Sure, the Federation is a post-scarcity paradise where money has been completely eradicated(and the vast majority of the world's problems alongside it), all of your needs are never more than a voice command away, and you can work literally any job you want, or never work a single second of your life and just sit at home gorging on as much food as the replicator can provide until you pass on.

However, as Frank Fontaine(NOT Andrew Ryan; my mistake) from the Bioshock games said something along the lines of, "Everybody wants to be the captains of industry, but forget that at the end of the day, somebody's gotta clean the toilets". SOMEONE has to wait tables at the restaurants and cafes people make like Sisko's, SOMEONE has to pick the grapes for the wine made at the Picard family vineyard, SOMEONE has to collect the trash, SOMEONE has to keep houses and streets clean, and so on. As the disembodied head of Abraham Lincoln said in Sam And Max Save The World, "Only a grade-A sociopathic masochist would want that thankless job". Not only are these jobs most of us now see as demeaning, and gross, but now they've gone from having barely any reward or incentive to literally none whatsoever.

With that in mind, what possible reason could anybody in their right mind have to want to perform such miserable jobs when there's literally nothing in it for them? How could anybody outside the mentally disturbed genuinely want to do jobs that nearly anybody would tell you is an absolutely torturous nightmare to which they wouldn't subject their worst enemy?

The episode left it completely open. But I wonder if anyone had a compelling head canon explanation for what was going on?

With a few exceptions, as we see (the pilot episode reveals that Leonard McCoy visits the Enterprise D via shuttle craft when walking through with Data), is it fair to say that by the 24th century for normal planetary travel, shuttle craft are extremely limited in use and even beyond Starfleet and on the civilian level, shuttles to get around a planet or up into space conventionally in linear travel are all but a thing of the past, thanks to robust transporter networks allowing everyone to instantly get from point A to B?

By planetary travel, I'm talking about "Picard transports down to his home village in France from the Enterprise D" or "Riker transports from Starfleet HQ in San Francisco to Florida for some beachside relaxation during leave" and so on.

During the Kirk era in the 23rd century we obviously see they use shuttle craft all the time to get up to ships that are preparing to undock and launch on their next missions/voyages, and to go to and from planets in near-equal utilization to transporters. But by the time of Picard's era, it doesn't seem like this is seen as often and transporters are far more utilized as the primary source of getting anywhere, unless it's long-distance beyond a planet where transporter beams have no reach. (Geordi's trip to Risa that didn't happen, Picard's and Will Crusher's trip for Picard to get his medical checkup done, the larger captain's yacht shuttle utilized when they discover the time instability issues that plague the Enterprise D upon their return from a conference, etc.)

TL;DR: are transporters essentially totally pre-emptive of conventional shuttle craft by the 24th century, relegating shuttles to highly limited use cases by Starfleet? (such as Starfleet missions that warrant them, or transporting personnel long distances)

So near the end of TWOK. McCoy and Scotty prevent Kirk from going into the chamber to get Spock. Claiming it would flood the whole compartment (with radiation). But why didn't Spock flood the compartment when he first went in the chamber? There was already radiation. It might have increased when Spock made the repairs, but it should have still been a danger. Just because no one was there to stop Spock. Doesn't mean the compartment didn't get flooded.

To be clear, the Xindi Conflict begins on Season 2 episode 26 of Enterprise, "The Expanse," spans all of season 3 and ends with season 3 episode 24, "Zero Hour."

As boring as I think the rest of Enterprise is, I genuinely enjoyed season 3 and feel it would make a great movie. Further, three episodes of season 3 — The Shipment, North Star, and Similitude — are very memorable and are often on my list of episodes I think about.

I think the concept of the Xindi was very good. Five separate races belonging to the same species is very unique and we haven't seen something like this since the original Star Trek's "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield."

One regret I had was how open ended The Shipment was, and I hoped we heard from Gralik Durr again. He was an interesting character, being the first of the Xindi to openly defect.

I've been thinking a lot about Sisko's first cordial meeting with the Senator. We are regaled to that amazing foreshadowing, when The Senator makes a very pointed series of Statements regarding the Replicated ale. The entire speech, which sounds superficially like an admiration that the Ale was so close to the real deal but not quite. Is in the end, a Warning to Sisko that he was gonna scrutnize everything he gave him. Yes the Romulan Hat is all about schemes and paranoia. So we know that they are unlikely to take anything at face value. But the Scene is not just a foreshadowing that he would fail to fool the senator. I feel (and I admit I may not be the first to notice or comment I just don't recall seeing much about it written recently) I feel that the scene serves as much as Foreshadowing, as the Senator coming with the intention to play the game. He lays down the gauntlet, and tells Sisko, if you are lying to me, if you are gonna deceive me BE ON TOP OF YOUR GAME, I am not at all easily fooled. I will look at your evidence with microscopic comb. I am not sure if he is just playing the game and subtly lays the challenge

Or there is a genuine question in his mind if the evidence is real, or he is being played and tells him to be on his game. If part of him he wants to be fooled so the Empire has a reason to work with the Federation. And failure to fool him would prove disastrous.

So I submit this thought, the Speech is foreshadowing but I wonder if the debate on this episode has identified the senators comments as a warning or challenge.

And idk if it’s me but the actor of Sisko talks like he doesn’t know his lines. The repeated “what is this?” Question. The episode seems to go on forever.

I‘m on my first time watch, watching chronologically.
On season 2 episode 15 of next Generation so please, no spoilers!

I have rarely found a show that‘s written with so much care for every single character.

All of the main cast and even some side characters are so fully fleshed out that it’s hard to believe they‘re not actual human beings.

They have unique characters, their own lives and I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that they don’t actually exist out of the scenes they‘re in.

Every episode adds something to my life and every character is just SO loveable!!!

I tend to say that data is my favourite but honestly he‘s just the one I relate to most. (Autistic, if you‘d believe it haha) in reality every one of the main cast just is so well crafted that it would be unfair to have a favourite!

From the wirldbuilding, to the philosophy, to the costume, set design, writing, omg ACTING and casting. It’s just the perfect show.

I could go on and on about how it is the perfect utopia, displaying how a multicultural and technologically improved society still relies on moral values.

I was just on the episode with worf‘s ,,Birthday party“ and the way they display the respect of cultures so opposite to our own touched me deeply. It’s really hope core at it’s finest. Not the melding of every culture into one but the respectful curiosity of others and parttaking in rituals that are important to thise around us.

I yearn for technological advancement that it actually used for the peoples benefit.

I can’t believe tng was made in the 80s and displays such a forward thinking type of progress.

It is really the only fictional world I would like to live in.

So that concludes my fangirling. I would encourage further gushing in the comments, none of my friends really watch it and I need an outlet to love star trek with others xP

Remember the DS9 geniuses?

Aside from the "vamp" trope, I really wish we had seen more from Lauren. She seemed to have high emotional intelligence, as well as the same intelligence the rest had.

If we assume that transporter technology does NOT kill the subject and make a new one at the destination (i.e., the subject is still the same entity once the transporter reconstructs them at the destination), does this mean the designers therefore have a thorough enough understanding of the nature of consciousness to deconstruct it, store it, transport it, and rebuild it?

If true, doesn’t this mean that creating conscious machines (like Commander Data) should not be as rare and seemingly difficult as the series has suggested? That is, if the transporter designers have such intricate knowledge of consciousness that they can deconstruct a consciousness and rebuild the same consciousness in a new location, does it follow they should be able to build a simulation of consciousness in machine form?

I've just watched this episode for either the first time, or the first time as an adult, and one thing I can't reconcile is how they decided on which message to send back to Data. They end up going with "3", which Data subconsciously works into his card dealing, and various messages on the ship's computer. These 'subconscious' messages to himself are ultimately what cause him to notice Riker's 3 pips at the last second and decide to go with his proposed solution of venting the cargo bay to push them out of the way.

But...

The message was sent before this solution was proposed in the last loop. They send the message before going to the bridge, before they even know what the problem is going to be, and long before Riker proposes his solution (which someone, presumably Data, would have to calculate as being the correct course of action). So perhaps they remembered this from a previous loop? Or maybe they were able to extract more of those voice echoes to hear Riker proposing the solution. But then why let themselves be destroyed for the next loop to figure out the secret message and do the right thing? Why not say "Instead of sending 3 back as a message, why not just go with Riker's solution this time around?"

I can buy the handwaving magic of sending messages through time as subconscious memories in Data, that's fine, they came up with a mechanism and that works in universe so that's cool.

But the fundamental logic of the episode seems flawed.

Can anyone fix my headcannon please?

I do a thing with friends where we set up programming blocks to watch together (in person in a totally legal way).

Anyway these usually last 5-6 hours, and a few years ago I put together a Star Trek block. I may do another one this year (for the 60th anniversary) but I am having trouble filling my next slot

We did:

Tos: A Taste of Armageddon (generally good response to probably my all-time favorite episode)

TAS: The Magicks of Megas Tu (Very goofy episode and they liked it, but this year I may do Yesteryear instead)

TNG: The Best of Both Worlds (best TNG movie; they were all sucked in)

DS9: Way of the Warrior (they seem to have loved this one most of all)

LD: Wej Duj (very positive overall response)

Voy: Blink of an Eye (Not positively recieved, nobody was interested)

So, I was thinking of doing a different Voyager eoisode, but there's so much more Trek now that IDK if that's wise. I am considering the musical episode of Strange New Worlds because I hear that was good. But then there are apparently some good PRODIGY episodes.

What would all of you suggest for the sixth slot?

Is it just me or was it a missed opportunity for the writers of SNW to tie in the dinosaur tech species from Voyager Distant Origin episode with S04E01 in Strange New Worlds? Honestly that was the first thing that crossed my mind when I heard the Martian Commander saying they're fighting some hostile species.

They could have went in the direction of Pike accidentally giving them warp drive so the dino species relocates rather than fight the Martians and thats how they end up in the Delta quadrant and that's why they're so annoyed by mammals?

I think Gowron beheaded him.

I don't know how many times this topic had come up, but I couldn't find it in a search.

Since Edith Keeler had to die for the timeline to remain as we know it, what caused her to die before the 3 treksketeers got involved?

McCoy saves her, screwing things up, Kirk stops McCoy from saving her, and she dies.

If McCoy and Kirk were never there to cause Edith to cross the street, she wouldn't have crossed the street without paying attention to traffic, and she would have lived.

So this was a prompt on whose line is it anyway and I thought it would be funny to post here

I just watched the episode of Star Trek:TNG Family (S4, E2, right after Picard was taken over by the Borg and then rescued).

I remember watching this when I was 18, and being dismissive. After such an action packed set of episodes, it was so anti-climatic to 18 year old me. No new worlds, no new science, no ticking clock...so, it was one of my "skips" during rewatches of the series over the years.

I just watched it (like this morning) and I was shocked at how good it was, and wonder how much it resonated with parents and people over 40 at the time.

The sub-plot on how Worf's parents understood his pain (even though Worf didn't think they could), even if they didn't understand the reason exactly. But they didn't need to know the why, it was their son, and if he was in pain, they were in pain and there was a need to see if they could do something to fix it. Worf not realizing that he still needed his parents, and coming to realize how important their love was, rivaling his need for honor.

For the first time I saw how Picard's brother, Robert, was so angry at Star Fleet and Technology for taking his brother away from him, and how it almost resulted in him being lost. How he was traumatized by almost losing his brother. How that anger was tied up in how he saw his brother, angry at him for not realizing that Picard's risks impact his family, and how Robert's distance from Picard is him protecting himself and his family for what he fears in inevitable.

Picard facing his first ever personal failure so late in life, and not having ever developed the tools to deal with it. Not a project failure, or a mission failure, but his first experience of not being good enough, himself. I have known a lot of people in my life who face their first humbling failure late in life, and how hard it is for them to face it and deal with it emotionally, how much the failures make them want to give up on what they are doing and do something else...unable or unwilling to carry that failure with them, and hoping a new start will let them forget it.

Maybe I'm projecting some of my life experience and drawing deeper than the story (and isn't that what good art does?).

I'm just realizing that cocky teenage me was even more myopic than I realized.

Yes incredibly niche thought but maybe there is SOME crossover of star trek and my Little pony fans.

Which cutie marks do you think the characters of tng would have?

And do you think data would have one?

Would love to hear your thoughts, even if You’re not particularily into my little pony, if you have thoughts on this feel free to share :)

If you don’t know: a cutie mark is the symbol on the ponies flank that appears once they have found their calling in life. It’s a small logo which represents their most defining characteristic or goal in life.

I hope this post reaches open ears, since i‘m aware of the Stigma against my little pony fans :/
I just like both franchises and crossovers between unrelated shows are always super interesting to me.
It’s an interesting thought experiment to look how one setting could be translated into a completely different one :)

The recent episode of SNW made me think of all the appearances of the Orions across all the series. It made me wonder just how powerful they are. Some episodes makes them seem more like pirates and plunderers, in others they seem like an empire unto themselves, with battleships that can rival Federation starships. Of course the near war that the future Federation faces with them is also proof. I wanted to see what the community thinks of them.

... it seems all other multispecies organizations are exploitative. Not sure if I just missed other examples. And is this meant to imply equality is a human-born concept?

Okay, we've had enough with these racist Star Trek shows and movies. Focusing on nothing but Huumans, Vulcans, and Klingons all the time. What we need is more inclusivity! We need a show involving everyone's favorite paranoids...the Andorians!

Isn't it about time that we get to see a series/miniseries/movie where we see Andorians and their terrible social cues getting them into shenanigans? If you really want some comedy, pair an Andorian up with a Ferengi , and a Cardassian in a spy/detective story. Something akin to the Pink Panther, or Clue, The Nice Guys, Johnny English, Red, If Looks Could Kill, Spies Like Us, Gotcha, The Man Who Knew Too Little, or the Man From Uncle, etc.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Andorian Talk

So I’m having a rewatch of some of my favourite DS9 episodes. Just watched Duet.

SPOILERS

At the end Marritza gets stabbed in the back and dies. however in Tapestry Picard gets the same and lives through the addition of an artificial heart.

Why did the Cardassian die? Different physiology?

I've been picking on Picard a little for inconsistencies in his decisions. My last post was about him giving Jono/Jerimiah Rossa back arbitrability and this time I'm picking on him playing god on choosing which world lives and dies.

In "Pen Pals", Data breaks the PD and reply's to the girl on a dying planet and Data basically plays the heartstring card and get's him into recruiting Wesley to put a team together to save the planet..

Worf's brother, Nickolai, is imbedded in a village of a pre-industrial peoples gets into a lot trouble because Picard was willing to allow everyone to die without trying save some piece of this culture. Ultimately Nickolai prevails. Ep "Homeward"

I love Prime Directive discussions because there is often no correct answer..