#star trek picard meta

[procrastinatorproject]

On the Changing Nature of the Borg

I was thinking about Season 2 of Star Trek: Picard yesterday, and I was once again struck by one of the things that disappointed me about the show: The complete retcon they gave the nature of the Borg.

I'm far from the first person to make this observation, and when I complained to friends about it last night, I was a little worried I might be doing the S2 writers a disservice. Maybe I was misremembering the details from the show and putting too much of my own interpretation on top of it. Or I might have latched on to somebody else's criticism and not checked to see if it was supported by the text.

But then I rewatched episode 2x09, "Hide and Seek" today, expecting to have to look very closely for the details that support my reading - only to find that I didn't over-interpret some throwaway line, this is a key piece of dialogue.

So, here it is: my thoughts and feelings about what happened to the Borg in season 2!

Spoilers for season 2 of Star Trek: Picard ahead, obviously. Also quite a bit of saltiness. (I have tagged this post accordingly, so please take this as your sign to blacklist that tag and/or stop reading if you're not in the mood for saltiness ;) )

Let us begin with a quick walk through the history of the Borg. [Edit: That was a lie, I am incapable of "quick." Prepare yourself for a verbose trek through the history of the Borg.]

In TNG, they were introduced as practically a force of nature. They didn't hold grudges, they weren't ambitious or greedy or megalomaniacal. They didn't spread across the Galaxy because they wanted to be conquerors or rulers. They simply spread. Like a virus, or an invasive plant.

They added new technologies and biology into their collective to improve themselves and their chances of survival. Assimilation was akin to evolution for them. (I know this is not how biological evolution works. I'm using it as shorthand. )

These Borg didn't care that people might not want to be assimilated because for one, their objections would be overwritten once they were Borg, and for another, they had no chance of escaping their fate, anyway.

This first, original form of the Borg, in my opinion, was the most truly alien they have ever been.

This characterization started to collapse a bit once First Contact decided to introduce the Borg Queen as a weird psycho-sexual horror component, making the Borg less of a force of nature and more of a nominally collective hive-mind that operated like a person would.

Voyager definitely added to this interpretation of the Borg, making them more beholden to the moods and wishes of the Queen. They were no longer simply a dispassionate alien organism, moving through the galaxy in a quest for self-improvement because that was their nature. Instead, their characterization became more human, pursuing specific goals, strategies and motivations.

On some level, I completely understand this choice. Making your main series villain a force of nature rather than a character with personal motivation is difficult to pull off, especially when that isn't the main story you're trying to tell. But it did end up taking the Borg one step farther away from their original alien-ness.

One thing Voyager added to the mythos, though, that I find deeply fascinating is that instead of having the Borg Queen lust for power and control, or having her act out of fear and self-preservation, they instead focused on the concept of Perfection. In "The Omega Directive", Seven of Nine explains that to the Borg, the pursuit of Perfection is almost spiritual.

According to this interpretation, the Borg don't simply search out and assimilate new species because of an "evolutionary" drive for self-improvement. Instead, they are on a quest to reach a state of absolute perfection. They add new technologies and biological diversity in the hopes of coming closer to this goal and one day finding this most ideal state of existence.

These Borg don't care about your objections to assimilation, because they are convinced that their vision of perfection is universal. Every species must obviously strive for perfection and they can offer that, so why would you ever want to resist? They have no concept of the fact that others might not define perfection in the way they do, might not strive for it at all, or that "perfection" at the cost of giving up all individuality and sovereignty might not be an acceptable trade-off for people.

(And no, Voyager is not internally consistent about this. Barely any long-running tv show is entirely internally consistent. But the point still stands.)

On some level, this drive also brings the Borg closer to humanity: less dispassionate virus and more colonizers who come to extract value from “lesser cultures” and impose a more enlightened way of life on them because They Know What's Best. Still, I think the relentless, uncompromizing pursuit of a nigh-spiritual ideal of Perfection and utter disinterest in personhood and self-determination of other people make the Borg into a formidable and, at the end of the day, alien villain.

Which brings us to season 2 of Star Trek: Picard.

The thing that rubbed me the wrong way about the way the Borg were characterized here is summed up in an exchange between Jurati and the Borg Queen:

Jurati: "Millions of species, planets, and still you always needed more." Borg Queen: "Perfection takes time, dear." Jurati: "This was never about perfection or evolution or any of that bullshit. It was never enough, because you're just like me. Lonely."

And that's it. In all of five sentences, we have retconned the entire history, motivation and fundamental nature of one of the main alien species of the Trek universe.

Everything we have been told about the Borg, everything they have said about their reasons and their character, none of it was true. They have been lying to all of us and to themselves this entire time. They aren't a force of nature or a people/collective organism in pursuit of a higher ideal. Instead, it was all a single woman's misguided quest to not feel alone anymore.

Now, I understand that for some people, this revelation adds a new layer of complexity to a villain that had grown somewhat stale. And I have seen others argue that they like the idea that the Borg collective is actually all about connection. If that's you, I'm not saying you're wrong or trying to ruin your enjoyment of these characters.

But personally, I find this development rather disappointing. This plot twist retroactively changes not only the philosophy, psychology, and raison d'être of a fascinating alien culture but also the narrative significance of the Borg in the Trek cosmos.

Before, they were in conflict with the Federation because they refused (or were unable) to look outwards and see that there was more than one "correct" mode of existence, and that the life of people different than them had worth. Now, the conflict arises because they refuse to look inward and acknowledge that what they are really looking for cannot be achieved through conquest.

Where before they assimilated civilizations in a quest for utmost perfection no matter the cost, now they are assimilating masses of people in the hopes of creating a chorus that will drown out the loneliness.

Don't get me wrong, that sort of twist can make for an intriguing villain arc, but firstly, it needs to be executed with a lot more care than season 2 made room for, and secondly, it works a lot better for individuals or groups of individuals than for a species that is ostensibly a telepathic hive-mind.

(Seriously, the in-universe implications -- for the Prime-timeline Borg, the Federation, the xBs -- are staggering and are glossed over completely on the show. Then again, this is the same season that doesn't bother to show (or tell) whether Agnes Jurati chooses to remain with the Borg Queen out of a genuine desire to create a new collective or as a desperate bargain to save her friends. You know. The culminating moment of her character arc in season 2. But that is another rant.)

At the end of the day, I don't feel like this newly-revealed secret motivation adds a fresh layer of complexity to a well-known villain. Instead, I think it takes away many of the aspects that made the Borg intriguing, both narratively and as an alien species, and turns them into something much more human and, frankly, much more banal.

[philosopherking1887]

Thoughts on Narek’s character

I started writing this ridiculous essay in June of 2021 after I watched season 1 of Picard. @shadowinthefire found a post from back then about the fact that I was writing this whole-ass essay and asked if I would post the essay itself, which I never finished because I decided it wasn’t worth it to start fights with people (and I gained enough distance from the specific irritating exchanges I had about Narek, reported in the essay below, that they were no longer actively pissing me off).

I put the whole thing under a “read more” link because I realize that most people will not care XD

Having finished watching season 1 of Star Trek: Picard, attempted to talk to some people about it, and poked around in the tags, I have found that Narek is the most polarizing character. He seems to be this show/fandom’s Loki or Kylo Ren: one segment of the fandom (myself included; I’m habitually prone to villain-sympathizing) finds him at least somewhat sympathetic and thinks he has the potential for redemption, while another considers him a worthless, irredeemable jerk and “abuser”... a term that’s more appropriately applied here than to some of the other polarizing characters it’s thrown at, but I’m not entirely sure it’s to the point here, either, and I think the emotional charge of the word (inevitably associated with the ‘social justice’ sensibilities of the Tumblr Left) often obscures more than it illuminates.

Insofar as Narek deceives Soji, manipulates her, uses her for his own aims (finding the synths’ homeworld), tries to kill her, and then follows her after she escapes -- all while claiming that he loves her, and possibly even believing it himself -- it seems apropos to term it an abusive relationship, and him an abuser. However, most relationship abuse, as we tend to understand it, doesn’t involve an intelligence agent seducing a target for information. In general, it strikes me as odd to talk about spies who use “honeypotting” or “honeytrapping” as a tactic as “abusers,” because the point is very different. The target is not just a random victim for the spy to control for the sake of a power trip; there’s something specific that the spy wants to accomplish, and the target is collateral damage in the pursuit of that aim. (This is also different from raising and molding children to serve a specific purpose in a way that’s harmful to them, which definitely counts as abuse -- think Enabran Tain with Garak in DS9, or Thanos with Gamora and Nebula in the MCU. Parents have a special responsibility to their children, biological or adopted, to love them unconditionally and act in their best interests. People get into sexual relationships for all kinds of reasons, and while you might think we all have a Kantian responsibility not to treat others as a mere means, it seems unhelpful to apply the term “abuse” to all violations of that duty.)

In the case of Narek and Soji specifically: he sincerely believes that synthetic life will bring about the destruction of all organic life in the galaxy (or universe?), and thinks there is a real possibility that she is Seb-Cheneb, the Destroyer foretold in ancient myths that seemed to be corroborated by the Admonition, which he believes to be the historical testimony of a highly advanced society. From that perspective, Soji is a powerful and dangerous enemy, even though Narek knows that she doesn’t recognize that yet, and is to that extent innocent.

So, what about the fact that Narek keeps claiming that he loves Soji, even during and after his attempt to kill her? That sounds like classic abuser shit: the whole “I love you so much I can’t let anyone else have you,” “the reason I hurt you is because I love you,” “you have to forgive me because I love you so much.” It may or may not matter whether you think he believed it himself: abusers (the argument goes) don’t know what real love is; they might think they love their victim, but they couldn’t really love them if they’re still capable of hurting them. FWIW, I think he does believe he loves her, and it’s not just something he’s lying about to get her to trust him; and I think that largely because Narissa accuses him of having fallen in love with Soji. Narissa, as his sister, knows him very well, and psychopaths (which I think Narissa is but Narek is not) are often very perceptive about other people’s emotions.

Parts of the abuser pattern don’t apply to Narek: he never says he’s hurting Soji because he loves her; it’s all very much despite. But isn’t it abusively manipulative to say that he loves her -- even if he thinks it’s true -- first while he’s trying to gain her trust for the sake of betraying her, then, while crying, when he’s trying to kill her, and again when sees her after having tried to kill her? Isn’t he saying it to try to get her to feel sorry for him or feel guilty for holding him prisoner, to make her doubt herself, to give him an opening to escape and try to kill her again, along with all of her people?

Well... yes and no. Saying he loves her while he’s still working on getting her to reveal the location of the android planet is a tactic; it’s part of the honey trap thing. Falling in love with the target of your honeypot scheme is very bad form for a spy, but it’s a pretty common feature of spy stories involving that strategy. (A major departure from the way that trope usually shows up -- which I think is relevant to the difference in how people perceive it -- is that in this case the honey-trapper is a man and the target is a woman, so they’re easier to fit onto the abuser/victim template. If you do think that female spies are abusing the men they seduce, props for consistency.) I think the crying is a genuine emotional response, whether or not you want to confer the honorific of love on whatever feelings he has for her (attempting to outline criteria for love that could determine whether or not Narek’s feelings for Soji fall into that category is beyond the scope of this essay). In any case, he’s not happy about having to kill her, even though he’s still convinced it’s completely necessary.

I’m not sure he’s actually trying to accomplish anything by continuing to say he loves her when he’s a prisoner on Coppelia. Maybe he wants her to feel sorry for him, or forgive him, but he’s also very upfront at this point about what he thinks she is and what he’s trying to do, and I don’t think he expects her to let him go or anything. I think he’s just saying it because (he thinks) it’s true. Of course it hurts Soji to keep hearing him say it, because it’s a reminder of how he betrayed her trust, and if he were more sensitive to her feelings, he wouldn’t keep saying it. So he’s being emotionally selfish, but he also thinks/hopes they’re both going to die imminently (I doubt he has any hope of escaping before the Romulan fleet “sterilizes” the planet), so I suspect he’s saying it in a “nothing matters anyway” mode.

To be clear, I don’t think Narek is a good person, and I don’t ship him with anyone other than a good therapist. I just don’t think he’s evil, and I feel bad for him rather than hating him (though I think Soji is completely justified in hating him). I think he’s an OK, flawed, but morally weak person in a no-win situation -- much like Theon Greyjoy in season 2 of Game of Thrones (or A Clash of Kings, if you go by the books), whom I also sympathized with even before all the torture and mutilation (definitely a minority position).

I also don’t think it’s particularly helpful to label him with the Tumblr-SJ-morally-loaded term “abuser” -- which is deliberately used to mark anyone who finds him (or similar characters) sympathetic as a Bad Ally, as bad in specifically Social Justice-y terms. (When I said in a Discord discussion that “I’m more inclined than most people to try to take the perspective of prima facie unsympathetic characters,” an anti-Narek person replied, “I also try to take the perspective of prima facie ‘unsympathetic’ characters, which are often female and/or people of color. I think that’s different to ‘evil’ characters that just reinforce traditional power structures.” Wow, cool. So you’re accusing me of sympathizing with the oppressor, and saying that you, virtuously, only sympathize with villains under the only circumstances when it’s morally acceptable: namely, if the villain belongs to a social category that’s marginalized in the actual world. Way to reduce fiction to Hot-Button Social Issues.)

Parallels with Other Characters

Garak, Deep Space Nine

I tried (unsuccessfully) to make the case to someone that aspects of Narek’s situation are not unlike Garak’s at some of his morally lowest moments in DS9: first when he unwillingly tortures Odo in “The Die is Cast,” both to prove himself to Tain so he can go home and to protect Odo from possibly worse torture; and then when he tries to destroy the Founders’ homeworld in “Broken Link” while Bashir (whom we can all assume he loves) is also on the planet.

Narek pretty obviously doesn’t enjoy hurting Soji, but he does it because he thinks he has to. Unlike Garak, who stops torturing Odo at some point, Narek goes through with his plan to kill Soji, even while expressing his unhappiness about it. The person I was talking to took that as a sign of Garak’s superior moral character, and perhaps a sign that while his concern and distress were sincere, Narek’s was not. I’m not sure we can draw that conclusion (even if I do think that Garak is a better person than Narek, on the whole). Garak also stopped torturing Odo because he knew perfectly well that he couldn’t actually tell them anything useful about the Founders and that he wasn’t going to get anything more out of him by continuing to torture him, and he didn’t think Tain expected him to torture Odo to death as a condition of returning home. By contrast, Narek went through with his plan to kill Soji because he was quite sure at this point that she was the Destroyer destined to bring an end to all organic life. The reason Garak stopped while Narek didn’t wasn’t (just) because Garak is a better person; it was also because Garak didn’t think he could still accomplish anything by continuing to torture Odo, while Narek’s goals still demanded that he kill Soji.

So that brought me to a case where Garak doesn’t stop of his own accord in trying to do something morally reprehensible: his attempt to destroy the Founders’ homeworld, and thus to commit genocide, in “Broken Link” -- which would also result in killing Dr. Bashir, who’s definitely his friend and arguably his beloved. He’s willing to do that because the female Founder has threatened Cardassia with annihilation, and he believes it’s necessary to save Cardassia. This action and its motivation is pretty closely parallel with Narek’s. Indeed, Narek has better moral math on this one: he’s trying to kill one person he (thinks he) loves and (eventually) to commit a genocide of synths to save all organic life, not just a single species and its empire.

My opponent argued that Garak is still more sympathetic because he believes he will die as a result of his action, and therefore he, unlike Narek, is willing to make sacrifices for his cause. I think it’s unfair to draw that conclusion because the situations aren’t exactly parallel, and Narek doesn’t expect to die as a result of killing Soji. He tells a guard not to lower the force field to pursue Soji because of the radiation in the room where he’d trapped her, but why doesn’t he go in himself? Probably because the radiation would escape and kill other people, which he doesn’t want to do. Does he think he’s risking his life by taking a ship alone to pursue her? Not clear; possibly not. He probably does think he’s risking his life by going to Raffi and Rios for help in stopping the synths from building and activating the beacon, and in offering himself to be used as bait to get into the compound. Because I think he has genuine feelings for Soji (again, not weighing in on whether it’s “love”), I think that killing her in pursuit of the aims of the Zhat Vash is a sacrifice... but I realize that may not make him sound particularly sympathetic. I’m reminded of Thanos sacrificing Gamora for the Soul Stone in Infinity War, which was some definite bullshit -- but I also think his goal is way more stupid than Narek’s and the relationship actually does count as abusive, for the reasons explained above. Nonetheless, I think some of us would be willing to say that killing Bashir to save Cardassia was a genuine sacrifice for Garak, and would have been whether or not he also expected to die himself. Does that only count because it would have been collateral damage rather than the immediate goal, and thus subject to the “doctrine of double effect”?

Note from Jan 2023: I also planned to write sections fleshing out the comparison with Theon Greyjoy in season 2/book 2 of GOT/ASOIAF, and another one comparing Narek’s situation to that of Thomas Sharpe in Guillermo del Toro’s film Crimson Peak. I leave these as exercises for the reader...

[lostyesterday]

I was curious about which Star Trek shows had the most human vs non-human characters, so I made this graph. I counted all major characters plus characters who were in at least 10 episodes of each respective show (with a few exceptions for incredibly minor characters who are technically in more than ten episodes but have barely any/no lines). A full list of characters included is below the cut.

TOS:

Part/Non-Human: Spock

Human: Kirk, Mccoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, Chapel

TNG:

Part/Non-Human: Data, Troi, Worf, Guinan

Human: Picard, Riker, La Forge, Crusher, Wesley, Yar, Pulaski, O’Brien, Ogawa

DS9:

Part/Non-Human: Kira, Odo, Quark, Jadzia, Rom, Nog, Garak, Dukat, Worf, Weyoun, Martok, Leeta, Ezri, Damar, Female Changeling, Winn

Human: Sisko, Bashir, Jake, O’Brien, Keiko, Kasidy, Ross

VOY:

Part/Non-Human: Torres, Neelix, EMH, Tuvok, Kes, Seven (part Borg counts as not entirely human to me), Seska, Naomi, Icheb

Human: Janeway, Chakotay, Paris, Kim

ENT:

Part/Non-Human: T’Pol, Phlox, Soval, Shran

Human: Archer, Reed, Tucker, Sato, Mayweather, Forrest

DIS:

Part/Non-Human: Saru, Tyler (debatable but I’m counting him as partly non-human), L’Rell, Book, T’Rina, Nhan, Rillak, Linus, Zora, Adira (again, debatable, but they’ve got a symbiont so they’re not entirely human to me), Gray

Human: Burnham, Stamets (complicated case but I counted him as still human), Tilly, Culber, Lorca (mirror universe characters are still human, I think), Georgiou, Detmer, Owosekun, Rhys, Bryce, Cornwell, Airiam (she’s still human), Pike, Jett, Nilsson, Pollard, Vance

PIC:

Part/Non-Human: Picard (for part of the show at least), Elnor, Soji, Narek, Seven, Laris/Talinn (I am just pretending they’re the same character for simplicity), Jack (I guess???)

Human: Musiker, Jurati, Rios, Adam, Riker, Crusher, Shaw, Sidney

LWD:

Part/Non-Human: Tendi, Shaxs, T’Ana, Barnes, Kayshon

Human: Mariner, Boimler, Rutherford, Freeman, Ransom, Billups

PRO:

Part/Non-Human: Dal, Gwyn, Zero, Rok-Tahk, Jankom, Murf, Hologram Janeway, Diviner, Drednok

SNW:

Part/Non-Human: Spock, Una, Hemmer

Human: Pike, La’an, Uhura, Chapel, M’Benga, Ortegas

[procrastinatorproject]

There's also the Romulan Rescue and subsequent Attack on Mars to consider.

While it's never explored in detail in alpha canon, we still see that a considerable amount of the ship-building operations on Mars, Starfleet's largest shipyard, if I'm not mistaken, had been dedicated to the Wallenberg class transports to aid in the refugee mission. The Federation committed a large part of Starfleet to this effort and many of their ships would have been modified and tied up in it, and new ones would have been built with an eye towards this purpose.

And then, the largest ship-building operation Starfleet had gets wiped out in its entirety, along with a good chunk of the resche armada. They have other shipyards, of course, but if they looked anything like Mars, they would have heavily incorporated synth labour at this point - except then synths got banned and they had to (and might have wanted to) decommission theirs.

So, 15-ish years before the start of season 1, there was a big upheaval in the Federations ship-building operations, after they had already undergone a large-scale change at the start of the Romulan Rescue Mission. And it was triggered by a large-scale attack that nobody claimed credit for, so Starfleet didn't know if it was "just" malfunctioning tech or s targeted strike (we see a bunch of speculation about this in season 1).

In that climate of uncertainty, paranoia, and pain, when they already had to re-think how they were building ships and re-build a good chunk of their fleet with much fewer available resources and drastically reduced manpower, settling on a couple classes of ships that can be built quickly, efficiently, and used in exactly the way OP outlines above seems entirely within reason.

I know the copy-paste fleet from PIC's Et in Arcadia Ego, Pt. II tends to get a lot of people riled up, but honestly, I feel like it makes a lot of sense from an in-universe perspective.

Like, one of the big issues Starfleet had in the TNG and DS9 eras was that basically any time a new threat rolled up at the border, their threat response was just whichever ships they could call up at short notice. This was one of the bigger reasons why the fleets in episodes like The Best of Both Worlds, Redemption, Pt. II, and the Descent two parter were a mish-mash of different classes: from Starfleet's perspective, it was quite literally just whoever they could drum up in the moment, not which ships were actually best for this job.

During the DS9 era, there was a shift from fleets being just whoever they could drum up to being actual formalised big fleets that consistently did maneuvers together. This is why it went from DS9 getting seven ships as reinforcements during the battle in The Way of the Warrior to there just being hundreds of ships that operated together a few seasons later. This is apparently a trend that continued after the Dominion War, too: in Nemesis, the fleet the Enterprise-E was supposed to link up with towards the end was referred to as Battle Group Omega.

I think having a couple hundred Inquiry-class ships operating as a single fleet would make sense in this context. A lot of the ships that were in service during the TNG/DS9 era would have been decommissioned or destroyed by this point, and Starfleet would have had to replace them with something. In seasons two and three of Picard, we've seen some of the other ships that have been introduced over the intervening decades; having a few rapid response units would also make sense.

This wouldn't necessarily square with Starfleet's exploratory and scientific missions, but I don't think it'd necessarily need to. Even in TNG, there were more military-focused officers like Captain Jellico and Admiral Nechayev who were very concerned with the Federation's security, and they didn't get in the way of the Enterprise-D's exploratory, scientific, or diplomatic missions.

The same would be true of the late 24th/early 25th century of PIC's first season: they could easily have both the heavily militaristic officers and the more pacifist officers working different missions for the most part. It's just that the part of the fleet we saw was the military part.

Plus, from a thematic point of view, this would tie into why Picard left Starfleet to begin with. In Remembrance, Picard straight up says he left because he felt that Starfleet wasn't Starfleet anymore. Having a noticeable chunk of the fleet set up to be the immediate military response to a new threat would make sense in that context. Picard's traditionally been the kind of guy who prefers peace and diplomacy (though he is a capable military guy when the chips are down), so Starfleet immediately being able, and potentially willing, to respond to everything with deadly force really would rub him the wrong way.

The other reason I don't mind there being a fleet of hundreds of Inquiry-class ships ready to go is because of the makeup of the Romulan, Klingon, and Cardassian fleets during DS9. While these powers did have some varieties in their fleets, for the most part they're just as guilty of flying copy-paste fleets as Riker was in Et in Arcadia Ego, Pt. II. While Starfleet was flying fleets with a large variety of ship classes, the Romulans were almost exclusively flying D'deridex-class warbirds, the Klingons mostly Vor'cha- and Negh'var-class battle cruisers with the occasional bird-of-prey and K'tinga-class, and the Cardassians exclusively Galor- and Keldon-class ships.

This doesn't necessarily mean that these are the only ships these powers had available, but they were very much the backbone of their battle fleets and were clearly considered to be the most capable of combat. Their other ships were probably made for much more specialised purposes.

This is probably a design philosophy Starfleet probably took as well. Instead of having most of their larger ships be jack-of-all-trade ships, they spent more time having specialised ships for specialised purposes. The end result of this is that they could have 200 Inquiry-class ships ready to go for this purpose rather than just have dozens of different classes that might not be the best for it, but would do in a pinch.

I feel like this is also something people would have warmed to a lot more over time, had the Picard writers not immediately try to back peddle in season two's opening episode, The Star Gazer. Had they just said, "Well, this is a new era, both of production and in-universe, and this is how Starfleet does battle fleets now," it might still be a contentious thing but people would eventually get used to it.

The other thing they probably should have done--and I still think they should do this at some point--is have a show set during this same period that focuses heavily on a five-year mission during this period. That'd allow room for an explanation that the copy-paste Inquiry fleets are mostly just for emergencies, and that other ship classes exist for different purposes. (I know eventually someone will say, "Yeah, but Lower Decks and Prodigy exist", but keep in mind they're set twenty-ish years prior to Picard.)

I think this would allow for starship classes to clearly be for much more set purposes rather than just be the jack-of-all-trade ships they've traditionally been. While there's been exceptions to this like the Oberth- and Nova-classes mostly being science vessels, the Defiant-class being a warship in all but name, and the Olympic-class being a medical ship, but these are mostly the exceptions.

Classes like the Constitution- and Excelsior-classes are nominally explorer classes, but have been shown to be used for military missions as well for example, and that tends to be the general rule for larger ships. For the most part, if they're a medium-to-large ship for the era, then they're used as a jack-of-all-trades ship rather than for a specialised purpose.

So really, the writers on Picard had the opportunity to really do something interesting with how starship classes get used and having a set canonical purpose for each new class, but then they chose to not do it because it didn't really gel with a lot of people. I feel like this is ultimately an unfortunate thing.

[rocket-sith]

THERE MIGHT BE KAHLUA IN THAT NEBULA: A Star Trek Fandom Drinking Game

Booze: the final frontier. Fandom conventions: the final, final frontier, once you're past the original point of no return.

Whether you're cosplaying at a con, chillaxing on your couch, or doing a watch party online with your virtual shipmates - THESE ARE THE VOYAGES… of you, running frantically to the restroom, humbly bowing before the almighty porcelain god, and paying your penance to the Guardian of Foreverclear.

Your mission is to seek out strange new life by looking in the mirror because you, my friend, are a goddamn nerd who's been playing a Star Trek drinking game. And although you've probably been here MANY times before - if you can't remember it, we can just wink and say you're boldly going where no one has gone before.

ATTENTION BAJORAN TWERKERS: These are the rules.

1) Grab a cup, flask, bottle, mug, or biohazard container full of your favorite intoxicant (or juice or soda if you wanna play but don't do the booze thing. Hell, drink water if you want. Somebody's gotta stay sober to remind the drunk-ass fools of all the embarrassing shit they did in the morning.)

2) Plop your ass in front of a Trek episode if you're gonna do Part I, or go prowl a convention or fandom event if you're gonna do Part II. (If you're doing part II, disclaimer applies: please don't get caught if you break any convention policies related to alcohol.)

3) Drink as instructed. May the Force be with you and may the odds be ever in your flavor…er…favor, because you're gonna need the strength of a few other fandoms' catchphrases to get through all this goofy shit. (Seriously though, please DO make sure you live long and prosper. If you've hit your limit, switch to water.)

------ THIS GAME IS WRITTEN FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. NO ONE IS ACTUALLY ENCOURAGED TO CHUG THEMSELVES INTO OBLIVION. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW OR BY OUTLAWS ON FENRIS AND/OR FREECLOUD. THIS PAGE MAY NOT BE REDEEMED FOR CASH, CREDITS, DILITHIUM, OR LATINUM. IF YOU'RE STILL READING THIS CRAP, YOU MAY NOT BE REDEEMED EITHER. MANAGEMENT IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY UNEXPECTED WORMHOLES, TRIBBLES, LIZARD BABIES, OR REGRETTABLE LIFE DECISIONS. -----

[knightofthenewrepublic]

[bobauthorman]

One of RWBY's themes, especially in the later volumes, is how stifling and painful being expected to act perfect all the time really is.

So naturally, the fandom holds its characters to absolutely high standards and flip when they aren't 100% absolutely golden, or woobyfy them to such a degree that they can't see any of the flaws they're supposed to have.

[greenleaf4stuff]

I know this is an older post but so. much. this. I also wonder about that, and personally think the series would have profited much more from including the character more, leaving him alive and an active part of the series, than...the route they chose to go with (which seemingly wasn’t popular with fans either).

Considering JDA mentioned (jokingly and maybe not jokingly?) multiple times in different contexts that he’d love a spin-off including/about Hugh (a prequel to Picard for example)...he would at least not be *opposed* to returning to Trek, or even to have Hugh’s fate be corrected, it seems like. Make of that what you will.

(Here’s to me hoping that maybe, there will be some special or spinoff or retcon or whatever, since there are so many ways he could have survived, and I think the fans would be open to that as well.)

the cutest of borg + text posts (part one)

[stra-tek]

Okay so, since 2009 most of Star Trek has had this swirly blue tunnel warp speed effect . . .

. . . seen here on the U.S.S. Titan in Picard season 3. Now, a few episodes later the gang pile into their old Next Gen ship and . . .

It's the 90's Trek "streaking stars" warp effect!

I always assumed it was just different visual effects for the exact same thing, a real-life artistic choice, and now I'm wondering if different ships with different engines are supposed to make different warp effects in-universe. Or maybe it's just nostalgia overload and I'm overthinking things as usual.

[greenleaf4stuff]

This is the worst way to find out I have a favorite kind of character and it is one that is loyal to his people no matter how much others might fear them, being a father and a protector of them, and then dying tragically even as they try to help and protect those they care about.

Brb crying

for the trop girlies (gn) unfamiliar with him - the other character is Hugh from Star Trek and he (spoilers for Star Trek Picard):

got taken by the borg and was modified against his will thereby losing his sense of self while forced to serve them (and needed others to regain his sense of self and empathy)

his name as a borg was Third of Five, but after gaining his freedom he was given a new name, Hugh, which he goes by

became a guardian of the freed former borg (xBs) helping them to heal from their trauma and get better while trying to protect them from those who feared them or wished to exploit them - against a whole galaxy of ppl who saw all borg or former borg as dangerous

him and his people also have no 'home' of their own

ended up getting killed while trying to help his friends and while being unable to protect the very xBs he had devoted himself to

also. facial scars due to experimentation/modification. dark hair. dark clothes. goth vibes but dark does not mean evil.

...does this remind you of anyone?

[plutopups33]

One of the weirdest things about NuTrek is that they seem to have forgotten that enlisted people exist in starfleet. Like everyone on those shows is an officer. Its like they can't conceive of anything existing below ensign.

[isagrimorie]

If there's one thing Voyager is really good at -- is making TV movies aka their two-three parters (I consider Scorpion 1 and 2, and The Gift a trilogy).

But also, aside from Year of Hell, I think Dark Frontier is also a great TV movie-style event.

It might be the first time Seven actively denied she was Borg.

I know I've screencapped this scene before but I want to do it again because the scene is so good, so crunchy.

In the scene after the Borg Queen orders Seven to assist with the assimilation effort-- Seven kind of follows along in a daze, almost automatically goes along with things like a good drone:

It's only when Seven registers that people are yelling around her that she stops:

People yelling for mercy in a Borg Cube must have been background noise for Drone!Seven.

The moment that Seven post-severance realizes what the yelling actually means, Seven is perturbed. Especially when she can see people being ushered to their assimilation. Blank-faced and resigned to their fate:

She looks haunted, but the explosions and sparks jostle Seven back to the efficient Drone mindset and she walks toward the malfunctioning area to try and fix it until she's thrown onto the floor. And healed in a very brusque manner by fellow drones, and you can see Seven's confused state. She doesn't know whether to be afraid or take it as given.

You can see Seven think: Oh. If I'm not critically injured, they heal me. But the experience clearly shook Seven and she stumbles back, and tries to go somewhere.

And runs right into another group of people forced to march to assimilation chambers.

One man, who has a little fight left in him tries to escape and runs right into Seven, who automatically, with her Borg-enhanced arm catches the man.

Even Seven seemed shocked at what she did.

Seven releases the man:

Too late.

He's immediately injected with nanoprobes.

(Side note: I just realized this effect is very similar to the effect in Picard s3-- which makes sense because the Borg Queen's plans there were actually hatched partially in this two-parter!)

Seven is so horrified with what she's done, she staggers back. Again, a beautiful call forward to the moment Seven staggers back when alt!timeline!Borg Queen calls for her in Picard s2.

This is Seven's impetus in trying to help, if not all but at least someone.

And the first time when Seven vehemently denied she was Borg:

Thus starts Seven lifelong struggle between her two identities- Borg and Human.

The questions about who she is is something that will plague Seven from the Delta Quadrant to the Alpha Quadrant. Picard s2 implied she was at peace with who she is but progress is not linear and I hope it's a question she's still struggling with (if we get her show).

[fractalcloning]

As I scream into the void seeking a Narek RPer to play against, I have finally caved and must explain why I want this Romulan loungelizard to be more popular. (It won't happen, but I can dream.)

Reasons I like Narek as a character that nobody but me gives a shit about:

Let me preface this with a fact about me: I know Romulans.

I've RPed as Nero for almost two straight years in a large game. I've basically learned Rihannsu back to front for the endeavor. The person who played my Ayel and I both dumped countless hours into developing grammar and extrapolating cultural rules. We were dedicated to making them as believeable and accurate to canon as possible.

I have the whole timeline of the destruction of Hobus/Romulus down to memory. I know about all the neat little tidbits and trivia from comics and adjacent materials etc, etc.

This is to say: I have read and written quite a lot about Romulans in my time. I am very familiar with how they work and what data is available to draw from when writing them.

We do meet a few rank and file military Romulans from time to time, however. So we know how the general military operates in direct contrast to the Tal'Shiar. Caution and secrecy is sort of baked into their culture, which makes a lot of sense given that they're constantly at war with basically everyone, but they aren't (generally) unreasonable people.

In canon Trek, Romulans are often a little over the top with the sneaky-backstabbing-untrustworthy-nonsense. They're almost comical with how much scheming they do, but most of the Romulans we meet in canon are Tal'Shiar. The Tal'Shiar are known, pretty explicitly for the depth and breadth of their sneaky-backstabbing-untrustworthy-nonsense. It's kind of their whole deal, apart from mnhei'sahe (literally the ruling passion honor).

Narek, however, was a child when Hobus went supernova. He is from the very last generation that had any living memory of Romulus. (Elnor is also from this generation and they are great foils for each other, but that's another essay.) Narek is from a (presumably) respected family of--if not Tal'Shiar then Military--operatives. His aunt held high rank, his sister did as well, and both were inducted into the Zhat Vash, an organization that worked so quietly and efficiently that even the famously paranoid Tal'Shiar thought they were a myth. They orchestrated catastrophes and manipulated Galactic law to their ends, one of their members was the head of Starfleet Security and Narissa was on a personal basis with her.

Their underlying culture is present, but it isn't explored very deeply in any one canon source. Taken collectively, however, it is just as substantial as Klingon Battle-lust or Ferengi Capitalism.

Nero was a break from the norm, not because he was vengeful, but because he was the first non-military Romulan we'd ever really seen. His designs, the tattoos, the crew of his ship with their very un-Romulan loyalty, the way he talked and sought equivalent exchange of lives (mnhei'sahe), was a wealth of Romulan culture that we hadn't ever seen. He was a regular Joe, had a regular non-Military job, trusted and worked with aliens to try and save lives. His failure (not his fault) was something he absorbed and sought to rectify in the Romulan way.

Nero was super interesting both for how much detail he cast on Romulan culture, and in how he slotted into the Prime Timeline. Nero was a guy desperately clinging to hope, to the last vestiges of his civilian life, but he was cut free by the destruction of Romulus and set adrift. The only anchor he had in the AOS timeline was his honor and the driving need to balance the scales and restore it.

Narek, however privledge his family was, was a washout. He was a failure. We know he wasn't Zhat Vash, and whether he was even Tal'Shiar is up for some serious speculation. He doesn't act like military officers, and only seems to be play-acting as a Tal'Shiar, miming his sister when it suits him.

Narek may have had authority on the Artifact, but it was probably by dint of Oh granting it. We never get any clarification whatsoever about his rank or dayjob, just that he is fully devoted to helping the Zhat Vash. He is analytical, prepared, but he is not good at thinking on his feet and clearly does his planning off screen. He's meticulous but not especially skilled at hiding or regulating his emotional state. He is far less aggressive and stalwart than just about every other Romulan we've seen...except for Nero.

He was literally a placeholder sent to keep tabs on Soji. He didn't even arrive until Narissa had failed to capture Dahj. That Narek managed to get close to Soji, that he discovered her dreams and correctly surmised what they are, was more luck than skill. Before his assessments the Zhat Vash knew that Dahj (and Soji) could be activated out of their cover, but they assumed that they could capture them. They probably assumed they could torture the data out of them, if not dissect them and rip out a harddrive.

Narek found an easy way to get right to the information they needed. His attachment to Romulan culture is his puzzlebox--Before Nero we had never met a Romulan civilian and before Narek we have never met a cultural Romulan who plays with a toy, we had never seen a child's toy like that. Of course, the puzzlebox (Tan Zhekran) was a mechanism to illustrate his thought process, to make the differences between Narissa and him very apparent, but it was also something from his childhood (presumably). It's a weirdly personal affect for a Romulan and he fidgets with it almost constantly. It's a tell, something he shouldn't have, and it makes him accessible on an emotional level.

Narek is a civilian.

He's a civilian in a family of spies and operatives, raised alongside his sister on the same stories, with the same care. There's no way a Zhat Vash didn't have a family home on Romulus. While Elnor is a nice example of the new generation of Romulans, Narek is one of the last examples of what is used to mean to be a Romulan. He saw Romulus and escaped with all his surviving family when it as it was destroyed. Narek was raised on Romulan tradition (private names for family), Romulan stories about the end of the world, and he is haunted by them because he knows they're true, they're real. His sister and aunt have seen it, seen the message that drives people mad, about Ganmadan. His living relatives have dedicated their lives to preventing it and, even if he isn't actually Zhat Vash, he does the same.

Narek is a failure, by his culture's standards, by his family's standards, but he is also the only one of them who lives in the end.

He's a civilian who is trying, desperately, to avert another Romulan apocalypse. He has already lived through one and somehow this next one is even worse. Like Nero he sees the writing on the wall--but instead of doubling down on the traditional sneaky spy shit, he tries something new--unlike Nero, it works! He makes headway where nobody else could.

Unfortunately, it's kinda fucked up, but he then gives up everything in the pursuit of this goal. (Which to him, seems like a noble one.) Narek gives up who he is (by playing at being Tal Shiar), his safety (he has no idea what Soji is capable of or what might set her off, they only have records of Dahj killing a dozen agents before being blown up), and eventually resigns himself to killing the woman he's fallen in love with (the baseline requirement for giving out his real name). He does it all for the greater good, to save people and he doesn't seem to make much of a distinction between Romulan and other organic lives. He has his little plans, tracking La Sirena in a single cloaked ship, hiding his presence to tail them, firing on them despite being wholly outmatched, allying with Sutra however temporarily, trying to sway Soji again, turning to Rios, Raffi, and Elnor for help--he's willing to do anything because he's terrified that everything is about to end and it will be him who failed to prevent it.

The very last shot we see of him, after his plan to detonate the transmitter fails completely, is him on the ground being dragged away by the Coppelius androids. He doesn't posture or threaten, doesn't say ominous shit like the other Romulans we're used to--He begs. He claws at the ground, trying to stay, and he begs. He pleads with Soji, calls her his love, tries that last ditch hail mary because it's all he can do. He fails his task and she's the last person he can reach out to and, in the end, despite the very real threat to her life, Planet, and Picard, Soji smashes the transmitter. The apocalypse is averted.

Narek failed but he also succeeded. His aunt is dead, Oh has been outed as a traitor, and his sister is killed by Seven of Nine. In a cut scene, apparently, Narek was supposed to be arrested by Starfleet. So he's facing (at the very least) retribution from the androids and the ExBorg. Starfleet is very likely to arrest and interrogate him, if not imprison him indefinitely since he has ties to the Zhat Vash and, subsequently, will be on the hook to explain the Utopia Planetia disaster. Soji hates him, for good reason, and his homeworld is long gone. Narek has nothing...but the world was saved.

Narek is singular because he's all about needing and interacting with other people, he has no real authority, nobody he commands. He's a civilian (insofar as any Romulan can be) and is a soft, emotional boy who hangs on to his childhood toys. He's driven in equal parts by fear and a deep sense of failure, like everyone else in the show, and he takes the steps that seem right and necessary to him (also like everyone else on the show).

Narek was a great contrast against Elnor in every possible way--from his evasiveness to his fear of death--and he was a great foil for Soji. On Coppelius, Soji's terror clouds her judgment and she very nearly does terrible things to protect herself. Her actions, her opinions, her hesitation were all driven by fear. The ends seemed to justify the means. She reflects Narek's state for the whole show. Season 1 is about finding safety and meaning.

Narek is afraid for the whole duration of the show and his choices all reflect that same desperate need to find permanent safety, to live. Soji exists on the peripheral of that with the Ex-Borg, and as a synthetic, and then she falls headlong into it after his betrayal. Narek regrets trying to kill her and the symbolism of his losing that box, of him trying to kill her in a room that is so very culturally Romulan, right after telling her his name, makes it very clear that killing her is killing some piece of himself. But the ends justify the means. He can and will give up everything to save the world.

And his last line in the show is desperately pleading with the woman he loves as he's dragged away.

Then we never see him again or get anything resembling closure for Soji or Narek.

Which I will be big mad about forever, because they didn't even get the bare minimum acknowledgement and closure of "moving on and living life is paramount because it is finite and beautiful ". Nope. Nothing. I'm furious forever.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. I hope if Star Trek Legacy happens we get Narek as a sort of...side character creeper informant ala Garak. I also hope we get Soji on Seven's Enterprise because I love her.

[celestialholz]

The Anatomy of an Outfit (aka 'holy fucking Continuum THE LOOK™)

Y'all know I haven't seen a single STP episode since 2.9. I would rather gargle with acid than go near this show ever again frankly, but, well...

... Good sweet sanctuary what the fucking hell is THIS. :O (@tennant, clearly a fellow appreciator of all things ancient god, must be thanked profusely for these glorious few shots I'm about to show off. <3)

I called this lovely, lovely man returning about ten minutes after he 'died', but I don't think any of us were expecting his outfit to slay THIS HARD when he did. And not only is it the sexiest thing my fortunate eyes have ever had the pleasure to absorb, but it also happens to be very, er... well let's be real here, it's ridiculously Qcard-coded.

Let's break it down, shall we?

We'll start with the obvious: it's maroon and black. This look appears to be a mad fusion of his Encounter at Farpoint judge robes (which is fair, we end as we begin), and his husband of forty years' captain's uniform. That piped shoulder's hugely reminding me of this, in fact:

It's the inverse! You know, the same look, flipped? Because they have perfectly distinct personalities but are also mega gay???? Costume department allies fr.

The delightfully dramatic sash Q's rocking is also interesting - it places maroon at the centre of the outfit, and is its grandest statement, which makes it an excellent example of the importance of the colour to its wearer. This is the clothing equivalent of him having mon capitaine tattooed across his essence, which... well yeah, valid. Canonical facts. It's worn across virtually his whole chest, too, because nothing says 'that's my husband' more than having him literally held against your heart.

It's a different era of captain, across two shoulders - the old teasing, and the new love.

Also, this fucking brooch.

Now, whilst I doubt they've given even John de Lancie a piece made of actual rubies for a fifteen-second scene, the stones here are very clearly meant to evoke them. And rubies are interesting for several reasons:

They're Picard's birthstone, his birthday being July 13th;

They're symbolic of power and protection. What follows is some of the interesting info I've picked up from internet gemology on rubies:

... Huh. Resolve disputes. 'Dispel anger,' when we've seen a darker Q in this series. And 'protective powers'... mm, how many times has Q saved Picard's life again? What did we get up to, six?

... 'Romantic love.' 'Devotion.' Uh-huh.

This brooch is also evocative of the Navaratna, or this thing:

The brooch itself is clearly stylised, but it features eight gems orbiting a central larger ruby (which is meant to be the sun by the way, as though this motherfucker wasn't already evocative ENOUGH of the sun here or here), and is an important cultural and religious symbol in Hinduism. What's it symbolic of, exactly?

... Oh, nothing much. Just... just this.

... Like I said, nothing much, just the whole concept of Qcard in fucking jewellery form.

The brooch's also, as the wife @porgthespacepenguin pointed out, an eight-pointed star.

... Have I mentioned yet that I fucking detest this show? Because I really fucking detest this show.

There's nine rubies on it, as well. Picard's in his nineties.

So, let's recap:

Nine of Picard's birthstone for his ninety years

Sun symbolism, AGAIN

Celestial relationships

Beyond space and time

Romance

Prosperity

Protection

Resolution

So, all that, from a brooch worn over an outfit that looks suspiciously like Picard's, which has a sash across it in Picard's colour.

... And I'm supposed to believe that Qcard isn't endgame? You're really going to gaslight me to this degree right in front of my salad, you absolute bastards????

Guys, when you inevitably wipe this shitshow of a Star Trek from your collective minds like I'm about to do, just... take this with you. Take the fact that everything about this outfit and this SHOW has said all along that Qcard is endgame, until they couldn't be arsed. Until they lost their balls for the pathetic few who might have naysayed it.

Patrick, and certainly John, deserved so much better. I'm glad that at least someone on this set understands that. (I see you, costumers. I see you, and I love you.)

Just going to... just going to stare at the absolute fine-aged wine of a man that is John de Lancie for a moment, before I lose my whole shit. He calms my soul, you see.

HIT THE SLAY KING JOHN <3

[starfleetisapromise]

Some thoughts on Picard Season 2 and why it's unpopular.

So I had a bit of an epiphany yesterday. I'm rewatching Picard Season 2 in preparation for a discussion about it with a colleague next week and I was constantly reminded that a lot of fans are very visceral in their dislike of this season.

To be honest, there are parts of it that I don't like. I think the whole Soong/Kore story was a totally unnecessary distraction and was only done, once again to shoehorn in Brent Spiner and the Picard/Data relationship - which I never found compelling in the first place. But that's just me.

However, I realized that Picard Season 2 does something that no other season (or show) of Star Trek does, it centers the entire narrative on humanity. By making the protagonists AND the antagonists humans, there is no subtle (or not so subtle) use of alienation to map contemporary adversaries or conflicts onto the Federation's adversaries. This is important, because, as I have argued in a multitude of research papers, Star Trek is very, very guilty of framing future conflicts through the lens of contemporary adversaries. This was done very explicitly in TOS - both Roddenberry and Coon overtly asked for the Klingons to be modeled on an "Asiatic Communist" trope. Communism was again the enemy in TNG, through the medium of the Borg and "assimilation" and loss of individuality. DS9 has its Cardassian "Nazis"; Voyager and Enterprise the chaotic post-Cold War existential threat of non-state actors and by the time we get to Discovery, the Klingons have been recast as Jihadist extremists.

The fundamental problem with this is that no matter how much Star Trek might talk about the Federation being a "future better us"; by casting recognizable real world adversaries as the Federation's foes, it automatically casts the contemporary US as the Federation (that's just how TV works, especially through the manichean lens of US culture).

So, if you don't want to think too hard about the ways in which the US interacts with the world. If you don't want to think too hard about American exceptionalism and Neo-imperialism and the misuse of force (and capital) without and within the US. If you cloak it all in the surface progressiveness of visible diversity - and I'm not claiming that diversity and representation isn't important, of course it is, but diversity does not equal progressive politics - then you can happily watch Star Trek without ever having to grapple with the uglier parts of the American experience. If we are the Federation, and clearly we must be because the Federation's foes are recognizably our foes, then we are already the galaxy's "good guys"; the Federation is just a future extension of the American now.

Season 2 of Picard blows that all apart. The bad guys are the Confederation and, by going back to the 21st century and exposing the roots of the Confederation in all the ugly, racist, greedy, unequal, venal, corrupt layers of 21st century America, the Confederation is a direct consequence of that present (our present) being allowed to play out into the future. We are the enemy in the 21st century and we become the enemy in the 24th century.

And the show pulls absolutely no punches. We get ICE brutalizing detainees and explicit discussions of people being disappeared because they are dehumanized as "non-people". Homeless encampments and immigrant clinics amid glittering towers and sumptuous parties. We get quips about the ridiculousness of pledging allegiance to a flag (thank you Ríos) and monologues about exchanging white hoods for suits (thank you Guinan). Some of the despair is directed to the behaviors of everyone on the planet - climate change - but the vast majority of the political commentary is explicitly about the contemporary US.

Not only that but it's done by a diverse cast that speaks Spanish, and is brown and queer and female and empowered (thank you Queen Agnes) and where the only white men are aging and feeble.

It is (the wandering Soong/Kore storyline notwithstanding) fucking brilliant television and it's the first time that Star Trek is ever explicitly - textually AND subtextually - progressive. There is no ability for the audience to elide the message by hiding in the fiction that we are the Federation and THEY are the bad guys (the Klingons, the Borg, the Romulans, the Breen, the Cardassians).

So no, let's get rid of the bullshit that people don't like Picard Season 2 because of "the writing", the writers room for Seasons 2 and 3 is almost identical (Matalas, Appel, Monfette, Maggs and Okomura) and the writing for both seasons was taking place almost at the same time.

Whether it's subconscious or not, the disproportionate degree of hate leveled at Season 2 (often by the same fans that love season 3 for it's "great writing" and overt nostalgia) exists because the storytelling in Season 2 leaves fans no place to hide. Because for the first time Star Trek really dives into the core of science fiction, which, as many, many sci-fi writers have explained (Margaret Atwood most recently), is not to predict the future but to critique the present.

I may come back and edit or extend this later, but right now I'm going to leave it as is and post.

Edited to clarify that you can hate Season 2 for any reason you want to, personal taste is just that, personal - but the (for the first time) explicit social commentary cannot be divorced from the unusual levels of vitriol hurled at this season by a substantial group of very vocal fans.

[bidotorg]

Seven of Nine’s journey through the cosmos isn’t just about exploring new worlds; it’s also about discovering her bisexuality, as seen in her heartfelt relationship with Raffi Musiker in "Star Trek: Picard." #BisLoveSciFi 🚀