this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
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I've said for years that the reason I love Star Trek so much is because it's about exploration and the investigation of the human spirit. That it's used to ask questions about ourselves that are hard to ask in other settings. It is also the only science fiction universe I can think of where people try to talk things out before getting into pew pew laser battles.
I also love the whole “working together as professionals in a team to solve problems with science/technology/strategy/diplomacy/all of the above” aspect of it, and that those abilities were considered by other species to be humanity’s best traits.
I've heard it described as "competency porn" before
It absolutely is. I got into the West Wing for the same reason. It's very satisfying to watch good people be good at their jobs in important situations
It’s a crying shame that our real life government will almost certainly never reflect the level of competence, effectiveness, and morality portrayed in WW :(
No West Wing, only Veep.
Says, “fuckity bye,” in The Thick Of It
Oh wow, I've never compared the two before, but you're absolutely right.
You’ll also see a ton of TNG and DS9 guest stars on WW. Someone working on that show was obviously a big fan.
It so good. Tangentially, that was one of the reasons I LOVED the Rogue Squadron books when I was a kid - it’s just a bunch of normal pilots who are really fucking skilled, and are generally good at what they do, but at the same time they don’t magic problems away with “just use the force”. Antilles doesn’t use the force; instead, he just uses incredibly good spatial reasoning and physical coordination in concert with decades of combat flight experience in some of the most harrowing and unbalanced battles the galaxy had seen in his lifetime, and that made him one of the absolute best pilots in the galaxy for a good portion of his career.
I thought about this in the context of RPGs before. Some of my peers seem to enjoy the slapdash chaos of four idiots stumbling through a problem. I'm just like that's my work day. Can I get a fantasy of four competent people solving problems effectively and without war crimes please?
Normally I'd agree, but I only just watched the TNG episode where they fucked up the prime directive so badly that a bunch of primitives declared (the) Picard a god.
I believe that is too make a fundamental point, originally made by Claude Levi Strauss (not the jeans guy), about exploration.
The sadness of exploration is that you fundamentally can't undo first contact. Once it's made everything changes.
That episode shows this and under scribes the necessity of the prime directive and why it is there in the first place. Even with the best intentions one can destroy the fabric of society of an entire civilization.
The other interesting though this episode evokes is the question weather we are ready at this moment. It holds a mirror to us imagining to be space explorers, but how would we cope today?
didn't Picard let himself get hit by a spear or something to prove he wasn't one though? pretty sure he was like "fuckin OW. see? SEE? DAMNIT to SHIT that hurts."
That's the one. A noble gesture that might have been avoided by simply having someone on watch for natives during the repairs to the observation post, or by keeping the injured alien sedated, under observation or even isolated in sick bay.
Unfortunately the plot required then to be remarkably careless and unobservant.
I remember reading somewhere an article where they talked about (I think) the episode of SNW where Uhura is hallucinating and how no one thought she was crazy when she said something about it because she was a Starfleet officer and they are believed enough to investigate problems like that before dismissing them. Imagine all the times you've heard stories about things like someone feeling a pain and the doctor says it's nothing and then they die of cancer...
I mean… that’s the point of all good sci-fi.
It’s important to delineate between “action, just in a sci-fi setting” and “sci-fi”. The former is entertaining; the latter will have you discussing the movie/episode with friends and family after you finish watching, and actually makes you think about the human condition a bit.
Side note: if that’s the only sci-fi universe you’ve seen that’s less action-packed and more deliberate, I strongly encourage you to read more sci-fi (n.b. specifically sci-fi, and not amusing but often morally vapid sci-fi thrillers).
This is why Star Wars is a fantasy series with sci Fi trappings and not sci fi.
Star wars is futuristic space magic adventure time. It's entertaining in It's own way. I do prefer the more profound sci fi for sure though.
yoink - don't mind me, just stealing this phrase for the next time someone asks me about Star Trek.
One of my favorite quotes from all Trekdom, where they come straight out and say it's about the inner voyage.
Please do. It's a phrase we should be using.
Every series tends to have a character who's main purpose is to explore "human spirit", through the eyes of anther species.
Star Trek has never been afraid of tackling the concept of “otherism” head on, challenging preconceptions, especially addressing when human society behaves badly, even shamefully.
It’s one of the things that makes it so good. Content that makes you step back and genuinely question yourself and your assumptions is objectively good content - change my mind
Change your mind? Lmao, that’s my argument! 😂
You made this?
I made this.
:D
Lol
Replicators? I replicated your replicator!
I always thought it was the Doctor more than Neelix. He was more comic relief.
They were both comic relief. The Doctor was better because his character was a deeper, more developed character that viewers cared more about, so the humorous situations he was placed in had more depth and situational resonance.
Neelix was a sight-gag first and a character second. For an actor, that’s a lot to work around. Certainly, Phillips was the guy for the job, and he had his spotlight moments in the series, but he was only really an endearing character sometimes and mostly at the end of VOY’s run. How his character was painted in the first three seasons made it really hard to like him at all. The writers eventually did his character right, but he’ll never be as beloved as other characters, especially the Doctor.
Edit: Phillips, on the other hand, has earned his place as ST royalty.
I really agree. Neelix's obnoxious behavior and strange jealousy / possessiveness of Kes was a real disservice to his character for the first few seasons and initially I couldn't stand him. He improved a lot once he and Kes broke up. It was an uncomfortable relationship to watch anyway because Kes was maybe the equivalent of a very sheltered, naive 18-year-old human, and Neelix was clearly a middle-aged dude who had been around the block a few times. He was half controlling parent, half controlling boyfriend and it was just weird.
He became such a wonderful, warm person as the series went on. Godfather to Naomi, took his jobs as chef and morale officer seriously (even though everyone ungratefully complained about his cooking!), trained as a security officer, and always a friendly ear to anyone who needed him.
I'll also make this argument in his favor: Neelix didn't have much of an ego, whereas the Doctor was unbearable at times. Neelix's EQ was much higher.
I think you can explain most of Neelix's behavior in the first few seasons on severe PTSD considering what happened to him before he went on the run.
This is a very fair take. We see a very different and haunted Neelix in Jetrel.
For many people Neelix is a write off because of just how gross his relationship with Kes is. It’s a shame too, his introduction to the series is 100% wildcard. I was most excited about his character when I watched the first time. And then all my excitement was spoiled by constant couch talk about how Neelix is just a gross pedophile.
Some real whacky choices were made with voy.
This, exactly. Neelix was a pretty unmoored character in a show where each character’s development relied heavily upon interplay on a counterpart. Neelix only had Kes to rely on, but Kes was the Doctor’s counterpart. Mostly, which left Neelix not much to play on, but the jealousy for the first part of the series. It resulted just as you described, poorly.
Once Seven was introduced, and a bunch of other characters could connect to her, and then Neelix could connect to both Naomi and to Seven, everything really fell into place for both Neelix, and for a bunch of other characters. 
Kes was a real drag on the show for so very many reasons. I was so glad when they got rid of her character. 
Yes, the Doctor would be a good candidate there as well.
The Borg are the perfect antithesis to this too. Like the intimate adversary is one that's dangerous and just can't be negotiated with. Thinks of you as so primitive to them that they don't even stop you from crawling around on their ship until you start fucking around. They're an absolute force of nature.
But even The Borg were used to ask 'what is human' and 'what makes you an individual' multiple times, most notably with 7 of 9, but also Locutus and Hugh. So even there, it's being philosophical on a level that people who appreciate that sort of thing can understand while still being enjoyable sci-fi for people who don't.
...until the Borg Queen retconned all that, anyway.
A lot of most sci-fi out there is people talking to each other. It's more a case of the people watching them having selective memory and ST fans memory selecting things the other way around.
Talking to each other and talking to each other to avoid a fight are two different things. Most sci-fi TV does not shy away from shooting first and asking questions later.
Key takeaway being that there’s a bit of distinction, and a hell of a lot of overlap, between sci-fi, fantasy, and action/adventure.
Babylon 5 tried diplomacy for the first couple seasons, but once the humans started fighting ourselves diplomacy kinda went out the window.
Also it was the climax of a multi season story by that point, it's the part where they ran out of diplomatic options so I think it still works as an example.
Yeah, and in the first season, Delenne called humans "community builders" that were the only species that could even imagine, much less build an outpost that would function as the melting crucible of all the species to forge stronger and more resilient friendships that would last through us tearing ourselves apart.