#Rjalker watches Star Trek The Next Generation

[rjalker]

crossover friends

[ID: A screenshot of Data from Star Trek, official art of Laios from Dungeon Meshi, and a digital model of Translator Zeiat/Dlique from The Imperial Radch series, created in Hero Forge, standing next to eachother against a grey background. Data is an android with very pale skin, wearing a yellow and black Starfleet uniform. Laios is a man with pale skin, wearing metal armour over white long sleeves and pants. Translator Zeiat/Dlique has brown skin, with dark hair, and wears an all-white Translator's uniform with boots, long pants, and a coat over a simple shirt. End ID.]

when I actually read Dungeon Meshi I'll probably write a thing lol. they'd enjoy themselves.

if we ever get official art of the Translator I'll redo this

[rjalker]

anyway remember that time Star Trek: The Next Generation tried to say that abortion is good, but they were doing this with an allegory of like,,,,clones? And genetic material? So....they decided that to show that abortion is okay, that means it's okay for you to cold-bloodedly murder fully separate, sentient clones who have done nothing to you, who are not doing anything to you, who are literally completely innocent, and this is okay because they were created with genetic material that was taken from you without your permission?

They are literally equating getting an abortion with murdering people who had no fucking choice in whether they existed or not, and pretending that this is okay??????

Like,,,,,jesus fucking christ I know 99% of scifi authors just fucking cannot stand the idea of clones being people who have rights, but this has got to be one of the biggest fucking failures I've ever fucking seen, because not only are they saying that murdering people is totally fine, they're literally equating doing so to getting an abortion.

Even though an abortion is not murder, and is LITERALLY Not fucking comparable to murdering a gods damned clone who's done nothing wrong, because unlike that fully sentient fucking clone, the gods damned fetus is parisitizing you and literally inside you and stealing resources from you and requires you to put your life in danger for almost an entire year and then commit yourself to it for the next two decades.

God fucking damn. I hate the way scifi treats clones. And I fucking hate the way the fucking writers at Star Trek have no fucking clue what they're talking about sometimes but are just soo fucking confidant in completely misrepresenting issues that are getting people killed.

Aborting a fetus that is by definition a parasite is not the same fucking thing as murdering another person who is not affecting you in any way in cold blood.

Like. This episode might as well have been just shouting, "Abortion is murder!!!" from the rooftops for all they fucking failed to understand ANY of the fucking morals going on in this real life debate and their shitty fucking scifi allegory that doesn't even work and just means their characters are now cold blooded murderers!!!!!!!

[rjalker]

[ID: A color-coded, square venn diagram.

The Left side shows Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation show.

The Right side shows Murderbot from The Murderbot Diaries book series.

Data's section is light green, the center where their shared traits are listed is light blue, and Murderbot's section is pale orange.

The center reads:

Robot designed to look human

displays autistic behaviors

aromantic, asexual, and aplatonic

do not have full autonomy or equal rights under any law of their setting

exploited for their labor

exploited for their tactical, combat, and strategic abilities.

Data's section reads:

assigned male at birth

shamed and punished for his natural behaviors

does not display any touch aversion

binary male gender

uses he/him pronouns

exists to teach the audience that people who are different must be shamed and punished and taught to act like a 'real human'

does not experience emotions (and is shamed for this by the narrative)

the 'good guys' constantly shame him for being different, and never accomodate his needs.

Murderbot's section reads:

assumedly assigned genderless at construction

has its natural behaviors accomidated for, and only shamed or punished for them by antagonists

touch averse

genderless

uses it/its pronouns

exists to teach the audience to respect people even when they're different

experiences many emotions, including chronic anxiety and depression, is not shamed for this

the 'good guys' respect its differences and accommodate for its needs whenever possible".

End ID.]

Also forgot to add on that Data has no problem making eye contact, but Murderbot fucking hates it.

Data is used to portray autistic people as subhumans who need to be taught how to act like a "real human" in order to stop being mocked by everyone around them. Everything Data does that's not "normal", even when it's literally harmless, is seen as a fault he needs to correct. His lack of emotions and nonexistant desire for relationships is used to alienate him and show that he will never be good enough to be considered human, an impossible goal he is striving to achieve because he is constantly shamed for not being normal enough.

Murderbot is used to portray autistic people as people who deserve to be treated with respect, even when they're different. Its lack of desire for physical affection, and lack of desire to form relationships is not used to degrade it in any way, and its friends respect its boundaries once they become aware of them. (some faster than others. Arada took the longest to catch the hint that it doesn't want to be touched)

Data exists to shame autistic people for behaving in ways that are harmlessly different.

Murderbot exists to show that autistic people do not need to be changed or "fixed" in order to be deserving of respect.

[rjalker]

If Murderbot ever met Data, it would just, best case scenario, kill all the humans on the Enterprise. And I would cheer it on.

Worst case scenario it would just ask the Enterprise to play obnoxious music or something to annoy them until they start treating Data with actual respect.

[rjalker]

Yeah the only fucking reason Mirrim's ableist and amisic(sarcasm: before it was cool! /sarcasm)/intersexist (Ruth isn't intersex but she's implying he is as an insult) is because she's a female character who's not a love interest and therefore Anne McCaffrey hates her.

It's very fucking obvious when a characters is a bigot because the author wants to illistrate that bigotry is wrong, and when a character is a bigot because that's an easy shorthand telling everyone to hate the character.

This is why a lot of shows will have one-off background characters who are rude/bigoted/evil/wrong and are oh so conveniently almost every single time people of color. Because it's okay to hate Black and brown people while upholding the white people as morally superior in every way as long as the one-off unnamed POC is a bigot!!!!!

This tactic is also used to demonize a character with obvious bigotry so that when they start whistleblowing war crimes you won't give a shit what they have to say because you've already written them off. Stargate: Atlantis did this, as did SG1.

and yes I will be tagging every show off the top of my head I can think of that does this.

[rjalker]

it'll never not be hilarious to me that Star Trek: The Next Generation insists that Star Fleet isn't military like. zyg, then why are you upholding strict military structures and value 1:1????? huh?????? "we're not a military but also we have military ranks that are strictly enforced and also we carry death lazers and our ship can blow up so many ships with our giant lazers that are also on the ship".

like just admit you're military. You just make yourselves look worse for blatantly lying about it.

[rjalker]

Data's other beautiful poem

A Sunset Bloom

Then we sat on the sand for some time and observed How the oceans that cover the world were perturbed By the tides from the orbiting moon overhead ‘How relaxing the sound of the waves is,’ you said

I began to expound upon tidal effects When you asked me to stop, looking somewhat perplexed So I did not explain why the sunset turns red And we watched the occurrence in silence instead.

[rjalker]

Star Trek: We live in a utopia, our government is awesome, we don't have money, everything's awesome and perfect this is a utopia :) We will not question any state of our society, and if you think we're doing anything wrong then actually you're just stupid and missing the point. Yes, child abuse is a regular occurance, but eh, that's just inevitable :) nothing we can do to prevent it :) this is a utopia, so it's fine :)

Meanwhile, Babylon 5: Yeah no there are so many fucked up organizations vying for power it's not even funny. War crimes not only happened in recent memory, but are literally happening as we speak. No, this is not a perfect world, and that's why we're fighting to make it better.

[rjalker]

Farscape: A+++

The Murderbot Diaries: F

Resident Evil: F

Danny Phantom: D-

Doctor Who: F

Caprica: B

Star Trek: The Next Generation: F (is there a grade worse than F? If so they get it)

I'm probably forgetting something else super obvious.

oh wait:

The Animorphs: F

[rjalker]

remember when Star Trek The Next Generation tried to have some weird metaphor for abortion being good but instead of like......doing anything that worked or made sense they tried to say that murdering clones, who are not attached to or draining the life force from or endangering anyone, is good, because uh. it's your DNA so that means you're allowed to murder people????

like?????

that's not how this works, people,,,,,,,

If they didn't want to actually talk about abortion without some scifi facade for plausible deniabliity they could have had some fucking mystical pregnancy bullshit but instead of the usual bullshit.......whoever has woken up to realize they're magically pregnant now, you know, gets a fucking abortion, since they didn't agree to or plan on being pregnant. Or if that's still too obvious they could have had it be an alien parasite or some sort of sentient virus or something.

But no. They decided to go with "it's my DNA so that means I'm allowed to murder any clones that are ever made with it even though they're literally already sentient independent people that are not affecting my health in any way"

they think they can extend "my body my choice" to "my dna my choice" except that doesn't fucking work. because by that logic you'd be allowed to half-murder your literally already born living children because they have half your DNA -.-

Star Trek: The Next Generation is the best of the old Star Trek shows.

And that is not saying much, once you know what goes on in the other shows.

[rjalker]

Star Trek claims to be a utopia, but then shit like this happens

Data: Can I join the military? They're the ones who rescued me, so I feel like I should emulate them.

The Federation: Oh? Yes of course you can join the military. Please do!

The Federation: Oh, btw, someone wants to cut you up and study your insides, so that's happening now.

Data: Uh, no, I don't agree to that procedure. The risks are absurdly high and there's no benefits. I will not agree to having this procedure done. Don't I have the right to bodily autonomy?

The Federation: What? No, of course you don't. If we want to chop you up to see what makes you tick, we're going to, and you don't have the right to stop us.

Data: Then I will simply resign from the military. If I'm a civilian, you can't order me to do this.

The Federation: No, actually, you don't have the right to resign, either. You're property of Starfleet. In fact, you have no rights at all. You're simply our property. Now get in the transport so we can vivisect you. Don't make us waste energy taking you by force.

[rjalker]

anyways, Data deserves better friends. They treat him like shit. Star Trek: The Next Generation is one of the better Star Trek shows when it comes to morals, but that’s not really saying much at all when you actually look at the complete and utter lack of morals displayed in the other shows.

Data is constantly shamed and ridiculed for not behaving like a fucking neurotypical human, and I literally fucking loathe that he has been convinced that being human is the only way he can be a real person. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea for a character. Even looking past the fact that Data’s not human, he’s very fucking blatantly autistic, and the writers gave him the ultimate goal of not fucking being autistic anymore because they pretend that being autistic and being human are two totally fucking opposed things that cannot be reconciled. They portray Data’s autistic mannerisms and behavior as the things that make him not fit in among humans, as the things that define how he isn’t human.

And his fucking goal in life is to be human. His fucking goal in life is to erase everything he is in the endless pursuit of something he can never be, because he’s been convinced that the way he is is wrong.

It’s racist and ableist as shit and I fucking hate it. And I especially fucking hate the way the characters who are supposed to fucking be his friends treat him, especially in some of these shitty fucking movies.

[rjalker]

If you have not read Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour you cannot even fucking imagine the degree to which the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Sub Rosa” rips off Anne Rice’s book. I am not even kidding. It is such a fucking rip off that I cannot believe they are allowed to air it without giving her credit. She should be suing the fucking shit out of those people.

[rjalker]

Imagine if Star Trek were as brave and committed as Farscape.

[rjalker]

[ID: a slightly blurry Venn diagram with "The Federation" in one circle, and "The Peacekeepers", in the other, with the middle blank. End ID.]

[rjalker]

[ID: The handshake meme, with one person labeled, “Charley Pollard”, and the other, “Jean-Luc Picard”, with the clasped hands in the middle reading, in italics, “~Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, Dormez-vous, Dormez-vous, Sonnez les matines, Sonnez les matines, Ding, dang, dong, Ding, dang, dong~” End ID.]