Picard - Maps and Legends

[FlynnTaggart]

I wonder if the uprising robot F8, Fate, was done on purpose as some symbolism or a coincidence.

Anyway I didn't hate this episode all honestly. The secret secret Romulan police was kind of interesting even if their mission was stupid. Admiral O'Swearypants was kinda annoying for obvious reasons but I liked that she stood up to Picard, that she wasn't going to stand for his shit. I can't blame her for being made, Picard had 14 years ago nearly broke the Federation to save their mortal enemy and then bad mouthed them again like yesterday, dude could have atleast waited a week or so before begging for a boat. The Borg Cube continued to be interesting even if Clonebot 2 wasn't because hard to care about characters they make in bulk atleast in my opinion. Wasn't perfect but did make me want to see the next episode.

Just too bad that it, in my opinion, kept getting worse.

[Link8909]

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 also think the nature of the shows makes it hard to judge each individual episode on its own, because these episodes aren't really designed to be stand-alone stories so much Parts 1-10 of a single story.

That is also very true, I think he does this with other shows that are serialised as well.

[Riedquat]

Here's where the anti-Brexit politics of Patrick Stewart come into play. This is a clear metaphor for the 2016 migrant crisis that is widely regarded to be one of the pivotal moments in the Brexit referendum as immigration was always one of the main driving forces of it.

It also smacks of the same problems of refusing to consider whether or not the other side has a point, but instead nope, they're wrong, immoral and so on. It's too simple, looking at things too much in black and white. Ditto with the androids, when it was clearly demonstrated that they can be a real threat. Blinkered holier-than-thou is another form of prejudice, and he'd have made his points a lot better if he recognised that. People might get on board with you when you recognise some of the negative consequences for your desired course of action exist, they're rather less likely to when you're in denial about them and equate those who are concerned with the bigots. That's being no more open minded than the bigots.

[G-Man]

Here's where the anti-Brexit politics of Patrick Stewart come into play. This is a clear metaphor for the 2016 migrant crisis that is widely regarded to be one of the pivotal moments in the Brexit referendum as immigration was always one of the main driving forces of it.

It also smacks of the same problems of refusing to consider whether or not the other side has a point, but instead nope, they're wrong, immoral and so on. It's too simple, looking at things too much in black and white. Ditto with the androids, when it was clearly demonstrated that they can be a real threat. Blinkered holier-than-thou is another form of prejudice, and he'd have made his points a lot better if he recognised that. People might get on board with you when you recognise some of the negative consequences for your desired course of action exist, they're rather less likely to when you're in denial about them and equate those who are concerned with the bigots. That's being no more open minded than the bigots.

Some of it has to do with our modern value of "anti-discrimination."

Not "discriminating" is such a powerful principle in our society that we tend to view things like this as "bigots vs. victims" without bothering to consider the actual issue at hand.

It's a lot like the X-Men, where the usual issue is to portray mutants primarily as an oppressed minority rather than analyzing the actual issues that each mutation brings. The idea that most of the mutant-related prejudices would boil down to "hating freaks" never made that much sense (nor the fact that other people with powers were not thought of the same way - in the real world, very few people would make a distinction between Spider-Man and Beast based on how each acquired his powers).

[Link8909]

Here's where the anti-Brexit politics of Patrick Stewart come into play. This is a clear metaphor for the 2016 migrant crisis that is widely regarded to be one of the pivotal moments in the Brexit referendum as immigration was always one of the main driving forces of it.

It also smacks of the same problems of refusing to consider whether or not the other side has a point, but instead nope, they're wrong, immoral and so on. It's too simple, looking at things too much in black and white. Ditto with the androids, when it was clearly demonstrated that they can be a real threat. Blinkered holier-than-thou is another form of prejudice, and he'd have made his points a lot better if he recognised that. People might get on board with you when you recognise some of the negative consequences for your desired course of action exist, they're rather less likely to when you're in denial about them and equate those who are concerned with the bigots. That's being no more open minded than the bigots.

I get what you’re saying, but honestly I never really saw or felt that in Star Trek Picard, sure it’s made very clear that Picard is against not just abandoning the Romulans in their time of need, but also the ban on Androids after the attack on Mars, and because he is the hero of the story his point of view is framed as (for lack of a better term) the morally right one, however as I have said the Federations decision does make sense given the context of their history with the Romulan Star Empire and the Federation and Starfleet policy of none intervention, this was never a case of the Federation being evil, stupid or controlled by a brain slug.

I do get what you are saying however, and Star Trek has had a long history of having complex issues being more like straw man arguments, with are hero’s coming across as how you put it blinkered holier-than-thou, but I do feel that the situation in Star Trek Picard is a lot more complicated and one can see both sides here.

For me I side with Picard, while there is a long and tense history with the Romulan Star Empire, it has been with its military and government, and the situation that they were in was going to effect more than that, as Picard said lives were at stake here, and if there was anything the Federation could do to help the Romulan people, they should have done so, it could well have finally ended the conflicted between the two governments and been a start to a new era of peace between the two.

Same with the Synthetics at the end, the only reason they were a threat to the galaxy was because of people that feared and hated them, who wanted to destroy them, and who were prejudice against the Synthetics and didn’t see them as people, for the Synthetics (specifically Arcana) it was a them or us mentality, and once Picard showed them the same kindness he had shown Data time and time again when his life was on the line, shown them that there were people out there that not only didn’t act that way but would also defend their right to excised, they were not a threat to anyone.

But as I said I do see the other side of the arguments for both, I simply don’t agree with it, sometimes when one has an opinion and then others do not agree with it, it’s easy to paint the opposing argument as them being evil or stupid simply because they do not agree with it, and it’s important to remember not to do that because not only can the opposing argument have a interesting point to make, but they could well be thinking the same way about your own opinions.

[CrypticMirror]

I wonder if the uprising robot F8, Fate, was done on purpose as some symbolism or a coincidence.

Anyway I didn't hate this episode all honestly. The secret secret Romulan police was kind of interesting even if their mission was stupid. Admiral O'Swearypants was kinda annoying for obvious reasons but I liked that she stood up to Picard, that she wasn't going to stand for his shit. I can't blame her for being made, Picard had 14 years ago nearly broke the Federation to save their mortal enemy and then bad mouthed them again like yesterday, dude could have atleast waited a week or so before begging for a boat.

If you can't save a mortal enemy when it is inconvenient to yourself, you don't deserve plaudits for helping when it is.

Starfleet would have been just as wrong and morally cowardly in a weeks time as it had been for the last fourteen years. Picard was completely in the right, and saying that he ought to have waited is just like Marge Simpson saying "its right, but you shouldn't say it". And why should anyone wait another week, when they've waited already fourteen years too long already. You do the right thing because it is the right thing, not because it is the easy thing or the convenient thing. Too many wrong things, these last 19 years IRL, have been done out of convenience or ease or fear. We've all waited long enough for someone to start doing the morally right thing again.

[Link8909]

If you can't save a mortal enemy when it is inconvenient to yourself, you don't deserve plaudits for helping when it is.

Starfleet would have been just as wrong and morally cowardly in a weeks time as it had been for the last fourteen years. Picard was completely in the right, and saying that he ought to have waited is just like Marge Simpson saying "its right, but you shouldn't say it". And why should anyone wait another week, when they've waited already fourteen years too long already. You do the right thing because it is the right thing, not because it is the easy thing or the convenient thing. Too many wrong things, these last 19 years IRL, have been done out of convenience or ease or fear. We've all waited long enough for someone to start doing the morally right thing again.

Well said.

[Riedquat]

... (snip for brevity)

But as I said I do see the other side of the arguments for both, I simply don’t agree with it, sometimes when one has an opinion and then others do not agree with it, it’s easy to paint the opposing argument as them being evil or stupid simply because they do not agree with it, and it’s important to remember not to do that because not only can the opposing argument have a interesting point to make, but they could well be thinking the same way about your own opinions.

Quite - I find it unfortunate that Picard (the series) painted it a bit too simple black and white for that reason, even though in that case I agree with Picard (the character). The lack of nuance all round though is something I did find a bit disappointing, and that it's been publically declared an analogy of Brexit ignorant and dismissive.

There's a much better moral lesson when you can recognise the genuine risks, both with the androids and Romulans, and still decided to help them. In the hopelessly risk-averse society we seem to live in today there's too much denial that the risks are there, rather than accepting them and thinking it's still the right thing to do.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The Zhat Vash is kind of like ISIS and their apocalyptic narrative.

[FlynnTaggart]

If you can't save a mortal enemy when it is inconvenient to yourself, you don't deserve plaudits for helping when it is.

Starfleet would have been just as wrong and morally cowardly in a weeks time as it had been for the last fourteen years. Picard was completely in the right, and saying that he ought to have waited is just like Marge Simpson saying "its right, but you shouldn't say it". And why should anyone wait another week, when they've waited already fourteen years too long already. You do the right thing because it is the right thing, not because it is the easy thing or the convenient thing. Too many wrong things, these last 19 years IRL, have been done out of convenience or ease or fear. We've all waited long enough for someone to start doing the morally right thing again.

Not saying it was right (though not saying it was wrong either) for Admiral O'Swearypants and the Federation to leave the Romulans to die but its understandable. Even Kirk didn't want to save the Klingons when they were on the brink of collapse and that was when the Federation was not in bad shape from wars and 9/11 allegories. If a boatload of ISIS terrorists had sunk people on another boat might hesitate tossing them life rafts or letting them onboard especially if its going to sink their own boat because the ISIS goon had sunk after putting a bunch of holes in their boat.

It might have been more then inconvenient for the Federation to save the Romulans, it might have been destructive. Member worlds were ready to leave, it could have caused the Federation to collapse and all to help a belligerent power. Doing the right thing when its harmful to you is not noble, its stupid, you don't give your beating heart to some criminal who ate too much fast food because its the right thing to do. For the Federation doing the right thing might have meant the end and all for the Romulans.

And waiting is not out of convenience or ease of fear, its out of social grace or timing. Picard yesterday whipped out his Captain's log and pissed all over the Federation during the interview and the came asking for a ship, not the best timing. Be like trying to bum the keys off your parents after you just called them assholes yesterday. His mission was not time sensitive really, he had waited 14 years so he could wait a bit longer. Not to be morally wrong, not because if convenience or fear but to let things calm down so his mission is not doomed from the start, which is was. He want to Admiral O'Swearypants with his "Not My Federation" interview fresh in everyone's mind, at best he's going to get a very cold welcome.