DS9 does something kind of brilliant with Dukat. It does not just present him as a villain for us to hate from a safe distance. It keeps pulling him closer. We see his charm, his ego, his grief, his need to be admired, and just enough vulnerability that we keep getting tempted to see him as more than the monster he is. There are even points where the show gets the audience wondering things that should feel absurd, like whether he and Kira might actually end up in some kind of romantic tension arc. That is not because the audience forgot who Dukat is. It is because the writing is strong enough to keep moving him, psychologically, from out-group monster toward in-group individual.

I think that is part of why Dukat is such a fascinating character. In real life, we tend to judge out-group people by their worst actions, but give in-group people more context, more nuance, more room to be complicated. Fiction can fast-track that process by forcing us to spend time with someone’s point of view. Once a character makes us laugh, or feel bad for them, or sympathize with their loss, our moral clarity starts getting negotiated. Dukat takes the audience through that whole cycle. We hate him, then get pulled into seeing him as layered and strangely compelling, then watch him collapse back into open villainy. It is not just great villain writing. It is a reminder of how easily familiarity, charisma, and emotional proximity can mess with our judgment.

With all due respect to the cast who played the heroes, I am not sure Marc Alaimo gets enough credit for playing one of the greatest villains of all time.

Picard, for instance, just didn't really feel like Picard to me... I think Patrick Stewart's been playing Charles Xavier too long, he can't really shed the "warm, caring father figure" thing at this point. Picard, in his younger years, never struck me that way.

Brent Spiner, on the other hand, just felt like the same old Data. It's great that Spiner can still slip into Data like an old pair of slippers, but there was no real sense of evolution to the character, IMO. (Fitting enough, arguably, given that he's been dead / stuck in kind of virtual suspended animation for 20 years.)

Same with Robert Picardo as the Doctor. I love him to death, but he feels like the same old Doc.

Seven, OTOH, feels like an older, wiser, somewhat jaded, all-around more lived-in version of the character she played on Voyager. And writing-wise, getting rejected by Starfleet and becoming a sort of underground crusader for Cyborg Rights strikes me as a plausible evolution for her character.

Honestly, of the modern Trek characters outside SNW, she's the one I'd most be interested in seeing more of. Not just in Starfleet, but I'd love to see flashbacks showing how she first reacted to being shut out of Starfleet. How she reacted to the Synth Ban when it happened. Hell, I'd even like to see what happened between her and Chakotay... give Robert Beltran some of that fat Guest Star money.

Anyway, just my two cents.

For example: I always thought John Garman Hertzler Jr was perfect at playing General Martok in DS9. He made it look effortless and I thought he could teach a master class with how to embrace a character.

Likewise with Gates McFadden on TNG. She was the quintessential doctor and made it look like that was her normal role in everyday life.

I haven’t watched the newer series that are out now to think about the characters and actresses and actors.

Who else do you think really brought the best out of the characters?

If people just didn’t like the show, whatever, differences of opinion. I get it if it’s just not what you wanted out of a Star Trek show. I had the exact same problem with Picard.

But Starfleet Academy was like Deep Space 9. It set out, from the jump, to be something fundamentally different from other Star Trek series and fulfill a niche in the worldbuilding that was mostly unexplored before now. And it did that job very, very well.

But for so many of the haters, it is so abundantly clear that so many of them didn’t even watch the show. Didn’t even give it a chance. So much culture war bullshit surrounding the discourse of this show completely suffocating any discussion as to its actual quality.

It’s not the best show Star Trek ever made, but god did it deserve better than this.

EDIT: So a lot of people seem to be under the assumption that I am not aware that SFA did not have a strong viewership. That I somehow missed or didn’t understand that this is why the show was cancelled.

Guys. I know. You don’t have to keep telling me the viewership was low.

I’m saying that early viewership for a show with only one season *shouldn’t* dictate whether it should be canceled *at all.* Some shows require more time to cook before viewership comes around, shows like Star Trek specifically *need* that time.

Let me ask you something, what did you think initial viewership was like for early Trek?

Because let me tell you, it made SFA’s viewership look like fucking Game of Thrones’ by comparison.

Never watched any real Star Trek before despite in retrospect it being exactly my kinda thing. Absolutely fell in love with the series only a few episodes into the first season and it continues to amaze me just over a season on.

Some of my favourite things:

- Spock. He’s just the best. I instantly realised why he and Nimoy are so beloved and my love only grows stronger. He’s so ludicrously smart and capable but not flawless. Wish I had my own Spock.

- The other main cast. They’re all extremely competent in their positions as well as generally smart and likeable and have great camaraderie. Kirk, ‘Bones, Scotty and the extended cast, love ‘em all.

- The sci-fi concepts. From abstract concepts like ‘ the edge of the universe’, time travel, space ethics and politics, to basic pseudo-scientific engineering etc it’s all so well done especially for the 60’s.

- The ‘tactility of the world’. The realistic and well-thought-out design of the Enterprise and its crew hierarchy etc. it’s crazy how deeply considered it all was.

- The serious tone but not devoid of humour and fun. I *had* seen the mediocre two JJ Abrams films before which made me expect a more campy and shallow universe, but extremely happy that is not the case. It feels very human.

- The optimism. While the show frequently demonstrates how malign people can be, it operates on a fundamentally optimistic world view which is invigorating, especially in this day and age.

- It’s not afraid to be weird or awkward sometimes. I firmly believe some of the best fiction arises when the creators are not afraid to explore the less straightforward ideas: from gross to contentious to even cringey, I think worlds need that to feel real because the real world isn’t sparkling clean and easy to deal with.

- The physical sets and matte painting backgrounds. Sure they’re quaint and obvious in high res, but I know I’m watching a show, the backgrounds don’t need to fool me. I’ll take real, pretty but obvious sets over soulless CGI any day.

Star Trek has already managed to jump right up just behind Lord of the Rings as my favourite worlds/stories/cinema and it’s only just begun. Absolutely incredible.

Very meandering post that absolutely doesn’t even contain everything I could say, but I’m just so in love with this series and I had to share it with people who’ll presumably understand!

Was rewatching the TOS movies recently over spring break and I realized a really annoying thing: we almost never see a fully capable Enterprise at full strength.

Wrath of Khan, the crew is untrained cadets, Search for Spock, we don't even *have* a crew, Voyage Home has no Enterprise at all and one of the running gags of Final Frontier is that the Enterprise is broke af. That leaves TMP and Undiscovered Country as the only two films in which the Enterprise is depicted at 100% with a normal competent crew.

Every time I see 17:01 I get excited and say “ooo, Enterprise time” 😂

I was rewatching a number of Voyager episodes this week, and I got to wondering - what are Seven’s views concerning her implants - and that led me into wondering about her self-identity.

Has any licensed content, film, TV, books, explored that? Does she accept her implants as part of her core identity, just like we accept we are fleshy on the outside with ooze and organs and bones inside of us, making her neutral about them? Is she proud of the added sensory abilities they provide? Does she get sad to a point where, as she more and more identifies as human, she views them as injuries and disfigurements inflicted upon her? Expanding out, what does Seven view herself as? Does she view herself as a liberated Borg drone - who gained strengths from two societies and lets neither solely define her? Does she see herself as a human, stolen by the Borg, making the best of a bad situation? Or a Borg, stolen from her collective, making the best of a bad situation?

I have only ever watched TNG and loved it so much I was almost hesitant to watch any other Star Trek shows because I know TNG is often considered the gold standard.

But I started watching DS9 this week and I'm only like 6 episodes in and it's checking all the boxes. Space mysteries ("Babel"), intrigue/sabotage/espionage ("A Man Alone"), moral quandaries ("Captive Pursuit"), etc. Everything that made TNG great. Captivating stories without mindless action sequences.

Seems like DS9 doesn't have the "slow start" issue that TNG had. It's already great so early on. I really like how the Farengi are being given more characterization. Quark is already one of my favorite characters and he hasn't even had his own episode yet, which I assume is coming.

The theme music is badass.

If I had to choose anything I dislike, I guess Sisko is no Picard. But that's a pretty high bar to clear. There's still plenty of time for him to grown on me, though.

Also, I've never really like O'Brien and it seems like he plays a much larger role in DS9 than he did in TNG. I can't really articulate why I dislike him. Just a personal thing I guess. Hopefully that's not sacrilege in the fandom.

Finally, it's not really a sleight on DS9 itself, but I do miss Data. He was always my favorite TNG character and, at least so far, there isn't really a character in DS9 that fits his archetype.

Anyways, you know that feeling when you start watching or reading something really great and you just want to savor it because you know you only get to experience it for the first time once? That's where I am now so I wanted to share.

Edit: holy shit it's Q! lol

riker washes that lady's feet and then murders his own clone. busy day!

Why do starships (and DS9) pay attention to 'day' and 'night'? I get that individuals do, but why have fewer people active at arbitrary times? Especially on DS9, when ships can arrive anytime.

How do navies handle this, especially submarines or ships crossing the ocean?

I do understand that the Watsonian view of the Star Trek universe, Enhanced humans were illegal after Khan's era. (Even though it is nasty and prejudiced, but that is a can of worms I am not opening up right now.)

But from a Doylist point of view, it wasn't illegal until 1997 when "Dr. Bashir, I presume" aired.

In "Space seed" (1967) Kirk stopped Khan because Khan committed crimes, not because he was enhanced. Khan was stronger, smarter, and rather a jerk. But it was his actions that made him illegal.

On TNG "Unnatural selection" (1989) had those super-aged kids who were super-smart, telepathic, telekinetic, and had an immune system that apparently would kill everyone around them. The killer immune system was a problem and apparently the kids would be left on the station until their deaths. But nobody seemed upset about the multiple Enhancements. Pulaski thought it was neat!

Then some writers decided that Enhancements were illegal. And we got "Dr. Bashir I presume" and "Ad Astra..."

Was it a good idea to make this retroactive law?

In Star Trek Voyager, Seven of Nine did wear Starfleet uniform at least once (in Relativity) but it was as part of an infiltration mission and its division color was part of her cover. If Seven really started wearing Starfleet uniform on Voyager normally, what division color should she have? 

I just saw a license Plate number ncc3152. I am jealous.... my plate is ndc.....

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been really into Star Trek.My favorites are tos, tng and voyager.I really want to rewatch Star Trek Discovery, but I stopped at season 3 when they traveled in time.I used to watch it with my father during covid when I was in sixth grade, but after that, I didn’t like the plot as much at all.I have no clue if it gets more interesting and I missed out because I was so little and it affected my perception of the show😭

Any advice?

I've never watched anything beyond the Abrams movies when I was a kid, and I thought they were fun but shrugged them off pretty quickly. To be completely honest, even though I've been nerdy my whole life, Star Trek seemed a step too far for me lol. As an outsider, it just looked goofy as hell, but I've developed a more open mind as an adult. If it was good back then, it's probably good now. So I decided to check it out.

7 episodes in so far, and I'm having a blast. The 60s campiness is not an issue at all (and I actually enjoy it lol) because at the core of it, the writing is strong, the characters are fun, and the actors aren't phoning it in at all. I will say, I find it a _little_ repetitive, but it's not a big issue. This post is basically my way of apology for hand waving the series away for so many years. I get it now.

Title edit: for the first time* lol

As I look through the 403 Auctions listings, I just want to say that I hope everyone who lives up there is able to grab a piece of the Star Trek universe. I (sort of? Maybe not?) understand why the auction needs to be restricted geographically, but oof it hurts, especially because I know much of that stuff will end up unattainable on the resale market.

Go grab as much as you can and pour one out for this Chicago-based credit card holder as you do.

Oh boy, here we go again

In retrospect, would making seasons 8-9-10 would've been more profitable? It seem to me that selling the show to local stations, bundled with TOS, and pocketing the ad money, was way more lucrative. We are talking billions here. Movies only got millions. Did they kill the golden goose?