I’ve said for years that the reason I love Star Trek so much is because it’s about exploration and the investigation of the human spirit. That it’s used to ask questions about ourselves that are hard to ask in other settings. It is also the only science fiction universe I can think of where people try to talk things out before getting into pew pew laser battles.
I mean… that’s the point of all good sci-fi.
It’s important to delineate between “action, just in a sci-fi setting” and “sci-fi”. The former is entertaining; the latter will have you discussing the movie/episode with friends and family after you finish watching, and actually makes you think about the human condition a bit.
Side note: if that’s the only sci-fi universe you’ve seen that’s less action-packed and more deliberate, I strongly encourage you to read more sci-fi (n.b. specifically sci-fi, and not amusing but often morally vapid sci-fi thrillers).
This is why Star Wars is a fantasy series with sci Fi trappings and not sci fi.
after yang was a great movie recently. the expanse is a pretty great tv series. for all mankind is a really cool alternate history sci-fi television series about a world where the soviets won the space race and so the space race kept going. then there’s the classic sci Fi authors like Philip k dick and Isaac Asimov. Andy weir is usually pretty grounded for a modern author, but honestly, i read more fantasy than sci-fi these days… plenty of decent anime in the genre. ghost in the shell, both the og movie and The “stand alone complex” series are decent.
investigation of the human spirit.
yoink - don’t mind me, just stealing this phrase for the next time someone asks me about Star Trek.
Q: You just don’t get it, do you, Jean-Luc? The trial never ends. We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did.
One of my favorite quotes from all Trekdom, where they come straight out and say it’s about the inner voyage.
Every series tends to have a character who’s main purpose is to explore “human spirit”, through the eyes of anther species.
- Spock
- Data (and maybe Worf)
- Odo
- Neelix
I also love the whole “working together as professionals in a team to solve problems with science/technology/strategy/diplomacy/all of the above” aspect of it, and that those abilities were considered by other species to be humanity’s best traits.
I remember reading somewhere an article where they talked about (I think) the episode of SNW where Uhura is hallucinating and how no one thought she was crazy when she said something about it because she was a Starfleet officer and they are believed enough to investigate problems like that before dismissing them. Imagine all the times you’ve heard stories about things like someone feeling a pain and the doctor says it’s nothing and then they die of cancer…
I thought about this in the context of RPGs before. Some of my peers seem to enjoy the slapdash chaos of four idiots stumbling through a problem. I’m just like that’s my work day. Can I get a fantasy of four competent people solving problems effectively and without war crimes please?
It so good. Tangentially, that was one of the reasons I LOVED the Rogue Squadron books when I was a kid - it’s just a bunch of normal pilots who are really fucking skilled, and are generally good at what they do, but at the same time they don’t magic problems away with “just use the force”. Antilles doesn’t use the force; instead, he just uses incredibly good spatial reasoning and physical coordination in concert with decades of combat flight experience in some of the most harrowing and unbalanced battles the galaxy had seen in his lifetime, and that made him one of the absolute best pilots in the galaxy for a good portion of his career.
Normally I’d agree, but I only just watched the TNG episode where they fucked up the prime directive so badly that a bunch of primitives declared (the) Picard a god.
It absolutely is. I got into the West Wing for the same reason. It’s very satisfying to watch good people be good at their jobs in important situations
Babylon 5 tried diplomacy for the first couple seasons, but once the humans started fighting ourselves diplomacy kinda went out the window.
Also it was the climax of a multi season story by that point, it’s the part where they ran out of diplomatic options so I think it still works as an example.
Yeah, and in the first season, Delenne called humans “community builders” that were the only species that could even imagine, much less build an outpost that would function as the melting crucible of all the species to forge stronger and more resilient friendships that would last through us tearing ourselves apart.
The Borg are the perfect antithesis to this too. Like the intimate adversary is one that’s dangerous and just can’t be negotiated with. Thinks of you as so primitive to them that they don’t even stop you from crawling around on their ship until you start fucking around. They’re an absolute force of nature.
But even The Borg were used to ask ‘what is human’ and ‘what makes you an individual’ multiple times, most notably with 7 of 9, but also Locutus and Hugh. So even there, it’s being philosophical on a level that people who appreciate that sort of thing can understand while still being enjoyable sci-fi for people who don’t.
A lot of most sci-fi out there is people talking to each other. It’s more a case of the people watching them having selective memory and ST fans memory selecting things the other way around.
Talking to each other and talking to each other to avoid a fight are two different things. Most sci-fi TV does not shy away from shooting first and asking questions later.
