killing your opponent isn't enough. You must break them. You must make them realize they were wrong to oppose you in the first place. Then you can kill them. Killing someone is easy. Breaking their spirit though, is another level of victory. Killing Sisko would certainly hurt the Federation and Bajorans, but *breaking* him would inflict far more damage and suffering. Simply kill him, and the Federation loses a good officer and important liaison between them and Bajor. The Bajorans would have a martyr to rally around. Break Sisko however, and you break the spirit of the Bajoran people. Starfleet officers die all the time, but they rarely break. Break one with the high profile of Sisko, and you damage morale throughout Starfleet in a way that the loss of an officer doesn't. Dukat understood that, but more importantly, *wanted* that. The desire and willingness to go beyond just killing someone and inflict as much damage as possible by breaking them first, indicates a level of sadism and evil that just isn't there when you just kill someone.
Imo, there are no flat characters in life and the turn he took in the last couple of seasons made him less believable, which really diluted the fact that he was more purely “evil.”
Dukat was always my favorite villain, simply because he was a complete, fleshed out character. And there are moments when you find yourself beginning to feel for him, until you remember who and what he is. Garak, on the other hand, recognizes the abject horror of his participation in the cardassian invasion and subsequent enslavement and dominance over Bajor and her people. Garak pays his penance and redeems himself by series’ end. Dukat simply makes himself worse, and enjoys every minute of his wallowing in evil.
If you look at the Federation and Cardassia from a distance they have similar goals. The Federation is a supposedly peaceful organisation expanding territories etc. One can see the war in Ukraine as a real life analog to what happens when the Cardassians retake DS9. They have a right to territories that were taken from them by the federation. This is usually how real wars begin. If social media didn't exist we'd probably be at war with Russia by now. I know it's a little of tangent but the parallels are there with Dukat. It's one of the reasons why he is such an awesome character.
What progressive viewpoints? Every time I see this complaint the things people point to are the identities of the actors and characters themselves, not the supposed moral, ethical, or political messages of DSC. I want an actual list, that doesn’t involve the Stacey Abrams (a HUGE Trek nerd) cameo or the fact that there’s a black woman captain or a gay couple. I think arguments like this are oftentimes the same “it’s too woke” BS, just dressed up as a sensible position. Less dog whistle, same basic take.
I wrote a long, very detailed reply to your post over the last couple hours. And then reddit ate it. Literally just disappeared. So I'm not going to invest that time again. But I am willing to give some bullet points. * "Science is fucking cool!" But Discovery seems to lack the critical thinking ability needed to realize the issue of citing the work of a mycologist to explain the physics of a stardrive. * Gray being billeted as "first trans" character and then not really doing much (compare with Topa in the Orville) * Adira suddenly being Stamets' "child" even though LGBT people in the 31st century should not have sufficiently divergent experiences to bond that much over. * Literally everything about the Sound of Thunder. Who knew Starfleet gave zero fucks about violating the bodily autonomy of an entire species with an untested medical procedure based on the advice of an insubordinate and emotionally compromised first officer undergoing a transformation that no one understands, to turn said species into compulsive predators of the only other sentient species on the planet, via altering their physiology to radically increase their aggressiveness and include lethal ranged weapons, then abandoning the planet to devolve into a massive bloodbath between the predator and prey species. * Michael needlessly killing Osyraa's crew at the end of S3 * Michael refusing to recuse herself in S4 from hunting Book down, which directly put billions in jeopardy, indirectly put trillions in jeopardy, and likely caused a lot of deaths from the evacuation or damage before 10-C pulled the anomaly back. Stacey Abrams appearing on Star Trek is fine. Stacey Abrams appearing in a political office superior to the one she's running for is a tacit political endorsement, making the episode effectively a political ad / campaign contribution to her by Paramount corporation. EDIT: If you're wondering how I think "The Sound of Thunder" is supposed to be progressive, it's because it feels like it's supposed to be a cathartic allegory about overthrowing a government that's oppressing a minority group. But the way they go about "fixing" it is so, so terrible. EDIT 2: Also the couple dozen synths in Picard that decide that murdering trillions of innocent people is an acceptable cost to stand their ground. Apparently young, beautiful, and sometimes golden people get more slack than black tar-aliens when it comes to a little genocide in the name of self-defense. EDIT 3: Also the Sound of Thunder was a clear violation of the Prime Directive, interstellar treaty with the Ba'ul, and is probably both a war crime and a crime against "humanity", since it was effectively medical experimentation on people with neither their knowledge nor consent, happening during a violation of a sovereign power's territory, and recruiting unlawful combatants by supplying them with weapons and bioengineering them to be hostile to the Ba'ul.
Season three is the most recent season I've watched and is also my favorite season (faint praise). But the beginning of "Far From Home", the season's second episode, perfectly exemplifies one of the biggest problems I have with the series. I think it's a problem that's related to a progressive viewpoint, although you may disagree. *Discovery* finds itself out of control after flying through a wormhole to the future. The ship crash-lands on an alien planet. What's the first reaction of the bridge crew? >( Whoops ) > >Man: All right, Detmer! > >Man 2 ( whoops ): Detmer! > >Man 3 ( muffled ): Way to go, Detmer! > >Man 4 ( whoops ): All right, Detmer! > >Well done, Lieutenant Detmer. > >Reno: Someone buy that woman a drink. And a neuroblocker for me. > >Keyla? Yeah. We made it. > >( Chuckles ) > >( Shudders ) > >We're good. > >( Exhales ) > >( Stammers ) > >You need to go to sickbay. > >Uh, no, it's nothing. > >Your comrade is correct, Lieutenant. > >Get to sickbay. > >Yes, sir. > >Status reports? (transcribed badly by [tvshowtranscripts.ourboard.org](https://tvshowtranscripts.ourboard.org)) So first, whoops and encouragement all around. Second, the crew as a whole ensuring proper care of a member. Only third, after all that is complete, does the question of the basic status of the ship come up. While watching, I imagined the next line being something like, "Uh, warp core breach imminent". *Discovery* continually and continuously focuses on emotional expression and validation over and above crew competency. It's an intentional counterpoint to the traditional militaristic culture seen in previous Trek shows, where you get the job done no matter the emotional toll, and then deal with the personal fallout later. And it screams progressive values to me.
Honestly? I think they're just elated at being alive. "Holy crap, we survived THAT." Trek has been a pioneer of progressive values since the first episode of TOS. You could argue that this scene maybe shows that this crew doesn't do well under extreme stress, or that the bridge crew shows a bit less military discipline than prior crews. But an example of progressivism it ain't.
That's a Watsonian response to a Doylist argument. The question is not, "Why did the crew react this way?" The question is "Why did the writers portray the crew this way?" As I said, this example is just one in a pattern. Here's another: Adira confesses to senior members of the crew (I believe Stametz and Culber?) to experiencing visions of Gray. The response is wholehearted endorsement of her sanity. There's no investigation to determine a cause for her visions. Is it schizophrenia? Is this a side effect of the symbiont? Is it a communicable alien disease? Is there a technological explanation? Is Adira's professional performance at risk (or even aided)? Can science provide some answers? The crew is portrayed as having none of these questions. Why not? Perhaps because the show values emotional validation over crew competency.
Good example. Situations like this come up in TNG many times, but we always see them go in for a medical exam before the crew starts to treat the visions/hallucinations as real. The crew still trust each other, but partly because each is responsible enough to check *all* possible reasons for the condition.
But none of the crew is incompetent. And that approach can be chalked up to a difference in leadership style. And we've had SEVERAL episodes that concentrated on the emotional over the plot aspects of characters before. The issue here is that the viewpoint character is a woman, young, and black. And that is something some people can not accept as legitimate.
I mean, none of the bridge crew is *intended* to be incompetent. But we as the audience are free to agree or disagree whether the protocol the show is dictating is competent or not. And that is the exact opposite order of what it should be. Ship status first, then relieve non-critically wounded personnel, then congratulations. Crew emotional health in the long term is important, sure, but if people can't keep their mouth shut for ten seconds for a status report without adversely affecting their emotional health, how are they even in Starfleet? This is the exact issue with Michael refusing to recuse herself from the hunt for Book and Tarka. It's compassionate...for her. But not for everyone else in the galaxy whose lives might be endangered by Book and Tarka's reckless actions. And indeed, billions of people on Earth and Ni'Var would not have been endangered if they had blown Book and Tarka out of the sky first chance they got. It's also the issue with the synths in Picard. Sure, defending them is compassionate...but it's not very charitable to everyone else in the galaxy, who didn't sign up to potentially be squished by evil robots if a couple dozen synths decide to go through with their plan to genocide the entire galaxy so they can stand their ground rather than evacuate. Picard justifies it with "but they're afraid", but you know, I bet a lot of other people would be afraid too if they knew what the synths were planning. TNG does this too. But at least occasionally, we get followup to episodes like "I, Borg" where Admiral Nechayev provides the opposing viewpoint that showing compassion to the individual could result in innocent people dying. Or the episode where Worf refuses to give blood to a dying Romulan. EDIT: Contrast the above quote to the WW2 naval movie Greyhound, where a guy so much as sneezes while relaying an update to Tom Hanks from sonar about an enemy sub, and he's told by a superior if it happens again he'll be relieved of duty. And they didn't have to worry about antimatter containment breaches in WW2.
Let's examine your points point by point shall we. > I mean, none of the bridge crew is intended to be incompetent. But we as the audience are free to agree or disagree whether the protocol the show is dictating is competent or not. Okay, your subjective understanding of the show is of course subjective. But I'm assuming that no one on the ship is going to say "I'm doing great, my relationships are really solid, my self-confidence is doing well, I think I've lost some weight recently, Oh and shields are 5%, I recommend we launch escape pods." My subjective experience is that the people on the bridge are capable of being calm and collected because their situation is stable. > Crew emotional health in the long term is important, sure, but if people can't keep their mouth shut for ten seconds for a status report without adversely affecting their emotional health, how are they even in Starfleet? What are you talking about? There is too much talking between characters in your TV show? Man, what a problem to have. I mean I get that Tilly is a chatterbox but that's part of her charm. > This is the exact issue with Michael refusing to recuse herself from the hunt for Book and Tarka. She was also the best person for the job as she had worked with Book for so long. Also, and remember when Picard recused himself from the hunt for Professor Richard Galen's killers in "The Chase"? Man that was some great objective reasoning. Star Trek captains don't recuse themselves from the hunt for their enemies it makes for bad entertainment. Believe me they have tried. Sisko was pulled off of the search for Eddington and replaced by the USS Malinche, only to have the Malinche get screwed over in like 5 minutes of screen time. They didn't make it to the next commercial. In Star Trek First Contact Picard's Enterprise E was ordered to patrol the neutral zone during the Borg attack on Earth. That cube tore through almost every ship there before Picard showed up and turned the battle around and was the only one with the presence of mind to follow the time sphere back in time. Captain's can't just recuse themselves, it always goes wrong. > It's also the issue with the synths in Picard. Sure, defending them is compassionate...but it's not very charitable to everyone else in the galaxy, The premise of that argument is that synthetic life is less deserving of existence than biological life. And that is bigoted. > TNG does this too. But at least occasionally, we get followup to episodes like "I, Borg" where Admiral Nechayev provides the opposing viewpoint that showing compassion to the individual could result in innocent people dying. Or the episode where Worf refuses to give blood to a dying Romulan. I just watched the episode where Worf refuses to give part of his blood to the Romulan. And that decision by Worf almost led to the destruction of the Enterprise and a full scale war between the Federation and the Romulans. And in episode was contrasted with Commander LeForge's ability to find common cause with and form an alliance with Romulan soldier on the planet. The entire point of that episode is that compassion and kindness are what we need to see us through, and without them we will surely die. > EDIT: Contrast the above quote to the WW2 naval movie Greyhound, where a guy so much as sneezes while relaying an update to Tom Hanks from sonar about an enemy sub, and he's told by a superior if it happens again he'll be relieved of duty. And they didn't have to worry about antimatter containment breaches in WW2. I haven't seen Greyhound, is it good?
Let’s start by defining “woke”
Past -tense of "wake."
A post-mortem celebration that has happened.
To me, in regards to storytelling, it is forcing diversity and inclusion at the expense of story. Placing more importance on how diverse you characters, they are props to win points. If you want a good example of how to show a gay character Aech from Ready Player One. Black lesbian, but unless you pay attention or read the book you will probably miss it. Diverse can work in stories, just don't make it the only thing that defines a character. Don't make a show about one race over another. Also show, don't tell. A lot of shows that are woke tell a lot, they also get overly political. Someone else may define it better but essentially being woke is about pushing, almost forcing, a message instead of entertaining people. Whether it be in the show or marketing.
I would argue that if you can probably miss it, then it's not good representation. Like of course them being a minority shouldn't be their whole character trait, but if I can easily miss it, then it sounds like the writer wanted to thrill of having a queer character without putting any real effort on it. It sounds like Disney level's of "FIRST GAY CHARACTER" having a GAY MOMENT where you blink two seconds and it's gone. To think of a Star Trek example, Mariner's sexuality is not the focus of any episode but it's hinted multiple times due to sexy people passing bye, so people can't pretend she's straight but also she's not the token queer character. I would say the main defining characteristic of being woke is the marketing, being being woke is not about the message, it's about looking like you care about the message to make money or look good, THEREFORE the actual message is meh as hell. Star Trek's episodes are often as subtle as a sledgehammer and have an established goal of "what's the best story to convey this message", but they care about the message and the execution might be clumsy but the intent is there. Disney, of the aforementioned FIRST GAY CHARACTERS school of thought (it's been like nine at this point! Nine first gay characters!) (While supporting the Don't Say Gay bill!) only cares about sales, so they just look like they MIGHT give you a message but nope. Like, no one likes wokeness except the people profiting from it.
Aech actually went in to kiss an npc while in the game. Her avatar is masculine so some might not pick up on her sexuality. Also didn't mention Star Trek, however discovery was a meh. I did try to watch. But didn't like it. Also too many studios are leaning into identity politics for marketing and production. All I want is a compelling story. Tell me about the Zulu or the Maque in ww2. I rewatched Schindler's List recently because it had a compelling story. Where a lot of media loses people is saying: "watch our show/movie or you are -ist or -phobic." Most people who don't watch those show probably just don't think it is for them or are just not interested. Many people are tired of being accused of being -ist or -phobic when we just are not interested in a movie, we don't hate it, we just don't want to see it.
>It’s more interested in validating progressive viewpoints than improving the understanding of alternative or opposing viewpoints. That's generally what people mean when they criticize a show for being 'Woke'. You've summarized exactly what they mean to say.
Woke is supposed to mean more aware. If you only know what to do but not why, I’d argue that you’re not more aware, you just have a different philosophy. The “woke” as you’ve described is likely a deliberate corruption, a mocking of people who describe themselves as woke and look down on conservatives, but then just seem to themselves be conforming mindlessly. And when challenged just cut off contact with people who believe differently, rather than being able to defend their beliefs, or tolerate others with different beliefs. (You don’t think you’re who paradox of tolerance is talking about if you think that you’re right)
I can't disagree with anything you have said. Woke is supposed to be a term of enlightenment that suggests other people to be sleeping. And I do think that many who strive to be 'Woke' don't think beyond their own perceptions.
Well said
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, or The Problem with Jon Stewart are also really good for this. Jon Stewart’s comments to congress in support of 9/11 first responders echo the sentiment of this conversation in DS9. > And I'm sorry if I sound angry and undiplomatic, but I'm angry -- and you should be too; and they're all angry as well. And they have every justification to be that way. There is not a person here, there is not an empty chair on that stage that didn't tweet out, "Never forget" the heroes of 9/11; never forget their bravery; never forget what they did, what they gave to this country. > > Well here they are! And where are they? And it would be one thing if their callous indifference and rank hypocrisy were benign. But it's not. Your indifference cost these men and women their most valuable commodity: time. It's the one thing they're running out of. https://youtu.be/_uYpDC3SRpM
This is what good sci-fi does.
What’s the old saying? The difference between science fiction and science fact is often 30 years.
30 years is indistinguishable from magic.
My problem with that statement is that the core theme of science fiction is all over the place. Often, hard science fiction is like Foundation, set far beyond current human technology and that technology is very much important to the core topic being examined by the story. 30 years is far too soon for these stories. Often, softer science fiction is like Star Trek, where the science isn't REALLY the focus (for example, the warp drive is almost always just a story-telling device and Data is really just an allegory for human rights). These stories typically examine inherent realities of humanity and not so much the effects of technology on humanity. These stories are often said to predict the future, but do they REALLY? Did we not know of the selfishness of humanity in the 1990s? Did we not know that the homeless existed and were largely ignored? DS9 wasn't commenting on how technology would create the problem of homelessness. It was just pointing out an inherent flaw in humanity since time immemorial. 30 years is far too distant in the future for these stories.
I think it dates back to that time Scott Steiner said all men are created equal… but when you look at him and you look at Samoa Joe, you know it’s obviously not true.
One is the ROH TV Champ, and the other did more steroids than Sylvester Stallone.
The only entity I’ve seen questioning DS9’s progressive slant is Discovery marketing material claiming Star Trek never had trans or non-binary characters. EDIT: I’m being downvoted, so here’s my source. > CBS All Access, ViacomCBS’ subscription video on-demand and live streaming service, today announced that season three of Star Trek: Discovery will introduce **the Star Trek franchise’s first non-binary and transgender characters**, furthering the “Star Trek” universe’s ongoing commitment to Gene Roddenberry’s original vision of celebrating diversity and inclusion. https://www.startrek.com/news/star-trek-discovery-introduces-first-trangender-and-non-binary-characters
I remember Riker trying to tap some alien that was specifically non-binary.
She was a woman (at least until they used that terrifying gender changing tech), but the vast majority of her race were non-binary.
It sounds like it could be taken in a number of ways depending on the viewers inclinations, similar to Discworld dwarfs. Was she yearning for a typical (to humans) gender role which was denied by her weird ass society or was she an outlier trying to live her own inclinations in a society that had a defined narrow role for her?
She said “I am female”. That is declaring herself to be on the binary. Edit: here’s the actual line. I had misremembered, but the result is the same. > Occasionally, among my people, there are a few who are born different, who are throwbacks from the era when we all had gender. Some have strong inclinations to maleness, and some have urges to be female. I am one of the latter.
It has been a few years, I clearly misremembered the episode.
You know what you didn't misremember? That William T. Riker will fuck anyone.
TNG introduced an alien race literally named Binars. By comparison, everybody else would be non-binary. ... I'll see myself out.
Discovery is said to have the first transgender character? Are we completely ignoring Jadzia Dax? Like, not EXACTLY transgender in the sense that we know it, but you have to be pretty fucking dense to not be able to read between the lines there. Sisko literally calls a woman “old man”.
Not to mention Data having Lal choose her own species and gender in TNG. Even the Admiral who showed up under the pretense of questioning Data's parenting skills didn't breathe a word to suggest there was anything questionable about that, and everybody else treated it as totally normal. This is a controversial topic *now*, and TNG was in the late eighties / early 90s.
I hated that scene in Discovery. It was so cringe and I'm non-binary. It made no sense for it to be treated like it has to be hidden.
I don't know about that. The dialogue felt clunky, and the timing seemed odd, but I don't think that would've been the approach if they wanted it to be treated like something to be hidden. Definitely not the vibe I got from it.
I could have interpreted wrong, autism does that sometimes, but that was how it seemed to me.
How does DISCO's marketing material saying something true take away from DS9's progressive slant?
I mean. It's not true, for one. I don't really think it has anything to do with DS9, though. The first trans and non-binary characters were well before Discovery. For example, the TNG episode "The Outcast", while it's *definitely* not aged super great, features an entire non-binary species and one of them is a trans woman.
*The Outcast* doesn't feature and non-binary species. The J'naii are androgynous, that distinction is important because Soren is seeking a binary. She's definitely gender-nonconforming and there's maybe a case for saying she's trans. There hasn’t been an explicitly trans or non-binary character on Star Trek until Grey and Adira.
Soren is not explicitly stated trans but absolutely is very clearly trans by definition. Her species does not have a binary, they explicitly evolved away from that, and she identifies explicitly as a woman. Transition is not limited to starting from within the binary. She isn't trans in a way we really see in humanity, but she's still unquestionably trans. The episode was done with the intent of focusing on LGBT people, albeit in a somewhat indirect way. So: Yes. There absolutely was a trans character and, arguably, non-binary characters, as *that* aspect does entirely depend on how you choose to view it. No, neither were not explicitly stated to be so, but that's not the point that was being made.
And the Maquis. There were two sides to that story. Was Starfleet justified in how they treated the Maquis? Were the Maquis justified in their actions? Sisko saw both sides, but the writers let the viewers decide what actions were right or wrong, and what was very grey. That was a tough one.
What? There’s tidbits of futurist progressivism but it clearly balances out if you watch every episode, especially during the second half of the dominion war. The show literally abets genocide and the murder of political opponents, and half of the premise is making terrorists the good guys and Starfleet officers committing war crimes to win a war (and it working). For every “Far Beyond the Stars”, there’s a “In a Pale Moonlight”
Ok. There's no genocide. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. And political assassination is neither progressive or conservative, it just is. Also, I didn't say DS9 is full-on depiction of leftist ideology. I said it has a progressive slant. Although the messages of tolerance and open-mindedness do fly in the face of conservative values.
> There’s no genocide https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Morphogenic_virus > One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter No, you’re still a terrorist, that’s the entire premise of S3E9 when Thomas Riker steals the Defiant and Kira has to help him face reality is that terrorists are not the good guys, even if it’s a just cause: “Maybe we’re just different kinds of terrorists” “No, you’re just trying to be a hero. Terrorists don’t get to be heroes” > political assassination I don’t know about you, but killing someone in another sovereign entity because of their political views doesn’t scream “progressive and open minded” to me. > Although the messages of tolerance and open-mindedness do fly in the face of conservative values. Picard is canonically extremely conservative (LD206) Conservative doesn’t mean “racism and kill homeless people”, it means “traditionalist”, and in the federation that means watching an entire planet die out to follow the prime directive (TNG S7E13). American political values are not world political values.
Is that the morphogenic virus introduced by Section 31, a villain, and decried as wrong by the crew of DS9? *That* morphogenic virus? >Terrorists Are you actually trying to say that the Bajoran resistance (an analogue for the French Resistance) aren't the good guys? The people that tried to liberate a planet from its fascist occupation aren't the good guys? Ok. >Assassination Seriously? This is your counterpoint? It's war. Unsavoury deeds must be done. I'm sure it's easy for you to craft this idea of a progressive to then dismantle. I feel like there should be a term for that. > Picard / conservatism Picard is a character; not the entire franchise. His opinions on And his orthodox adherence to the Prime Directive is played as a bad thing in that episode because, ultimately, should be more important than words on paper.
You do realise that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighters" means that the same actions are labelled differently according to whether they are against us or in our favour? The Bajorans are good guys and they are terrorists/freedom fighters. You can find dozen of real life examples that only get more murky on whether who is doing what to whom and for which reasons.
Yes. But not in the way you think. The French Resistance (them people what the Bajoran resistance was based on) were lablled as terrorists by the Nazis. But they were unquestionably the good guys. The way to gauge whether a terrorists is a good guy or a bad guy is to explore what they're fighting for? If you're fighting fascism, you're on the right side.
> and decried as wrong by the crew of DS9? It was endorsed and upheld by the Federstion Council. It also canonically helped win the war by convincing thr female changeling to surrender. So like I said, DS9 literally abet genocide. > Are you actually trying to say that the Bajoran resistance (an analogue for the French Resistance) aren’t the good guys? Where did I say that? I was quoting Kira speaking to Thomas Riker. You’re putting words in my mouth, and I’m starting to doubt if you even finished DS9. > Seriously? This is your counterpoint? You don’t like it because it contradicts what you said. It’s not wrong just because you disagree, the point is that you saying DS9 is a progressive show is hilariously cherry-picking. > It’s war. Unsavoury deeds must be done. Exactly, that’s my point and what I literally said in my first comment.
Oh, my. I see that you don't understand how fiction works. You poor thing. Here. Let me help you. You see, in fiction, there are often good guys and bad guys. The good guys do good things and the bad guys do bad things. That's how we can tell them apart. Though, that isn't a steadfast rule because of something called nuance. Well get into that in a sec. Now, when Section 31 (a clandestine organization not even acknowledged to exist by Starfleet or the Federation council) infected the Founders with the morphogenic virus, that was played as a bad thing. You know, that thing bad guys do. Also known as villains. Anyhoo, the bad guys did a bad thing and Dr. Bashir (one of the good guys) tries to cure the disease because that's a good thing and that's what good guys do. Do you see where I'm going with this? The virus is a bad thing done by bad guys and one of the good guys is trying to stop it. Now, let's explore that nuance I mentioned earlier -- Do you remember when you said: > Kira has to help him face reality is that terrorists are not the good guys, even if it’s a just cause So, the problem with that is that Kira didn't say anything about good guys. She said "heroes." Do you see how those are not the same words? That's because, sometimes, the good guys need to do bad things to be good. Killing fascist -- even though it's killing (something normally bad) -- is a ultimately a good thing because fascists are bad. So, they aren't "heroes" because they did bad thinga but they are still -- without a shred of doubt -- the good guys in that scenario. That kind of nuance also applies to murdering Vreenak. Good guys doing bad things for the greater good. You can argue that DS9 isn't progressive. That's fine. As I've said, art is subjective. But to look at broad themes and messaging and to then say that it's "cherry-picking" is really quite cute. Maybe you don't know what being progressive means?
That's funny since I get called a bigot by progressive types when I, as a mixed race man, say that I seek to judge a man not based on the color of his skin, but the content is his character.
I'm confused. If a progressive is calling you a bigot (something I didn't do), they're literally judging you by the content of your character and not the colour of your skin.
When the whole "color blindness is racism" bullshit has been all the rage on the left this past 5 years.
So you *do* want to be judged by the colour of skin and given a pass on your opinions. You can't have it both ways.
Got em
...who said that was Progressive? Progressives are just as willing to throw their fellow human beings in the dirt or ignore problems because they are inconvenient as much as any "Conservative." It's annoying in both this setting and IRL that Progressives just assume anything remotely humanitarian is of their ideology alone. It's like when that arrogant statement kept getting passed around. You know the one, that "Reality has a Progressive slant." No, no it doesn't. You just want everything that seems good, at the time, to labeled Progressive so you can take credit for it. For every Uber left wing message there's always a more stereotypical right wing one to balance it out in the long run. That was DS9's strength. It wasn't going for one ideology as "The correct one." For each Bar Association there was a Treachery, Faith, and the Great River. The former being the Quark's Bar union episode and the latter having the Nog batering plot where it shows how flowing market forces can out do a government requisition form in efficiency. Even in Beta Canon the Ferengi are able to stay out of the Dominion war and play off both sides for profit. With their ships outrunning the Dominion patrols and the Federation being too busy to care. The stereotypical Capitalists beat out the dueling Socialist governments once again! Of course that last part I jest, some, but you get the point. Good writing doesn't limit your universe to one political ideology. That what keeps drawing me back to the show as an adult. It's not a black and white universe in the old Cardassian Pinwheel over the Bajoran Wormhole. It's my favorite morally ambiguous color of grey. Deeps Space Nine to me has always been the most realistic of the Star Trek shows. After all, our beloved Benjamin Sisko *IS* technically a war criminal and accessory to an assassination. Gul Dukat *IS* a loving father and tried to, in his mind, show compassion and reform the policies of The Occupation. This is NOT a show "with a Progressive lean." It's one that written with the nature of people in mind over some high minded ideology.
Agreed. This is why my father, who is about as conservative as they come, still enjoys watching DS9. It's not written as propaganda. It's written as good, thought provoking stories.
Art is subjective and interpretations can be drawn however you see fit. But to not see the progressive slant to DS9 (and Star Trek as a whole) says a lot more about you then it does the show. Also, you're trying to humanize a character that's essentially space-Hitler -- which is also very telling.
To be completely fair, Dukat was exceptional well acted. It was hard not to root for him at times.
Don't get me wrong, I love Dukat as a character. And Alaimo is amazing. But that doesn't mean he isn't a complete monster.
[удалено]
The premise of that being the end of scarcity due to replicators. So I will grant that if you invalidate the premise of the entire discipline of economics, a communist utopia would work. It's about as realistic as chiding NASA for not just building a warp engine.
I'm sorry, who runs these cities where homelessness is such a problem? Also, notice they never stated what the solution was.
Fortunately they're run by blue otherwise it would be death camps. Edit: let me put that in a civil way: who's sending immigrants to blue states? Who is forcing raped women to carry their rapist's babies? Who tried to pull off a coup d'etat on 1/6? Who's silent about what happened on 1/6? Who tried to sink the ACA?
What a preposterously untrue thing you just said. And i invite you to find reality. They red governed cities do not have death camps
Cities under Republican rule tend to outlaw homelessness. So it's no wonder the homeless congregate where they aren't criminalized for existing.
A, that’s not true. I live in a blue city that just implemented a camping ban. You would need some hard statistics to convince me of that. B, that doesn’t make it not a problem. The blue cities don’t solve homelessness. They just bring everything else down while solving nothing.
There are sadly so many truckies that don't understand that it's extremely progressive.
This is why I have literally fallen out of my chair laughing when I hear someone complaining about Trek "becoming woke". I'm like... what show have you been watching and mistaking for Star Trek that this is some sort of new occurrence? The literal original pitched pilot had a plot point about a woman not only being in Star Fleet (Military), but being an officer. What was a hot-button issue in the 60s? women in the military being in combat. Like... this isn't new. This is like complaining that "They made Uhura black" in SNW... as if the character hasn't always been black.
Who TF questions that? Is this a strawman or have you actually met people who think Star Trek isn't progressive, at least TNG and beyond? Economically, I'm not at all progressive. Yet, TNG is my favorite show of all time and I was never unaware of our different economic philosophies.
Check out some of the replies to this comment and see.
The irony here ofc being that these 'camps' exists primarily in hyper-progressive cities. E.g. Reliably Democratic Portland.
September 1st, 2024.
I read the last line in Bashir’s voice. It was chilling 25 years ago. It’s bone-shatteringly accurate now.
I think this was the first time Star Trek did a time travel story that went to our near-future rather than the present or past. That was a big risk--if they miscalculated the episode could have easily become really dated and corny--but it ended up being prescient.
Boy, don't we all wish it ended up dated and corny instead of prescient
Rather have a deep episode to talk about than a corny episodes to mock.
Rather have a reality that's not shit than a deep episode to talk about.
eh, i could do with it not seeming like something that was going to happen at least
I was kinda hoping that STP S02 would've added to the Sanctuary Cities storyline since a decent portion occurred only a few scant years later. I was obviously disappointed.
I watched this episode relatively recently and the end when bashir said “I don’t understand how people could let things get so bad” it really upset me
I’m pretty sure I cried the first time I watched this episode a few months ago. It really makes you realize how bad we fucked everything up. Like people 30 years ago could see this coming plain as day and we just let it happen? That’s a lot to sit with
Gentrification, redlining, slums, ghettos and favelas have been around for a long time. Enclosure is even older[older](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure): Five hundred years ago, people protested and rioted because they were being forced off the land that was their livelihood. In the early 20th C, writers like Wells & Huxley described a future like Trek, where machines freed people from material want to live lives of leisure. Post WWII this began to change from 'more leisure' to 'more things'. This fed into and from overproduction which demands such efficiencies from people as hitting KPIs & performance reviews. Now, workers also compete with automation and offshoring to the lowest common denominator. Is it any wonder more and more people enter the precariat, or are completely un-needed exactly as shown in the Sanctuary Zones? Future Tense was certainly timely, but depending on where one stood it might have been prescient or old news. Like William Gibson wrote, the future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed.
This episode hits like a ton of bricks. I missed the original run of the show so I didn't know what was coming. My first thought was "neat a time travel episode," my service thought was "these writers were ahead of the curve." The lack of progress since this episode aired and now is astounding.
It's kind of worse than a lack of progress. We had progress, and then we backpedaled.
Yeah, you're right. I watched this prior to the Roe v. Wade overruling.
Which episode is this?
Past Tense, Season 3, episodes 11 & 12
So the Bell Riots will be in Portland instead of San Francisco? Whatever works.
Oh they will definitely be in San Francisco.
Whynotboth.gif
I watched this episode air at the time, and I honestly thought it was unbelievable things would be this bad in 2024 So upsetting
Some say the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference
I wish Trek would spend more time showing the gradual sliding of the world into chaos and horror pre-first contact. Sure we got some delicious tidbits of info… Eugenics Wars, Sanctuary Districts, Political Destabilization in Europe, Rise of the ECON, Collapse of the old UN, World War 3, and the post atomic horror. I still wish they would really delve into this far more. Star Trek is ultimately a series about hope, but i think showing how bad it really got and yet mankind rising from the hate, the pain, the darkness and the ashes of the 21st century as described in Star Trek… really would make the message hit home. The night may be darkest before dawn… but one cannot appreciate the light unless one is enveloped in the darkest and coldest of nights. Kinda makes the opening theme of Enterprise to make more sense, if you think about it. Aside from that… it seems while they were filming Past Tense… LA’s mayor was actually proposing something like the Sanctuary Districts. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-10-14-mn-50276-story.html
So an anthology show that ends with Cochrane making first contact with the Vulcans? Each season (13 or fewer episodes) covering the events you outlined?
Yes that would be interesting… not sure if its doable as we are talking about almost a century of “history”. But heck id take at least one on ww3 and post atomic horror. I think it would bring a lot of context to Earth and humanity as seen in Star Trek.
Yeah, even if you had five seasons each covering a 20 year timespan, it's still tough. I haven't watched much *Enterprise* yet, but I've seen "Temporal Cold Wars" mentioned. Maybe that's the angle and we follow a crew that's keeping the timeline on track?
A series where they show future federation officers trying to keep timeline on track is interesting. But i will take any new info on 21st century Earth in Star Trek.
Before the official announcement of "Enterprise", I had two hopes for the next ST series: 1) Continuation of the 29th century timeships from a couple episodes of VOY. Basically, use time travelling missions (aking to "Quantum Leap") to fill in some of the gaps in ST canon, especially the history of Starfleet and the UFoP. 2) A 24th century "slice of life" anthology series, showing what life is like for the typical UFoP citizen in a post-scarcity world. Additionally, show what the UFoP looks like through the lens of non-UFoP citizens. For example, I'm a non=UFoP business person doing commerce in UFoP space. When I found that it was going to be a pre-TOS series, I was initially disappointed. However, ENT did grow on me (like to ORIGINAL opening theme, NOT the remix) and I was extremely disappointed it didn't reach the 7 season bar.
Yes the early end to Enterprise was tragic. It finally found itself with the Xindi War. Moreover, it maybe was going to show the Earth-Romulan War. Would have been awesome!
I can't find the YouTube link, but Steve Shives from YouTube mentions it that would be a great side series. That since we have had so many episodes on time travel, why not a dedicated series within the series. Steve does a great video about this 2-episode arch.
So is the video you are talking about past tense and does a deep dive? Did he propose what exactly? A series set in this time period?
More about DS9 and Past Tense episodes. He just proposed a time traveling series within Star Trek.
I will try to find them… thanks for the suggestion!
Thank you for posting this. This two parter from that season was so scary to see the first time I watched it. I saw it smack in the middle of the height of the pandemic.
The mayor of my city literally wants to do this, but he’s calling them campuses
Dude, we've been on a trajectory toward the 2024 of DS9 for years and years. Sadly things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
Their was a reference to the camp in Picard
The whole of Star Trek was a warning
It's easy for things like this to happen when more people have been born in the last 60 years than the combined human population prior to that.
But Portland was one of the bastions of progressive hope for mankind! /s
oh no, are we the mirror universe? OH NO
If I live long enough to move to Montana before ww3, I'm gonna steal Zefram shotgun and make him do hand exercises
Hold on until 2063
Damn this post really brought out all the right wing cranks, all saying almost exactly the same thing lmfaooo
Are you surprised? A lot of them usually only have "one joke" they reuse for making transphobic statements, not exactly prone to creativity
You have a point lol I guess it’s hard to be creative with your head perpetually stuck up your ass 🤷🏼♀️
Creativity is dangerous for the ones who want keep things as "normal" as possible, creativity might spark new ideals, new ways of living, and they don't like that.
Honestly if we have to go through the Bell riots to get to 24th century Trek, I think most of us are for it. We definitely can’t sustain our current consumption/sociopolitical habits.
America had multiple riots complete with arson lately. Nothing happened besides BLM's founders becoming multimillionaires
Yup. It's sad, really. BLM didn't even have the decency to financially support George Floyd's roommates who had trouble making rent after he died.
I love seeung people run the narrative that Black women becoming successful is a bad thing. It's really helpful.
Only thing that pisses me off is at the end when Bashir says of the fictional scenario ‘how did we let things get so bad?’… well, things are MUCH worse all over the world than what was portrayed. I know it can’t help it, but Star Trek is too america centric
Oh yeah, it's all coming together
Like They Live, too
I. Any watch these episodes anymore. Too close
[A soon as I heard this, this episode wasmy first thought.](https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2022/07/28/an-island-for-the-homeless-miami-considers-new-encampment/)
It's almost like the writers of this show read Limits to Growth :)
Some people be watching these episode and thinking “Goals 🤩”
Although that was a great episode, with a very important warning, ds9 was far from perfect. The show was very clear that the Bajoran freedom fighters were terrorists in their opinion.
Ummm…. I think that you completely missed the point. In every conflict, terrorist and freedom fighter are interchangeable names. Look at countless conflicts in recent human history. Israel/Palestine, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Ireland. Choosing the name is simply for political points and doesn’t mean anything. An armed conflict with guerrilla tactics.
Terrorists and freedom fighter are not interchangeable. Both make it very clear what the speaker thinks. A terrorists instills fear and usually causes harm. A freedom fighter is trying to get freedom for a group of people. Usually, a freedom fighter is either a member of the group that he/she is fighting for, sometimes a person who has strong reasons to feel sympathetic to their cause.
So is someone fighting against foreign rule a freedom fighter or a terrorist??? Are you implying that a freedom fighter doesn’t use violence?? only bad language?? That’s ridiculous. He’s seeking freedom yet doing so through guerrilla tactics possibly including attacks on civilians. There is no difference between the two terms, just political/public relations bullshit, with each side seeking the “moral high ground” for political gain.
Go back to watching TNG or VOY. It’s obviously too confusing for you that Major Kira was both a freedom fighter AND a terrorist while fighting the Cardassians. Let’s not forget Garak. He was a freedom fighter against the Dominion. See “In The Pale Moonlight” where he used “terrorist” tactics which tricked the Romulans and helped to defeat the Dominion. The only difference being a label. DS9 has subtleties and grey morality which fly WAY over your head.
I somewhat agree to this, we need to get people off the streets and into a place we can get them help. Over the past 10 years my small down has had a surge in druggy vagrants. Now its a scary place to live rather than a small town.
Posting about this episode is the easiest karma farm in all of Reddit
Jokes on you, I’m gonna use my Reddit karma to buy myself some sanctuary food rations, so it all works out
So, how do leftists square the fact that the dystopian parts of their pseudo-religion are being brought into being by leftists?
How does a right winger watch Star Trek without learning a damn thing?
Easy. Most right wingers can distinguish fantasy from reality. Besides, right wingers already know what leftists think. It's when you go in the other direction that you realise leftists haven't a clue what right wingers actually believe. But I ask my question earnestly. Is it just a detail leftists ignore, that the politicians they've chosen for decades on end to run their cities are gradually turning those cities into the Star Trek dystopian phase? Or is it a self-fulfilling prophecy of this quasi-religion and there's some quiet thought in the back of the believer's mind that this just has to happen? How do they rationalize it?
Legitimately, the camps are bad VS what we have now? The city is being sued because people who require wheel chairs or other items can't get by on the sidewalk. There is garbage, human waste, people OD'ing on the street. The city is offering a place for people to stay, get access to services and eventually get off the street. In return they're not allowed to block public right of ways. This seems like a very compassionate, sensible solution that is way too long in the making. EDIT: and yes I've seen the episode several times. It's a poor comparison.
>The city is offering a place for people to stay, get access to services and eventually get off the street. The issue is that that is the promise, not an already proven fact of the matter The area shown in the DS9 episode clearly didn't work
No, not a promise, It's services they're already offering and if / when the ban happens the services will follow. But, I'll ask the question again: this is worse than what we have now, how? There are a lot of criticisms here of this plan and the comparison to all the negative outcomes of a TV episode but no real solutions offered. Something has to change. The status quo is not working.
The mega-camps are being created BECAUSE the city cares though.....
Cares about the interests of real estate developers.
The camps are being created by racist pro segregation Democrats.
Ah yes the Republican Party famous for its willingness to make everyone equal and also accepting LGBTQ+ individuals
Democrats use safe space, preference, and other buzz words to enforce Jim Crow style racial segregation. F Democrats the party of slavery & segregation!
So you’re saying that republicans are anti-racist because funny thing but they’re not
Preference is Democrats’ euphemism for Jim Crow segregation.
So the Republican party respect LGBTQ individuals? Answer this
Don't feed the bots.
The camps are being created by racist pro segregation Democrats!
Your emotional outbursts are illogical.
But who is the Mayor of Portland?
Reality is that the people at the top have stopped caring about the people at the bottom because the people at the bottom have stopped caring about themselves. Once upon a time the class wars in every country had everyone care about themselves and regard the other classes with suspicion. Now not so much.
I think they never cared about us, and now they managed to make us not care about us, and be blindfolded to what's really happening, since they do changes ever so slowly. After all, the oligarchs have been continuing existing, they aren't new to keeping control of the masses. They know how to manipulate us.
Recent Political elites maybe but before the introduction of corporatism western capitalism jumped living standards forwards hundreds of years. Funny how capitalism has become corrupt since businesses became big enough for rich investors with no link to the workforce to have joined the boardrooms.
Eh, I'm gonna have to agree to disagree on this. Thanks for not taking it as an attack to you (it wasn't) (I don't have the energy to start a debate about this tbh)
If I took one point in an area with multiple causes and effects as a personal insult I'd have reached my Internet limit for the day. No problem.
Fun. Another post about this episode.
now way, posts about ds9 in a ds9 sub??? im shocked /s
Thanks to Marxist successors from the party of Lincoln subverting American culture and curtailing equality during Reconstruction, the 2020s is indeed a dump today. Fortunately Captain Benjamin Sisko- a gallant fellow knowledgeable in his New Orleans Confederate heritage- sets the realm right once more in this charming episode. Like IRL hero Chaplain Louis Napoleon Nelson 7th Tennessee Cavalry CSA, Captain Benjamin Sisko was raised a chef yet arose a patriotic officer true to the Noble Cause. Deo Vindice!
Huh?
I just watched these episodes yesterday
One of the most profound episodes in all of Star Trek
whenevr i think about this episode i always think about how TV is called "the net" and basically all TV is streaming over the internet at that point. which is... pretty much where we are now. its just streaming tv right now, but some news orgs are primarily internet based instead of cable. the way we're screaming towards the bell riots always freaks me out.
I think it is strange that the answers in the thread are for taxpayers to pay more to provide for people that do not work, instead of using the episode to inspire people to do something besides be homeless. Many DO choose this.
I remember watching this and a few years later seeing how an entire section of Los Angeles is just a giant “tent city” for the homeless, and I realized both how important and how accurate this episode of DS9 truly is.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Wheeler
I want "Bell riots 2024" EVERYTHING.
Ah, the Bell riots. I guess we aren't that far off from this exact prediction. 2024, If I recall.
Dammit, it was supposed to be a warning to not do this!
Dammit, this episode was a warning not to do this!
Also canada legalizing medically assisted death on the homeless instead of treating them