Comment on Do you have any “headcanons” (so to speak) about the Star Trek TNG characters?
TheAlbatross@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 hours ago
They’re all relatively mad compared to the rest of the population of the UFP.
In a post scarcity socialist utopia, the people we see on screen are almost exclusively a group of folks that when offered the chance to do whatever they wanted they decided some of the most dangerous occupations imaginable. Where death is on the line almost daily due to unforeseen consequences.
They coulda ran a restaurant, researched their passion projects on a Starbase, lounged about eternally and they decided to expose themselves to weekly hazards no one could have possibly predicted.
Anyone in Star Fleet is kind of addicted to danger innit
sj_zero 12 hours ago
You kind have to admit that Star Trek isn't much of a post-scarcity socialist utopia.
For one thing, it's viciously elitist and hierarchical. You'd think a "post-scarcity socialist utopia" would have ways that a decorated captain would be able to get their hands on a ship in a pinch, but every Star Trek captain has had to steal a ship at some point because turns out there aren't a lot of them and they don't hand them out very easily.
Now you might say "Yeah but they can't just give out prime war assets to whoever asks for them!" -- at one point the ship they steal is an Enterprise that's being decommissioned -- you can't even use their junk without permission! Then ended up sending half the fleet after a piece of junk they were in the process of throwing out!
"We're delivering food and medical supplies to the colonies!" why? Why is that a thing you need to deliver? I thought this was post scarcity?
For another thing, Seems to me like there's plenty of racism in the star trek world. I mean, you don't want to be a borg, and God forbid you're one of soong's androids, you'll be on trial because they want to dissect your brain.
God help you if your ancestors were genetically modified, that's a jailin'.
Wanna live on the wrong planet? That's a jailin'.
Wanna stop a pre-warp civilization from being destroyed? that's a jailin'.
Wanna be a pre-warp indigenous civilization and not be destroyed if the Federation wants your planet? that's a jailin'.
Wanna get trained at star fleet academy without being part of the top 0.1%? You know that's a jailin'.
wanna be a hologram and get too uppity? That's a deletin'.
Wanna be a combination of two of the captains pet crew members and you don't want to be separated again? That's a murderin'.
Wanna be inconvenient to the fleet? That's a section 31...in'.
Some utopia. Some socialist utopia.
But look on the bright side! If the shiny headed captain wants to bang your mom, maybe you'll get made a member of the bridge crew anyway! Hope you have a hot mom!
But uh oh! Sorry Wesley, you got kicked out of the academy, you have to go off with space pedo now or no space for you! Maybe if your mom was seven of nine instead? "Your mom is seven? Never mind then, no space pedos for you because I want to get in that skintight catsuit!"
It's actually a technocratic aristocracy where we get to see the aristocratic few and only occasionally see the earth tone bedecked underclass in establishing shots.
Oh, we do get to see a space autist in Barclay -- oh, and he's mocked and ridiculed and belittled, and they're looking for any chance to get rid of him. Utopia, ladies and gentlemen! (Let's not talk about the fact that he's not allowed to be a space autist, but anyone is allowed to use the holodeck to create bangable versions of real people you've met or are likely to meet. Turns out the hierarchy can't enter yellow gridlines, go ahead and bang the ship's doctor, or the hot lady who's real good and making the space ships go fast good!)
"We're so advanced because we don't use money" great but who needs money when the highest ranking aristocrats get to choose exactly how all the capital gets used and the lowest ranking proleteriat can just die because there's no star ships available to deliver supplies this week?
"You don't understand! We're morally superior! We've ended want! We've elevated the common man to a new level!"
Yeah, that's exactly the logic by which the natives in America were subjugated. "Good news! We're bringing you Jesus and freeing you from your heathen ways!"
To be honest, Voyager is really great because it lays bare the fascist undertones. The young, attractive crew in nice uniforms walk around the pristine ship and live under the thumb of the God-King Janeway who will kill you if she can get 2 crew members out of it, and will destroy entire civilizations if she deems it acceptable.
But don't worry, she got her comeuppance by.... being promoted to Admiral (and that's not in Picard, that's during the movie timeline)! But don't worry, our good pal Picard, he.... was kicked out of Star Fleet for having political opinions the people higher on the hierarchy (I guess Janeway?) didn't like. How embarrassing. I guess he just didn't murder enough crew members to get them to multiply like firing neutrons at an atom until it splits.
While we're talking about Picard, let's talk a bit about holograms and synths. Why does star trek need EMH mark 1s cleaning plasma conduits in a socialist utopia? Why does star trek need mass produced worker-synths in a socialist utopia? Is it because they need slaves and they're not allowed to use black people anymore in their space aristocracy? Sounds a bit like a Greek or Roman socialist utopia.
But all joking aside? It's the space military-industrial complex. It's Space America minus the capitalism and the democracy. Far from a socialist utopia, unless joining space Raytheon is socialist utopia.
Maybe Q was right and humanity is just lucky he picked the francophone shakespearian hawk-tua who bamboozled him with bullshit into thinking humanity wasn't still a savage child-race?