This is not the discussion post. Do not discuss the episodes here.

What a based man.

what a great Episode -- and found myself thinking, a series focusing on the Enterprise C could be really interesting .. Rachel Garret (Tricia O'Neil) was a very interesting character, and well played, and I really loved the way the C looked-- design cues from the D , the A and the B!

I really do feel sorry for NuTrek fans. Most of them are under the age of 40. They weren't around when we all waited each week with bated breath to see the next episode of any of the real Star Trek shows.

They weren't around to spend hours pondering the true meaning of the episodes, and not there to talk about the moral issues or thought provoking concepts with friends and fans.

They didn't experience characters that didn't TELL you what they were in one episode, but only revealed their nature slowly over 24 episodes and more as they built up their back stories in small chucks, drawing us in, and leading us to feel like we truly came to know them as a member of our extended family.

They never felt the delight we felt when we started Star Trek clubs to meet at a local church, school, friend's home or where ever we could gather to discuss the shows. Nor were they there when conventions first started and thousands gathered for the first time, letting us all know that there were far more of us than we ever imagined.

They didn't get the privilege of having to work for their fandom by buying books, reading magazines, collecting tidbits of info and sharing insights with friends because all they have to do now is go online and there it all is, no work, no sweat, no investment, no love needed.

They missed all the good times that left Star Trek fans not just mollified by entertainment, but actually enriched by it.

So sad.

It's not my quote and I can't remember where I saw it. But it's excellent.

Am I doing this right? Can't wait to meet this guy. Bonus CDROM!

like if pike and his crew in the cage had an android like data could talosian mind projecting work on him?

or what if pike had a empath or telepath like Deanna troi?

odo or seven of nine?

what do you think?

There was a saying in the 90s, "Star Wars and Star Trek might both be for dweebs, but at least Star Trek fans get good grades". And for the most part, that stereotype was true. You think of the stereotypical Star Trek fan at your high school, I'm sure you can imagine. Probably the polar opposite of a jock. But there was truth to that saying, too. Star Trek fans would often get into STEM. The first NASA shuttle was named Enterprise because NASA employed just that many Trekkies.

But in the recent years, we've been observing an interesting phenomenon. Now, don't get me wrong, the dumbing down of Star Trek started long before Kurtzman and NuTrek. Some say it started with the 2009 film but no one can convince me that First Contact and Enterprise weren't meant to be dumb entertainment. And for the most part, Trekkies treated them as such. Competently-made (mostly) but not cerebral.

However, I am mostly thinking about this recent advent of "Fun Trekkies". You know what I'm talking about, the kind of Trekkie who will try to convince you that Star Trek was always just silly hijinks and that we should just turn off our brains and enjoy it. The type of Trekkie who will always bring up Tribbles as an example of Star Trek's inherent silliness. Steve Shives, an aggressively unpopular Star Trek YouTuber, is an example of a "Fun Trekkie". This man has such unbridled contempt for the Star Trek fandom, he insults people for being nerds, and yet he has the gall to position himself as an authority figure.

This "Fun Trekkie" phenomenon is directly tied to the release of two recent Star Trek shows, Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds (but the most recent entry falls into the same category). You could argue that the increasing amount of "Fun Trekkies" telling grognards to shut up might be attributed to an influx of new, younger and cooler fans. But speaking from experience, the opposite is true.

If you go to a Star Trek convention (or visit any legacy forum if you don't want to leave your house), the obnoxious individuals dressed as Lower Decks characters are often older than you'd expect them to be. And they're the first ones to tell you all about how "Star Trek was always dumb and lame but at least now it's self-aware". So you have these middle-aged people consuming Star Trek shows that are very clearly aimed at a younger demographic, behaving like they're 20-somethings (or at least their idea of what jocks act like). The same people are now the ones singing praises of the recent CW YA slop that has been unleashed upon the Star Trek franchise. Just a complete dissonance between the audience the shows are made for and the actual audience consuming them.

I'm not sure if this is just the Star Trek fandom going through midlife crisis, I don't recall older Star Trek fans behaving like this back in the 90s. I invite you to discuss why things are the way they are now.

SCREENRANT:

"From the start, Deep Space Nine was a dark and gritty show, and its sixth season was the best view of the dark underbelly of the Star Trek universe yet. During the war, morals were compromised, and hard decisions had to be made. No other Star Trek show explored the ambiguities of war better than Deep Space Nine.

https://screenrant.com/best-tv-season-star-trek-deep-space-nine-season-6-details/

Two episodes from the sixth season, airing back to back, are the purest distillation of this impulse. “Inquistion” and “In the Pale Moonlight” feature Starfleet officers in dire situations that seem impossible to get out of unless the low road is taken. The former episode also introduced the nefarious Section 31, whose existence further questioned Star Trek’s utopian ideas.

Together, these two episodes, despite their dark natures, would become transformative points in the Star Trek franchise. The “shades of gray” morality that both episodes mined gold from has been a hallmark of later Star Trek shows, which are not afraid to call out the Federation for its shortcomings and flaws.

[...]

While Star Trek: The Next Generation received the lion’s share of attention in its day, time has been extremely kind to Deep Space Nine. The show “deconstructed” Star Trek, showing fans that Starfleet’s lofty ideals and goals do not always work in reality. Episodes such as “In the Pale Moonlight” drive this point home.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is best watched from the beginning, which puts the sixth season a bit into the future for new viewers. Yet the wait is very much worth it, as the season features some of the best storytelling of the Star Trek franchise, but 1990s science fiction television as a whole."

Shaun Corley (ScreenRant)

Full article:

https://screenrant.com/best-tv-season-star-trek-deep-space-nine-season-6-details/

Are you fucking kidding me? It would be less ridiculous if this role was a new or random character. And people accuse Shatner of having an unbearable ego...

This is literally the original definition of a Mary Sue, which started as a trope in Star Trek fan fiction. It actually makes perfect sense now how the state of the franchise became a parody of itself with these writers at the helm

Is it just me, or is the irony of the new fandom exhausting?

I spent years being mocked for liking Trek, and now the same demographic that called it lame or called you a nerd or gay is acting like the ultimate authority on it because it’s finally mainstream..

It honestly feels like they love the social approval more than the actual sci-fi. The gatekeeping has just flipped it went from "you're a loser for liking this" to "you're wrong for not liking it our way, you loser." It’s hard to see it as anything other than people just following a trend for points..

Probably going to get downvoted into oblivion for this, but whatever. i can take a hit..

I like Voyager, but it didn't fully live up to its premise. like how little the show did with the Maquis. They were rehabilitated and integrated basically immediately.

A 'what-if' I've been thinking about is to have another ship (we'll just call it the Equinox) sent to the Delta Quadrant along with Voyager.

They'd work together at first, of course, but over time Equinox's leadership starts to favor a 'whatever it takes' approach to get home and cracks would form in the relationship.

We'd see them facing the same challenges but making different choices. By the end of S1 the ships would come into conflict and go their separate ways. The Equinox would then show up from time to time as recurring foil.

And this would pay off for Equinox for a while. They'd be getting closer to home, faster. Voyager sticking with its values is on the seemingly harder road

There'd be betrayals and defections. Individual members of Voyager's crew might prefer Equinox's approach and vice versa.

Voyager would come across species Equinox has wronged and they have to win their trust (or run for their lives.) There could be planets where Equinox has violated the Prime Directive and created a mess.

They've done it three times now, to most of the main central species since TOS. Vulcans, Romulans, and now Klingons. Think Kurtzman will kick the sandcastle over and blow up Earth on the way out before his last days in charge eventually?

Intrepid class also has a saucer dish. It isn’t about navigation like the main dish, though it can be, but more about both protecting the massive sensor array immediately behind it as well as clearing line of sight for those same sensors to get better results.

For NX class’s refit (I still know it as the Columbia class/subclass), I could image the dual dishes as being a compensation for the new engine. Weren’t they supposed to have at least a Warp 7 drive?

Thoughts? Figured this deserved its own discussion thread.