DS9 - Rejoined

[WhiteDragon25]

They were able to produce a small wormhole that existed for a brief time, with no indication that knew or could control where it went. While a major breakthrough in their field of study, it's not unreasonable to say that developing and refining the technology so it can safely and reliably transport people in a non-random fashion could take a long time, longer than the 3 1/2 years left before the end of the series/the Dominion War.

Like, scientists found a way to generate antimatter 25 years ago, and we're still waiting on the antimatter engine.

You think a minor little constraint like that is going to stop the Dominion from trying anyways? Hell, if anything, the war would actually accelerate the technology's development; it's not like that hasn't happened in real life either, right?

[Fianna]

Oh, I'm sure the war would accelerate the technology's development. So maybe it'll only take 15 years instead of 30 years.

[clearspira]

Artificial wormhole technology is the holy grail of Farscape - Chuck goes into how game changing it would be in those reviews. Its also the Stargate and the Babylon 5 jumpgate. And when you factor in that TNG-era warp drive is slow and transporters are short range, then yeah I would agree, artificial wormholes should have been a plot on its own.

[GreyICE]

Dunno, it feels like a really forced rule for why two women can't date.

I believe the "two women" was actually to create a parallel. It was taboo in Trill culture, and to show that, Moore had the idea of using something that was taboo in our culture. So rather than it be "stupid alien culture is stupid unlike enlightened humans" it was a more powerful piece because it did poke a knife into 20th century taboos. Remember, this aired in 1995, the era where Annie on My Mind and Daddy’s Roommate both made the list of top 100 banned and challenged books (along with perennial favorites like Brave New World and The Giver).

Of course this is a case of aging poorly in many respects, one of them being Berman and Paramount's frequent attempts to scrub any references to homosexuality from Star Trek entirely (and stick transgender issues with exactly one episode about Quark changing gender that has all the humor and comedy of your average Minstrel Show). So this being the literal only reference to homosexuality in all of Star Trek gave it a "gay relationships will never work" message that no one in the staff intended. Another being the taboo isn't there anymore, and so this just seems weirdly dated.


Honestly the biggest problem is just the unintentional message given by the fact this is the only homosexual relationship in Star Trek - a fact that Discovery finally corrected only 20 years after it would have meant anything. This goes with the other incredibly cutting edge positions that Discovery has taken on social issues, like "enslaving an entire species is wrong", "we shouldn't make racist assumptions about Klingons" and "out of control AIs might want to take over and wipe out all the humans, just like in Terminator".

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Yeah I was thinking that too that the episode wasn't about homosexuality at all ha.

In the 1960's when Kirk kisses Uhura, I was kind of surprised seeing it for the first time how forced the situation was. Star Trek always had temporal soap opera relationship tones here or there, so I assumed it was that, but it's a matter of solving the mission with no like intimacy or even social coherence between the characters iirc.

Compared to that though, I would think that when a whole episode involves intensely overt chemistry between them, that seems pretty good for a time when even now you have issues of queer baiting. I get all the problematic aspects of Trek in the form of shortcomings but this seems like the opposite of a fluke.

[RobbyB1982]

And when you factor in that TNG-era warp drive is slow

This is hilarious given they're literally travelling multiple times faster than the speed of light. A one hour trip at EMpulse speed to Saturn is a six year trip for for us.

Guess its all relative though. Space is really big and even at 9 times light speed it still takes a long time to clear a galaxy.

[RobbyB1982]

Another being the taboo isn't there anymore, and so this just seems weirdly dated.

The taboo is still there, just phasing out. It's easy to ignore because "gay marriage and equal rights are things now!" but you still get conservative groups that say, refuse to sell a cake to a gay couple or to stamp a marriage license.

It's not gone, anymore than racism or sexism are... we've just taken some steps to tone it down and move forward at least a little.

It took fifty odd years for Star Trek to have gay main characters (and then they fridged one of them... but then brought him back so its okay?) and Star Trek is generally super progressive. It's a process.

But hey, we have She-Ra now, so thats a win.

[GreyICE]

Another being the taboo isn't there anymore, and so this just seems weirdly dated.

The taboo is still there, just phasing out. It's easy to ignore because "gay marriage and equal rights are things now!" but you still get conservative groups that say, refuse to sell a cake to a gay couple or to stamp a marriage license.

It's not gone, anymore than racism or sexism are... we've just taken some steps to tone it down and move forward at least a little.

It took fifty odd years for Star Trek to have gay main characters (and then they fridged one of them... but then brought him back so its okay?) and Star Trek is generally super progressive. It's a process.

But hey, we have She-Ra now, so thats a win.

I question whether Star Trek is "super progressive." 1960s Star Trek was very, very progressive, sure. Was TNG? Uh, it had two black men (one in alien makeup) and two women in its main cast. One wore a bunny suit, one was a doctor. Voyager aired in 1995, only 13 years after Remington Steele. A woman in charge. How progressive. Star Trek's commentary on social issues has been of the lukewarm liberal type. Like boldly telling us in 1995 that women can run things. Or telling us it's okay to pick your gender if you come from a strange gender-mixed society where everyone is both and you just want to be in a heterosexual relationship.

By the time we got to Enterprise, what bold stance did we get? Terra Prime? Xenophobia and racism are bad, folks. That's our hot take.

And don't even get me started on the milquetoast stances Discovery has taken. Enslaving another species is wrong, even if they did it to you first! We should respect religions, but not be dogmatic! It's okay to have a black woman as a lead character! Like don't dislocate your arm patting yourself on the back over there Discovery.

I'd love to see a few actual bold stances, but I don't think there's the slightest chance of seeing that. They bury anything resembling one under layers and layers of alien bullshit until they get over it.


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You'll notice I left DS9 off, because they frequently took some fairly bold stances, such as with the homeless encampments and riots, making heavy statements about race relationships in America, this episode actually covering gay relationships. And boy, it did not make DS9 any friends in Paramount, no it did not. Nothing super bold, but it did take some stances in places that might be uncomfortable.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

And when you factor in that TNG-era warp drive is slow

Guess its all relative though. Space is really big and even at 9 times light speed it still takes a long time to clear a galaxy.

Worth mentioning that the warp scale is logarithmic, and Voyager's also going the fastest at that point at 9.975. Aside from the slip stream stuff or Tom breaking 10 as a fluke, I didn't find that to be much of an interesting stat buster throughout the show.

[TGLS]

Why did they decide that adding more 9s was better than bigger numbers?