DIS - Point of Light

[Darth Wedgius]

I don't think aliens are racist if they do not denigrate or call for inferior treatment of any group of people on account of race. An alien could legitimately be less courageous or more violent than a human.

Look at Niven's Pierson's Puppeteers. They're firm cowards, and they consider that to be the moral stance. A Pierson's Puppeteer who risked his life for his human crewmates was ashamed of his actions later. Not only is courage treated as a sign of mental illness in a Pierson's Puppeteer, but it's often comorbid with another mental illnesses.

Niven early on seemed to root this in their being herbivores, which is probably not the brightest move for a usually intelligent author, but he did have a stated habit of trying to show aliens who don't think like humans, but think as well as humans. Pierson's Puppeteers are smarter than humans in the sense of greater intelligence and far greater knowledge. They fought global warming by moving their planet farther away from their sun (though with technology they bought, they still have that technology). They seriously considered wiping out the Kzinti (a species of conquerors at the time), and they will use aliens for their own purposes, but they're not xenocidal mad things with no consideration for aliens at all.

Look at wolves vs. dogs. Very similar, but wolves have a far higher adrenaline response (twice dogs' typical response IIRC). Wolves will more easily be violent not because they're evil, but because they come from a world where life is, essentially, a battlefield. Having a stronger fight or flight response works better for their environment. I saw a wolf or (more likely) wolf-dog at a dog park once. Poor thing was glancing around constantly and looked like it wanted to crawl into his own shadow and hide.

Aliens could be said to cause a subconscious leaning toward being tolerant of racism. IMO that's not racist but some might find it "problematic".

Aliens could be a stand-in for a real race. I've seen accusations of that with Jar Jar Binks, Watto, Mudflap, Skids, and I've wondered about it myself with the Ferengi. Me, I'm not going to assume someone's motivation to be damning.

I think a planet of hats can be taken too far, certainly. Look at the range of mores and beliefs here on Earth. I can excuse Vulcans being so focused on logic because they see it as necessary for their species survival. But aliens who all act the same way (very cautious, focused on "honor," a violent phobia regarding purple hats with bells on them) in some aspects but who act differently in others (there's no reason one Vulcan can't have an interest in alien arts and another couldn't care less about them) is fine for me.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

As for harkening on the scientific construct of racism, there's nothing about alien species as a metaphor that really aligns with that. Race is specifically within a species and was constructed to be a very limited staircase of differentiation among humans. The evolution between subjects like humans and others in Trek is vastly onion shaped from the bottom to the point where they approach each other at the top.

With Saru, as opposed to Klingons or Ferrangis, the evolutionary backdrop is actually explained and established as distinctly alien in construct and less obviously an allegory for some human facet of toxic social order.

Saying that making broad sweeps of species traits are toxic on account of them generalizing is a bit of a stretch. That would make X-Men in the Marvel universe foundationally problematic with them written as born outcasts.

[clearspira]

Aliens are alien.
Aliens are not human.
They will think in alien ways and do alien things.
Chuck has tried to make this point several times.
Just because we do not all think in one way does not mean that they do not. It certainly is not racist to say so.

My problem with it is that in Trek's case it is more often than not just bad writing.

[Admiral X]

I feel like Saru's entire backstory was thought up as an afterthought, and that really all they wanted was an excuse for one of the crew members to have something like spider sense.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I still think it's a better explanation than SpiderMan's though.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Aliens are alien.
Aliens are not human.
They will think in alien ways and do alien things.
Chuck has tried to make this point several times.
Just because we do not all think in one way does not mean that they do not. It certainly is not racist to say so.

My problem with it is that in Trek's case it is more often than not just bad writing.

Not 100% on where this post is response to. If you would care to embellish then I would be all ears. Particularly also though, what is Chuck's point in reference to regarding the subject.

Domo arigato

[clearspira]

Aliens are alien.
Aliens are not human.
They will think in alien ways and do alien things.
Chuck has tried to make this point several times.
Just because we do not all think in one way does not mean that they do not. It certainly is not racist to say so.

My problem with it is that in Trek's case it is more often than not just bad writing.

Not 100% on where this post is response to. If you would care to embellish then I would be all ears. Particularly also though, what is Chuck's point in reference to regarding the subject.

Domo arigato

The argument here if I am understanding correctly is that assuming an alien race would all act the same way is some how racist. As Chuck has pointed out, there is no reason at all to believe that aliens will act like humans in literally any way at all. Just because we do not all act alike does not mean that they would not.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Aliens are alien.
Aliens are not human.
They will think in alien ways and do alien things.
Chuck has tried to make this point several times.
Just because we do not all think in one way does not mean that they do not. It certainly is not racist to say so.

My problem with it is that in Trek's case it is more often than not just bad writing.

Not 100% on where this post is response to. If you would care to embellish then I would be all ears. Particularly also though, what is Chuck's point in reference to regarding the subject.

Domo arigato

The argument here if I am understanding correctly is that assuming an alien race would all act the same way is some how racist. As Chuck has pointed out, there is no reason at all to believe that aliens will act like humans in literally any way at all. Just because we do not all act alike does not mean that they would not.

Oh. I wholeheartedly agree.

I'm particularly uncertain if Deledrius and WFan were referring to compositional aesthetic of the alien species or allegorical discretion when reflecting on real human social circumstances, with regard to Saru, as I was asking earlier with regards to it being "racial."

[Deledrius]

I feel like Saru's entire backstory was thought up as an afterthought, and that really all they wanted was an excuse for one of the crew members to have something like spider sense.

Absolutely. The stupid throwaway line in the pilot which established it was not only poor exposition but serves at yet another example of people writing for Trek having no clue what evolution is or how it works.

[clearspira]

I feel like Saru's entire backstory was thought up as an afterthought, and that really all they wanted was an excuse for one of the crew members to have something like spider sense.

Absolutely. The stupid throwaway line in the pilot which established it was not only poor exposition but serves at yet another example of people writing for Trek having no clue what evolution is or how it works.

As I said before though, it didn't need to be stupid. A prey species were it to reach the top would have a completely different personality to a predator species. Think of it like the difference between a tiger and a gazelle: A tiger has evolved to hunt, a gazelle has evolved to flee. And those traits would remain for thousands of years after they no longer are a requirement for survival. This may sound sexist, but a wonder if the audience would be more accepting of Saru's original concept if his name was Hoshi Sato AKA a hot, small Asian chick instead of a large, ugly man with a stupid thing that grows out of his head.

The problem as I see it is more one of how such a species could reach the point of industrialisation if they are always being hunted and are never able to stop long enough to build. Because that ultimately is what happened to us. We stopped being hunters for the most part and became farmers, forcing us to stop our nomadic lifestyle and establish settlements. This was only possible because we were able to kill pretty much anything that threatened us making ''staying in one place'' now a perfectly viable prospect.
The only possibility I can see is if the predator species in this instance died off and the prey species was left to their own devices. But what could naturally do that and leave the prey species and their food source intact is questionable.