[ SECRET POST #4845 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4845 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 56 secrets from Secret Submission Post #694.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

03. https://i.imgur.com/aYJTK8B.png

[(Anonymous)]

I think there are many, many, many dark points in Trek - both in its future history and in the show itself - they just don't show up very much in TNG specifically.

[(Anonymous)]

Ds9? Picard?

OP

[(Anonymous)]

I meant more in terms of the government form. Star Trek has the Federation, the idealist communist utopia. Yes, it turns out to not be perfect, but still, we never see the effort to get there, the Federation just is. Whereas on Babylon 5 the Alliance is earned and still isn't perfect but has to be maintained and goes through ups and downs before humanity's ultimate future.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

But.... but DS9

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Was ripped off from Babylon 5. The creator of B5 took his idea to them and they rejected it. Then they ripped off the whole thing for DS9. The guy who wrote B5 was just too nice to do anything about it.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Irrelevant, Ds9 still gave us Dukat and Winn

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

DS9 was a good show. But in this particular argument it is very relevant. The only Star Trek that had the same feel as B5 was DS9 - and that’s because DS9 was ripped off from B5.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Even if you 100% believe that DS9 ripped off the concept of B5, its still a part of Star Trek and they still had to actually go and make the show. And many of the details of DS9 that make it more pessimistic than TNG have very little to do with B5.

[(Anonymous)]

I think Trek’s thing was, everyone watching already knew man’s inhumanity to man. For large chunks of the show’s history they were in the middle of the Cold War, economic/historical/ideological differences had gotten the world to the point where one wrong button press would bring the apocalypse, so they just … decided let’s start where that part is already mostly fixed, and see what other things humanity can do besides relentlessly fuck themselves and everyone around them up? There’s still the elements there: TOS spent a lot of time stumbling over human colonies gone wrong, DS9 and early Voyager stuck a prybar in the Federation’s cracks to have a look-see at the underside, ENT had fun with Vulcan’s dark underbelly, even TNG had glimmers once the Borg war got off, but in general, I think the idea was, yes, political fuck-ups would be a realistic thing, and yes, the Federation realistically would take incredible balancing and likely centuries more work than we saw to even remotely be a possibility, but how about we skip that part and get to the cool stuff? And then go back to it on occasion, explore it at our leisure without it being a driving constant.

B5 is a 90s space opera luxuriating in examining in depth a future darkness that (hopefully) would no longer be a present reality. Not coincidentally, this is also the time DS9 feels free to roll up sleeves and start digging into the Federation’s oily underparts. But large chunks of Trek are 60s-through-00s are ‘lets all really really hope humanity grows out of its present suicidal batshit insanity someday because that would be really cool’. Also, weird aliens and sex pollen, because it did start out in the 60s.

They both fill different needs, is what I’m saying here, and are both excellent shows. B5 is the process of getting to Trek, with sidetracks to LotR. Trek just decided to jump ahead to the shinier parts, and then come back to the darker ones later when it (felt it) was safer.

[(Anonymous)]

I think the Trek franchise has displayed a lot of variety along these lines over the years. There's not much of that in TOS/TAS and TNG, and I know people point to those as the quintessential Star Trek - not gonna argue with that - and they are the foundational Trek shows, but they are not the majority of Star Trek and definitely not the only Star Trek.

I really like what ST: Picard was doing where it wasn't so much about examining the seedy underbelly of anything but showing that even a very mature and benevolent society can make some shit decisions that go against their ideals, but justify it because most of the fallout is suffered by people outside of the society. Star Trek has never been just about hope and idealism. It's always also been about examining contemporary society and its flaws (admittedly this always used to be in the form of weird aliens who just hadn't gotten their shit together yet) and I think Picard has very much been doing that, just incorporating points of view of people who haven't always been able to live on the shiny, happy side of the narrative.

[meadowphoenix]

optimism isn't mean to be a strictly realistic (i mean it's meant to be literally idealistic) foundation, imo, and there's space for that in art.