The most confused morals in Star Trek (and other scifi)

[CharlesPhipps]

Trek's overarching narrative is uncomfortably pro-intervention if examined through a non-American, or even non-western, lens. A large portion of Trek is about the mostly human protagonists solving other peoples' problems. The implication is that it is humanity's duty to take care of the rest of the Trek galaxy as it is unable to take care of itself. This is rather troublesome given that Trek is more-or-less intended to be America-in-space as metaphor for the real Earth. In that context, Trek's message that interventions are virtually always good things comes off as somewhat jingoistic.

Mind you, there's not much of a story if the protagonists decide not to do anything about Problem X. However, I always keep in mind the Prime Directive exists solely as a plot device. It was never meant to be anything other than to give Kirk something to brood over.

Still, of all places, TOS is the only place where the Prime Directive is occasionally shown as a good thing. The Omega Glory, A Piece of the Action, and Patterns of Force for example showing how it can go disastrously wrong.

Re: The Drumhead

The thing about the Drumhead was it was designed around the concept of hysteria and witch hunts by drawing wrong conclusions around the basis of suspicion. McCarthyism is a big inspiration for it where he took the actual FBI capture of real communist spies and then used it to launch a moral crusade to keep himself in the spotlight. The guy lied about his past but came up with elaborate conspiracies and infiltration which led her to interrogate Captain Picard of all people. The villain of the piece is clearly getting off on the power of being a prosecutor that she no longer cares about the truth.

[Deledrius]

It's been a while since I watched it, but I seem to recall there being at least a subtext that Picard was looking down on the fact that while what Tarses did was illegal (or at least fraudulent), it wasn't wrong except on the basis of a racial prejudice. The man himself had otherwise been a model citizen and officer, so the fact that the witch hunt uncovered such a minor crime and was poised to ruin the career of someone completely unrelated to the investigation was adding insult to injury over the entire affair.

[TGLS]

Well, not an officer, he was just an enlisted man, like O'Brian.

[CharlesPhipps]

I think the Drumhead is how she was seeing an enormous Romulan conspiracy when there was an actual Romulan spy (the Klingon) and they'd caught him.

[Beastro]

I think the assumption is that Star Trek is a lot more loose about these things because ships are expected to be military bases rather than just militaries. As such, they have people who have relationships and families because they're years long missions.

Which is something that has been criticized by some people in the age old, "Why does the Enterprise have families?"

The fact old age of sail ships often had a few wives and kids onboard doesn't rule out the fact that they were warships.

Part of me feels like the problem with TNG era ships is they, while they claimed to be non-military, they were armed as such, and when you equip something with weapons people often find reasons to use them and get institutions they otherwise wouldn't.

A good example of that is recon aircraft and why they are unarmed. The usual idea came along "Wouldn't it be great to give them a few missiles to defend themselves" only for recon casualty counts to start climbing, then drop once the weapons were removed.

The problem the existence of the weapons at the hands of the pilots made many more confident than they otherwise would be which went counter to their mission. Instead of getting photos and getting the hell out of Dodge that being defenceless encouraged them to do some would begin toying with turning around to make attacks and such that increased their chances of being shot down.

Even given recon planes a tail turret increased casualty counts since it added more weight to aircraft whose missile required every bit of speed they get out of their aircraft.

In universe, I could see the sane people in Starfleet handing military missions off to the old, non-civilian stuffed ships, but as their number increased and the older ships retired more and more eventually there wouldn't be enough Reliants and Excelsiors kicking around to do everything and people started getting tempted to send off Galaxys and such. Without incident for long enough people would think it safe enough that they foolishly began making it standard policy until Wolf 359 and the Dominion knocked sense back into their heads reminding them what Starfleets real mission is, even if it isn't their stated one: Be the Feds military.

[Beastro]

Trek's overarching narrative is uncomfortably pro-intervention if examined through a non-American, or even non-western, lens. A large portion of Trek is about the mostly human protagonists solving other peoples' problems. The implication is that it is humanity's duty to take care of the rest of the Trek galaxy as it is unable to take care of itself. This is rather troublesome given that Trek is more-or-less intended to be America-in-space as metaphor for the real Earth. In that context, Trek's message that interventions are virtually always good things comes off as somewhat jingoistic.

It's why I wish they'd do things from a less than righteously idealistic perspective, more out of self-interest than anything else, since that at least is a sensible driving reason than being a nosy busybody with nothing else better to do.

This is, IMO, the downside to the legacy of Roddenberry as it's his consistant attitude throughout his work. If one looks at some of the episodes he wrote for Have Gun Will Travel, what he did in the late 50/early 60s before he moved onto show runner., you'll see it there too in some episodes he wrote. Helen of Abajinian is a good example of that where Paladin is really annoying in how righteous he acts as he keeps turning on each side trying to enforce a compromise he feels both aides should come to.

[CharlesPhipps]

Mind you, Star Trek has a view which is not completely America but of a more idealized United Nations too. The idea the Federation was an organization which existed for the purposes of people joining for mutual advantage and then would intervene in humanitarian (sapientarian?) crises as well as peacefully negotiate settlements.

Its why everyone joining the Federation was meant to be a good thing. Changing attitudes from the 60s to 90s showed more suspicion and joining until there's a bit more, "Strong fences make good neighbors." Except, well, that metaphor falls apart due to certain politicians.

But I think by TNG the Federation was no longer the UN and felt more like the USA with less focus on the oddity of INTERNAL relations vs. the Federation bordering other nations. Vulcans weren't weird to humans anymore despite being allies. They were all one big happy family.

Edit:

One confused moral is one which Star Trek acknowledged but it acknowledged it while also not really having an answer then ignoring the implications. The Marquis in Deep Space Nine were often given the idea they were not WRONG in their actions but stll inspired a lot of moral outrage in the protagonists.

I'm still not particularly sure why. Still, it only becomes weird in the larger canon because Deep Space Nine is the show which was soldly on the side of the Bajoran Resistance. Major Kira never particularly showed any sympathy to the Marquis though and their situation is almost identical.

[SlackerinDeNile]

One confused moral is one which Star Trek acknowledged but it acknowledged it while also not really having an answer then ignoring the implications. The Marquis in Deep Space Nine were often given the idea they were not WRONG in their actions but stll inspired a lot of moral outrage in the protagonists.

I'm still not particularly sure why. Still, it only becomes weird in the larger canon because Deep Space Nine is the show which was soldly on the side of the Bajoran Resistance. Major Kira never particularly showed any sympathy to the Marquis though and their situation is almost identical.

I don't believe Kira was unsympathetic to them but keep in mind they did basically kidnap her and try to take her on a suicide mission into Cardassian space (Defiant) and knocked her out in order to steal federation supplies (For the Uniform), I imagine that would take away some sympathy points.

And why wouldn't it inspire moral outrage? I wasn't personally unsympathetic to the Marquis at first (the Trek one) but a lot of their tactics have either been fighting fire with fire or trying to one up their Cardassian opponents in terms of violence or atrocity. In their introducing episode they blew up a Cardassian freighter while it was docked to a Federation space station and they eventually started using biogenic weapons, stuff like that should lose sympathy points with almost anyone not involved in their conflict.

[Cassandra]

Mind you, there's not much of a story if the protagonists decide not to do anything about Problem X.

My point is that habitually solving other people's Problem X can be awkward in the contemporary social context. The protagonists solving their own Problem X is different.

[CharlesPhipps]

Mind you, there's not much of a story if the protagonists decide not to do anything about Problem X.

My point is that habitually solving other people's Problem X can be awkward in the contemporary social context. The protagonists solving their own Problem X is different.

It was always awkward but seems built into the show's DNA they show up at planets needing help.