Star Trek Picard and Trek Taking on Modern Politics

[Zargon]

The good guys always act dumb to advance the plot, otherwise Laris and Zhaban would have pulled out some super advanced Romulan tech and removed the acid bomb AND read the guys mind.

The Tarot deck, which of course has a Soji/Dahj card "What Twin are you?" See another clue. Two twins...light/dark, good/evil....DATA/LORE. After all if they were both perfect good angel daughters of Data there would be no story.

So what about the income inequality? In the 24th century with no money. Billionaire Picard owns a huge villa and a vineyard. Poor Raffi lives in a double wide Fed-Trailer with polyester curtains and a redwood deck. But WHY? Does not everyone on 24th century Earth get a mansion if they want one? Plus like a billion square miles of land?

And Rios Solo is around Earth.....and he is one of them greedy, dirty Fergengi-like money humans. Except there is no money in the Federation......right? So, how does he ''get paied" ? Even if he gets money, where and how does he spend it?

[Deledrius]

During the attack on the house, if Laris had died... I'd have gone and learned a Klingon death threat I swear! XD

You and me both. Given that he was about to leave, I was ready to swear at the stupid trope of them dying just to give him more reason to leave and not come back. Picard was already having "I'm never seeing this place again" speeches in the previous scene.

So what about the income inequality? In the 24th century with no money. Billionaire Picard owns a huge villa and a vineyard. Poor Raffi lives in a double wide Fed-Trailer with polyester curtains and a redwood deck. But WHY? Does not everyone on 24th century Earth get a mansion if they want one? Plus like a billion square miles of land?

And Rios Solo is around Earth.....and he is one of them greedy, dirty Fergengi-like money humans. Except there is no money in the Federation......right? So, how does he ''get paid" ? Even if he gets money, where and how does he spend it?

This is what happens when you have people writing who just can't grasp a moneyless society, try to ignore it, but still just tell normal present-day stories, I think. They're not engaging with the premise, and they're not challenging it. It just doesn't make sense, as presented. Trek's been funny about this topic in the past, but we normally can just hand-wave it because we don't see very much of Earth at all. Now we have, it makes no sense. She's living on what is today on the National Register of Historic Places, in a nice-looking rustic place with what appears to be modern conveniences. If she's impoverished, it's self-imposed through her own sense of guilt (which there are hints of).

I don't really have any clue about Rios yet, except that for some reason they gave him two Emergency Holograms (which I didn't realize until I saw it on Memory Alpha). I just assumed he was using a single EMH to do all kinds of work; I don't understand the point of an ENH. As a "former" Starfleeter, he seems to be fairly well off. Not in trouble with the law, either, if he's just hanging in orbit over Earth. So far, he's just Wolverine Solo. :p

[MrL1992]

Anyone else remember the Borg Temporal Transmitter from 'Timeless'? Could that have something to do with the ex-Borg soothsayer maybe knowing things from the future

[Enterprising]

The thing is, these old shuttles are being used for civilian purposes. Perhaps they've been sold to civilian companies. They have the most room for cargo and passengers.

Nah, they're just using them to save a few$$$s for the show's budget. If the rumours are true, Picard's budget has been slashed to boost the one of STD season 3.

[clearspira]

The thing is, these old shuttles are being used for civilian purposes. Perhaps they've been sold to civilian companies. They have the most room for cargo and passengers.

Nah, they're just using them to save a few$$$s for the show's budget. If the rumours are true, Picard's budget has been slashed to boost the one of STD season 3.

I also hear that CBS have very little faith in ''Picard'' and that they made far less than they were hoping to on STD.

That aside though, Starfleet has always kept using its ships for an unrealistic length of time. The 24th century should not still have Excelsior or Miranda class ships on the frontline - its silly. Makes Kirk's protests about retiring the 1701 back in Star Trek 3 seem a lot more reasonable considering how many other ships do not get that treatment. It would still have made a decent freighter or taxi or something.

[MrL1992]

It was also a cost saving measure back in the days of physical models. Ships was get repainted and reused all the time to save money, hence why you still had Excelsior class ships in the 24th century.

I don't know how these things go with CGI. I don't know if costs an extra chunk of money tor each new unique 3D model you commission.

[Riedquat]

That aside though, Starfleet has always kept using its ships for an unrealistic length of time. The 24th century should not still have Excelsior or Miranda class ships on the frontline - its silly. Makes Kirk's protests about retiring the 1701 back in Star Trek 3 seem a lot more reasonable considering how many other ships do not get that treatment. It would still have made a decent freighter or taxi or something.

Same basic design, completely different internal equipment. I think it's the design that lasts rather than the ships themselves (or the ships go through heavy refit). It's not as if Trek technology is advancing that fast. Go back to times when our technological advancement was slow and the basic designs didn't change much - how long were Viking longboats around for? They probably didn't build a new one to exactly the same design as an old one but I doubt they had the concept of a standard class then.

[excalibur]

I find Raffi basically living in a trailer park vaping to be just...odd. She makes it seemed like Picard is more well off than her considering they are both humans living on Earth where anyone can have a life of luxury. It's paradise according to all other series. So this means Raffi chose to live a life of isolation and basically squalor and being real bitter to Picard despite the fact that he was sticking to his principle by resigning. It wasn't his fault that for some reason Starflet booted her out and she should know this.

Also, who else found it cringy when Picard is referred to by a subordinate by a nickname? Starfleet isn't a club house where you can give your boss colorful nicknames. None of Picards former subordinates ever called him a nickname in his face or in private. At most in serious situations, they'd call him Jean Luc.

Also reminding us that Starfleet pretends to be a military organization because Raffi's hair 14 years ago is no where in regulation. It's not as ridiculous as her afro in the comics. It's nice to know whoever does character design assumes a person of color must have a hair style that stereotypical to their people of a particular era even in a work environment that requires regulations on grooming standards. It's eye rolling.

[Enterprising]

I find Raffi basically living in a trailer park vaping to be just...odd. She makes it seemed like Picard is more well off than her considering they are both humans living on Earth where anyone can have a life of luxury. It's paradise according to all other series. So this means Raffi chose to live a life of isolation and basically squalor and being real bitter to Picard despite the fact that he was sticking to his principle by resigning. It wasn't his fault that for some reason Starflet booted her out and she should know this.

Also, who else found it cringy when Picard is referred to by a subordinate by a nickname? Starfleet isn't a club house where you can give your boss colorful nicknames. None of Picards former subordinates ever called him a nickname in his face or in private. At most in serious situations, they'd call him Jean Luc.

Also reminding us that Starfleet pretends to be a military organization because Raffi's hair 14 years ago is no where in regulation. It's not as ridiculous as her afro in the comics. It's nice to know whoever does character design assumes a person of color must have a hair style that stereotypical to their people of a particular era even in a work environment that requires regulations on grooming standards. It's eye rolling.

Starfleet also wouldn't "fire" her under such circumstances, she committed no crime and broke no regulations. At worst she should have been re-assigned to some dead-end post, if anything discharging her without cause could be used to create a further media storm. It's almost like the writers treated this as a corporate job instead of a military organisation. None of this makes any sense, nor does it relate in anyway to Star Trek, but that's what happens when you all your writers aren't sci-fi or Star Trek fans.

[clearspira]

During the attack on the house, if Laris had died... I'd have gone and learned a Klingon death threat I swear! XD

You and me both. Given that he was about to leave, I was ready to swear at the stupid trope of them dying just to give him more reason to leave and not come back. Picard was already having "I'm never seeing this place again" speeches in the previous scene.

So what about the income inequality? In the 24th century with no money. Billionaire Picard owns a huge villa and a vineyard. Poor Raffi lives in a double wide Fed-Trailer with polyester curtains and a redwood deck. But WHY? Does not everyone on 24th century Earth get a mansion if they want one? Plus like a billion square miles of land?

And Rios Solo is around Earth.....and he is one of them greedy, dirty Fergengi-like money humans. Except there is no money in the Federation......right? So, how does he ''get paid" ? Even if he gets money, where and how does he spend it?

This is what happens when you have people writing who just can't grasp a moneyless society, try to ignore it, but still just tell normal present-day stories, I think. They're not engaging with the premise, and they're not challenging it. It just doesn't make sense, as presented. Trek's been funny about this topic in the past, but we normally can just hand-wave it because we don't see very much of Earth at all. Now we have, it makes no sense. She's living on what is today on the National Register of Historic Places, in a nice-looking rustic place with what appears to be modern conveniences. If she's impoverished, it's self-imposed through her own sense of guilt (which there are hints of).

I don't really have any clue about Rios yet, except that for some reason they gave him two Emergency Holograms (which I didn't realize until I saw it on Memory Alpha). I just assumed he was using a single EMH to do all kinds of work; I don't understand the point of an ENH. As a "former" Starfleeter, he seems to be fairly well off. Not in trouble with the law, either, if he's just hanging in orbit over Earth. So far, he's just Wolverine Solo. :p

In the Culture books, another moneyless, post scarcity economy, people mostly live on orbitals and on city ships which allows them to have essentially unlimited living space as the things are built to need. We cannot all have mansions with vineyards on a planet surface because there simply is no room which is why a truly fair communist world would have us living in Soviet style concrete blocks. Iain M Banks was always a step above your average Trek writer God bless him.