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Star Trek: Picard - Make It So Engage Earl Grey Hot

is there any real reason why the Borg Queen would have to be the same actress over and over again?
I mean, there's previous franchise precedent for the switcheroo when Voyager cast somebody different to play the Queen during some of its episodes. But I assume they were just lowballing Krigg or something because they brought her back for the series finale which was the right decision since Krigg is great and iconic in that role. I'm just sayin' it's a weird decision. Unless she's like a secret weirdo or is hard to work with, idgi.
 

Büge

Arm Candy
(she/her)
NGL, that's uh. That's a choice. Since Alison Krigg is still out there and would probably love to get paid to be the Borg Queen again. Made more awkward since I keep seeing Krigg show up for their virtual convention-ish stuff.
tumblr_opyrbuyR0B1vg9m1ro1_540.gif
 
I'm sorry! It's just a weird decision. Krigg is out there, and Star Trek: Picard isn't so cash strapped they can't bring them on. Of course they could handwave a different actor easily, like they already have done so before. But it's just weird. Especially given the history of the show before where they've brought back other legacy characters and their actors just fine, except for that one specific time with Icheb. It makes me wonder if something similarly messy is the cause of this or if they're just lazy and want someone younger and sexier which is annoying.

Important Star Trek Picard update: Here's a picture from on-set of Picard's food replicator menu:

Oh, also Season 2 of this just wrapped up filming, and they're already gonna start work on Season 3.
 
I’m fine with it. Actually, happy even! Time travel plots, especially to visit contemporary times, is a Star Trek staple. Every good classic Trek did it. (TOS visited the 30s and the 60s; the TOS movies visited the 80s; DS9 visited the 2020s and the 50s; VOY visited the 90s; TNG used the holodeck to visit the 30s among other time periods and also visited First Contact; ENT visited the 00s.) People groan about Trek abusing time travel mechanics, but pretty much every single time Trek used time travel like this has been some of the franchise’s best moments. I’m… optimistic!

Also, I’ll be shocked if they spend the entire season in contemporary times. I’m willing to bet Q’s continuing trial will only be part of the season and they’ll either find other things to do, or Q will have them do other things as well.
 
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SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Hopefully. At the very least the bigger plot this season actually feels comprehensible out of the gate compared to S1 and its mystery box robot prophecy Data fractals.

Also I wonder if most of the season taking place in an altered timeline is how they're going to address not dealing with Picard being a Robutt? Feels very DIS S2 in handwaving away disliked plot points from S1 but I'm ok with that.
 
Also I wonder if most of the season taking place in an altered timeline is how they're going to address not dealing with Picard being a Robutt? Feels very DIS S2 in handwaving away disliked plot points from S1 but I'm ok with that.
This makes sense but it wasn't my first thought. Rather, I thought it was likely about handwaving away responsibility in general for crafting world-building lore for the 25th Century. I liked a lot of what S1 was doing in that regard, but most of it was just background flavor for a bunch of character studies that never felt properly/fully utilized. And maybe the show runners decided to shift gears and allow for a more disposable setting to keep doing those character studies that the show was obviously far more invested in, and allow some other future property to explore the 25th Century in earnest.
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Also, I've seen some people dump on this moment, but I kind of love that Picard just finally tells Q that he's too old for his bullshit.

Is it out of character? For Captain Picard of TNG, yes. For Crotchety Old Man Picard? It works.

My thanks to Lower Decks for paving the way for this long deserved retort with Mariner's Q bullshit comment.
 
Is it out of character? For Captain Picard of TNG, yes. For Crotchety Old Man Picard? It works.
Honestly, it's perfectly in character for Captain Picard of TNG as well, IMO. It's just that back then, he had responsibilities to adhere to and thousands of people whose lives he was directly responsible for at any given moment. Pissing off an immortal god would have been a bad play, no matter how much he felt like telling Q off. (And he still did several times, let's not forget!) Just he's retired now and can say whatever he wants, it's great. For as much as it makes some people feel uncomfortable, I've adored this interpretation of the character because as someone who spends way too much of their time thinking about all the little mineuta of Star Trek, the evolution of this specific character has felt very genuine and been very entertaining.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
I thought it was likely about handwaving away responsibility in general for crafting world-building lore for the 25th Century. I liked a lot of what S1 was doing in that regard, but most of it was just background flavor for a bunch of character studies that never felt properly/fully utilized. And maybe the show runners decided to shift gears and allow for a more disposable setting to keep doing those character studies that the show was obviously far more invested in, and allow some other future property to explore the 25th Century in earnest.

This seems like a thing that happens commonly to big franchises that hit beloved/legendary status but have lost their original creators, where new writers just shy away from the fraught prospect of actually laying down What Happens Next in Actual Main Continuity and will do anything else so that they have room to play around the margins without pissing off the millions of fans with Opinions about what should or shouldn't happen in the Main Plot. And honestly given the current media environment I can't say I blame 'em, but it can still be a bit disappointing.

(The confirming counterpoint of course being that Star Wars actually went for it, and boy did people have Opinions.)

((The one I'll forever be really disappointed about, though, is Suikoden.))
 
Yeah I think you’re right. And I was definitely very apprehensive about their direction and what they were doing in S1 as well. (I did NOT like the idea of codifying the destruction of Romulus, or perma-offing Data, or having Picard resign in shame, or all the other big lore bits of PIC. But I came around on most of it because they managed to do interesting things with most of it.) I really hope we don’t get a Suikoden situation either. That is kinda what DISCO S3 is when you think about it. Go so far into the future that no matter what happens out there, it doesn’t really have any effect on what happens in the 22nd-25th Centuries.
 
I liked Picard Season 1 a lot, so I will check out Season 2.

However, the alternate earth with authoritarian government feels like well tread and tired ground. I'm not happy with that reveal, but I'll give Season 2 a chance.
 
I liked Picard Season 1 a lot, so I will check out Season 2.

However, the alternate earth with authoritarian government feels like well tread and tired ground. I'm not happy with that reveal, but I'll give Season 2 a chance.
I mean we already had Mirror Universe, and future earth being not in fed. It's like, enough already.
 
See, you guys are coming from a, "I've seen this one before :sleep:" perspective. And I get that. But I for one, will never get tired of nor ask Star Trek to stop telling fascists to gtfo thru sci-fi allegories. Esp when being able to say that one last time in the current geopolitical climate was Patrick Stewart's primary motivations for returning from Elba to reprise his iconic role.
 
Oh I agree - but! Will they do anything with them? So Picard returns, and the federation's shortcomings are put at feet of a Romulan spy, and the plot of the show veers wildly from that topic to giant plant bulbs planet and reaper invasion. Very disappointing because the first several eps of Picard are like, fantastic.

Mirror Universe is fun, but it really becomes an indictment on Lorca more than anything. I'll say it's great in s1 where Burnham at critical moment picks the Paragon option, not the renegade option as she had in the pilot. But by having everything in alternate timelines, universes etc, it's a fun pocket they can go to have characters vamp (Killy, etc) but in actuality not deal with the issues.

Anyway my power rankings for new trek stuff

1. Disc S1
2. Lower Decks S1
3. Disc S3
4. Disc S2
5. PIC S1

Lower Decks S2 will be up high too, will leave judgment until season is finished
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
I'm watching the first season, first time. I really wished, this show had come out 15, maybe 10 years ago. Seeing a darker side of Star Fleet was exactly what I wanted to see. To show me the uglier sides of the Utopia, and this perfect organization.

I'm not quite done yet, but I do enjoy it quite a bit. Just seeing Picard again, and also Seven, and having them interact is a joy. These two are probably my favourite Trek characters in general, and having a Seven that is more developed and emotional is super fun.

At this point, I'm just not looking for the dystopian feeling the show provides, again and again. Especially at the start. I really want an utopian vision, something that shows us that we can get over our bullshit and our xenophobia. Trek (to me) is about getting over a lot of stuff, that we still have to deal with. It is, or probably now, was that vision.

I'm not talking about everyone being perfect, that was never the case. But it felt like the structures of the Federation were so strong, that it could withstand these attacks at it's moral center, at it's vision. This is a Federation that is scared of a new form of live, which is the very opposite of what the institution stands for.

Again, I'm not critizising the show, I find it well done and enjoy watching it. And I'm very much looking forward to season 2. I'm just hungry for a new, utopian vision, that shows us that we can do it. Not with a small group of people, who act against the government body. But with a structure, that is open, helpful and welcoming. I know, we see grimmer stuff from the very start, but it just feels so different. Especially the start of Picard is so moody, about how everything went bad, and the structures failed, we move backwards again.

To end, I want to be nitpicky, and complain about the fact that the people in this show swear. It feels so, so weird.

Anyway, fun show, but doesn't come close to the excellence of Lower Decks.

Edit: Watched the final, loved it. That felt very much like Trek is supposed to feel, for me.

I guess part of the reason is, that we moved away from looking at bad situations, and are at a point where everyone of the crew could heal and regenerate from their trauma, and we are now hopeful and go on new space adventures.

Also, loved seeing Steward and Spiner play together again. I guess I should rewatch TNG some time, it's three years since I did it the last time. Looking forward to S2 a lot, now.
 
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Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Again, I'm not critizising the show, I find it well done and enjoy watching it. And I'm very much looking forward to season 2. I'm just hungry for a new, utopian vision, that shows us that we can do it. Not with a small group of people, who act against the government body. But with a structure, that is open, helpful and welcoming. I know, we see grimmer stuff from the very start, but it just feels so different. Especially the start of Picard is so moody, about how everything went bad, and the structures failed, we move backwards again.
I loved Picard. I was so, so pleased to be back with Jean-Luc again. But there are bits of it which feel like a betrayal of Star Trek, and I think it's sad that we apparently can't accept that there may be a time when things aren't shit any more. And there were bits where Picard was hugely out of his depth and it felt horrible. I mean, it's Picard, man.
 

Büge

Arm Candy
(she/her)
I wonder if we'll get an explanation for Guinan and Q's antagonistic relationship.

I also wonder if it'll be as stupid as the explanation for the TOS Klingons.
 
I wonder if we'll get an explanation for Guinan and Q's antagonistic relationship.
I've never for a second thought this was something that needed an explanation. Q is an asshole. Guinan has been around the block. They've run into each other in the past before and it obviously didn't go well. Whatever they'd possibly think up, isn't going to be as cool as whatever you imagine. I don't want or need Star Trek to fall into the trap of having Boba Fett Syndrome, of over explaining/showing things we already know happened because it'll inevitably just boring.

But there are bits of it which feel like a betrayal of Star Trek, and I think it's sad that we apparently can't accept that there may be a time when things aren't shit any more.
I'm fine with Picard thematically. It's a pretty standard scenario of testing Star Trek's high ideals by putting characters/the setting through the ringer. It's easy to adhere to high minded morals from the safety of an ivory tower, it's a lot harder when things get messy and dirty and hard. It's just that instead of that happening over the course of a single episode, that journey was spread out over a whole season. In the moment, I think a lot of viewers get impatient with the show and don't let the story arc play out in full. The conclusion of PIC was extremely Star Trek and reaffirmed a lot of the Star Trek's core moralities. It was just a more bumpy road than usual.

If you want Star Trek though that is classically optimistic and offers the pay-off and reward for that optimism at more regular intervals, Seasons 3 and especially 4 of Discovery, Lower Decks in general, and the Prodigy so far have all of that in spades at the moment.
 

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
I've never for a second thought this was something that needed an explanation. Q is an asshole. Guinan has been around the block. They've run into each other in the past before and it obviously didn't go well. Whatever they'd possibly think up, isn't going to be as cool as whatever you imagine. I don't want or need Star Trek to fall into the trap of having Boba Fett Syndrome, of over explaining/showing things we already know happened because it'll inevitably just boring.

Or ludicrous. When O'Brien asked Worf about the plain-looking Klingons in Trials and Tribble-ations, his response of "we do not discuss it with outsiders" was sufficient. It wasn't necessary to go into a full explanation of why Klingons looked less alien in 1960s Trek, because the answer's already obvious... it was what the producers could afford with the budget they were given. We didn't need some plot-filling spackle about an augment virus in Star Trek: Enterprise.

For the explanation of why Guinan hates Q, well, as you said, Q is an asshole. Guinan is one of the rare beings on the show with the same phenomenal cosmic power as Q, and is in a position where she can judge him as a peer. She's probably dealt with him before, explained to him that his sadistic behavior was wrong, and he just ignored her and kept burning ants with a magnifying lens.

I always got the impression from Next Generation episodes that other Q view him in a similar light... a mean-spirited, insufferable brat who wiles away his long, boring eternity by tormenting lesser species. He spends so much time harassing Picard, because no omniscient being can stand to be around him, and Starfleet's best are the only humans who come anywhere near his level. What strikes us as a fearsome, godlike being is probably just a pathetic outcast to all the other godlike beings in the galaxy. Q is the paste eater of Qs.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Yeah, but it's a bit different when it's the Federation that's failed. It's OK to poke around at the utopia, but to say "put it under the slightest bit of pressure and it collapses just like it does now" invalidates the basic premise
 

Purple

(She/Her)
Or ludicrous. When O'Brien asked Worf about the plain-looking Klingons in Trials and Tribble-ations, his response of "we do not discuss it with outsiders" was sufficient. It wasn't necessary to go into a full explanation of why Klingons looked less alien in 1960s Trek, because the answer's already obvious... it was what the producers could afford with the budget they were given. We didn't need some plot-filling spackle about an augment virus in Star Trek: Enterprise.

What I always find odd here is when people try to argue this as "oh the klingons we all know and love from TNG just weren't possible in the '60s."

Like, I don't think there were a bunch of concept sketches lying around with walnut-headed klingons and but the technology just wasn't there for them. Because I mean there were WAY more prosthetically-ambitious designs the original show had no problem running with, and it's not even like klingons were some sort of go-to they had to reign in the budget for, they're just the villains in what like... maybe 5 episodes?

I kinda figure it's more, when they got around to the movies, someone wanted to show off a cool makeup look, and just kinda went "hmm... what's a group of bad guy aliens that's already established so I don't need to introduce these as some new sorta guys?"

And it's kind of a shame it happened really? Because ultimately it was just for a cool opening shot in the first one, and it didn't actually matter who it was blowing up, but then yeah, here's a new canon we need to deal with for like, regular cast members' makeup now.
 

Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Regardless of whether it was budget, design or the fact that Klingons ended up as one of the two alien races in Star Trek everyone can name and they wanted them to be more than just people in dubious face paint, the only reason for Klingons to look different between then and now is "because".

Coming up with some ridiculous in-universe bollocks with why it's the case is pandering to the worst aspects of fandom.
 
It wasn't necessary to go into a full explanation of why Klingons looked less alien in 1960s Trek
I didn't mind the Klingon/Augment story arc. I thought it was fine. I'm amenable to arguments that view it as superfluous as other things I described. It probably is. But it's at least done in a way that actually brought more texture to Klingon society, and fit naturally into other related story plots here. To me, if you're gonna do something like this, I thought this was the best possible outcome and only possible if you do a lot of hard lifting in the writing department to make things interesting. Examining Klingons as this society that was once vibrant and diverse and valued the arts and sciences, but was in decline because the culture had begun ignoring academia and other niches of society in favor of jingoism I thought was a stroke of brilliance, and this episode played a hand in that. I don't know how expanding on what made Guinan hate Q would bring to the table with regards to meaningful expansion of lore in the same ways.

it's a bit different when it's the Federation that's failed
That's the thing though. We don't see in Picard a Federation that "failed"; I object to that evaluation. We see one that was infiltrated, subverted, and tempted by the darker impulses of humanity by bad faith actors. It took time to identify that was the fact through the course of the entire season, but they got things sorted out by the end. Here's the thing about PIC S1. To me it's a very obvious allegory to the struggles we deal with today in modern times and the encroachment of fascism. These things happen, and will always happen. And when it does, the way to deal with it is for good people to stand up and fight, even when they may feel helpless or hopeless or even defeated - like Picard does at the beginning of the show. By the end, things get sorted out exactly because a few moral people in the right place and time take a stand and fight back and work to expose the rot to sunlight so that it can get excised before it's too late. That's the kind of prescient, thoughtful, valid for modern dilemmas, moralizing that is core Star Trek.

And it's also not remotely the first time we've seen the Federation in similar situations, in risk of failing due to either bad faith actors or pressure from extreme circumstances. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is one of the franchise's highest peaks and it's a story about a seditious coup d'état centered in the heart of Starfleet. People love Drumhead, and that's another encroaching fascism story where things were close to failing but was brought back from the brink due to moral individuals taking a stand. Same with the DS9 two parter, "Homefront" and "Paradise Lost". Those were not bad episodes/films of Star Trek that betrayed the spirit of the franchise, quite the opposite. Picard is likewise not bad Star Trek, just because it did the exact same thing, but stretched that plot out over the course of some 10 episodes.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
I feel like the Federation should be past the part, where a handful of horrible people can undermine the whole system, and change it into something fascist. I don't think we were nearly there with Drumhead, though I might be wrong, haven't watched that episode in a few years. But it seemed like that was the start of something, that got immediately stopped. Haven't seen the movies in forever, so no idea there. With Homefront and Paradise Lost, I always felt different, up to my last viewing. I gave it some slack, which might be unfair, but even there, I feel like the Federation shouldn't fall so easily to this garbage. If the only reason for the ideals to hold is, that a handful of heroes will be there to stop their destruction, instead of a ton of saveguards, than we never came through, and we never left this garbage behind.

I just think the Federation should be stronger than that. Homefront and Paradise Lost are great to watch, but I think the same thing is true to that secret organization that does all the dirty work to protect the Federation (I'm sure you know which I mean, the one introduced in DS9). But they show that the idea that we left behind all this shitty xenophobia and stupidity, is a lie. That the Federation is a fragile thing, and if there are only a handful of really determined people, they can just destroy a lot of what was achieved over the centuries.

It's perfectly fine to see this different, but I hate it. Again, just give me this one Utopia. Sure, don't shine light on it, maybe that will unravel it. But give me this look into the future, that we will not be dependant on a small band of heroes to save us, but that the society will be at a point, where small groups of jerks are not able to ruin it for everyone. Where fear doesn't have such an easy time to rule again, if something dangerous comes this way.

Like, I forgot her name, but in Picard there is this female to-be crewmember of Picard, who I remember to be at rock bottom, drunk, unable to accept the society. The Federation should be at a point where people like that can get the help they need. Similar with Barclay - I enjoy his episodes, but in the end, it feels wrong that psychology isn't at a place where he gets help with his problems, that is also effective.

Again, I'm not arguing that it should be this way, only that I would like it, because I want a utopian vision, just for once. I mean, if we can't even imagine the actually leave xenophobia and a good amount of shittiness behind, at least as a society, and have nothing to make sure that it is really, really hard to infiltrate the system, I can't imagine us ever to get there.

With regards to Guinan, I just want to know if she actually has powers that can be dangerous for Q. I want to know what she tried to do, when she moved into defense/attack(?) position, when they met on the Enterprise. She can't be nearly as powerful as a Q, elsewise her race wouldn't have been destroyed by the Borg, but he seems to be a bit scared of her.
 
I meant to reply to you a while back Felix and just forgot to. Oops! I'll do so later in this post.

This week's Ready Room came attached with a bunch of preview stuff for Picard. Stuff that's actually meaty and gives us a much better look into where we're going. I'll recap since watching the Ready Room is generally really hard if you've got sensibilities like mine. There's two basic chunks of relevant info. The first being short cast interviews where the actors describe what's changed for their characters between seasons and where they are now. (There's a year time skip between seasons, placing PIC now firmly at the opening of the 25th Century) The second part is a short preview clip that's exciting but honestly rather nonsensical without context. So here's the meat of it and I'll TL;DR it below.


The basic scenario appears to be: Picard, Raffi, and Rios all rejoined Starfleet. Picard is now the chancellor of Starfleet Academy (!!!), Raffi is an instructor, and Rios is now a captain - commanding a brand new USS Stargazer. Elnor enlisted as a cadet in the Academy. Seven rejoined the Fenris Rangers and took over Rios's old ship the La Serena. And Agnes and Soji are doing a diplomatic good will tour of the Federation as sort of ambassadors for their new Synth civilization.

I'm getting excited!

When nuTrek first started coming out, I was pretty sympathetic to what you're saying Felix, and felt a lot of the same ways and was pretty protective of Star Trek and its setting. But I've loosened up a bit on that over the years for a number of reasons.

The first and foremost being a sense of security and reassurance that the franchise is generally in pretty good hands and that most if not all of these new Star Trek shows seem to me to really get what Star Trek is about. A lot of my anxiety was mostly born from uncertainty that it had been a long time since the door closed on Old Trek, completely new people in a completely new era were at the reigns of the franchise, and there was a lot of uncertainty that those people knew what they were doing. And at this point, after having a good 90+ episodes of nuTrek under our belts, and the incredibly underrated film Beyond as well, with most of it being varying levels of pretty good to amazing, I feel pretty safe in relaxing and giving the creative teams the benefit of the doubt to keep doing what they're doing and to trust that their shows will grow into themselves the way all Treks in the past have done.

The second thing is just the constant reevaluation I do of the franchise itself. I've been rewatching Star Trek pretty much nonstop since college at this point. Having watched the entire franchise from beginning to end a good half dozen times, and every time I pick up new observations and appreciate new aspects of it. And when you watch as much as I have, you really begin to notice certain trends, or deconstruct popular myths about the franchise, or notice things people don't really discuss much. And for Star Trek, the idea of a utopian society is something that gets paid a lot of lip service, but isn't something we actually spend a lot of time observing first hand. We're almost always on ships or space stations on the frontiers of charted space, far away from this utopia we keep hearing about but rarely have it characterized. And in fact, when you really dig into what gets said about the UFP as a society over the course of the franchise, it's not only strikingly shallow, and that most of what people value and hold up as an ideal only really exists in the popular imagination rather than something that gets portrayed on screen. But also the times we do actually see glimpses of ordinary life in the UFP, it's actually a lot less rosey and idealistic than its made out to be. Especially in the Original Series, which is foundational to the franchise. I thought this video essay did a good job of recapping this:


And that video brings up the idea of the third thing, which is that Star Trek is this thing that is a product of its time, and that the franchise's idea of what a utopia even is or looks like, has changed along with the people writing the shows, as well as how our society IRL has evolved as well. TOS is down right regressive when taken out of context and looked through the mirror of our values today in many many ways. And Gene Roddenberry's later ideas of his perfect utopia were something that evolved over time as Star Trek itself evolved from something he did to make a pay check, into a blockbuster cultural cornerstone. And it's still evolving right now. The Star Trek we grew up with in the 80s and 90s, queerness is essentially completely absent and gender roles are still laughably rigid by today's standards. But nuTrek is making a concerted effort across all of its shows to visibly and prominently include all flavors of LGBTQ+ into its idea of an idylic future.

Which brings us to the last idea which I think is the most persuasive personally and something I've come to both appreciate and has helped me wrap my head around not just nuTrek and oldTrek, but the world we find ourselves living in today:

Every society, every institution, every culture, is at its heart, just a collection of people. And people are flawed. We have the capacity to be more than we are, but we will - for the foreseeable future - continue to wrestle with our base instincts and worst proclivities that are also inherent to the human condition. Star Trek takes place in the far future when looked through the perspective of our own individual lives. None of us will live to see the stars being explored in person. But in the grand scheme of things, when you look at the totality of the story of mankind, the time gap between the world we live in, and the possible future that Star Trek paints for us, is a drop in the bucket in the long arc of human history. The gap in time between now and Star Trek, when compared to the length of organized human civilization for example, represents only about 3% or so of the story of civilization. To say nothing for how long the human race as a distinct species has existed. 3-400 years is enough for societies to change radically, but the people who make up those societies will still biologically, fundamentally, be the exact same. Evolution does not work on such a fast pace. 300 years from now, human beings might be better educated on average, but each and every person will still fundamentally be prone to the exact same flaws and proclivities that we are today. As long as societies are made up of flawed individuals, they will still be inherently flawed and open to error. That is just the way things objectively are.

To me, insisting that a hypothetical utopian society is this thing that has somehow become immune to our flaws, is to me, dehumanizing. It takes the agency away from human beings and transfers it to this intangible, esoteric, inhuman concept that can exist and be immune to our agency as people. Instead of a society made up of and run by humans, you might as well just hand everything over to robots and we become their flesh-bag pets/wards. And not only is that fundamentally unappealing to me, but it is also far more antithetical to the consistent, core ethos of Star Trek than the idea of blemishes on a perfect utopia. (This is literally the entire point of the Borg as adversaries - they're this mirror to the Federation where its people have thrown away their humanity, differences, and flaws in the search for perfection.) If there's one thing Star Trek has been and done since the very beginning, was to celebrate the human condition. To embrace and accept human beings as they are for who they are, imperfections and all. To celebrate our diversity and differences and flaws as fundamental strengths rather than things that hold us back. Utopia is achievable by people like us as we are, not some future, evolved, descendants of man that does not have all of our flaws.

Societies IRL only work when everyone works together and honors the social contract. There will always be malcontents, warped individuals, and victims of circumstance that seek to abuse or undermine that social contract for personal gain or just for the fun or challenge of it. But the vast majority of people still by and large live within the social contract of their own volition. Just look at driving a car for example. When you get into a car and start driving down a highway in a giant metal sarcophagus going at insane speeds the human body was never designed to endure, by all rights and by the laws of nature, we should all be dead when we attempt this. It just takes one person being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, or having their attention wander for just a split second for the delicate balance of traffic to suddenly grind to a halt and for many many lives to be lost. And while we do endure tons of fatal traffic accidents, it's a strange miracle of humanity that the vast majority of people who get into cars every day also exit their cars no worse for wear. Almost everyone largely obeys the same rules when driving on roads: they don't bump into each other, they stay within their narrow lanes, they mostly obey signs and signals to guide traffic, and it creates this marvelous chorus of mostly harmony. It might not feel like that at times on an individual level, but pull out and look at the broader picture and it's a veritable modern miracle. It didn't start out that way though, when cars first came into broad public use 120+ years ago, the rate of traffic accidents would make modern people blush for how insane and buffoonish things would frequently happen. But through trial and error, we managed to largely figure this thing out so that less and less people die and more and more harmony can be achieved on the roads. To me, that is a microcosm for how society works. There's always going to be some asshole weaving through traffic myopically putting everyone around them at risk and at the very least causing jams and disruptions in the flow of traffic. And it will always be our duty to be vigilant drivers to guard ourselves and the people around us from them, and to make sure we ourselves don't accidentally cause incidents of our own so long as we're the ones in control of our vehicles - which we undoubtedly will be for the foreseeable future. (Sorry guys, self-driving cars just aren't gonna happen. Not without a radical restructuring of our roadways and society in general.)

So if you value this representation of an achievable utopia by people who are just like us, then you also should be accepting that just like anything else we've made in history, that it will be flawed like we are, and that it is our duty as members of society to do our part to guard against those that break society for whatever reason. And that actually, has *always* been a long enduring theme of Star Trek. Be it someone like a teenage James T Kirk standing up to Kodos the Executioner committing misguided genocide on the colony of Tarsus IV, or Picard taking a stand against a Romulan armada who are acting out of pure terror at what a small band of androids represent. To me, this is quintessential Star Trek and the real value of its utopian setting. Our flaws and the flaws of our society are not shameful mistakes to be ignored and pretend don't exist. They are opportunities for real growth. Opportunities for people to do something meaningful with their lives. Opportunities for human beings to rise to the challenge and overcome our own limitations. "We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity." You can only better yourself if you are not yet perfect. You can only better yourself if there is potential for growth in the future. We are not perfect gods. Nor would I ever want us to be. Learning, growing, exploring the unknown, this is the romance of Star Trek. The pure, unbridled love it has for the human condition, flaws and all. The United Federation of Planets is not this perfect, boring place. It is an aspiration. It is a promise. It is a blueprint for what we could achieve if we all worked together in good faith and learned to not just overcome our flaws, but to harness them into strengths. TNG went out of its way to show a blind man piloting the Enterprise. Not to show that the future of Star Trek is a perfect place where bad things never happen to people anymore, but to show that Star Trek is a place where our limitations as human beings no longer hold us back because we stopped looking at them as limitations but rather challenges to eagerly and earnestly tackle and tame. Seeing a flawed utopia is not dispiriting to me, not anymore. It's actually inspiring. It's a reminder and a lesson of what we can and should achieve rather first and foremost instead of anything else.

And all of that, is still going on in Star Trek: Picard. We see a Federation spread thin, besieged by doubt and growing to fear the unknown rather than embrace it. And all it really ended up taking, wasn't a superhuman mythical demigod flying in with a cape billowing behind him in the wind, but an old, frail, beleaguered, man sticking to his guns and inspiring those around him to remember the promise of humanity. The ideals we should keep striving for that we'll never fully achieve but always grow closer to like a mathematical curve stretching towards the limits of infinity. The end of S1 PIC sees all of the values of the UFP remembered, revitalized, and repledged in their fullness and glory. It might have been hard to see the full picture in between Icheb getting his eye yanked out, or watching a broken Picard wallow in self-pity as the show slowly and at times clunkily played out its theme over 10 long weeks. But it still came to the right destination and conclusion. The reaffirmation of utopia, even when beset and tested to the breaking point.

I'm ok with this. I'm actually better than OK with this. This is real shit. This is Star Trek. I've said it a lot recently, but I still can't help myself marveling that we live in a time where we've seen the franchise not just revitalized to this powerful extent, but still managing to both retain the quintessential core of what it means, while also continuing to adapt and grow with the changing times and audiences in mostly successful ways. PIC S1 was far from a perfect show, but its heart was ultimately in the right place. And it managed to both reaffirm a lot of core Star Trek values, but also provide a good foundation for things to come in the future.
Yikes that took a lot longer than I anticipated before sitting down, but man am I now looking forward to next Thursday even more than I was before. Let's gooooooo!!! Engage!!!!!
 
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Ok. So first episode in the bag, and man. I have a LOT of thoughts/feelings about this. A lot of bold choices here too, that I'm almost positive is going to ruffle a lot of feathers, but I like what's going on here. I'll type up more when I'm a little more removed from the afterglow, but man. Man oh man. Really glad to have this show back, that was fantastic.
 
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