porthos @ porthos @startrek.website

If I abruptly disappear, it isn't because I don't love you rather it's beca

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2 yr. ago

I can't wait!

Paramount doesn’t even want to write about the Utopia anymore. All of the Picard series is about corruption, greed, power, and the Federation failing on all accounts. I hate them for it. Star Trek is supposed to be a glimpse into a hopeful future, not a reflection of our current problems but with phasers added.

I think there are many valid criticisms of new trek but I really just don't see this, old star trek had the same shit

How about the fact that cars are so complicated now that working on them yourself feels next to impossible but you also have to somehow find mechanics that you trust to fix your vehicle when you really have no objective way to know if the mechanics are just bullshitting you or are actually genuinely investigating the problem, not just tossing away what you are saying with a mental note that you are clueless. Fixing a bicycle on the other hand is almost comically simple in comparison.

Also can’t forget the thrill that it only takes a second or two of distraction at the wrong moment to kill yourself and other innocent people and irrevocably send your life down a worse path. To be clear, this experience is happening when you are tired, grumpy and stressed about getting to work or getting back from work. It’s a nice little detail that we aren’t all driving boats around or something where hitting other boats requires a bunch of really stupid choices chained together, all we have to do in a car is go slightly in the wrong direction for 3 seconds and boom just murdered somebodies kid.

What about an electric scooter? Or honestly tricycles with a big cargo spot on the back are pretty sweet so long as you have the space and aren’t going up any crazy hills (could get an electric tricycle thoo).

At the end of the day though, I love bicycles but they can’t work for everyone… which is why the hope for most American cities at least is in busses. I know everyone hates busses and they are usually considered the least cool thing ever but honestly they are the future for mass transit in the US. We ripped out all the streetcars which is heartbreaking but I think busses are the closest practical replacement.

LONG LIVE THE BUS

95% of people don’t live or go to 85% of the country? The problem of mass transit has nothing to do with people driving cars around in the middle of nowhere.

Ok I know people will say this is weird but watch through Star Trek Enterprise with Captain Archer since that was supposed to be a reboot for Star Trek that pulled in new fans. It explains the origin story of how humans got into space which I think helps a lot of newer watchers ground themselves in the universe easier. Make sure to make fun of it when it gets too absurd and always have a lighter nearby to hold up during the theme song.

Then go through TNG, Voyager and DS9 jumping between them every episode so you move through all three at the same time. I have been watching Star Trek with my gf this way and it is really fun to compare between the shows and it makes the bad episodes of any one particular series less exhausting because you get to take a break from that show.

Whenever you feel like it watch newer trek and catch up on it, I like all of it and some of it is really good.

Sprinkle in TOS episodes as you go, especially when there are direct callbacks to specific episodes (the SNW episode that echoes a TOS episode is a blast to watch right after watching the associated TOS episode they did such a good job).

You’d think after eating all that kale you wouldn’t be so rudee

Something I find funny is that a lot of people who don’t know Star Trek that well and have only seen a couple of episodes assume Star Trek is the super optimistic view of humanity that is unrealistically positive about humanities future when if you actually look at the timeline in the 2000s and 2100s Star Trek is actually seriously apocalyptic. Humanity doesn’t turn to a good future out of some inevitable human kindness, it tries violence over and over again until some crazy guy makes a warp engine out of the rubble of destroyed civilization and the Vulcans show up.

I dunno but damn that Bell guy looks exactly like Sisko its weird

Literally one of the biggest plot lines in Discovery is struggling with a lovecraftian horror that annihilates entire planets and having the heroes save the day by sticking to a philosophy of diplomacy, logic and understanding even when most people are clamoring to just nuke the shit out of it?

Also, Picard can be silly but nowhere in its DNA does it abandon the heart of Star Trek for the pew pews? At the end of the second season the only thing that saves the day is characters coming to an understanding and trust with one another? Picard doesn’t have a big fist fight on a cliff or something. The only thing that works to resolve the conflict is establishing trust with a character who has the power to unleash a massive enemy?

…did you watch the same shows I did?

Yeah they have flaws, lots of em, but I don’t think your read on those shows is fair.

On the flip side a lot of times the only reason characters survive encounters with entities far more powerful than them is a laser like focus on understanding what an unknown entities motivations are.

I love it when a Star Trek captain phones up some evil looking spaceship that is blowing shit the fuck up and is like “what is it precisely that you want?”. The alien picking up inside the ship usually doesn’t want to talk and it takes the captain cutting through several layers of bullshit until they discover why and the why usually drastically changes the situation.

At the same time, this strategy isn’t portrayed in a naive way that encourages aliens to walk all over starfleet, when you understand the motivations of romulans you understand you better blow them the fuck up if they start testing you or they will see it culturally as a weakness and invade…

Further, there are entities that are just an order of magnitude more powerful that can’t be stopped with any degree of force like Q and the characters just have to deal with it which I like because it keeps Star Trek from becoming a power fantasy about super heroes.

The way I read it is miles o'brien is supposed to be the blue collar everyman character that draws in people who don't usually like star trek but they just miss the mark on that often and they make it doubly uncomfortable by also making miles o'brien a very flawed, pretty close minded person which causes cognitive dissonance like you said because all the other characters love him.

Maybe hot take: This was the episode that confirmed my feeling that Miles O’Brien isn’t necessarily a good person, there are definitely aspects to him that are good, he does do a lot of good, but he is chock full of a lot of prejudices he just often doesn’t seem interested in overcoming and everyone around him seems ok with just letting him be that way.

False

Hell yeah it better continue

It is a Carl Sagan science documentary where he discusses science and astronomy with the viewer while hiking through stunning mountains.

Very cool, memory alpha has so many ads on it ughh

It's a good thing Riker is pretty.

Imagine an episode where Riker goes around acting like his normal pretty self and charming the shit out of people.. but he is the first of the crew to be affected by a virus that subdues the human capacity to be authentically charming and all of a sudden all the normal ridiculous shit he gets away with because he is so charming starts back firing on him. At the worst part of the episode for Riker he would go to sit down with a fellow shipmate who was upset at him because he messed up a delivery of a joke and offended them but as he is in the middle of the Riker manuever he just plows the chair over clumsily.

Yeah but in Star Trek's future they have headlamps... but for your hands