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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • The main interest of science fiction is to explore the moral and social effects of current, past or hypothetical events and technological discoveries. It could be basically called “philosophy through futurology”, and sci-fi without morals is just that, futurology.

    Star Trek from the very beginning was like that, with things as simple as explaining that peace, unification of humanity, democracy and elimination of poverty and starvation are all linked and necessary to have a good world.

    I guess you’re one of those “stop making shows political” people? Sci-fi shows are by essence here to teach morals, and even if it is unintentional the concept of imagining a future where humanity grew implies applying morals to the show. It’s not avoidable.




  • The show, shows them like that, with Bashir literally getting recruited after playing James Bond in the holodeck many times and that’s actually one of the arguments that Sloan uses to justify why he should join. Malcolm Reed, who “surprisingly” is also a british character feeling like he’s the coolest guy ever, who is too cool to even answer when someone asks if he likes the food, turns out to be from section 31 too. And in discovery, a certain emperor joining section 31 after showing a lot of “cool moves” and high-tech gadgets that are probably possible to find in some James Bond movie.

    As for starfleet, if it is a military organisation under a democratic regime, then it has to follow the same laws and regulations. I am not aware of any military group that can blatantly ignore the law and face no repercussions, in any (pseudo) democratic government. And Discovery doesn’t portray it as illegal at all, explaining that it is at the center of almost all of starfleet’s decision (if I remember properly, an admiral explains that all decisions are first processed by a computer owned by S31, to get an automated suggestion of the decision to take). Such a central element cannot be simply hidden, it has to be allowed by the federation.

    As for science fiction, I do not agree. Science fiction is about taking another time/place/context to put the focus on current problems, whether by exaggerating/worsening them, removing them, or isolating them. If you show earth in 300 years and nothing changed, it’s not science fiction, it’s just a fiction that does nothing except change a date. By not showing any difference in how illegal groups like that are handled, the show doesn’t say that it is bad, but instead implies that it is something that never changes. And it is said directly, that S31 existed for a very long time and that it is still here, which implies that it will never leave. Which in turn, encourages apathy on the subject, telling the viewers that it is useless to fight against such groups, they’re just a “constant of the universe”. It is probably not the intended message, but it is the result.



  • The difference is that the problems of the older shows were in other times where the concept of discrimination wasn’t as well defined as now.

    The original show tried fighting against violence, racism, sexism, but lacked the objectivity to do so, yes, but it was at a time closer to nazis than it is to us (and let’s not kid ourselves, at a time where americans were much more friendly with fascists than leftists). And TNG was visibly trying to keep a moral aspect to the show, and while often failing they were also often succeeding in surprising ways, to the point of even questioning things like genders, 30 years before the question became a more public one. I have a lot to criticise around it, but the good overweights the bad; this is not the case with recent shows where it’s hard to find a single episode without a dubious concept or production choice.

    When Discovery decides to show rape scenes, it is a conscious choice, someone had to say “go on, pretend to be raping him”, it’s not a small mistake. The only similar one in TNG is the early racist episode that even Frakes described as “a racist piece of shit”, but it was what, 40 years earlier? I don’t apply the same judgement on something produced now, where the problems of discrimination, objectification, rape culture, etc, are much more known and defined. It was never good, it was never excusable, but now it is not even acceptable.


  • They were always shown as the sort of cool, James Bond/Batman-like agents that everyone admires for getting their hands dirty for the sake of everyone else.

    For DS9, they were for example showing that their solution would have worked, but that it would be immoral; but giving the cure to the changelings was a bet, that was much more risky than killing them all.

    For Discovery, what I really didn’t like is that everyone seemed to know about it, an admiral explains that all starfleet decisions are first sent to Section 31 (as far as I understood), which makes it central to starfleet. And they also mention one guy murdering/torturing/?? an innocent ambassador by mistake and not being punished for it.

    The lack of accountability for me shows that starfleet does not mind a group above the law, which immediately removes the idea of starfleet/the federation working on democratic principles.

    Yes, it echoes with a lot of modern things. But what is the point of making science fiction if all you show is a world that didn’t evolve in over 300 years?