#everyone 'was' 'originally' 'indigenous'

[steelbluehome]

July 4th is the birthday of Steve "Captain America" Rogers.

The celebrations will be nationwide in the United States of America.

Festivities may include: barbecue or grilling, loud music, your great-auntie's infamous potato salad, games (cornhole, baseball, basket ball, euchre, poker, tug-of-war, which couple will start fighting first, etc.), a body of water (lake, swimming pool, kiddie pool, the pond left in the yard after hours of kids running through the sprinkler), coolers of beverages, almost always some of which will be alcoholic, bags and bags of ice, fireworks displays (professional, amateur, illegal, dumbass, drunk dumbass, sparklers) and many generations coming together to yell and scream with and at eachother, and, always, pictures.

For many people this is an old and treasured tradition. Usually the only time it coincides with the state or condition of America as a country is when someone plays patriotic country music, or misplaced songs which are actually critical of America (Born in the USA, This is America, Living in the USA, Independence Day, Pink House's (Ain't That America), American Girl, American Woman, American Pie, etc.) which is funny as hell. Of course, there can be vicious political arguments as well. That's always fun.

The theme will be red, white, and blue.

Participation is voluntary.

[blood-ology]

Finally got my dna test so I finally know my precolonial ancestry woo :)

[kuyelams]

Lol its called the butchering of the religion by europeans

The more I learn about judaism the more I wonder where tf christianity got all its bad shit. Why is divorce a sin in christianity when judaism has recognized the right to divorce for nearly a millennia and has codified religious laws for it. Why does christianity consider sex to be dirty (to the point where puritans considered it a sin to enjoy having sex with your own spouse) when in judaism it's considered holy and it's a literal mitzvah to have sex with your spouse on the sabbath. Why does christianity consider it a sign that you're faithless if you question your religion when in judaism that's considered an essential part to developing your faith. I'm probably stating the obvious here but I still can't get over the fact that there's no historical basis to any of this shit before christianity started, it's like christians just said "hey guys what if we took the torah and built a new religion around it but this time it was actively hostile to human life"

[ramshacklefey]

It's amazing to me just how good the Mormon church has been at hiding just how bad they really are from public view. Even the shit that gets spread around is the relatively harmless bullshit. They had a crazy prophet with magic glasses. They believe in god-mandated polygyny. They think everyone who is good enough will get their very own planet after the world ends. They wear magic underpants. Mormon men are all paladins.

Here's one of the ones you hear less often:

See, like many other Christian sects, the Mormons really do believe that the existence of Christ obviates the existence of Judaism. Judaism was just a placeholder until the "real" church could be established by Jesus.

And the Mormons in particular believe, dead ass, that the entire inheritance of Israel has been given to them, because the Jews failed to recognize the Messiah when he was on Earth. They really do. They have this whole system where people are given a "divine revelation" about which of the Tribes of Israel they're a member of (don't worry, they decided that most people belong to the two tribes that are willing to "adopt" people. Only the most specialest boys and girls are members of the original ten).

Let's sum up so far. The Mormons believe that they are the people of Israel, chosen and protected by God. If Jews want to get back in on that party, they can always repent and convert to Mormonism, the one true church to which God gave all the rights and blessings that were originally bestowed on Abraham's house.

But it doesn't stop there!

The Mormons also believe, in all seriousness, that all Indigenous peoples of the Americas are descended from a small group of Jewish people who left just before the fall of Jerusalem (~600 bc iirc). Their entire weird-ass extra bible is a chronicle of those people's history in [unspecific part of America]. At the very beginning of the book, two brothers in the original family turn away from god, so they and all their descendants are cursed with dark skin, so that the good Nephites (who remain "white and delightsome") will always be able to tell themselves apart from the wicked Lamanites.

So, you've got supposedly Jewish people running around the Americas. And the "good" ones are white, and the "bad" ones are brown. Then, ofc, Jesus comes to visit them (I guess supposedly that's part of what he was doing during his dirt nap? Or possibly after he left again, it's not clear), and they all convert to Christianity, which they think is clearly the natural evolution of Judaism. Well, at the end of the book, all of them become wicked, in a kind of weird pseudo-apocalyptic series of events. They are all cursed with dark skin, until such time as they repent for their ancestors sins and return to the gospel.

But of course, Mormons being the good and kind people they are, they want everyone to receive the blessings of God and be brought into the houses of Israel etc etc. And it isn't the fault of those poor little Indigenous children that their distant ancestors turned away from God and became wicked.

So what's the natural answer? Well, Mormons are real big on missionary work, as we all know. But apparently that wasn't enough in this case.

Because the Mormon church has been one of the big players in abducting as many Indigenous children as possible, in order to indoctrinate them into being good Mormons, so that they can turn white again and be blessed. My mother remembers hearing talks about this in the 70s and 80s. The church literally had a "Lamanite Adoption Program," where families in the church were encouraged to get as many Indigenous children as possible away from their families and not let them be reunited until they were fully assimilated and ready to go back and proselytize about how wonderful the church is.

The church leadership literally talked about how wonderful it was to see these children becoming whiter. Actually whiter. Like, saying that when they finally saw them with their families again, it was beautiful how much paler they were.

I'm pretty sure this program has been officially ended, but it doesn't take a genius to speculate about who might be behind the curtains on the movement in the western US to gut the ICWA....

So yeah. Next time someone tries to tell you that the Mormons are just harmless weirdos, please remember that they're an antisemitic cult that advocates for the forced assimilation of Indigenous children to help them escape the cursed brown skin of their ancestors.

[traegorn]

I thought I'd warn you that the two wolves meme references a quote by a racist man who claimed to be Native American and made up a fake Native American quote.

Sort of.

Famous evangelist Billy Graham made it up. He claimed it was a story from indigenous people (originally Inuit but when they called him on his shit he changed it to Cherokee). But as far as I can tell, he didn't claim he was a Native American. It's certainly not something he was known for.

I know young people might not know who Billy Graham was -- his peak fame was decades ago and he passed away like five years ago -- but trust me, this wasn't just "some guy."

But also you get that, like, the joke wasn't trying to validate the quote, right? It's a play on expectations joke. Like you're expecting some variation of the story, and instead you get a transporter accident. The joke doesn't require the original story to be valid, and in no way assumes endorsement.

I need you to sit down and consider a few things for the future. The first is that if you're going to randomly "educate" strangers on the internet, make sure that you actually know exactly what you're talking about. Passing along misinformation helps no one.

Secondly, not everyone who references something is endorsing that thing. Sometimes a joke is sarcastic. Sometimes part of a joke is how wrong something is. Sometimes it's an expectation play. If you're going to dedicate your time to this kind of activism, you need to pick your battles better.

Thirdly, maybe make sure you know more about something than the person you're telling it to. I beg of you.

[damneddualities]

So there was this infamous kid on my campus that was a raging racist and misogynist and had over 10 title nine reports filed against him. Anyway he was also a Christian™️ and in my museum studies class when we started talking about what is collected and why we brought up Dadaist art like Duchamp’s fountain. This boy 100% said he’d only consider it art if it had the Virgin Mary painted on it. The Virgin Mary painted… on a urinal. Please take that in

Every time some fash posts about Real Art vs Duchamp's Fountain it's like lol that urinal has been kicking your ass for a hundred years

[infiniteglitterfall]

I do realize this is a real niche post but I cannot tell you how many damn times over the past 10 months I've seen gentiles tell Jews some version of, "Your own holy book SAYS God doesn't want you to have a country yet!"

And it's such an incredibly blatant and weirdly specific tell that they're not part of something that grew from progressive grassroots, but something based on right-wing astroturfing.

1. Staying in your own lane is a pretty huge progressive principle.

Telling people in another group that their deity said they couldn't do X is, I think, as far as you can get from your own lane.

2. It's also very clearly Not In Your Own Lane because I've never seen anyone actually be able to EITHER quote the passage they're thinking of, OR cite where it is.

It's purely, "I saw somebody else say this, and it seemed like it would make me win the debate I wasn't invited to."

3. It betrays a complete ignorance of Jewish culture and history.

Seriously? You don't know what you're referencing, its context, or even what it specifically says, but you're... coming to a community that reads and often discusses the entire Torah together each year, at weekly services... who have massive books holding generations of debate about it that it takes 7 years to read, at one page per day....

And saying, "YOUR book told you not to!"

I've been to services where we discussed just one word from the reading the whole time. The etymology. The connotations. The use of it in this passage versus in other passages.

And then there is the famous saying, "Ask two Jews, get three opinions." There is a culture of questioning and discussion and debate throughout Judaism.

You think maybe, in the decades and decades of public discussion about whether to buy land in Eretz Yisrael and move back there; whether it should keep being an individual thing, or keep shifting to intentional community projects; what the risks were; whether it should really be in Argentina or Canada or someplace instead; how this would be received by the Jews and gentiles already there, how to respect their boundaries, how to work with them before and during; and whether ending up with a fuckton of Jews in one place might not be exactly as dangerous for them as it had always been everywhere else....

You think NOBODY brought up anything scriptural? Nobody looked through the Torah, the Nevi'im, the Ketuvim, or the Talmud for any thoughts about any of this?? It took 200 years and some rando in the comments to blow everyone's minds???

4. It relies on an unspoken assumption that people can and should take very literal readings of religious texts and use them to control others.

And a sense of ownership and power over those texts, even without any accompanying knowledge about what they say.

It's kind of a supercessionist know-it-all vibe. It reads like, "I know what you should be doing. Because even if I'm not personally part of a fundamentalist branch of a related religion, the culture I'm rooted in is."

Bonus version I found when I was looking for an example. NOBODY should do this:

There are a lot of people who pull weird historical claims like "It SAYS Abraham came from Chaldea! That's Iraq!"

Like, first of all, a group is indigenous to a land if it arose as a people and culture there, before (not because of) colonization.

People aren't spontaneously spawning in groups, like "Boom! A new indigenous people just spawned!!"

People come from places. They go places. Sometimes, they gel as a new community and culture. Sometimes, they bop around for a while and eventually assimilate into another group.

Second: THE TORAH IS NOT A HISTORY TEXTBOOK OMFG.

It's an oral history, largely written centuries after the fact.

There is a TON of historical and archaeological research on when and where the Jewish culture originated, how it developed over time, etc. It's extremely well-established.

Nobody has to try to pull what they remember from Sunday school for this argument.

[txttletale]

hey not trying to be a shithead but genuinely curious; and not saying it isnt, but what makes honest hearts like super racist? because, okay its been a while but i dont remember it being *that* bad?

am i missing something? (probably)

well, essentially, the whole dlc hinges its plot on its idea of 'tribal' society vs. 'civilized' society. this is like... a distinction with origins in 19th century scientific racism used to argue that indigenous peoples were 'primitive' and 'backwards', a lesser form of life compared to the more developed 'civilized' people. and this is a distinction that is everywhere in all the fallout games, including new vegas (i think it's super fucking racist that the white gloves practice of cannibalism is constantly narratively linked to their 'tribal origins' and described in the terms of a regression or degeneration)--but honest hearts is about it and so it's really inescapable.

joshua sawyer can say whatever he likes about multi-ethnic diverse groups or whatever but the tribes in honest hearts are very clearly inspired by racist stereotypes about native americans--they are naive, gullible morons (follows-chalk can't understand the concept of a casino) at worst and noble savages with (textually) biblical innocence at best. their names, their art, their societies--all just a white guy's idea of "vaguely native american" without any research or care.

and imo worst of all (and this is something im aware the devs have properly acknowledged) they have absolutely no agency--your role in the dlc is to be a "civilized" outsider who tells them which of two white "civilized" mormons to listen to. none of the 'tribals' are able to make their own decisions or lead themselves--they need a mormon missionary to tell them what to do! there is no way to resolve the dlc without picking which white mormon missionary they should listen to other than just murdering everyone indiscriminately.

and, like--i am aware that honest hearts thinks it is gesturing towards a critique of these ideas. you can criticize the paternalism daniel shows towards the sorrows, and the dlc clearly intended it to be criticized--but that criticism is weak and hollow when the only way to follow up on it is to put a different white mormon in charge. it is the most archetypal white saviour narrative possible--and yes, i also know daniel was 'supposed to be asian', but that doesn't change anything because he is in fact, as the "civilized" missionary preaching paternalistically to the "primitive tribals", fundamentally white-coded

so i mean yea it's racist because it relies on racist stereotypes about native americans, mandates that a white person come and take charge of these poor stupid 'tribes'--but even if you changed all that, it's fundamentally about an idea of 'civilization vs. tribal society' that it accepts as a true and meaningful distinction as its core premise, and that is just a straight up racist premise.

(and the reason i keep bringing up that both daniel and josh are mormons is that mormons have a long and storied history of brutal violence and colonialism against indigenous peoples, from their original violent settlement of utah to their 'indian placement program' to their deeply racist scripture, which makes their portrayal as benevolent white saviours particularly galling and repulsive)

[alpaca-clouds]

You Cannot Create A Solarpunk Future Under Capitalism

I am feeling like a broken record, but I just need to make this clear once more: No, Solarpunk in any form is not possible under capitalism. If you think it is, you either fail to understand Solarpunk, or you don't get what capitalism even means.

Technically I wrote about this already almost exactly a year ago. Let me reiterate it again, though: Solarpunk at its core is build around a couple of ideas. Those are:

Living in relative harmony with our environment, rather than destroying it. (Which includes using renewable energies.)

Decolonialism.

Social justice and the same rights, chances and possibilities for all people.

Neither of those three points is archievable under capitalism, as the end goals of capitalism are opposed to each of them.

Let me go through each of them.

Environmental Sustainability is not archievable under capitalism.

This is the point people tend to argue about the most. Because they will go: "But if the renewable energy sources are cheaper than fossil fuels, the capitalist will see more possibilities to make money with it." Well, do I have news for you: A variety of renewable sources, such as solar and wind power, are already a lot cheaper than fossil fuels and yet somehow the capitalist argue against using them. Care to explain that? No? Well, I'll do it for you. (Technically already did in that blog last year.)

See, when someone's net worth is listed somewhere, most of them actually do not have billions of dollars on their bank accounts. And no, they also do not swim in gold coins. Instead their net worth comes from calculating how much money they would be able to make if they sold all thier assets. A lot of those assets are shares in companies they have, as well as stuff like their fancy houses, fancy cars, fancy private jets and fancy yachts. Most billionaires have not more than a couple tens million dollars in liquid money, meaning money they can just spend. If they wanna buy something that is more expensive, they will usually go to a bank, say: "Look at all the stuff I have. I wanna buy myself more stuff. Gimme money?" And the bank will go: "Of course, Sir Billionaire, here you go. Have a nice 10 billion dollars."

And this is where the issue arrises: Most of the billionaires who are investing in the energy market, have already invested billions in fossil fuels. Be it by owning shares of fossil fuel companies, or by owning mines, oil rigs, power plants and the like. And this puts them into a silly little position: Even if they wanted to make more money through renewables, they cannot without harming themselves. Because in the moment that renewables become even more viable than they already are, fossil fuels lose their viabilities - and hence all the assets they hold in fossil fuels lose their value in an instant. The billionairs know that. The banks know it, too. Which is why banks do not want to give the fossil fuel billionaires money for that, even if they ask.

And that is only on the energy-generating side of it. If you go into the other stuff that harms our environment... Simply put: Public transport will never make as much money, as selling everyone their own car. And plastics are just so much cheaper than any alternatives. And the companies need fast fashion, because they won't make as much money, if folks only go buying new clothes every ten years.

Capitalism is build on the exploitation of the environment.

You cannot archieve decolonialization under capitalism.

Let's talk about the call to decolonize next. This is even easier explained: Capitalism is build on colonialism. And contrary to what you might have been told in school, colonialism has never ended. Most indigenous folks never got their ancestral land back - or have to fight to remain on it to this day. The most notable examples you know off might be indigenous people on their land (at times the land they originally had been forced onto after their ancestral land had been stolen from them) fighting pipelines that the capitalists want to put onto that land. That is colonialism.

In fact a lot of the raw material we use to power capitalism is produced on stolen land or is moved across stolen land to be financially viable. Be it oil springs, that can be found there. Or be it mines. That is both mines that produce coal, but also mines that are used to produce lithium and other materials used in batteries of electric cars. These raw materials should technically belong to the indigenous people from whose land those materials are sourced. And we do know for a fact that some of them will prefer to leave those materials in the ground. Maybe because of the harm to the environment that mining for them creates. Maybe because the land is sacred to them. Maybe because some of them just do not care about cheap electric cars.

It is more than that, of course. Because colonialism also allows for slave labor. And yes, I mean slave labor. Like classical slave labor where people are pressganged into laboring in those mines, or in other factories, where they are not paid at all - or are paid in breadcrums. The reason that the global south is so abhorently poor, even though most of the raw materials powering our world are found there, is, that the people in the global south are exploited, while the land is often owned by people from the global north, who either got it through colonialism - or by buying it from someone who got it through colonialism.

And once again: The profit motive of capitalism is directly opposed to decolonizing - and because of that it won't happen. Capitalism is built on colonial exploitation.

You cannot archive social justice under capitalism.

Capitalism as a system was invented for one reason and one reason alone: To allow former nobility, who were close to lose their power and influence in a Europe of anti-royal revolutions, to hold onto the power and influence and veil it underneath the idea of meritocracy. Basically saying: "Everyone gets what they deserve based on the work they got in." Obviosly they got the most, because they owned the land that everyone was working and living on. And then they did their best to brainwash everyone into believing this - at which they actually succeeded.

Here is the thing: Capitalism needs an underclass to exploit. Sure, a good chunk of that exploitation will happen in other countries, where the poor white middleclass folks do not need to see them toil, but some of that exploitation simply cannot be done in those other countries. At times because the work physically needs to happen in the western nations - stuff like road contruction, general contruction work, cleaning and such are an example of this. And at times because some things might be time critical, cannot be transported that far and stuff like that - like farm work in some cases, or also all the Amazon warehouse stuff. Oh, and all those fastfood jobs belong into this area. Stuff that is paid minimum wage and exploited to no end.

And then there is of course prison labor in the US, which once again is just slavery.

And all of that does not even go into the care and nursing work that is either underpaid by a ton when it is happening on the open market (like in hospitals, schools, kindergardens and other care facilities) - or is happening completely for free. Mosten done by women, who will care for both children, as well as elders and disabled family members for free.

The true endgoal of capitalism is to turn the labor of the lower classes into money and value for the upper class to hoard like bloody dragons. As such capitalism will never be compatible with any sort of equal rights and equal chances.

Those three aspects are truths that just cannot be changed. Capitalism will never be able to create any sort of justice, equal rights, or sustainability. It is not in the interest of capitalism to do so, either.

[clangenrising]

Hey everyone.

Today, many of you are celebrating American Thanksgiving, but I wanted to take a moment to use this platform I've somehow stumbled into to do something different. Today is the National Day of Mourning, a day where we take time to remember and mourn the suffering and deaths of the indigenous American people who were brutally colonized by the founders of the country. It is also a day to remember that their descendants are still suffering, that their struggles are not over.

Now, I am very white and living on stolen land. I am not the expert here and I don't think it would be my place to explain the struggles the indigenous Americans are facing.

But I do run a fairly popular Warrior Cats blog and I do think it would be worthwhile to highlight the fact that Warrior Cats and its fandom are full of Anti-Indigenous bigotry. You may notice that I use the term "Healer" instead of "Medicine Cats" and that's because the original term is blatant and disrespectful cultural appropriation that I don't want to take part in. And that's just one example.

HERE is a link to a comprehensive article researched and written by an All-Native/Indigenous team of Warrior Cats fans that details the harmful stereotypes the Erins use and suggestions on what you can do to avoid contributing to them. Please, read this document and take some time to think about what it says.

I also encourage any Native/Indigenous people who find this post to add to it or link places where my fans can support you and your communities.

Thank you for your time.

-Rowan

[thelcsdaily]

Beef Rendang

A delectable dish from the Minangkabau ethnic group in Indonesia, beef rendang is indigenous to the country. The dish was introduced to Malaysia during the Melaka Sultanate era, when Minangkabau settlers from Sumatra moved to the southern region of the Malay peninsula.

Rendang is a curry made using slow-simmered beef that lets the flavors seep into the flesh. A recipe that takes hours to prepare on the burner. Depending on the desired result, the dish must be cooked in coconut milk with all of the spices for a specified length of time. The original recipe needs to be cooked for two to three hours minimum until dry. To ensure you have leftovers, I suggest that you make a big portion. Over the next day, the flavors and aroma intensify. Perfect with a bowl of steam rice and your veggies of choice.

FYI: Rendang, creating it from scratch may seem difficult or time-consuming to someone who works. You can take a shortcut by using Rendang paste. This will shorten the preparation period.

"Cooking is all about people. Food is maybe the only universal thing that really has the power to bring everyone together." — Guy Fieri

[master-of-47-dudes]

Oh! For those of you who like Lancer, I've made major progress in the campaign I'm writing: Kindness of strangers!

LRBT-III, otherwise known as Blanche to the locals. This sun-baked dustbowl of a planet has the high honor of being one of the few habitable terrestrial bodies that anyone has discovered in the Long Rim, and probably the only one that's actually any use to anyone. Luckily- or not so luckily, if you ask some people- it was Union that found it first. Well, about 70 years ago when they stumbled across this star system they got it in their heads that the Long Rim's days were numbered. There’s untold millions living out there scattered along the emptiest shipping lane in the known galaxy who'd need a way out once no one needed to pass them by, and by Christ the Buddha Union was gonna be there for them waiting with open arms.

All of that is background, though. You? You’re a bunch of mercenaries who got their hands on a couple of GMSes, decided to make your manna selling violence for pay. Worlds like Blanche don't take to colonies very well, so even two generations in there's still plenty of frontier out there being settled and railroad tracks being laid. The people out there struggle day by day to survive, and people like you are there to protect them from those who got sick of the hard life. Not everyone out there has the guts to stand up for the little guy- that's why you're called Lancers.

A setting and a campaign all in one, Kindness Of Strangers and its (eventual) follow-up Dancing With the Devil are a series of Wild West-themed 2-mission adventures intended to take players from 0-12 as they find themselves embroiled in the midst of a corporate conspiracy to overthrow the Union-backed government of the isolated colony of Blanche and a ploy to seize control over a nearly completed Blinkstation. All the while, a strange religious movement worshipping an eons-dead alien civilization grows ever more influential in the background...

This campaign tackles themes of colonialism, nationalism, corruption, and conflict between indigenous peoples, settlers, and immigrants, all in a world where well-meaning intentions have gone sour and the ghosts of the past have come back to haunt it.

Kindness of Strangers, Missions 1-3

Field Guide to LRBT-PN

Exotic Gear Documentation

Variant Frame Documentation

Kindness of Strangers Worldbuilding Short Stories

Kindness of Strangers LCP, Maps, and Assets

This latest update includes the first(ish) draft of Mission 3: The Field of Blue Children, allowing play of the first half of Act 2 and extending the LL range from 0-3. Mission 3 is heavily intrigue and RP focused, featuring a wide suite of characters, relationships, and locations in the Tourist town of Baugh- a thriving immigrant community situated on a soda lake.

The PCs have been hired to investigate a bomb threat at the newly completed Baugh Pumpworks, and water filtration and chemical processing facility that stands to end the water shortage and threatens corporate control over the colony's water supply- but is everything really as it seems? In the process, the PCs will go toe to toe with teenage gearheads, Pinkerton-expies, and a group of Sparri Espadas who got roped into this whole mess, and uncover the mystery behind the threat!

Also, there's a subaltern that talks like a pirate and catholicism.

Anyway this mission also includes a custom NPC Template (kind of, I don't know how to design the LCP for that but i did include instructions on how it works), several new reserves, and several custom sitreps!

So, check it out- I'm always looking for feedback.

[flagellant]

Hey! Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem like you actually know things about wend*gos and I genuinely want to have a better understanding.

Based on my limited understanding, the association with deer and wend*gos is more of a pop culture thing and the original concept of wend*gos arent like that at all. They're regular humans who got cursed for being cannibals, right?

Dont get me wrong, youre completely right in saying that people need to stop associating deer imagery with cannibalism as pop culture doesnt erase appropriation, but am I at least right on the history?

No pressure to answer if you dont want to, thanks for taking time to read this regardless.

Alright, it's been a while since I've spoken about the winter hunger so it's time for the perennial disclaimer: I am not Anishinaabe, and I cannot be considered a true authority on their practices and beliefs. Native America is, after all, not a monolith, and I can only speak for what I know through research and seeking to learn about this topic in order to be more respectful of them and advocate for that respect due to my audience's size.

With that said: You're correct. There is absolutely no deer imagery aligned with the Anishinaabe culture's portrayals and understanding of the being in question. I'm not 100% sure on its origins, but I'd be willing to bet that much of the inspiration would come from the Witcher 3's depictions of leshy--they click all of the buttons through visual language, and I can see why people would see that sort of iconography and begin applying it disrespectfully. Like I keep saying--fucked up deers are cool and spooky as hell! It's not a shock that through law-of-large-numbers and a history of oppression and thievery that the horror genre can often be anti-indigenous bc of that!

For clarification of the most commonly understood appearance of the winter hunger--and this is not so that you can more accurately use it, it is so you can more accurately defend against racist and inaccurate depictions--it takes the shape of humans. Often of people you know. There are sometimes qualifiers like frostbite or lack of feet but at the very root of it, it is supposed to look like a human being.

Further disclaimer: What I'm about to say may be an entirely wrong interpretation of the winter hunger, but it is rooted in my culture's understanding of a very similar evil being which exists in Dine and other desert-dwelling native tribes such as mine. It's further rooted in my specific understanding of religion through anthropological lenses, since that's why I love studying religion so much--because it doesn't exist in a vacuum it is defined by our understanding of our surroundings.

Picture it this way: Both the Anishinaabe and my own people are in some way considered extremophilic cultures. We both live in an environment which reliably becomes lethally dangerous to exist within if you aren't prepared, willing to sacrifice your own comfort for the survival of everyone, and combines a level of isolation during those extreme climates with a need to be able to trust those around you implicitly because you all want to survive. Deserts, be they snow or sand, are difficult places to live within. There are enough resources to go around, but it's not exactly uncommon for there to be enough to go around and that's all. You're surviving because you and everyone around you are putting the survival of everyone over individualist comforts.

The winter hunger and the desert swallowing you whole are always taught as something which looks like a human. Which sounds like a human. Which can trick others into thinking it is human. Beings which have the shape of a person, but have no humanity--they lost it or they never had it. And both of them are things which gain power over you when spoken of and thought of--they're a type of memetophage. They feed on people who know about them, so you're forced to balance "aware that this danger exists" with "need to know what the danger is". They often will try and trick you into evil deeds or danger yourself by wearing the face and voice of family and loved ones. People you know well to let your guard down.

Now remember that you are a culture which needs to prepare itself for extreme climate survival. Everyone has to rely on everyone else. But sometimes people aren't going to like the people they're surviving with. People will resent other people for whatever reasons they choose, justified or not. Living so close together and in such tight quarters can be stressful and bring out the absolute worst in us.

Imagine, for a moment, going out into a snowstorm or the bitter desert night, looking for food for everyone else, sent with someone you hate. It's a harsh life. Even at your safest you are at risk of death for whatever reason--getting lost, being attacked by an animal, taking a bad fall. It happens. It's a fact of life. It's horribly tragic but it's acknowledged as inevitable.

Imagine the knowledge of how dangerous what you two are doing worming its way into your head during this time. If you were willing to hate this person enough to kill them...it wouldn't be hard to convince everyone it was just an accident. Just something which happens. Kill a stag, then kill them and jam the stag's antlers through the wound. Or just disable them somehow and leave them to freeze in the snowdrifts and say they got lost. Or push them down a ravine. There are so many possibilities and all of them exonerate you of any complicity, because yeah, you didn't like them...

...but you trust each other to survive. You trust that you're all willing to give up things to make sure everyone is able to survive and get through these things. You trust that when you are in danger, you don't need to worry about it coming from someone you know. And so why would anyone suspect you? And maybe you convince yourself that what you did was good, actually. One less mouth to feed. More food for everyone. Or it's just easier for you--someone who you hated so much, and now you never need to worry about them again.

Imagine the way that knowledge that you've done it once would show up again and again. Anyone and everyone is now in danger because you've become aware of the benefits of being greedy. Of choosing to hurt and kill other people to further your own goals and desires. Of deciding that the sacrosanct ties of the whole community's survival is not a priority over your own violent impulses. The knowledge of what you can do to other people is, itself, a danger. You put the idea of it, the possibility, in someone's head, and there is every chance that it could start dwelling in there and taking root, changing them from a good person, someone you know, a member of the community, into an evil, selfish monster which has lost its humanity and merely wears that person's face. Uses its voice to lie to you. Wants you all to have your guards down around it. Something waiting to strike where it can.

Now remember that we turn rainbows into the bridges of gods because we needed to create a reason for them. That's the history of magic: we don't know how to explain something, or we don't know how to process it, or we do and need to obfuscate that knowledge through a layer of fiction to cope with it. We don't invent the divine for no reason, on instinct, without thinking. We do it because there is something that creating it offers us as a species and culture that would otherwise be lacked. So think: Why would tribal cultures who need everyone to be willing to set aside personal wants and grievances to ensure that everyone survives through harsh climates need to have something like the winter hunger or the desert swallowing you whole? What benefit does it offer the community? What is the purpose of sharing knowledge about this monster? Where would it fit into that culture's way of life and philosophies?

The answer becomes self-evident soon enough. We all know what it looks like when one person decides they can sacrifice other humans for their own personal greed. We call them oligarchs.

[bixels]

I commend your willingness to include an Indigenous character in the main cast, and that you're willing to listen to indigenous voices, but when you said a few weeks ago that she was just "First Nations" and didn't elaborate... at the moment I didn't want to say anything, but it did feel bad that you made an effort to specify the country of origin of everyone else but could only say first nations/indigenous for her. And now that I know your explanation, again, I really like your art and your world building, and it's great that you ask indigenous people to talk to you, but how would you feel if someone made an AU where everyone is Italian, Venezuelan, Bangladeshi, and then there's an "East Asian" character with no specification of which country they're from because the author didn't feel prepared to actually define it?

I hear you. Dash is Lakota. I'll be sure to distinguish that moving forward.

[johannestevans]

What’s In A Uniform?: Imperial Attitudes Reflected in Starfleet’s Uniforms

Relationships with imperial attitudes reflected in uniform and costuming in Star Trek

Read this essay in An Injustice! / / Read this essay on my Patreon / / Leave a tip

A press photo of the TNG cast, via TrekCore.

Introduction

Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a post-war and post-scarcity future filled to the brim with infinite diversity in infinite combinations, is often posited as a luxury-filled communist utopia in space.

In the 24th century within the United Federation of Planets, the need for wages and money has broadly been eliminated; everyone can choose to embrace whatever education, craft, or career suits them; no one within the Federation’s bounds is denied shelter, food, or other necessities in exchange for labour or some other pay.

Therefore, no one is press-ganged or forced into service, and there is no obligation or expectation that people join Starfleet. People do so because they want to.

Why do they want to?

Unlike here on Earth today, no one in Starfleet is joining up in order to send money home to their families, in order to get a university degree they couldn’t hope to afford otherwise, in order to feed themselves, house themselves, in order to escape their homes and their families.

Many of them are scientists or would-be explorers. They want to meet new people, and be of service to them, and to the Federation of Planets. They want to help others. They’re curious about the broader universe, desire to seek out new species and new civilisations, new worlds.

They want to go boldly where no one has gone before.

That phrasing was an update in Star Trek: The Next Generation and other Treks from The Original Series —in order to enfranchise Trek’s philosophy of gender equality within its world and universe, “no man” was changed to “no one”, to make it gender-neutral.

But the core of that phrasing still has its problems — to boldly go where no one has gone before?

Which is it? Are we seeking out new species and new civilisations, or are we going where no one has gone before? What is it, by the way, that makes these species and civilisations “new”? Many of the species and civilisations crews in Trek make contact with are just as ancient and established, if not more so, than the peoples of Earth.

I’m being pedantic, of course — of course they don’t mean “new” as in freshly birthed or developed, but new to them, to the crews of the Enterprise or the other star ships. They’re not implying those peoples or planets are lesser or younger, merely that they haven’t met before.

What about that use of the word “explore”, then? This phrase, “strange new worlds”? What about “to boldly go”?

What makes those worlds strange? What makes the crews of Star Trek bold?

The word “exploration” is a very fraught one, when considered in an imperial context.

Countless hundreds of “explorers” in our relatively recent history have traipsed into what they have written home and called wilderness, because it did not resemble what they thought of as agriculture, because it did not resemble their expectations of fields and farms, but in actual fact was carefully balanced agroforestry.

They have called land “pristine” and “untouched”, have perhaps made reference to the idea that no human beings have been there before, or that no human could live there… When many indigenous peoples were and had been there previously. When those same peoples might well live there today, or would do, were it not for the colonial invasion of and theft of the land.

When we talk about “exploration”, we’re typically speaking about someone entering a new and foreign environment to them, studying it, learning more about it, and a certain authority is placed upon a term like explorer.

People still celebrate Columbus Day, still refer to America as “the New World”, when Christopher Columbus came upon a continent scattered with different and diverse peoples, spreading all manner of disease and sickness to them whilst he and his men worked to enslave, torture, and murder those people in their thousands; people still refer to in regular conversation to the likes of James Cook, the white British explorer who was rightly and justly executed in Hawai’i after decades of exploitation; to Francis Drake, who enslaved and trafficked thousands of Africans, was assisted other English forces in massacring hundreds of Irish on Rathlin Island, and carried this experience in thievery and human trafficking when we approached his raids of Spanish ships during his world’s circumnavigation.

These men are referred to as “explorers”, and a certain romance is placed on the word, where an “explorer” is often thought of in the same breath as “hero” or “founding father” or other iconic figure.

Attempts are made within Trek, though, to bear this history in mind and take efforts to distance itself from it — the Prime Directive demands that crew do not expose civilisations to Starfleet’s advanced technology before they have developed sufficiently to meet Starfleet with technology of their own, ostensibly to prevent these peoples and civilisations from being exploited by a more powerful civilisation.

This non-interference policy — when it’s actually adhered to — protects these cultures from seeing Starfleet or its people as superiors or saviours, should prevent them from being pedestalised or from interfering where they shouldn’t in a more vulnerable culture’s history, politics, and its people’s lives.

Other diplomatic policies are established — first contact protocols expect Starfleet personnel to defer to the other culture’s norms and social expectations during initial diplomatic proceedings; offers of assistance and gifted resources are frequently made by Starfleet, so long as they feel like it, and so on.

Efforts are made, in short, to approach the wonder of exploration and the United Federation of Planet’s expansion throughout the universe whilst making efforts to distance themselves from the violence of colonial explorers’ legacy.

Much of the desire in creating Star Trek’s initial cast was to show a variety of diverse people within the core cast, to create and hone a vision for the future —yes, Spock himself is a half-Vulcan, a literal alien on the crew, but more than that, to have a Russian on the bridge, signalling the long-time end of the Cold War and its animosities, was a clear and intentional choice; also to have characters like Hikaru Sulu and Nyota Uhura in the core cast in senior crew positions, enfranchising racial diversity within Star Trek’s crews from the very beginning, even before they had the first interracial kiss on television.

Throughout each Star Trek series, attempts are always made to introduce, enfranchise, protect, and champion diversity in all manner of forms — different Treks have of course been criticised for going about this at times in the wrong way or for not going far enough, for failing in certain areas, but the purpose of this essay is not to criticise it for the imperial legacy in the show, or the presence of colonial ideas and biases reflected in its uniform choices.

I myself am of course very anti-military and opposed to these colonial attitudes, but this piece is less about directly criticise those attitudes and is more about interrogating our biases both as viewers of and the primary audience for Star Trek and similar sci-fi shows, and therefore as creators.

What do we see when we look at the uniforms in each of the Star Trek series? What do those uniforms tell us as viewers about each individual character, and about the vessel and crew as a whole? What do these uniforms symbolise, and what biases might we be bringing with us when we interpret the presence of them, positive or negative?

What do these uniforms indicate and communicate to crew members and civilians within the diegesis of each show, and what are their purposes? Is every uniform on every crew in each show worn with the same purpose?

What’s in a uniform? Who and what and why is it for?

I’m going to be analysing each of the crews’ uniforms, what we can take from their appearances, the broader meaning of symbols and connotations included within these uniforms, the philosophy of uniforms in the first place, and then later discussing more at length audience and creator bias around these philosophies and how we might shift or set them aside, if we wish to.

I’ll be discussing these in both diegetic (within the Star Trek universe, by its internal boundaries and expectations) and extra- or non-diegetic terms (outside of the Star Trek universe, by our own expectations).

Because this sort of critical analysis of visuals and symbols is inherently about semiotics, or the study of how meaning is created, it might be helpful if you’re not familiar to read a primer on semiotic terms, such as this one from the University of Vermont.

The Historical Roots of Naval Uniforms

Costume designer William Ware Theiss and Gene Roddenberry specifically wanted to move away from a militaristic design in the crew uniforms for Star Trek: The Original Series (Star Trek Costumes: Five Decades of Fashion from the Final Frontier, by Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block), and instead evoke stripped-down naval elements.

This desire to evoke the navy over the military might serve in some eyes to distance Trek’s crews from being interpreted as an invading or more aggressive, antagonistic force, to indicate that there is a command structure without it being made up of soldiers.

Before I go into uniforms within Star Trek, I want to talk a little about the history of naval uniforms themselves.

The uniform for officers in the Royal British Navy was not introduced until 1748 — before this, there were British military uniforms, which were the traditional “red coats”.

Before the English Civil War ending in 1651, this uniform started out as red jackets worn by certain ceremonial guards and limited forces, and over time as a distinct English army was cultivated and built up, their wearing of these red jackets became standardised. By the late 1600s, soldiers primarily wore these red jackets, and more complex and ornate uniform elements were often added ornamentally for officers in different military forces.

The reason for the introduction of naval uniforms in 1748 was actually out of a desire for better appearances — naval officers were concerned that military officers were perceived as more respectable than themselves in part because of their uniforms. While officers would appear “formal” and “respectable” in portraiture or for formal and notable appearances, they did not have a specific uniform.

These dress uniforms started out in blue, contrasting the military red, but mirrored the white shirt, gold buttons, gold edging and lamé present in military uniforms.

After the introduction of the uniform, it was edited and cultivated over time, both by the naval forces adding to and developing standard uniforms elements and also by rich or fashionable members of the naval forces who wished to edit and embellish their uniforms to make them more handsome, more impressive, or seem more commanding.

The amount of embellishment on a uniform might loosely indicate the rank or importance of the officer wearing it — lesser officers might have no golden embroidery at all, but not all decorative elements were optional additions. There were more standardised elements, such as in the gold banding around the sleeve of a jacket to indicate rank — a rear-admiral might have one ring of gold around the sleeve, a vice-admiral two, and a full admiral three.

Notable are the introduction of epaulettes, which were added to the standard British military uniform in 1795, although they were previously added for reasons of fashion and appearance by some officers. Epaulettes were added to the British Naval uniform having taken inspiration from the French, and this adoption was criticised in parts.

Swords were part of uniform elements as well — the swords used by naval officers in battle were generally short swords or cutlasses, as these officers would have been fighting in close quarters with other men close by; in portraiture they were depicted with more ornate ceremonial swords, such as long swords or other dress swords with decorative scabbards.

Other elements of the uniform were medals and other honours — apart from medals given to men in the form of brooches or hanging coins to be worn on the breast, they might have worn other elements such as sashes in certain colours to indicate their knighthoods or similar titles; many officers might have worn similar signet rings, cufflinks, or other jewellery to one another, and their seals, which were metal dies or engraved gems used to place wax seals on their letters or correspondence, might also have been worn as decorative elements, especially visible in portraits.

Gene Roddenberry famously wished for the Star Trek uniforms to be sleek, simple, and cut-back of extraneous detail, he hated zippers, he didn’t want crewmen to have pockets, didn’t want there to be messy or additional extraneous details.

This is of course in stark contrast to the history of the British naval uniform which later went on to inspire the developing American naval uniform — almost everything I’m describing is about aesthetics rather than about practicality.

Official uniform standards often demanded breeches worn with stockings and shoes for its officers — these were attractive, handsome, showed off the calves of the officers, met the expectations and desires of the Admiralty, but were ultimately far less practical than trousers, which could be pulled on immediately in a pinch, or stripped off in the event of injury, and boots, which provided far more protection to the foot and calf, and were more secure than shoes.

Non-officers were not expected to wear uniform with colours or aesthetics in mind at all until much later in the history of the navy’s development. Their clothes were expected to be well-kept, clean, and in good order, but more particular and specific uniform elements weren’t expected for ordinary seamen and other non-officers until a good deal later.

It’s worth asking ourselves, then — what was the point of these uniforms and their elements? What were they conveying?

Military uniforms can be said to exist for very simple reasons — if two armies are on a battlefield, they need to have elements that distinguish the two armies from one another so that when you bash someone’s head in, it’s the enemy’s head and not your friend’s. This could be as simple as wearing different colours (ideally colours that don’t change too much when stained with blood) or different shaped helmets.

As warfare has evolved and become more complex with time, additional elements have become standard in military uniforms — beyond wanting to know who’s on your side and who isn’t, you might want to know from a distance who’s the commander on the field, what weapons someone might be using, who is a medic.

A naval ship, however, is not a battlefield.

It’s self-contained, separate from civilians, let alone enemies. Uniforms were initially requested by naval commanders, after all, because they wanted to look more impressive in portraits and at parties, and they wanted to be recognisable at a glance as naval officers, important within the naval structure and separate from military or artillery officers.

The secondary purpose of these uniforms remain important — you want to know who your superiors are, might wish to be able to guess their speciality, if they’re a medic, or similar, but this need for appearances goes beyond simple vanity.

Uniform within the British navy did appeal to officers’ vanity, yes, particularly when additional embellishments or ornamentation was their focus, but the purpose of portraiture in British and broader Western society was not as simple as depiction. One’s portrait did not merely serve to stroke one’s ego and boost one’s marriage or promotion prospects — portraiture was political.

Yes, it might serve an individual’s hope of attaining office or promotion, but these portraits also served the needs and desires of the British Naval Admiralty and therefore the broader British Empire.

The admiralty demanded certain aesthetics because of how they contributed to the British Navy’s reputation as a whole, aiding the admirals’ ability to leverage certain political power and command in all forms of political life, and contributed to the perspective of British Naval officers as respectable, commanding, powerful, and worthy of any and all political office.

As time has gone on, these needs for aesthetic and the political worth and value of a uniform has only increased — by the 1960s, the inspiration Roddenberry and Theiss were working with was not edited and specific only for portraiture.

Images via Naval History and Heritage Command.

In the American Navy they were inspired by, uniforms were standard for all crewmen, not merely officers, and these uniforms had been edited and carefully designed over centuries to balance practicality with appearance. The above military uniforms are attractive and in line with formal expectations of dress, such as in the use of ties, shined leather shoes, skirts for women, pressed trousers for men, each of these garments having been ironed and worn with clean, straight creases —the colours present, blue, white, or khaki, are used for different variations of dress intended to bear in mind not only department or service rank but also climate, and we see the use of gold stripes on the sleeves as used in Star Trek to indicate rank.

We also see other indicators of rank and service history — particular hats for certain ranking crew members with especial insignia; shoulder patches that might indicate squadron or department; coloured bars worn on the breast are everyday edited versions of any service medals or honours they have received so that actual medals can be reserved for dress uniform; golden rope worn over the shoulder (aiguillette) indicates service as an attaché or aide.

These are of course separate from the expectations for dress uniform which was more ornamental and might be worn for special occasions, parades, or, as in history, portraiture — much of what we see in service uniform are more concise or succinct expressions of the information encoded more elaborately in these dress uniforms.

Why all this information encoded in the uniform?

The stars, the insignia, the service ribbons — a great amount of information is encoded in the uniform itself, visible at a glance for those able to decode or recognise it.

An officer can walk through a crew and know just by looking at someone’s uniform their department, their rank, their squadron or unit, they might be able to see their service history and any honours they’ve received, and so on.

Helpful to get all that information without asking them or reading a file — helpful, too, in figuring out who a crewman was in case of death, if their face is damaged or no one recognises them.

Elements of the Starfleet Uniform

A photo of the Spock and Kirk, via TrekCore.

The original uniform as presented in Star Trek: The Original Series is fairly simple and straight forward — we see the three departmental colours, gold for command, red for engineering and security, and blue for medical and science, spread across each of the uniform jerseys, which each have a black lining around the collar. For those crew wearing mini skirts or dresses, the collar is worn lower and bares more of the neck and upper chest, but retains the black lining.

Sheer tights are worn for those in dresses and skirts, and those in trousers wear a loose three-quarter length trouser with a flared hem that can either be tucked into the calf-length boot or is worn loosely over it. These black leather boots are tight to the foot and leg and mostly have a slightly pointed toe.

And then are the additional elements — each crewmember has the Starfleet insignia sewn over their breast, with the central insert in the insignia indicating department; we also see the golden bands around the sleeve, indicating someone’s rank, three bands for captain, two for first officer or department chef, et cetera.

These uniforms are simple and cleanly designed with very few extraneous elements.

The lack of zips mean no one gets caught in them or, if caught in phaser fire, presumably, no zippers are going to be fused or burned; the lack of jackets, ties, or other hanging or removable elements mean that none of these can get caught on or in machinery or similar; presumably, temperature is kept at as comfortable a level for all crewmembers as possible.

So, what are the elements communicated by this uniform, for other crewmembers or civilians familiar with Starfleet protocol? The uniform immediately communicates:

crew member’s department, visible from a distance by colour coding, and then communicated specifically up close by the insignia

captaincy or other command rank visible on the sleeve (one reason that cropped sleeves have been criticised in women’s uniforms in other Treks is because to do this immediately removes those women’s visible presence within the command structure)

crewmember’s gender (until TNG onwards, only women wear the miniskirt or wear the more revealing collar)

Some of the female crew wear earrings, but we don’t typically see anyone wear necklaces, rings, or bracelets, and these elements are presumably not permitted within uniform guidelines, but crew are permitted to cut and wear their hair as they choose.

Janice Rand’s ornate beehive hairdo and Nyota Uhura’s hair are obviously more carefully cared for than that of most of their male crewmembers’, but in general we can extrapolate from visuals that crew are expected to keep their hair either short, cut to be ear-length or shorter, or tied up and fastened out of the way, and that crew in the course of TOS’ original series generally are to be clean-shaven. Judging by Joseph M’Benga’s hair, there is no expectation or requirement that Black crewmembers or other crew with tightly coiled hair relax their hair or shave their heads.

Once we get to the original films, and especially as we get to The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, these uniforms do begin to change and evolve.

A photo of the Spock and Kirk, via TrekCore

We retain the colour coding for department in these new uniforms, although the colours have changed around — red is now for command, blue remains for science and medical, and gold is for engineering and security.

Black is now more incorporated into the uniform, and we see higher Nehru collars with visible pips to indicate place in the command structure — these are far more visible on a comm screen than someone’s sleeves, and can also communicate more information than the sleeve bands, with the number of gold pips indicating rank in the command structure, and black pips can indicate that someone is a junior or a lieutenant of their rank.

The jackets in these uniforms remain tightly tailored to the body, but can now be stripped off or worn open over the vest or undershirt underneath; instead of an embroidered insignia, we now see the introduction of the Starfleet comm badge in place of the handheld communicator, a brass shine that mirrors that of the pips.

The men’s boots have alas lost their sexy pointed toe and are now squarer — these boots are more comfortable with more foot room. Women’s boots retain the pointed toe and also have a block heel. I might argue that a diegetic reason for the TOS crew to retain the pointed toe for all crew might have been to make it a bit easier for crew to easily hook their feet into narrow ladders, much like cowboy boots have a pointed toe to make it easier to hook one’s feet into stirrups, although realistically it’s just a fashion update.

We’re also seeing the introduction here of more non-crew uniforms — being a counsellor and outside of the chain of command, we see Deanna Troi in a jumpsuit without any pips; we also see the likes of Wesley’s cadet uniforms, which feature a softer corded wool around the collar and shoulders, and have him in that pale grey to show that he, too, is outside of the command structure.

We see more diversity in people’s hairstyles and uniform wear; men begin to appear in skants alongside women, albeit primarily in the background; we see more varied hairstyles, including longer and looser hairstyles; we see more beards and moustaches.

These uniforms communicate the same data the original uniforms do with further detail, and without the same strict gendering present in TOS’ uniforms. They’re nicer uniforms, better constructed, more practical, more flexible.

And yet there’s more, isn’t there?

Rather like a naval captain wearing a sash to indicate his title, we see Worf wearing a baldric to denote his position in the House of Mogh, and this allowance is allotted him to ensure his Klingon identity is not denied him just because of his membership in Starfleet.

But when Ro Laren is invited to join Starfleet, she’s told not to wear her earring, of religious and cultural significance to Bajorans much as Klingon houses are of cultural importance to them. Why? What makes the Bajoran earring inappropriate within Starfleet uniform protocol, and not the Klingon baldric?

Is it because Worf is an officer of standing, but Ro Laren is an ensign or less? Is it because Worf grew up on Earth, raised by humans, and his attachment to the Klingon empire is not one that might undermine his loyalty to the United Federation of Planets, whereas Ro Laren understandably thinks of Bajor before she does Starfleet and the Federation? Is it because Bajor’s culture is respected less than that of the Klingon Empire’s — is it because the wearing of Bajoran earrings is explicitly tied to Bajoran religious beliefs and often marked with their castes, and these two cultural aspects are thought to be at odds with Starfleet’s predominant ideology?

These questions beg another — what is a uniform for? Why do Starfleet crew wear a uniform?

To show that they represent Starfleet — so that others can see they represent Starfleet. Their actions are Starfleet’s, and Starfleet is expected to take responsibility for any actions of their crewmembers whilst wearing their uniforms and operating their vessels; crew represent, in Starfleet uniform, Starfleet’s interests, and moreover, the interests of the United Federation of Planets.

Even more so than on a naval vessel, crew on a spacefaring vessel do not need to be wearing a uniform for the sake of people knowing who not to shoot at — these uniforms are useful for internal reasoning. They have rules and regulations, and a psychological advantage.

Uniforms, aptly, promote unity. Remind a crew that they operate as one body, and that that body represents a larger whole. Wearing a uniform creates a sense of equality and shared experience among the crew during working hours; it removes any distraction; it ensures that all clothing worn on shift is fit for purpose, safe, and appropriate.

Ro Laren’s earring, via TrekCore.

Why was Ro Laren’s earring a concern? Because a uniform is meant to eclipse the personal identity of the crewmember.

Klingons have a storied and often antagonistic history with the United Federation of Planets. Most members of Starfleet, and indeed, most members of the Federation, will recognise a Klingon on sight, and they will have ideas and opinions, assumptions, about aggressive Klingon culture. Klingons are not expected to be members of the United Federation of Planets any time soon — their culture is not going to be subsumed underneath the Federation’s liberally multicultural identity. It’s too strong, too different, too discrete from Federation values.

What of Bajoran values?

Throughout Deep Space Nine, a central question is whether Bajor is going to join the United Federation of Planets — before that, in The Next Generation, a central question is if Starfleet is going to help Bajoran refugees, Bajoran survivors, Bajoran captives, out from beneath their Cardassian aggressors. Starfleet condemns Cardassia’s actions, but their hands are tied. The Federation is already at odds with the Cardassian Empire, but they can’t risk all-out war just for Bajor.

For the wormhole, later on, that’s different — the wormhole is beneficial to them. Bajor is strategic only because of its connection to Terok Nor / DS9, and therefore the wormhole.

Bajor itself has had its natural resources plundered by Cardassian oppression, the planet blighted with drought, illness, filled with orphans. Where is the benefit in adding Bajor to the United Federation of Planets? What value do they bring to the Federation?

Their poetry? Their ancient technological breakthroughs? Their music? Their architecture, their art, their highly developed freedom fighting tactics?

What does Starfleet need with any of those? Especially when they come attached to religious beliefs?

What’s a uniform for?

We’re human beings on Earth in the 21st century, and when we see a Starfleet uniform, we make certain assumptions about it. What do we think about when we see a uniform — when we see a naval uniform, a military uniform?

A naval or military uniform is neat and tidy and orderly. It’s respectable. It’s often called a service uniform, the naval and military service called as such because “serving your country” is viewed as noble, honourable, and yes, respectable.

What assumptions do we make, when we see someone in a service uniform? Do we make positive or negative assumptions? Do we think that person is punctual, neat, obedient, commanding, intelligent, focused, diligent, hard-working? Do we see a crisply ironed service uniform and think of them as sloppy, foolish, disrespectful, messy?

Do we look at a uniform and think of national service? Think of that person volunteering in their community and helping lay sandbags during a flood, cooking at soup kitchens or packaging boxes at food banks?

Do we look at a service uniform and think of its wearer as “serving their country”, protecting its freedoms and its culture from foreign threats, or do we look at a service uniform and see a murderer serving the interests of oil barons and arms dealers?

For members of Starfleet, it’s valuable that Starfleet uniforms indicate at a glance where someone’s place is within the chain of command. You can tell whose orders you should be following, and who should be obeying your orders. Obedience to one’s superiors is important, and is even considered an indicator of respect. Why?

Because Starfleet believes in equality, yes, and believes in unity, but only certain individuals are appointed deciders of action.

Your actions as an ensign are up to you until your superior commands otherwise; that lieutenant’s actions, and those of their inferiors, are up to them until their chief decides otherwise; that chief’s decisions and their inferiors are up to them until the captain decides otherwise; that captain and their crew’s decisions are up to them until an admiral or someone else further up the chain of command decide otherwise.

Why is a chain of command important?

Someone might say it eliminates confusion in the field; it lets everyone know what their place is, and who they should go to with questions or concerns; it prevents people from struggling with conflicting orders or instructions; it eliminates time taken for discussion or debate under pressure, as the most important decision is made by a designated commander.

This is a cultural idea. It is a perspective that comes from a culture that believes in top-down power structures and social stratification that matches those power structures.

Living on Earth in the 21st century, we are continuously surrounded by these cultural ideas and these perspectives, and we carry those biases with us when we see Starfleet uniforms.

Let’s look at them again and try to do it from an outsider’s lens.

What Does The Uniform Mean?

We are an alien species, and we are introduced to a Starfleet crew. They say that they have come from the United Federation of Planets, a union of planets in the Alpha Quadrant who share resources and ideas.

What can we tell from them by looking at them, assuming we know nothing of Human, Vulcan, Klingon, or other Federation species’ cultures or appearances?

We see a variety of people of approximately similar sizes. They are all solid, warm-blooded, and as a rule, they appear to have two legs, two arms, two eyes, a nose with two nostrils, a mouth. They broadly breathe the same air, eat similar if not the same food, have similar needs and requirements as far goes gravity and temperature, and the majority of them rely on five senses — sight, hearing, physical touch, scent, and taste, with some of them also having a telepathic or empathic sense.

Their heads sit on a neck, which sits on a torso, and while their organs may rest in different places and there is a diversity between their individual internal organs and discrete biological make-ups, each primarily seems to have a ribcage that houses some organs and a softer lower half.

Genital make-up is different between certain species and there is a diversity of genitalia — size, function — between individuals within a species. Roughly correlating to their genitalia within species — although not in all cases, and not universally, we might see differences in body hair, facial pigmentation, bone and muscle density, fat distribution, vocal range and resonance, and so on.

Their bodies might be different, but what unites them is the uniform they wear — much as it might be separated into three distinct colours, the uniform styling is the same for each crewmember, tailored to the size and shape of their body, made of the same materials. To us, in the event we know nothing of uniforms themselves and come to this meeting from a wholly different cultural perspective, what does this uniform signify?

That these people have a united purpose? A united origin — the same union of territories, if not the same specific territory? A united set of values, perspectives, cultures, ideas, beliefs?

What might we assume the colours of their uniforms symbolise? What interpretations might we make of the colours they wear, bringing our own cultural ideas with us — assuming we can see colours at all? Are some of these colours desirable to us, and others not? Some of them important and others less so?

If Starfleet’s culture and its ideas, if the United Federation’s ideas, are truly wholly foreign to us and hitherto unimagined, how do we interpret such an idea as “the chain of command”?

A captain leads their crew: the captain’s orders, when given, are obeyed.

What does this signify?

From our perspective, familiar with a military or naval service, familiar with top-down power structures, we understand the idea of power and decision-making being concentrated at the top of a pyramid and disseminated in smaller and smaller parts as one works further down that pyramid.

But from an outside perspective, how might we interpret a captain?

What makes other people obey that captain’s orders or instructions? How does the captain make those decisions? If the captain has a telepathic sense, are they acting on the shared desires and ideas of the other crew? Are they representing the mutual ideas of the whole? Are they making their own decisions unilaterally? If so… why? How?

What gives that captain more of a right to make those decisions than their subordinates? These pips or these bands on the sleeve, are they the source of someone’s power? If two people swap uniforms, do their positions and levels of command change? No? This means that the pips represent something in the individual, and that the power is not concentrated in the pips themselves.

How are these pips administered?

Are they allotted to crew members based on their age? Based on their species, sex, their place of birth, the circumstances of that birth, their parenthood? Their level of performance in some sort of exam or tournament? Their number of sexual partners? Their number of achievements in one area or other? Their number of children? Their innate strength or some other personal biological or genetic component of their body or person?

Is it up to a vote, who gets certain pips? A committee? What decides this vote or committee? What creates this democratic process?

In the original imperial chain of command, the top-down structure all the way to the top went to the prevailing monarch — in the British navy, the king or queen. This king or queen was given rule by birthright — by Divine Right.

With time, the chief of these services in the West has broadly changed from the monarch, decided by random circumstance of birth, to a democratically elected president, prime minister, or other political leader, but the rest of the chain has remained the same.

We can infer from different series that the President of the United Federation of Planets is democratically elected, although we don’t know how long a president is in office for or what the process of electing them looks like, who is permitted to vote and who isn’t, and who is permitted to run for office. Are presidents sponsored by political parties or pressure groups? Is it required that a president has experience in Starfleet, the ambassadorial core, or some other aspect of service? Is diversity in presidential candidates prioritised or in some way protected?

Democracy as we define it in the West is typically a matter of individuals casting votes for candidates.

In the UK and the USA, this democratic process is simple — a winner is decided on a basis of who is “first past the post”. In short, whichever candidate gets the most votes wins the post for which they are running. The candidates voters are able to choose between, the ones which are written on a ballot, are put forward by registered political parties within the geographical area where votes are being put forward. Presidential or prime ministerial candidates are not voted for directly by individual voters — instead, individuals vote for candidates within their voting constituencies.

As each of these individuals belongs to a political party, presidential leadership — or leadership in the House of Commons — is decided based on the winning political party, the one with the most individuals elected, but this process is widely criticised.

What do we do if voter turnout is low? If only 45% of eligible voters turn up to vote, only 45% of voters got a choice in the decision — Australia has made voting compulsory to avoid this. What if some voters wish to vote, but are unable to — if voting booths are inaccessible, if voters are disabled, if they’re at work on the day of the election? Many countries institute national holidays for elections, allow postal voting or forms of e-democracy.

What if two constituencies have wildly different populations? Does a person in one constituency get more power over a decision because there are fewer other voters living nearby? Many countries institute a form of proportional representation to get around this, as well as working to combat gerrymandering as a political tactic.

In the UK, a strong and stable government on election day is a descriptor of a House of Commons in which at least one political party — or a union of parties — dominates the house. This is defined as a strong government because bills they wish to put forward are easily able to be voted through by their representatives. When there is no dominant party within the house, this is sometimes referred to as a “lame duck” government, and parties typically form coalitions in order to be able to dominate the house even with insufficient votership to do so directly.

In Germany, political stability is not defined by the same expectations — one political party dominating all others and being able to make unilateral decisions would be seen as a sign of an unstable government, as coalitions of parties have been crucial to Germany’s political process for some time.

And yet for all I’ve mentioned different Western countries and their differing expectations of democracy — the US, the UK, Germany, Australia, and for all I might mention others, Ireland, France, Spain, Belgium, Canada, and countless others, within their militaries and their navies, they still have a chain of command.

Democracy is antithetical to a chain of command — choices by committee are made with an assumption of equals contributing to a whole, but choices within a top-down power structure are ultimately decided by those at the top.

When Ro Laren joins Starfleet, and when other Bajorans initially join Starfleet, it is under an expectation that they leave certain elements of their culture behind — these expectations are later relaxed, and Bajorans are permitted to wear their earrings just as Klingon service members are permitted their baldrics; just as Scottish members of crew are permitted to substitute trousers and certain dress uniform elements for sporrans and kilts; just as Nog and other Ferengi are permitted to wear a veil at the back of their heads to emphasise the size of their ears; just as one background member of the Lower Decks crew is permitted to wear a hijab.

The key word here is “permitted”. They are given permission by their superiors to alter their uniform in this manner. It is not a right: it is a dispensation.

In its original introduction to the navy, the purpose of uniforms was to make commanders and officers appear more respectable and be perceived as more respectable. Later on, the uniform became itself a sign of respect, and adherence to that uniform a sign of respect. Customisation of that uniform was no longer to be done on an individual basis.

To customise a uniform is to introduce disparate or unique elements to that uniform, and therefore, to potentially interrupt the chain of command. What if someone interprets an alteration to that uniform as a sign that that person is a separate individual who can disobey orders or give orders outside of the command structure?

What if that individual is an individual, not not in service of — and beholden to — the collective?

The United Federation of Planets believes in equality and protects the rights of the individual until they join the Federation’s naval wing, and then, their individuality is subsumed by the expectations of the whole — some individuality is permitted, is given dispensation for, and some is not. Some individuality is an interruption or a threat to the chain of command, and some is not.

Ergo, some individuals are simply more acceptable than others.

Who decides which are more acceptable? The person higher up in the chain of command. Power comes from the top.

How does one get higher in the chain of command?

By being the most acceptable.

The Wider Ramifications

Star Trek is a set of series and shows about exploration, which, as I said in the beginning of this piece, is quite the loaded the term. Starfleet crews expand outward from the boundaries of the United Federation of Planets — their core of command — and they seek out new ideas, new cultures, new resources. Some of these are subsumed into Starfleet’s ideals, and the ideas or resources they enjoy best are dispatched back to the core to be enjoyed by those there.

This is also a top-down process.

Bajor can be mined for resources by Cardassia, and mined for crew by Starfleet, refugees taken into crew, their information used in the war against Cardassia, their militia employed against Cardassia and the Dominion, but this is not a mutual exchange.

Bajor is under Starfleet’s protection. Starfleet can withdraw — and will withdraw — that protection whenever they see fit. This is leveraged as a threat multiple times throughout Deep Space Nine, most notably when Bajor seems to be returning to their caste system, which is understandably seen as a threat to the United Federation’s beliefs in equality.

Within the United Federation’s core, resources are freely available for all, but this privilege is not extended to the people of Bajor. They have not joined the Federation of Planets and put aside their planetary identity for the Federation’s.

Many Starfleet crew, and Starfleet’s own command, step back and allow the rape and destruction of Bajor’s people, its culture, by the Cardassian Empire: it is only when the Dominion threatens both Bajor and the Federation itself that Bajor is seen more seriously, and treated with more seriousness.

How often does this play out in different Star Trek episodes? Native Americans are forced from their ancestral homelands to new planets, and then they are forced from those and pushed to new ones. Planets are mined for resources, and peoples and cultures die.

Sometimes, Starfleet intervenes — sometimes, they watch.

Star Trek is a product of its creators and its viewers — it was originally made primarily by white Americans in 1960s USA as a vision for the future, of unity and equality for all, reaching out for other peoples across the stars. Each iteration of the Star Trek series has evolved and explored more what this utopian vision means, what its limitations are and what its most beautiful ideas might be.

Deep Space Nine is of course the classic Trek most critical of these ideas — it asks point blank questions about religious and cultural intolerance, about the limitations of the United Federation’s liberal multiculturism, where not everyone is truly accepted or even truly tolerated, despite the philosophy that every crewmember would like to believe in. It interrogates the biases that Star Trek holds and those that define it, most famously in episodes like Far Beyond the Stars, but also in episodes like The Abandoned, which interrogates and break down the anti-Blackness ever present in Star Trek’s attitudes and perspectives on the Jem’Hadar. Today, new Trek interrogates and considers its own past and the changes it makes to its universe, in Lower Decks and in Discovery, most of all.

But even they still have the uniform — how could they not have the uniform?

What would Star Trek look like without those uniforms? How would it work, how could it work?

These uniforms are not only pieces of cloth and leather — they represent a whole power structure and philosophical paradigm. We look at people in uniform like theirs, and many of us assume we’re looking at the good guys. That they mean well, that they’re doing good things, and care about each other.

That people without uniforms like theirs must be lesser, more backward, less disciplined, less moral or ethical, less controlled. Less together, less cohesive — less valuable.

The belief in a top-down power structure, ever present as it is, infects every part of our perspectives and our views on the world, every bias that we hold.

Picard and Riker in naval uniforms in Generations, via TrekCore.

One of the most iconic moments in Deep Space Nine is Garak and Quark’s infamous root beer conversation, where they talk about how Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets are quite insidious in their cultural domination, that bit by bit, they affect others to take on their cultural values and ideas.

Starfleet in many ways is more insidious than the Borg — at least the Borg says outright that assimilation is their goal and their mission, and tells people what’s going to happen to them. Starfleet doesn’t do that.

It holds back certain privileges and protections until people put aside the parts of themselves and their cultures that make them undesirable to Starfleet, until they work to assimilate within Starfleet’s boundaries and desires, and then they turn around and view that as a sign of the Federation’s ideological and philosophical supremacy in the first place. Why else would people change themselves to fit, after all?

They never forced anyone to join, never threatened violence.

Star Trek is, after all, a show written by white Americans, and American cultural hegemony is even more wide-reaching today than it was in the 1960s — the world over, people watch American shows and television, English is the predominant lingua franca, people are expected to accept US dollars and value the US dollar.

If the US decided to go to war tomorrow, it would affect everybody else in the world, American or otherwise. The US decides embargoes, has military and naval bases in most every territory on the planet, commands much of the world’s economy and money, such that American politicians and individuals can have devastating effects on elections or markets or any other aspect in various other countries throughout the world.

This is not to say that other countries in the West are not complicit and active in this sort of imperial domination, particularly the UK, France, Australia, and Canada, and that the impacts of this domination are most of all pushed and felt within the Global South, the better to exploit and oppress people, governments, and systems — merely that the US has the largest media output in terms of books, film, television, news, and structures of dissemination thereof.

If Starfleet is based loosely on the US Navy, and in Star Trek we primarily see those speaking American English, holding modernised American ideals, with a similar structure of command, a similar top-down power structure, and a multicultural philosophy bound by its liberal limitations, what is to be said for Starfleet’s own values, and the cultural hegemony of the United Federation of Planets itself?

These things aren’t said explicitly because these aspects form the whole of someone’s world views, these biases often carried within us, examined or unexamined, but we can see them reflected in signs and symbols around us when we interrogate them down to their root, which was the purpose of this piece.

I love Star Trek a great deal and have since I was a child, but the older I get and the more I watch, the more I become acquainted with its flaws and its weaknesses, and none are more striking than how monocultural it seems at times, and how often other cultures are so automatically dismissed as violent or lesser or somehow a threat to the whole, even when the opposite is true.

Every episode of Star Trek has someone exploring and seeking out a strange new world, and so often, that world is expected to change because of what Starfleet has done, what they’ve requested, and yet Starfleet rarely changes its culture or its methodology in the same huge or explosive ways, even from series to series, the top-down power structures stay in place, everyone still wears uniforms, and so on.

A uniform is more than shared costume — it represents shared values.

What becomes important to ask when we see a uniform like this in sci-fi or in our more magical or fantastical or utopian universes, is why people wear the uniform, and how much choice do they truly have in the values it represents?

How much can they change them, if they wish to — and how much are they allowed to wish to change them at all?

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

The disrespect toward indigenous peoples is what popped put at me today in one of your posts. I wonder how long the English have been looking down on the Welsh. We're the Saxons like that or is it the Normans who really thought they were better than everyone else. Cause it seems like it goes back a long way.

Oh, both, just in different ways. The Normals were imperialist, the Saxons were more theft and landgrab.

Something that makes me want to start hurling knives is the INCREDIBLY COMMON English myth that the Anglo-Saxons were a sweet innocent indigenous British people who were conquered and bullied by those mean nasty Normans (and Vikings), and because the Normans came over via France, that means everything was actually THEIR fault, and the true English i.e. the Anglo-Saxons, were victims too :(

When I say it's incredibly common, by the way, I really mean it. Enormous numbers of modern day English people believe this. I've seen BBC programs about the Viking invasions that claimed without a trace of irony that the Vikings would take slaves from "the native Anglo-Saxons". I've literally had English people comment this shit on posts of mine about Celtophobia and Welsh history. Like I'm there describing how the last Prince of Wales was locked in a wooden cage in Bristol Castle at the age of eight and lived out the remainder of his life there until his fifties so the Welsh would know their place, and some snivelling English cunt will straight up write a message going "Teehee really it was the Normans not the English though and they conquered the poor Anglo-Saxons too, poor England uwu"

Anyway in the dying days of the Roman empire in Britain one of the leading reasons for Rome abandoning Britannia was the constant waves of Anglo-Saxon invaders. There were so many the east coast of Britain became known as the Saxon Shore. There were so many the Romans built a line of forts that were and are literally called Saxon Shore Forts. There were so many that an official, historically documented, paid governmental position in Roman Britain was the Count of the Saxon Shore, i.e. the guy responsible for keeping the bastards out.

Rome had banned native military, of course, so when they then withdrew and took the armies with them, the people left had no defences against the incoming waves of Angles, Saxons and Jutes. England fell pretty quickly, Angles in the north, Saxons in the south, Jutes primarily in the east, I believe. What stopped their westward expansion was the Brythonic Celtic nations living in modern day Wales. And this is the origin of the Welsh dragon - those separate kingdoms needed a banner that united them, and represented Not Saxon. An anti-Saxon force. They chose a red dragon.

This is also the origin of King Arthur. An anti-Saxon king of the Brythons, who would repel these Germanic invaders. (It was several centuries later that England realised they should probably steal the term 'British', because otherwise they were marking themselves as 'not native'.)

Anyway the saving grace of the Anglo-Saxons in the end was actually that they were whiny little bitches who gave up trying to fight in Wales with its difficult mountains and fought each other instead. The whole sorry tale of the Heptarchy is the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms fighting like cats in a bag, while Saxon king Offa built a dyke along the Welsh border and went "WELL YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED OVER HERE" and every Welsh king went "...we literally didn't want to conquer you anyway, you spectacularly sad and stupid man"

Oh, and of course, there's the name 'Wales'. Given to us specifically by the Anglo-Saxons. And translated by centuries of English scholars, mostly very smugly, as 'foreigners'. A fun bit of early propaganda, look - foreigners in our own country that they tried and failed to steal.

All of which is a circuitous way of saying - yeah, it goes way back.