I just don’t get it. What is the freaking problem of those directors, trying to rewrite federation into some kind of dystopian tech fascism?
I was annoyed by the first Star Trek movie by JJ Abrams, with those police cops. I was alienated by those anti-android resentments in Picard. I stopped watching Discovery after the first episode, because the main protagonist was sent to some kind of labor prison for disobedience, where prisoners regularly die. I didn’t think it could get any worse but just watching the first 10 minutes of Starfleet Academy makes me want to bury the whole franchise [edit: and stopped watching]. Some drumhead court-martial, lifelong prison sentence, violently separating a mother from her child and some goons beating up a prisoner. How in the hell is this the same federation of TNG, Voyager and DS9?
Star Trek is supposed to be the ONE fiction with a positive, utopian view on mankind and the future. I totally get the attraction of dystopian settings but for that I can read some Warhammer 40k novels. This really makes me furious.
Fortunately there is still Strange New Worlds.
Please spoiler me, when this bullshit in Starfleet Academy gets turned around in some twist, because otherwise I will just ignore the show.
they stared downgrading the federation in DS9 man.
Hopefully this spoiler will help:
Your concern is precisely the primary theme of the show.I’m on the same boat. Apart from Lower Decks, I can’t watch the new shows. I keep hoping a new show might fix it, and be for me, but the longer it goes, the less I’m interested in Star Trek.
Lately I’ve been thinking about unsubscribing from all the Star Trek communities, as all the discussions and hype about the new shows is making me think I’m no longer a trekkie. I loved TNG, DS9, VOY and tolerated ENT, but the new shows are clearly not made for me.
Already some amazing points here, but I will add one thing:
No matter how utopian your empire becomes, those who grow up in utopia do not have their guard up watching for evil in every corner. The Star Wars flipping back and forth from Republic to Empire over the millennia makes sense.
The federation existed for barely a millennia in its first incarnation. A fall of a galactic empire makes sense. Rebuilding it makes for good story.
Especially, and I can’t stress this enough, when it is a parallel to the world we live in. Trek has always been a way to mirror events and teach moral lessons… But most of all, hope.
The federation existed for barely a millennia in its first incarnation.
A millennium is still a good long time, in fairness. There are entire countries that haven’t even come near to that.
Great points all around. “Hope and Kindness” may seem like obvious cliche lessons, but one could argue that in today’s political climate they are as important as TOS calling out societal racism.
The Star Wars flipping back and forth from Republic to Empire over the millennia makes sense.
Star Wars society is a constant shithole. I don’t think the slaves of Tatooine care about if the senate or the emperor rules.
A fall of a galactic empire makes sense.
It does, but this is not the plot of a single show but a constant theme in most of the new series.
Tatooine is also not part of the Republic or Empire, it’s a rim planet where the ruling polity is the Hutt cartels, Coruscant is a better choice for what you are looking for, perfect on the surface but just below it rapidly becomes hellish
That discounts that star fleet has to be on watch against outside threats. This is the balance for their utopia.
Hey, remember in ‘The Conscience of the King’ when we found out that the governor of a colony massacred half the population because they were experiencing a famine?
Remember ‘The Menagerie’ when we found out you can still get the death penalty in Federation?
Remember how Kirk consigned the populations of two planets, one of which told the Enterprise in no uncertain terms to not visit, to violent war, because he didn’t like the way they were conducting their ongoing conflict in ‘A Taste of Armageddon’?
Remember in ‘A Wolf in the Fold’ where we learned that Starfleet has alliances with less advanced worlds where the population is amenable to being “pleasure planets” for officers on shore leave to engage in sex tourism?
Remember when Kirk used a primitive culture to fight a proxy war with the Klingons in ‘A Private Little War’, and then abandoned them when he got a bit sad?
Remember that a founding member of the Federation, the Tellarites, were willing to keep a planet out of the Federation so they could continue exploiting its rich resources that the locals weren’t able to properly defend on their own, in ‘Journey to Babel’?
Remember ‘Patterns of Force’ where a former Academy instructor and renowned Federation historian introduced Nazism to a pre-warp society, even becoming their Führer?
Remember when we found out in ‘The Cloud Minders’ that an explicitly Federation member world maintains a rigid caste system?
Remember ‘To Short a Season’ where the plot was based around a Federation admiral who had supplied weapons to terrorists as a commander, resulting in a coup where the terrorist leader took control of their planet?
Remember how in ‘The Measure of a Man’, the Federation demanded that a sentient being, a member of Starfleet for 24 years, submit himself to be experimented upon so the Federation could make more of his kind for their own use?
Remember when in ‘The Survivors’’, Picard choose to do nothing to the being who committed complete genocide of a sentient species, claiming there were no laws to fit his crime?
Remember ‘The Offspring’ when an Admiral shows up to take away Data’s child for study, despite the fact that he won his right to live in ‘The Measure of a Man’?
Remember when Worf murdered a candidate for head of a foreign state in ‘Reunion’ and got off with a slap on the wrist?
Remember ‘The Drumhead’ when a respected former Starfleet admiral comes aboard the Enterprise and begins to persecute a crewpoerson based on who his grandfather was, on the basis of the fact that he committed a thoughtcrime, and Worf went along with it?
Remember in ‘Ensign Ro’ how a Starfleet admiral colluded with agents of a fascist states to blame refugees of that fascist’s states occupation of their homeworld for an attack the fascists commited, and to that end ordered a disgraced Starfleet officer to offer weapons to the refugeers?
Remember when Picard ordered the creation of a virus that might have potentially committed genocide against the Borg in ‘I, Borg’?
Remmber in ‘Descent’ how Admiral Nechayev fed picard a bowl of shit for not deploing a virus that might have caused the genocide of the Borg?
Remember ‘The Pegasus’ where we learned that an admiral was trying to recover a lost Starfleet ship that could cloak, in blatant violation of their treaty with another galactic power?
Remember how in ‘Journey’s End’ the Enterprise is tasked with the forced relocation of Federation citizens to appease a fascist state, and then when those citizens refuse to be relocated, the Federation chooses to abandon them?
Remember how Admiral Nechayev ordered the Enterprise to aid a fascist state in rooting out the freedom fighters opposing their occupation of territory that used to belong to the Federation?
Remember ‘Captain Pursuit’ where Sisko is willing to release a sentient being who is being hunted for sport to his hunters?
Remember how often Sisko was opposed to the actions of freedom fighters working against the fascist state occupying their homes, beginning with ‘The Maquis’?
Remember ‘Homefront’ and ‘Paradise Lost’ when the Federation implemented martial law on Earth, including mandatory random blood screening of its citizens?
Remember when terrorist organization tried to implement their conservative ideals on a resort planet, and Worf joined them, and then saw no repercussions for doing so in ‘Let He Who is Without Sin…’?
Remember in ‘For the Uniform’ how Sisko used biological weapons against freedom fighters resisting a fascist occupation of their homes?
Remember how in ‘Inquistion’ we learned about Section 31, an secret organization within Starfleet intelligence that exists to carry out Starfleet’s dirty business?
Remember when Sisko used a former intelligence operative from a fascist state to trick a different fascist state into joining a war effort in, ‘In the Pale Moonlight’?
Remember ‘The Seige of AR-558’ where we see Starfleet officers committing war crimes, and collecting trophies off the bodies of fallen enemies soldiers?
Remember how in ‘When it Rains…’ we learned that Section 31 infected Odo with a biological weapon to kill the Changelings, and in ‘Extreme Measures’ that the Federation Council refused to provide a cure, even after one had been created?
Remember when Worf assissinated a foreign head of state in ‘Tacking Into the Wind’ at Sisko’s implied behest, and faced no consequences for doing so?
Remember how Janeway murdered a being, who had commited no crime and had been explicitly stated as being helpful to the crew, as he begged for his life in ‘Tuvix’?
Remember in ‘Nothing Human’ when we learned that the Voyager database includes the works and psychological profile a fascist scisentist whose research involved committing atrocities on the population of a planet his people had occupied and forced into labour?
Remember when Tom Paris was senstanced to solitary confinement on the bridge by Janeay, an act that is currently considered cruel and unusual punishment, in ‘Thirty Days’?
Remember ‘Equinox’ where we learn a Starfleet crew has been knowingly capturing and murdering sentient lifeforms to fuel their ship?
Remember how in ‘Shadows of P’Jem’ we found out that the Vulcans maintained a long range listening outpost under a site they declared sacred to their culture?
Remember in ‘Cogenitor’ when Archer refused to grant asylum to an alien being who was kept in sexual slavery?
Remember when Archer tortures someone for information in ‘Anomaly’?
Remember in ‘Damage’ when Archer orders the NX-01 crew to board an alien ship and steal vital components of their warp drive, leaving those beings stranded in a hostile and dangerous region of space?
Remember ‘Kir’Shara’ where we saw Shran torture Soval to assess the truth of informaiton he was being given?
Remember in ‘Bound’ how Archer accepted a gift of three slaves?
Remember ‘Star Trek: Insurrection’ where the Federation was allied with a state that keeps slaves, and agreed to force relocate a population so they could gain access to the resources of that people’s planet?
Very impressive list. I appreciate your diligence.
yeah but thats different
😂
Well, yeah.
I only listed things the Federation was directly involved in, unlike the OP.
Oh shit
nicelydone.gif
Remember when Picard ordered the creation of a virus that might have potentially committed genocide against the Borg in ‘I, Borg’?
The admiralty also ordered it and its deployment.
From memory, Picard got into trouble with the admiral because he ultimately decided against using the virus.
I was alienated by those anti-android resentments in Picard
Funnily enough, this isn’t actually anything new. The Federation has historically harboured sentiments against sapient androids and holograms, not intentionally, of course, but more that they don’t believe that they are people. Just look at the treatment the Doctor/Mark I EMH, Data, and the ExoComps received. The Doctor had fight to regain the rights to works he made, and had the Voyager crew factory resetting him whenever he had a human problem, Data had to fight to be recognised as enough of a person to avoid being dismantled, and then had to do again to avoid having his daughter taken. The ExoComps’ sapience was initially taken as malfunctions, and they were lobotomised, to be used as bombs. The Borg nearly got a genocidal virus unleashed upon them, by the Federation, and Picard specifically got into trouble for not deploying it.
To paraphrase Chancellor Gorkon, the Federation is a human(oid)s only club. Everyone else gets pushed to the wayside.
How in the hell is this the same federation of TNG, Voyager and DS9?
It is also the same Federation that saw no qualms about using multiple genocidal weapons against their enemies. The moment they were threatened even slightly, out comes the big G.
Sure, Wolf 359 had a considerable death toll, and one of the Federation core worlds was threatened, but the automatic reaction shouldn’t have been attempt genocide at the first opportunity. DS9 at least made an attempt to show that they were breaking the rules of engagement by putting down self-replicating subspace mines.
Similarly, the Dominion War. The Federation response to realising a rogue organisation had unleashed a virus designed to wipe out one of the main species of the Dominion seems to have been to sit pretty and wait for them to be forced to the negotiation table, rather than work towards a cure, and try to send it over ASAP. If it wasn’t for the DS9 crew going out of their way to make a cure, one might never have existed, leaving them to die. It would be unimaginable, if, during the Federation-Klingon war, the Federation had simply sat back, and told the Klingon Empire “good luck” in response to both Narendra-3, and the Praxis incidents, instead of offering aid. Nor did they just sit back and tell the Romulan Empire to go away when their main star blew up.
Voyager at least gets a little pass since they were working on their own, and didn’t have the support of the rest of the Federation backing them up, but ethically, it’s still not a good look for them to promote Captain Janeway for her work assisting Admiral Janeway in deploying the neurolytic pathogen that we know ultimately wiped out the Collective.
Star Trek is supposed to be the ONE fiction with a positive, utopian view on mankind and the future. I totally get the attraction of dystopian settings but for that I can read some Warhammer 40k novels. This really makes me furious.
I would be a little curious about where that came from. The Federation is better, but it thinks of itself as a perfect utopia, when TNG shows it to be more due to hubris on the part of the Federation, and that they not only have some ways to go, but have to work to stay there.
In my opinion, the difference between the Federation as it is now, and the way it was back then is that the flaws are more front and centre now.
Whereas previously, it seemed to be treated as more of a case of it being the actions of a lot of bad eggs within the Federation. Starfleet famously has issues with the admiralty trying to order reprehensible things. Similarly, for DS9, where it’s left ambiguous whether Section 31 is a rogue organisation made of people who think that the Federation is “too soft”, and thus needs people to do the dirty work behind the scenes, or a clandestine black organisation. The actual flaws within the Federation, like the mess about what rights to personhood androids and holograms had, were mostly skated over.
Compare that to now, where we see a bunch of Admirals convene to decide to blow up Kling/Qo’noS. In older shows, it would have just been one admiral giving the order, and the decision would laid solely at their feet, rather than something that would be attributed more to Starfleet, or the Federation in general.
Whereas previously, it seemed to be treated as more of a case of it being the actions of a lot of bad eggs within the Federation.
That`s a good observation.
I personally disliked the first episode of Starfleet Academy, but I’m glad I watched past it. So far in this show, the point (and it’s very explicitly stated) is that Starfleet and the Federation are NOT supposed to be like that, and that change starts with the youth.
Thank you. I really liked the second episode so far and I think I can live with a federation that finds back to its former values.
It just feels wrong. It’s like having superman act like homelander. Even if the message is “things shouldn’t be this way”, you are tarnishing a symbol of hope and optimism. People like Star Trek, especially these days, because it gives them hope of a better future, beyond the struggles and corruption of modern society; where justice isn’t just an abstract concept that has to be fought for every day. Where competence and intelligence is rewarded, and corruption and prejudice is not tolerated.
To take that and twist it by going “actually the future is shitty and still full of fascism and it will always be an uphill battle” is just soul crushing.
Personally, I think the message of “things could be fine without struggle or setbacks” would go up like a lead balloon in the year 2026 (or really, any year since at least 2014, probably much earlier). I don’t see anything inspirational or hopeful when it seems like pure fantasy.
A goal to work toward. A hope that if we keep fighting, there will eventually be a future where people don’t have to fight. That there is a path toward humanity reaching it’s peak, rather than an endless sisyphian struggle until our extinction.
It’s not “things could be fine without struggle or setbacks”, Star Trek makes it VERY clear that it was not a smooth and easy path toward fully automated gay space communism. It’s history of humanity is riddled with wars and uprisings and cultural slides backwards. But there is the idea that there could be a better future someday. Where greed and inequality are almost foreign concepts in society. Where science and reason finally win out against superstition and ignorance.
It may be a fantasy, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hold onto a belief that things will not always just continue to be shitty forever. Never forget the words that can make a happy man’s joy turn to ash, or a sad man’s misery into hope:
This too shall pass.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hold onto a belief that things will not always just continue to be shitty forever.
Neither does Star Trek. But neither the franchise nor I are so naive that we think that there’s a “mission accomplished” state in which bad things don’t happen any more.
The people in the image aren’t even members of the Federation… they’re Torathan, it’s explicitly stated, by Chancellor Ake, that the Federation has an agreement with them that would allow Mir to be released to their custody.
The Burn did a lot of crazy things to the Federation, and one of the lessons explicitly stated in the next episodes is that the Academy is back to teach these cadets how to be better. There was some backsliding during the Burn and everyone is trying to get better again.
The Pirate (Nus Braka) given the sentence was a pirate who was killing Starfleet officers. The mother (Anisha Mir) was sentenced to time in a rehab colony with visitation rights. Rehabilitation implying the sentence is not a life long sentence. Both of them were, ultimately, involved with the death of an officer. It wasn’t a “Drumhead” type trial, there was no witch hunting the innocent here: Two people involved with a theft that ended with the death of a Starfleet officer were tried and convicted of crimes; one of them is known to be a member of a dangerous criminal organization.
Picard once left Tim Russ’s character poisoned to die in a Baryon sweep for stealing Trilithium Resin. Star Trek was never super perfect when dramatic effect is involved.
This right here. The only way you can end up with OP’s opinion after watching the first episode is when you don’t pay attention at all.
Honestly, all of the new bucket of frequently parroted opinions only make sense if you don’t pay attention. I saw one recently calling SFA “edgy teenage drama with bullying”. “Edgy” is the furthest thing from what SFA is. It’s the biggest let’s-work-together-and-support-our-friends piece of media I might have ever seen. It’s comfort food.
I have to assume these people go straight from the ragebait youtubers to reddit/lemmy comments without ever stopping to watch the show.
EDIT: omg there’s literally someone in this thread calling it “dark and edgy”.
Quite on point. Since I stopped watching after those 10 minutes.
Do you not understand how dramatic storytelling works? Did you stop reading To Kill a Mockingbird because it’s racist to have an innocent black man accused of murder?
Cold take: Mum Mir did not commit any crime and could not rightfully be sentenced to any kind of rehabilitation.
It is implied that her biggest crime was being given stolen food. But that goes back to Star Trek often being less than perfect when it comes to driving dramatic effect.
Didn’t she get charged with felony murder. Which I also thought was not following what I thought starfleet stood for, but I wasn’t aware of the burn at the time I watched the episode, and I think they’ve done ok explaining the dark time starfleet didn’t live up to their ideals and why the captain quit.
Yeah, that was the first time (of several, so far) when I thought “Ah, it’s gonna be that kind of show. Good to know.” 🤪
That’s not a crime. She didn’t even know.
I should have clarified that my first sentence in that comment is a concession.
Being given stolen food is not a crime, that is correct. It is only relevant if she was either directing the person to kill the officer to steal the food on her behalf, or was actively participating in the raid where the aforementioned killing of the officer occurred.
I still maintain that Star Trek is often less than perfect when it comes to driving dramatic effect. For instance: Sisko could probably have not made a planet full of people uninhabitable just to make a point. Sometimes the writers make shitty things happen to drive the story.
Picard didn’t leave him to die, he expected the ringleader to let him go back for the dude but she didn’t. The point of the scene was to show that she was an asshole not that Picard was heartless.
Rehabilitation implying the sentence is not a life long sentence.
I was talking about the sentence for Nus Braka. Maybe I’m just a crazy communist but in my depiction of a better world society knows better ways to deal with criminals then to just lock them up.
It wasn’t a “Drumhead” type trial
I don’t know what your perspective on fair trials is, but a single judge rushing into the chambers, asking the felon 2 questions and immediately declaring the sentence. No attorneys, no hearing. That’s some North Korean shit.
I don’t know what your perspective on fair trials is, but a single judge rushing into the chambers, asking the felon 2 questions and immediately declaring the sentence. No attorneys, no hearing. That’s some North Korean shit.
It was pretty obvious from the first 5 minutes that this was not a short trial, and that what we see is not the full trial but the final veredict hearing. There’s even mention of the captain vying to lower the mother’s sentence.
I was talking about the sentence for Nus Braka. Maybe I’m just a crazy communist but in my depiction of a better world society knows better ways to deal with criminals then to just lock them up.
They only say it was a Penal Colony. Maybe they marooned him on Ceti Alpha V… or put him next to Tom Paris or Kassidy Yates in a Penal Colony with an ankle monitor. The Vulcans might have put him in Ankesthan K’til with T’Pring’s prisoners. Who knows.
I don’t know what your perspective on fair trials is, but a single judge rushing into the chambers, asking the felon 2 questions and immediately declaring the sentence.
First, Court Martials are held to a different standard than civilian courts. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but it is a fact. Second, your take is implying that we saw the whole trial and not just the sentencing. I guess when Anisha Mir claims “You said you would help me!” to Chancellor/Captain Ake (who then explains that getting the sentenced reduced was helping), we’re all just supposed to guess she hallucinated something and not that there was more to the trial than what we saw?
Drumhead was about hunting specters that aren’t there. It was about reducing everyone’s freedoms because of nebulous claims of national security. This isn’t what we see here. There were no false claims of injustice, there was a tangible crime that had been committed.
or put him next to Tom Paris or Kassidy Yates in a Penal Colony with an ankle monitor.
Unfortunately, Earth was still independent at that time, so New Zealand is out of the question.
Bring us…Space New Zealand!
There’s a difference between a trial and a sentencing.
I think it’s extremely disingenuous to equate “bad things happening sometimes” with “dystopia.”
The point of everything you mentioned (except for the police in '09, which you don’t actually seem to have an issue with aside from the fact that they exist?) is that these things can be overcome, which is precisely the opposite of a dystopian setting.
I’d also like to highlight that the Federation is never described in-universe as a Utopia (the only example that comes to mind is Pelia sarcastically describing Earth specifically as a “no money, socialist utopia”).
Since the TOS days the messaging has always kinda been that “Utopia” is about the journey more than the destination.
Yeah, someone summed it up very well elsewhere in the thread: “utopia” describes an ideal to strive toward, but is inherently unachievable, if only because you will never find two people who have the same utopic vision.
Unless “utopia” includes some sort of system for forcing everyone to think alike… 🤔
To be fair I also have a problem with the fact the police exist
I certainly am not a fan of policework as it is currently, commonly conducted, but I have a hard time imagining a society that has laws, but doesn’t have a dedicated system to uphold those laws that involves some kind of police.
A neighbourhood watch would be way cooler. Daddy Kirk’s neighbour pulling up next to little Kirk and going “Whatcha doing with dad’s car, kiddo?” would be way more Trek but wouldn’t satisfy JJ’s craving for pointless action sequences.
If we want to be way more Trek, going by all the times that the shuttles got stolen, it should instead have been a scene of his stepfather going “my car!” upon seeing an empty, open garage, and then doing basically nothing about it.
It’s an interesting idea, but it also tiptoes right up to the line of “neighbours spying on each other on behalf of the state” - not great!
LPT just buy a Ring doorbell instead
Who has time in this day & age for all of their civic duties, amirite?
Join your smarter neighbors today! Farm out that friendly 24/7 vigilance to a “dutiful”, “well-trained”, “totally incorruptible”, perfectly “safe”, 100% “benign algorithm” that simply “stores all data” to keep “everyone” safe!
Join us, citizen.
While you still have the choice to. 😶🌫️
🎶🎵🥳🙇🏽♂️🥳🤫
Yes, it’s Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™! The high-tech “community safety”™ sensation that’s sweeping the “nation”! Only $249.95 at participating stores! Get yours today!
Warning: Pregnant women, the elderly, children under 10, and unwitting enemies of The State should avoid prolonged exposure to Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™.
Caution: Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ contains “AI”™, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, engaged with, or looked at.
Do not use Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ on new or old construction.
Discontinue use of Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ if any of the following occurs:
-
itching
-
vertigo
-
dizziness
-
tingling in extremities
-
loss of balance coordination
-
slurred speech temporary blindness
-
profuse sweating or heart palpitations
-
inability to comply
If Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ may stick to certain colors of skin.
When not in use, Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ should be ignored entirely and kept completely free of particulate matter. Failure to do so relieves the makers of Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™, MAGAt GrIFTS, LLC, and its parent company, Glottal Plugs Unlimited, of any and all liability.
Ingredients of Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ include an untested morass pf profit-squanched code which fell to Earth in multiple steaming piles across the techbroverse, presumably from adult diapers.
Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ has been shipped to our troops in numerous “at-risk” “nations” and is being dropped by our warplanes on others.
Do not taunt Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™.
Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™ comes with a lifetime warranty. Yours.
Friendly Neighborhood “Doorbell”™! Accept no substitutes!
-
Police have only existed for about 2% of the history of human civilization, and yet you cannot imagine a future without them. You’ll accept physics-breaking technologies like transporters and warp drives. But a world without cops? That’s a bridge too far.
If you can offer a compelling argument about how those other 98% were more fair and just, and can outline exactly what that better system was, I’m all ears.
Our modern police grew out of slave catchers. That’s the root of the institution. Traditional law enforcement methods were more fair and just because they kept law enforcement within the actual communities. In Medieval cities, it was common for every able-bodied male to have to spend a certain number of nights per year working in the town guard. It was your civic duty, just like jury service is today. There were no cops on the streets of ancient Rome.
Policing in the US right now isn’t local. Cops rarely actually live in the cities they work in. Ideally police would work in their own communities so that they have a firm connection to them. However, police had laws written that prevent cities from only hiring residents to work their police forces. That’s why in many American cities police feel more like an occupying army than an actual expression of the people’s legal authority. They don’t feel like they’re part of the community, because they literally aren’t part of the community. Police don’t like to live where they work.
Making law enforcement a full-time profession was a terrible mistake. It creates a barrier between citizens and the people that are supposed to be their public servants. Sure, some specialties, like crime scene investigator or detective, require a professional approach. But average beat cops should be replaced with citizens serving short-term roles as community guards.
Honestly, if you’ve seen how police respond to calls, I would trust the average citizen with a weekend quick course under their belt a lot more to respond to a 9/11 call than a police officer. Such temporary officers wouldn’t get infected with the us-vs-them “warrior policing” mindset that has so damaged the American police profession. It’s hard to smash an innocent person’s skull against the pavement when that person is your next door neighbor who you have to look in the eye every day.
Making beat-cops a full time job was one of the greatest mistakes we ever made. And it is one we have the power to correct.
Abolishing the police does not mean embracing anarchy and abandoning law enforcement. There many ways of enforcing the law other than mob justice or a professional police class.
So you’re just advocating for a different system of policing, which does not at all contradict what I originally said. Cool.
No. You’re just making the illogical error of assuming “police” and “law enforcement” are synonyms. Nuance matters.
You realize that for millenia, philosophers fantasized about the concept of a police force that existed just to enforce laws, and not just be military guards?
The issue is not the concept of police. It is the leadership and the police unions.
Preach it, citizen.
… Oh. You meant in Star Trek.
Both is good
It technically goes back to Roddenberry.
First, Roddenberry still wrote the Federation as having some faults. A major plot point in Star Trek VI is that Starfleet is attempting a coup of the Federation to keep the cold war going. In early TNG, the Federation is seen as entertaining ending Data’s rights and allows a Federation colony to deteriorate to the level of drug wars.
Roddenberry had also written a treatment for a post-Federation time where a Federation ship goes into the future and rebuilds the Federation from scratch. That show became Andromeda, but the concept ended up being used in Discovery and Starfleet Academy.
In early TNG, the Federation is seen as entertaining ending Data’s rights and allows a Federation colony to deteriorate to the level of drug wars.
There’s honestly a good argument that Data arguably had none at all. His status was automatically changed to “property/salvage” the moment that he exercised his rights in a manner that Starfleet found inconvenient, by not wanting to be irreversibly dismantled.
The Enterprise might have treated him as a person, but they were unusual amongst Starfleet for doing so. We know later on, that the Sutherland considered him to be little more than a legged computer, and nearly mutinied against him because they interpreted all his actions in that light. Considering Data’s storied history of serving in Starfleet without having the support of personhood the Enterprise crew gave him, it would not be at all surprising if the Sutherland’s attitude was the norm, and the Enterprise was unusually accepting, on account of being the best and brightest of Starfleet.
Those thugs beating up Caleb Mir are not Federation. They work for the something or other empire. The judge who sentenced Caleb’s mum resigned from Starfleet the next day, saying it was the worst mistake of her career and she can no longer work for an organisation that expects her to do things like that. 20 years later, Starfleet admits she was right, and offers her a job as Chancellor at Starfleet Academy, teaching the next generation to be better than the last one.
👆
ok, to give it a fair shake.
At the time of the start of Starfleet Academy the Federation and Starfleet don’t really exist. They are indeed a mockery of their own ideals. It’s the baseline for just how crappy the universe got. Shit was bad man. Academy sets this up so you understand what’s at stake as they try to rebuild the Federation and Starfleet to bring hope back.
It is a Star Trek college show. It introduces us to some kids, the future of this show’s setting. But there is an underlying message of hope and getting back to the better way.
I am neither endorsing nor criticizing the show. I’m trying to answer your point.
I stopped watching Discovery after the first episode
watching the first 10 minutes of Starfleet Academy makes me want to bury the whole franchise
These are shows that historically have taken a couple of seasons to grow their beard, and you’re judging them on (parts of) their pilots? Maybe you’re just not as much into Star Trek as you think.
Because the federation changes over time, there are good times and bad. One of the core values in many Star Trek stories is redemption through change, it’s the central idea of this one.
Also because the federation is an allegory for whatever real world good guy alliance you believe in and fascist elements coming and going from the federation are a commentary on the real world.
Removed by mod
