So wait, is this debate about eating the enemies you've slain? Or is it about eating creatures that are, for all intents and purposes, on the same mental level?
Imagine, if you will, a world where pigs and cows could communicate with us. Do you think we'd stop eating them? I probably would.
Off-topic, have any of you ever seen SyFy's "The Magicians" TV Show? They had the same ethical debate about having s-e-x with conscious animals!
Your point is valid. If pigs and cows could talk I would not eat them
I think Zaphod Beeblebrox said it best... “Better than eating an animal that doesn’t want to be eaten.”
I still think ganglia probably tastes like Ika... (squid sashimi) because that’s what it looks like... Then we can have Roast Porg for the main course...
As long as my Kelpiens are organic, gluten-free and sourced locally, I’m good.
"The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."
Who wants to bet Admiral Katrina Cornwell bites the dust soon? DB just signed her death warrant.
Mega spoiler, don't read this as it has not happened yet, and is a major spoiler.
Nope, she goes mad, her mind is wiped.
Really don't read this.
Admiral Cornwell is Lethe from TOS. Lethe was a therapist on Tantalus Penal Colony.
Cornwell had a large part in the DIS episode "Lethe"
Interesting, but...
She doesn't look nearly young enough in DSC or old enough in TOS for that to work. Also going from Starfleet Admiral to therapist at a penal colony is a pretty significant job change. But I guess if Burnham goes on a re-assignment rampage again...and there's some tricky de-aging/time travel involved...)
“Treason, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.” - Elim Garak
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Who wants to bet Admiral Katrina Cornwell bites the dust soon? DB just signed her death warrant.
Mega spoiler, don't read this as it has not happened yet, and is a major spoiler.
Nope, she goes mad, her mind is wiped.
Really don't read this.
Admiral Cornwell is Lethe from TOS. Lethe was a therapist on Tantalus Penal Colony.
Cornwell had a large part in the DIS episode "Lethe"
Interesting, but...
She doesn't look nearly young enough in DSC or old enough in TOS for that to work. Also going from Starfleet Admiral to therapist at a penal colony is a pretty significant job change. But I guess if Burnham goes on a re-assignment rampage again...and there's some tricky de-aging/time travel involved...)
Last thread I brought that up in I was told by several people that that is speculation not fact.
Who wants to bet Admiral Katrina Cornwell bites the dust soon? DB just signed her death warrant.
Mega spoiler, don't read this as it has not happened yet, and is a major spoiler.
Nope, she goes mad, her mind is wiped.
Really don't read this.
Admiral Cornwell is Lethe from TOS. Lethe was a therapist on Tantalus Penal Colony.
Cornwell had a large part in the DIS episode "Lethe"
Interesting, but...
She doesn't look nearly young enough in DSC or old enough in TOS for that to work. Also going from Starfleet Admiral to therapist at a penal colony is a pretty significant job change. But I guess if Burnham goes on a re-assignment rampage again...and there's some tricky de-aging/time travel involved...)
Last thread I brought that up in I was told by several people that that is speculation not fact.
It is speculation, but DIS has had some pretty obvious easter egg hints.
So wait, is this debate about eating the enemies you've slain? Or is it about eating creatures that are, for all intents and purposes, on the same mental level?
Imagine, if you will, a world where pigs and cows could communicate with us. Do you think we'd stop eating them? I probably would.
I think that's very much the point being made; that we may be more accepting, as @For Cardassia stated, when it's The Other doing it than it is when We do it, and also when we have an attachment to Who or What is being eaten. But should we make distinctions between The Other eating Georgiou's corpse or Terran Georgiou eating Mirror Saru? (To complete the circle of life, I think our Saru now has to eat Mirror Voq.)
Also, it occurred to me that I'd forgotten something Voq said to L'Rell about not wanting to eat Georgiou because doing so failed T'Kuvma's fundamental puritanism, so I was demonstrably wrong about Voq & co. doing that because of T'Kuvma. They did it in spite of T'Kuvma, which of course was done to emphasize their desperation, that not only did they eat Georgiou's corpse, but that they violated their fealty to T'Kuvma to do it.
This still doesn't establish how mainstream an idea it was, though it does point more explicitly to it having been an act of desperation. Which, really, makes the Terran serving of Kelpien even more grotesque because that's done merely because it's tasty and Kelpiens don't merit any further regard. At least Voq put off eating Georgiou at all for a week.
“Battle of the Binary Stars” seems like a million years ago to me but unless my memory has failed me the only reasons the Klingons were considering eating Georgiou was because they had run out of food. Voq was against it for two reasons. One, T’Vukma left him in charge and he had failed to get the ship operational. So they were stuck there without power unable to go anywhere or get food supplies etc. He felt that would be admitting that they were stuck there. A defeat.
Two he felt it would have been disrespectful to T’Kuvma to eat his murder. L’Rell was the one who said starving to death before you had a chance to take revenge on humans would be the real failure
As far as Klingons eating the heart of their enemies even before DSC I always felt that was handled too causally. It was just kind of dismissed as “oh those wacky Klingons” instead of something horrific which it should have been.
I remember on DS9 when they were going through the list of things Jadzia could have done to get into the Klingon afterlife (none of which she was able to do)...when they got to “eat the heart of your enemy”. Sisko said “yeah well Jadzia was always a little squeamish”.
Who wants to bet Admiral Katrina Cornwell bites the dust soon? DB just signed her death warrant.
Mega spoiler, don't read this as it has not happened yet, and is a major spoiler.
Nope, she goes mad, her mind is wiped.
Really don't read this.
Admiral Cornwell is Lethe from TOS. Lethe was a therapist on Tantalus Penal Colony.
Cornwell had a large part in the DIS episode "Lethe"
A lot of us thought so too, but given that Discovery basically uses classic Star Trek continuity as toilet paper, I'm pretty sure they'll do whatever they want with the character.
So wait, is this debate about eating the enemies you've slain? Or is it about eating creatures that are, for all intents and purposes, on the same mental level?
Imagine, if you will, a world where pigs and cows could communicate with us. Do you think we'd stop eating them? I probably would.
While "mental level" is a factor, a bigger factor is the social contract.
The first block in building a society is "let's agree not to kill each other. You don't kill me, I don't kill you".
Pigs are very smart. So are dolphins. Pigs can and will eat people, dolphins can and don't. (I know of no reports of dolphins attacking people or eating dead people, and in fact many storie of dolphins taking people to land.)
I feel like dolphins have offered the social contract, pigs haven't.
I would probably feel a little different if pigs could talk, but in general if they are still willing to eat me I don't feel I owe them anything.
Also, as others have touched on, there is a difference between eating part of someone in a ceremony to honor them, eating people who are already dead, and killing somebody because they look tasty.
I mean, one of the major religions in the modern world contains ritual cannibalism, with one of the major schisms between sects being whether the food is merely symbolic of flesh or is literally transformed into it.
I remember on DS9 when they were going through the list of things Jadzia could have done to get into the Klingon afterlife (none of which she was able to do)...when they got to “eat the heart of your enemy”. Sisko said “yeah well Jadzia was always a little squeamish”.
Another good example is that in our modern world, different societies feel differently about eating dogs. This is, I believe, because those societies feel differently about dogs in their society. If dogs are useful animals, so are cows. If dogs are "almost people", you don't eat people.
My father grew up on a farm, and his job included raising rabbits for food. I have had the great luxury of never eating something I had given a name, or even something whose name I knew. But I know I am not alone in having a problem with that: many farmers exchange animals just before or after slaughter so they don't have to eat something that was kind of a pet (albeit a pet you always knew was going to be killed and eaten).
So I guess my position is: if you want to honor a particularly great enemy by eating his heart, I won't be joining you but you do you.
If you want to eat the guys you just killed because you're starving, that's a bit creepy but okay. I hope I would do the same rather than starve, but maybe not.
If you want to eat the guys you just killed because it will make the food you have last longer, ... that's weird. Eating people should be the last resort.
If you want to eat this guy next to me, and want to kill him so you can eat him, then you are declaring yourself to be outside of our agreement to not kill each other. And killing you just got added to my 'to do' list.
Another good example is that in our modern world, different societies feel differently about eating dogs. This is, I believe, because those societies feel differently about dogs in their society. If dogs are useful animals, so are cows. If dogs are "almost people", you don't eat people.
My father grew up on a farm, and his job included raising rabbits for food. I have had the great luxury of never eating something I had given a name, or even something whose name I knew. But I know I am not alone in having a problem with that: many farmers exchange animals just before or after slaughter so they don't have to eat something that was kind of a pet (albeit a pet you always knew was going to be killed and eaten).
So I guess my position is: if you want to honor a particularly great enemy by eating his heart, I won't be joining you but you do you.
If you want to eat the guys you just killed because you're starving, that's a bit creepy but okay. I hope I would do the same rather than starve, but maybe not.
If you want to eat the guys you just killed because it will make the food you have last longer, ... that's weird. Eating people should be the last resort.
If you want to eat this guy next to me, and want to kill him so you can eat him, then you are declaring yourself to be outside of our agreement to not kill each other. And killing you just got added to my 'to do' list.
I do feel that it's significant that we've seen two instances of characters eating other characters. One of the core themes of this season has been Burnham's insistence on challenging the Other-ism that divides Earth and Qo'Nos. I think looking at the Terran Empire has given her--and hopefully, us-- the opportunity to not just speculate how the Klingons may perceive us, but to realize how capable we are of actually being the devil they believe us to be. It's one thing to say, "That's preposterous, we're the good guys! None of those things you think about us are true." It's something else to say, "Oh, hell. Turns out we actually could be that bad, and worse."
I'm sure some were put off by the eating stuff and felt it was just being grotesque for the sake of being grotesque, and maybe I'm entirely wrong and that was the extent of thought that went into those two incidents. But give how deliberately they've inserted information in each episode to date, I feel that it wasn't just there to gross us out. It services the story being told, and in a compelling way. Does it make us squeamish? Hopefully. That's the point.
Who wants to bet Admiral Katrina Cornwell bites the dust soon? DB just signed her death warrant.
Mega spoiler, don't read this as it has not happened yet, and is a major spoiler.
Nope, she goes mad, her mind is wiped.
Really don't read this.
Admiral Cornwell is Lethe from TOS. Lethe was a therapist on Tantalus Penal Colony.
Cornwell had a large part in the DIS episode "Lethe"
A lot of us thought so too, but given that Discovery basically uses classic Star Trek continuity as toilet paper, I'm pretty sure they'll do whatever they want with the character.
So because the show will not indulge your fan theories it’s using continuity as toilet paper. Riiiiiiiiiight. and they say Star Wars fans are the ones that are egotistical.
Who wants to bet Admiral Katrina Cornwell bites the dust soon? DB just signed her death warrant.
Mega spoiler, don't read this as it has not happened yet, and is a major spoiler.
Nope, she goes mad, her mind is wiped.
Really don't read this.
Admiral Cornwell is Lethe from TOS. Lethe was a therapist on Tantalus Penal Colony.
Cornwell had a large part in the DIS episode "Lethe"
A lot of us thought so too, but given that Discovery basically uses classic Star Trek continuity as toilet paper, I'm pretty sure they'll do whatever they want with the character.
So because the show will not indulge your fan theories it’s using continuity as toilet paper. Riiiiiiiiiight. and they say Star Wars fans are the ones that are egotistical.
Alright. First of all, I have no problem with taking a series in a new direction. How else are you going to keep it modern and interesting? As long as its clear from the plot and writing that you have love and respect for the source material. And I've said multiple times on this forum that I like the show for what it is, which is an action-packed sci-fi drama of cinematic scale. But it's obvious that they don't care about maintaining any sort of deference to the source material. That was obvious from the moment they set it 10 years before TOS.
A problem, by the way, which would have been easily rectified if they had just set the stupid series in post-VOY 2400. It would have told the audience "We appreciate your past, now join us as we take it in a new direction toward the future."
Who wants to bet Admiral Katrina Cornwell bites the dust soon? DB just signed her death warrant.
Mega spoiler, don't read this as it has not happened yet, and is a major spoiler.
Nope, she goes mad, her mind is wiped.
Really don't read this.
Admiral Cornwell is Lethe from TOS. Lethe was a therapist on Tantalus Penal Colony.
Cornwell had a large part in the DIS episode "Lethe"
A lot of us thought so too, but given that Discovery basically uses classic Star Trek continuity as toilet paper, I'm pretty sure they'll do whatever they want with the character.
So because the show will not indulge your fan theories it’s using continuity as toilet paper. Riiiiiiiiiight. and they say Star Wars fans are the ones that are egotistical.
A problem, by the way, which would have been easily rectified if they had just set the stupid series in post-VOY 2400. It would have told the audience "We appreciate your past, now join us as we take it in a new direction toward the future."
I kind of agree... it’s like DIS is trying to do a Battlestar Galactica style reboot making it darker and edgier than the original with 50 shades of grey for characters instead of black and white good and evil. I’m enjoying watching DIS (except the orcified Klingons) but it is very different than the rest of episodic based Star Trek. This one is following a large story-arc and you can’t pop in and watch one episode randomly, you have to watch them all in sequence basically.
I think one problem is coming up with convincing adversaries (ie, villains). TOS basically had the Klingons and part-time Romulans. TNG made Klingons good guys so had to come up with a new foil. They started with Q but the power imbalance made that more about morality rather than a fair struggle. While Q became a better character over the years, most people agree the pilot episode of TNG (and pretty much season one) kind of stunk.
They tried to make evil-capitalist Ferengi (in the “greed is good” 1980’s) but they were more comical than anything and just became bartenders. It took TNG four seasons to come up with the Borg (mixed with Q). The Borg basically stayed (other than DS9 and the Dominion War arc) throughout VOY as the main antagonist (and even in the movies) because the Kazon and Hirogen just didn’t cut the evil existential threat that the Klingons and Borg do. ENT completely failed to find one; Xindi, Suliban, all came up short of capture the audiences’ imagination.
In other words, setting up post VOY makes things easier from a blank slate point of view but the problem is you have to fill that slate. The Borg have been done to death and all other attempts to come up with unique and convincing villains through four series have come up short which is why they keep bringing the Borg back. Plus you have to come up with funky new tech like the holodeck and replicators (although the holographic communication in DIS would have looked better in the future). I think they didn’t want to risk another ENT where viewers can’t relate (and thus ratings stunk) and they didn’t want to do Borg again after VOY which left Klingons as a safe anti-hero but that means they had to do it somewhere pre-TNG and even pre-TOS because “peace talks” and “Khitomer Accords” (ie, Good Klingons) had already taken place.
In other words, setting up post VOY makes things easier from a blank slate point of view but the problem is you have to fill that slate. The Borg have been done to death and all other attempts to come up with unique and convincing villains through four series have come up short which is why they keep bringing the Borg back. Plus you have to come up with funky new tech like the holodeck and replicators (although the holographic communication in DIS would have looked better in the future). I think they didn’t want to risk another ENT where viewers can’t relate (and thus ratings stunk) and they didn’t want to do Borg again after VOY which left Klingons as a safe anti-hero but that means they had to do it somewhere pre-TNG and even pre-TOS because “peace talks” and “Khitomer Accords” (ie, Good Klingons) had already taken place.
I think that's still an easier proposition than trying to wedge a new series into an established past. I mean, a concept like the spore drive could easily be cutting edge technology post-Voyager, and establish ALL NEW sorts of adventures. You wouldn't even need to redesign the ships! Half of them look like steampunk Akira, Prometheus, and other classes. Among them, multiple Universes and time travel. Boom.
In other words, setting up post VOY makes things easier from a blank slate point of view but the problem is you have to fill that slate. The Borg have been done to death and all other attempts to come up with unique and convincing villains through four series have come up short which is why they keep bringing the Borg back. Plus you have to come up with funky new tech like the holodeck and replicators (although the holographic communication in DIS would have looked better in the future). I think they didn’t want to risk another ENT where viewers can’t relate (and thus ratings stunk) and they didn’t want to do Borg again after VOY which left Klingons as a safe anti-hero but that means they had to do it somewhere pre-TNG and even pre-TOS because “peace talks” and “Khitomer Accords” (ie, Good Klingons) had already taken place.
I think that's still an easier proposition than trying to wedge a new series into an established past. I mean, a concept like the spore drive could easily be cutting edge technology post-Voyager, and establish ALL NEW sorts of adventures. You wouldn't even need to redesign the ships! Half of them look like steampunk Akira, Prometheus, and other classes. Among them, multiple Universes and time travel. Boom.
Yeah no doubt. And I generally agree with all of what you said. I think the main problem comes from antagonists and general direction. Star Trek becomes more “prime directive” SJW as the timeline progresses. ENT and Archer didn’t know what to do so kind of just winged it. TOS and Kirk keep getting referred to as being a “cowboy” and “those were different times” in the later series.
Because they wanted to make it a “darker and edgier” modern 21st century viewer Star Trek, putting it in the future where the Federation has bested all comers, is all nice and “we’re beyond greed and all that stuff”, it is harder to make it darker. I guess they could of rolled the dice and created some post-VOY arch villain that forces them to go dark side but it is what it is. Hollywood is not keen on rolling the dice nowadays as the plethora or Sequels and superhero movies attests to.
In other words, setting up post VOY makes things easier from a blank slate point of view but the problem is you have to fill that slate. The Borg have been done to death and all other attempts to come up with unique and convincing villains through four series have come up short which is why they keep bringing the Borg back. Plus you have to come up with funky new tech like the holodeck and replicators (although the holographic communication in DIS would have looked better in the future). I think they didn’t want to risk another ENT where viewers can’t relate (and thus ratings stunk) and they didn’t want to do Borg again after VOY which left Klingons as a safe anti-hero but that means they had to do it somewhere pre-TNG and even pre-TOS because “peace talks” and “Khitomer Accords” (ie, Good Klingons) had already taken place.
I think that's still an easier proposition than trying to wedge a new series into an established past. I mean, a concept like the spore drive could easily be cutting edge technology post-Voyager, and establish ALL NEW sorts of adventures. You wouldn't even need to redesign the ships! Half of them look like steampunk Akira, Prometheus, and other classes. Among them, multiple Universes and time travel. Boom.
Also, they *did* come up with great adversaries post-Borg.
The Dominion and Cardassians namely. Those are already dealt with obviously, but it's not like the Borg were the last great villains.
Plus, the Romulans were hardly good guys by the end of DS9. They allied with the Federation solely for the purpose of saving the Alpha Quadrant. They could have made Romulans the main enemy if they really wanted to. Romulans are criminally underutilised.
DSC could have so easily been set post-VOY, and I think that is what they really wanted to do, just looking at the technology (holographic communication, the "worker bee" we saw Tyler use, the holodecks...), but someone somewhere wanted to do Klingons, so they had to stick it before TOS.
“Treason, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.” - Elim Garak
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Considering Gene Rs original intent with Andomeda was the Vulcans destroying the Federation because of peace with the Klingons, (I think the Nitcheans and Magog turned out better not being Trek though), there are definitely ideas
Doing up the new Klingons show us that they had the creativity to do fill the future void. Coulda just been a whole new race out there, hell extra galactic, or deep beyond the Ocampan homeworld Delta, etc etc.
As far as it not being episodic, well neither was most of DS9.
In other words, setting up post VOY makes things easier from a blank slate point of view but the problem is you have to fill that slate. The Borg have been done to death and all other attempts to come up with unique and convincing villains through four series have come up short which is why they keep bringing the Borg back. Plus you have to come up with funky new tech like the holodeck and replicators (although the holographic communication in DIS would have looked better in the future). I think they didn’t want to risk another ENT where viewers can’t relate (and thus ratings stunk) and they didn’t want to do Borg again after VOY which left Klingons as a safe anti-hero but that means they had to do it somewhere pre-TNG and even pre-TOS because “peace talks” and “Khitomer Accords” (ie, Good Klingons) had already taken place.
I think that's still an easier proposition than trying to wedge a new series into an established past. I mean, a concept like the spore drive could easily be cutting edge technology post-Voyager, and establish ALL NEW sorts of adventures. You wouldn't even need to redesign the ships! Half of them look like steampunk Akira, Prometheus, and other classes. Among them, multiple Universes and time travel. Boom.
Also, they *did* come up with great adversaries post-Borg.
The Dominion and Cardassians namely. Those are already dealt with obviously, but it's not like the Borg were the last great villains.
Plus, the Romulans were hardly good guys by the end of DS9. They allied with the Federation solely for the purpose of saving the Alpha Quadrant. They could have made Romulans the main enemy if they really wanted to. Romulans are criminally underutilised.
DSC could have so easily been set post-VOY, and I think that is what they really wanted to do, just looking at the technology (holographic communication, the "worker bee" we saw Tyler use, the holodecks...), but someone somewhere wanted to do Klingons, so they had to stick it before TOS.
I kind of pointed that out briefly about DS9 and the Dominion War arc... but VOY went full Borg because the others (my opinion) like Kazon and Hirogen kind of were a little lame. The Romulans were always a secondary villain throughout all the series. Cardassians were done by the end of DS9. The ENT villains were lame and may be part of why the series died early.
I think DIS DOES belong post-VOY. But they didn’t want to roll the dice on a high budget production (flashship for CBS All Access online streaming) and end up with ENT. So they went Klingon and “edgier and darker” which puts it right smack pre-TOS. As much as long-time fans (I grew up on TOS and TAS) find exception to the loose ties to canon, the commercial success of DIS means they probably did the right choice.
They also wanted to expand viewership from the middle-aged Trekkies just like GOT and Walking Dead have a much more diverse (demographically... age, sex, etc) viewership than these type of genre had in the past. In that, they have probably succeeded as well. But that plot and writing style requires more human interaction (conflict) and character deaths than we are used to in Star Trek where only redshirts die (yeah yeah, I know Data, Trip, etc. but that’s at the end, not in episode 2).
Hopefully the success of DIS will spawn another series post-VOY once CBS gets comfortable with rolling the dice.
Again, SPORE DRIVE. Uncharted territory. New galaxies, new Universes, whatever you want!
Unlimited potential. Insert "classic" Star Trek canon as needed. Set the series in 2410 and GO FORWARD to completely new stories.
Just quit telling me this **tsk tsk** comes 10 years before Kirk, because you didn't need to do that. You did it because you don't care. That's my point.
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Resistance is Futile... You will be assimilated
Interesting, but...
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Symbol for the Terran Empire.
“Battle of the Binary Stars” seems like a million years ago to me but unless my memory has failed me the only reasons the Klingons were considering eating Georgiou was because they had run out of food. Voq was against it for two reasons. One, T’Vukma left him in charge and he had failed to get the ship operational. So they were stuck there without power unable to go anywhere or get food supplies etc. He felt that would be admitting that they were stuck there. A defeat.
Two he felt it would have been disrespectful to T’Kuvma to eat his murder. L’Rell was the one who said starving to death before you had a chance to take revenge on humans would be the real failure
As far as Klingons eating the heart of their enemies even before DSC I always felt that was handled too causally. It was just kind of dismissed as “oh those wacky Klingons” instead of something horrific which it should have been.
I remember on DS9 when they were going through the list of things Jadzia could have done to get into the Klingon afterlife (none of which she was able to do)...when they got to “eat the heart of your enemy”. Sisko said “yeah well Jadzia was always a little squeamish”.
A lot of us thought so too, but given that Discovery basically uses classic Star Trek continuity as toilet paper, I'm pretty sure they'll do whatever they want with the character.
Discovery: The Cooking Show
There does seem to be a higher "eating people" rate than other Star Treks...
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The first block in building a society is "let's agree not to kill each other. You don't kill me, I don't kill you".
Pigs are very smart. So are dolphins. Pigs can and will eat people, dolphins can and don't. (I know of no reports of dolphins attacking people or eating dead people, and in fact many storie of dolphins taking people to land.)
I feel like dolphins have offered the social contract, pigs haven't.
I would probably feel a little different if pigs could talk, but in general if they are still willing to eat me I don't feel I owe them anything.
Also, as others have touched on, there is a difference between eating part of someone in a ceremony to honor them, eating people who are already dead, and killing somebody because they look tasty.
I mean, one of the major religions in the modern world contains ritual cannibalism, with one of the major schisms between sects being whether the food is merely symbolic of flesh or is literally transformed into it.
Wasn't Sisko. Pretty sure it was Quark.
Another good example is that in our modern world, different societies feel differently about eating dogs. This is, I believe, because those societies feel differently about dogs in their society. If dogs are useful animals, so are cows. If dogs are "almost people", you don't eat people.
My father grew up on a farm, and his job included raising rabbits for food. I have had the great luxury of never eating something I had given a name, or even something whose name I knew. But I know I am not alone in having a problem with that: many farmers exchange animals just before or after slaughter so they don't have to eat something that was kind of a pet (albeit a pet you always knew was going to be killed and eaten).
So I guess my position is: if you want to honor a particularly great enemy by eating his heart, I won't be joining you but you do you.
If you want to eat the guys you just killed because you're starving, that's a bit creepy but okay. I hope I would do the same rather than starve, but maybe not.
If you want to eat the guys you just killed because it will make the food you have last longer, ... that's weird. Eating people should be the last resort.
If you want to eat this guy next to me, and want to kill him so you can eat him, then you are declaring yourself to be outside of our agreement to not kill each other. And killing you just got added to my 'to do' list.
Chill and have some KFP...
Dogs have also been known to eat humans. Just saying.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
Ask Ramsay Bolton...
We eat AFC around here...
I assume that means Andorian Flash-Frozen Chicken given how cold it is on Andor?
I'm sure some were put off by the eating stuff and felt it was just being grotesque for the sake of being grotesque, and maybe I'm entirely wrong and that was the extent of thought that went into those two incidents. But give how deliberately they've inserted information in each episode to date, I feel that it wasn't just there to gross us out. It services the story being told, and in a compelling way. Does it make us squeamish? Hopefully. That's the point.
So because the show will not indulge your fan theories it’s using continuity as toilet paper. Riiiiiiiiiight. and they say Star Wars fans are the ones that are egotistical.
Alright. First of all, I have no problem with taking a series in a new direction. How else are you going to keep it modern and interesting? As long as its clear from the plot and writing that you have love and respect for the source material. And I've said multiple times on this forum that I like the show for what it is, which is an action-packed sci-fi drama of cinematic scale. But it's obvious that they don't care about maintaining any sort of deference to the source material. That was obvious from the moment they set it 10 years before TOS.
A problem, by the way, which would have been easily rectified if they had just set the stupid series in post-VOY 2400. It would have told the audience "We appreciate your past, now join us as we take it in a new direction toward the future."
I kind of agree... it’s like DIS is trying to do a Battlestar Galactica style reboot making it darker and edgier than the original with 50 shades of grey for characters instead of black and white good and evil. I’m enjoying watching DIS (except the orcified Klingons) but it is very different than the rest of episodic based Star Trek. This one is following a large story-arc and you can’t pop in and watch one episode randomly, you have to watch them all in sequence basically.
I think one problem is coming up with convincing adversaries (ie, villains). TOS basically had the Klingons and part-time Romulans. TNG made Klingons good guys so had to come up with a new foil. They started with Q but the power imbalance made that more about morality rather than a fair struggle. While Q became a better character over the years, most people agree the pilot episode of TNG (and pretty much season one) kind of stunk.
They tried to make evil-capitalist Ferengi (in the “greed is good” 1980’s) but they were more comical than anything and just became bartenders. It took TNG four seasons to come up with the Borg (mixed with Q). The Borg basically stayed (other than DS9 and the Dominion War arc) throughout VOY as the main antagonist (and even in the movies) because the Kazon and Hirogen just didn’t cut the evil existential threat that the Klingons and Borg do. ENT completely failed to find one; Xindi, Suliban, all came up short of capture the audiences’ imagination.
In other words, setting up post VOY makes things easier from a blank slate point of view but the problem is you have to fill that slate. The Borg have been done to death and all other attempts to come up with unique and convincing villains through four series have come up short which is why they keep bringing the Borg back. Plus you have to come up with funky new tech like the holodeck and replicators (although the holographic communication in DIS would have looked better in the future). I think they didn’t want to risk another ENT where viewers can’t relate (and thus ratings stunk) and they didn’t want to do Borg again after VOY which left Klingons as a safe anti-hero but that means they had to do it somewhere pre-TNG and even pre-TOS because “peace talks” and “Khitomer Accords” (ie, Good Klingons) had already taken place.
I think that's still an easier proposition than trying to wedge a new series into an established past. I mean, a concept like the spore drive could easily be cutting edge technology post-Voyager, and establish ALL NEW sorts of adventures. You wouldn't even need to redesign the ships! Half of them look like steampunk Akira, Prometheus, and other classes. Among them, multiple Universes and time travel. Boom.
Yeah no doubt. And I generally agree with all of what you said. I think the main problem comes from antagonists and general direction. Star Trek becomes more “prime directive” SJW as the timeline progresses. ENT and Archer didn’t know what to do so kind of just winged it. TOS and Kirk keep getting referred to as being a “cowboy” and “those were different times” in the later series.
Because they wanted to make it a “darker and edgier” modern 21st century viewer Star Trek, putting it in the future where the Federation has bested all comers, is all nice and “we’re beyond greed and all that stuff”, it is harder to make it darker. I guess they could of rolled the dice and created some post-VOY arch villain that forces them to go dark side but it is what it is. Hollywood is not keen on rolling the dice nowadays as the plethora or Sequels and superhero movies attests to.
Also, they *did* come up with great adversaries post-Borg.
The Dominion and Cardassians namely. Those are already dealt with obviously, but it's not like the Borg were the last great villains.
Plus, the Romulans were hardly good guys by the end of DS9. They allied with the Federation solely for the purpose of saving the Alpha Quadrant. They could have made Romulans the main enemy if they really wanted to. Romulans are criminally underutilised.
DSC could have so easily been set post-VOY, and I think that is what they really wanted to do, just looking at the technology (holographic communication, the "worker bee" we saw Tyler use, the holodecks...), but someone somewhere wanted to do Klingons, so they had to stick it before TOS.
Cardassian wishlist:
Tora Ziyal - Thanks!
Natima Lang
Empok Nor Garak
Tekeny Ghemor
Mira
Makbar
Dejar
Ulani Belor
Doing up the new Klingons show us that they had the creativity to do fill the future void. Coulda just been a whole new race out there, hell extra galactic, or deep beyond the Ocampan homeworld Delta, etc etc.
As far as it not being episodic, well neither was most of DS9.
I kind of pointed that out briefly about DS9 and the Dominion War arc... but VOY went full Borg because the others (my opinion) like Kazon and Hirogen kind of were a little lame. The Romulans were always a secondary villain throughout all the series. Cardassians were done by the end of DS9. The ENT villains were lame and may be part of why the series died early.
I think DIS DOES belong post-VOY. But they didn’t want to roll the dice on a high budget production (flashship for CBS All Access online streaming) and end up with ENT. So they went Klingon and “edgier and darker” which puts it right smack pre-TOS. As much as long-time fans (I grew up on TOS and TAS) find exception to the loose ties to canon, the commercial success of DIS means they probably did the right choice.
They also wanted to expand viewership from the middle-aged Trekkies just like GOT and Walking Dead have a much more diverse (demographically... age, sex, etc) viewership than these type of genre had in the past. In that, they have probably succeeded as well. But that plot and writing style requires more human interaction (conflict) and character deaths than we are used to in Star Trek where only redshirts die (yeah yeah, I know Data, Trip, etc. but that’s at the end, not in episode 2).
Hopefully the success of DIS will spawn another series post-VOY once CBS gets comfortable with rolling the dice.
Unlimited potential. Insert "classic" Star Trek canon as needed. Set the series in 2410 and GO FORWARD to completely new stories.
Just quit telling me this **tsk tsk** comes 10 years before Kirk, because you didn't need to do that. You did it because you don't care. That's my point.