Star Trek Star Trek Picard Discussion Thread

bullethead

Part-time fanfic writer
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I'm not so sure what's makes this a "colonizer" outfit, other than it's white? It kinda looks like that outfit he wore to Risa back in the series proper. Is this like that thing with the first lady visiting africa a few years back and some idiots on twitter freaked out because she wore a pith helmet on a safari trip or something?
I want to say that the full white suit plus white hat has been associated with slavery and/or European colonization somewhere, but I don't know if that's been a recent (last 20-30 years) thing or something that actually originated during the colonial era.
 
D

Deleted member 88

Guest
Picard is a man who wants to practice what he preaches.

Diplomacy
Peace
Curiosity
Compassion
Honesty

What makes TNG Picard so praiseworthy is he doesn't just babble on about these things, he embodies them.
 

Shipmaster Sane

You have been weighed
So explain the borg, the klingons, the dominion, etc, still exist.
They're not humans, mostly. Humans are magic. Who knows how many other magical races we dont know about, considering the Q consider "Retroactively erase species back past the origin of life on their planet" to be an acceptable way of dealing with them.

The Borg also nearly got the galaxy put out of it's own misery the very first time they interacted with the metaphysical. Remember? Magical John Carpenter libertarians started popping planets with their lightspeed semen beams and were literally immune to all weapons until a human played with nanites for ten minutes, creating a weapon the Borg still couldnt fathom after seeing it demonstrated despite the fact it was built using only technology they owned?

As far as I can tell, the kind of thing you're talking about has happened exactly once in the history of the series, in "The Survivors" and they guy who did it went against everything his race typical stood for and was so horrified he vowed to never do anything like that again.
Ahh, I love the satisfaction of hearing someone admitting they haven't even watched the show.

It's a plot thread that runs literally the length of TNG, it's the first, last, and many episodes in between. It's the meta-plot of the entire fucking series.
 

bullethead

Part-time fanfic writer
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Ahh, I love the satisfaction of hearing someone admitting they haven't even watched the show.

It's a plot thread that runs literally the length of TNG, it's the first, last, and many episodes in between. It's the meta-plot of the entire fucking series.
Dude, the only time the Q actually fucked with species as a whole was All Good Things, and the way Picard saved humanity was by showing that humanity could think outside of the box it had shoved itself in.

Like, there's only two or three other times noncorporeal, super powerful beings have done anything on purpose to influence the actual state of the galaxy:
-TOS: Errand of Mercy
-TNG: The Survivors
-DS9: Sacrifice of Angels

Yes, the meta-plot of TNG is Q testing and judging whether or not humanity is a savage species and if it deserves to exist, but TNG isn't full of examples of planets and civilizations wiped out by higher beings for their hubris/savagery/etc...

Hell, Stargate has more examples of that, due to the Ancients wiping out a few planets due to some Ascended person or another trying to help out.
 

Battlegrinder

Someday we will win, no matter what it takes.
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Obozny
They're not humans, mostly. Humans are magic. Who knows how many other magical races we dont know about, considering the Q consider "Retroactively erase species back past the origin of life on their planet" to be an acceptable way of dealing with them.

The Borg also nearly got the galaxy put out of it's own misery the very first time they interacted with the metaphysical. Remember? Magical John Carpenter libertarians started popping planets with their lightspeed semen beams and were literally immune to all weapons until a human played with nanites for ten minutes, creating a weapon the Borg still couldnt fathom after seeing it demonstrated despite the fact it was built using only technology they owned?

"Voyager had dumb plots, therefore humans have supernatural powers" is....quite the claim.

Ahh, I love the satisfaction of hearing someone admitting they haven't even watched the show.

It's a plot thread that runs literally the length of TNG, it's the first, last, and many episodes in between. It's the meta-plot of the entire fucking series.

Q's "I'm testing you" things comes up in two episodes, the first and the last, other times he's just there, screwing around with the crew for his own amusement or as part of something else.


Like, there's only two or three other times noncorporeal, super powerful beings have done anything on purpose to influence the actual state of the galaxy:
-TOS: Errand of Mercy
-TNG: The Survivors
-DS9: Sacrifice of Angels

And I think it's worth nothing that in two of them, said beings power was incredibly limited. The organians can, evidential, only affect things near their home planet (since there have been multiple wars between the very two powers they warned not to go to war with each other, let alone stuff like the Dominion war or the borg) and they both did nothing and everyone else involved had no concern that they might do something.

And the wormhole prophets can only really do something funky if you go into the wormhole that they control, otherwise they don't do anything.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Q's "I'm testing you" things comes up in two episodes, the first and the last, other times he's just there, screwing around with the crew for his own amusement or as part of something else.
Gonna disagree. He specifically stated he was testing humanity when he turned Riker into a Q in "Hide and Q." One can also reasonably say his actions in "Q Who," "Tapestry," and "Qpid" were tests or at least lessons that preceded tests.
 

Darth Robbhi

Protector of AA Cruisers, Nemesis of Toasters
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Gonna disagree. He specifically stated he was testing humanity when he turned Riker into a Q in "Hide and Q." One can also reasonably say his actions in "Q Who," "Tapestry," and "Qpid" were tests or at least lessons that preceded tests.
Picard specifically called Q out in Q Who, asking if the lesson could have been taught without loss.

Q pretty much noped that. Picard paid for his arrogance. Q kept it from being fatal, though.

On the other hand, Tapestry was teaching Picard to embrace the virtues of his vices. The brash, arrogant young man was the key to Picard being great. Again, Q saved the day by letting Picard try it out, learn, but not suffer the consequences.

Q lets Picard stumble, maybe even fall; but he’s also there to pick Picard back up again.
 
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D

Deleted member 88

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Q may be God after all, at least as far as Picard is concerned.
 

Jormungandr

The Midgard Wyrm
Founder
Okay, IIRC Seven in Voyager was, through the limited windows we saw into her sexuality as it wasn't important to her, as straight as an arrow.

She wanted to boink Kim on a misguided attempted at 'mating' early on, and by late series pretty much became addicted to a holodeck fantasy of her shacking up with Chakotay.

In the years post-Voyager, could she have discovered more about herself? Yeah, a good possibility due to character growth. Hell, girls who go to college or uni and discover they swing both ways is a stereotype for a reason.

But this article, this article and Ryan's own drinking of the Kool-Aid state she's always been bisexual, despite this not being a thing thought of in Voyager.

It also goes on to talk about how there was sexual-tension between Janeway and Seven, and that being assimilated is equated to transgenderism and the issues they face.

...uh, what? They're certainly not trying to push a narrative, are they?

For fuck's sake.
 

bullethead

Part-time fanfic writer
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But this article, this article and Ryan's own drinking of the Kool-Aid state she's always been bisexual, despite this not being a thing thought of in Voyager.
Actually, there was like one line about Seven not getting monogamy and saying just banging whoever you want is good, but I dunno if that's enough to make her bi.
 

Jormungandr

The Midgard Wyrm
Founder
Actually, there was like one line about Seven not getting monogamy and saying just banging whoever you want is good, but I dunno if that's enough to make her bi.
She was, at the time, completely clueless about social-norms, so I'd chalk that up to that.

The "bang anyone" line may be a subtle indication, but it's pretty vague.
 

Battlegrinder

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Obozny
They're certainly not trying to push a narrative, are they?

There's been like 4 or 5 recent ST.com articles about queer related topics, one after the other.

I suspect they are pushing a narrative, but not the one you're thinking of. TNG and later tended to be....progressive, yes, but not the way TOS was, they were always very careful and never strayed too far from what safe to advocate. For example, Stigma, which boldy tackled the AIDs issue and denounced the idea of stigmatizing those who suffer from it......in 2003, well after that had become an entirely mainstream position. ST had stopped being a trailblazer and was merely advocating for the same thing other people had already started pushing for. Then they were off the air for 15 years and returned to the screen to boldly advocating for things no one else dared speak out against. Having a black female lead in 2018 or whenever STD started air was not exactly a brave, progressive stance.

So today, when there's a building movement lashing out against anything insufficently woke, and ST has been hamhandly trying to appeal to a group that overlaps with the supporters of that movement, they risk having that audience turn on them (which is really bad because they've already pissed off massive portions of thier original audience). So they hire a couple of ultra woke tools who read thier politics into everything to write a few articles about how no, ST has always been super woke and definately didn't spend most of it's being entirely milquetoast and avoiding any touchy issues, and they're hoping that papers over the issue.
 

Darth Robbhi

Protector of AA Cruisers, Nemesis of Toasters
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Okay, IIRC Seven in Voyager was, through the limited windows we saw into her sexuality as it wasn't important to her, as straight as an arrow.

She wanted to boink Kim on a misguided attempted at 'mating' early on, and by late series pretty much became addicted to a holodeck fantasy of her shacking up with Chakotay.

In the years post-Voyager, could she have discovered more about herself? Yeah, a good possibility due to character growth. Hell, girls who go to college or uni and discover they swing both ways is a stereotype for a reason.

But this article, this article and Ryan's own drinking of the Kool-Aid state she's always been bisexual, despite this not being a thing thought of in Voyager.

It also goes on to talk about how there was sexual-tension between Janeway and Seven, and that being assimilated is equated to transgenderism and the issues they face.

...uh, what? They're certainly not trying to push a narrative, are they?

For fuck's sake.
If there was overt lesbian homosexuality in Voyager, it wasn’t Seven and Janeway. That was more mother-daughter rebellion.The overt lesbian themes were between Seven and the Borg Queen. The Borg Queen behaved more like psychotic ex to Seven than anything else. We explicitly saw those overtones in First Contact and Dark Frontier.

Homosexuality and bisexuality amongst xBs should not come as much of a surprise. Borg are intimate in the most intimate way possible - their minds are literally interconnected, and they are subsumed into a whole of billions of minds. That is a lot of intimacy and a whole lot of very different desires blended together and injected into every drone. Sure,the sexual drive is suppressed, and Borg drones may not even be capable of sex. But someone who spends any time in the Collective has a lot if same-sex intimacy, and very well may have their path set differently, especially if they were assimilated pre-puberty, as Seven was.

That may be the worst part for an xB. How do you know what is you, and what is an echo of someone else?
 

Captain X

Well-known member
Osaul
Honestly I can't get over the apologism for this show. Not only did it just completely wreck established lore on basically everything, it ripped off almost all of what it was from other sources, and the writing was just terrible. It ripped off so much from Mass Effect, too, from visuals like the holographic displays/controls, to the pervasive anti-AI attitude, to the overall plot, really. Both Stewart and the guy who ran the show admitted that the story was taking a back seat to politics as well, and boy did it show. They also ripped off quite a bit from LotR, though not quite as blatantly. It's almost like this show wanted to be anything but Star Trek, and boy did it succeed.

Forgotten is the utopian, post-scarcity Earth, where wealth disparity is no longer a thing because you can literally just replicate whatever you want, the advanced medical technology from even years in the past of when this series was supposed to take place, and the histories of pretty much all the characters. Just as an example, the show was so obsessed with everyone and their uncle yelling at Picard about how he was wrong about everything, and everything bad that had happened was his fault, that everyone just completely forgot about one of the few award-winning episodes of TNG, where Picard lived an entire lifetime and had a family, which was shown to have still effected him long afterwards, all so Riker and Troi can talk down to him about how he allegedly doesn't know how to deal with a teenager. Another thing is that the show is built around this strange obsession Picard supposedly had with Data, which is based on a relationship the characters were never shown to have. I suppose one could argue that Picard was somehow effected by Data sacrificing himself to save his life, but this is hardly the first time his crew saved his ass at the last minute. Hell, Data was instrumental in breaking through to him as Locutus. But where was Data's real best friend? Where was Geordi? Also apparently forgotten are all the times Picard has saved the Earth and the Federation, all so he can be berated over the dumbest things. Also forgotten is the strength of the Romulan Empire - they shouldn't have needed any kind of help from the Federation. It also makes no sense why they would need to build a completely brand new fleet - that was entirely so Kurtzman could inject his 9/11 truther bullshit. And all of Seven's character development was thrown directly into the garbage in order to become whatever this show needed her to be. It's appalling that so much was thrown out, even as the show threw in all these little continuity references, like Icheb lacking a part because he'd donated it to Seven, yet they couldn't remember that Picard had actually had a family, or the advanced state of medical technology which could have saved Icheb, probably pretty easily?

Gads, there's so much I could go into, but I find myself not really wanting to, because I'd have to write a damn essay to get it all out.

One final point I want to cover, though, is this argument that always seems to come up to defend anything stupid a new Star Trek series does, which has been used to defend STD, and I can even remember it being used to excuse ENT's stupidity, which is the idea that the other shows sucked in their first couple of seasons, too. I'd actually argue that wasn't really so much the case, as both TNG and DS9 has some pretty good episodes in their first couple of seasons (hell, DS9 had "Duet" in its first season), but that's really besides the point. The real point is that this isn't much of an argument specifically because any new show now has all the lessons that were ever learned on any of the shows, going all the way back to 1987. All those lessons, are there for the learning, along with those learned by all kinds of other shows (nuBSG, for example), if anyone working on nuTrek actually cared enough to avoid making the same mistakes over again. Of course, they basically jettisoned everything but names and a few things here and there out the airlock.
 

Jormungandr

The Midgard Wyrm
Founder
Arise, foul Kurtzman Trek series thread!

Someone posted up an interesting theory on the latest (and final) Picard season.

So, potential spoilers for those following it.



Three unaddressed points: first is that Seven claimed that the Borg's collective memory was fragmented in the past, and that their territory had been reduced to a handful of systems, in Voyager; second is that Juratti is now the new Queen and is BFFs with the Federation, unless there had been a split between her Borg (Queen-led) and the others (Collective will-led); third is that fucking massive transwarp conduit that Juratti is guarding.

It could be that this force is what the Collective was formed from/around, like that Celiar in the non-canon Destiny books.
 

mspence

Well-known member
Jack just wanted to see his mommy?
Well at least we finally got to see a ship with actual lights.
And it's the old people against those darn assimilated kids.
 

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