Pedo Support Community 7.0

One thing I heard on some program or news, or perhaps I read it off the internet...

Apparently the one thing most in common with pedophiles is that they love Star Trek. Not to say all those into Star Trek are pedophiles, but according to the powers that be, pedophiles seem to love Star Trek.

Do you have a love of Star Trek? While there may be some outliers, if it is true, why do you suppose we child lovers also enjoy Trek?

I have never heard that before.
And I've been into Trek almost as long as I've been into children. :think

That sounds to me like something a Star Trek hater made up out of nowhere and spewed onto the internet thinking he was being clever or edgy.

If this evolves into an actual conversation about Trek in general, I'm in.  Because it's everywhere these days.  Streaming services have been a tremendous boon to good scifi.  And with that asshole Moonves out of the way, we can finally get some good shit out of Paramount.  That was the best MeToo thing to ever happen.  In terms of how it affected what I care about in entertainment, that guy hitting the bricks was way better than getting Cosby or Weinstien. He stood in the way of new Star Trek for over a decade.

I watch Below Decks. Because it is great. I used to watch Discovery but every single season would end with the exact same moral problem cliffhanger with one character and I found it to be dumb.

I've also never heard that. I got into Star Trek long after being interested in kids. It's not a stretch that people who are routinely put to the sidelines might envy a society that's accepting. Or maybe it's the holodecks :P

Star Trek paints a world that I genuinely want to be a part of. I can't think of a concept that's more hopeful about the future. I think that the rules and ethics of the federation are a model. The Ferengi and the Klingon have such extremely different cultures than humans, and even though it leads to conflict, they bend over backwards to understand and live with each other.

I've only watched, and will only watch The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine though. Everything else I've tried to watch didn't work for me. In particular the newer movies and series are borderline offensive. They turned a hopeful future society, and a world that was built primarily on exploring the depths of space, and made it into a dystopian action fest. They turned Picard from a calm calculating diplomat that would be visibly pained by having to resort to violence, into an action hero that shoots people without remorse :sadno.

Quote from: on the rocks on 13 October, 2022, 23:59:43
And with that asshole Moonves out of the way, we can finally get some good shit out of Paramount.

Respectfully, I think Paramount has handled trek worse than Disney has handled star wars. I don't think Moonves was the problem. It was and still is Alex Kurtzman. They're very much just milking the series on name recognition with-or-without the sex pest.

Quote from: DropsOfJupiter on 14 October, 2022, 01:51:27
I watch Below Decks. Because it is great. I used to watch Discovery but every single season would end with the exact same moral problem cliffhanger with one character and I found it to be dumb.

It's much slower, and isn't a space laser CG action fest, but I strongly recommend going into TNG, starting at season 3, and only going back to 1 and 2 after you finish the rest (season 1 is terrible and season 2 was a victim of a writer's strike).

Quote from: ijp on 14 October, 2022, 02:09:31
I've only watched, and will only watch The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine though. Everything else I've tried to watch didn't work for me. In particular the newer movies and series are borderline offensive. They turned a hopeful future society, and a world that was built primarily on exploring the depths of space, and made it into a dystopian action fest.

I've noticed a lot of people making this observation in regards to the newer stuff, and it always makes me wonder how bad it really got because I always felt like Deep Space Nine was the dystopian turn in the series. I could never get into it as much as the other series and always thought the two after it were much better. There are a lot of episodes of it that I still like, but I can't really dedicate myself to watching it in continuity with the whole Dominion war story arc.

I have always liked Star Trek too. I grew up on it. I have never heard of this idea that pedos like Star Trek. Though I think it's funny because there's a lot of relationships and stories within Trek that kind of broach the subject. For example, on Voyager, there's a character called Neelix who has a relationship with a 3-year old alien; except her species only lives 7 years, so at that point she's fully matured. Consequently, I guess there's now a bit of a meme of Neelix being a pedophile. Then there was an episode of The Next Generation where several of the characters got turned back into kids, and one of them was married and her husband was visibly uncomfortable being married to a now 11 year old. At one point she asks, "What if I stay like this? Is our marriage over?" *raises eyebrow*

I don't really watch many of the new ones either though. I gave Discovery and Picard a try, and they just weren't for me. I don't really like that Discovery seems to be mainly about Michael Burnam, for one thing. Then on top of that, I don't really like the format where each episode is the next installment in a wider story. I enjoy the self-contained episodes more. I have given Strange New Worlds a try and it seems to follow that format a little more, so I have been enjoying it more than others.

I've never heard of a special connection between pedophiles and Star Trek. I'm curious, where do you have that information from?

That being said I love Star Trek ;)

I have been a Star Trek fan ever since the original series came out in the 1960's. Actually I think watching Star Trek and Mr. Spock helped form my way of thinking. It helped me to think logically instead of emotionally and to learn to control my emotions instead my emotions controlling me. I have also tried to teach my kids and grandkids that logic.     

Not sure about that statistic but, I do love Star Trek, although, I have only watched the three latest ones.

If you're disappointed by Disco and Picard so far, definitely give Strange New Worlds a try.  That's much more a Star Trek series that the other two.  They've been listening to fan feedback over there at Trek HQ, and are applying what they've learned to that show.
Also this next season of Picard is basically gonna be season 8 of TNG, so I'm on board.  As long as it isn't a series of member berries loosely strung together, it has promise.

My biggest problem with Disco is how every episode seems to grind to a halt at some point so everyone can talk about their feelings like it's some fucking CW high school drama. Get on with it already, I don't need to see another character blubbering about their fucking trauma or whatever.  To quote The Simpsons, "When are they going to get to the fireworks factory!!"  You can do that a little bit with one or two characters, but when it's basically everyone in therapy that's just boring.

I also think it was unnecessary to break canon and make Burnam into Spock's adopted sibling.  That really seemed shoe-horned in.
Disco also suffers from excessive catastrophism.  Every season's arc is about something that'll destroy the entire universe or whatever.  They've abused the high stakes well so thoroughly that we're numb to it.  And when you haven't put the time into world building and fleshing out the bridge crew, it's harder to care if that world might get destroyed.  Disco suffers from Marvelism in that way.

Lower Decks has figured out a better balance between the alien-of-the-week model that made the franchise work and the sprinkles of nostalgia as little gifts to hardcore fans.  And they've done a way better job at fleshing out their main characters than Disco or even Picard (where we are already intimately familiar with two main characters before the first episode ever drops).  I feel way more invested in Boimler, Mariner, Tendy and Rutherford than I do Burnam or Rafi or Suru.  LD has every potential to outlast all the other series out there, I dare say.  It's cheaper to make, it's fun to watch, and it gets the franchise better because it's not so bloody serious all the time.

Also, Disco fucked up the Klingons and I'm annoyed by that.  Like physically; they look they were made by someone who only had a written description to go off of.

Quote from: on the rocks on 15 October, 2022, 00:39:36


Lower Decks has figured out a better balance between the alien-of-the-week model that made the franchise work and the sprinkles of nostalgia as little gifts to hardcore fans.  And they've done a way better job at fleshing out their main characters than Disco or even Picard (where we are already intimately familiar with two main characters before the first episode ever drops).  I feel way more invested in Boimler, Mariner, Tendy and Rutherford than I do Burnam or Rafi or Suru.  LD has every potential to outlast all the other series out there, I dare say.  It's cheaper to make, it's fun to watch, and it gets the franchise better because it's not so bloody serious all the time.

Also Mariner is cute. Just saying.

I was required to watch a lot of TNG when I was younger. Some of it was ok, some was pretty good, some was bleh. I liked one of the movies best. First Contact, I think. The one with all the borg. Also their uniforms looked the prettiest in that one so it was even better.

I have liked to varying degrees all of the series. In general I have liked the movies better. I prefer Hard Sci-Fi, so things like Q bug me. I do like the occasional reverse time jump. Compared to some series over time the writing is pretty uneven (admittedly we are talking hundreds of episodes so understandable). I like DS9 the best for the overall story arc, and I liked it when any of the series had multiple episode arc's. I don't mind monster of the week but great episodes in this style are not always common.

I really liked Picard until [SPOILER] he became an android and the Q BS. Still watch all though.

I have over the years teased and trapped my hard core conservative sci-fi loving friends around the early series by posing the question: "Would you want to live in the Star Trek universe?" The uniform answer is yes, them thinking about exploring alien worlds aspect. But when I point out the Star Trek worlds (at least early series) were completely driven by socialism at it's finest, well, lol.

Mariner's pretty fine, but I tilt toward Tendy a little more myself.  She has an almost child-like naivety at times that I find endearing (for some reason ;) )

First Contact is rightly regarded as the best TNG movie.  The Borg were solid bad guys, a genuine menace that checked Starfleet's socialist utopia privilege.
Early TNG was quite shakey; almost corny at times.  Too much Wesley and too many cheesy plastic rock sets.  And don't get me started on their anti-drug propaganda episodes.  But they landed on their feet and eventually created the best episodes of science fiction television ever made.

DS9 and the Dominion War arc really set a good standard for how to advance a broader story, but still have stand alone episodes along the way; something completely absent from Disco or Picard.  Plus I always like me a little Molly O'Brian. ;)

I'm with you on the android thing, TooLittleTime.  Really didn't seem necessary at all and it totally undercut the ending.  Hey, we killed off this iconic character... just kidding!!  And afterward, it's barely ever mentioned again and adds nothing to the character so what was the fucking point?  We'd be in the same place if that never happened, so why bother?  Dumb move.
I do like Seven of Nine's look in Picard, though.  She's always been kind of badass, but it comes through a lot more without that silly catsuit they squeezed her into on Voyager.  (Yes, we get it; Jeri Ryan has really nice tits.)

I'm going to double post to note my appreciation of Naomi Wildman on Voyager.  That was a much better use of a child in a Star Trek series than previous attempts with Wesley Crusher or Jake Sisko.  First of all, they started them too old for my taste.  Then with Wesley, they made him an annoying know-it-all.  They did a little better with Jake giving him his own path early on and the friendship with Nog certainly worked well.  He just physically grew up too fast.  By season 3, he's taller than his dad and that seemed to quickly turn Jake into more of a peer to his father than his son in some ways.  And for losing his mother at such a young age, Jake is remarkably well put together; more so than Captain Sisko about that loss.  Shouldn't that have been more traumatizing for a little boy than a Starfleet officer?

Naomi Wildman, they used her just right on Voyager, I feel.  They use her as a way for Neelix to pivot from being romantically protective of Kess to being paternally engaged with Naomi after they wrote Kess out of the show.  The dynamic that developed between Naomi and Seven was cool; clearly the girl looks up to Seven more than Captain Janeway.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who had a passing thought of 'shipping Naomi and Seven in a delicious age-gap lesbian relationship.  Those Borg nanoprobes would have no trouble finding the g-spot! :lol

There is one thing that has always bothered me about Naomi though when it comes to her little forehead spikes.  How the hell does that work during childbirth?  They never addressed that in Voyager, but it really seems like Naomi would have given her mom an episiotome on the way out. :rofl

Yeah, definitely a fan, and way behind on all the stuff post-Enterprise. Got hooked on TNG, especially with all the kids wearing tight, one piece costumes, showing bulges up front but never any underwear lines...  :huh: always wondered if any of them were diapered under their costumes...

Quote from: on the rocks on 16 October, 2022, 23:53:32
There is one thing that has always bothered me about Naomi though when it comes to her little forehead spikes.  How the hell does that work during childbirth?  They never addressed that in Voyager, but it really seems like Naomi would have given her mom an episiotome on the way out. :rofl

Actually I could swear they addressed this at one point. I might just be imagining it, but I don't think so because I can pretty vividly remember the doctor saying something about "kretarian" biology in specific reference to the horns. I'm surprised I can't remember specifically since I probably re-watch Voyager more than any of the series. I think there's probably an equal amount of me imagining that they addressed this though.

I answered yes but only the original. The others are ok but nothing beats the original

Nope, I don't. Never have and probably never will get into that universe, never have been into that space stuff.

:P

Quote from: LikelyHuman on 20 October, 2022, 06:12:31
Actually I could swear they addressed this at one point. I might just be imagining it, but I don't think so because I can pretty vividly remember the doctor saying something about "kretarian" biology in specific reference to the horns. I'm surprised I can't remember specifically since I probably re-watch Voyager more than any of the series. I think there's probably an equal amount of me imagining that they addressed this though.

I was having trouble remembering it as well, so I dusted off a copy of the episode with Naomi's birth scene.
(season 2, episode 21 "Deadlock" in case anyone reading was interested.)

In the scene, Ensign Wildman is in labor in sick bay and some point, she start experiences excessive pain and The Doctor springs into action:
"The baby has shifted position and the exo-cranial ridges have lodged in the uterine wall. This is a rare complication, but it's been known to happen in human-Kretarian pregnancies."

A tense moment undercut by the fact that they can easily use the transporter to get Naomi out with both baby and mother safe and sound.  I'm left wondering why that isn't the default for childbirth in the 24th Century.  Just use the damn transporter!  Seems unnecessarily cruel to force women to squeeze babies through their pelvises when they have a safe, reliable and effective technology to bypass that literal shitshow for centuries at that point. No scars, no mess, no big deal. :P

Quote from: on the rocks on 20 October, 2022, 23:44:27
A tense moment undercut by the fact that they can easily use the transporter to get Naomi out with both baby and mother safe and sound.  I'm left wondering why that isn't the default for childbirth in the 24th Century.  Just use the damn transporter!  Seems unnecessarily cruel to force women to squeeze babies through their pelvises when they have a safe, reliable and effective technology to bypass that literal shitshow for centuries at that point. No scars, no mess, no big deal. :P

Heh no kidding. I always wonder why they bothered to fly shuttles into the docking bay too.

Plus I can't be the only Star Trek fan to wonder... Do you think they still have toilets, or do they just transport it out to space?

Maybe Klingons would do that, but not Starfleet!
But it the transporter does sound like a stupendous constipation cure. :butt :lol

There is actually a commode on deck 1 of Enterprise D on TNG. If you're leaving the bridge to go to the turbolift, it would be to your left before you enter the turbolift.  You never see the door, though, because it is facing camera right.

Quote from: LikelyHuman on 21 October, 2022, 00:04:57

Quote from: on the rocks on 20 October, 2022, 23:44:27
A tense moment undercut by the fact that they can easily use the transporter to get Naomi out with both baby and mother safe and sound.  I'm left wondering why that isn't the default for childbirth in the 24th Century.  Just use the damn transporter!  Seems unnecessarily cruel to force women to squeeze babies through their pelvises when they have a safe, reliable and effective technology to bypass that literal shitshow for centuries at that point. No scars, no mess, no big deal. :P

Heh no kidding. I always wonder why they bothered to fly shuttles into the docking bay too.

Plus I can't be the only Star Trek fan to wonder... Do you think they still have toilets, or do they just transport it out to space?

I don't think they can use transporters internally. If they could Picard wouldn't need to go to specific surgeons for his heart, or surgery to move symbiotes between hosts. I don't know if it's an accuracy thing or an interference issue since it seems to lock on DNA signatures and all these circumstances involve mixed dna.

Quote from: on the rocks on 22 October, 2022, 15:09:08
There is actually a commode on deck 1 of Enterprise D on TNG. If you're leaving the bridge to go to the turbolift, it would be to your left before you enter the turbolift.  You never see the door, though, because it is facing camera right.

I have always wondered what the door to the left of Picard's ready-room leads to.

At our office, we call it the "business center". ;) :lol

As for shuttlecraft, well sometimes you only have 2 or 3 people going somewhere and since those things can do low warp, it's more practical for short duration sojourns away from the mother ship.  Then when you get back, you gotta park it somewhere.

Besides, without shuttlecraft what would the crew do when the technobabble means they can't use the transporter? ;)

Noami was born from a species of plot convenience that allows her to grow up fast in a short amount of time so we only have as few shots of the baby as possible.

I used to but can't any more. I used to fantasize about about William Shatner being my grandpa or kidnapping me lol

Bumping this thread because the second episode of Strange New Worlds this season really spoke to me as a pedo.

Now on the surface, what they were doing was all allegory for the US Military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy regarding gay people serving from Clinton to Obama mixed with a little modern commentary on various transgender-related politics.  But I could readily sub my own sexual preferences into the monologues by Lt. Commander Una Chin-Riley and her lawyer friend Neera.  Especially when Una talked about having to hide her genetic modifications from everyone out of fear of irrational violence from other people in the community.
I am certain pedos were the furthest thing from the writers' minds, what with various US States passing weird laws about transsexual minors.  But that's the beauty of art; it's open to interpretation.

In Star Trek canon, the Millennium era was dominated by the so-called Eugenics Wars where nation-states used genetic engineering to create super-soldiers to duke it out for world domination.  Millions upon millions died and when the dust settled, editing the humanoid genome was outlawed on Earth.  That prohibition was inherited by the Federation when it was created and still enforced through all of the Star Trek series.  So the prejudice against the genetically modified is rooted in very real tragedy.  Much like how our own various child abuse laws are intended to prosecute genuine acts of sexual barbarism against children that do happen.  But like the Federation's genetic engineering ban, those child abuse laws have become over-reaching and cause unintended consequences.  They have both encouraged vigilantes to seek out extra-judicial actions against those suspected of being non-conforming to the law in question.  So otherwise good people who just want to be who they are must try and blend in and hide the truth about themselves.

Making that connection between that plotline and my own life was like wrapping myself in a fuzzy blanket fresh out of the drier on a cold, rainy day.  It was one of the best experiences I've had watching new Star Trek in a while.  And that's saying a lot because Picard season 3 was hellah fun.

Definitely recommend.  Season 2, episode 2; "Ad Astra per Aspera"

Quote from: on the rocks on 24 June, 2023, 01:42:35
Bumping this thread because the second episode of Strange New Worlds this season really spoke to me as a pedo.

Now on the surface, what they were doing was all allegory for the US Military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy regarding gay people serving from Clinton to Obama mixed with a little modern commentary on various transgender-related politics.  But I could readily sub my own sexual preferences into the monologues by Lt. Commander Una Chin-Riley and her lawyer friend Neera.  Especially when Una talked about having to hide her genetic modifications from everyone out of fear of irrational violence from other people in the community.
I am certain pedos were the furthest thing from the writers' minds, what with various US States passing weird laws about transsexual minors.  But that's the beauty of art; it's open to interpretation.

In Star Trek canon, the Millennium era was dominated by the so-called Eugenics Wars where nation-states used genetic engineering to create super-soldiers to duke it out for world domination.  Millions upon millions died and when the dust settled, editing the humanoid genome was outlawed on Earth.  That prohibition was inherited by the Federation when it was created and still enforced through all of the Star Trek series.  So the prejudice against the genetically modified is rooted in very real tragedy.  Much like how our own various child abuse laws are intended to prosecute genuine acts of sexual barbarism against children that do happen.  But like the Federation's genetic engineering ban, those child abuse laws have become over-reaching and cause unintended consequences.  They have both encouraged vigilantes to seek out extra-judicial actions against those suspected of being non-conforming to the law in question.  So otherwise good people who just want to be who they are must try and blend in and hide the truth about themselves.

Making that connection between that plotline and my own life was like wrapping myself in a fuzzy blanket fresh out of the drier on a cold, rainy day.  It was one of the best experiences I've had watching new Star Trek in a while.  And that's saying a lot because Picard season 3 was hellah fun.

Definitely recommend.  Season 2, episode 2; "Ad Astra per Aspera"

I've never seen Star Trek before, but what you've described does sound interesting. Especially the Eugenics Wars you described. I feel this is much how real life prejudice is formed. Hate bred from tragedy. The victims are now the villains. It's sad because I feel like many people like myself have devolved in this way. Instead of learning from mistakes, we gave into fear in order to avoid reliving the pain we experienced earlier in life. However all that is done is creating more pain for the future generations who had nothing to do with it. Now they must bear the brunt of our failures and unfortunately may pass that hate to those that come after them, and so on and so forth until someone decides to take a stand against it. However, even in rebelling, we must be careful not to revert back to that initial source of hate. It's a scary thing that I've read about, lived through, and now fear it will happen again. Only this time, like you mentioned, it's with pedo/hebephiles.

Quote from: FindingRest on 24 June, 2023, 18:46:37
I've never seen Star Trek before, but what you've described does sound interesting. Especially the Eugenics Wars you described.

I should note that as of yet, the Eugenics Wars have never been portrayed on screen in any Star Trek series or film.  It's all backstory they hint at numerous times throughout the franchise.

 No!

Star Wars 4 life.

I love Star Trek, but will admit I haven't seen them all.  My favorite series: Voyager, DS9/TNG (tied), Picard

One of these days I'll watch Lower Decks.

For Lower Decks fans, they did a crossover episode with Strange New Worlds this summer and it was pretty entertaining, provided Lower Decks is one of your favorite series.  The actual voice actors for Boimler and Mariner play live action versions of themselves and do pretty well with all the mannerisms that are normally up to the animators to pull off.

I've been wanting to comment on it two specific things.  First of all, the episode should have been a Lower Decks episode and not a Strange New Worlds episode.
And secondly, I don't want to sound to shallow here, but live action Mariner is noticeably "thiccer" than animated Mariner.  :unsure

With season 4 of Lower Decks in the books, time for a thread bump.

They did a lot of fun stuff with Tendy this season.  It's kind of an animation trope where the seemingly meek character turns out to be a bad-ass, but it's a fun one, and they used it with Tendy very well. 
Tendy and Rutherford were more or less shipped for an episode, and the pay off of their forced coupling not resulting in them catching feelings was a good way to defy expectations.

The show continues to excel at peppering itself with Easter eggs from past series either as simple background gags or major plot elements.  That's what makes it so enjoyable to watch; you can tell the people who make this show give a fuck about Star Trek.  Can't say the same about the other new Treks (excepting Picard season 3).

If I have one overarching complaint, it is one that can be applied to basically all modern shows.  Too few episodes.  They try and cram in as much action and plot as they can in this tiny little 8 or 10 episode seasons now days and there's basically no time to really flesh out the characters and come to care about them.  I get it; the economics are different.  They're going after eyeballs right now instead of racking up episodes for those sweet syndication dollars.  But 20+ episode seasons give writers room to breathe.  They get challenged on scifi shows because you've gotta save some budget here and there so you can afford to do cool shit for the "big" episodes.  Which leads to character heavy episodes that broaden the universe and get you to care about the people who will be affected by the main character's decisions.

Disco fails at this hard.  Pretty much the only time they ever explore a character other than Michael Burham is to either bring the entire episode to a screeching halt so they can whine about their feelings, or they have to cram something in right before the person is killed off.
That show had so much potential, too.  For example, it works the same if they didn't shoehorn Burnham in as Spock's adopted brother.  She could have done all the same shit being raised by some other Vulcan and Spock was just her school chum or something.  And they shot their wad too early with the parallel universe stuff.  No Star Trek series ever dipped its toes into that in its first season.  You have to have characters the audience is invested in and knows pretty goddamn well before you confront them with alternate versions of them.

The best part about Lower Decks is it retains the optimism and aspiration one sees in all the "retro" Star Trek series.  Something that is sorely missing from the new live action shows.  You see glimmers of it in Strange New Worlds, but not consistently enough.  I know there's a lot of heavy shit going on in the world and it's difficult to write about a positive future for humanity, but c'mon... now, more than ever, man!  Lower Decks gets it!  Even though they're now boxed in by future canon thanks to Picard's first two seasons, it's still the best new Trek.

Time for another bump because Disco's final season started this week.

Slight spoiler alert, but they are dipping into a major loose thread left hanging by a Next Generation episode. One that really feels like someone should have followed up on, but the franchise immediately ignored for 30 years.  Probably because it was too universe shaking to invest screen time in.  So that part I like.  This season's going to pick up a story we last saw in like 1992 or something.

What I don't like is, and I'll be happy to be wrong about this, but I can see most of the season arc already.  For starters, it's clear to me already the current antagonists are going to turn into 'good guys' later this season.  You've got this Bonnie & Clyde duo they seem to be setting up to be sympathetic characters in coming episodes, so no doubt they're going to flip loyalties at some point and start working with the Discovery crew against the real villains.  I'm calling that right now.

The other thing I'm disappointed with is, at least to start, this season is basically an expanded version of another TNG episode (well, two actually).  They've dropped two episodes and so far it's a basically "Gambit".  That was a season 7 two parter where it was a race against the bad guys to solve puzzles and look for clues to assemble all the pieces of a terrifying 'mcguffin' they can't let fall into enemy hands.  Or if you're reading this as a non-fan of Trek; it's Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Same basic idea.
If it ends with, "Oh this thing is too powerful for anyone to have..." and they destroy it, I'll be disappointed.  We've all seen Frodo toss The One Ring into Mt. Doom already, you know what I mean?

First of all I liked little girls since first time I saw one, way before Star Trek. With Star Trek, I really liked TNG (the next generation). Then in the decreasing order of preference: Star Trek Enterprise (the prequel) I really really hate they stopped that series. It had drawbacks but it was good overall. Third place for me is Voyager. Disliked the captain but otherwise intersting premise, good episodes and who can forget the lovely Borg Seven-of-Nine.

I tried to like Deep Space Nine but it did not grow on me at all.. Hated the Captain who, at times, sounded to me like a soprano eunuch (such a far cry from Picard ) and while the other characters were good, I just couldn't care enough for spending time at a station (whatever happened to seek out new places and civilizations). I just need folks to go places as a prerequisite.

The most recent thing (with Picard now turn into some fossil) I did not even bother to try as I dislike much of the new directions in TV and movies.

Voyager also had Naomi Wildman in a lot of episodes, so that was a bonus for that series. ;)
Enterprise was taken away as it was hitting it's stride.  Fucking Les Moonves.  The asshat who ran Paramount at the time; the same one who got Me Too'd a few years ago.  Serves him right.
If the industry had been more accountable in the early 00's he would've been out and maybe Enterprise could have had a seven season run like the previous three shows.

Quote from: on the rocks on 05 August, 2023, 01:24:44

And secondly, I don't want to sound to shallow here, but live action Mariner is noticeably "thiccer" than animated Mariner.  :unsure

Ok. Before I get all excited and actually try watching Strange New Worlds...................good thicc or bad thicc? Like am I going to go watch this and be all excited for hot thicc Mariner and then find out that she had an extra 130 pounds of pancake batter poured into her leggings with her, or is she going to look like she has thighs made for playing ice hockey and doing olympic tier triple jump?

Also I super love Lower Decks.

I would call it 'athletic thicc'.  Not like those fat chicks they try and rebrand, but the kind where she's got child-bearing hips but still looks good in tight pants.

Quote from: DropsOfJupiter on 13 April, 2024, 15:33:44
then find out that she had an extra 130 pounds of pancake batter poured into her leggings with her

:rolll

I don't know if I just like rooting for the under-dog, but Enterprise and Voyager were always my favorites. I always thought much of the criticisms for Voyager weren't very valid. People mention their first few seasons kind of meandering and trying to find out what they were doing, but it's not like the first three seasons of The Next Generation really aged well, and with Deep Space Nine they kind of figured out, "Oh... Yeah, space exploration, we need a ship," mid-way through.

I have a friend who keeps suggesting I check out Lower Decks, but I just haven't really wanted to yet because I feel like it being animated will be too different and take me out of it. I mean, not that I don't like animation, but not sure if it will hit the same. Besides that though, he hated Voyager and loved Deep Space Nine, so it kind of makes me question that I'll like Lower Decks if he likes it so much, but he seems to suggest it based on my love for Voyager.

I really liked Strange New Worlds, but I only watched the first season. Kind of weird feeling on that one... I kind of don't want to get invested into it, have to wait six months for the second half of a season, get 10 episodes of it every two years, etc. and then just have it crash and burn in quality very soon into its run. I'm basically just going to sit on it and wait until it's either done, or has a handful of seasons to binge watch. I did that with Game of Thrones too, and felt vindicated that I waited when everyone groaned about how bad its last season was.

I've said before, Lower Decks is written by people who get Star Trek.  Much more so than most of the live action stuff that has been made since Enterprise ended.  It's not all gold, but it's entertaining.  The pacing can get a little frantic since they're shooting for that 22-24 minute runtime.  At the very least they'll sprinkle Easter Eggs from the entire franchise throughout every episode and it's quite rewarding to catch them.  The best thing they do is revive the "alien of the week" format that made all the Legacy shows so rewatchable. 

Being animated, they can drop in all kinds of legacy characters and not have to worry that the actors have aged out of the roles.  There's a whole episode set on DS9, for example.  Another one where Rom is definitely still Grand Nagus with Leeta at his side.  Yet another where they're helping set up Voyager at the Fleet Museum.

For my money, though, the best new Star Trek is actually the three seasons of The Orville that Seth MacFarlane made.  Easily half the episodes could have been legacy Trek stories. The Orville is to the small screen what Galaxy Quest is to the theaters.

Fuck me, Paramount has cancelled Lower Decks.  This next season will be the last one.
Stupid fuckers.  This was the best show you've put out since you started making new Trek again a few years ago.

It's the streaming ecosystem, man.  Make people jump thru hoops to watch your shit and then act surprised when people don't watch your shit.  Or pirate it. :unsure
Put these goddamn shows on TV!  Duh!  You're telling me it's more important to churn out some more dogshit reality shows and nationally broadcast those? 

What pisses me off is this cartoon is super cheap to make compared to all the high-budget shows the same platform makes.  I don't think any of these streaming services are making money anyway.  The business model is flawed because the customers have to find you.  When you broadcast things, you can find your viewers. People channel surf and they see something interesting and boom, new viewer.  It doesn't work that way with streaming.  You have to consciously pick a show and start watching it.  You can't stumble upon shows that way.  Lower Decks would have done fine on broadcast because of this.

Alright, ranting over.  This just brings out all the issues I have with the industry as a whole right now. :P

Disco's been done for a couple weeks so let me revisit some thoughts at the start of the season.

Quote from: on the rocks on 06 April, 2024, 01:23:34What I don't like is, and I'll be happy to be wrong about this, but I can see most of the season arc already.  For starters, it's clear to me already the current antagonists are going to turn into 'good guys' later this season.  You've got this Bonnie & Clyde duo they seem to be setting up to be sympathetic characters in coming episodes, so no doubt they're going to flip loyalties at some point and start working with the Discovery crew against the real villains.  I'm calling that right now.

I'm gonna give myself half credit on this.  They started to go that way, but then the antagonists flipped the script and sided with the real bad guys toward the end for a while.
The Breen made okay baddies, though they were a little too "storm troopery' in their deference to authority.  Like none of them could see their leadership was terrible? 

Quote from: on the rocks on 06 April, 2024, 01:23:34If it ends with, "Oh this thing is too powerful for anyone to have..." and they destroy it, I'll be disappointed.  We've all seen Frodo toss The One Ring into Mt. Doom already, you know what I mean?

This however, I got exactly correct. :sadno
Okay, technically the mcguffin at the center of the season isn't "literally" destroyed, but it is for all intents and purposes, if one knows anything about physics.
And then they threw in this last thing that annoyed me, saying this one old guy character was the same as this one young guy time travel character from Star Trek Enterprise.  Just out of no where, completely unearned.  Like it made no difference.  Just some pathetic nostalgia pull.  And because it's the finale, they're doing all these oh good bye to everyone scenes.  But because we only know really know like three characters in this show, this montage is basically like, Oh who was that?  What did they do?  I have no idea.
You can't miss that which you didn't get to know.

For a series that started with so much promise given the era and events it began with, they generally dropped the ball on Disco. (heh) And they kept that up right to the end.

Small bump for the Trek thread because we passed a historical event in the Star Trek canon this week.
This was the week of the "Bell Riots" portrayed in a 1995 two part episode of Deep Space Nine.

Some of the crew get zipped back to 2024 by some sort of technobabble and land on the streets of San Francisco. They arrive in a city beset by massive economic problems.  So many people out of work and unhoused that they've been herded into so-called "sanctuary districts" by the government.  They're basically walled ghettos rife with criminal gangs. People in there are unable to find work because they've been tossed into a sanctuary district, so they're stuck living off rations provided by the government and sleeping where ever they can.  Meanwhile, society's elite just sort of shrug about the dehumanizing conditions within.  And the middle class is just glad they're not in one themselves.

It's a fascinating bit of futurism from 30 years ago, because in some ways, they were right on about some of the problems facing society.  Many large cities, especially west coast cities, have massive homeless populations with governments periodically evicting their encampments.  Income inequality has indeed become a massive burden on society with those at the bottom being treated as less than human at times.  And politicians indeed make empty promises about doing something to fix it.

The people writing it looked around mid-90's LA and just extrapolated a little, it seems, and by doing so, they weren't that far off.  It hasn't yet come to creating something like a "sanctuary district" but things aren't great.  We've spent the last 30 years mostly only building housing for the high end of the income spectrum.  Gleaming condo towers and sprawling, suburban "McMansions".  Or those dreadful copy-paste 3-6 floor mixed-use buildings that look the same all over the world and are always priced just high enough to be a strain on one's budget.
No one builds affordable housing.  It's either greedy real estate types who want more profit, or armies of Karens and NIMBY's whining about parking or thinly veiled racism about the "wrong people" moving into the neighborhood.  "It's too tall, it'll make a shadow!" :palm2 That kind of thing.

There are things the didn't get close at all, though.  Especially the way they portrayed how the internet might work 30 years from 1994.  It's a big plot point about how the people in the sanctuary district need credentials to get online so they can broadcast their grievances to the rest of the country.  There was no inkling that everyone would be carrying around internet connected devices in their pockets.  Phones in actual 2024 make this whole plot device moot.  And as with all scifi from before the Millennium, all the computers have 4:3 aspect ratio monitors. ;)

The two part episode is from DS9's third season and is called "Past Tense".
In case my rambling made anyone curious. :P

I remember a few episodes where they go back in time to our near future, relatively speaking. I may be remembering this wrong, but I recall one TNG ep where they went to modern L.A. and Worf had to dress all gangsta with a doo rag to hide his forehead. :P

Oh that was Voyager and it was Tuvok wearing the bandana to hide his ears. ;)
Guest starring Ed Bagley Jr and Sarah Silverman. [.

Quote from: on the rocks on 06 September, 2024, 15:46:28Oh that was Voyager and it was Tuvok wearing the bandana to hide his ears. ;)
Guest starring Ed Bagley Jr and Sarah Silverman. [.

Ah okay.

"I'm a lyrical scientist, my rhymes will meld with your mind. My verses are traveling in your general direction at warp 9." - Tuvok Shakur

This poll has to be the most hilarious psuedo-correlation with pedophilia I've ever seen! I didn't even have to answer to know the poll would be an overwhelming "yes." I could feel it in my bones!

I just remembered the TNG episode Rascals. After some kind of transporter malfunction, four of the crew are turned into children after beaming back to ship. O'Brien's wife Keiko turns into a child, tries to get all affectionate with the chief which makes him uncomfortable. When my gf and I watched this episode, we thought "what's his problem? That would be a dream come true!" :P

I thought it was weird that the transporter accident shrunk their clothes as well. ;) :lol

Miles did hit the jackpot from my point of view, as well,

Though it's Ensign Ro that really makes my pedo heart swell. Because here's a woman who was denied a real childhood growing up in a refugee camp.  And she gets a chance to be a kid for once.  As the episode ends with her not getting 'fixed' yet; that just makes me think how much she could've used a friend like me when she was little.

Though minus points for having the Ferengi take over the Enterprise.  The Alpha Quadrant's money clowns. :sadno

Rascals was indeed fun. And as a girl lover I did like Ensing Ro child version the most. Picard-child was just OK.
Now the scene's between O'Brien and his now-little wife Keiko made me wonder whether they wrote the script, started shooting the episode and then in the middle realized "shit we have some mandatory pedophilia here because, of course, O'Brien is still the husband and all...So we HAVE to make him uncomfortable" As in not even being comfortable to touch her.
The pedo paranoia always over-reaches. Cause they could still cuddle in a platonic kind of way :)

My takeaway from Rascals was how excellent it would be to have that technology.  Since they figured out what happened and how to fix it, that means you could use the transporter to turn yourself into a child whenever you want!  Then go back to being an adult if you wanna hit up 10 Forward for a few synth ales.

How great would that be?  Talk about "Best of Both Worlds". ;)

People are still posting to this old thread after all this time, so it gives me an opportunity to weigh in too. :) The whole conversation is pretty funny! I love Star Trek, too ... at least pre-Discovery, I do! Seems like at least PSC, the correlation is true.

To those who may have hoped that it was something "made up" to smear the lot of us, I have to confirm that I've heard about this more than once. I will say that it's not a very good smear, Trek is great! Second, I do remember hearing about this same exact correlation in a documentary (it may have been more like a 60 Minutes type show, memory has faded) on TV at least 15 years ago, and again reading about it years afterward. Unfortunately, it's at least something that has been reported as true multiple times. The documentary I saw was around the time of a big news story about some of the earliest arrests for Internet illegal content.

On the TV show, the law enforcement that they were interviewing speculated that the cause was something about a "well-developed fantasy world where the ordinary rules and laws don't matter and don't apply to them." That's the smear, if anything!

I think it may have a lot more to do with a love of the character development in Trek, though. Many of us seem to have an interest in human behavior and personalities, so there's that. I've personally always loved the idea of the society of the Federation, at least (again) pre-Discovery. They're post-scarcity, and they're truly the good guys of the galaxy.

Quote from: AliceInTheCities on 16 October, 2024, 00:46:01Rascals was indeed fun. And as a girl lover I did like Ensing Ro child version the most. Picard-child was just OK.
Now the scene's between O'Brien and his now-little wife Keiko made me wonder whether they wrote the script, started shooting the episode and then in the middle realized "shit we have some mandatory pedophilia here because, of course, O'Brien is still the husband and all...So we HAVE to make him uncomfortable" As in not even being comfortable to touch her.
The pedo paranoia always over-reaches. Cause they could still cuddle in a platonic kind of way :)

Poor O'Brien, always getting those morality tests. It was later in DS9 where they had the episode where a grown version of Molly somehow comes out of the transporter, and of course she's hot as fuck.

Quote from: PrimeMeridian on 17 October, 2024, 05:02:37People are still posting to this old thread after all this time, so it gives me an opportunity to weigh in too. :) The whole conversation is pretty funny! I love Star Trek, too ... at least pre-Discovery, I do! Seems like at least PSC, the correlation is true.

To those who may have hoped that it was something "made up" to smear the lot of us, I have to confirm that I've heard about this more than once. I will say that it's not a very good smear, Trek is great! Second, I do remember hearing about this same exact correlation in a documentary (it may have been more like a 60 Minutes type show, memory has faded) on TV at least 15 years ago, and again reading about it years afterward. Unfortunately, it's at least something that has been reported as true multiple times. The documentary I saw was around the time of a big news story about some of the earliest arrests for Internet illegal content.

On the TV show, the law enforcement that they were interviewing speculated that the cause was something about a "well-developed fantasy world where the ordinary rules and laws don't matter and don't apply to them." That's the smear, if anything!

I think it may have a lot more to do with a love of the character development in Trek, though. Many of us seem to have an interest in human behavior and personalities, so there's that. I've personally always loved the idea of the society of the Federation, at least (again) pre-Discovery. They're post-scarcity, and they're truly the good guys of the galaxy.

I am assuming you mean there' a correlation between star trek fans and pedos? I never heard of that before. Though it wouldn't surprise me if some of the writers have some proclivities, considering how often it is they write some plot that leads to these types of thoughts. I mean, most aren't quite as heavy-handed, but the whole thing between Neelix and Kes was kinda just asking for people to think about that.

I'm wondering how the Ocompa (no idea how to spell that) give birth thru their backs.  Do they not have spines or something? And do they fuck in the same hole they give birth from like all the other humanoids apparently do?  That means they've got some sort of vagina in the middle of their backs?
Where were the Progenitors on that one? :P

For that matter, the whole inter-species breeding concept you see throughout the franchise where this character is part this and part that; should not work. Humans can't even breed with our closest animal relatives on Earth.  There's no way it would work with a species that evolved on another planet.  I don't care if they are all "humanoid" that's not how genetics work.  I don't care how good the Progenitors were in seeding life that would grow humanoids, they're not going to be able to breed with each other.  You'd have to genetically engineer interplanetary hybrids.  It would never just happen.  "I fucked a Bolean and now I'm pregnant!"  Nope.

All this to say Spock can't exist.
Nor you, my dear Naomi Wildman.
Alexander can't exist either since his mother is also a half-breed, so I'm afraid your Luxanna x Alexander SS ship can't happen.  And speaking of Trois, can't forget Deanna; she's out, too.
There are many more. Belana Torres, Zeale, ...

Zeale; that brings up a disturbing thought.  She's the daughter of Gul Dukat, a Cardassian, and a Bajoran slave girl.  But since that kind of crossbreeding wouldn't work, that means a prick like Dukat could rape all the Bajoran women he wants and not worry about impregnating any of them.  Yikes.

What the Progenitors did was lay the seeds for convergent evolution.  Same way both bats and birds evolved flight despite not being directly related.  But you're not going to see a shark and an orca have a baby just because they have the same rough body plan: tail in back, teeth in the front, fins and shit...  You'd have as much success trying to make a Spock with a Vulcan hottie as Free Willie would trying to breed with Jaws.

Try and technobabble that conundrum away, Trek writers! :lol
I just out nerded everyone by skipping over all the magical technology and stuck a knife into the core of the franchise's most beloved character with science.

Quote from: on the rocks on 18 October, 2024, 03:10:21I'm wondering how the Ocompa (no idea how to spell that) give birth thru their backs.  Do they not have spines or something? And do they fuck in the same hole they give birth from like all the other humanoids apparently do?  That means they've got some sort of vagina in the middle of their backs?
Where were the Progenitors on that one? :P

For that matter, the whole inter-species breeding concept you see throughout the franchise where this character is part this and part that; should not work. Humans can't even breed with our closest animal relatives on Earth.  There's no way it would work with a species that evolved on another planet.  I don't care if they are all "humanoid" that's not how genetics work.  I don't care how good the Progenitors were in seeding life that would grow humanoids, they're not going to be able to breed with each other.  You'd have to genetically engineer interplanetary hybrids.  It would never just happen.  "I fucked a Bolean and now I'm pregnant!"  Nope.

All this to say Spock can't exist.
Nor you, my dear Naomi Wildman.
Alexander can't exist either since his mother is also a half-breed, so I'm afraid your Luxanna x Alexander SS ship can't happen.  And speaking of Trois, can't forget Deanna; she's out, too.
There are many more. Belana Torres, Zeale, ...

Zeale; that brings up a disturbing thought.  She's the daughter of Gul Dukat, a Cardassian, and a Bajoran slave girl.  But since that kind of crossbreeding wouldn't work, that means a prick like Dukat could rape all the Bajoran women he wants and not worry about impregnating any of them.  Yikes.

What the Progenitors did was lay the seeds for convergent evolution.  Same way both bats and birds evolved flight despite not being directly related.  But you're not going to see a shark and an orca have a baby just because they have the same rough body plan: tail in back, teeth in the front, fins and shit...  You'd have as much success trying to make a Spock with a Vulcan hottie as Free Willie would trying to breed with Jaws.

Try and technobabble that conundrum away, Trek writers! :lol
I just out nerded everyone by skipping over all the magical technology and stuck a knife into the core of the franchise's most beloved character with science.

Well, nobody likes to talk about Enterprise, but I remember this being a thing in that series, where they weren't sure if Trip and T'Pol would be able to reproduce. In fact, the child died shortly after it was born, but there was a part where they said the doctor thought that it was possible for their genetic sequences to be stabilized or something. So I mean, I think they were trying to explain all the other hybridization away by insisting that was somehow the beginning of that, but you're right that's pretty contrived. I mean, as you pointed out with Gul Dukat... They pretty heavily insinuated that was accidental, so that rules out any idea of intended genetic sequencing to produce a hybrid.

One of many stumbles Enterprise had in its last season.  They caught "Midochlorian Syndrome" from Star Wars and felt like they had to ret-con a bunch of stuff to explain why Enterprise looks so much slicker than the Original Series despite the former being a 'prequel' to the latter.

That's one thing I give the newer series credit for. Disco and SNW didn't bother trying to recreate that 1960's aesthetic and good on them for it.  Our present looks better than 1960's futurism in terms of design aesthetic.
For all it's good, original Trek is very much of it's era.  None of the characters, especially the women, would look out of place at the club in 1967.  Didn't occur to Roddenberry that women would wear pants more than skirts in the near future. :P

Quote from: on the rocks on 19 October, 2024, 21:31:03One of many stumbles Enterprise had in its last season.  They caught "Midochlorian Syndrome" from Star Wars and felt like they had to ret-con a bunch of stuff to explain why Enterprise looks so much slicker than the Original Series despite the former being a 'prequel' to the latter.

That's one thing I give the newer series credit for. Disco and SNW didn't bother trying to recreate that 1960's aesthetic and good on them for it.  Our present looks better than 1960's futurism in terms of design aesthetic.
For all it's good, original Trek is very much of it's era.  None of the characters, especially the women, would look out of place at the club in 1967.  Didn't occur to Roddenberry that women would wear pants more than skirts in the near future. :P

It is a little hard for me to get into the original series. The production just feels way too similar to any show of the time in terms of format and story-telling. Star Trek could have been Gunsmoke: In Space.

I am sure the 90s era stuff feels just as dated to the newer generation though.

Roddenberry literally pitched it to the network as "Wagon Train to the stars!"
So you're a even closer than you think. ;)

Some of the hair styles from that 90's golden era sure date the show, but for the most part, there's familiarity.  Everyone's walking around with tablet devices.  Lot of voice-activated gizmos being used.  Any use of CGI is probably cringe for the "kids" out there.  Thinking about the liquid effect when Odo or one of the founders morphs into something.  That probably looks cheesy to them.  It does to me and I was alive when they first did it. :P

Actually, not yet because, it's very long one! But, i want to watch it one day!

Quote from: on the rocks on 19 October, 2024, 22:19:45Roddenberry literally pitched it to the network as "Wagon Train to the stars!"
So you're a even closer than you think. ;)

Some of the hair styles from that 90's golden era sure date the show, but for the most part, there's familiarity.  Everyone's walking around with tablet devices.  Lot of voice-activated gizmos being used.  Any use of CGI is probably cringe for the "kids" out there.  Thinking about the liquid effect when Odo or one of the founders morphs into something.  That probably looks cheesy to them.  It does to me and I was alive when they first did it. :P

Heh, yeah, the visual effects are always going to look antiquated, but there's also a 90s TV vibe that's very evident. Hard to describe, but like, I've had it pointed out to me by some Gen Z'ers

What I think is cool, is watching the 90s era Trek, and then looking at all the AI stuff coming out, and realizing we practically all have our own little "Enterprise computer" with us all the time. I mean, I am pretty sure that I saw someone hacked Siri to sound like the Voyager computer or something like that, but what I mean is in some of the episodes where they're using the computer to reason through some problem and giving it all sorts of voice prompts and everything. It's very similar to what I imagine effectively using AI will end up being like. There's too many people now who think you're supposed to ask it to write your homework assignment for you, without you being required to distinguish parameters and ensure proper input. Of course it also probably fuels some of those fears about AI gone awry, too. That one holodeck-themed episode that gave birth to the Moriarty facsimile that achieved sentience, for example. The only reason that happened was because they weren't careful when they said, "...create an opponent able to defeat Data." 

Which is wild to think that a computer that sophisticated wouldn't have some kind of, "Did you really mean to do that?" cross-checking, even though they had disabled safety protocols. I mean, even a piece of software that has the ability to disengage safety features, usually also has a middle-ground option where the computer at least warns against something that may be unsafe. Meanwhile I'm supposed to believe Geordi LaForge just forgot to do that like some kind of junior programmer forgetting to run his compiler with all the warnings enabled? Perhaps that concept of software-engineering wasn't popularized yet in the period when that episode was written, because I think that was one of the early 90s ones.

It's weird to think... In Star Trek, humanity lives in this post-scarcity society because they developed warped technology, which allowed them to meet the Vulcans and become an interplanetary species. However, it never really explains how exactly that helped us. Then you think about things like AI, and how futuristic they seem, and how positively they were used in a show like Star Trek, but that is al in a universe where it's pretty heavily implied we were already post-scarcity before developing that. It's weird to think how Roddenberry would have assured the people today who are worried about AI taking their jobs and everyone being destitute. I think that was roughly explored in the DS9 episodes with the "Sanctuaries" and the "Rodney Bell" riot thing, but I don't really remember what they actually attributed that socioeconomic situation to. Star Trek always does stuff like that, where they showcase some horrible period of human history as a demonstration of how far they've come, but when it comes to explaining exactly how they got to that point, it always seems like they never really flesh that out too much. I can literally remember scenes where they would be on the verge of explaining how some watershed moment lead to the status quo, only to be shot by phasers and interrupted before actually elaborating further.

I think that's what I liked about 90s Trek the most, though. There was this kind of optimism and suspension of disbelief that you kind of had to align yourself with to watch it, but at the time that was very easy to do. I mean, the 90s was just exuding with that kind of spirit thanks to the technological revolution.

Though a recurring theme throughout the franchise is the dangers of over-reliance on some technology such that it dilutes our humanity.  Whether it's Kirk finding a planet that worships a computer or the Borg forcing other civilizations into their collective, there's always a core to the franchise about staying human.  Or humanoid, at least.
The retro shows take stands against genetic engineering and cloning of people.

So it's techno-optimism without having the technology run your life.
I think it's a writing cheat to not really explain how humans actually achieved our post-scarcity society by Federation times.  Because if you try and spell it out, that just opens you up to getting taken down point by point on how that wouldn't work. So rather than open that can of worms, they skipped over that part of the future history.  But that's the thing about utopias.  Everyone has some version of it rolling around in their heads, but explaining how to get there is much harder than explaining how great it will be once we get there.

And the fact is, anyone throughout history who has tried to implement their version of utopia has it end in disaster every single time.  Because one person's utopia is another person's dystopia.  Or the people currently in charge are always like, "Nah, we're not gonna do that..."


I could go on a tangent about how foolish they are with their holo-tech.  How many times are the lives of the crew threatened by some kind of holodeck/suite/ship shenanigans?  More than enough to where there should definitely be a massive overhaul of safety protocols.  Like, for example, there should be no circumstance where you can't open the freakin' door in an emergency.  Or simply unplug the damn thing from its power source.
All the times it's gone wrong on just 3 shows in that next generation era, times that by the size of Starfleet and there must be a body count in the thousands just from holodeck misadventures. :P
Not every crew is going to figure out what the hell they're talking about when their holodeck takes over the ship and wants to go to "Vertiform City". ;)

Lower Decks is back for its (unfortuneately) last season.  Well, last season for now.  Good animated shows have a track record of coming back from the dead and this does feel like one that wouldn't be hard to bring back next time there's a management shakeup at Paramount.

In some ways, though, the show's premise does have a built in expiration date.  We're supposed to be following a group of junior officers; the lowest in the chain of command.  And how they're subjected to the decisions and lack of information from those above them.  It stands in stark contrast to every other series which focuses on the bridge crew; the captains and commanders and admirals and ambassadors

But the longer Lower Decks goes on, the less plausible it becomes to keep the characters in that low position.  The passage of years means people rank up, get transferred, and are no longer the grunts tasked with mere waste extraction and diagnostics.  At this point, the core characters have all been bumped up to lieutenants so it's already getting away from the initial conceit of the series.  Which is good, you do want these characters to grow.  But at some point, it's definitely not literally about the Lower Decks of a starship.

The way around this is to be more like other animated shows that sort of freeze their characters in time and ignore the fact that Bart Simpson would otherwise be 46 this season. :P  Just keep hitting 'reset' every season such the the events of the entire series ostensibly take place over just a couple years even though they've got 10 seasons.

I think that's where this show would be if it had started a decade earlier on Adult Swim.  Imagine a world where Lower Decks was the next project for TItmouse Animation after they wrapped Metalocalypse.  And then it runs back-to-back with Rick & Morty?  Oh man, that's an early 2010's ratings beast right there!