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Post by Harkovast on Oct 3, 2017 1:54:28 GMT
The alien guy in the crew says he is from a species evolve from the prey species on his home planet and an thus sense death. My first thought was "Cows can sense death?" And then "Does he taste like beef?" Red Ned made the wiser observation "why does a prey species evolve wiht eyes on the front of its head like a predator?"
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Post by Horsie on Oct 3, 2017 2:39:20 GMT
You do know that cows aren't the only prey animals out there, right?
Squirrels fall firmly into that category.
Maybe the predators only attacked from the front and one at a time, like nameless bad guys in a terribly written show?
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Post by Harkovast on Oct 3, 2017 3:40:00 GMT
Squirrels are eaths apex predator. Everyone knows that.
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Post by Horsie on Oct 3, 2017 3:48:57 GMT
They probably killed the dinosaurs.
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Post by Canuovea on Oct 3, 2017 4:03:34 GMT
I've heard the next one is supposed to be better.
We will see.
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Post by RED_NED on Oct 3, 2017 7:47:58 GMT
You do know that cows aren't the only prey animals out there, right? In their world it might well be. In his own words: "Your world has food chains. Mine does not. Our species map is binary. We're either predator or prey. My people were hunted, bred, farmed. We are your livestock of old. We were biologically determined for one purpose and one purpose alone. To sense the coming of death. I sense it coming now." I'm pretty sure if you are a battery farmed chicken, sensing death does nothing to help you. There's a reason we breed livestock to be docile... I watched a bit of episode 3 before getting bored and turning it off. I can see how people like the idea of an edgy sci-fi with believable (read: intensely unlikable) characters. It appears to be very much a one-woman show, where she is smart and right and everyone else is dumb and wrong. Star Trek, at least to me, was about the crew finding solutions to problems together and using their multiple talents and diverse experiences to overcome insurmountable odds. I have to admit, The Orville is becoming a bit of a guilty pleasure. It doesn't really work, the humour is stilted and the show just retreads old star trek plots, but it just has a weird likable quality that keeps me watching. Here's what happens in episode 3: Bortus is from a race of only males. A couple of episodes ago he lays an egg, and at the start of this one it hatches... and it is a girl! Cut to credits...
Being female is not unheard of but extremely rare to this race of men. Bortus and his mate Klyden ask the doctor to perform sex change surgery on the baby, who refuses on moral grounds. The whole crew cannot understand Bortus, telling him he's wrong, so he contacts his homeworld who dispatch a ship to collect them. The captain is outraged and says the child is under his protection while on the ship and confines Bortus to quarters.
A couple of crewmates come to cheer Bortus up and they play an earth movie – Rudolph the red nose reindeer. Bortus has a revelation watching this, seeing rudolph as special and deserving of being unique just like his daughter, to the bafflement of his crewmates who just wanted a beer.
Bortus attempts to convince Klyden who does not agree, and reveals that he was born a woman and had the operation on him as a child and is worried society will shun their daughter if they don't have the operation. The envoy ship arrives and Bortus tries to plead with them to no avail. He demands a trial he as allowed to by law, and asks the captain to represent him, but he defers to his female counterpart as she studied basic law.
The have a court case on the alien planet. Klyden and Bortus morally opposed to each other as to what to do with their baby. Prosecution and Defense argue their case back and forth, until the captain discovers strange readings on the mountains on the planet. It turns out there is a woman who has been living as an outcast on the fringes of society, and she is the teacher of their most refered philosophy (which is set up as important earlier). She comes to the court as evidence, a huge revelation to their culture that women can shape it just as much as men and the court takes this into account and will make their verdict.
The court rules to still go ahead with the sex change, making Klyden happy. When asked why Bortus goes along with this, Bortus declares that he must try because Klyden is still his mate and he loves him. The episode ends with Bortus and Klyden with their son, Bortus saying what is important now is their son and giving him a good life, whoever he becomes and places a rudolph stuffed toy for his child to play with. Now I can assure you that the 3rd episode of STD is not as thought provoking, character building or in any way like star trek compared to this.
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Post by Harkovast on Oct 3, 2017 13:52:39 GMT
STD was funny to laugh at, but I wouldn't watch it again. The horrible, insane, moronic main characters going to prison for life is a good way to end, why spoil that?
Is it bad that I found it funny that a show that touted its progressive credentials so much for its diverse crew and none white, female command staff is actually going to have the real captain be a white guy and the black woman be a convict they get out of prison? Cause I found that funny.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2017 18:13:07 GMT
The problem with star trek is that as a product of liberal idealism[1] during the cold war, the end of the cold war meant there really isn't any intellectual ground for the show to cover so long as it retains a fundamentally liberal-oriented view of the future. It's not an accident that the show that allegoricalized the end of the cold war, ds9, was the one that deconstructed the utopia of the Federation -- the need for such kind of utopia has outlived it's purpose with the dissolution of the socialist bloc. Of course even DS9 retained it's liberal-idealism in it's deconstruction, while the Federation in that show was revealed to be an outright imperialist hegemon it was still meant to be better than the alternative imperialist blocs (reflecting american anxieties about a world where they might not be the only super-power once more).
The problem is, after DS9 there wasn't really anywhere else for the show to go. The historical events that gave rise to the series had ended and so long as America remains the global hegemon in a uni-polar world order the story of DS9 is as far as you're going to get. Perhaps the constant retreat into Trek's past is best understood in this light. Here too the total poverty of the new trek movies to actually say anything is apparent. Sure there are vague criticisms of star fleet command in Into Darkness but they function on an almost aesthetic level. It looks like social commentary but doesn't actually say anything. Without leaving the logic of liberalism the show is unable to make any meaningful commentary beyond what was already said by DS9, only with less art and more contempt for the audience.
It would stand to reason then that a show that breaks from liberalism, one that critiques the system of libearlism itself would be a welcome change. And it would! But only if that critique of liberalism came from the left. At this particular historical moment there would be enthusiasm for a Star Trek that says a better world is possible. That one can build a society for the many, not the few. One that is critical of the project of liberalism while aiming to actually fulfill it's stated aims of equality and human dignity. If old-Trek was a product of liberal-idealism in the cold war then a new-Trek could be built on a building a lasting and humane socialist project in the wake of the total failure of global capitalism in post-08 crash environment. A socialist Trek however, Discovery is not. Don't let the reactionary racist backlash to Discovery having a diverse cast fool you. It may be diverse, but it's diverse in the way an ad for Raytheon is. Discovery is extremely critical of liberalism, but from the right. It's pointless bloated empire apologia and it's as close as Star Trek has gotten to fascist ideas yet.
This is best embodied in the show's treatment towards the Klingons, and the Federation's war with them. Racist essentialist notions bubble up about the treatment of Klingons and in the context of Trek's long history of using alien races to represent ethnicity on earth the subtext becomes as uncomfortable to consider as they are objectively wrong. In Discovery the Klingons are finally stripped of whatever humanity they were meant to have. The long-time stand-in for America's Official Enemies are just bloodthirsty aliens and the only legitimate response to them is to shoot first. Portrayed not even as enemies of the Federation but those enemies of the Federation as imagined by their most virulent "clash of civilizations" spouting racist. These Klingon's don't have a culture of honor let alone a culture at all, they're just naturally ghoulish and warlike. It is impossible to picture any of the TNG era stories about Klingons being possible in this imagining of the world, let alone a character like Worf. Brutish and without empathy the only thing they respect is the boot heel of the imperial military on their throats.
The writers posit that the role of the Federation is to properly civilize them because they cannot as such be treated as a real civilization. When our hero argues in favor of a pre-emptive strike against them, the writers make it crystal clear they think she's right. The days of Picard's brand of diplomacy and dedication to exhausting all non-state-violence options first is long over. Discovery sheds even DS9's hand wringing about what it means to be an imperial power. Here pre-emptive war is openly celebrated. The thinly-veiled metaphor for the war on terrorism isn't used in any kind of condemnation or deconstructionist way, it's to celebrate someone willing to wage the war! Nearly two decades into a bipartisan war on terror and extended occupation of Afghanistan that warrants not even public discussion anymore perhaps it's little surprise that Trek too decided that pre-emptive state violence against brown people was not worthy of even cursory examination. It's a Star Trek that George Bush would be proud of.
The writers have said that the Klingon's are meant to represent Trump or Trump supporters but they've got it all wrong. The Klingons aren't Trump, the Federation is. The people presented as the most correct in Star Trek Discovery are the most impulsive and the ones with the most disregard for life. Michael is xenophobic, brutal and dumb. She's the hero in this story because she's the one saying negotiations aren't even worth pursuing.
[1] Here referring not american liberalism, ie the democratic party or social liberalism, but the philosophical school of liberalism as a whole that grew out of the French revolution (although had earlier roots in the British Glorious Revolution and the end of the absolute power of the monarchy there). Notionally this is understood as the rule of bourgeois states. The context of the cold war here is important because it was this system of liberalism that was pitted against the various communisms of the cold war era. To Star Trek's credit, for most of it's run it embodied a very radical and left-wing vision of this project (TNG being the best example of this trend). But despite appearances Trek was never really communist, as DS9 and subsequent projects have made this clear.
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Post by Horsie on Oct 4, 2017 18:25:12 GMT
Looking at it that way, yeah, I can see that.
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Post by Harkovast on Oct 4, 2017 18:25:47 GMT
Wow, that comment fom elmarleot had an annotation at the bottom like a proper smart person would write. That had clever words and thinky thinks. It was political with smarts. I iz thinkings about it.
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Post by tiberia on Oct 4, 2017 19:54:46 GMT
They're right. I was just telling my co-workers that the klingons are portrayed more like Islamic Extremists, not like Trump supporters. in episode 2 the trumpness was a bit more present, but... Michael has shown her true colors. She shoots first, she opposes the very values of starfleet. "Starfleet does not shoot first" I liked that captain.
I want to make a note of one specific aspect in all this. The idea that klingons only respect force, the "Vulcan hello". This isn't some abstract idea applied to fiction. this is a real world Mindset. It s a mindset trump espouses constantly. "We have to target their families" "he dipped 50 bullets in pigs blood" and so on. This puts michael very in line with the Trump mindset. But there is a another layer to this mindset. It treats the subject of it as an animal. Comparisons to dogs are common in this sort of rhetoric. If Klingons only respect force, than it is also implied they are animals who can't be reasoned with, so all force is justified as the only option. As I have said before, I believe the klingons to be more analogous to Islamic terrorists (or more accurately simplifed ideas of them). So the show is forwarding the idea that such people are animals who can not be reasoned with
BUT lets look at this from another angle Let us accept the writer's words as true for now. Klingons are trump supporters. The show is calling trump supporters animals who can not be reasoned with, and so we must oppose them violently instead. THIS IS NOT A GOOD MESSAGE. This is how democracies die. Why is it so hard to accept that people who's opinions you dislike and find abominable, ARE fellow human beings
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Post by Harkovast on Oct 4, 2017 20:48:51 GMT
Some smart posts on here. So Tiberia, the show meant to show us the Klingons as evil Trump supporters....but managed to have the hero spouting shit Trump would say. That's such a stupid fuck up its almost genius! I mean how did they fuck it up THAT badly?
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Post by Harkovast on Oct 4, 2017 20:51:06 GMT
Honestly, I will give the show credit for one thing... Its like some kind of great political uniter. All of us here, wiht different world views and ideologies, all coming together to say "What the fuck was that shit?"
We've got to show this in the middle east. We will have Israeli soldiers and palestinian protesters going "seriously, when did star fleet shoot first? That was terrible!" to each other in solidarity.
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Post by Harkovast on Oct 26, 2017 19:25:19 GMT
I haven't watched more of the show but I'm hearing reports that it features things like a mushroom powered warp drive, which works better when the federation torture an innocent creature (which they totally do), holo decks before Captain Kirks time and Vulcan logic extremist terrorists. These terrorists blew up the main character as a kid, nearly killing her.
If you watched the pilot you will be thinking "I thought that was the Klingons?" The answer is "yes, but this is another terrorist attack." The hack writers have the main character almost killed as a child by two separate, unrelated terrorist attacks. One of which was by racist vulcan suicide bombers.
Oh and she scored higher on her school tests than any Vulcan, but her adopted dad decided to give her spot to Spock. Yes, Spock only got in because he was picked over Mary Sue because of racism against her.
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Post by Horsie on Oct 26, 2017 20:01:10 GMT
What the fuck?
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