DS9 - The Collaborator

[Deledrius]

Some like Mike Wong think it's an authoritarian social engineering experiment, to test one's loyalty to the state. LOL. He is a first-grade ASSHOLE.

No clue who that is, but that interpretation would be a profound misreading of the entire text of Star Trek.


(Except maybe Discovery. I could see them throwing that out in Discovery like it's just a thing you can say.)

[Yukaphile]

That sums up Mike Wong in a nutshell. He thinks the Galactic Empire were the good guys, lol.

[clearspira]

That sums up Mike Wong in a nutshell. He thinks the Galactic Empire were the good guys, lol.

Herm... I wouldn't go as far as to call them the good guys, but the Empire did have a ''Saddam Hussein in Iraq or Gaddafi in Libya'' kind of way to them in that removing them created a power vacuum that created a hundred harder to manage problems. The First Order is a direct result of ''the good guys'' actions. Not to mention the fact the New Republic wasn't all that much improved over the old one and in many ways was worse given how their army was apparently a load of shit and their shoddy oversight of the galaxy allowed the First Order to get that strong in the first place.

That's one of the things that always got me about the hopeful Broom Boy ending of TLJ. He was just as much a slave under the New Republic as he was under the First Order. Why would he have a glowing face when looking at Tico's ring when realistically neither government has done him any favours at all. This to him would be like saying ''don't worry eastern German child, the Nazi's have been repelled, although unfortunately the Soviets are the one's liberating you.''

[Riedquat]

In any case, Sisko did not choose to bring his wife and son to that battle after being given an option to have some way to have them sit it out. One can criticize Starfleet policy in having families onboard their ships, but there is no grounds to blame Sisko for the death of his family at Wolf 359; it is nothing even remotely similar to Seven's parents.

I suppose the Federation thinking was that if it did come to war there would be time to drop the civillians off somewhere before sending their ships out. The ships themselves were mostly multi-role, not dedicated warships; if you're not frequently at war with enemies of equal or greater power it'll be hard to justify building and maintaining a dedicated fleet of pure warships, even in the largely post-scarcity Federation.

[Beastro]

Personally said straw and said policy should have been Wolf 359 given how we know from Sisko's flashback that he took his wife and kid with him AGAINST THE BORG.
Y'know, Sisko had no right to have animosity towards Picard when it was his own foolishness that got Jennifer killed. At least the Galaxy class was supposedly a powerful ship; Sisko was tottering around the Alpha Quadrant whilst at the helm of a Miranda - and not any old Miranda, this was the USS Saratoga, Starfleet's bitch. This is not quite Seven's parents, but its close.

Which is why I said, as best they could try to work around it, the shows themselves keep showing why that is a bad idea.

They can force Star Fleet to work around Kirk being demoted after he stole his old command and then blew it up by giving him an actual desirable command. You know not just being given a ship to command again afterwards but a brand new one at that, but putting families on board couldn't, if only because for the writers to involve them in episodic drama it mean opening them up to danger that then raises the idea why Star Fleet would allow them on board even if the crew themselves didn't see a problem. This is why historical navies going back centuries tried to ban it, or at least frowned on it so much only a handful of wives were able to be brought aboard by those who dared to risk it, and weren't the captain's wife, or mistress, they were tolerated because they were willing to do tasks on board that were badly needed and badly done by the crew, like mending and sewing or washing clothes.

That opens up Wolf 359 as a "9/11 moment" all the more to the Federation because of the civilian loss. It would have been something to lose all those ships and their crew as a simple, severe military loss, but then you have all the civilian casualties on top of it to scar them.

Some like Mike Wong think it's an authoritarian social engineering experiment, to test one's loyalty to the state. LOL. He is a first-grade ASSHOLE.

Yes, Mike is, but that's one part of a larger whole, which is that he's a first grade contrarian.

Some like Mike Wong think it's an authoritarian social engineering experiment, to test one's loyalty to the state. LOL. He is a first-grade ASSHOLE.

No clue who that is, but that interpretation would be a profound misreading of the entire text of Star Trek.


(Except maybe Discovery. I could see them throwing that out in Discovery like it's just a thing you can say.)

He runs, or ran, stardestroyer.net. It's been a loooong time since I went there, but he was notable around, maybe like 2001 or so , for posting some articles on his site about the Sci-Fi genre.

One was the about Sci-Fi "brain bugs" as he called them, like the Klingons becoming more and more the stereotypes of warriors and the Borg focusing more on assimilation that the internet would call a form of flanderization. Checking, it was early 2002 http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Ess ... nBugs.html, http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/.

The other articles that drew people's attention were about how the Empire weren't the bad guys, or at least weren't the worst in Star Wars. That mainly revolved around how bad the Republic and the Jedi were in comparison. Much of that had to do with how the Republic is shown to always be in crisis, always corrupt and always failing going back thousands of years. The beast is simply too sick in his mind and it should be put out of its misery. The other bit with the Jedi is blaming them for supporting the Republic, but mostly has to do with them being a religious organization with some government involvement and a good amount of power. That makes his New Atheist outlook go into overdrive and ignore most anything else about them (The Salvation War was a big hit with the forums for the same reason).

The article had a very clear streak of devil's advocate in it, thumbing its nose at Jedi fans while sticking its tongue out, that was in keeping with the motif of the site, it being a tongue in cheek place to talk about how good the Empire was. Since then I don't know if that's gone further and the humour dropped, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had given the way the rest of the internet has gone.

That sums up Mike Wong in a nutshell. He thinks the Galactic Empire were the good guys, lol.

Herm... I wouldn't go as far as to call them the good guys, but the Empire did have a ''Saddam Hussein in Iraq or Gaddafi in Libya'' kind of way to them in that removing them created a power vacuum that created a hundred harder to manage problems. The First Order is a direct result of ''the good guys'' actions. Not to mention the fact the New Republic wasn't all that much improved over the old one and in many ways was worse given how their army was apparently a load of shit and their shoddy oversight of the galaxy allowed the First Order to get that strong in the first place.

That's the essence of what he was talking about, only it was mixed with a bit of flare from his internet atheist side with a lot deliberate goading and provoking in the "So you think your "good guys" are so great? How about we focus on their negatives to the exclusion of all else in the same way you do with the "bad guys" and see how evil they come across???" way.

Scanning his site brief also reminds me that, as much as he hates the Republic, Jedi and the good guys of Star Wars, he hate Star Trek even more.

[Steve]

Some like Mike Wong think it's an authoritarian social engineering experiment, to test one's loyalty to the state. LOL. He is a first-grade ASSHOLE.

*sighs*

Yuka, you have been told before that going off-topic to rant about Mike is a no-no. Bringing up the argument he once made as it relates to the current subject (which is slightly off-topic IMHO, but review threads can sometimes branch to related matters) didn't require naming him and then attacking him.

Do not make us say this again.

With the answer of who he is given, I'd like everyone else to drop the issue as well.

[Yukaphile]

Oh... I literally don't recall... sorry.

Okay, last time I bring him up then. I'll accept the warning of the mods. At least thanks for the apparently "three strikes and you're out" policy, because again, I literally do not remember that. I'll commit to memory right now.

[Yukaphile]

Getting back on track here, something to note about this episode. Bareil is constantly having visions throughout the story. I know they come from the orbs, but it implies the Prophets didn't want him to be Kai. Any thoughts? Why would that be? Maybe because the power would corrupt him like it had done for Winn? He was better suited in a serving role? Or am I just grasping at straws? Is this more "enigmatic Prophet" stuff?

[Deledrius]

Is this more "enigmatic Prophet" stuff?

It feels like it. Mysticism as plot device. It's too bad that DS9 never really figured out how to manage this better, with a few standalone exceptions (Rapture does it pretty good, I think). I'd say this episode is a strong example. In retrospect, I suppose we could say the Prophets needed Winn to be Kai in order to fulfill the destiny of the Emissary and seal the Fire Caves, but that's entirely a post-hoc reasoning. At this point, they're just using them for being "spooooooky" and "meaningful" and to drive the plot where it needed to go. But then we've discussed ad nauseam how bad the Prophets got near the end of the show, already...

[FaxModem1]

Getting back on track here, something to note about this episode. Bareil is constantly having visions throughout the story. I know they come from the orbs, but it implies the Prophets didn't want him to be Kai. Any thoughts? Why would that be? Maybe because the power would corrupt him like it had done for Winn? He was better suited in a serving role? Or am I just grasping at straws? Is this more "enigmatic Prophet" stuff?

Bareil, no matter how corrupt he got, would probably not have shacked up with Dukat and tried to free the Pah Wraiths. Maybe the Prophets wanted to make sure that the magic book/key got thrown in with the cell so that the door could never be reopened, permanently sealing away their enemy.

That, or if they give a crap about Bajor, Bareil as Kai might have led to Bajor being a target for the Dominion as he would have probably focused on getting more accomplished that way, making Bajor a Federation member faster, while still not big enough to defend themselves against the Dominion fleet.

Or, considering how good he apparently was at negotiating with the Cardassians, him being Kai would meant that the Cardassiansmake a lasting peace and focus on rebuilding and reforming their government a year early, meaning that the Klingons don't get the chance to invade, meaning they would never have joined the Dominion, meaning Dukat would never break down, meaning that he would never have researched the Pah Wraiths and set in motion the clash between the Prophets and their foe.

This is all speculative though.