Lower Decks has been the most Trek thing going at the moment. That's where all the writers who cared went, I think.
The first episode did irk me, though. Redoing the whole "Officer and its Kid" dynamic is tired enough, but anyone who doesn't understand that whether something is "farm equipment" or "weaponry" is entirely in how it's being used at the moment and declares how much they "hate authority" should never have graduated Starfleet Academy in the first place. Show gets better from there, though, esp. from the second season on.
Nobody in the Lower Decks crew should have made it past the academy. Starfleet is meant to be the best of the best, not an extended gap year for a group so belligerent and incompetent they shouldn't be put in charge of raking leaves in autumn let alone being stationed on an intergalactic starship that a handful of safety features from going back in time and/or destroying localised space.
Starfleet is meant to be the best of the best, but we all know that for every Archer or Sisko, there's nine, ten, dozens of plodders or absolute shits. That's one reason why I love Attack Pattern Tuggs, it's Trek, and lovingly so, but it shows a crew of misfits and burnouts who fly those old ships that get a few seconds of screen time in the shows.
we all know that for every Archer or Sisko, there's nine, ten, dozens of plodders or absolute shits
The problem with the main cast is most of them are the literal best Starfleet has, more so than the general elite nature of the organisation. Even just the captains highlight the to the extreme.
Archer is the first warp 5 captain. The flashback episode regarding Robinson shows it was an extremely competitive contest as it was so important to Starfleet and humanity as a whole.
Picard commands the flagship of the fleet. His face is basically Starfleet at that point.
Sisko is taking over a still smouldering powderkeg with Bajor immediately after the end of the Cardassian Occupation.
Kirk is considered to be a tactical genius by both Starfleet and other alien empires.
Of the main lineup Janeway ends up being the only one who isn't someone special. She's meant to be tracking down her tactical officer and gets stuck 70'000 light years away because of it. While the idea of how other captains might have faired is brought up a few times, like with Captain Ransom and the USS Equinox that was in the same situation, it was still people that weren't meant to be there so we're out of their depth a lot of the time by design.
Everyone else is still meant to be highly competent even if they end up being one of the background crew or the actual lower decks as the TNG episode did first. Those crewmen showed they weren't just brainless cogs in a machine when one of them figured out the bridge officers were setting up a secret mission instead of just testing phaser fire on a shuttle because the blast patterns were being done in a way to fake live fire damage.
Instead Lower Decks ends up with a crew that should be arrested for treason at a minimum, court martialed, and probably spaced for the safety of everyone else in Starfleet.
that doesn't really make sense, star trek is an automated, post scarcity, mostly peaceful world, serving in the star fleet isn't a mandatory military service where they have to accept almost anyone or people signing up for a paycheck because there's nothing else to do. burnouts and misfits have no place there, they either don't pass the initial assessments or get filterd out through evaluations later, they don't need to be there if they have no motivations to do so
It's kind of a reminder that for every Wesley who passes with a 90+ average, there are also the Barclays who just fumble through and pass with one mark over the pass-fail threshold ...
Wesley failed the entrance exam the first time he took it, as did Picard, then later fucked up with the flight maneuver that killed a fellow cadet and set Wesley back a year. The started him down a path that ended with him quitting Starfleet before graduating. Picard at least stuck through all the shit he went through at the academy, and that included being stabbed in the heart!
Picard didn't pass the first time, either, however he did graduate from Starfleet unlike Wesley who quit then wandered off with a creepy old man offering candy The Traveller who offered to show him the back of his van mysteries of reality.
Good to hear. I know they are doing an academy show. I saw the animation for Lower Decks and assumed it was current year stuff. Thanks for setting me straight. Have you read any Trek books? I’ve been reading Star Wars EU since age 12 but never thought about Trek books or comics til I was at a comic convention and a guy was selling old Trek books for a quarter and I spent like 60 bucks.
It's been a while, but yeah, I did do a binge read of a bunch of mostly TNG books, especially Diane Duane (at least she tended to remember the cat folk existed). But that was years and years ago now.
Thanks for the heads up. I’ve only read one so far that takes place in TOS era. I have books from TOS through Enterprise along with Titan and the one Shatner wrote about Kirk coming back to life. I know with Star Wars Lucas wouldn’t allow certain things like I think he made them kill off Anakin.
Lower Decks has been the most Trek thing going at the moment. That's where all the writers who cared went, I think.
The first episode did irk me, though. Redoing the whole "Officer and its Kid" dynamic is tired enough, but anyone who doesn't understand that whether something is "farm equipment" or "weaponry" is entirely in how it's being used at the moment and declares how much they "hate authority" should never have graduated Starfleet Academy in the first place. Show gets better from there, though, esp. from the second season on.
Nobody in the Lower Decks crew should have made it past the academy. Starfleet is meant to be the best of the best, not an extended gap year for a group so belligerent and incompetent they shouldn't be put in charge of raking leaves in autumn let alone being stationed on an intergalactic starship that a handful of safety features from going back in time and/or destroying localised space.
Starfleet is meant to be the best of the best, but we all know that for every Archer or Sisko, there's nine, ten, dozens of plodders or absolute shits. That's one reason why I love Attack Pattern Tuggs, it's Trek, and lovingly so, but it shows a crew of misfits and burnouts who fly those old ships that get a few seconds of screen time in the shows.
The problem with the main cast is most of them are the literal best Starfleet has, more so than the general elite nature of the organisation. Even just the captains highlight the to the extreme.
Archer is the first warp 5 captain. The flashback episode regarding Robinson shows it was an extremely competitive contest as it was so important to Starfleet and humanity as a whole.
Picard commands the flagship of the fleet. His face is basically Starfleet at that point.
Sisko is taking over a still smouldering powderkeg with Bajor immediately after the end of the Cardassian Occupation.
Kirk is considered to be a tactical genius by both Starfleet and other alien empires.
Of the main lineup Janeway ends up being the only one who isn't someone special. She's meant to be tracking down her tactical officer and gets stuck 70'000 light years away because of it. While the idea of how other captains might have faired is brought up a few times, like with Captain Ransom and the USS Equinox that was in the same situation, it was still people that weren't meant to be there so we're out of their depth a lot of the time by design.
Everyone else is still meant to be highly competent even if they end up being one of the background crew or the actual lower decks as the TNG episode did first. Those crewmen showed they weren't just brainless cogs in a machine when one of them figured out the bridge officers were setting up a secret mission instead of just testing phaser fire on a shuttle because the blast patterns were being done in a way to fake live fire damage.
Instead Lower Decks ends up with a crew that should be arrested for treason at a minimum, court martialed, and probably spaced for the safety of everyone else in Starfleet.
that doesn't really make sense, star trek is an automated, post scarcity, mostly peaceful world, serving in the star fleet isn't a mandatory military service where they have to accept almost anyone or people signing up for a paycheck because there's nothing else to do. burnouts and misfits have no place there, they either don't pass the initial assessments or get filterd out through evaluations later, they don't need to be there if they have no motivations to do so
It's kind of a reminder that for every Wesley who passes with a 90+ average, there are also the Barclays who just fumble through and pass with one mark over the pass-fail threshold ...
Wesley failed the entrance exam the first time he took it, as did Picard, then later fucked up with the flight maneuver that killed a fellow cadet and set Wesley back a year. The started him down a path that ended with him quitting Starfleet before graduating. Picard at least stuck through all the shit he went through at the academy, and that included being stabbed in the heart!
Wesley didn't pass the entry exam the first time. He had to reapply at least once. That's how elite Starfleet is supposed to be.
Picard didn't pass the first time, either, however he did graduate from Starfleet unlike Wesley who quit then wandered off with
a creepy old man offering candyThe Traveller who offered to show him theback of his vanmysteries of reality.Good to hear. I know they are doing an academy show. I saw the animation for Lower Decks and assumed it was current year stuff. Thanks for setting me straight. Have you read any Trek books? I’ve been reading Star Wars EU since age 12 but never thought about Trek books or comics til I was at a comic convention and a guy was selling old Trek books for a quarter and I spent like 60 bucks.
It's been a while, but yeah, I did do a binge read of a bunch of mostly TNG books, especially Diane Duane (at least she tended to remember the cat folk existed). But that was years and years ago now.
Thanks for the heads up. I’ve only read one so far that takes place in TOS era. I have books from TOS through Enterprise along with Titan and the one Shatner wrote about Kirk coming back to life. I know with Star Wars Lucas wouldn’t allow certain things like I think he made them kill off Anakin.
Any era of books for Trek you like most?
Read the TOS novel Kobayashi Maru.