Future of Star Trek

Myrddin

degrassinoel wrote: »

i have to disagree, by the end of DS9 the resident regular Ferengi had proven themselves to be just as good and bad as their federation counterparts.

Yeah, but these are the handful of notable exception I alluded to. For instance...

Quark's mother/moogie had effectively implemented womens rights and had been the brains behind the Grand Nagus for years. Proving that the female of the species is every bit as good and bad as the male.

Moogie was a huge exception when considering Ferengi culture. Definitely the brains behind the Grand Nagus, & in her own right, a shrewd and enlightened businesswoman. However, she was an object of disgrace in the eyes of society, not only for wearing clothes and earning money, but for wanting equal rights for women. This to me reflects the overall society as being misogynistic, discriminative, and prejudiced. They were the rule, she was the exception.

Quark himself, though cunning and ruthless in his acquisition of profit had a heart of gold, which was proved over and over again, notably in 'The Magnificent Ferengi', and the episode where himself and Odo were stranded on some planet with little hope of surviving, Quark ultimately overcame his own survival instinct to save Odo.

And how did visiting Ferengi view Quark? A a complete joke. A failure. Weak, and flawed. While Quark is certainly a great and lovable character, he's by no means reflective of his culture. Sure, he has some of their traits, but by far & away he was far closer to huumaans than he was to his own people, & for that, he'd again be a notable exception.

Rom his brother had turned from a useless incompetent scheming background character into a respectable and intelligent engineer on DS9 - his son Nog had been the first Ferengi to join Starfleet and earned the admiration and respect of his colleagues, serving with distinction and being seriously injured defending his post in 'The Siege of AR-558'.

Again though, and very much like Quark, how were Rom & Nog viewed by their own culture? Absolute farces, that's how. Sure, both won the respect of their colleagues, but how many of their colleagues were Ferengi? Notable exceptions for sure, but not respective of Ferengi culture in any way shape or form.

I see the Ferengi as we are now, deeply flawed but capable of being better people, much as the humans and other races of the federation have aspired to be in the Star Trek universe.

I'd very much agree. Humanity seems driven by many of the things that drive the Ferengi way of life, yet, we are capable of being better. We left Ferengi culture at a time of huge change, a pivotal point where the old traditions were about to be surpassed by newer, more equality driven ways of doing things. It'd have been fascinating to see how Rom got on as Grand Nagus. I really don't think he'd have gone down well at all, it takes a long, long time to radically change the culture of an entire race who were so set in their ways, and so personally rewarded by their ways.

helimachoptor

This thread has got me watching BSG again.

In the Razor film, the doors opening/closing on Pegasus have the same sound as the holodeck doors on the Ent D

degrassinoel

helimachoptor wrote: »

This thread has got me watching BSG again.

In the Razor film, the doors opening/closing on Pegasus have the same sound as the holodeck doors on the Ent D

i've done the same, netflix is deadly

Gonna watch razor 1+2 tonight

Cookie_Monster

degrassinoel wrote: »

They are pretty much the comic relief that star trek needed, particularly in DS9. GN Zek was probably the best irregular character on the show, his laugh cracked me up every single time.. Quark's was hilarious too

dunno about that, I reckon Brunt tops the chart on that one. His rise and fall over the several season was a great outside plot.
Zek was a bit OTT I reckon in terms of silliness of character.

Indricotherium

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

dunno about that, I reckon Brunt tops the chart on that one. His rise and fall over the several season was a great outside plot.
Zek was a bit OTT I reckon in terms of silliness of character.

The disscussion Rom has with himself about the Mirror Universe Brunt cooking a meal is one of my faveourite scenes in Trek.

It's really funny, and it also chalks out the absurdity of the shows general storylines.

Indricotherium

Just watching a bit of trek today, and it has gotten me wondering about the overwhelmingly human character of Star Fleet.

Given that there are over 150 races in the federation, is it not unusual that Star Fleet is in the high 90%'s human?

I don't think that I have ever seen a non-human admiral? I'm struggling to think of a non-human above the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, other than Captain Solek, who seems to be Captain of a racially segregated ship, crewed entirely by Vulcans?

Myrddin

Indricotherium wrote: »

Given that there are over 150 races in the federation, is it not unusual that Star Fleet is in the high 90%'s human?

I suppose so, but in reality, is a lot of that due to budget/time constraints, and also wanting to appeal more to the viewers by having human characters who they can identify with?

I don't think that I have ever seen a non-human admiral?

There was a Vulcan one from memory...

I'm struggling to think of a non-human above the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, other than Captain Solek, who seems to be Captain of a racially segregated ship, crewed entirely by Vulcans?

Loads of senior officers were Lt. Cmdr or higher anyway - Worf, Dax, Tuvok, Data, amongst others. Higher than Commander, less so, but again, I think the writers are going for maximum connection with people for those in command maybe, so they tend to always place humans in those positions were their stories can be leveraged more?

Indricotherium

Myrddin wrote: »

Loads of senior officers were Lt. Cmdr or higher anyway - Worf, Dax, Tuvok, Data, amongst others.

Are all of those not lieutenant-Commanders?

Myrddin

Indricotherium wrote: »

Are all of those not lieutenant-Commanders?

Worf was promoted to full Commander in DS9.

IvySlayer

Kira was a Commander by the of DS9 and in charge of the station

There was a Bolian captain in TNG in Season 1

Sure wasn't the President of the UFP an alien?

Myrddin

IvySlayer wrote: »

Kira was a Commander by the of DS9 and in charge of the station

Indeed, though I think the original point was that everyone post Lt. Cmdr is somehow nearly always human. It's a valid point, the vast majority certainly seem to be - though I reckon it's because those characters are usually always used for human condition type stories, & the writers want people to connect with those characters. It's probably easier to achieve that if they're human, as viewers might not tend to connect with other races as easily. Just a theory really.

Sure wasn't the President of the UFP an alien?

Sure was.

Beefy78

I think the advent of Netflix and other VOD services makes a new Star Trek series a matter of 'when' and not 'if'.

Cantstandsya

When I read a thread (and they pop up fairly regularly) where some BSG fan rants about how Star Trek should be BSG I am somewhat relieved that TV Trek died when it did (after a relatively good, Star Trekky season of Enterprise) rather than being mutilated into some awful BSG clone a la Stargate Universe.

It always amuses that people complain about Star Trek's "banality" while simultaneously calling for it to be more "badass" with "better characters" (i.e. alcoholics and degenerates) and better space fights as though that were the opposite of banal.

I thought BSG was absolutely awful from beginning to end. A ship full of whiny teenagers pretending to be adults, no great surprise considering the show was aimed squarely at teenagers, where the plot spun so far out of control that it ended up an embarrassment.

As a Star Trek fan I can only pray to the ghost of Rodenberry that they leave it buried rather than resurrect it with any sort of BSG influence attached.

nyarlothothep

It's just a tv show??? I suppose though that your hatred of bsg would be paralleled by my hatred of Voyager, which imo represent the ultimate in vanilla mediocrity and smugness, Janeway was always right. It's probably the most conservative of ST shows which is why it annoys me so much. I've gained a sympathetic eye for DS9 because it's the ugly duckling of the franchise, it went against the orthodoxy. TNG was brilliant for its time, ditto TOS but really Voy and Ent deserved to be blasted out of the water and so they were pretty much by bsg which did everything better, sci fi that didn't fck around, a real sense of tension and danger in the space battles, the crew hating each other, conflict, gloom, profound elevations of hope only to give way to the depths of despair, an apocalyptic scenario, political and philosophical themes running throughout, Edward James Olmos giving acting master classes.

Seriously if you're going to find fault with the crews, Data had a propensity of turning sociopath at a second's notice, Worf had a multitude of issues and frequently acted out on them, Troi was incompetent generally, even the original crew had frequent lapses of sanity and the Voy crew, well Janeway was a dictator who solved every problem with sheer brute force rather than intellect, listened to no one but herself and presumed she was always right. The rest of the crew were unbelievable, maquis and starfleet just getting along after a few episodes just because the writers were lazy and writing to a formula that demanded light entertanment because "that's what audiences want" which couldn't have been less true! Even the set design reflected mid 90s blandness, beige and dull greys, earthtones, and everything was perfect. When I was a kid we used to have a joke about early DS9 being exactly that, boring because everything was operating to spec just fine. BSG addressed these problems, it may not have always worked but it basically improved on Trek, maybe not classic trek but it was definitely a refreshing change from the turgid, stagnant universe of Voy and Ent.

darlenmol

Friend told me there was a new series in the making with Worf as the main character. Any truth in this?

Kidchameleon

nyarlothothep wrote: »

...

Lol you still haven't reached season 4 yet have you! Pacing yourself?

nyarlothothep

Kidchameleon wrote: »

Lol you still haven't reached season 4 yet have you! Pacing yourself?

I've got 4 more eps to go in season 4, definitely pacing myself, as I don't want to run out of BSG. A lot of people cried foul about season 3, having watched the eps back to back for the past 4 months I don't think there was any decline in quality. However the exposition ep was a bit dissapointing, the one everyone liked, because I thought it was clumsy script writing, there shouldn't have been an info dump, they should have distributed it across season 4. Moreover, I would have gone with a different explanation for nearly everything but it's still workable if a bit typical of the overly convulted sc fi of X Files, Mass Effect and Star Trek at times.

degrassinoel

darlenmol wrote: »

Friend told me there was a new series in the making with Worf as the main character. Any truth in this?

Not that i know of, but he "might" be reprising his role as Worf very briefly in Con Man

User45701

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I also thought that it was held back by budget, some of the battles could have been larger, instead we got skirmishes between a few feds and a few Jem Hadar. Another issue, battles in Trek are kind of boring and take place on a 2D plane

With few exceptions, All good things, a small bit of the Xindi conflict. Although someone pointed out once that due to the design of federation ships their captains deliberately keep the saucer section on plain with attacking ships as its a harder hit then attacking from Z and hitting the bridge head on.
Combat was still always to linear though.

Kiith wrote: »

BSG spoiler (season 2) -

Adama's conversaion with Kane in that episode was one of my favourite BSG moments ever. Absolutely bad ass - "You can quote me any regulation your want...I'm getting my men!"

. Voyager could have taken even a fraction of that and been so much better. It's utterly stupid that there was no lasting damage to the ship, given how often things seemed explode.

Also the episode of year of hell was going to be a season of hell (hense the name but they changed it two a 2 parter instead)

my fav is after the meeting with Cain and Adama and Roslin are just sitting there in silence and she just turns to him and says "We have to kill her"

darlenmol wrote: »

Friend told me there was a new series in the making with Worf as the main character. Any truth in this?

Its in the works but not confirmed. Personally i don't like the time period worf wants to live in http://www.blastr.com/2015-6-16/here-are-star-trek-characters-michael-dorn-wants-back-his-proposed-captain-worf-series

Overall the future of trek is a bleak as it was when they announced enterprise and everyone i know cried out because it was set in the "past" and we would not get to find out what happens after the Dominion war and nemesis. We still don't

These new films are terrible.

I just found this btw
http://trekmovie.com/2015/06/03/star-trek-beyond-fan-creator-makes-his-pitch-for-a-new-series/

Its a shame the plan for a reset after the 3rd film to erase the first 2 didn't happen
im expecting more crap to be honnest. Feck ya anyway JJ

The_Valeyard

The new films create and gain interest in Trek. There is nothing wrong with that.


As for a new show, I'd loved an extra season of Enterprise with the refit NX.

Don't want a captain Worf series, its too much "Star Trek: The Next Thing"

I liked the idea of the show set in the far future where the federation is fat and bloated, and gets split in two by two by omega weapons unleashed by a new unknown race. A rustyails starship had to find answers. Thought that had potential.



Ah well......at least there is axannar to look forward to