Archived Discussion

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Thunder crashed ans the gods sang out. The buddha of the vampires came to Veganopia, and did smite the natter with divine justice:

** Since the queen of the elves' swan-feather cloak is explained as feathers that fell off a swan, possibly the leather fell off the cow. And was tanned. Completely by accident.

It could also be that the cow died naturally and they don't have any qualms taking leather from an already-dead cow.
Of course if a cow should receive, say, a fatal wound from a weapon it's only natural that it die, right?
Except naturally dead cows normally die either sick/full of parasites or weak and old, and either way the leather is useless for making an armor. But nice try, anyway.

** And, by the 24th Century, everyone in The Federation was following suit. Since food was usually replicated, there was no need for any animals to be killed. In one episode of Star Trek Voyager, Harry Kim expressed horror that he'd eaten "real meat" (it was a bug). However, in Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Sisko (whose father was a chef) expressed a disdain for replicated food and often cooked meals (with meat) that were implied to be real rather than replicated so I guess this wasn't a consistent philosophy in the Federation. Or Voyager just sucked.

There's also a scene on Star Trek The Next Generation early in the O'Brien's marriage, where Keiko is surprised/disgusted that Miles' mother handled "real" meat.
This troper had always assumed that, in the Star Trek universe, food cooked by real people from real ingredients had become a sort of gourmet item, to be savoured by the connoisseur, while replicated food does perfectly well for most purposes. This may not be as crazy as it sounds - convenience foods and takeaways mean fewer and fewer people in the west can cook, and even fewer can cook well.
True, but it still doesn't explain the distaste shown by Kim for meat in general. He wasn't treated as weird either: it was a fairly normal complaint by the sounds of things.
Alternatively, there's enough variation in the Federation that both are common enough attitudes.

I alos took this example out:

*The sufficiently advanced Andalites in Animorphs were vegetarians and always seemed disgusted with the idea of humans eating meat. On the other hand, they had always been this way (having evolved from herd animals) and near the end of the series humans were close to catching up with them.

Andalites are herbivores, not vegans. There's a difference. Also, I don't believe Ax had any qualms about eating meat.

Burai: Regarding ...

While the "utopia" part is questionable given that he is a Well Intentioned Extremist, Captain Nemo has delicious vegetarian cuisine on his ship (The possibility that Nemo is an Indian and likely Hindu prince would also explain this).

I think the "vegetarian cuisine" part might be questionable too. To throw out a sample quote from Verne...

"This, which you believe to be meat, Professor, is nothing else than fillet of turtle. Here are also some dolphins` livers, which you take to be ragout of pork."

Nemo seems to be of the old medieval school which only counts something as "meat" if it's a terrestrial animal. Then again, it's only implied in this passage that he's sharing his own menu with his guests; it's possible he's just tolerant of his crew's carnivorous habits. I couldn't find a hard reference either way.

Peteman: Got rid of the natter for the Star Trek example:

By the 24th century, veganism seems to have become the norm.

Huh? Where did that one come from? I don't recall any mention of it in any episode of Voyager. Janeway once said she enjoyed vegetable soup, that's about it.
- In Star Trek The Next Generation, Riker once stated that they don't "enslave animals for food". Of course, since replicators can make anything, there's hardly any need.
- In another episode, though, O'Brien says his mother didn't believe in using replicators and used real food, including meat.
- Don't forget Picard serving a banquet featuring "real seafood", imported (it is implied) at great expense. The snotty superiority Riker and others displayed in that episode was a Wall Banger for many fans.
- Janeway's parents were big traditionalists, too, going so far as to live on a farm in Indiana and grow everything themselves, and refusing to get a replicator when Phoebe and Kathryn were little (Voyager novel "Mosaic"). Given that, I suspect the milk caramel in Gretchen Janeway's famous brownies was the real deal, which is probably why Kathryn's repeated replicated attempts were uniformly awful.
- Chakotay was specifically referenced as a vegetarian more than once, implying that vegetarianism (and veganism) is not perhaps universal.

Daibhid C: As long as there's a discussion of the subject here, I've always thought there are three kinds of people in post-TOS Star Trek when it comes to food.

1. Child of the replicator age - Someone who simply believes food comes from machines. Real meat horrifies them, because it's a totally alien concept. (Harry Kim; Keiko O'Brien)

2. "Real food" enthusiasts (meat-eaters) - Someone who thinks replicators are for when you can't get the real thing, and is quite happy to tuck into a proper steak. (Miles O'Brien; the Siskos; all Klingons)

3. "Real food" enthusiasts (vegetarian) - Someone who also prefers real food but avoids meat. Because they've thought about it more than the replicator fans, they may be less likely to eat replicated meat as well. (Chakotay; all Vulcans)

Ununnilium:
(And one does have to wonder how one can be considered 'morally superior' in regard to a creature's 'right to live' when one had to squash, poison, or lethally trap thousands of Flik's friends to get a few pounds of beans to the table so Bambi could continue to frolic in the forest.)

Pointless and confusing Take That! against vegans.

The entire world in the novel City is vegan. Which makes no sense, as it's a world largely founded by dogs. Dogs are carnivores.
- Dogs belong to the order Carnivora, but they are in fact pretty omnivorous (though they do seem to enjoy meat a lot). Cats, on the other hand....
  - Actually, dogs ARE carnivores. Their teeth are still well-equipped for chewing/tearing meat; and as any dog-bite victim will attest to, their neck and head muscles are classically designed for attacking prey. There are also many dog owners who feed their dogs mostly-meat diets with incredibly good results. The only reason they're considered omnivores is because they're opportunistic eaters—in the wild, wolves would eat anything they could to stay alive. Therefore, dogs are still carnivores as far as biology is concerned.
  - Yes and no. Try feeding a Boston terrier or a Shih Tzu a BARF diet and see how far you get. The further altered a dog is away from the C. lupus body plan, the more omnivorous it tends to be, out of anatomical obligation if nothing else.
  - This might just be because people have been feeding their dogs kibble-like food, and so dogs don't quite recognize meat as edible. Add the fact that most people don't let their dog eat "human" food because it would get annoying if they start begging, and it's put into perspective. I'd be confused if I've been taught not to do something since childhood, and suddenly they start telling me it's okay.
  - This troper has ferrets, which are carnivorous, who don't know what to do when offered meat because they have been raised on dry food for years. On the other hand, his parents have Cockatiels and a Quaker Parrot who normally eat seeds but love scrambled eggs and chicken whenever they can get it off the dinner table.
  - Which makes the availability, not to mention the existence, of vegetarian dog food rather perplexing...
  - This troper's parents' dog (a golden retriever) loves apples. They seem to take this as a sign that dogs are omnivores, and my arguments that that doesn't make it anything resembling good for them (using various forms of junk food as examples) are shrugged off without consideration.

Massive, massive amounts of natter. Go bye bye!

Real Life: PETA has promised a million-dollar reward for an artificial meat substitute that would be impossible to tell apart from the real thing. (However, the million-dollar "reward" they promised is chump change compared to how much it would actually cost to reach the end goal, making their "challenge" a joke right off the bat.) Various researches have been attempting this for decades with different degrees of success; most involve the cloning of muscle-cells. This vision might come more or less true, unless individual cells are to be considered animals.
- The biggest hurdles to the muscle cell grown meat are 1: profitability (it's crazy expensive) and 2: some people are disgusted by the thought of eating what is essentially a vat-grown tumor when real meat is available.
  - Especially number two: Apparently, they've actually succeeded in cloning in a vat the meat of a fish. It looked like fish, smelled like fish, and even cooked up like fish. But come the moment of truth, everyone involved got squeamish. Even after all the ludicrous expense of cloning a fish tumor so that astronauts could have something other than freeze-dried turdcakes for lunch, no one actually ate the damn thing and the astronauts professed a preference for the turdcakes.

This isn't really an example of this, as it's not a Utopia in any way. It's a possible step on the path to such a society, but...

Archived Discussion Main / Veganopia