clearspira wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 6:18 pm
BTW, has anyone else noticed that the ''Opinionated Guides'' have gotten distinctly opinionless of late? He doesn't score STD, he doesn't score PIC, he didn't score two of the three Abrams films. I genuinely could not tell you where he puts STD in relation to the other shows and I genuinely could not tell you how he rates the PIC pilot episode compared to the other pilots. He doesn't even give out the episode awards any more.
If Chuck reads this - i'm not hating. I'm sure there are good reasons that I am missing, but sorry, I just do not understand why the format for the later shows are so different to the earlier ones especially as you are still doing the older shows in the older style AKA ''Rejoined'' just last week.
I think he has explained it more or less.
Since the shows are not in retrospect there is not as much basis for rating episodes relative to the whole series.
Last week I finished the audiobook "Last Best Hope" which is the tie in novel to "Picard" which explains all that happened in the 20 years prior to the first episode of "Picard". At the time of Star Trek Picard, Clansy wasn't just an Admiral, she was the CnC of Starfleet, which I assume is Commander and Chief (Here in the United States, Commander and Chief is the military rank of the United States President. I guess it is different in Starfleet. Leads to my theory that Starfleet runs the Federation, unlike in the United States where the government runs the military). So if the original plan was for Janeway to be in Clansy's place, that would mean that Janeway was supposed to be running all of Starfleet.
Sweet merciful God...
"I think, when one has been angry for a very long time, one gets used to it. And it becomes comfortable like…like old leather. And finally… it becomes so familiar that one can't remember feeling any other way."
clearspira wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 6:18 pm
BTW, has anyone else noticed that the ''Opinionated Guides'' have gotten distinctly opinionless of late? He doesn't score STD, he doesn't score PIC, he didn't score two of the three Abrams films. I genuinely could not tell you where he puts STD in relation to the other shows and I genuinely could not tell you how he rates the PIC pilot episode compared to the other pilots. He doesn't even give out the episode awards any more.
If Chuck reads this - i'm not hating. I'm sure there are good reasons that I am missing, but sorry, I just do not understand why the format for the later shows are so different to the earlier ones especially as you are still doing the older shows in the older style AKA ''Rejoined'' just last week.
I noticed the same thing. Since he rates them in relationship to the rest of the episodes in the series, and Discovery and Picard are still ongoing series, it's hard to rate them as average, above average or below average for their series.
Last week I finished the audiobook "Last Best Hope" which is the tie in novel to "Picard" which explains all that happened in the 20 years prior to the first episode of "Picard". At the time of Star Trek Picard, Clansy wasn't just an Admiral, she was the CnC of Starfleet, which I assume is Commander and Chief (Here in the United States, Commander and Chief is the military rank of the United States President. I guess it is different in Starfleet. Leads to my theory that Starfleet runs the Federation, unlike in the United States where the government runs the military). So if the original plan was for Janeway to be in Clansy's place, that would mean that Janeway was supposed to be running all of Starfleet.
Sweet merciful God...
The book explained that it was Captain Clansy who helped convinced Picard to take the assignment to help the Romulans, accept the promotion to Admiral, leave the Enterprise, and then take command of another ship. When Picard suggested giving command of the Enterprise to his first officer, Clansy complained, saying that Worf was a bad choice, but accepted anyways. It was also mentioned that Picard knew that Captain Clansy wanted the C in C job.
Now replace Captain Clansy with Admiral Janeway.
After Admiral Picard risked his career on continuing to save the Romulans after the Synth Revolt, and lost. The then C in C (I forget his name) resigned shortly there after and Clansy was named C in C in his place. Good thing it wasn't Admiral Janeway in the novel. The C in C stepping down after Picard's sudden resignation and Janeway becoming the head of Starfleet would have looked really suspicious.
Hell, the book implies very heavily, that the Romulan supernova wasn't a natural event. That it might have been an attack by someone else. Admiral Janeway instead of Admiral Clansy would have explained everything: Janeway caused a supernova, killing the Romulans, creating a power vacuum, getting smaller out of the way colony planets to threaten to leave, get Picard out of the picture, all to get herself to the Commander and Chief office. Hell, the supernova would have happened around the time of the then Commander and Chief leaving office and her taking the job. "You see it as the Romulan star going supernova. I see it as fireworks to celebrate Admiral Janeway as the new head of Starfleet."
Admiral O'Swearypants.... Why is she so angry and sweary? Well, after Picard's rant on how Starfleet is cowardly and wrong headed; a hit dog howls. She is angry because she knows Picard was right and she is a coward, Starfleet has failed in its obligations, and like all entitled assholes who have never been taught how to accept being wrong she is lashing out at the person pointing out she is wrong. We'll see this trait of hers again.
And we'll see it in Real Life in another couple of threads on here too.
Not that Picard is entirely free of that trait either. It took him twenty years to get over his pride and do what he could have done the day after he quit; namely get a ship and do it himself. Not that Picard is obligated to go out[with one exception, we'll get to that later too], he is perfectly entitled to call it quits and do some self care; he spent his life in service of others and he earned his retirement if he thought it was all getting a bit much. If any man earned the right to spend his twilight days sitting at home calling out the youngs [the youngs including Admiral O'Swearypants too, compared to Picard] for failing to live up to the legacy he left for them, then it is Picard. But he feels that obligation within himself, and it has eaten at him because he hasn't taken up arms on his own. He could have done this himself, and he knows it. Unlike Clancy, he is admitting it even if it is late.
So while the PIC pilot had issue, this episode is where the brown sticky begins to come out.
-So the whole Mars attack aka Space! 9/11 no. 3 (I believe?) happens because someone was able to remotely hack the androids (not calling them synthetics this time, these ones look like the Working Joes from Alien:Isolation) and just one (?) was able to disable the ENTIRE PLANETARY DEFENSE GRID from just one control panel (friggin Enterprise systems required confirmation from multiple high ranking officers, hell in ST09, also written by Kurtzman, Nero needed the Earth's defense codes from admiral Pike to attack Earth), because I guess Oh and her lackeys redesigned them that way (and NO ONE thought that was a problem, especially after the Dominion War, when, you know, Changelings infiltrated Starfleet and the Breen even managed to bomb Earth, yup, makes totally sense to design a system that can only be controlled from one panel handled by a single android with no failsafe of any sorts). And given that this is another Space!9/11, what better way to show the victims of a such horrifying attack, than as bigots, assholes, Hollywood dads and incompetents. But then again, I don't expect much from 9/11 truthers, although that one might be Orci and not Kurtzman, dunno, can't tell any difference between their styles. And speaking of telling things apart...
-The super duper Romulan CSI magic gizmo that apparently the very intelligent and resourceful "Starfleet engineers who can turn rocks into replicators" totally believe is nonsense because it's not like the Romulans aren't known for lying or have advanced forging technology or practice deception as per modus operandi (The Mind's Eye and other episodes) is only used once and is never brought again and something tells me it won't appear again. Which conveniently can "replay" events from a specific time period, while the rest of the "recording" gets wiped with lots of radiation, because, as anyone knows, when you fry a hard drive with a magnet, only a small portion of its memory survives, and not the entire thing gets wiped beyond recovery. What I'm trying to say is that they're needlessly complicating something that could have been solved by far simpler explanation, without requiring DoctorWho-level of technobabbles, like say, the apartment was already bought off by some other aliens that are known not to like visitors so they couldn't get inside (half of that entire subplot was practically a dead end), or that there was a radiation leak in the building that wiped off everything on that floor and they couldn't get inside. No need to waste 10K $ on some pointless CGI scene when you can just do something else, smarter and cheaper. Likewise the tracking Soji part could have been handled differently that the bullshit "very advanced Federation AI can't tell apart two Asian people" we got from the Irish Romulan Lady's "computer hacking". Like, say, the necklace that Dahj wore and gave to Picard actually has a special tracking device, and after asking Raffi's help to decode it they find it leads to that Canto Bight planet where Maddox was, since that makes much more sense than finding his location from his notes, as you know, he would have been able to keep track of the two better this way. And speaking of apartments...
-While the Federation might be "communist" and thus "not have private property" (I'm joking here), and private persons using teleportation is a casual thing (as Sisko did in his early Academy days), I really really doubt that you can just beam inside anyone's apartment, whether it's free or occupied, for the obvious reasons. So how did Picard and Laris manage to beam inside her apartment without triggering some alarms of any sorts? For the ZV operatives it makes sense, since Oh could have just disabled the transporter blockers inside the apartment blocks (are there no private security systems in the Federation though?), but how would the duo have managed to sneak inside the apartment without detection? Hacking? What kind of pitiful security do you have if it could be hacked by a retired secret service agent who hasn't updated her programming since 15-20 years ago? Forget the "AI wants to steal your precious bodily fluids" threat, someone beaming inside your own house without permission would be far scarier.
-The Romulans hate AI/androids and cybernetics and don't have any. Except for that TNG episode where that Romulan defector mentions that "Romulan cyberneticists would love to look at Data" (which Chabon tried to handwave by saying that those scientists are like Nazi doctors, which is incredible stupid, and I'll say why in the next paragraphs), the Romulan drone-ships from the ENT three-part episodes, which, while being controlled by a remote telepathic pilot, had some form self-repair system, which we know from the dialogue it was not controlled by said pilot, and any system that can fix a complex machine from unpredictable damage on its own is by definition an AI, as well as the VOY episode where the Romulans take control of an AI-heavy controlled Federation ship and not only they manage to take control of most of its systems, they even mention they could decompile the Doctor's program to learn his thoughts, which would require knowledge of... cybernetics. Here's the thing about the Romulans, who run an interstellar empire that uses giant ships, fitted with advanced cloaking technology, that uses microblack holes as power source (when no one else does), has one of the best espionage systems in the quadrant and at one point even toyed with advanced drone ships with holoemmiters: There's no way they could have achieved all of that without using any form of AI. Especially when all the surrounding powers use AI or at the least some form of AI and are at a similar level of development. And even if the Romulans didn't use AI for some reason, they'd still have to study it somehow, exactly for that reason. Counterespionage is a thing, evaluating others' development of cybernetics is crucial for the security of your nation infiltrating said systems and I highly doubt that the Romulans have excellent spying system but their counterespionage is nonexistent, since well, I hope I don't have to explain why that's stupid. In all other fictional stories where AI is banned or limited, they always have a replacement for it, be it very advanced supercomputer-level of brains/biotechnology or some magic substance (like the spice in Dune). What do the Romulans have instead of AI? Umm, yeah, nothing. They don't have superbrains not have they enslaved races that have one (which would be even more dangerous than a possible AI uprising), so there's no way they could have an interstellar empire, technologically they should still be stuck in the 1960s. The hostile and conqueror Romulan Empire not using/studying cybernetics or artificial intelligence, while surrounded by hundreds of alien species that do, would be like the Soviet Union not pursuing nuclear weapons/technology while surrounded by hostile powers that do.
Even the Soviets eventually abandoned their pet evolution theories in favor of the "bourgeois" Darwinian evolution, so there's no way the Romulans would self-sabotage themselves forever, and there's no way this would not appear suspicious. Given how advanced the Federation AI is, the Romulans won't just stay with their thumbs up their asses, and instead they would immediately jump on the AI arms race bandwagon. And if somehow the cybernetics research labs mysteriously explode or constantly fail, will the overly paranoid and suspicious Romulans just ignore the issue? Of course not! They would blame it on sabotage, they'd suspect that the Federation is trying to infiltrate their ranks to stop their AI research (think Iran and their nukes) and would not give up, they'd double down on both research and project security. And if somehow they manage to capture a ZV operative, they won't buy their whole "AI will contact AI Gods and kill us all" story, since that sounds stupid and reeks of some lame excuse to force the Romulans to give up cyberwarfare, and thus putting them at a severe disadvantage compared to, well, everyone else, so instead they'll consider the ZV to be some group attempting a coup or committing treason and deal with it properly. Also, there's no reason why the Romulans couldn't just put blockers on AI to prevent it from evolving, AI software ain't mold or grey goo, they can't grow forever, I mean current AI don't do that today, so "all AI are dangerous" is utter bullshit.
The entire plot of "Romulans not using AI" is an excellent case of "Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale".
Last edited by Mabus on Sat Jul 18, 2020 8:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
LordFeagans wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 7:24 pm
Hell, the book implies very heavily, that the Romulan supernova wasn't a natural event. That it might have been an attack by someone else. Admiral Janeway instead of Admiral Clansy would have explained everything: Janeway caused a supernova, killing the Romulans, creating a power vacuum, getting smaller out of the way colony planets to threaten to leave, get Picard out of the picture, all to get herself to the Commander and Chief office. Hell, the supernova would have happened around the time of the then Commander and Chief leaving office and her taking the job. "You see it as the Romulan star going supernova. I see it as fireworks to celebrate Admiral Janeway as the new head of Starfleet."
This is absolutely hilarious and makes too much sense!
"I think, when one has been angry for a very long time, one gets used to it. And it becomes comfortable like…like old leather. And finally… it becomes so familiar that one can't remember feeling any other way."
clearspira wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2020 6:18 pm
BTW, has anyone else noticed that the ''Opinionated Guides'' have gotten distinctly opinionless of late? He doesn't score Star Trek Discovery, he doesn't score Star Trek Picard, he didn't score two of the three Abrams films. I genuinely could not tell you where he puts Star Trek Discovery in relation to the other shows and I genuinely could not tell you how he rates the Star Trek Picard pilot episode compared to the other pilots. He doesn't even give out the episode awards any more.
If Chuck reads this - i'm not hating. I'm sure there are good reasons that I am missing, but sorry, I just do not understand why the format for the later shows are so different to the earlier ones especially as you are still doing the older shows in the older style AKA ''Rejoined'' just last week.
I noticed the same thing. Since he rates them in relationship to the rest of the episodes in the series, and Discovery and Picard are still ongoing series, it's hard to rate them as average, above average or below average for their series.
That makes sense, while I'd like Chuck to give his views on each episode as he covers them, it is his show and he can do what he wants.
"I think, when one has been angry for a very long time, one gets used to it. And it becomes comfortable like…like old leather. And finally… it becomes so familiar that one can't remember feeling any other way."
The hostile and conqueror Romulan Empire not using/studying cybernetics or artificial intelligence, while surrounded by hundreds of alien species that do, would be like the Soviet Union not pursuing nuclear weapons/technology while surrounded by hostile powers that do.
There's not a solidly-defined consensus definition of artificial intelligence. The Romulans clearly have very advanced computers, as demonstrated by their fancy gizmo in this very episode, but they don't seem to consider those intelligent.
