Star Trek alien allegories

[Yukaphile]

I will say this. I just now saw the episode where Kira goes back in time, meets her mom? Well, my allegory, and this is purely headcanon, mind, was that it's not about "Meru" being wrong, so much as our attitudes toward victim-blaming. Only on a meta level, though, in that it presents the victims as "having a choice," and the party scene is just dreadfully offensive in how they sympathize more with the Cardassians than the women in question. Maybe this is just me? I mean, it's probably meant to be neutral, but in presenting something like "comfort women," one of the worst crimes by men and women in WWII, well... if you're not going for accurate representation, then it really seems like you're siding with the person abusing another sapient being, even if indirectly, and then maybe we should look at it from another angle? And victim-blaming is a real phenomenon. Not just for assault victims, but in other areas. We pretend to be stronger than we are, and when someone fails, we blame them, "Why weren't you stronger?" It's a way we like to pretend we have more control over random circumstances and how other people will treat us than we really do. Only thing we can control is ourselves, nothing more. And wow, this has become a tangent. Ummm... sorry.

[Deledrius]

I think Risa might be Hawaii.

More Tahiti.

[Robovski]

I think Risa might be Hawaii.

More Tahiti.

Specifics?

Risa being the perfect weather sex-positive vacation planet where you can get away from it all is very much the place Tahiti holds in fiction.

But what about political themes?

Beyond Tahiti being French, there is much of a parallel with Hawaii, like the Polynesian kingdom that is annexed, being a part of a larger nation state, being in the Pacific and island groups...

I have no idea if Worf has been to either and sabotaged their weather control devices as it makes them weak or if Picard goes there for a randy holiday.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I think Risa might be Hawaii.

More Tahiti.

Specifics?

Risa being the perfect weather sex-positive vacation planet where you can get away from it all is very much the place Tahiti holds in fiction.

But what about political themes?

Beyond Tahiti being French, there is much of a parallel with Hawaii, like the Polynesian kingdom that is annexed, being a part of a larger nation state, being in the Pacific and island groups...

I have no idea if Worf has been to either and sabotaged their weather control devices as it makes them weak or if Picard goes there for a randy holiday.

Well actually yeah, I actually goofed on not considering Tahiti might have a complicated Colonial history as well. I've known for a while that it's a francophone territory.

[Yukaphile]

Picard hated going there.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Picard hated going there.

And he is French...

[Yukaphile]

FINO. French In Name Only. In others, he's a stuffy Brit.

[Admiral X]

Here's the thing - if you could go back in time and talk them into giving Picard a more appropriate name that fit the actor that was cast (as was done with Janeway), would you? I'm kind of torn on that, because the name and the actor associated with the role are rather iconic.

[Yukaphile]

Hell no. But this is off topic.

[clearspira]

Here's the thing - if you could go back in time and talk them into giving Picard a more appropriate name that fit the actor that was cast (as was done with Janeway), would you? I'm kind of torn on that, because the name and the actor associated with the role are rather iconic.

In fairness, if history was changed then you wouldn't know that his name used to be Jean Luc Picard so it would not matter. But yeah, I would. They made NO attempt to make Picard French short of a few ''have I told you I am French today?'' remarks and eating a croissant.