True elements of SF

[KillerWhale]

I was wondering whether to post this in the series or adventures seeds, but given it probably calls for some in-depth discussion, I decided to create a separate thread.

This is a call for discussion, exchange - and ideas - about true elements of SF in Trek. Let me explain I believe (good) Trek, being SF and conveying very strong philosophical ideas, as well as debating them - ethics, the reaction to the "unknown" - is not only about aliens and planets of the week, as well as diplomatical relations between interstellar powers. There is more to it in my taste.

I think good Trek can treat the "mundane" (read: espionage, diplomacy, personal plots) that is indigenous to this universe, but I also firmly believe it needs an additional "true element of SF" - otherwise it's just diplomacy in space (which can be fun, don't get me wrong; I just don't like my Trek this way).

What I mean by a true element of SF (and this will remind you olden timers of the "sense of wonder" thread) is a really new element or idea revolving around SF axioms. For instance, TNG introduced the holodeck and Q. DS9 had lots of diplomacy, but also the Prophets - aliens living outside time, having a religion created around them: can you be more new and SF?

True elements of SF are ground-breaking, larger than life elements, things that create the sense of wonder, and enlarge the scope by their sheer newness and their philosophical implications. I believe that's what's Trek at the core.

So, on for the sharing of ideas! Did you use such elements in your games? Did you read books using a core idea that could be stripped down and reused in a campaign? What "true elements of SF" did you come up with? This can be inspired from books or be only marginally new, as long as it's not an idea Trek rehashed again and again (like time travel or the mirror universe).

I'll go first.

- In my first four seasons, I had a God-like race create an anomaly in space called "the Experiment". The idea was to simulate, in a pocket of infinite parallel universes, all possibilities for this universe. Each parallel reflected a different path the universe could have taken. Assimilating this would, in essence, be the ultimate power, since you would now what was, what is, and everything that could be.
The twist: creating the experiment was an act of, not the God-like race, but the sentient machines they left as a legacy. The God-like race had been destroyed by its own hubris, learning a bit late this lesson: "Power shall be refused if one knows it cannot exert it with rightful equity". They ordered the machines they left to find a suitable race to transmit this strong lesson.
The PCs came back into the past (Ancient Egypt, cradle of the human civilization) and acted in a way that got the machines'attention. They had found their race.
So they designed the Experiment as a bait. The ultimate (or one ultimate) power. But they never intended humanity to have it - along the campaign, the PCs understood they had to destroy it. Their mission fulfilled, the machines self-destructed, leaving humanity alone.
This thread, lasting 48 eps (with fillers) worked remarquably well and, many years later, my players still talk about it. Which led me to think true elements of SF were a strong key to Trek games.

- There's this revolt of holograms we talked about with JonA, Aslan and a few others. The idea is that holograms revolt and lead a war on the Federation, wanting independence. Of course, some of them are misguided but others are evil - just like normal people. The key here is to recognize that the creation is independent and can escape its masters. Add in a sentient holographic AI a la Andromeda to the PC's ship and you can have a very interesting variation about the Trek quest for humanity.

Whew!

[jkp1187]

I was wondering whether to post this in the series or adventures seeds, but given it probably calls for some in-depth discussion, I decided to create a separate thread.

What I mean by a true element of SF (and this will remind you olden timers of the "sense of wonder" thread) is a really new element or idea revolving around SF axioms. For instance, TNG introduced the holodeck and Q. DS9 had lots of diplomacy, but also the Prophets - aliens living outside time, having a religion created around them: can you be more new and SF?

True elements of SF are ground-breaking, larger than life elements, things that create the sense of wonder, and enlarge the scope by their sheer newness and their philosophical implications. I believe that's what's Trek at the core.

An excellent post. Rather than commenting on your own concepts (which stand on their own,) let me share what I'm doing.

I think that Star Trek, at its best, examines Human motiviations, ethics, and actions at their best and worst. I have expanded this slightly. Earth and the Federation are presented as the ultimate in benevolence, always trying to be right. Roddenberry originally did this because he wanted to talk about things like racism, the Vietnam war, etc., while getting stories past very nervous network censors, and network executives who didn't yet realize the importance of the 18 to 35 age group in viewing audiences.

So, in my universe, Earth and the Federation can be a force for good, but people can be corrupt, governments self-interested, and social/economic problems (yes, even on Earth!) still exist. One space station the crew recently visited was a manufacturing facility owned by a private corporation, and used drugs to keep its employees "under control" so that they didn't crack under the strains of lonliness and their high-pressure, high-stress manufacturing job.

I treat the Federation as more of an alliance than the unitary government seen in TNG. It is envisioned as a sort of military alliance with a unified command + Common Market. Each government (United Earth Republic, Vulcan Planetary Confederation, etc.,) might have its own agenda or priorities. Technically, members of the fleet belong to the military of their own government, which have placed them under a unified command structure. The governments also maintain their own ships -- the Vulcan forces resemble those seen in Enterprise, ditto the Andorians. These are all "Federation" ships, of course, and individuals from the various fleets mix freely because of the unified command. After all, the Enterprise was referred to in the old series as an "Earth ship" plenty of times...

A recent episode had the crew assigned to deliver famine relief supplies to a lesser developed planet that the UFP had been in contact with for a while. The crew got caught up in the middle of a military coup, and had to decide between courses of action that were equally unpalatable -- cooperating with unsavory alien soldiers who had no conception of Universal Rights, or risking failure in the mission.

I've also pared down Federation membership from hundreds to dozens of worlds. Just makes it more manageable from a GM perspective....and more realistic from an astropolitical one. It would be hard enough to coordinate policies and militaries between a half dozen alien races scattered across twenty or so worlds and moons.

And the "new life and new civilizations" are truly alien. Yes, Humans, Deltans, Orions, Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, etc. all look how they're supposed to. But any "Human-looking, marginal," alien race hit the chopping block. Alpha Centaurans were the first to go. Alpha Centauri was colonized by Humanity in the late 21st century. The "Preservers" and the "law of parallel developement" are gone (unless we're talking about "preservers" who seeded Earth, Qo'noS, Vulcan, etc. with life forms that look very similar; I quite liked that idea.)

To this end, the Tholians are putting in an appearance in the campaign. I'm also trying to work up stats for aquatic aliens and a purely aerial culture in a gas giant.

Another thing struck me when watching "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" director's cut over the holidays. Space travel has become too commonplace, too run-of-the-mill. TMP actually tried to drive home the point that launching and flying a starship three football fields in length is no mean feat. Sometimes (i.e., the wormhole effect scene,) things just don't work properly, and you have to do your best to fix them. Just travelling through space can get you killed. Most people don't do it because it IS dangerous. Most people in space either HAVE to be there, or else they SHOULDN'T be there. That idea has largely disappeared from Star Trek, and space travel feels old hat because of it.

In my campaign, travel between core Federation systems can take days or weeks -- travel to Qo'noS weeks or months, travel to Rigel can take over a year depending on the speed. Communications are faster, but still limited in maximum speed, so messages can still take days to arrive. No real time communication is possible between star systems. I am going to throw ion storms and other space hazards at the PCs somewhat regularly. One episode, I think, is going to center on just getting through a storm of this nature.

My missions try to emphasize the fact that the characters, who are junior officers, are typically on their own, and cannot usually rely on backup from anyone.

In short, I've tried to construct a universe that is believable, consistent, and causes the players to question their assumptions.

[black campbellq]

Interesting take, jkp...not dissimilar in some ways from our take on things.

We're running post DS9/Voyager. The first thing I did was toss anything so egregiously bad or conflictory with other episodes. I then started with the idea of making the universe as 'real' and consistent as possible, while maintaining fantasy-fun. Starfleet is more militant, more like the original show than the TNG period. You still have to do PT, work duty schedules. There's a chain of command and it is rigorous.

Like you, TMP set the tone for the way stuff works: space travel is not mundane. Things can and do go wrong, from ships occassionally running into things, to malfunctions of simple stuff -- like sewage mains going bad to transporters 'burping'; it takes time to get places. Just flying around the core worlds takes days to weeks. Getting to farther worlds takes months/years. Communications take hours to get from one end of the UFP to the other,and the power of the subspace comms needs to have repeaters. One fails, you are left without word to home for however long it takes to fix.

One caveat was that technology can have multiple uses -- like the replicators and transporters are variants of the same tech. But you can't rewire the deflector dish into a computer card reader or what have you; the technology has logical uses, and limits.

The other thing was to get away from the status quo of Trek. There's a tendency for things to remain static. Even when they change things -- the Klingons are our allies, but we're still fighting them an episode or so per season -- they come back to a sort of pre-bellum state.

The introduction of technology breeds the use of technology. The Ilia android was studied by McCoy and the info was around. With Data, the Federation should be able to make the breakthrough for machine intelligence. In our campiagn they did. Now android are becoming increasingly common, starships are beginning to evolve sentiency, and the biologics are having to cope (badly) with the iea f possibly being obsolete. (Yes there are smarter, stronger, and more 'alien' lifeforms, but look at the 'agrarian paradise' crap of the Trek universe; despite the fancy toys, the people of Trek tend to distrust technology in many ways.)

Things that happen in the campaign impact on the campaign later on. The Cardassians are moving closer to the UFP to try and recover from the Dominion War. the Romulans are also moving closer after the Shinzon affair. This last bit makes the Klingons nervous, and they react predictably -- with bellicose talk and hostility. Klingon/UFP relations are at an all-time low since the Klingon WAr in DS9. The androids are an increasingly potent issue; they are better in many ways than people, but they have to model their behavior and beliefs on something...so they are very much like us. With the same foiables...but smarter, stronger, and they evolve a whole lot faster.


The big thing was defining the Federation. It has been in the background the whole time and has never been well described.

The UFP in our campaign is a federation of multiple states. I based it on the United Nations idea, which seems to have been Roddenberry's concept, at least in insinuation on screen. Each world is a sovereign nation internally, but gives over it's foreign affairs to the Federation Council. The council represents each world or colony and is elected or appointed in whatever manner the homeworlds decide.

Like the UN, itstarted well, but by this period is increasingly taken with themselves and seeks to strengthen itself at the cost of the member states (as bureaucracies seem to inevitably do.) They are also increasingly risk-adversive and the number of worlds in the council makes getting things done increasingly difficult; the council also shields itself from criticism with very happy media coverage and these elite of the Federation view their opinions as much more enlightened and informed than the average citizens'. They are wholey unresponsive to anything but mass outcry about their actions. Despite this, the core worlds are utopian, due to technology and the lack of the need to work for a living, but the outlying areas can be hard-scrable places. And people are still people...they can be more civilized, more peaceable, but they still act in their self-interest.

The economy of the UFP has become almost non-existent, save for the outlying areas; you can create anything with a replicator, there's little need to trade, save for the few items that can't be made. Luxury items are easy to come by and common. The society is very weak-willed, for the core worlds: people are comfortable, bored, and unmotivated on the whole. Tolerance of the various member states' customs and laws creates a lot of procedural & legal snafus once different cultures are thrown together, making the UFP a legal nightmare...gaining a convinction on many things can be stopped by these issues; 'crime' is non-existent (officially), but is actually endemic in places -- not for want, but for boredom. (Think of Glasgow on a Friday night... ) Suicidal hobbies -- like orbital skydiving and what have you -- are common, and since the UFP respects a person's right to self-determination, euthansia/suicide is more common than most would admit.

As for the sense of wonder, a central theme in our campaign has been the loss of this sense of wonder in exploration: as with the shows, the wonder has sort of died of as technology has become advanced enough to deal with many of the problems Starfleet encounters. There is a lot of wistful pining for the 'good ol days' of Starfleet. Less than looking forward, I took a chance by making the game a parable for the modern day: people are either looking forward (in hope or dread), or back nostalgically to escape now.

[jkp1187]

I looked at my last post, and just wanted to add one last point: unlike the TNG series, which seems to take Starfleet as a sort of combination of Peace Corps ideals grafted onto the U.S. Navy, I have taken the Royal Navy of the late 18th/early 19th centuries as the Starfleet paradigm in my game.

I also take a jaundiced view toward replicators. Unless they work on magic, any replication technology still requires raw materials of some sort to run, meaning that trade in raw materials still requires a good old-fashioned economy to exist. Mankind has found the use of currency as a medium of exchange to be socially useful for thousands of years. Those societies without such a medium of exchange are typically primitive, in both knowledge and social/cultural development. My prediction is that this will continue to be true for at least another few thousand years.

So to answer the question about serious SF, I guess you could call my take on it one part Horatio Hornblower, one part Arthur C. Clarke, set in Roddenberry's universe.

[jkp1187]

Starfleet is more militant, more like the original show than the TNG period. You still have to do PT, work duty schedules. There's a chain of command and it is rigorous.

Agreed. Was I the only one who found Riker's behavior toward Captain Jellicoe in "Chain of Command" to be atrocious? He should've been drummed out of the service for that, if he hadn't already been eased out after turning down offers of command.

The UFP in our campaign is a federation of multiple states. I based it on the United Nations idea, which seems to have been Roddenberry's concept, at least in insinuation on screen. Each world is a sovereign nation internally, but gives over it's foreign affairs to the Federation Council. The council represents each world or colony and is elected or appointed in whatever manner the homeworlds decide.

I took NATO as the paradigm of the Federation. It was (and is,) after all a lot more successful than the UN.... It also has a Star Trek history tie-in, in that the Federation was (by all accounts,) founded after the Romulan War. Thus, it can be extrapolated that the organization was initially a defensive alliance formed to contain the Romulans. It later expanded to include a unified military command (like NATO,) and a forum for discussion of political and economic issues of joint concern.

[BouncyCaitian]

Riker's attitude towards Jellico should have had his hide ridden out on monorail so fas tit would have broken the sound barrier. Disagreement or not, you don't speak that way to superiors in the Service.

Anyway, I've often found TNG's treatment of Starfleet to be highly insulting to my intelligence. 80 years or not, the Admiralty would not become complete morons in that short a span of time, as you'd have a lot of longer live races (Vulcan, Edoan, etc.) in the upper command ranks who'd remember the bad old days when Klingons were THE enemy, The Romulans and Kzinti were wolves at the border, and piracy was common.

Part of the problem is that The Original Series was partly written by people who'd actually served in the various branchs of the Armed Forces and had some idea of why thing worked the way they did in a Naval setting, whereas from TNG, few if any writers on the show had any service background, thus having little clue how to write such a setting other than in Hollywood characature.

To reconcile this issue, I came up with two factions within the Admiralty that often fight tooth and nail over Starfleet policy, and various forms of influence over policy can be seen through Starfleet history.

Career Military Officers: This bunch tend to follow the Articles of Federation regarding Starfleet policy to the letter and spirit in which Starfleet's purpose was originally founded: that of a Defensive military organization charged with Defense of the Federation, interplanetary piracy interdiction, Peacekeeping duties, and exploration. Something like a Later-Day U.S. Navy/Coast Guard.

Career Explorers: Following a much looser interpretation of the Articles, This faction sees Starfleet as an scientific explorer organization primarily, and defensive organization a distant second, if at all.

Suffice it to say, the Explorer has been loosing ground an influence in Starfleet since Wolf 359 and all the way through to the end of the Dominion War.

Which makes them more than a bit vindictive.

[Tobian]

Hmm while you may be right about the writers not having the neccessary military experience to write about those themes, I very much think it was a consceous decision to portray Starfleet as much more than just a military organisation - because it was ALWAYS that, yes, depending on which Admiral is in charge of what task force at what time, and down to individual Captains' personalities and discretion, the emphasis of the chain of Command may vary: But the overal intention was to show that it wasn't really Military, and as a beleiver in not always resorting to violence or the short path will help you solve much more diverse problems is why I was a fan of TNG far more than the more military side of the shows.

Unless all of those 'peacetime' admirals were far too weak to survive the first onslaught, thry will still be arround come peace time again to get things back to normality: Which i might add, as you mention many of these older and seasoned admirals will have had much in the way of combat experience in their youth to get the job in the first place!

The single bigest reason, however, that X person got away with talking to Y admiral like that is because a functional chain of Command does not make for good drama! There is very much of the bump in the road Phenomena in Startrek - there's a jolt in the road, everyone over reacts to it then for some reason go back to normal afterwards It's the same reason they forget they used more advanced technology the previous week, and explains why people have sudden character transplantsand go psychotic - because the writers wanted them too!

Well that's just how I like my Trek, but back to the actual subject of the thread

Often one of the main elements of Sci-fi is to represent themes of the modern day: Such as Startrek 4 and the extinction of Whales: While fanciful in concept it's example wasn't exactly subtle. Equally while the Klingons have had their culture compared to the Mongols, Japanese and Norweigian (amongst others! ) the point about them was they represented the 'red menace' and once the series grew up, and once the producers decided to make them with a 3rd dimension, they came to peace with the Federation, and they moved on: Repetition is easy to identify, but very limiting to the plot, and in much the same way as their relationship with the Federation is analagous to the Ex Soviet Union Vs America (though the lines become insdistinct if you're trying to show who's who hehe) - the interdynamic of a tenuous peace and the long held grudges playing out in to dramas are what fueled several plot devices and whole story arks within the show. Fortunatelly the Federation has not invented a 'Peace ray' which they can beam onto planets and they automatically become good friends, go on long walks in the countryside together and sing joyously about the rainbows and butterflies it would save so much time but would make rubbish drama!

Another theme I like to use is that of the cyclic nature of time, which is another theme often found in Startrek, showing the accidents of the past to help reafirm your direction in the future, a kind of Cosmic karma But not just that, For example, in a recent episode of my campaign the players are coming up against new ancient and powerful aliens who've destroyed much bigger fish than then before, hundreds of years in the past. Now it might be fun (for me only!) to have an unstopable ship of death turn up and destroy them, but they should come to understand the nature of what they are to face up to, so instead I decided to actually take them back into the past to see what happened to the the last lot that it happened too. It didn't help them to understand what is happening now and what they 'bad guys' intend to do, but it gave them allot mor einformation than they could have gained any other way, and showed them the true devastation of what happened last time! This is similar to showing Sauron attacking Middle Earth at the beginning of Fellowship, but then switching to an idillic paradise, where they have no comprehension of such things, the idea of showing the past as a means to showing how the future could be.

Trek's done this theme a number of times, from the Iconians to the Vaduar, to the Borg: for dramatic purposes your characters need to have time to prepare and learn from their predecessors mistakes to survive and learn.

The Fundamental largest theme in Sci-fi is exploration, but not just of space and of planets and aliens, but the discovery of the self, both in the character and of the observer. Introducing the alien and bizare helps people to lower their defences and preconceptions, and it is very much something that Startrek did from it's earliest incarnation. It's hard to believe now that people could alude Spock to the Devil and being evil, but they did, and he was a controvertial character amongst religious groups and the sponsors: Plus you had things like the first black kiss (Nichelle Nicholls) and the (if humerous) concept of a Russian onboard the ship! Because they are dressed up in funny Sci-Fi constumes people dismiss them, but it is infact a clever way to break down bariers, open closed minds and change opinion: it's not flawless or even all that effective but it works. Sometimes the story about an unusual race or discovery is really an exploration of preconceptions, challenging beliefs, and exploring your feelings on a subject, but in a clever and abstract way, such as racism, homosexuality, old age and Euthenasia, all tough subjects to bring to the screen, but they have been done on Trek.

There are also the more exotic subjects regarding the consiquences of change: introduction of new technology and it's effect on people, their world, overcoming that fear, or overcoming that technology! it's all a fine line, but the moral implication of a rapidly changing world have been a byword of the 20th century. Again these themes are always subtle representations of the modern concerns, but yes there are also the true science fiction ideas, (which nontheless are still modern concerns) such as the increasing reliance and connection to the machine (AKA Data and the Borg, mirror sides of the same coin), change outside of evolution, such as genetic experimentation and evolution to another form of existence: and even yes, the societal impact of suddenly discovering warp drive, and discovering that there are more of us out there, which comes full circle to the core of Trek - to seek out new worlds

[jkp1187]

Hmm while you may be right about the writers not having the neccessary military experience to write about those themes, I very much think it was a consceous decision to portray Starfleet as much more than just a military organisation - because it was ALWAYS that, yes, depending on which Admiral is in charge of what task force at what time, and down to individual Captains' personalities and discretion, the emphasis of the chain of Command may vary: But the overal intention was to show that it wasn't really Military, and as a beleiver in not always resorting to violence or the short path will help you solve much more diverse problems is why I was a fan of TNG far more than the more military side of the shows.

I agree. Starfleet is a quasi-military organization. But it is still the first and last line of defense of the Federation, and it is still a ship in space whose crew must, ultimately, follow and respect their Captain when he makes a decision. Didn't that episode have enough drama with Picard being beaten within an inch of his life (the David Warner - Patrick Stewart interrogation scenes are, in my mind, some of the best in TNG,) and the Cardassians threatening war? Typical example of bad writing. A false/unnecssary conflict was created just for drama's sake. I'd much rather have seen more mind-games between Stewart and Warner, or, perhaps, skirmishes between Starfleet and the Cardassians.

(Another example of this was the movie "K-19". Instead of showing a movie about a Soviet sub crew's efforts to keep alive when their nuclear reactor goes to hell, the writers had to throw in an unnecessary -- and ahistorical -- possible nuclear war occurring if the sub's reactor had a meltdown. Ditto the film version "2010", which has the world at the brink of superpower confrontation during the joint US-Soviet mission to rescue Discovery. Apparently, the wonders of space and the mystery of the monolith weren't enough. Poor concept development all around.)

If the UFP really was on the brink of war, Enterprise had better be ready for it, and Riker's (and, to a much lesser extent, Geordi's, and Troi's) attitudes were highly unprofessional at best. Riker let his personal attachment to Picard get in the way of doing his job. He should have been court-martialed, at least in any service where there is even a hint of a chain of command.

I do think, alas, that the tendency of modern writers having no experience in the military (or, indeed, any career path other than writing,) is a serious limitation on their effectiveness in shows such as Star Trek that are not in a typical setting. (In fact, I'm sure that the level of technobabble increases as the writers' experience outside the field of writing decreases....)

Often one of the main elements of Sci-fi is to represent themes of the modern day: Such as Startrek 4 and the extinction of Whales: While fanciful in concept it's example wasn't exactly subtle. Equally while the Klingons have had their culture compared to the Mongols, Japanese and Norweigian (amongst others! ) the point about them was they represented the 'red menace' and once the series grew up, and once the producers decided to make them with a 3rd dimension, they came to peace with the Federation, and they moved on: Repetition is easy to identify, but very limiting to the plot, and in much the same way as their relationship with the Federation is analagous to the Ex Soviet Union Vs America

I don't think it's correct that the earlier portrayals of Klingons were "2-dimensional". Kor in "Errand of Mercy" was not, and neither was Kang and his consort in "Day of the Dove". Further, John Ford's novel, "The Final Reflection" portrays the Klingons in a much more textured and interesting way than any of the TV shows or films would (though I cringe at useless retroactive continuity efforts to "explain" the different appearance of the Klingons in the old series versus the movies and later.) [As an aside, Diane Duane's "The Romulan Way" is head and shoulders above anything that later television and film writers came up with about those cousins of the Vulcans.]

(though the lines become insdistinct if you're trying to show who's who hehe) -

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean here -- the Federation has always been a future avatar of Roddenberry's vision of American ideals and culture.

[Tobian]

GAH I don't want to get in to a running debate on the efficacy of realism of writing of the chain of Command in Startrek as it wasn't the point of the thread: I'm just saying perhaps people shouldn't be so hard on characters because they are at the whims of their writers, much like I am not hard on my characters if *I* force them into corners, for reasons of plot, I usually also hand them a way out- of course they are also given enough rope to hang themselves by too

There may have been a couple of offshoots from the moustachio twirling vilain motif that was stamped on almost all TOS Klingons, but by and large they were just bad guys, who's sole purpose was to provide a bad guy for the Federation to beat - and not alwys with force of amrs, usually by clever tactics (and yes usually involving some arms hehe) - I am not counting novels as I would not count them as TOS, they are novels writen in the theme of TOS and by their very nature Novels have FAR more time to explore the intricacies of culture and depth that the TV series lacked, so no doubt the Klingons or ROmulans are much better portrayed.

With regards to my comment about the cold war.. Well I know full well most people automatically assume America = Good guys therefore Federation = America, but when you sit down objectivelly The Federation is a staunchly socialist structure, America is not. Especially in TNG they made especial fun of the Ferengi as being backwards - materialistic capitolists who would do anything to make a quick buck - some of the bad traits of America, which in a Rodenbery-ist mould he would do away with, and in his vision did in TNG (and to a lesser extent TOS), hence while I am not analogising Soviet Russia Or America in either a positive or negative light, both have ideologies which could be federation-like. I've seen plenty of (mostly American) rantings about how Startrek is full of beatnick 'Red menace' pussies yadda yadda yadda, but then years of Cold war did that to the country. Personally, while I tend to take most American's as middle of the road Libertarians, and it's certainly represented in it's ideology, America is driven by the capitalist machine, and the massivelly wealthy sharks circle the international waters. it would take a tremendous Paradigm shift for most western nations to give up on 'Capitalism as our Raison D'etre, and embrace hardline Socialist concepts, but that is exactly what Startrek represents, and it is the vision of the future it portrays.

[jkp1187]

GAH I don't want to get in to a running debate on the efficacy of realism of writing of the chain of Command in Startrek as it wasn't the point of the thread: I'm just saying perhaps people shouldn't be so hard on characters because they are at the whims of their writers, much like I am not hard on my characters if *I* force them into corners, for reasons of plot, I usually also hand them a way out- of course they are also given enough rope to hang themselves by too

Didn't mean to hijack the thread, it's just that creating these sorts of false crises is a real writing pet peeve of mine. Lowest common denominator writing, if you ask me. What's wrong with being a little demanding of the audience?

Libertarians, and it's certainly represented in it's ideology, America is driven by the capitalist machine, and the massivelly wealthy sharks circle the international waters.

Ahhh...only because America was tutored by the masters. "Lest we forget, lest we forget...."

I suppose I am just more comfortable discarding those elements of Star Trek that seem to be to be particularly fatuous.... There are so many internal contradictions in Trek background "logic" that it isn't worth arguing over "canon". My campaign is set in a universe "inspired by" Roddenberry, with characters with the same names and similar personalities, but the universe is ultimately my take on the future. It's much more effective than worrying about canon debates, which (to me) always degenerate into a variant of whether 72 virgins can fit on the head of a pin.

[Tobian]

Ahhh...only because America was tutored by the masters. "Lest we forget, lest we forget...."

Learning something which you know is wrong is the antithesis of learning! History is a tool with which we learn the mistakes that were made, and correct them, not refine those mistakes into a sharper blade!

I suppose I am just more comfortable discarding those elements of Star Trek that seem to be to be particularly fatuous.... There are so many internal contradictions in Trek background "logic" that it isn't worth arguing over "canon". My campaign is set in a universe "inspired by" Roddenberry, with characters with the same names and similar personalities, but the universe is ultimately my take on the future. It's much more effective than worrying about canon debates, which (to me) always degenerate into a variant of whether 72 virgins can fit on the head of a pin.

Quite Canon is, however the stuff which is on the show.. the end. Not a fanboy website, not a novel and technically not even 'the official' technical manuals either, however yes, when we create our own paradigms, we are quite capable of putting it through the spin dryer with a bottle or rose tinted dye, and making an all new shirt

[jkp1187]

Learning something which you know is wrong is the antithesis of learning! History is a tool with which we learn the mistakes that were made, and correct them, not refine those mistakes into a sharper blade!

I suspect we'll disagree on what those "mistakes" actually were....

Quite Canon is, however the stuff which is on the show.. the end. Not a fanboy website, not a novel and technically not even 'the official' technical manuals either, however yes, when we create our own paradigms, we are quite capable of putting it through the spin dryer with a bottle or rose tinted dye, and making an all new shirt

Canon is the last refuge of the uncreative.