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War and Roddenberry

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Here’s a controversial question for you. Did DS9 diverge from Roddenberry’s dream of the future by focusing on war and fighting rather than peace and exploration.

 

In a line from City on the Edge of Forever “they are going to take all the money they spend on war and spending on peace”, yet this does not seem to be the case in DS9.

 

What is your opinion?

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Yes, DS9 was a little different from what Roddenberry had invisioned, but I do not believe it is really far off. Yes, humanity is focusing on peace but it would not be feasible for every race to feel the same way, so therefore humanity and Starfleet must still insure that we are able to defend ourselves.

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Stardate:213488.9

 

Myself I liked it that we saw a war in DS9 Peace and exploration gets boring sometimes.

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I agree with ddillard, it's all fine and dandy to have ideals of peaceful exploration, but not everyone shares that view- it was inevitable that sooner or later, the Feds would find themselves in a big war.

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I agree with ddillard, it's all fine and dandy to have ideals of peaceful exploration, but not everyone shares that view- it was inevitable that sooner or later, the Feds would find themselves in a big war.

Fair enough, but Trek is mean't to be about peaceful exploration isn't it?

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I remember a (long) while back MQ posted a copy of statements made by an anonymous person at the save Star trek campaign web site, I'm remember there was something very interesting said on this topic in the post. I will look for it...

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I remember a (long) while back MQ posted a copy of statements made by an anonymous person at the save Star trek campaign web site, I'm remember there was something very interesting said on this topic in the post. I will look for it...

I just find it interesting as to how Roddenberry would have reacted to DS9's portrayal of the future and war based story arc.

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I remember a (long) while back MQ posted a copy of statements made by an anonymous person at the save Star trek campaign web site, I'm remember there was something very interesting said on this topic in the post. I will look for it...

I just find it interesting as to how Roddenberry would have reacted to DS9's portrayal of the future and war based story arc.

I think that Roddenberry would have accepted the idea, I don't think that he envisioned there being universal peace, which is evident if you watch the episodes of TOS, there are many conflicts there.

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I remember a (long) while back MQ posted a copy of statements made by an anonymous person at the save Star trek campaign web site, I'm remember there was something very interesting said on this topic in the post. I will look for it...

Still searching...

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I remember a (long) while back MQ posted a copy of statements made by an anonymous person at the save Star trek campaign web site, I'm remember there was something very interesting said on this topic in the post. I will look for it...

I just find it interesting as to how Roddenberry would have reacted to DS9's portrayal of the future and war based story arc.

I think that Roddenberry would have accepted the idea, I don't think that he envisioned there being universal peace, which is evident if you watch the episodes of TOS, there are many conflicts there.

I agree with your point about TOS, however in later years Roddenberry opposed the military feel of ST2, plus he showed short term conflicts rather than a prolonged war.

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I checked every forum, even ones it could not possibly be on but came up empty handed. Perhaps I was looking too hard and kept overseeing it and someday in the future, when I am looking for something else I will find it. A clue is the title of the thread, it goes something like: 'Does Star Trek' (or ENT) 'need saving'?

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I checked every forum, even ones it could not possibly be on but came up empty handed. Perhaps I was looking too hard and kept overseeing it and someday in the future, when I am looking for something else I will find it. A clue is the title of the thread, it goes something like: 'Does Star Trek' (or ENT) 'need saving'?

Never mind. It will most likely turn up in a months time!

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Yes, DS9 was a little different from what Roddenberry had invisioned, but I do not believe it is really far off.  Yes, humanity is focusing on peace but it would not be feasible for every race to feel the same way, so therefore humanity and Starfleet must still insure that we are able to defend ourselves.

I agree he may not have liked it...

 

But, the problem is, DS9 isn't about exploration like the other shows. It's about the politics of a world and of the repercussion of the discovery of a worm hole that change the power of a region, thus brings new enemies and new allies.

 

It can mean a realisation on how bad a war can be to a civilization tho... Look what the Dominion did to the Cardassians at the end...

 

Where, in the end, we don't want our own society not to go...

 

For that, past tense was great.

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I remember a (long) while back MQ posted a copy of statements made by an anonymous person at the save Star trek campaign web site, I'm remember there was something very interesting said on this topic in the post. I will look for it...

Still searching...

I’ll see if I can find it

 

 

Master Q

StarTrek_Master_Q@yahoo.com

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CaptainPaul sent me a link to this site:

 

www.startrekcampaign.com/

 

Which is run by a group of people who want to start a petition to get Rick Berman to step down. Noble (and futile) as their cause may be, I decided not to sign. I felt that their reasoning for wanting him to come down--and even worse, their solution for once he had stepped down--was more than slightly flawed. If you go to that site and look around, I think you'll see what I mean. But here is what I told them:

 

Sorry, but this is not a petition that I am going to sign. Respectfully, I believe you are a group of regressives, people who want to turn back the clock and make Star Trek exactly the way that it was back during the time of the original series. You even propose putting members of the Star Trek cast on this "Board of Trustees" you talk about, despite the fact that those people have little to no experience in producing television whatsoever. You speak as if Star Trek was some sort of corporation, when in fact it's not, and you can't run a TV show the same way you run a football team or a corporation, or god forbid a country. Yes, I agree that Rick Berman needs to go, but not for the reasons that you are describing. Berman's biggest problem is not that he has "abandoned the legacy of Gene Roddenberry," because really he hasn't, and I think that in general TNG and Voyager held very closely to those ideas, if they didn't on do them better than Roddenberry originally did them. Even if it is not your intention, you come off sounding condescending and elitist, expecting us to take for granted that the Original Series and the first four seasons of Next Generation were better than what was done on DS9, Voyager, or Enterprise. Well you know, the majority of Star Trek fans--and sorry, but your group does NOT by any means represent the majority--believe that TNG's 5th and 6th seasons were the best of the series, and these were done early in the time when Star Trek was run by Rick Berman, and other talented individuals like Brannon Braga, Michael Piller, and Jeri Taylor were contributing to Star Trek's writing and producing staff, people who probably would never have joined the staff had Gene Roddenberry remained in firm control of the franchise. I for one argue that Star Trek did--for a time--become BETTER under the leadership of Rick Berman than it was under the leadership of Gene Roddenberry. I think it's hard for anyone to make the arguement that TNG's first two seasons, which many fans for many reasons consider to be in general some of the lowest quality television that has ever come out of the Star Trek franchise (there are a few episodes that are the exception, like "Conspiracy," "Q Who," and "The Measure of a Man"), were the heyday of TNG's run. In fact, if one looks at the figures that this website provides and interpretes them differently, one can clearly see the pattern that as Gene Roddenberry stepped further back and allowed Berman and others to take over, Star Trek's ratings enjoyed a steady rise all the way up until 1995. Your website may contend that Berman has been killing Star Trek from the moment he took over, but the facts, minus the spin, tell a different story.

 

This is not to discount the genius of Gene Roddenberry; by creating the franchise in the first place he certainly does deserve to be categorized among the great geniuses of science fiction, but we must also take caution not to build up the myth of Roddenberry too high either. I charge that Roddenberry, like any writer or creator of art, eventually ran out of good ideas, and the quality of the first few seasons of Next Generation (not to mention of disasterous posthumus projects like Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda) is evidence of this. If you ask any of the writers who worked on Next Generation in its early seasons, they will freely admit to you that Roddenberry was stubborn, he was arrogant, and his adamant refusal to allow any ideas that contradicted his own vision to see the light of day caused a lot of potentially good scripts to end up in the trash can. It was only after Roddenberry finally decided to step back that Next Generation's writing staff ceased to be a revolving door of frustrated scriptwriters, and truly original, meaningful, entertaining dramatic science ficiton stories were able to become the rule once again. Rick Berman may have recently proven himself now grossly incompetent by presiding over Enterprise's miserable second season and the unfortunate, undeserved failure of Star Trek Nemesis at the box office (just because it did badly doesn't mean that it was a bad movie), but giving the devil his due, Berman was probably responsible for saving Star Trek in the early 1990s with bold departure episodes like "Yesterday's Enterprise," "The Best of Both Worlds," and "The Inner Light," which did NOT cause the popularity of the Star Trek franchise to shrink but, rather, to expand. Even the most ardent Original Series fan cannot deny that Star Trek reached the peak of its popularity not in 1969, or 1987, but rather in 1994, when the Berman regime was at its peak, Next Generation and Deep Space Nine were the top rated shows in syndication, Next Generation had outstripped the running length of the Original Series by four seasons, the seventh Star Trek movie was in theatres, and three Star Trek series were all simultaneously in production (though attempting to create Voyager while at the same time producing both TNG and DS9 may have been the least wise decision of the Berman era, since the overstretched resources for the franchise caused all three series to suffer in quality during the 1994-95 season).

 

There is plenty of criticism that can be made for Gene Roddenberry's original vision of Star Trek, as well as praise. Roddenberry was the type of writer who believed that only three of his main characters deserved to be more than marginally developed. Watch any episode of the Original Series and you can clearly see how the characters of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy (the so called "Big 3," a concept unheard of in any other show in the history of television) were the primary focus of almost every episode, while Chekov, Uhura, Sulu, and Scotty remained virtually ignored and little more than regular extras until the third Star Trek movie. Now I understand that according to Roddenberry's way of thinking each character was supposed to represent some abstract trait of humanity, with Spock being logic, McCoy being emotion, and Kirk being command somewhere in the middle. But Roddenberry's "Big 3" concept did not do justice to actors Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, George Takei, and James Doohan, all of whom were capable of performing much more substantial roles than what they were given. Just watch Koenig's performance as Bester on Babylon 5 if you need proof of that. Possibly the biggest reason why the Original Series is so easily mocked by franchise outsiders today is because the characters on the show were so static, their actions and behavior so predictable, and their personalities (by design) so shallow. Kirk was a smooth-talking, skirt-chasing, power-hungry egotist (I wonder if Bill Clinton was a fan of the original Star Trek), McCoy was an irrational, emotional, cranky, sex-deprived, cornfed Southern boy, Chekov was a proud Russian with a somewhat exaggerated view of his homeland's role in human history, Uhura was basically the girl who opened hailing frequencies with a wilder, tantalizing, more aggressive streak that unfortunately was rarely ever seen, and Sulu was the ship's pilot who once fancied himself a mideval swordfighter. Over the course of the 79 episodes of the original series, that is all the character development that was provided for five of the show's six major characters. Spock of course was a much more complicated and interesting character, but there is no good reason why the writers could not have shared the wealth and given the other characters more equal time in the spotlight. In a way it is ironic that Original Series fans would complain about Berman not being true to the spirit of the Original Series, since the pattern of near total lack of character development for all but three characters that was used on the Original Series is now being employed on Enterprise, with Archer, T'Pol, and Trip being very close replicants of the original Big 3, and the characters of Reed, Mayweather, Sato, and Phlox generally getting shafted. Creating token black, Russian, Japanese, Scottish, and alien characters and pigeonholing them into shallow, unchanging roles is not the right way to demonstrate the much-touted equality and tolerance of Star Trek's future. To me, it seems like in the Star Trek future those who are different are accepted not because humanity has become more tolerant, but rather because those minority groups for the most part just became like everyone else. That is a very wrong, very conformist message to send, but it happened because Roddenberry believed that eventually the whole world would evolve to the point where it thought the way he did, and accepted his own "evolved sensibilities." The absense of true individuality and even the slightest trace of dissent in Star Trek's Federation of the future is frankly disturbing, and almost Orwellian in the way that it points to the left as the only way to go.

 

All this is not to say that the characters unchanging dispositions were not part of what made the show charming, or that the stories the original Star Trek told were some of the best ever in the history of science fiction. But it was not until Roddenberry stepped back and allowed writers to properly develop the characters on Next Generation that that series was finally able to step out of the shadow of the original, come into its own, and eventually live longer and prosper more than Roddenberry's original creation ever came close to doing. Had Roddenberry had his way, every episode of Next Generation would have focused around the initially coldhearted and inhuman character of Jean-Luc Picard, and all the other characters (including hugely successful characters like Worf and Deanna Troi) would have either been underdeveloped tokens like most of the TOS regulars or utlimately served no purpose other than to suppliment the character of Picard the way that Spock and McCoy did Kirk. Rather than address the very human, very real issues that Next Generation eventually went on to face, TNG would have remained little more than a defective clone of the Original Series, featuring the enlightened crew of the Enterprise traveling around the galaxy educating the savage barbarians on worlds outside the Federation who had not yet evolved to adopt Roddenberry's somehow intrisically superior system of ethics, while somehow obeying the "prime directive" that Starfleet officers, superficially at least, claim to place above all else. Those kinds of paternalistic, preachy attitudes are very dangerous in a world of true diversity like the one we live in, particularly today when we have so many people in the world who despise and wish to destroy America for thinking the way that Roddenberry would have had the crew of the Enterprise think, that their way is the right way and that anyone who doesn't think that way needs to be punished, or at least dressed down with a sermon. The original Star Trek was written in the flower-power 1960s, when humanism was the rage, socialism was the future, and the pervasive, popular belief of the time was that liberals could do no wrong, and that conservatives were all evil racist warmongers, and that somehow by eliminating money and capitalism society would also eliminate poverty and greed. The world is not quite so naive now as it was then, and many people today have begun to realize that political correctness is not all its cracked up to be, and that trying to cure the world's ills by forcing everyone to think alike ends up causing more problems than it solves. It's ridiculous to say that the producers of Star Trek should philosophically go back to what Gene Roddenberry's original intention was, because those kinds of ideas simply don't fly anymore in the more reality-based, ever more politically incorrect world of the 21st Century. In the 1960s, the ideas promoted by Star Trek were revolutionary, they were bold, and they were considered dangerous. Today those same ideas are spouted by every Democratic congressman on capitol hill, every media pundit on CNN who is little more than a pawn of the almighty liberal left, and every idiot marching in the streets of New York protesting the upcoming war on Iraq on the grounds that we should continue to maintain the peace even if it kills us. If the producers of Star Trek want Enterprise or any other future series or movie to succeed, then the solution is not to go back to the old ways of Gene Roddenberry--because today they are just that: old--but rather to try to make this franchise controversial and interesting again. And in a world where liberalism dominates mainstream thought and every TV show coming out of Hollywood represents these mainstream ideals, the only way to be controversial is to be conservative. Tell me, who gets more attention in the news media today: Dan Rather, or Bill O'Reilly? And who has higher ratings? Instead of simply reinforcing liberal propaganda, the producers of Star Trek should try to write more intelligent, more unbiased, more reasonable and sensible stories that respect the viewers' intelligence and allow them to make their own decisions about what's right and wrong instead continuing to preach this fautly and increasingly unpopular ideology. And I won't even go into Gene Roddenberry's atheism and how profoundly unspiritual and insulting Star Trek was to everyone who does believe in a God during and after his administration. I know that going against the political beliefs of their peers may be a difficult thing for the producers of Star Trek to do, but if they have any intention of saving this franchise then I think that it's something they MUST do.

 

Even Deep Space Nine, a series that drove Star Trek to an unprecedented level of mindlessness and poppyness, was still able to be more politically fair-minded and intelligent--for a short time anyway--than the Original Series. For all its faults, one thing that the producers of DS9 can be given credit for was that their series was the first to present the Federation and its human representatives as not always "the good guys." DS9 exposed the hypocrisies of Gene Roddenberry's future, and with the creation of organizations like the Maquis, the New Essentialists, and Section 31 finally added a dimension of nonconformity and dissent amongst humans in the perfect utopian world of the 24th Century. DS9 showed us exactly how much of a gilded age the time of Star Trek is, and by doing so it provided a great deal of hope for the future of Star Trek that producers will hopefully one day take advantage of and use in a better way. What sunk DS9 was its amorality and Machiavellianism, the fact that it threw all of Gene Roddenberry's ideals, the good and the bad, out the window and decided that showing humanity at its worst without depicting any moral consequences, and letting characters like Benjamin Sisko get away with grossly unethical behavior, was good entertainment. This is not to say that Roddenberry would have been opposed intrisically to the idea of having more violence on Star Trek: the Original Series episode "Balance of Terror" was basically an hour-long space battle, and in the episode "Errand of Mercy" not only was there violence, but we even saw our supposed heroes resorting to terrorism to get their way. What separates the way war was depicted on the Original Series however from the way it was done on Deep Space Nine was that on TOS, it was done with for a reason, with meaning and an ethical purpose behind it all, wheras on DS9 it was just done for thrills. Yes, the Dominion War was wrong and a very bad idea, and it further ruined the already bad DS9 by polarizing everything into unrealistic and often hypocritical camps of good and evil, black and white. It was a sign that that show's producers had finally decided to give up on writing real science fiction with an important message, and instead decided to make a show that was more about action and space battles than the reality of the human condition, something which Gene Roddenberry almost certainly would have despised.

 

Nevertheless, DS9 was more of a departure than the general rule of the Berman era, and as angry as we may get sometimes it's not right to judge the whole of the last fifteen years by two bad seasons of an inferior installment in the franchise. The greater picture shows Rick Berman not as a man who went too far in remaking Star Trek in his own image, but rather as a man who was actually somewhat afraid of change. The real problem with Star Trek today is that none of the necessary change will likely happen while Rick Berman is still in power, not because he does not share Roddenberry's values but rather because, ignoring the failed experiment that was DS9, he believes in them so strongly. Because Berman is afraid to lose the core fan base, which the people who run your website claim to be, he is also afraid to take any real chances and head in any new political directions. In the past, when Berman's administration was still able to crank out consistently good episodes, Star Trek's consistently preachy, liberal tone was tolerable. But now Berman has run out of good ideas, and, like Roddenberry in the late 1980s, he is far too stubborn and arrogant to step back and let someone else take the helm. He is also far too greedy to give up this job that makes him so much money. The result is episodes that are far too safe, far too cliched, and do not push the boundaries of intellectual thought even the slightest bit. And when Berman's people do try to make episodes that send an important message today, the result is awful, socially irrelevant, preachy, excessively PC disasters like the recent "Stigma." The only solution to this problem is for Berman to step down and allow someone with not quite so leftist views who is willing to take more chances and cause more controversy to take power. However, there is one problem: if Rick Berman were to step down, it is about 90% likely that the reins Star Trek would first fall into the hands of Brannon Braga before anyone else. Braga is a more talented writer than Berman and, IMO, he still has more and better ideas (for example, the Temporal Cold War story arc) and has a slightly better idea for what direction this show should go. Even if he isn't willing to change the politics of Star Trek, and even if he is an outsider and confesses to not be a fan of the franchise, and even if his style is somewhat heavy on time travel, at least he is still dedicated for the most part to writing real science fiction. It's clear however that Braga is starting to run out of ideas too, and though having him in charge would be better than having Berman in charge Braga himself also needs to go eventually, but not before hiring someone with fresh ideas, the willingness to take the show in a novel new direction, talent, and a genuine and abiding love for Star Trek. Not just for the Original Series, but for all Star Trek.

 

Contrary to popular belief, characters like Voyager's Seven of Nine and Enterprise's T'Pol were not just attempts by the producers to draw in viewers with lots of T&A. Seven of Nine was one of the most well-written, best-developed, most intriguing, important, paradoxical, intelligent, courageous, and powerful characters in all of Star Trek's history. She played a vital role on Voyager after her addition to the crew, and she was the focus of many of Voyager's best episodes in its latter four seasons. Seven of Nine was Star Trek's very first Voice of Conservatism...and it was her presence on the show that allowed Voyager to become the most politically fair and balanced of all five Star Trek series, even though the guise of political correctness was thinly maintained throughout the course of the series, to keep it "safe" from criticism by the producers' peers in Hollywood. The addition of Seven of Nine to the crew was one of the best decisions ever made by the producers of the franchise, and although the character of Kes did have room for more development and her loss was unfortunate, no one should ever regret the creation or the addition of Seven of Nine. Enterprise's T'Pol meanwhile is more in the tradition of the Voice of Logic represented by Spock on the Original Series, and her character development has been spectacular (even if it has been done at the expense of the show's other female character, Hoshi Sato), making her one of the most intriguing Vulcans that we have ever seen. Rick Berman's record with female characters--not just Seven and T'Pol but Deanna Troi, Kira Nerys, B'Elanna Torres, and Kathryn Janeway as well--has been excellent, I say much better than what was done on the Original Series. True, the female characters are always forced to wear very tight-fitting clothes, but is that any worse than the ultra-short skirts and barely-clinging-on costumes that women on the Original Series wore? True Gene Roddenberry did not originally intend for it to be that way, and yes the design of the uniforms was actually invented by actresses Nichelle Nichols, Majel Barrett, and Grace Lee Whitney themselves, but Star Trek certainly had already set a precendent for giving its female characters cheesecake roles long before Berman came to power. What is most important is that on Voyager--and to a lesser extent, on Deep Space Nine--we saw some of the strongest female characters in all of Star Trek's history. Far stronger than Captain Kirk's many girls-of-the-week from the Original Series (and don't get me wrong; I idolize Captain Kirk).

 

In terms of quality, frankly I feel that Voyager was closer to the peak of Star Trek than the abyss. Voyager was a show that managed to balance character development with good storytelling fairly well, it was both darker and more serious and funnier and more human than any of the previous series, and the show tackled moral and political concepts that were way beyond anything done by the Next Generation, or even the Original Series. Voyager also generally managed to avoid preachyness and political correctness much more than any of the previous series, which as I have said is due much in part to the addition of Seven of Nine to the crew. Overall it also had much more action, it had far better production value, and was much more entertaining than any of the previous series. True, it's writing quality may not have been as consistently good as that of Next Generation or the Original Series, but that was mostly due to the fact that throughout most of its run the franchise's resources were spread too thinly, as TPTB tried to simultaneously produce the neglected and underrated Voyager, the overhyped and mediocre Deep Space Nine, and the not-always-spectactular Next Generation movie franchise. Although Voyager was not as highly rated as Next Generation, what your website's figures fail to mention is that Voyager ran for seven years on the dismal UPN network, which to this day few cable networks carry and even fewer people care to watch. Had Voyager run in syndication, which is where the Original Series, Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine all became successful, I am certain that its ratings would have been much higher (I predict that now that the show is running in syndication, it will soon experience a surge in popularity similar to the one enjoyed by the Original Series in the early 1970s). It was only at the very end of Voyager that the writers and producers began to run out of fresh ideas, but even then the show still managed to pull off some very good episodes, like "Imperfection," "Flesh and Blood," "Workforce," and "Lineage" to name just a few. And after Voyager ended, the producers were able to pull off the best first season of any Star Trek series since the original with Enterprise, which in the beginning offered a fresh, bold, and exciting new perspective on the Star Trek universe. It has really only been in the last year when Star Trek has started to decline, and its popularity has reached all-time lows.

 

Yes, it is time for Rick Berman to go, but not for any of the reasons which your website has stated. I feel that your facts have been manipulated, and your opinions are biased, even if your original attempt was to be fair and balanced. If you really want enough people to sign this petition for it to actually make a difference, then you're going to have to try to be less condescending towards those TNG, DS9, and VOY fans who, whether you like it or not, make up the majority of Star Trek's fan base today.

 

 

Master Q

StarTrek_Master_Q@yahoo.com

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First of all might I say thank you to master_q for finding this text. A most interesting read, although I do not agree with all the conclusions it reaches.

 

DS9 exposed the hypocrisies of Gene Roddenberry's future

 

I see nothing hypocritical with the aspiration and belief that humanity is a force for good, and that we will eventually create a society as close to a utopia as possible. To call this dream one of Roddenberry's 'hypocrisies' suggests that the original writer has no desire or ambition for man to improve himself and create the ideal world presented in Star Trek. I find that rather sad.

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First of all might I say thank you to master_q for finding this text. A most interesting read, although I do not agree with all the conclusions it reaches.

 

DS9 exposed the hypocrisies of Gene Roddenberry's future

 

I see nothing hypocritical with the aspiration and belief that humanity is a force for good, and that we will eventually create a society as close to a utopia as possible. To call this dream one of Roddenberry's 'hypocrisies' suggests that the original writer has no desire or ambition for man to improve himself and create the ideal world presented in Star Trek. I find that rather sad.

 

Well, I tend to agree to a point with you and with the writer of this. However, if you watch some of the episodes with the Maquis (mainly the first one on DS9) it shows a big picture and shows a non-perfect vision of Gene and some of its many negatives.

 

I don’t think the writer was making a negative comment on improving one self and if you read that I think that is made clear indirectly. It just shows the reality

 

 

Master Q

StarTrek_Master_Q@yahoo.com

Edited by master_q

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I love some of his comments. He gets his points across. (Even though there are a few I don’t agree with)

 

One thing is for sure is that Berman did so much good for ST. Even though many might see me as not liking him at all I would have to say that’s not completely true. He has done so much for ST and during TNG time better then *Roddenberry could do*, but now he is not doing well at all. I would have to agree with this person that ST should have not been stretched so thinly with production and writing of TNG, DS9, VOY, and a new movie. Maybe they handled the production, but the writing is the important thing and that was stretched and DID hurt ST in the long run.

 

Maybe if TOS was longer we could have developed on the characters, but I don’t think it was that bad of how TOS was worked on. We have our triangle of characters (Kirk, Spock, Bones) but I think that was a super idea Gene had. However, I do think the show should have expanded on the characters a bit more . .

 

 

I love this statement:

I wonder if Bill Clinton was a fan of the original Star Trek

 

LOL; that just ties into Kirk, but Kirk was not that bad! I think Anto went a bit overboard (and I think he admits that later one)

 

 

I have always thought that VOY is underrated it had so many good shows and 7 of 9 was a really, really good addition. However, VOY I think went pretty bad near the end.

 

---

 

I think Gene would be ok (for the most part) of this war, but DS9 to me (and to the writer of this) has not pulled it off. DS9 always seemed a bit dry to me. It is an interesting show and has lots of positives, but it feels dry. DS9 presented issues during the first season that where never resolved. All that was resolved in DS9 was the war and nothing more. What about the characters? Yes, we had a conclusion to them to, but it needed a lot of work.

 

. . . . .

 

Master Q

StarTrek_Master_Q@yahoo.com

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I look at it this way. It took an entire force from another quadrant to start the war and while it involved some spiecies from the alpha quadrant as well (Breen and Cardassian) it had 3 very different races fighting for a single cause (Federation, Klingon, and Romulan) and showed the Cardassians learning the error of their ways. In retrospect, while war itself may not have been in Roddenberry's vision I feel that the Alliance between the Federation, Klingons, and Romulan's- with them putting aside their differences and over coming adversities (e.g. Gowron and the Bajoran+Romulan stand off)- was the essense of Roddenberry's vision.

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First of all might I say thank you to master_q for finding this text. A most interesting read, although I do not agree with all the conclusions it reaches.

 

DS9 exposed the hypocrisies of Gene Roddenberry's future

 

I see nothing hypocritical with the aspiration and belief that humanity is a force for good, and that we will eventually create a society as close to a utopia as possible. To call this dream one of Roddenberry's 'hypocrisies' suggests that the original writer has no desire or ambition for man to improve himself and create the ideal world presented in Star Trek. I find that rather sad.

It was an interesting read. I agree with almost everything on there except the slanderous tone towards Enterprise and DS9, and that Berman should go.

 

I don't see anything wrong with Enterprise's second season, at least the second half of it and DS9 was amazing in my opinion. But other than that, I agree with most of his statements.

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I liked DS9's direction. Having Starfleet actually fight a war instead of just talk about it really shook things up. Even though I doubt Roddenberry would have like it I think that the Federation's running into a people they can't avoid conflict with is very realistic.

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I think that letter/article hits the nail on the head.

 

I think that if they had taken Voyager and Deep Space Nine, and put them on larger, more popular networks that they both would have done better than they did. I also agree with the author on the fact that they were just doing too much at the same time, I think that if they had written the episodes and done the casting, and made contracts for the actors and just waited for a couple years untill they weren't so busy, then it would have done better.

 

That article touches on so many different points that I don't think I can respond to them all, but I do think they did a very good job of anylizing what went right and what went wrong, and what needs re-thinking.

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I want to clarify a few things.

 

The author of this to my mind was not saying that Gene was wrong or anything to that nature of what he believes. The area of improving on self has *not* been criticized by the author.

 

The author does say that a large portion of the Gene’s world is naive and to a large point that is true. I know some fans might not accept that or just place him on a higher then true statute, but some of his vision just plainly would not happen.

 

A good example of that is a barter system. It is unrealistic and is naive to think that it would solve all the problems on the earth. In the future hopefully we can get rid of things like poverty and things to that nature, but I don’t think a barter system would really do this or really solve this . . . .or solve other problems.

 

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Some of DS9 showed that the Federation is naive and really proved that. The thing about DS9 is that it feels dry. I think it had some good ideas and maybe the first few seasons should be left like that are. Probably most people think that they are good or great, but to me they always felt dry.

 

 

One of the main writers of DS9 said; “I don’t like doing issues shows,” now what does that mean? It says that he likes to avoid shows that deal with issues. Some of the best TNG, TOS, and even a bit of VOY episodes were on issues if that be directly or indirectly. Yes, DS9 has issue shows, but never carried a lot of them through. Not to mention that DS9 because of what it was about and were the station was located missed out of tons of great episodes.

 

I think the best episode of DS9 was Past Tense. I admit that I have not seen all of DS9, but out of the ones that I have seen I think Past Tense is the best. I like episodes that are on issues; episodes that make you think; episodes that make yourself ask “what would I do if I were the caption?” . . . . . And I like good old pure science fiction that TNG brought us so much of. From what I have seen of DS9 it seemed to have a limited scoop on that. That’s ok. Like I said DS9 was different and had some interesting episodes during the first few seasons, but to me DS9 feels somewhat dry. Maybe to others it did not. However, I’m the first to admit that it has its good moments.

 

VOY had lots of dry moments also, but when you look at the good episodes at least (to my mind) they don’t feel dry. Of course that is just what I think.

 

However, I think most of us can agree to the fact that Berman probably should have not thinned out ST like he did. That just hurt future stories and hurt ST in general.

 

 

Master Q

StarTrek_Master_Q@yahoo.com

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I think the best episode of DS9 was Past Tense. I admit that I have not seen all of DS9, but out of the ones that I have seen I think Past Tense is the best. I like episodes that are on issues; episodes that make you think; episodes that make yourself ask “what would I do if I were the caption?”

 

I agree.. Past tense what a awesome episode.

 

A lot of issues and all.

 

As DS9 didn't make us think.. About occupation, rebellions... About repression of a word, about terrorism... I wont start the debate here... But well, they were issues to make us think.

 

If you didn't see a lot of DS9, don't continue to read.. lol

 

Click for Spoiler:

Like the Jem'Hadar and their addiction to the white... Was it okay to Bashir to try to free them when they didn't want it?

 

Like Odo sickness... Was it okay for StarFleet do to genocide to win the war?

 

Like the episode, I don'T remember which one, when O'Brien is captive for 25 years and do kill his sell mate...

 

 

Those are the first I have in mind... They were issue and episode to makes us think and evaluate... What would I have do? Is it right or wrong, in my point of view.

 

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To go back on the subject...

 

I personnaly think that Berman taking over was a good thing at the beginning. I agree that the evolution we saw in TNG was wishable.

 

And I have to agree that they were too much stuff going on at the same time... They should have let TNG finish before going on VOY post prod. At a time, the writers are limited.

 

And yes, better schedule and network would have help.. At a point, the only time I could watch DS9 was at midnight on Sunday... Thank god for the reruns that Fox had!!!

 

I can't talk about Enterprise... ;) I can't watch it

 

But, that article is a good start to makes us think about all this situation, that's for sure.

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Well I would admit that DS9 did present issues like the ones that you mentioned. I probably should have been a bit clearer on that, but I do think that DS9 could have expanded on those issues a lot. They should have expanded on those issues . . .

 

You always hear that DS9 is a show that is more complex because the problems that you confront [almost] every week affect the future and future story lines. If this is true issues that directly related to the show should have then been expanded on. If they were expanded on a bit more and played a bigger role in general, then DS9 might have been better off.

 

 

Master Q

StarTrek_Master_Q@yahoo.com

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At the risk of being roasted alive for being a heretic,I never felt Gene's vision of the future was very realistic in many respects.His views on war,being one of them.Its inevitable in our explorations of the galaxy,that we will encounter hostile species as well as peaceful civilizations.Humanity must always be prepared for the possibility of war while constantly striving to maintain the peace.Its all a part of the Starfleet's dual nature.I was disappointed that we never really ran into a group of warlike humans who totally opposed the UFP's goals and presented a threat to the stability of the Federation.Might have been interesting.

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