Voyager Endgame - Janeway destroyed the federations hope

[Link8909]

Like I think the Romulan refugees are a bigger deal than the Bajorian refugees (or any of the other waifs and strays they ran into across all the series), both in terms of number and the sort of implied geo-politics of the future, however even in older shows there was a sense that outside of the Federation things could get pretty wild and lawless with Orion pirates slavery wandering about and so on. The failure of the Federation to help the Romulans is a serious sort of failure of the ideals of the Federation, but heck when the Klingons faced a similar crisis in Star Trek 6 there were factions inside Star Fleet willing to resort to murder and intrigue rather than try to find a way to help the Klingons and end decades of feuding and war. Yesterday's Enterprise implies that the Federation and Klingons were one star ship away from devolving into another destructive war. So the failure of Federation ideal in the Romulan crisis seems not unprecedented in the hall of Federation failures to live up to its own ideals.

Agreed, the Federation has always had a long history of none intervention (it's the first general order of Starfleet) and making bad and immoral decisions or treaties that don't live up to the ideals of the Federation.

And while I disagree with the Federations inactions in Star Trek Picard, I do understand why those decisions were made, much like how there was mistrust between the Federation and the Klingons that lead to people on both sides conspiring together to continue the conflict, there has been even less trust between the Federation and the Romulans, with an even longer history of conflict between the two, with that and the Federations none intervention policy, it's easy to see why people in the Federation didn't want to help, plus with the Borg invasions, the Klingon and Dominion wars, and everything in-between, I'd imagine that people in the Federation just isn't want to be dragged into another crisis and just wanted to heal.

But what is important is that Picard himself did and still stood by those Starfleet ideals, even if the actual Starfleet didn't, and that the message of Star Trek Picard was to stand by those ideals and not give into fear and paranoia, even if it feels like no one else does.

[Link8909]

You still have Macy's day parade in the middle of the Depression.


That's the kind of nuance that Star Trek adopted recently that has people scratching their heads when they see blue collar workers on a destitute place like the moon.

The reason why things like that bother me is that in a post-scarcity society ''blue collar workers'' should be a thing of the past. Who the f-k would want to labour away all day when they don't need to?

That's a speculative assumption really.

A practical issue I'll give you is that automation should wipe those people's jobs out if this was theoretically consistent. Problem is that that's probably part of the metaphor, just with immigration phobia instead.

Class-wise, there's nothing solid that Star Trek even gives us about Earth except for what Picard says in First Contact the movie and the general melancholy tone that is obviously a product of 60's social standards and network TV tropes from the 80's that solidified Star Trek as a dorky social universe.

While there isn't a solid answer for how the Federation works in detail, my personal take on it is that people do what they do in the future because they want or choose to do so, rather than necessity or lack of choice, for example: I'd work at my local Sainsbury's not because I need the money to pay my bills, or because I lack the qualifications to to anything else, but because I personally like the job, it's close to where I live, I meet good people each day, and I feel fulfilled by doing a good job that needs doing, and doing it while being polite to customers and employees.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Run for fun? What the hell kind of fun is that? hehe

[Senko]

I think we see various kinds of essentially repetitive manual labour in Star Trek before we see the workers on the ship yards of Mars in Picard. I am not clear what is meant by blue collar in this context: is it the kind of work (repetitive manual)? Or the imagined compensation (we actually don't know how the ship building crews on Mars were compensated if at all etc.)? Most of the repair work say O'Brian or Rom does on DS9 seems similarly manual and repetitive or indeed most of the work that the none-bridge officers presumably do on the Enterprise and other star ships.

Indeed, also while we aren't shown, I'd imagine that the hard labor that is suppose to not be there is more maintaining the machines that do the heavy and dangerous work, overseeing said work, and getting in there when necessary, while I agree that automation would be a thing like with the Synths, that doesn't mean that there is not human oversight, you still need people to drive the Work-Bees and fix the machines if they break.

I like to imagine that if we had the vast technology and knowledge of the federation we could come up with a better mining solution than repurposing obsolete medical holograms to slowly mine with hand picks.

[Thebestoftherest]

I think we see various kinds of essentially repetitive manual labour in Star Trek before we see the workers on the ship yards of Mars in Picard. I am not clear what is meant by blue collar in this context: is it the kind of work (repetitive manual)? Or the imagined compensation (we actually don't know how the ship building crews on Mars were compensated if at all etc.)? Most of the repair work say O'Brian or Rom does on DS9 seems similarly manual and repetitive or indeed most of the work that the none-bridge officers presumably do on the Enterprise and other star ships.

Indeed, also while we aren't shown, I'd imagine that the hard labor that is suppose to not be there is more maintaining the machines that do the heavy and dangerous work, overseeing said work, and getting in there when necessary, while I agree that automation would be a thing like with the Synths, that doesn't mean that there is not human oversight, you still need people to drive the Work-Bees and fix the machines if they break.

I like to imagine that if we had the vast technology and knowledge of the federation we could come up with a better mining solution than repurposing obsolete medical holograms to slowly mine with hand picks.

Yeah, maybe make it a better form if their hologram why bother with legs. Give picks for their hands.

[AllanO]

Yep its been said in a quite a few star trek episodes that they have no need of money because replication is so cheap and easy now. Kirk dismisses a pile of gold and gems as something they can easily do and its several hundred years past his time. The Bajoran's were a small group who lost ground to an invader, the Romulan's were a massive star empire that apparently dissapeared along with their homeworld since non of those refugee's are going to the presumably hundreds of Romulan worlds. That's just so much in Picard that doesn't seem to fit with every representation of the Federation previously and Discovery appears to have casuallly wiped out the entire 29th century time travelling society (though as I said we don't see them dealing with Admiral loose cannon) in favour of making Michael even more of a special snowflake.

Note that I think we can safely say that classic Trek is inconsistent in how they depict wealth, scarcity and so on operating. So as you say in Catspaw the alien of the week tries to impress Kirk and co with jewels and Kirk is like we can make these no problem easy peasy as you say. However ever in Arena (the one where Kirk fights the Gorn) Kirk comments that the diamonds strewn about the place are worth a lot. [Stuff like Harry Mudd's scheme with the dilithium miners and the way the miners worked suggests again that wealth might not be that much different in the 23rd century from the 20th and so on.]

I am not sure how we are supposed to read the situation in former Romulan space in Picard. Clearly there is still a Romulan military that can field hundreds of ships for the destroy the AIs plot and so presumably hundreds if not thousands more doing more regular stuff. I would have guessed there are still many Romulan planets controlled by the Romulan military, it is just they no longer control all of the space the Romulan empire once did. So I would imagine some of the refugees from the home world were resettled on those colonies they still control, but we often see that colonies can be miniscule (a few hundred people) and that has implications for the logistics of resettlement.

The way Star Trek seems to imagine interstellar colonization working I can easily imagine that the bulk of the population of the Romulan empire was actually on Romulus and all the colonies were sparsely populated by comparison. So first evacuating Romulus without Federation help may have been such a strain on the Romulan military that that alone led to the dissolution of the Romulan empire when planets they gained by conquest staged successful revolts hiving off dozens or hundreds of worlds (its unclear how much of the Romulan empire was Romulans and how much conquered vassal planets etc.). Next the remaining worlds may have resisted accepting refugees and that may have led to further rebellion and problems for the Romulan authorities plus incursions by hostile powers taking advantage of the chaos, space pirates and so on further whittling away at Romulan sphere of control.

So even if in the end most of Romulus's population found settlement in relatively stable Romulan controlled worlds (or like Picard's winery staff on stable worlds outside the former Romulan sphere) assuming Romulus was a planet of billions that would allow for a minority of hundred of millions of Romulan refugees stuck in insecure no man's lands outside the sphere of the remaining Romulan authority as depicted in Picard (I mean technically I don't know that we see more than thousands of Romulan refugees).

Technically we can make the same complaint about the plot of Star Trek VI, why would the explosion on Kronos's moon be an existential threat to the Klingon empire? The Romulan situation seems entirely consistent with galactic politics as depicted in Star Trek...

[Link8909]

I am not sure how we are supposed to read the situation in former Romulan space in Picard. Clearly there is still a Romulan military that can field hundreds of ships for the destroy the AIs plot and so presumably hundreds if not thousands more doing more regular stuff. I would have guessed there are still many Romulan planets controlled by the Romulan military, it is just they no longer control all of the space the Romulan empire once did. So I would imagine some of the refugees from the home world were resettled on those colonies they still control, but we often see that colonies can be miniscule (a few hundred people) and that has implications for the logistics of resettlement.

The way Star Trek seems to imagine interstellar colonization working I can easily imagine that the bulk of the population of the Romulan empire was actually on Romulus and all the colonies were sparsely populated by comparison. So first evacuating Romulus without Federation help may have been such a strain on the Romulan military that that alone led to the dissolution of the Romulan empire when planets they gained by conquest staged successful revolts hiving off dozens or hundreds of worlds (its unclear how much of the Romulan empire was Romulans and how much conquered vassal planets etc.). Next the remaining worlds may have resisted accepting refugees and that may have led to further rebellion and problems for the Romulan authorities plus incursions by hostile powers taking advantage of the chaos, space pirates and so on further whittling away at Romulan sphere of control.

So even if in the end most of Romulus's population found settlement in relatively stable Romulan controlled worlds (or like Picard's winery staff on stable worlds outside the former Romulan sphere) assuming Romulus was a planet of billions that would allow for a minority of hundred of millions of Romulan refugees stuck in insecure no man's lands outside the sphere of the remaining Romulan authority as depicted in Picard (I mean technically I don't know that we see more than thousands of Romulan refugees).

Technically we can make the same complaint about the plot of Star Trek VI, why would the explosion on Kronos's moon be an existential threat to the Klingon empire? The Romulan situation seems entirely consistent with galactic politics as depicted in Star Trek...

Indeed, I feel that what we see of the Romulans on Star Trek Picard makes sense, that with the destruction of the their homeworld the Empire became fractured, still able to keep its military might, but more focused on that than their people, and leaving them out to dry at the expense of maintaining that fleet, the Romulans are more militaristic after all.

Honestly I was really happy that Star Trek Picard expanded on the destruction of Romulus (even a little bit) as for the last decade all we had to go on was what Star Trek Online depicted, and I hope we see more of those consequences next season.

[clearspira]

Yep its been said in a quite a few star trek episodes that they have no need of money because replication is so cheap and easy now. Kirk dismisses a pile of gold and gems as something they can easily do and its several hundred years past his time. The Bajoran's were a small group who lost ground to an invader, the Romulan's were a massive star empire that apparently dissapeared along with their homeworld since non of those refugee's are going to the presumably hundreds of Romulan worlds. That's just so much in Picard that doesn't seem to fit with every representation of the Federation previously and Discovery appears to have casuallly wiped out the entire 29th century time travelling society (though as I said we don't see them dealing with Admiral loose cannon) in favour of making Michael even more of a special snowflake.

Note that I think we can safely say that classic Trek is inconsistent in how they depict wealth, scarcity and so on operating. So as you say in Catspaw the alien of the week tries to impress Kirk and co with jewels and Kirk is like we can make these no problem easy peasy as you say. However ever in Arena (the one where Kirk fights the Gorn) Kirk comments that the diamonds strewn about the place are worth a lot. [Stuff like Harry Mudd's scheme with the dilithium miners and the way the miners worked suggests again that wealth might not be that much different in the 23rd century from the 20th and so on.]

I am not sure how we are supposed to read the situation in former Romulan space in Picard. Clearly there is still a Romulan military that can field hundreds of ships for the destroy the AIs plot and so presumably hundreds if not thousands more doing more regular stuff. I would have guessed there are still many Romulan planets controlled by the Romulan military, it is just they no longer control all of the space the Romulan empire once did. So I would imagine some of the refugees from the home world were resettled on those colonies they still control, but we often see that colonies can be miniscule (a few hundred people) and that has implications for the logistics of resettlement.

The way Star Trek seems to imagine interstellar colonization working I can easily imagine that the bulk of the population of the Romulan empire was actually on Romulus and all the colonies were sparsely populated by comparison. So first evacuating Romulus without Federation help may have been such a strain on the Romulan military that that alone led to the dissolution of the Romulan empire when planets they gained by conquest staged successful revolts hiving off dozens or hundreds of worlds (its unclear how much of the Romulan empire was Romulans and how much conquered vassal planets etc.). Next the remaining worlds may have resisted accepting refugees and that may have led to further rebellion and problems for the Romulan authorities plus incursions by hostile powers taking advantage of the chaos, space pirates and so on further whittling away at Romulan sphere of control.

So even if in the end most of Romulus's population found settlement in relatively stable Romulan controlled worlds (or like Picard's winery staff on stable worlds outside the former Romulan sphere) assuming Romulus was a planet of billions that would allow for a minority of hundred of millions of Romulan refugees stuck in insecure no man's lands outside the sphere of the remaining Romulan authority as depicted in Picard (I mean technically I don't know that we see more than thousands of Romulan refugees).

Technically we can make the same complaint about the plot of Star Trek VI, why would the explosion on Kronos's moon be an existential threat to the Klingon empire? The Romulan situation seems entirely consistent with galactic politics as depicted in Star Trek...

Good point about Star Trek 6. It is basically the same plot except for the fact that Star Trek 6 was forgotten. I would go as far as to say Star Trek 6 was retconned with the exception of the Khitomer Accords. Lets see: Praxis dooming the Klingon Empire? Didn't happen. The Klingons have pink blood? Not true. The Klingons do not have tear ducts? Not true. A female chancellor? TNG would make it a point with the Duras sisters that women cannot serve on the council.

[AndrewGPaul]

My take on the Klingon and Romulus empires is that they more centralised - politically and demographically - than the Federation. The Federation expanded by recruiting new member worlds; there’s a lot of small (mostly human-populated) colony worlds, but then there’s also mature civilisations such as Vulcan, Andor, Betazed, Trill, etc, all of which might have populations and technology on a par with Earth. Whereas in the two empires, I always thought that the capital homeworlds were the centres of government, technology, the largest populations. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Klingon home system had the majority of the total population of the Klingon empire.

Mind you, the Federation seemed overly centralised, too. They sited their capital on a planet way off to one side of their territory, and also put a significant proportion of their manufacturing capability there too (did we ever hear of another shipyard on the scale of Utopia Planitia, or even so much as re-using the Spacedock model as a base in another system?)

In the case of the Romulans, there’s the added possibility that a large proportion of the refugees were seeking political asylum, using the catastrophe as a way of escaping from the Romulan police state. They may not all have come from Romulus, but took advantage of the decapitation of the state to run from other Romulan-controlled planets when they had the chance.

[Enterprising]

Good point about Star Trek 6. It is basically the same plot except for the fact that Star Trek 6 was forgotten. I would go as far as to say Star Trek 6 was retconned with the exception of the Khitomer Accords. Lets see: Praxis dooming the Klingon Empire? Didn't happen. The Klingons have pink blood? Not true. The Klingons do not have tear ducts? Not true. A female chancellor? TNG would make it a point with the Duras sisters that women cannot serve on the council.

The Praxis explosion resulted in pollution to the homeworld's ozone that would see the planet's oxygen supply gone in 50 years, though that was the estimates at the time of the incident. While the fix is never openly stated in an episode, it's reasonable to assume over that time period a technological solution to clear the pollution, or otherwise restore oxygen levels was reached prior to time running out. Wouldn't surprise me if the Federation was very heavily involved in that fix, and another reason why peace between the two lasted so long. The real life answer is of course, TNG had been running nearly 4 full years by the time the movie came around, and had featured the Klingons fairly early on before the film's story was conceived. It's one of the few weaknesses of the film's story, since it does hint this could make them an endangered species, but that tension isn't there if you already know about TNG.

I don't think there has been any Klingon females that have cried, Torres wouldn't count with being half-human, but I'm happy to be corrected as I've not watched some of the episodes in quite a long time.