Sfdebris.net

"Hey, I know what we should do.

Let's completely rewrite a famous part of the lore so that I can stick my own story stuff in it and pretend like it was there all the time."

This is the same reason that nobody likes Chris Chibnall's work.

Ok, putting aside Fleet Admiral Clancy’s attitude towards Picard and her firing an F-Torpedo, she has a point.

I and CaptainCalvinCat made this point in the Picard – Remembrance topic about how the Federations decision in Star Trek Picard makes sense given the tense history of not only what has append to the Federation during The Next Generation to Deep Space Nine and Nemesis, but also the long history between the Federation and The Romulan Star Empire, I’ll post it here too:

Link8909 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 29, 2020 5:13 pm

CaptainCalvinCat wrote: ↑Mon Jun 29, 2020 12:01 pm But there is no optimism in "Orville" - or better: the same kind of "optimism", that SFDebris criticized in the early episodes of TNG. Holier than thou-attitude and all. Although I have to say: I have nothing against the optimism of early TNG - I just have something against gross-out-humour in my Trek.

Concerning the optimism of Picard and Discovery - you said, that "the future should hopefully be even better" - which is a tall order, when you realize, what happened to those characters.
They survived several events of near apocalyptic dimensions.
Try to think about it that way: The battle of Wolf 359 happened round about 2367, the dominion war took place between 2373 and 2375, with a cold war starting 2370 with the kidnapping of Sisko and the destruction of the USS Odyssey. We have a civil war in the federation (Federation vs. Maquis), one year later, the USS Voyager is vanishing in the Delta-Quadrant, there are several attempts to take over the federation, another Borg Invasion in Sector 001, then the whole Son'A-Bak'U-dynamic happens and there was a clone of Picard running the romulan Empire. And to top all of that, the Star in the heart of the romulan Star Empire decides to go Supernova, which leads to the (perceived) death of Spock.

Now tell me - how do you want to tell great, optimistic stories, if everything, that can go to hell, goes to hell? .

Definitely, with all the events that happened to the Federation between Picard taking command of the Enterprise-D to him resigning for Starfleet as you laid out, the turbulent if not out right hostile relationship with the Romulan Star Empire that has been around in universe since before there was even a Federation, and Starfleet's policy of none intervention in the form of General Order 1, it's very easy to see the Star Trek universe going the way it did in Star Trek Picard after Deep Space Nine and Nemesis.

It even gets worse in Star Trek Online, long story short, when the supernova destroyed Romulus it left a power vacuum that the Klingons took advantage of, the Federation didn't approve and when you start the game the Federation and Klingons are at war.

What balances out all this is the fact that Picard himself doesn't agree with Starfleet's decision, that as he says he left Starfleet because it wasn't Starfleet anymore, not the one he dedicated his life to serving, Star Trek Picard does not frame what the Federation did as a right or moral thing, but they did not frame it as them being evil or stupid either, it's just a very complicated situation.

She also makes an interesting remark, and that’s 14 worlds in the Federation where prepared to leave the Federation if they helped the Romulans, I personally wonder about what those planets reasons were for this, maybe some where so close to the Romulan Neutral Zone and would see and influx of Romulan refugees that they simply didn’t want or couldn’t support, or maybe some had a bitter history with the Romulans similar to what the Klingons have with them, personally I find that interesting; also in the next episode Picard remarks that half of the Federation didn’t want to help the Romulans, with that it make so much sense on her remark on the Federation imploding, if those 14 worlds left, other worlds that were against helping the Romulans could well follow suit, and even other worlds that were for helping could have jumped ship and followed too, it could well have lead to a complete collapse of the Federation.

Now obviously I’m on the side of Picard here and the decision the Federation made was morally wrong, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see the other side of the argument, which brings me to another thing that Fleet Admiral Clancy has a point on, not giving Picard his ship, while obviously we know Picard is right and should have been given the support he needed in finding Bruce Maddox, as far as Fleet Admiral Clancy was concerned Picard, a man despite his long history of service to the Federation nearly tore it apart with his rescue fleet and left Starfleet on bad terms 14 years ago and hasn’t left Earth since, and recently denouncing the Federations decision on galactic television in a heated interview, now strolls in Starfleet Headquarters and asks them to reinstate is rank, give him a ship to command and go on a personal mission to find Bruce Maddox because of a conspiracy involving a group of Romulans that no one has heard of and synthetic’s that no one has seen in 14 years, even if this was Vice Admiral Janeway or Vice Admiral Ross instead of Fleet Admiral Clancy, I’m sure they would have to turn down his request, just not as harshly as her, even I would have to turn is request down if it was me, I couldn’t with good conscious send someone who not only said recently he stop believing in Starfleet, hasn’t commanded a ship in over a decade, and has heal issues to now take a Starfleet ship and command young officers and go on a mission that could well be a while goose chase despite his service to the Federation, even Kirk wasn’t giving the Enterprise to go rescue Spock in The Search For Spock despite his own long service to the Federation, there are rules and one can’t just ignore them because of favouritism or convenience.

Still I think the cursing was needless and Fleet Admiral Clancy’s point would still have been made without it, but I think she was wise to inform Starfleet Security about Picard’s claim on the Zhat Vash showing that she isn’t so spiteful against Picard she would ignore a threat to the Federation and Starfleet, it’s just a shame that Commodore Oh whom she told was a spy; however thinking about it, I think it was a missed opportunity for them to bring back Fleet Admiral Nechayev for this scene, given the history between the two.

But I personally think that thanks to Fleet Admiral Clancy’s F-Torpedo we now have something really special, a meme.

This was another good episode, I really liked the Androids in this, really good makeup work and great performance.

It's also quite funny that Picard never got into Science fiction, since his passion is archaeology.

Also love the review, the Janeway bit was brilliant.

I liked this episode a lot, but the thing I remember most about it was being absolutely floored by Picard's assertion in his conversation with the admiral that "The Federation doesn't get to decide if a species lives or dies." The sheer fucking hypocrisy of this statement is absolutely mindblowing. Picard has argued more times than I can remember in favor of the TNG version of the Prime Directive, which absolutely dictates conditions about whether or not they help a species live or allow it to die. We have seen multiple episodes where Picard is in the process of arguing about whether or not to let a species live or die. Has he lost his goddamn mind? Don't get me wrong, I love Picard, and I love Patrick Stewart. But this statement should have immediately been followed by the admiral he was talking to collapsing in her chair while laughing hysterically before pulling up his record and listing verbatim the likely dozens of times Picard decided whether or not a species should live or die.

Guess the writers or show runners didn't bother watching "The Defector".

Link8909 wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 4:42 pm Ok, putting aside Fleet Admiral Clancy’s attitude towards Picard and her firing an F-Torpedo, she has a point.

I and CaptainCalvinCat made this point in the Picard – Remembrance topic about how the Federations decision in Star Trek Picard makes sense given the tense history of not only what has append to the Federation during The Next Generation to Deep Space Nine and Nemesis, but also the long history between the Federation and The Romulan Star Empire, I’ll post it here too:

Link8909 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 29, 2020 5:13 pm

CaptainCalvinCat wrote: ↑Mon Jun 29, 2020 12:01 pm But there is no optimism in "Orville" - or better: the same kind of "optimism", that SFDebris criticized in the early episodes of TNG. Holier than thou-attitude and all. Although I have to say: I have nothing against the optimism of early TNG - I just have something against gross-out-humour in my Trek.

Concerning the optimism of Picard and Discovery - you said, that "the future should hopefully be even better" - which is a tall order, when you realize, what happened to those characters.
They survived several events of near apocalyptic dimensions.
Try to think about it that way: The battle of Wolf 359 happened round about 2367, the dominion war took place between 2373 and 2375, with a cold war starting 2370 with the kidnapping of Sisko and the destruction of the USS Odyssey. We have a civil war in the federation (Federation vs. Maquis), one year later, the USS Voyager is vanishing in the Delta-Quadrant, there are several attempts to take over the federation, another Borg Invasion in Sector 001, then the whole Son'A-Bak'U-dynamic happens and there was a clone of Picard running the romulan Empire. And to top all of that, the Star in the heart of the romulan Star Empire decides to go Supernova, which leads to the (perceived) death of Spock.

Now tell me - how do you want to tell great, optimistic stories, if everything, that can go to hell, goes to hell? .

Definitely, with all the events that happened to the Federation between Picard taking command of the Enterprise-D to him resigning for Starfleet as you laid out, the turbulent if not out right hostile relationship with the Romulan Star Empire that has been around in universe since before there was even a Federation, and Starfleet's policy of none intervention in the form of General Order 1, it's very easy to see the Star Trek universe going the way it did in Star Trek Picard after Deep Space Nine and Nemesis.

It even gets worse in Star Trek Online, long story short, when the supernova destroyed Romulus it left a power vacuum that the Klingons took advantage of, the Federation didn't approve and when you start the game the Federation and Klingons are at war.

What balances out all this is the fact that Picard himself doesn't agree with Starfleet's decision, that as he says he left Starfleet because it wasn't Starfleet anymore, not the one he dedicated his life to serving, Star Trek Picard does not frame what the Federation did as a right or moral thing, but they did not frame it as them being evil or stupid either, it's just a very complicated situation.

She also makes an interesting remark, and that’s 14 worlds in the Federation where prepared to leave the Federation if they helped the Romulans, I personally wonder about what those planets reasons were for this, maybe some where so close to the Romulan Neutral Zone and would see and influx of Romulan refugees that they simply didn’t want or couldn’t support, or maybe some had a bitter history with the Romulans similar to what the Klingons have with them, personally I find that interesting; also in the next episode Picard remarks that half of the Federation didn’t want to help the Romulans, with that it make so much sense on her remark on the Federation imploding, if those 14 worlds left, other worlds that were against helping the Romulans could well follow suit, and even other worlds that were for helping could have jumped ship and followed too, it could well have lead to a complete collapse of the Federation.

Now obviously I’m on the side of Picard here and the decision the Federation made was morally wrong, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see the other side of the argument, which brings me to another thing that Fleet Admiral Clancy has a point on, not giving Picard his ship, while obviously we know Picard is right and should have been given the support he needed in finding Bruce Maddox, as far as Fleet Admiral Clancy was concerned Picard, a man despite his long history of service to the Federation nearly tore it apart with his rescue fleet and left Starfleet on bad terms 14 years ago and hasn’t left Earth since, and recently denouncing the Federations decision on galactic television in a heated interview, now strolls in Starfleet Headquarters and asks them to reinstate is rank, give him a ship to command and go on a personal mission to find Bruce Maddox because of a conspiracy involving a group of Romulans that no one has heard of and synthetic’s that no one has seen in 14 years, even if this was Vice Admiral Janeway or Vice Admiral Ross instead of Fleet Admiral Clancy, I’m sure they would have to turn down his request, just not as harshly as her, even I would have to turn is request down if it was me, I couldn’t with good conscious send someone who not only said recently he stop believing in Starfleet, hasn’t commanded a ship in over a decade, and has heal issues to now take a Starfleet ship and command young officers and go on a mission that could well be a while goose chase despite his service to the Federation, even Kirk wasn’t giving the Enterprise to go rescue Spock in The Search For Spock despite his own long service to the Federation, there are rules and one can’t just ignore them because of favouritism or convenience.

Still I think the cursing was needless and Fleet Admiral Clancy’s point would still have been made without it, but I think she was wise to inform Starfleet Security about Picard’s claim on the Zhat Vash showing that she isn’t so spiteful against Picard she would ignore a threat to the Federation and Starfleet, it’s just a shame that Commodore Oh whom she told was a spy; however thinking about it, I think it was a missed opportunity for them to bring back Fleet Admiral Nechayev for this scene, given the history between the two.

But I personally think that thanks to Fleet Admiral Clancy’s F-Torpedo we now have something really special, a meme.

Here's where the anti-Brexit politics of Patrick Stewart come into play. This is a clear metaphor for the 2016 migrant crisis that is widely regarded to be one of the pivotal moments in the Brexit referendum as immigration was always one of the main driving forces of it. Men like Nigel Farage were basically handed a chocolate-coated orgasm on a plate by the photographs of that train of people slowly marching towards Western Europe. And when Angela Merkel gave sanctuary to a million of them and barely touched the sides of the crisis, Brits got worried that David Cameron was going to do the same.

I'm going to make the assumption here that Stewart is pro-immigration and he saw the Leavers (and BTW, many Remainers too) not wanting to throw open the doors to all of these people as disgusting. Trust me, you aren't meant to be agreeing with those 14 worlds.

In-universe, I think you're right, there are many logistical reasons why planets close to the Neutral Zone would threaten succession, but I also think that there would be perfectly understandable animosity toward the Romulans. Remember that the Romulans aren't just another race that is in danger - they are an expansionist and totalitarian empire. If those planets are on the border then the Romulans have probably been pushing them around for hundreds of years and yet are now being told to help them out?

The obvious counter to this would be ''well, it was the government and not the people who were at fault and thus we shouldn't punish them'' argument and there is genuine merit to that. But at the same time, in real life, it is not that simple no matter how much we may want it to be. War of any type - cold or hot - is about kicking your enemy in the balls as many times as you can until they leave their neck exposed or you can break their legs and ensure that they are never getting up to threaten you again. An example of the former would be the Gauls vs Rome, and an example of the latter would be the American occupation of Japan.

What's brown and sticky? Well it rolls down hill as far as a synth's concerned.

Janeway instead of Clansy...

Last week I finished the audiobook "Last Best Hope" which is the tie in novel to "Picard" which explains all that happened in the 20 years prior to the first episode of "Picard". At the time of Star Trek Picard, Clansy wasn't just an Admiral, she was the CnC of Starfleet, which I assume is Commander and Chief (Here in the United States, Commander and Chief is the military rank of the United States President. I guess it is different in Starfleet. Leads to my theory that Starfleet runs the Federation, unlike in the United States where the government runs the military). So if the original plan was for Janeway to be in Clansy's place, that would mean that Janeway was supposed to be running all of Starfleet.

BTW, has anyone else noticed that the ''Opinionated Guides'' have gotten distinctly opinionless of late? He doesn't score STD, he doesn't score PIC, he didn't score two of the three Abrams films. I genuinely could not tell you where he puts STD in relation to the other shows and I genuinely could not tell you how he rates the PIC pilot episode compared to the other pilots. He doesn't even give out the episode awards any more.

If Chuck reads this - i'm not hating. I'm sure there are good reasons that I am missing, but sorry, I just do not understand why the format for the later shows are so different to the earlier ones especially as you are still doing the older shows in the older style AKA ''Rejoined'' just last week.

clearspira wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 5:51 pm Here's where the anti-Brexit politics of Patrick Stewart come into play. This is a clear metaphor for the 2016 migrant crisis that is widely regarded to be one of the pivotal moments in the Brexit referendum as immigration was always one of the main driving forces of it. Men like Nigel Farage were basically handed a chocolate-coated orgasm on a plate by the photographs of that train of people slowly marching towards Western Europe. And when Angela Merkel gave sanctuary to a million of them and barely touched the sides of the crisis, Brits got worried that David Cameron was going to do the same.

I'm going to make the assumption here that Stewart is pro-immigration and he saw the Leavers (and BTW, many Remainers too) not wanting to throw open the doors to all of these people as disgusting. Trust me, you aren't meant to be agreeing with those 14 worlds.

In-universe, I think you're right, there are many logistical reasons why planets close to the Neutral Zone would threaten succession, but I also think that there would be perfectly understandable animosity toward the Romulans. Remember that the Romulans aren't just another race that is in danger - they are an expansionist and totalitarian empire. If those planets are on the border then the Romulans have probably been pushing them around for hundreds of years and yet are now being told to help them out?

The obvious counter to this would be ''well, it was the government and not the people who were at fault and thus we shouldn't punish them'' argument and there is genuine merit to that. But at the same time, in real life, it is not that simple no matter how much we may want it to be. War of any type - cold or hot - is about kicking your enemy in the balls as many times as you can until they leave their neck exposed or you can break their legs and ensure that they are never getting up to threaten you again. An example of the former would be the Gauls vs Rome, and an example of the latter would be the American occupation of Japan.

Indeed, even without the allegory to Brexit the scenario we see in Star Trek Picard would still have happened because of the supernova (see Star Trek Online) and for me personally the message still works even without the real world connection, much like the message of giving into fear in the Deep Space Nine episodes "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost" works even long before it's own real world counterpart.

And of course like I said I like how this moral dilemma was handled in Star Trek Picard, you can see both sides of the argument here, and neither one is framed as being evil or stupid, it was a complicated situation brought on by an unforeseen tragedy (as far as the rest of the galaxy is concerned, again see Star Trek Online).