I’ve been watching the various Star Trek shows for a while now, and while not finished I saw most of them, I believe. And I cannot shake off the feeling that the messages given by these shows, especially (and almost exclusively) recent ones are pushing horrible morals that most people seem to not care about.
Slavery
I posted before, in the middle of my watching of Enterprise, that the show was supporting slavery because of the Cogenitor episode. Many comments disagreed, some even saying that they don’t remember anything supporting slavery at all in the show. That was before I watched more. The show contains a full episode that is just about showing that:
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Sex slaves are not only acceptable, they’re “sexy” and cool and negotiating with slavers is a good thing
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Sex trafficking of individuals groomed since they are born into being sex slaves is the fault of the victims for “seducing” men ???
How is this show not fine with human trafficking at this point? Is all that you need to avoid controversy, to paint the slaves in green? I still cannot comprehend the lack of reaction on this show. Add to that the frequent crimes of war by Archer and you have a nice cocktail of humanity’s finest horror.
Section 31
This is also something that seems absurd to me. When it first appeared, it was already a gestapo/kgb-like group that ignores the concept of democracy, laws, and justice - in other words a horrible group - but its existence as a starfleet element was blurry. But with modern shows, they keep on bringing it back, and directly saying that it is supported by starfleet, and a good thing, or at least a necessary one.
The thing is that what made starfleet supposedly admirable was, if not every single individual’s morals, the morality of their concept, their laws, their structure. Having section 31 be condoned by starfleet transforms starfleet from “utopian future of humanity” (which it was supposed to be) to “dictatorship that pretends to be a democracy but supports crimes of war and above-the-law groups”. In other words, it destroys the concept of starfleet.
Discriminations, sexism, and other shitty ideas, morals and behaviours
Now this one is maybe more blurry and subjective, but it is scattered all across, nonstop.
Let’s start chronologically
DS9
For this show, the constant misogyny is nothing hard to see. But they still went out of their way to put some nasty things here and there.
The episode with Quark “becoming” a woman was interesting. Quark discovers a different point of view, gains insight and empathy, that’s nice! Until the end of the episode directly says “no nevermind, he was like that because of hormones, and was just an overly emotional woman because of that”. Because after all, women are hysterical, right? .
Other than that, we have the toxic relationship between Keiko and O’Brian, the toxic relationship between Dax and Worf, the toxic relationship between Odo and Kira, the toxic relationship between Sisco and his wife, Jake who constantly shows that when a teen boy is targeted by pedophiles, the teen is both responsible for it, and liking it (one second, I need to throw up in a corner), etc.
And of course there is the rest, between Cisco crimes against humanity, Bashir (that’s all I’ll say, nothing else needed), and the weird pro-religious message that doesn’t make sense.
Enterprise
We already talked about their view of child/human trafficking which I think gives the tone of the show.
But of course that’s not enough, so let’s put some sexual scenes about the women in particular, rape scenes with TPol because who doesn’t like rape culture, Malcolm “PoS” Reed talking like a creep about “bums”, Reed and Tucker with their “haha lol, these alien women are ugly because you can’t tell if they are women or not” and other toxic masculinity scenes, etc. Oh and I almost forgot about the sex scene between teen siblings that serve no other purpose than to show teens having incestuous sex.
Picard
What do we have here, more weird sibling sexual scenes, people getting manipulated mentally and sexually to extract information, murderers who get away with it because betraying the federation and killing innocents is fine if you’re a scenario character (reminds me of something else…AhemelnorAhem)…
Oh, and I almost forgot the amazing scene with a white Picard in his white British empire colonist outfit, going on the planet of the tan refugees who hate the federation, kicks everything around and tries to show that he’s the boss. I guess this show regrets colonies too, huh.
Discovery
Now I didn’t finish this one yet, and it’s hard.
We have klingons that start off as a weird racist stereotype of africans seen by colonialists from a century ago: black skin, tribal armors, weird “foreign” language that the show intentionally refuses to translate through the UT, and when they speak english it’s with a strong guttural accent. And they’re barbaric, scary cannibals who fight with sticks and knives, and are a bunch of disorganised tribes, with weird magic rituals that allow them to do weird brainwashing. I’m almost surprised they don’t carry voodoo dolls while dancing around a bonfire. The fact that people describe this show as “woke” is funny to me.
We have very explicit rape and gore torture scenes, for what purpose, I don’t know.
We have people forgiven of murder because it wasn’t their mind, but then it is and everyone is fine with it.
And then there’s more section 31 shit.
There’s also the vision of asylum in this show that basically says “we grant asylum whenever we want, not based on the situation but on personal preferences”, with Georgiou granting asylum despite the prime directive, and then Pike refusing asylum because of it. It’s surprising that starfleet would allow that, but at least it’s not Archer-level, sending people to death then blaming the ones who tried to help them.
SNW
As far as I remember, nothing as bad as the rest here. The take on eugenics and “augmented” individuals is really absurd though, showing starfleet hating on Una is fine because her species is augmented (like the denobulans who are in starfleet though, no?), but the stupid security officer who has DNA augmentations from a crazy evil dictator engineered to be violent and crazy, is allowed without any issue.
All of them
One thing that I struggle understanding is the constant of racist stereotypes. They’re everywhere, because all the shows use them to define their characters.
Keiko wants to eat her traditional food in a kimono, Georgiou wears a big kimono-like dress that would barely fit in a Mulan movie, Elnor is a ridiculous samurai-ninja with the fitting outfit, etc. As if in hundreds of years, after earth is united and mixed with hundreds of alien species, “cultures” would not evolve and mix but instead go back to being very split apart and caricatural.
P.S.
I’m not saying that the shows are shit, but that I am worried about the lack of discussions concerning all those subjects. Star Trek is supposed to be progressive and show a better version of humanity, one that evolved and grew, and yet morals seem to not be a consideration of the shows anymore.
I don’t think the message of Section 31 has EVER been that it was “good / necessary.” It’s always been cautionary. Like: Even in a Utopia, this thing can exist, people will support it, people will argue it’s necessary. I’ve always thought the message was “Why do we tolerate this shit and you assholes who insist it’s necessary?? Why do we let you get away with it? Why do we pull the wool over our own eyes and look the other way?” It continues to be a good story to make Americans talk about.
In DS9, Section 31’s machinations badly backfired and stealing the cure from them and giving it freely to the Changlings is what ended the war.
In Picard, Section 31’s bullshit literally created a terrorist who brought the Borg back and set them loose on Starfleet, again.
In Disco… IDK. I don’t like Disco and I only half watched that season. They made um… an AI that tried to take over?? I guess, it was bad and Star Fleet was complicit.
One of the most important parts of the story, I think is how even in the Utopia of the Federation, we never see anyone being held accountable for Section 31’s actions. My takeaway from this is “a call to action that perpetually goes unheeded and is never heard in numbers great enough to make a real difference” which is a VERY true and tragic lens for the modern world.
I don’t think I’ve ever thought of S31 as being pushed as a GOOD thing. More like shown to us in the spirit of “Stop, children, what’s that sound, everybody look what’s goin’ down.”
They were always shown as the sort of cool, James Bond/Batman-like agents that everyone admires for getting their hands dirty for the sake of everyone else.
For DS9, they were for example showing that their solution would have worked, but that it would be immoral; but giving the cure to the changelings was a bet, that was much more risky than killing them all.
For Discovery, what I really didn’t like is that everyone seemed to know about it, an admiral explains that all starfleet decisions are first sent to Section 31 (as far as I understood), which makes it central to starfleet. And they also mention one guy murdering/torturing/?? an innocent ambassador by mistake and not being punished for it.
The lack of accountability for me shows that starfleet does not mind a group above the law, which immediately removes the idea of starfleet/the federation working on democratic principles.
Yes, it echoes with a lot of modern things. But what is the point of making science fiction if all you show is a world that didn’t evolve in over 300 years?
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anyone but you with this take. I’ve certainly never heard anyone say “Oooh, Section 31 is cool, I admire them,” but I’ve had LOTS of conversations about how uncool they are. The main characters don’t like them, they’re ALWAYS an antagonist / obstacle. I understand that’s what you see, but I don’t think the experience you’re having is very universal.
Star Fleet DOESN’T work on democratic principles, it’s absolutely a military organization, with a military hierarchy and agenda, that has a STRONG scientific, exploration and humanitarian mandate.
The FEDERATION works on democratic principals, but Section 31 has ALWAYS been portrayed as an illegal, unsanctioned organization working within Star Fleet, that simply lots of factions and elements with Star Fleet support or align with (Fascists gonna fasc, even in the Utopian future, and people with that mind set are going to be drawn to the closest thing to a military organization around).
It WOULD be nice to see a story where the assholes behind Section 31 are revealed as assholes and held accountable though. I would get behind that.
Um… there’s a LOT wrong with this, as there are all kinds of points to making Science Fiction, and showing all sorts of things. And one of them is VERY MUCH showing the kinds of things that are wrong with our world, starting conversations and raising awareness. There are lots of points to making Science Fiction. You don’t have to like all of them. You don’t have to like Chuck Tingle or Space Raptor Butt Invasion, but it has a point (and it’s actually a really positive one, if you look past all the pounding and dinosaur love).
The show, shows them like that, with Bashir literally getting recruited after playing James Bond in the holodeck many times and that’s actually one of the arguments that Sloan uses to justify why he should join. Malcolm Reed, who “surprisingly” is also a british character feeling like he’s the coolest guy ever, who is too cool to even answer when someone asks if he likes the food, turns out to be from section 31 too. And in discovery, a certain emperor joining section 31 after showing a lot of “cool moves” and high-tech gadgets that are probably possible to find in some James Bond movie.
As for starfleet, if it is a military organisation under a democratic regime, then it has to follow the same laws and regulations. I am not aware of any military group that can blatantly ignore the law and face no repercussions, in any (pseudo) democratic government. And Discovery doesn’t portray it as illegal at all, explaining that it is at the center of almost all of starfleet’s decision (if I remember properly, an admiral explains that all decisions are first processed by a computer owned by S31, to get an automated suggestion of the decision to take). Such a central element cannot be simply hidden, it has to be allowed by the federation.
As for science fiction, I do not agree. Science fiction is about taking another time/place/context to put the focus on current problems, whether by exaggerating/worsening them, removing them, or isolating them. If you show earth in 300 years and nothing changed, it’s not science fiction, it’s just a fiction that does nothing except change a date. By not showing any difference in how illegal groups like that are handled, the show doesn’t say that it is bad, but instead implies that it is something that never changes. And it is said directly, that S31 existed for a very long time and that it is still here, which implies that it will never leave. Which in turn, encourages apathy on the subject, telling the viewers that it is useless to fight against such groups, they’re just a “constant of the universe”. It is probably not the intended message, but it is the result.
I don’t know if Star Trek ever had a really strong coherent overarching morality, but it certainly doesn’t now. The Disco and newer shows are such a mishmash of different people and a different time that they seem often the opposite of what people thought TOS and TNG might have been. DS9-Enterprise were kind of the “in-between” IMO. So there’s at LEAST 3 different sets of sort of framework for what the canon/story/morals even are that it’s kind of hard to discuss as a whole coherently.
Then there’s always the people who take stuff as “cool” that the show didn’t want to portray as “good”. There are plenty of media examples of “cool” bad guys. Look at all the Ducat lovers in DS9, he was pretty explicitly intended and they thought portrayed as a villain, but a complex one. The whole last season turning him into a moustache twirling caricature was to try and “fix” this “misunderstanding” by a troubling portion of the fans.
The whole Prime Directive waffling is well known to fans, and generally there to specifically create conversation about the colonial vs anti-colonial ideals starting in TNG and morphed over time to now. I don’t think the show in a meta sense promotes the prime directive as a good thing - the amount of character struggles and flat out breaking it makes me pretty sure it’s a “no obvious right rule” exemplar.
Disco and on is generally so poorly written that it’s hard to say if they have a message to push inside the show. Most of what we know is from Twitter posts and interviews cause it’s so hard to tell what’s supposed to be the point of the actual show in many cases. With Georgiou I think they’re trying to tell an anti-hero redemption story of some sort. Some idea that anyone can change and deserves a new chance (I think it’s beyond second here). Take out the extremes for the drama and being a show and this is about as obvious as the prime directive as an ideal. It’s not the worst, but I can’t say it’s always valid either IMO.
I think you get from Star Trek what you decide to take from it - it’s entertainment first, not moral education.