DS9: Business as Usual

[pilight]

You just shift some isolinear chips and *bam* you can replicate whatever you want. I guess the Feds expect you to not bypass security and they usually have triple back-ups for everything.

It's probably easier than that. The Kazon got Voyager's computer to not accept commands from Star Fleet personnel by just telling it not to. How hard can it be to override something even less vital?

[BunBun299]

I never had any problem with anything Quark and his new business associates do in this episode. At least, up until the Regent, I believe he was called, came in and ordered the bio weapons. WMDs as a deterrent is one thing. Trading in them to someone who has spoken his intention to use them on a civilian population crosses the line, big time. At that point, they should all he arrested for doing business with this maniac.

Trading guns, I had no problem with as a teenager when this episode came out, and still do not to this day. There is no gun law that will ever keep guns out of the hands of criminals. If they can't get a gun legally, they will do so by illegal means. Only thing that will ever stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And gun laws only make it harder for the law abiding citizens to get guns to defend themselves and their families with.

One other thing about the episode. As a teen, the nightmare scene kinda freaked me out.

[Dargaron]

"Survivors?"

"What we pulled out didn't live for long..."

Okay, I'll bite. Where's that from?

Since no one's answered so far: it's a paraphrase from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, when they try to beam some folks over, and they turn into, to quote SFDebris, "A Resident Evil critter."

Regarding the general topic of gun ownership in the Federation: isn't that kind of a moot point, given that Wesley has access to non-zero quantities of anti-matter for his school project in Peak Performance? I mean, if the Federation is going to trust a teenager with stuff that you need to actively prevent from exploding, then I'm not sure how much more dangerous a phaser could be.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Regarding the general topic of gun ownership in the Federation: isn't that kind of a moot point, given that Wesley has access to non-zero quantities of anti-matter for his school project in Peak Performance? I mean, if the Federation is going to trust a teenager with stuff that you need to actively prevent from exploding, then I'm not sure how much more dangerous a phaser could be.

It's the principle of the matter.

[Durandal_1707]

I never had any problem with anything Quark and his new business associates do in this episode. At least, up until the Regent, I believe he was called, came in and ordered the bio weapons. WMDs as a deterrent is one thing. Trading in them to someone who has spoken his intention to use them on a civilian population crosses the line, big time. At that point, they should all he arrested for doing business with this maniac.

Trading guns, I had no problem with as a teenager when this episode came out, and still do not to this day. There is no gun law that will ever keep guns out of the hands of criminals. If they can't get a gun legally, they will do so by illegal means. Only thing that will ever stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And gun laws only make it harder for the law abiding citizens to get guns to defend themselves and their families with.

One other thing about the episode. As a teen, the nightmare scene kinda freaked me out.

For me, the gold standard for dream sequences freaking me out as a teen was the Cellular Peptide Cake With Mint Frosting. Say what you want about Braga, but he could make some gooooooooood acid-trippy TV before he got burned out by having to make movies and executive produce and keep churning out these things for like 15 straight years.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I'm sure there's been dream sequences in movies etc... that tripped me out, but first thing coming to mind is the Captain N episode where IIRC people just start melting (or just Belmont in particular). I was probably like 4 or 5 years old when it came out.

[Wargriffin]

Like what? Settled with his striking employees, to name one example? I need remind you that while Sisko put pressure on Quark, the only thing that really stopped the strike was Brunt's arrival. Other than that, Quark tried to bribe Rom - he didn't acquiesce to their demands, and only did so secretly. Sir Will's contention that Quark is greedy is absolutely truth, but at the same time, I think there's a bit of grey area in that Quark is pushed into a situation where he could be desperate enough, and that I don't think Gaila's associates typically were in the business of genocide - it was just their luck they got the Regent as a customer. I see their work as more selling weapons to people like those who became al Qaeda or ISIS rather than the Hitlers and Stalins of planets, or people like the Bajoran rebels, legitimately fighting for their freedom or to throw off an oppressive system. There is grey there, to be sure - except when you get someone so clearly insane like the Regent is, which Quark could spot, and so did what any decent person with a conscience did: He tanked the deal.

This reminds me of Benicio Del Toro in The Last Jedi. There's really no such thing as good guys or bad guys when you think about it.

I think The Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3 is a better example when she tried to school the then green and patriotic Naked Snake on just how ridiculous the concept of an enemy in absolute terms actually is.

The Boss' point has layers to it


The problem with BDT's character in Last Jedi is its fairly obvious the only people he values are the people he gets the bigger paycheck from since he clearly doesn't care about other peoples lives... He effectively represents people who see everything as Intelligent Selfishness vs Naive Selflessness and its clear which one he actually values 'IE the only person you can look out for is #1 everyone else is a means to an end'

[Fianna]

I'd like to point out, whether or not civilians in the Federation are allowed to own firearms (or their futuristic equivalent), there still wouldn't be arms dealers in the Federation, since they don't do commerce. Presumably, if a weapon is so big or made of such exotic components that you can't just replicate it, then it's not the sort of thing civilians are gonna be allowed to have, even in a right-to-bear-arms society.

[RobbyB1982]

Only thing that will ever stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. And gun laws only make it harder for the law abiding citizens to get guns to defend themselves and their families with.

That's BS that the NRA has peddled for so long people actually believe it.

Other countries have actual strict gun laws, and control ammunition, and lo, they have almost no gun violence.

The US has 35,000-45,000 gun deaths every year, including in schools. It's the number 2 in deaths behind only Brazil. ANd nearly 3 times as many deaths as the number 3, Mexico.

Virgin Islands is the number 19 in firearms deaths in the world. How many gun deaths do they have?
23. Greenland is in the top 20 firearms deaths in the world. How many gun deaths do they have? 13.

Once you go anywhere else in the world beyond those 20? Like Japan or Finland or Hungary or China or Sweden or Canada or Australia? Less than 5 gun deaths a year in their entire country. Its such a tiny fraction its not even worth reporting.

Gun control laws absolutely 100% absolutely work. Just not in the US where we don't have any sensible ones.

Meanwhile, the "only a goodguy with a gun can stop a badguy" narrative is shown time and time again to be completely false. ANY time a civilian with a gun tries to stop another person with a gun, it ends badly. Often with said civilian being shot when the actual law enforcement shows up and... mistakes them for the badguy.

[pilight]

Gun laws can work if they're imposed before guns become widespread and commonplace. It's far too late to put the genie back in the bottle in the US.