A Star Trek about civilians would have to be done extremely carefully to not ruin everything with gold plated latinum.
Does Star Trek Need Starfleet?
Submitted 9 months ago by ValueSubtracted@startrek.website to startrek@startrek.website
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v_9KrlzdRk
Comments
buckykat@hexbear.net 9 months ago
LtLiana@startrek.website 8 months ago
Plus given the track record of how the Federation is represented in recent Trek especially, I don’t trust them to portray actual paradise.
In Picard we constantly see car-centric Americanized cities, the FNN just being a thinly veiled once-again American CNN clone, everything’s about the West and its culture again (this was already bad in old Trek, like why San Fran and Paris are the most important cities and how the Xindi weapon fucked up the USA instead of literally any other place on Earth). It’s like they think being in space and having technology makes paradise, and culture wouldn’t change at all.
I trust single novel authors more than huge production companies and writing rooms.
buckykat@hexbear.net 8 months ago
Absolutely. Star Trek writers are in no way immune to capitalist realism themselves, especially when they’re beholden to studio execs and budgets.
I didn’t make it more than a few episodes into Picard before giving up in disgust, and this only validates my choice there. It’s not just Picard though. Strange New Worlds is generally quite good, but the colony shown in the most recent episode was explicitly modeled on a mid 20th century American small town, a place Federation citizens should know better than to emulate.
Are there any novels or fanfics you’d recommend that do an actual good job of portraying a properly post scarcity Federation culture?
atlasraven31@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Could we have a spinoff show but it’s just every faction except Starfleet going about their day? Klingons, Cardassians, Vulcans, Ferengi…
UESPA_Sputnik@feddit.de 9 months ago
Lower Decks basically did a pilot episode for that.
atlasraven31@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Is it just me or did they do a Borg Lower Decks for like 5 seconds of screen time?
cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Minus Ferengi, they’re boring.
beefcat@lemmy.world 8 months ago
they were the center of some of DS9’s best episodes
Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 months ago
TNG Ferengi or DS9 Ferengi?
atlasraven31@lemm.ee 8 months ago
They are excellent negotiators and traders. If you need something like an ionized plasma channel or even a prototype phase cloak, the Ferengi can find it for you.
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Vulcan dispute resolution being the snippiest academic back-and-forth.
LtLiana@startrek.website 8 months ago
When I write fan fiction I make a point out of exploring parts of the Trek universe we have not seen at all or only very little of. It’s very fun, especially because you can finally subvert some of the more illogical things, like why almost every species seems to be monocultural under one flag and name with one home planet that’s named after the species, why humanity is so over-represented in the Federation, why there are no spacefaring nation states, and all.
Wooster@startrek.website 9 months ago
Just watched the video… it seems like it’s asking for Prodigy without acknowledging its existence. 😕
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 9 months ago
I would argue that Prodigy is very Starfleet-centric.
buckykat@hexbear.net 9 months ago
Those kids aren’t technically Starfleet officers (in season 1) but they’re very Starfleet.
A_Chilean_Cyborg@feddit.cl 8 months ago
idk but I would like to know how they get dome people to be dilithium miners, as like in a moneyless society, what benefit they have in return.
Would love to explore that.
TeacherGriff@mastodon.coffee 8 months ago
@A_Chilean_Cyborg @ValueSubtracted You might be interested in Ursula K. LeGuin’s book THE DISPOSSESSED. In one scene, the character from the anarchist planet explains to a character from the capitalist planet how they get people to do the dirty or dangerous jobs.
LtLiana@startrek.website 8 months ago
Moneyless society doesn’t mean a post-scarcity society. There’s clearly poverty on some Federation fringe worlds. Only Earth and the other core worlds really are paradise. The others have always been implied to work towards their bettering but not being quite there yet.
deafmutex@ohai.social 9 months ago
@ValueSubtracted I don't think so, the canon has a lot links to possible stories without starfleet. i would find stories about living under the Dominion interesting.
crashoverride@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Absolutely!
danielquinn@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
A solarpunk Star Trek would be amazing! Tell the story of civilians living in a post-scarcity economy, building a colony, farming, and running restaurants. The “Articles of the Federation” idea of “The West Wing in Space” made my heart skip a beat.
I want to see more of Federation life, through a lens other than the military!
clover@slrpnk.net 8 months ago
I enjoyed the couple episodes of DS9 where you meet Sisco’s dad back on earth running a restaurant.
danielquinn@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Exactly what I was thinking about. Though I think if you wanted to do a series, you’d probably want a little more conflict than a paradise planet could offer.