I just don’t get it. What is the freaking problem of those directors, trying to rewrite federation into some kind of dystopian tech fascism?
I was annoyed by the first Star Trek movie by JJ Abrams, with those police cops. I was alienated by those anti-android resentments in Picard. I stopped watching Discovery after the first episode, because the main protagonist was sent to some kind of labor prison for disobedience, where prisoners regularly die. I didn’t think it could get any worse but just watching the first 10 minutes of Starfleet Academy makes me want to bury the whole franchise [edit: and stopped watching]. Some drumhead court-martial, lifelong prison sentence, violently separating a mother from her child and some goons beating up a prisoner. How in the hell is this the same federation of TNG, Voyager and DS9?
Star Trek is supposed to be the ONE fiction with a positive, utopian view on mankind and the future. I totally get the attraction of dystopian settings but for that I can read some Warhammer 40k novels. This really makes me furious.
Fortunately there is still Strange New Worlds.
Please spoiler me, when this bullshit in Starfleet Academy gets turned around in some twist, because otherwise I will just ignore the show.
DISC did a lot of bad things to Trek just for shock value. But in a utopia there still has to be rules, Burnham committed probably the worst crime in the Trek universe, she disobeyed a direct order, started a mutiny and opened fire on an alien ship, which started a war killing millions. The only reason she got out of prison was because her boyfriend from an evil universe broke her out of prison under false pretenses hoping that since she started a war in this universe that she was just as evil as her counterpart. How messed up is that? Then her redeeming moment is she seized command of the ship and starts a civil war and threatens to blow up another species home world to end the war she started. That’s some cowboy shit right there. All because he has unresolved child hood trauma. She deserved to got to federation vacation colony for life.
Kelvinverse would have been great as a big budget sci-fi franchise if it wasn’t set in the Trek universe. You can pretty much ignore Kelvinverse movies and pretend that it was just a fun experiment.
SFA and SNW are just trying to undo the mistakes of DISC.
PIC got a lot of things wrong but shared trauma from an unprovoked attack by the Romulans hacking Androids and forcing them to attack people would trigger mass panic and fear that it could happen again, I don’t think that’s far fetched.
The “this specific person (who happens to be a woman and black but that has nothing to do with it I swear) must be punished for being a naughty bad girl” fantasies always make me super uncomfortable BUT it’s nice to see someone not calling Burhnam an overly perfect Mary Sue for once.
Do people fantasize about that? I would think that the writers and show runners should get the flak for DISC, that was a terrible redemption story, “The only why to stop this war, is more war”, like wtf were they thinking?
List of captain’s major misdeeds from the top of my head-
Sisko was accomplice to murder and many war crimes by his crew. Didn’t go to jail and actually became a god.
Can’t think of any serious crimes Picard committed and got away with. There were a couple times he disobeyed orders but it was usually to save or protect someone or something, and that was few and far between.
Janeway broke the prime directive every Tuesday, except when she was stopping someone else from breaking it. But that’s kind of excusable since her ship and crew were stranded in another quadrant of the Galaxy.
Kirk broke the temporal prime directive and the regular prime directive, routinely disobeyed orders, stole the enterprise, and wasn’t afraid to step into some morally gray areas. He got positive results, so he got demoted and promoted and demoted and got promoted to desk duty. Probably should have spent time in a federation vacation colony.
Pike hasn’t really stepped out of line except when he help DISC escape the rogue AI thing and breaking the temporal prime directive.
Archer was stubbling into trouble by mistake and there weren’t really any rules for him to break but I can’t think of any major crimes.
Freeman wasn’t really onscreen much but she doesn’t seem to be the start a mutiny, shoot first and start an galaxy wide war type.
Worf would never dishonor federation or his family.
Riker wasn’t on screen much but he does seem like he would get into some trouble, although when he was #1 he doesn’t seem like the mutiny and start wars type either.
i feel like snw still suffer from the legacy of picard and disc too much. being run by the same showrunner. i heard s2 and on were pretty bad.
How in the hell is this the same federation of TNG, Voyager and DS9?
Clearly it isn’t. Why should it be? It’s the far future. Giant prison colony, shock collars, cruelty, punishment with no semblance of a fair trial on screen; clearly the Federation are the bad guys now, or at least adjacent to them. I was prepared to accept that premise. Could be interesting… but no, they immediately shove that concept under the carpet and pretend it doesn’t matter because this one person involved feels really bad about it. It was all just another convenient plot device with no meaning, and they moved right on without stopping to think about it. It’s utterly lazy writing, the kind where they go with whatever half-baked idea they come up with first whether or not it makes any sense for the characters and story. I say that with confidence because I’ve seen so much of it before. In this case the character they betrayed was literally Star Trek itself, but they’re doing it all the time in smaller ways.
Anyway I’m off to rewatch DS9 instead.
Star Trek is just a media product now run by business people trying to make it appealing to mass audiences
Besides the awful plots and settings the writing and acting is horrific and as far as I’m concerned Star trek is over and academy is just fanfiction slop
have you seen the animated Lower Decks series? I love it.
but yeah, a lot for newer star trek stuff I don’t think was written by people intending to follow the series
lower decks and prodigy were way better than the other ones.
man I’ve been out of the loop for too long, I don’t even remember prodigy. I’ll have to get caught up!
Right! Totally forgot about Lower Decks. Awesome!
It’s been happening for a while; they keep wanting to make it “darker and edgier” which started with some episodes of TNG (The pegasus) and just kept getting worse (deep space 9).
During TOS, things were not exactly properly utopian either, but I haven’t watched enough to comment properly.
I’d honestly go much further back and put it at The Measure of a Man.
A supposedly eutopian Federation should never have been in a position where it would need to go to trial over whether someone could be compelled to undergo a lethal medical procedure (Maddox admitted he wouldn’t be able to reassemble Data after disassembly), nor be reclassified as property/salvage so they could not legally refuse.
They would never do it with any of the organic humanoids in their ranks, how is Data an exception?
It basically proves Chancellor Gorkon’s words true. The Federation is an organic human(oid)s only club. If you’re not one, then any rights you thought you had go away as soon as it’s no longer convenient.
If Starfleet had wished to take Voyager’s EMH and vivisect his matrix to figure out what made him sapient, nothing would have prevented them from legally doing so, and neither the Voyager nor the Doctor would have legal means of preventing it.
Rights being conditional hardly seems like the kind of thing that belongs in eutopia.
Fair observation, but from my perspective what differs between the Pegasus and Measure of a Man is that the problem in Pegasus was whole cloth institutional. I get what you are saying though, there were no existing legal frameworks for data to reside in that stopped him from even being considered in passing as property, which is bad. However, it seemed to be one guy that wanted to do that, and the trial was held to examine if that would be right or not, and to establish the legal precedent.
Wheras with the Pegasus, the investigation disappears into a hole and not touched since. Instead of punishing Pressman, he gets made Admiral.
However, it seemed to be one guy that wanted to do that, and the trial was held to examine if that would be right or not, and to establish the legal precedent.
At the same time, Starfleet also enabled it. The entire case would have never happened if it had just been Maddox asking for Data’s voluntary participation, but part of it was also that Starfleet was trying to compel Data to submit to the procedure, and also prevent him from leaving Starfleet to avoid it (hence the property angle).
We also know that the ruling was constrained to that one case both from Voyager, where it was outright stated to not apply to the Doctor, and because Data also had to fight Starfleet to prevent them from taking away Lal. While the fight was ended early as Lal died (possibly as a result of the emotional stress), it would not be too surprising if another legal battle resulted. Maddox might have started the events of Measure of a Man, but he was not singularly responsible for that whole business.
Wheras with the Pegasus, the investigation disappears into a hole and not touched since. Instead of punishing Pressman, he gets made Admiral.
We don’t actually know what happened from after the Pegasus’ cloaking device was revealed, other than that Pressman and the rest of his crew were likely to face court martial (and Pressman had “high-up friends” in Starfleet). He was promoted to Admiral before it was exposed, and it’s unclear what he was promoted for, since he was already Admiral when he tried to get it back.
We don’t actually know what happened from after the Pegasus’ cloaking device was revealed, other than that Pressman and the rest of his crew were likely to face court martial (and Pressman had “high-up friends” in Starfleet). He was promoted to Admiral before it was exposed, and it’s unclear what he was promoted for, since he was already Admiral when he tried to get it back.
Just a stickler here, he was made Admiral after the mutiny and whatnot during the first cloaking trials, which happened before the episode (and before he was made admiral), which caused the cover up discussed in the scene I linked.
We don’t know what happens to any of the plot points after Picard De-cloaks in front of the Romulans.
Undiscovered Country was considered too militant by Roddenberry. IIRC Nimoy agreed, but only decades later.
The problem for Star Trek is that utopias are hard to write (they’re considered boring or to cerebral for TV) and are usually reliant on external forces for their conflict. TOS was full of episodes where ‘the other’ upset the utopian balance. While I love/prefer TOS, younger audiences tend to find the episodes unsatisfying, even twee.
Since TNG, conflict has come more and more from within Star Fleet/Federation rather than the monster/planet of the week. That inevitably leads down a darker/dystopian path.
TOS was full of episodes where ‘the other’ upset the utopian balance. While I love/prefer TOS, younger audiences tend to find the episodes unsatisfying, even twee.
Since TNG, conflict has come more and more from within Star Fleet/Federation rather than the monster/planet of the week.
My favorite episodes are the ones where there is some sci-fi problem, and they try to fix the issue. Or they have to mediate some problem with some aliens based on some pragmatic problem. They get presented with some moral dilemmas, and act in a moral way, and go somewhere else.
There’s no need to lie to romulans, bomb planets, etc.
Does that mean you’re a fan of Threshold? Cracking Warp 10 is a sci-fi perform, no? 🤣
haven’t seen the hot lizard on lizard action, maybe when my wife gets to that ep of voyager.
Not a big trekie, but I never trusted the “Earth is a giant utopia and everything is perfect” story
Like, I’m sure there’s a class of people most of Starfleet is made up of like Picard, but not everyone on earth owns a fucking vineyard.
I always thought The Expanse was probably how it really was. No one “has to work” because there’s not enough work. So the majority of the population gets a little UBI and blows it on drugs and alcohol to numb the emptiness
Like, do they even show “current earth” that much in Star Trek? Or is it just wealthy Starfleet members talking about how awesome their lives were?
I dunno, it’s just an unbelievable story. If it’s really supposed to be a perfect utopia, it’s just unbelievable writing.
A utopia will never exist because a utopia implies that everyone and everything is perfect, but this will never happen because human instinct and diversity won’t allow it and everyone’s definition of perfection is different. In Star Trek this utopia was started after WW3 followed by massive genocide followed by people just trying to survive. So there was a hard reset for humanity.
For Picard’s vineyard, it’s a family legacy and heirloom, so he gets a pass. But if you want your own vineyard and there’s enough land then you get one.
Here’s where Star Trek kind of falls apart, someone has to mine the raw resources that can’t be replicated or do menial tasks that no one would want to do even 200 years from now. How does that work? If the work you do still equates to social ranking and resource allocation then does the steel worker also get prime real estate next to the president of the federation?
I love Star Trek but it’s just a dream that will never exist, the idea of Star Trek could never exist just based on the simple fact of the fans can’t even agree on what it is. To me it’s Sci-fi adventures in a world where people can be open about who they are but also none threatened or threatening about it, where everyone works together to accomplish a goal, where doing what you love is payment enough.
Well written. Earth’s utopia seems to exist (or not) as is relevant to the plot at hand. But if there is one thing Star Trek drills into it’s messaging over and over and over again, it’s that the work, the brutally difficult work to get one centimeter closer to that “impossible” utopia is what motivates starfleet.
For Picard’s vineyard, it’s a family legacy and heirloom, so he gets a pass.
And so do all of his descendants who inherit it in perpetuality
An unchanging social structure with no means for mobility.
Either your family was rich enough to own land centuries ago, or you never will be.
Utopia!
/s
But if you want your own vineyard and there’s enough land then you get one.
And then your descendants always get it because it’s a family legacy and heirloom…
So even if there’s “open land” it’s going to run out eventually.
So your argument is that you can’t have a utopia if you can inherit your parents belongings?
I would also argue that the accumulation of goods and hoarding resources would not be tolerated. So if you’re rich before the fall you’re probably not now. But my assumption is that if you can justify owning lots of land by something other than greed then you probably won’t keep/get it.
Yes land would be a finite resource and would be closely regulated.
Star Trek is a dream that will never come true because it assumes that all humans would be rational and reasonable. That’s just inconceivable.
A lot of stuff is insinuated. Such as there’s no overpopulation issue on Earth due in part to WW3 which decimated it globally and in part due to a lot of groups leaving to create their own colonies, with their own local rules.
Far as I remember, which may be wrong, people on Trek Earth live more freely and more spread out. The Picard vineyard is an example of doing something because you want to and at the same time, continuation of the family tradition.
But freedom doesn’t mean automatic success. Humans are still humans. We have our emotions and a state of mind which changes with the weather.
Trek Earth guarantees a standard of living, but it cannot guarantee happiness.
I always figured that some folks are writing, reading, arting, or farming, and then theres dudes using the replicator to make dank space weed or the holodeck to get blowie joeys from helen of troy.
I legitimately don’t know:
But would just every random human have access to a replicator 24/7?
Like, that would be a tally in the Utopia column, but even then, the amount of waste and trash produced would be a problem.
Even in an absolutely ideal situation like that, it would end like The Good Place where getting anything you want burns out your dopamine system.
I dunno. Like I said I’m not a Star Trek expert, I just don’t trust a bunch of rich people working for the one world government telling us the 99.99% of humans we never see are living perfect lives.
It’s fictional so it could be real if the writers want it to be. But it’s a lot more realistic if not everything was as perfect as we’re told, or even Starfleet officers believe.
It’s definitely easy to poke holes in the logic and suspend disbelief for so long. At the end of the day it’s an idea that if all basic human needs are taken care of then what would we do?
The replicator is also the trash collector and dish washer. When you’re done with your food you just put the left overs back into the replicator and when you “relieve yourself” it goes back into the replicator. Want new furniture? Replicator. Want new clothes? Replicator. So on so forth.
The only thing that is in short supply is energy, so there have been occasional mention of energy rations or credits that can be traded for services. There are still some resource limitations and you have to work or be productive and contributing member of society to gain access. But if you wish to sit around until you get bed sores then you can do that, you will probably be ignored and be an outsider and get visits from healthcare workers.
And yet wine snobs still insist on working at a vineyard so they can have non-replicated wine, because it “tastes better”.
Truly, I wish I had their problems.
Yeah exactly, it’s about what goes in, not what comes out.
Thing is, replicator food works from standard sets. Think of it like getting McDonalds. You get Maccas in the U.K.? Tastes like McD’s in Japan or Korea or India. It gets tiresome. Hence why they have Neelix, Guinan, or Quark running bars, kitchens, or lounges to put the human (Well… you know what I mean.) touch on things.
So yeah, deffo wish my biggest problem was my unlimited sauvignon blanc was only 8/10 so I decided to take up winemaking as a hobby to try and one up it.
Plus, you get the prestige of having actually made and perfected it yourself.
That means a bit, especially since the Federation places value on authenticity.
It’s the difference between going to ICA and getting a bottle of wine, compared to fermenting some yourself in a wardrobe, or buying a bottle straight from the vineyard.
Star Trek is written from the perspective of post-scarcity. There is unlimited free energy, replicators that can create virtually any object from base materials, and an abolishment of money (there is no need for it in post-scarcity, as money is ostensibly just a way to distribute resources).
Rowan J Coleman explores the practical ramifications of that in a 3 part series here, if you’re interested.
Perhaps you should start watching trek instead of commenting on it from a distance, you know, so you know what you are taking about.
The federation (in the TNG era which i would count as the most beloved and accepted by fans) is a post scarcity society, the populations indeed do have full and free access to replication technology, which also solves the waste problem you suggest since replicated goods can also be reclaimed by the devices. Make whatever you need, use it, vanish the leftovers when youre done.
So indeed people are beyond our concepts of material need and property. Individuals may also indulge in commerce if they are of the mercantile inclination, nobody cares, but any citizen can acquire any material resource required or desired in their lives regardless, and for free.
Buddy, if you think someone who’s watched all of Star Trek once is an “expert” than it’s more likely I know a lot more about it than you…
I just understand some people have all this shit memorized, and you are overconfident in your knowledge of the show.
Which is something that goes beyond Star Trek, often the people who know the most say they don’t know everything, and the people who say they know it all. Just aren’t aware of how much there is to know.
Have fun being overconfident tho.
Waste and trash also aren’t an issue because of the aforementioned replicators. Waste and trash become the food. Energy is cheap, next to free, and about as clean as can be.
Why would you live in squalor when you can just as easily push a button and teleport the trash and grime into the nothing?
Education is cheap and easy because we have both plenty of educated people, and sentient AI. Same for medicine.It’s one of the few pieces of media that has traditionally outright agreed with the spirit of what you’re saying. There’s no need to shit on its message that if we find the cause to work together, we have it within us to develop fully automated luxury gay space communism because we’re more alike than we are different, and an exploration of those differences will bring us together.
The difference between a post scarcity society and the good place is that it’s not that there’s no problems, it’s that there’s no significant material problems. And it’s not like the entire galaxy was like that.
Cynicism becoming conflated with realism is boring.
At it’s heart, the expanse was explicitly not post scarcity, so comparing it’s treatment of inequality with one where those problems have been solved is silly. It’s like saying the expanse is unrealistic because their spaceships are too fast, and Apollo 13 is a more realistic portrayal.Food too. A lot of problems with malnutrition and food deserts would be solved very quickly if you had a machine that could churn out perfectly nutritionally balanced meals.
Not worrying about potentially starving to death would free up a lot for people to go and do what they want to do, and to decline bad work environments.
If you didn’t have to worry about food, or bills, why would you stick to your rubbish job, instead of doing something you actually wanted to do?
And significantly, if you needed someone to actually do a job that wasn’t made obsolete by the removal of material scarcity you’d need to find a way to make it meaningfully enticing to them. Material scarcity is the driver for so much suckage that it’s almost mind boggling how much would change if we even made a significant dent on it.
But would just every random human have access to a replicator 24/7?
They’re cheap and easy devices. Almost every living space on a starship has one, as does every colony. The Enterprise originally shows up to deliver and install a batch of replicators for an entire colony in “The Survivors”.
Like, that would be a tally in the Utopia column, but even then, the amount of waste and trash produced would be a problem.
Not really. Replicators are two-way devices. If you don’t want something any more, you put it back, and it’ll convert it the other way.
If you were ever worried about rubbish, you could plonk a replicator down, and just use it as an infinite hole to throw your rubbish into, until it went down to a desirable level.
Even in an absolutely ideal situation like that, it would end like The Good Place where getting anything you want burns out your dopamine system.
You have that, but unlike in The Good Place, it’s not forced. You can spend all your time having fun, but eventually you would get bored, and want a challenge, and there are a great many challenges, between colonisation, and scientific achievements. There’s no Janet to ask for all the answers.
There’s also a social element. Culturally, the Federation values authenticity. Going to Vulcan to see a sunset is more value than seeing a hologram of a Vulcan sunset, much like how a photograph today means less than going to the same location it was taken, and seeing it for yourself.
Like I said I’m not a Star Trek expert, I just don’t trust a bunch of rich people working for the one world government telling us the 99.99% of humans we never see are living perfect lives.
It’s funny you say that, since they did abolish financial wealth in Star Trek, since at least the second show, for humans. Everyone gets the basics, and the rest depends entirely on who’s offering.
Going to do authentic pre-23rd century Cajun restaurant doesn’t cost buckets of money. Everyone can book and go there, anytime. It’s first-come, first-served. There’s no way to skip the queue, other than someone else pulling out, of asking them to give you their slot.
But it’s a lot more realistic if not everything was as perfect as we’re told, or even Starfleet officers believe.
At the same time, it is quite far into the future, and they have spent a lot of time and hard work cracking at their issues, with alien assistance.
Earth had to be basically rebuilt from the ground up, after all, and it’s over 200 years past that. Technology makes a lot of the issues facing us today, trivial. If we had their replicators, for example, we would solve a huge amount of issues today. Part of the issue of hunger, for example, is logistical. A single device that can create almost endless perfectly nutritious food, and remove waste, would be hugely beneficial to solving it from that angle. Or even their shuttles, if we could just ferry aid directly to the location without concerns over how long it would take to get there, or risks of it being waylaid.
For reference’s sake, they’re about as far from us, as the USA is from its original colonies, and a lot has changed since they revolted and became a country.
I get you. Utopia does’t seem very probable. But it was nice to have at least one single franchise that commits to it.
but not everyone on earth owns a fucking vineyard
That’s the very reason I don’t like the Picard show as well. No one is supposed to own a vineyardfor themselves in Star Trek Earth. DS9 did a good depiction of life on earth with Benjamin Siskos dad who just loves cooking and provides a restaurant for everyone.
His family has had vineyards for generations. Why wouldn’t they be allowed to? Space isnt exactly a luxury since they have dozens of worlds you can move to and have your own.
Keep in mind the “Gay Space Communism” isnt the soviet dictatorship kind where everyone is allotted their resources and you’re only allowed to do what the state says. Its a post-scarcity world where people can follow passions and personal drive just because they want to. (As long as you learn calculus) Something explicitly stated multiple times in the series.
They have the luxury of the philosophy of improving one’s self and the environment for others.
In the 24th century, wine isn’t a lucrative business venture. It’s an ancient cultural tradition. Chateau Picard is a heritage location placed by the government in the custody of the Picard family, as long as they continue to teach the ancient art of winemaking. It’s not for them, it’s for everyone.
I haven’t seen Picard.
placed by the government in the custody of the Picard family
Is that something included in Picard? Cause it seems like a significant departure from the rest of the idea of the series. The government of the federation doesn’t allow people to do things at it’s whims, it facilitates people’s freedom to do what they want to better themselves.
I also think “normal non working” people on earth are closer to The Expanse depiction rather than perfect utopia.
Nothing is perfect, I like calling that a “normaltopia”. The federation might not always succeed at being an utopia but at fucking least they are trying.
I’m on the same boat. Apart from Lower Decks, I can’t watch the new shows. I keep hoping a new show might fix it, and be for me, but the longer it goes, the less I’m interested in Star Trek.
Lately I’ve been thinking about unsubscribing from all the Star Trek communities, as all the discussions and hype about the new shows is making me think I’m no longer a trekkie. I loved TNG, DS9, VOY and tolerated ENT, but the new shows are clearly not made for me.
Did you give Strange New Worlds a shot? In my opinion in its core it holds the old values of Star Trek.
It technically goes back to Roddenberry.
First, Roddenberry still wrote the Federation as having some faults. A major plot point in Star Trek VI is that Starfleet is attempting a coup of the Federation to keep the cold war going. In early TNG, the Federation is seen as entertaining thing Data’s rights and allows a Federation colony to deteriorate to the level of drug wars.
Roddenberry had also written a treatment for a post-Federation time where a Federation ship goes into the future and rebuilds the Federation from scratch. That show became Andromeda, but the concept ended up being used in Discovery and Starfleet Academy.
In early TNG, the Federation is seen as entertaining ending Data’s rights and allows a Federation colony to deteriorate to the level of drug wars.
There’s honestly a good argument that Data arguably had none at all. His status was automatically changed to “property/salvage” the moment that he exercised his rights in a manner that Starfleet found inconvenient, by not wanting to be irreversibly dismantled.
The Enterprise might have treated him as a person, but they were unusual amongst Starfleet for doing so. We know later on, that the Sutherland considered him to be little more than a legged computer, and nearly mutinied against him because they interpreted all his actions in that light. Considering Data’s storied history of serving in Starfleet without having the support of personhood the Enterprise crew gave him, it would not be at all surprising if the Sutherland’s attitude was the norm, and the Enterprise was unusually accepting, on account of being the best and brightest of Starfleet.
If you pretend Star Trek stopped after First Contact, it’s a lot better. I really don’t understand why they keep trying to make new trek, or who is watching it. Who is it for? It’s too fast, too action-y. Too many camera angles. The writing and acting feels like teen drama. Where is the professionalism, the decorum, the reserved nature of Starfleet? And what little humor there should be, should be dry.
Those thugs beating up Caleb Mir are not Federation. They work for the something or other empire. The judge who sentenced Caleb’s mum resigned from Starfleet the next day, saying it was the worst mistake of her career and she can no longer work for an organisation that expects her to do things like that. 20 years later, Starfleet admits she was right, and offers her a job as Chancellor at Starfleet Academy, teaching the next generation to be better than the last one.
👆
I stopped watching Discovery after the first episode
watching the first 10 minutes of Starfleet Academy makes me want to bury the whole franchise
These are shows that historically have taken a couple of seasons to grow their beard, and you’re judging them on (parts of) their pilots? Maybe you’re just not as much into Star Trek as you think.
I think it’s extremely disingenuous to equate “bad things happening sometimes” with “dystopia.”
The point of everything you mentioned (except for the police in '09, which you don’t actually seem to have an issue with aside from the fact that they exist?) is that these things can be overcome, which is precisely the opposite of a dystopian setting.
To be fair I also have a problem with the fact the police exist
You realize that for millenia, philosophers fantasized about the concept of a police force that existed just to enforce laws, and not just be military guards?
The issue is not the concept of police. It is the leadership and the police unions.
Preach it, citizen.
… Oh. You meant in Star Trek.
Both is good
I certainly am not a fan of policework as it is currently, commonly conducted, but I have a hard time imagining a society that has laws, but doesn’t have a dedicated system to uphold those laws that involves some kind of police.
A neighbourhood watch would be way cooler. Daddy Kirk’s neighbour pulling up next to little Kirk and going “Whatcha doing with dad’s car, kiddo?” would be way more Trek but wouldn’t satisfy JJ’s craving for pointless action sequences.
It’s an interesting idea, but it also tiptoes right up to the line of “neighbours spying on each other on behalf of the state” - not great!
LPT just buy a Ring doorbell instead
Who has time in this day & age for all of their civic duties, amirite?
Join your smarter neighbors today! Farm out that friendly 24/7 vigilance to a “dutiful”, “well-trained”, “totally incorruptible”, perfectly “safe”, 100% “benign algorithm” that simply “stores all data” to keep “everyone” safe!
Join us, citizen.
While you still have the choice to. 😶🌫️
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profuse sweating or heart palpitations
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inability to comply
If Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
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When not in use, Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ should be ignored entirely and kept completely free of particulate matter. Failure to do so relieves the makers of Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™, MAGAt GrIFTS, LLC, and its parent company, Glottal Plugs Unlimited, of any and all liability.
Ingredients of Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ include an untested morass pf profit-squanched code which fell to Earth in multiple steaming piles across the techbroverse, presumably from adult diapers.
Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ has been shipped to our troops in numerous “at-risk” “nations” and is being dropped by our warplanes on others.
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If we want to be way more Trek, going by all the times that the shuttles got stolen, it should instead have been a scene of his stepfather going “my car!” upon seeing an empty, open garage, and then doing basically nothing about it.
Police have only existed for about 2% of the history of human civilization, and yet you cannot imagine a future without them. You’ll accept physics-breaking technologies like transporters and warp drives. But a world without cops? That’s a bridge too far.
If you can offer a compelling argument about how those other 98% were more fair and just, and can outline exactly what that better system was, I’m all ears.
Our modern police grew out of slave catchers. That’s the root of the institution. Traditional law enforcement methods were more fair and just because they kept law enforcement within the actual communities. In Medieval cities, it was common for every able-bodied male to have to spend a certain number of nights per year working in the town guard. It was your civic duty, just like jury service is today. There were no cops on the streets of ancient Rome.
Policing in the US right now isn’t local. Cops rarely actually live in the cities they work in. Ideally police would work in their own communities so that they have a firm connection to them. However, police had laws written that prevent cities from only hiring residents to work their police forces. That’s why in many American cities police feel more like an occupying army than an actual expression of the people’s legal authority. They don’t feel like they’re part of the community, because they literally aren’t part of the community. Police don’t like to live where they work.
Making law enforcement a full-time profession was a terrible mistake. It creates a barrier between citizens and the people that are supposed to be their public servants. Sure, some specialties, like crime scene investigator or detective, require a professional approach. But average beat cops should be replaced with citizens serving short-term roles as community guards.
Honestly, if you’ve seen how police respond to calls, I would trust the average citizen with a weekend quick course under their belt a lot more to respond to a 9/11 call than a police officer. Such temporary officers wouldn’t get infected with the us-vs-them “warrior policing” mindset that has so damaged the American police profession. It’s hard to smash an innocent person’s skull against the pavement when that person is your next door neighbor who you have to look in the eye every day.
Making beat-cops a full time job was one of the greatest mistakes we ever made. And it is one we have the power to correct.
Abolishing the police does not mean embracing anarchy and abandoning law enforcement. There many ways of enforcing the law other than mob justice or a professional police class.
So you’re just advocating for a different system of policing, which does not at all contradict what I originally said. Cool.
No. You’re just making the illogical error of assuming “police” and “law enforcement” are synonyms. Nuance matters.
I’d also like to highlight that the Federation is never described in-universe as a Utopia (the only example that comes to mind is Pelia sarcastically describing Earth specifically as a “no money, socialist utopia”).
Since the TOS days the messaging has always kinda been that “Utopia” is about the journey more than the destination.
Yeah, someone summed it up very well elsewhere in the thread: “utopia” describes an ideal to strive toward, but is inherently unachievable, if only because you will never find two people who have the same utopic vision.
Unless “utopia” includes some sort of system for forcing everyone to think alike… 🤔
ok, to give it a fair shake.
At the time of the start of Starfleet Academy the Federation and Starfleet don’t really exist. They are indeed a mockery of their own ideals. It’s the baseline for just how crappy the universe got. Shit was bad man. Academy sets this up so you understand what’s at stake as they try to rebuild the Federation and Starfleet to bring hope back.
It is a Star Trek college show. It introduces us to some kids, the future of this show’s setting. But there is an underlying message of hope and getting back to the better way.
I am neither endorsing nor criticizing the show. I’m trying to answer your point.
Tbh Starfleet Academy makes a U turn on that decision the minute after, explaining that because of the war/burn they were jerks but they regret it and try to make amends bla bla bla.
Academy gave me this utopia feeling, but in 2026 it made me more depressed than hopeful as I finally realized that I will never find a Starfleet Academy on our world, aka a bunch of peoples working together to make humanity a better whatever if their skin is pink or they believe in the giant flying spaghetti monster.
Thank you. That gives me hope I can enjoy the show. But I still don’t get the necessity to turn the federation into a dystopian shithole even for a short time.
I didn’t discover Star Trek until I was an adult. When I was a kid, the series that made Me want to be part of a galactic community was Ben 10. I’m really hoping one day they make a Plumbers prequel spinoff for adults. Every year the chance of such a wonder grows fainter. I was only inspired by the similar visions of coexistence in Star Trek as an adult, around the same time I was already becoming an astral adventurer and having My own Starfleet experiences.
I have good news for you. I’m a goddess from beyond reality in a polyamorous relationship with a sharkplane and a ghost. I’m friends with Shadow the Hedgehog and Spider-Woman. How is all this possible? It’s because I decided consensus reality is bourgeois and went and found some other weirdos who agree with Me. We’re called anarcho-antirealists, or soulists if you want a short name. We have our own PieFed instance called MULTIVERSE, and a manifesto at https://soulism.net/. I journey across the astral plane and Discord finding fantasy creatures and aliens to heal and befriend. I’m living the life I dreamed about since I was a kid watching Ben 10, and you can too.
Ew
Let them do their thing, you don’t have to publicly state your disgust. Just block and move on if you don’t want to see it.
Unhealthy shit is unhealthy.
I generally agree with your sentiment, but only for things that are not harmful.
Disappearing into a world of make believe is not healthy, let’s not pretend it is.
Did you see any mention in my comment of pretending it is healthy?
Do you think voicing disgust is going to help them?
Do you think unpromptedly telling them their whole worldview is unhealthy is going to help them, or do you think it is going to push them further into it?
Im more “worried” about them trying to recruit more people
I have said my piece.
Then you should start with that :D
The whole separating the child from the mother is turned in the first episode, and that tension creates character motivation in both the child and the captain who carries it out. Who admits on screen later that episode that it was a huge mistake and it’s why she leaves Starfleet for 20 years. At the period in time that the separation happens the federation has pretty much fallen apart because of the burn (due to some unexplained physics phenomenon warp technology failed over a hundred years earlier). So yeah it may seem like the federation was a utopia by our standards, but it was really a demonstration of a cooperative rather than competitive future (Communism v. Capitalism). And even in that future nothing is perfect, shit happens, you have to deal with it and do the hard work of building strong community.
One of the most central lessons of the whole franchise is sumed up in the kobyoshi maru, a test from the 22-2300s era of trek that is a literal unwinnable scenario. The lesson: it possible to make no mistakes and still lose. Pick yourself up and do your best.
Academy is about building back those ideals, structures, treaties, etc. that made ST feel like a utopia. It takes work to over come the prejudices, animosity, and bad habits of generational trauma and backwards thinking. Regardless of whether the show ends up being good, I can’t think of many messages that we today need to see demonstrated more clearly.
Episodes 4 and 5 of Academy are the best so far (5 is most current at time of writing).
