DIS - New Eden

[clearspira]

New Eden features a surprisingly rare mention of Beta Quadrant in the entire franchise (I think Sulu mentions it in Star Trek VI as well as SINGLE references in DS9 and VOY). There are maps which show the Klingons and Romulans occupy Beta Quadrant but this has never really been made clear in dialogue. So basically Beta Quadrant is similar to Hufflepuff in Star Trek.

Especially as the quickest route for Voyager from the Delta Quadrant looking at the maps was Delta-Beta-Alpha, not Delta-Alpha. Apparently Berman thought that the concept of Voyager travelling a whole THREE quadrants instead of two would have blown our minds.

[Ikiry0]

That "no dead people in Starfleet" rule isn't really as rigid as Chuck makes it seem here. Spock, for instance, continued to serve long after his death. Same with Harry Kim.

Yes but to be fair that was overruled by the more important 'The suffering can never end' rule for Harry Kim.

[clearspira]

I do like that they discuss religion and bring up aliens with incredible abilities (natural or technological). They're Starfleet; believing three impossible things before breakfast is easy when you saw them the previous day. I'm not sure what would separate a god (small g) from a member of the Q continuum. Quinn (the suicidal Q) said they weren't omnipotent but most gods weren't either.

We know from TOS that the Greek gods were real so there is precedent for such things. I guess by extension the Roman gods were also real as they are effectively the same gods.

[Ikiry0]

And if we bring in the Animated Series you also get Lucifer.

[clearspira]

I think Chuck's being a LITTLE unfair to the society of New Eden. Religion IS different from a government and hey, when you see something that looks preeeeetty divine as we saw with the angel's appearance, there's going to be some debate and eventually come to a decision on how to interpret it. In this case they decided the best thing to do was to merge the religions. The idea of just "letting everyone believe what they want" might work fine from a theoretical standpoint, but they were the ones actually there dealing with it and needing to figure out some way of making sense of it all. Hell, they're 2 centuries removed from the actual event itself, so maybe there was a lot more infighting and whatnot that actually occurred and this is just the official history that was decided on to try to make things more hunky-dory among them.

''Religion IS different from a government''.

Meh. Separation of church and state is an incredibly modern concept and isn't even that true across the world. Any Muslim country under Sharia Law does not make a distinction.
And if we turn to history, any society that has a god-king has no contrast between the two. The Aztecs and the Egyptians based their entire system of governance around the fact that their leader was appointed by the gods. The Medieval European kings and queens used to claim the Divine right to rule which basically meant that their word was that of God.

[Fianna]

One could look at the integrating faiths thing as them simply trying to hedge their bets.

"Okay, we definitely know something supernatural exists and has an interest in us, we just don't know what it is. So, rather than risk offending a potentially all-powerful being, we're going to offer prayers and thanks to every god we can think of, and hope one of those is the right one."

[Mabus]

Why is the Prime Directive being an issue for transplanted humans?
In ENT "North Star", which was like 100 years earlier, we had a colony of 1800s cowboys living on another planet, but still didn't stop Archer and co from making official contact eventually. OK, so maybe because it was in the pre-PD days and the fact that there were aliens on the planet might have affected that, but the people there didn't know that they were aliens (they thought they were devils or something) should have counted? I mean, after they finally create the PD, would they really have not included such an exception, since from a legal point of view, these people aren't a separate culture/civilization per see (they're pretty much stuck at the same technological level they were 300 years earlier), but rather they're castaways, (granted I'm not sure how the castaway status applies to their descendants in these circumstances), especially since...
In "Star Trek: Insurrection" Picard accuses Admiral Dougherty of violating the Prime Directive by interfering with the apparently pre-warp and s̶t̶u̶c̶k̶-̶u̶p̶ peaceful Ba’ku. Dougherty tells Picard: "The Prime Directive doesn’t apply. These people are not indigenous to this planet.” Picard doesn't object and instead goes on with the "we are we to determine with their development blah blah", so it's clear that being an immigrant/castaway population is an exception in the PD.

I mean, you could make the argument that it was this episode's incident that made the "castaway exception" be included in the PD, but given the events in the North Star, shouldn't there have already been one?

[Yukaphile]

I mean, Trek has always had godlike beings. You can say "advanced technology with neutrino string computers" however much you want, but the fact remains.

This kinda sounds like "Who Watches The Watchers?" from TNG?

[LordUltimus]

I'm guessing Chuck is unfamiliar with Wicca-style theology.

An it harm none, do what thou will?

Partially, but I was mostly referring to "all gods are aspects of the real true unknowable god/goddess" that some sects of Wicca and other neo-pagan religions follow.

[clearspira]

I'm guessing Chuck is unfamiliar with Wicca-style theology.

An it harm none, do what thou will?

Partially, but I was mostly referring to "all gods are aspects of the real true unknowable god/goddess" that some sects of Wicca and other neo-pagan religions follow.

Which makes no sense due to all of the individual stories conflicting.