Adapting

[Admiral Odin]

TNG was the best out of all the ST ones. Although I have to say I don't watch Enterprise since I lack time.

[Rogue Nine]

I liked Voyager the best, then TNG. I never understood the appeal of DS9, save for the hella cool warship they had, the Defiant.

[Keyan Farlander]

The appeal was that the episodes sort of connected and formed a bigger and more interesting story. Plus the characters and their relationships to one another were great. I especially liked the Bashir/O'Brien friendship. That had a lot of great moments. Plus, Sisko was the best captain ever (it pains me to say that, since Kirk was my favorite for so long). Avery Brooks acted him wonderfully (and what a commanding voice!). I always looked forward to the next episode.

[CaptainRAVE]

I always looked forward to the next episode. [/b]

 

Especially the last one

[Nitro]

I dunno... I think the TNG crew mixed better... Barcley's (sp?) antics, LaForge's sense of humor, Data's dryness that clashed perfectly with the humanoid contingent, Worf's akwardness toward all human rituals/supertitions, Riker's cockyness, Guinan's all-knowingness, and Picard's little bald frenchman-ness.

[Nute Gunray]

I think Enterprise has the best crew because none of them have any clue what's going on.

 

PS EVIDENCE FOR COMMUNISTS IN TNG: they called Capitalism nefarious in the one i was watching last night. It involved Ferengis. I can't think of anything that would call Capitalism nefarious except for Communism and it's little brother, Socialism. Fascism on the other hand would embrace Capitalism because Capitalism would provide it with vast sums of money to wage war with.

[Nitro]

I haven't seen Enterprise...

[Rogue Nine]

It's got a damn catchy promo song...

[JR2000Z]

I barely even watch any kind of Star Trek.

[Nitro]

Damn you!!! Why not...

[Keyan Farlander]

Originally posted by Nitro

I dunno... I think the TNG crew mixed better... Barcley's (sp?) antics, LaForge's sense of humor, Data's dryness that clashed perfectly with the humanoid contingent, Worf's akwardness toward all human rituals/supertitions, Riker's cockyness, Guinan's all-knowingness, and Picard's little bald frenchman-ness.

 

Exactly, and the fact that you could successfully label them that way shows just how uninteresting they really were. They were totally static, for the most part. Any changes that surfaced lasted only the duration of that episode and were gone forever after they hit the reset button at the end, so everything would be back to normal for next week. There are some exceptions, like some stuff with Worf (which was why he was worthy to join the cast of DS9 ), but that's the way it was, in general.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love TNG, I just think DS9 is superior. Sadly, I'm never home to watch Enterprise. I've caught a few episodes, and they were pretty good. The intro music sucks, though.

[Nitro]

I don't know... I found DS9 to be more of a sci-fi soap opera. That's why I liked TNG... It was like reading a bunch of short stories about the same people.

[Keyan Farlander]

It was hardly a soap opera. It just focused a little more on the characters than the previous Star Treks.

[Rogue Nine]

I TINK QUARK WAS TEH KUHLEST!!!

[Flying Beastie]

And because of that, Niner, you're now obligated to provide two strips of latinum to the Quark Appreciation Society. You can send it care of mark.brown@primus.ca, and I'll see that Quark get's his one strip. (The other? Why, finder's fee, of course! )

 

Since you're broke, the debt will just be added to your ledger.

 

I have to agree with Keyan about DS9, actually.

 

TNG was good for its time, but it did have a Reset Button, as did Voyager.

 

DS9 was the only one to have continuing arcs, more recurring cast (because it was set in one place), and more intricate character. It also was the only Star Trek series yet that didn't follow the American Ideal. (Take that Nute!)

 

Y'see, Trek is a case of "do as I say, not as I do." For me, one of the main points of Trek has always been that all these different people, from thousands of different backgrounds, can work together to build a Paradise. For me, the message of Trek is:

You can make friends with anyone, no matter who (or what) they are.

The trouble is that Trek assumes the American Dream of the melting pot; meaning that the message now becomes:

You can make friends with anyone, provided that they all agree to act and think exactly like you.

 

As a kid who never had any friends because I was different than the other kids (I was the lone bookworm in a school full of jocks and slackers), I much preferred the first message.

 

Deep Space Nine was the only series where the good guys didn't all end up wearing Starfleet uniforms and acting interchangeably. Sisko transcended Starfleet to become the Bajoran Messiah. Ex-Gul Damar embraced the Bajoran ideal of freedom in the name of Cardassia. Kira remained every inch a Bajoran, even when she was temporarily commissioned. Odo was a Changeling. Quark stays true to ferengi traditions, even while his brother and nephew defect. Martok drank a toast to victory over the blood-soaked ruins of Cardassia Prime, while the Starfleet heroes walked away. . .

[Nute Gunray]

EVERY Trek has been the complete OPPOSITE of the American Ideal.

Why? The Federation. You're looking at a militaristic, racist, Communist society.

Examples:

The Enterprise-D. THIS IS A VESSEL OF PEACEFUL EXPLORATION! Yeah right. I don't think, say, any ship owned by Woods Hole or some other Earthly exploration company can hold it's own in combat against, say, a Chinese cruiser. But we see the Enterprise holding it's own against declared warship of foreign powers. Clearly it's a warship, yet there's some political correctness thing that keeps them from saying so.

Racist? But this is the enlightened future where blah blah blah. You bet it is. EVERY alien species has certain guidelines that none of them are allowed out of and those that do go out of that stereotype are outcasts. EVERY Klingon has to be some raging idiot that chooses to use an edged melee weapon when a long ranged firearm would be the better choice because the long range weapon wouldn't make the battle GLORIOUS AND WORTHY OF SONG! Every Ferengi is greedy beyond all comprehension. Every Romulan is tricky and deceptive (except for that one in The Defector, but he was an OUTCAST). Every Bajoran follows the same religion (only one religion per species. Aliens musn't be very creative.) Those are all extremely weak. That's like trying to say that every British person has bad teeth or every American owns a gun or every Saudi is Muslim. Those just flat out not true. If that's still not enough, ever notice that every character of multiple species descent has to 'deal' with their heredity? OH NOS I AM SPLIT BETWEEN MY HUMAN AND KLINGON HERITAGE! Of course, all the good stuff comes from the human half because, face it, out of, say, 100 alien species they're all pure evil except for humans. I certainly am not any single ethnicity and I'm certainly not split between them because if I was I probably would have killed myself because of my status as a Euro-mutt and the German in me would have tried to conquer the Polish and Slovak or something.

Communist? YOU BET. Have we EVER seen something that wasn't made by the Federation that was in use by the Federation or even heard the mention of a private company? Have we EVER seen something like a starship in private hands? Have we ever heard them talking about a private communications company? Ever seen an ad for something? Have we ever seen a CIVIL judge? No to all of those (well mostly). There has NEVER been mention of a company that built starships or phasers or torpedoes or anything. Everything is made by the government. There has never been mention of someone getting awarded a government contract for something or an implied statement to that extend. They don't fly around in the McDonnell-Douglas C-99 Runabout. Utopia Plantia is a government owned concern that builds starships (compare that to the privately owned Newport News Shipyards or Electric Boatworks that build carriers and subs respectively for the USN). The only private starship I can think of was Fajo's ship. He clearly was operating illegally in the first place (odd that his ship was confisicated by Starfleet and not some form of FBI or something). All communications go through STARFLEET owned relays. Our pal Karl Marx once said that control of communication was absolutely paramount. Never has there been an ad for anything and the one time that Quark tried there was trouble (had to do with that State owned communications I guess). And the one time we should have seen a civil justice, we got a guy in a starfleet uniform. That was when Bashir's parents were going on trial for illegal genetic engineering or something to that effect.

 

MAYBE TOS wasn't like the nasty little Left wing doublethinking group we have to deal with now. Kirk looks better all the time.

[Nob Akimoto]

I'm curious Nute...

 

Do you do things beside rewrite what Mike Wong has spouted ad nauseum?

[Nute Gunray]

I came up with all the private enterprise stuff on my own

Plus that's all stuff that someone pointed out to me years before I heard of the internet. It was just an unusual coincidence that Wong talks about the same thing.

[Nob Akimoto]

Alright, just making sure.

 

The lack of a civillian legal system of all things is insane.(Though Q said they killed all the lawyers in the 21st century.)

 

State owned shipyards is hardly a new thing. There's places like Norfolk, and Pearl, but then again these don't actually BUILD ships. They just dry-dock, overhaul, and modernise them.

 

Racist? I guess you can call it that, but considering even humanity has managed to purge everything but American society from their species, I hardly think cultural stereotyping is something that would be taken as heavily as it is.

 

As for starships in private hands, we've seen them. They have this "NAR" registry, and they're normally weak pathetic science ship hand me downs from Starfleet.(When was the last time though, that you saw the USN give away WW1-2 era destroyers to private hands? Guh.)

 

The lack of material wealth concerns is the least disturbing aspect of TNG/DS9.

 

I'd dare say the militant elitism by Starfleet is the MOST disturbing aspect.

 

A short email I wrote in debate with Bernd(who runs Ex Astris Scientia.)

 

> I know people have probably brought this up numerous times, but personnel

> issues would probably be a big thing to come up with. If Starfleet were to

> have 150 member worlds with a population of just 500 million each, a total

> population of 75 billion. Now given modern day comparasions with the ratio

> of military officers, and even the likes of explorers(which don't really

> exist, I guess), as well as police, national guard, military

> industry(Starfleet in the 24th century seems to build, research, and create

> it's own equipment and ships), the percentage of Starfleet personnel in

> relation to the population of the Federation should exceed a good 10-15%,

> even reaching 20%. A Federation with a low end 10% of the populace being

> affiliated with Starfleet would haev a 7 billion being population(again the

> first population figure is on the very low side. A more probable Federation

> population would be around 300-700 billion)

>

> Now even if 1% of this were relgated to shipboard duty, we'd have 70 million

> personnel stationed on ships, and if we were to have an average of 300 crew

> members for every ship with a fleet of 50,000 ships, it would number to 15

> million(obviously, I guess I am just pointing out the obvious), further more

> newer ships seem to require less crew on average, and if Runabouts are

> counted among these, then the crew average should also drop like flies. Even

> including Starbases and planet bound personnel the figure would probably

> stay in the hundred millions, certainly not reaching the billions, or even

> if they did, the number of starship crewmen is certainly significantly lower

> than the number of officers as a whole(which in itself is rather frightening

> and a show of incredible elitism)

>

> Certainly though, a 15 million member Starfleet wielding the amount of

> political and military control they have now is a very disturbing thought.

> They don't even make up a significant minority of the populace, yet they

> seem to run every facet of the Federation.

>

> This seems to point out that the UFP is more a military dictatorship run by

> Starfleet than a true democracy or Federal state as suggested.(Then again,

> this is not my area of expertise.)

>

> I don't know, but the regestry figures seem much too low for a civilization

> the size of the UFP, which also devotes a large amount of effort to

> expanding and exploration...

 

And hence there are more points about there not being enough elements to Starfleet to really justify it being a "jack of all trades" group.

 

Personally I've decided to build on TOS, and ignore as much of the idiotic drivel created by the early TNG Roddenberry utopian view, and try to come up with something nice, but not scary in consideration.

 

I'll post something about that later.

[CaptainRAVE]

Q had to be the BEST star trek character EVER....he was so funny in his own twisted little way

[Keyan Farlander]

<b>Nute</b>, have you even watched DS9? It has perfect examples to show why each of your points is false. For example, Nog and Rom - not typical Ferengi at all. Your points are good for the other shows, but not DS9. That's why I love DS9 so much!

[Nute Gunray]

AH, but Nog and Rom were OUTCASTS. Nog wanted to join Starfleet and so forth.

I've always felt that TNG was sort of odd in a lot of ways. Particularly their denial of being a military organization and times like when Picard called a military uniform from WWII (i think) a costume. That's something that's weird for a captain of a ship to say. They also tend to disregard the 20th century has having happened sometimes. I just got done watching The Best of Both Worlds Part I (my third favorite TNG episode) and Picard and Guinan were talking about Admiral Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar. I don't think anyone's ever mentioned things like Pearl Harbor or the Blitz. I can't think of any reason why they would though. I've also found it unusual that there's apparently no enlisted personnel.

Q should have just killed everyone in the first episode

[Keyan Farlander]

Just watched that one myself, actually. They DO have enlisted personal, but they don't show up that often. And don't forget that other different Frerengi from DS9. He was a warrior and didn't care about profit. I can't recall his name right now, but he was in a few episodes. He wasn't exactly an outcast.

 

By the way, what are your two favorite episodes?

[Nute Gunray]

#1 All Good Things...

#2 The Best of Both Worlds Part II

 

My dad's biggest complaint was that the 'infrequency' of enlisted persons. He often complained about the lack of enlisted on the bridge. When he was in the Navy, he was a mere Quartermaster and was on the bridge half the time he was aboard ship. He was the navigator.

[Keyan Farlander]

Yeah, there wasn't a great deal of enlisted personal running around. At least they had O'Brien as a main character (well, on DS9) and he wasn't an officer. And they had plenty of red shirt guys die in the original series.

 

KIRK: Spock, Bones, Sulu, you come with me. Rollins, you check the other direction.

 

If you ever hear a line like that in an original series episode, you can bet "Rollins" will be dead within 30 seconds, and it will probably be an incredibly painful death to boot.