And then Bob moves on to race-based culinary cannibalism…
Show me where that gets recycled by TV.
There had better be mention of the Federation’s photonic slave economy in this book or it is complete and utter corporeal propaganda.
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I don’t recall them saying it rotated. They may have gotten the idea of a round station from B5 (but there’s precedent for round stations in Star Trek that predate B5 by a good few years) but it wouldn’t really make sense for Terok Nor to rotate. Well, at least not in its new position stationed outside the wormhole.
But there was that time they went to a previous Cardassian space station made along the same lines. (Followers of the Pagh Wraiths … along with Dukat were hangin’ out doing their largely benign villain thing.)
P.S. Not that DS9 didn’t *cough* borrow heavily from B5.
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And it’s still filled with…“progressive” for the time but weird ideas about gender roles.
“All lawyers will be women in the future, because Female Intuition!”
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As I understand the “up or out” phenomena, you need that junior officer slot for the next class of junior officers. You can’t just let them sit or you’ll have a whole lot of 50 year old lieutenants and no up and comers. It’s the flaw in academia, you get a whole lot of tenured old farts keeping young professors, possibly with new ideas, from getting positions.
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Me neither.
I stopped watching DS9 by season 3, because with Gene’s influence fading away, it really got more special-effects and action focused. That’s when the Dominion War started and the cutting edge CGI, and ending episodes with 10 minutes of the camera operator having an epileptic fit really became a thing. I really wanted to like it, and if it still felt like Trek I could have gotten over it (while this is the greatest special effect ever broadcast*, the constant music stings in TOS really stick out today).
I loved the character driven stuff like (yes) the Quark episodes, or that noir detective story where Odo drawls out Star Trek’s best intro monologue ever (wish I could find a video). Basically, when it felt like the show was still being used as a platform for writers to tell interesting stories and take familiar characters into new genres, rather than to make a bad sci-fi action serial.
Given my opinion here, do you think I’d like B5? What about BSG, for that matter (I always get those two mixed up). Ideally, I’m hoping somebody who completely agrees with what I just said can recommend that I totally check out X.
- Minor exaggeration, but I do love it. It’s over the top, and more importantly, they spent an entire episode weeks earlier making you hate the guy that the characters you like are blowing up.
Based on your description, I think you’d love B5 and hate BSG. I love all of the above. Except Heinlein. 
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Ok, I’ll try it out. I’m hoping it’s something like Firefly, maybe? I like a lot of ensemble character stuff. Mostly I like stuff from writers who don’t feel tired, like they didn’t just sit down in a room and organize the spreadsheet of stuff that is supposed to happen in the three episode arc. I love good serials. I just don’t feel a lot of the serial stuff from this era was good, and I remember a lot of episodic stuff going serial and getting way less interesting.
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Well, then I think it’s because Star Trek is a genuine cultural phenomenon that seeks to talk about our society, so it’s not a big surprise that people are interested in doing so.
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Actually, the Vulcans (or rather a Vulcan) only show up at the very end, so that’s not really in First Contact. I don’t know about Enterprise, though. I only watched a few episodes of the first season and that was when it came out.
But I can see this being a major plot point.
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That wasn’t really Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek by the scenes he mentioned. He was a little involved in the first season of TNG, I think, though he got that show on the right track.
Also, the major problem with Abram’s Star Trek is that scene where Khan announces “I am Khan!” to the other characters, as if that’s supposed to mean something to them. I get that it’s supposed to mean something to us, but announce it in a way that makes sense for the characters. Blofeld in the new Bond did the same thing, like “hey, listen to my weird new name, isn’t that dramatic” (music sting). No, not within the context of the movie.
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Except “military” service wasn’t required. Federal service was, but it did not have to be military. There was explicit dialogue about this, fairly early on. It often was military of some sort, but if you were not qualified for military service, they would find you something else, or if they had something else they needed done that you could do, they would put you there. We do/did something like that with conscientious objectors who still want(ed) to serve but cannot bring themselves to do violence.
Also, far too many people are STILL making the mistake that Heinlein (and authors in general) believe or espouse ANYTHING in the story they are creating. That is often NOT the case. Sometimes it is, of course, but never assume the author believes what they wrote a FICTIONAL story about! Especially in SF, where it’s often just a “what if…” not a “we should…”
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JMS has publicly claimed that the studios turned him down to fund Babylon 5 and then ripped him off to make Deep Space Nine. He doesn’t talk about it much anymore but he wasn’t shy about it 20 years ago.
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You are technically right, but the other jobs were like medical test subject, survival gear tester, hard labor, etc. I don’t recall the jobs being too envied or respected by the main characters either, but maybe I’m wrong. It was a more militaristic society than one without compulsory government service.
I enjoyed that book back when I read it, actually, and what you say is generally true. I actually didn’t make the mistake you mention, but let me do so now.
I’d like to make your argument with that book (I did enjoy it), but thinking back, it was basically a light fictional framework for the author to deliver political views. 80% of that book took place in classroom lectures, and I don’t really recall the students who argued scoring many points.
Here’s a quote that would seem to make your point: “if you came in here in a wheelchair and blind in both eyes and were silly enough to insist on enrolling, they would find you something silly to match. Counting the fuzz on a caterpillar by touch, maybe”. The book does seem to have a sense of humor about itself, maybe to defray some criticism, but there wasn’t much that was delivered by the respected teacher characters that the author seems to disagree with.
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Agreed… In fact there was a documentary about his involvement in the first couple of seasons of the show and how they changed directions after his death:
The changes to the universe after his death were palpable, sure, but still recognizable as the same universe. In almost any practical sense, the universe that got rebooted was different from the ground up and not having the logic of the Vulcans can be said to have released the more aggressive id of the show.
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I dunno, when you write a rather long book exploring all the possible justifications for incest (Time Enough for Love) you’re not just musing, at least I don’t think. He had some freaky sex ideas, but there’s not been much written about his personal life except the Elron stuff.
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Ha! I almost posted that video!
I want to post a video!
@anon61221983 This looks interesting. He absolutely earned respect and a progressive reputation, but maybe he didn’t deserve it so much later on. To be fair, some of these criticisms are from Rick Berman, and I’m not sure I’m a huge fan of his vision.
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Speaking of William F*king Shatner, he made a documentary about Roddenberry’s involvement and the creation of Star Trek called Chaos on the Bridge which was, surprisingly, actually pretty good. I think it might still be up on Netflix.
ETA: Oops, didn’t read the whole thread. My bad. Sorry @anon61221983
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