TNG - A Matter of Honor

[CrypticMirror]

I like the retcon that food replicators have their limitations, rather than the early TNG S1 conceit of them being able to make food that tastes even better than the real deal.

I've eaten some crummy apples and water flavourless strawberries, and some dodgy curries that not even a dog would eat. I can buy replicators making some food that is better than the real thing, last time I tried to make ox tail soup would not have won any prizes as example, so it isn't that it doesn't make stuff that can be better than the real thing. The real thing has a lot of variability in it. The replicator doesn't have that variability. If you have the best haute cuisine every day, and every day it has exactly the same flavour notes, then it would still be "better" than the real thing, but also just bland and samey. Even the best gets unattractive if that is all you have.

[Thebestoftherest]

I like the retcon that food replicators have their limitations, rather than the early TNG S1 conceit of them being able to make food that tastes even better than the real deal.

I've eaten some crummy apples and water flavourless strawberries, and some dodgy curries that not even a dog would eat. I can buy replicators making some food that is better than the real thing, last time I tried to make ox tail soup would not have won any prizes as example, so it isn't that it doesn't make stuff that can be better than the real thing. The real thing has a lot of variability in it. The replicator doesn't have that variability. If you have the best haute cuisine every day, and every day it has exactly the same flavour notes, then it would still be "better" than the real thing, but also just bland and samey. Even the best gets unattractive if that is all you have.

Plus the TNG s1 crew was so arrogant it possible their claim the food taste even better was them just stroking their own ego.

[Makeshift Python]

I think Roddenberry pushed way too hard for that perfect utopian post-scarcity in S1. For Roddenberry to suggest humanity has reached peak status in the 24th century means there's no where else to go, no struggles they still have to overcome. That's why I prefer TOS where we saw humanity advance very far, but there are still limitations and struggles.

I do like that Michael Piller revealed that baseball was practically a dead sport in the 24th century, his reasoning for doing that was to be a way of pointing out that humanity lost something along the way, thus isn't truly "perfect".

[Thebestoftherest]

That is actually clever.

[Beastro]

This episode is basically the reason everyone loves TNG era Klingons, and there would be [and still is] calls to have a Trek show set exclusively on a Klingon ship. Not sure I agree, but the occasional episode one on wouldn't be so bad. As long as it is the TNG version. Well, maybe the TOS version would be interesting, but only TOS flavour [maybe minus the brownface] and TNG era flavour.

The shows morality and the Klingon's would be irreconcilable. Either the Klingons have their way and the shows presents a viewpoint that offers nothing of worth, or they neuter the Klingons as a more accept world view dominates.

The best would be mixing in a good amount of humans and other aliens to provide opposition and contrast. The Klingons can be Klingons while the cast isn't just all Klingons who can criticize and debate their viewpoints to show that what the show is presenting isn't meant to be taken as right.

The Benzite approach is something done by terrible company rules and Soviet-style dictatorships.
The result is always the guy who found the problem refuses to report it and does everything to hide it so he doesn't get in trouble, and since said problem did not originate with the guy who found the problem, since, well, he only found out the problem, it means that it's a result of the one before that hid it.

After the 1968 Criticality Event happened in Mayak, the shift supervisor reentered the evacuated building and gave himself a lethal dose trying to pour the fuel solution down a drain for that very reason.

I think Roddenberry pushed way too hard for that perfect utopian post-scarcity in S1. For Roddenberry to suggest humanity has reached peak status in the 24th century means there's no where else to go, no struggles they still have to overcome. That's why I prefer TOS where we saw humanity advance very far, but there are still limitations and struggles.

I do like that Michael Piller revealed that baseball was practically a dead sport in the 24th century, his reasoning for doing that was to be a way of pointing out that humanity lost something along the way, thus isn't truly "perfect".

I get the impression Roddenberry went too far making Trek his own slice of wish fulfillment. He a man far from perfect living in a world that was as well and that angered him. He wanted to make the Fed what he desired in life and finally got the control over it he needed to do that with TNG.

I feel his obsession too with the Ferengi and his anti-capitalist screeds were him, consciously or otherwise, trying to ease his sense of guilt over how he'd acted across his life.

[Makeshift Python]

It still amuses me that Roddenberry was obsessed with Ferengi being "well endowed" and kept describing the many different Ferengi sexual positions to his writers.

[Mickey_Rat15]

It still amuses me that Roddenberry was obsessed with Ferengi being "well endowed" and kept describing the many different Ferengi sexual positions to his writers.

One gets the impression that the Ferengi (as orginally conceived), were the avatars of the nastier aspects of Roddenberry's own character. His own "skin of evil" as it were.

[Mickey_Rat15]

I've been musing on why i hate the hate the boob window so much, and I think it's because A) as people have said, it really only appears on them and no one else and B) it demonstrates why the Duras Sisters were idiots and thus bad villains.

Follow me along here: if you were to write a list of things most likely to earn you the respect of a Klingon, I imagine it would include things like: Strength and courage through combat, honour, skill, feasting, drinking.

Riker, Picard, Jadzia, Sisko, Nog, Archer, even Neelix all worked this out.

But the Duras sisters? Embody none of these things. They don't even attempt to play the game. Yes, being women is a massive hindrance to their plans no question, but so is the fact that they seem unwilling to earn their respect like Klingons. They act more like Romulans or Cardassians. They can't fight, they're slimy, they don't get drunk.

Or in other words, if we replaced the Duras Sisters with Cersei Lannister and Brienne of Tarth aka one woman with political savvy and one who can match a man with a blade, that civil war would have lasted a season. Hell, Cersei and the Duras Sisters pretty much had the same plan.

That seems to be the Duras family trait, they are supposed to be rather unKlingonlike in their approach to politics. It is just the writers chose to have Sisters be the leaders of the Duras family after Worf killed Duras during the succession crisis, and because of that they are, unfortunatelly, the most recurring full Klingon women characters in Star Trek.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

All Klingon council is a joke as far as politics are concerned.

[Thebestoftherest]

Yeah, frankly I wonder how those barbarians haven't been conquer already.