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Star Trek fans have held the national stereotype of being way too rabid about things for decades but they’re probably the nicest fan base in all of science fiction and the one least likely to have a large faction of them absolutely lose it over a torpedo being fired by a woman or dumb shit like that
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And yet it still happens. There are right-wing bigots who watch Star Trek for the pew pew space battles and ignore the rest, sad as that may be.
They are not Trek fans, they are violence fans. They are not welcome.
I love Star Trek for the vision, the tech, the people and of course to hate Wesley. This is my utopia.
The funny thing is, unlike with most sci-fi, Starfleet usually only starts shooting as a last resort. They don’t even notice that.
They don’t understand that shooting should be the last resort for police/countries as well. They’re just enjoying it.
The number of times in trek where they could easily destroy the ship or entity that was causing the problem in the episode is huge in Trek. But they spend most of the episode trying to figure out how solve the problem with the minimum damage to both sides.
I also love how they have different types of leaders.
Kirk is the Captain you’d love to have as a boss. He gets stuff done, but also has fun with it. He’d inspire loyalty through Charisma.
He’s the captain you want standing by your side in a bar fight.
Picard is the perfectly-distantly, dignified leader. He’s a diplomat and archaeologist who loves exploring not only space, but culture and the nature of life. His love for his crew is shown through his desire to develop them into better officers.
He was the captain who kept you from getting into a fight.
Sisko is the most militaristic of the Captains. We first meet him in a battle, and he doesn’t back down from many fights. When Picard was annoyed by Q he complained. When Sisko met Q he punched him. But Sisko was a great tactician who also had to be a diplomat in charge of a station inhabited mostly by people outside his command structure.
He was the captain who punch someone in the throat if he thought there would be a fight.
Janeway was a scientist and diplomat. She could be hard as iron, but she was absolutely devoted to her people and would do anything for them. Her loyalty would cause her to occasionally cross the line, however. More than any of the captains, she wanted to develop her crew into leaders. They had limited options for advancement, but she tried to give them all opportunities to grow. She also didn’t see any sense in playing fair if she was in the right.
She was the captain that would bring a gun to a knife fight.
OK I love to laugh at Wesley, don’t get me wrong, but why the hate? I am a dirty casual it’s true. But next Gen is the one I know best, he wasn’t that bad was he?
Because Wesley Crusher was written to be seen as an annoying kid who got in the way. That was the social slant of the time. But you watch those episodes now and you realize, “Hey, he was actually very smart, just trying to help, and he even saved the ship a couple of times.” So all the “Shut up, Wesley!” moments became so stupid, even if he did deserved it sometimes, that the community decided to lean into it ironically as an in-joke.
Ah… I see some of them must’ve made it to the writing room on NuTrek… Because it’s pretty much nothing more than a VFX showcase these days.
I miss the time when an entire episode was essentially the crew figuring out a moral dillema, or just some really weird space bullshit.
