History BlueAndOrangeMorality / LiveActionTV

* In ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', Sheldon Cooper frequently comes off as rude, arrogant and completely lacking in empathy. It becomes clear, though, that he genuinely cares about his friends and loved ones. The problem is that his mind operates along [[TheSpock uncompromising lines of fact and logic]], to the point where normal politeness and emotional sensitivity are completely alien. He needs to have such things carefully explained to him ([[AesopAmnesia often multiple times]]), before he understands them. He'll casually tell someone that they're not smart, and genuinely not understand why that would offend them. But if that same person needs money, he'll [[GreaterNeedThanMine immediately offer to lend them whatever they need]], and not understand why that's a big deal.

*** The Cardassians, specifically their justice system, where the verdict is announced before the trial begins. The trial only happens to explain why and how the crime was accomplished and justify the initial verdict. The system is justified by the Cardassian's attention to detail and their perception that they cannot make a mistake (although it is proven wrong in Star Trek multiple times), in addition to taking pride in their ability to enact "swift justice". This extends to all aspects of Cardassian culture, with "Enigma" (mystery) novels always end with everyone being guilty: the mystery lying in who is guilty of what. Starfleet people are shown to be unable to understand that system. Similarly, Cardassians don't see the appeal in human pop culture, realizing that Caesar was going to be killed by his own friend in Shakespeare's ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar'' and not realizing that the appeal was in the tragedy of Caesar never knowing he was going to die at the hands of someone he trusted.
*** The Ferengi have their own concept of right and wrong, which is closely related to what is profitable and what isn't. Their whole value system is related to profit and greed (which is seen as "the purest feeling"). Again, Starfleet people are shown to be unable to comprehend the Ferengi and their morality, feeling superior to them because Starfleet morality is all about being generous, peaceful and impartial. In turn, the Ferengi feel they're superior, because they would never even consider enslaving another sentient being (if only because slaves can't buy anything), while humans have a rather sordid history of doing just that. In the ''Star Trek'' novels, a 20th century financier who was featured in ''The Next Generation'' is made to be the Federation's ambassador to the Ferengi because he's the only living human who cares as much about money as they do ever since the Federation eliminated internal currency entirely.

* In ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', Sheldon Cooper frequently comes off as rude, arrogant and completely lacking in empathy. It becomes clear, though, that he genuinely cares about his friends and loved ones. The problem is that his mind operates along [[TheSpock uncompromising lines of fact and logic]], to the point where normal politeness and emotional sensitivity are completely alien, unless deliberately explained to him ([[AesopAmnesia often multiple times]]. He'll casually tell someone that they're not smart, and genuinely not understand why that would offend them. But if that same person needs money, he'll [[GreaterNeedThanMine immediately offer to lend them whatever they need]], and not understand why that's a big deal.

* In ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', Sheldon Cooper has a mindset that cannot be easily understood by other people. Usually people around him consider him as mean and selfish, but when Penny ran out of money and asked him for help, Sheldon took out his savings and wanted to lend her much more than she would have thought about. An interpretation is that Sheldon is not really selfish, but he has a different standard of "good" behavior. Alternatively, this may be because he did not actually care about the money. As he said, it was money he wasn't using and did not expect to use anytime soon.
** Sheldon has a "this is fact" and "this is not fact" mindset. Usually, the way he sees things, "it is a fact" that he is intellectually superior, therefore deserving of more praise and acknowledgement. Similarly, upon seeing Penny in financial hardship, he recognized the fact that he had more money than he needed, whereas Penny needed more money than she had, and therefore the right thing to do was lend her money.
** The show seems to implicitly recognize that Sheldon is not just a crazy person, and that there is some alien logic behind his actions. It gets a rather appropriate LampshadeHanging by Leonard in a chapter of the fifth season:
-->'''Sheldon''': You are my best friend Leonard. Why don't you ever take my side?\\
'''Leonard''': ''Because I never understand your side!''
** It's been shown that his friends have learned, at least to some degree, how to phrase things so he will understand. For instance, Sheldon didn't understand why he should buy Leonard a birthday present until the others told Penny to tell him it was a "non-optional social convention." Once it was couched in those terms, Sheldon fully understood the necessity and had no problem with the idea.
** In particular, Sheldon has trouble understanding complex things like interpersonal interaction. If he can simplify things out to a fixed procedure, like his "friendship algorithm" shows, he can cope. Certain forms of autism can show symptoms like that, though in Sheldon it's somewhat exaggerated for laughs.

** AntiVillain Morgaine from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E1Battlefield "Battlefield"]] thinks nothing of slaughtering people who tick her off, but [[spoiler:insists on paying for a round of drinks that her son ordered in. She pays for them, by the way, by ''curing the barmaid's blindness''. She also won't fight in graveyards as to not dishonour the dead. She also held a ceremony honouring said dead -- dead people on a planet she cared nothing of. They died in battle = They deserve honour.]]

*** The Fourth Doctor is about as extreme as it gets due to the BizarreAlienPsychology of that incarnation -- he sees no problem with manipulating or bullying his friends for the greater good or even, occasionally, for fun, but finds the whole concept of exercising authority over others to be at best objectionable. Sometimes, if it looks like he's led allies to fend off a monster to the point where his allies can gain official power, he will stab them in the back to keep this from happening. The first thing he will offer any villain in a dispute is compromise and diplomacy, no matter how repugnant its ideas -- of course, if the villain has no intention to change or betrays him, he will not feel any guilt about killing them.

** Another example is the Sontarans. Their entire system of morality is based around the glory of battle. They love war, will start one for any reason, and see dying in battle as the most honorable possible death, thus they have no qualms about killing the enemy in battle. In fact, they will often joke and congratulate their enemies while they are doing well, including killing them all, and will greet people with such sweet nothings as "I hope one day to spill your intestines on the battlefield". But it is morally reprehensible to kill someone who isn't fit for battle while not at war with them; such killing is considered murder. This is really highlighted in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E7AGoodManGoesToWar "A Good Man Goes to War"]]: one of the biggest punishments for a Sontaran is to become a field medic, because not only are you not fighting, but you're actively stopping people from being able to die a glorious death in battle.

** The Eternals in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E5Enlightenment "Enlightenment"]]: they think nothing of kidnapping human seafarers to crew the ships in their race, and aren't too bothered by their deaths -- after all they're outside of time and technically don't die, but "Ephemerals" (beings inside of time) live such short lives. All that matters to them is winning the race and the eventual prize, the "Enlightenment" of the title. They're not even bothered about sabotaging each other's efforts -- it's not against the rules, technically, just not terribly sporting.
** The Judoon have a pretty strange concept of justice. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones "Smith and Jones"]], they don't hesitate to pronounce and carry out a death sentence on a man for breaking a vase over a soldier's head, even though the soldier was fully armored and completely unharmed, and when the hospital appears about to explode they depart without any effort to stop it. But when their leader takes an unusually long time verifying that Martha is human, he insists on giving her "compensation" in the form of a piece of paper in an alien language (it's never clear what it is), and [[spoiler:when the hospital doesn't blow up, they send it back to Earth]].
*** This may be more LawfulStupid, since the whole reason they took the hospital in the first place was to comply with jurisdiction rules.
** While the Daleks are mostly ScaryDogmaticAliens with heavy [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Nazi]] overtones, it's noted that they regard hatred as so fundamentally beautiful that they are unable to destroy especially pure examples of it, ''even when it's in their best interests to do so''. It's subtly implied that part of the reason they have not yet defeated the Doctor may be that [[NotSoDifferent they're too in awe of the hatred he has of them]].

*** The Cardassians, specifically their justice system, where the verdict is announced before the trial begins. The trial only happens to explain why and how the crime was accomplished and justify the initial verdict. The system is justified by the Cardassian's attention to detail and their perception that they cannot make a mistake (although it is proven wrong in Star Trek multiple times). This extends to all aspects of Cardassian culture, with "Enigma" (mystery) novels always end with everyone being guilty: the mystery lying in who is guilty of what. Starfleet people are shown to be unable to understand that system. Similarly, Cardassians don't see the appeal in human pop culture, realizing that Caesar was going to be killed by his own friend in Shakespeare's ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar'' and not realizing that the appeal was in the tragedy of Caesar never knowing he was going to die at the hands of someone he trusted.

*** The Cardassians, specifically their justice system, where the verdict is announced before the trial begins. The trial only happens to explain why and how the crime was accomplished and justify the initial verdict. The system is justified by the Cardassian's attention to detail and their perception that they cannot make a mistake (although it is proven wrong in Star Trek multiple times). This extends to all aspects of Cardassian culture, with "Enigma" (mystery) novels always end with everyone being guilty: the mystery lying in who is guilty of what. Starfleet people are shown to be unable to understand that system.

*** The Ferengi have their own concept of right and wrong, which is closely related to what is profitable and what isn't. Their whole value system is related to profit and greed (which is seen as "the purest feeling"). Again, Starfleet people are shown to be unable to comprehend the Ferengi and their morality, feeling superior to them because Starfleet morality is all about being generous, peaceful and impartial. In turn, the Ferengi feel they're superior, because they would never even consider enslaving another sentient being (if only because slaves can't buy anything), while humans have a rather sordid history of doing just that.

** A little more elaboration: the Addamses possess a clear taste for the grotesque and the macabre, and a distaste for the opposite. Their house is a sentient haunted house, they wear dark clothing, the children [[AmusingInjuries routinely torture each other for fun]], and find monstrously hideous creatures to be adorable. On the flip-side, they react to cute and cheery things like songbirds, kittens and flowers to the point of ''physical revulsion''. That said, they [[DarkIsNotEvil aren't really "evil"]], and in fact they're rather courteous ([[CreepyAwesome in a twisted sorta way]]) to outsiders, although they ''do'' consider ''us'' to be the strange ones.
*** Played for (ironic) horror in the sequel to TheMovie, ''[[Film/TheAddamsFamily Addams Family Values]]'' [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin (the title says it all, doesn't it?)]], when Gomez and Morticia's infant son contracts a disease that turns him from a pale-skinned, mustachioed mutant into a stereotypically cute, fully human baby with a healthy complexion and curly blond hair. Granny tells the parents that the condition might be incurable.

* Guy Court was a short lived spinoff of Guy Code where guests would go to mock trials to determine whether or not the defendant was in violation of Guy Code. Commedian Donell Rawlings gave the verdicts, and his conclusions were often odd.
** One episode a guest complained about her boyfriend's taste in drinks. She was a beer drinker, but he preferred sugary cocktails. Rather than defend his choice to drink what he liked Rawlings shamed him for it and declared he was in violation of Guy Code and should drink beer.

* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': Stick, Matt Murdock's elderly mentor and the guy who trained him to fight, has a very strange sense of morality, as Matt point. For instance, in Stick's mind, befriending a nurse that can be both a medic and a SecretKeeper is bad because relationships of any kind are weakness; but cotton sheets feeling like sandpaper is good because it keeps the sleeper tough. As Creator/ScottGlenn, who plays Stick, described his moral code in [[http://mcuexchange.com/scott-glenn-describes-events-defenders-desperate-war/ one interview]]:
-->"[Stick's moral code is in] a weird grey area. It’s like Daredevil and Elektra are my kids and I essentially adopt them both, trained them to fight. The written problem I have with Daredevil is the one line he won’t cross – taking human life. He’ll beat people up horrendously, put them in a hospital, do whatever he has to do but he won’t kill people. All I do is kill people. And working with the Chaste, I’m a blind assassin. I’m a Defender against the worst evil in the world and my only way of dealing with that is killing people. So it is a grey area kind of thing. I don’t think of myself as a bad person. But I don’t think of myself as a particularly good person either. And the way I work with that is that I’m a soldier in combat in a desperate war and that’s the way I have to behave."

'''Leonard''': Because I never understand your side!

*** The Prophets exhibit a lot of this, especially in Ben Sisko's backstory. They are StarfishAliens to the extreme. They exist outside of normal space time and, because they do not experience the passage of time, they have a lot of issues understanding the human experience. They possessed Ben Sisko's mother and ensured that she married his father and gave birth to Ben. Once you know what happens there is a degree of Squick involved, because it amounted to rape in the end (although it wasn't Joseph's fault because he didn't know that his wife was being controlled and the relationship wasn't her desire). The Prophets never understood that there was anything wrong with what they did, and indeed the Prophet that possessed Ben's mother uses her appearance in his mind when communicating with him for the rest of the series.

* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': Stick, Matt Murdock's elderly mentor and the guy who trained him to fight. Matt notes that his sense of morality is strange. For instance, in Stick's mind, befriending a nurse that can be both a medic and a SecretKeeper is bad because relationships of any kind are weakness; but cotton sheets feeling like sandpaper is good because it keeps the sleeper tough.

** The Judoon have a pretty strange concept of justice. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones "Smith And Jones"]], they don't hesitate to pronounce and carry out a death sentence on a man for breaking a vase over a soldier's head, even though the soldier was fully armored and completely unharmed, and when the hospital appears about to explode they depart without any effort to stop it. But when their leader takes an unusually long time verifying that Martha is human, he insists on giving her "compensation" in the form of a piece of paper in an alien language (it's never clear what it is), and [[spoiler:when the hospital doesn't blow up, they send it back to Earth]].

* The [[Recap/FarscapeS02E17TheUglyTruth Plokavians]] in ''Series/{{Farscape}}''. Because they all have a perfectly PhotographicMemory, they consider subjectivity and personal colouring of experiences to be alien concepts; so, when each of Moya's crew [[RashomonStyle gives a slightly different testimony]] of the destruction of a Plokavian merchant ship by [[LivingShip Talyn]], the judges accuse them of lying. Eventually, Crichton manages to placate them (for a time) by claiming that they were lying in defence of each other, a concept that the judges are more familiar with.

** AntiVillain Morgaine in the story [[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E1Battlefield "Battlefield"]] thinks nothing of slaughtering people who tick her off, but [[spoiler:insists on paying for a round of drinks that her son ordered in. She pays for them, by the way, by ''curing the barmaid's blindness''. She also won't fight in graveyards as to not dishonor the dead. She also held a ceremony honouring said dead -- dead people on a planet she cared nothing of. They died in battle = They deserve honour.]]

*** The Fourth Doctor is about as extreme as it gets due to the BizarreAlienPsychology of that incarnation - he sees no problem with manipulating or bullying his friends for the greater good or even, occasionally, for fun, but finds the whole concept of exercising authority over others to be at best objectionable. Sometimes, if it looks like he's led allies to fend off a monster to the point where his allies can gain official power, he will stab them in the back to keep this from happening. The first thing he will offer any villain in a dispute is compromise and diplomacy, no matter how repugnant its ideas -- of course, if the villain has no intention to change or betrays him, he will not feel any guilt about killing them.
*** In ''The Magician's Apprentice'' and ''The Witch's Familiar'', it's shown that [[spoiler:the Doctor considers his murderous archenemies the Master and Davros to be his friends, to the point that the Doctor still entrusted the Master with the Time Lord equivalent of a last will and testament. The Master/Missy also claims that, while the Doctor cares about his companions, he sees them like humans see their pets.]]
** Another example are the Sontarans. Their entire morality system is based around the glory of battle. They love war and will start one for any reason, and they see dying in battle as the most honorable possible death, thus they have no qualms about killing the enemy in battle. In fact, they will often joke and congratulate their enemies while they are doing well, including killing them all, and will greet people with such sweet nothings as "I hope one day to spill your intestines on the battlefield". But it is morally reprehensible to kill someone who isn't fit for battle while not at war with them; such killing is considered murder. This is really highlighted in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E7AGoodManGoesToWar "A Good Man Goes to War"]]: one of the biggest punishments for a Sontaran is to become a field medic, because not only are you not fighting, but you're actively stopping people from being able to die a glorious death in battle.

** The Eternals in the story [[Recap/DoctorWhoS20E5Enlightenment "Enlightenment"]]: they think nothing of kidnapping human seafarers to crew the ships in their race, and aren't too bothered by their deaths -- after all they're outside of time and technically don't die, but "Ephemerals" (beings inside of time) live such short lives. All that matters to them is winning the race and the eventual prize, the "Enlightenment" of the title. They're not even bothered about sabotaging each other's efforts -- it's not against the rules, technically, just not terribly sporting.
** The Judoon have a pretty strange concept of justice. In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones "Smith And Jones"]], they don't hesitate to pronounce and carry out a death sentence on a man for breaking a vase over a soldier's head, even though the soldier was fully armored and completely unharmed, and when the hospital appears about to explode they depart without any effort to stop it. But when their leader takes an unusually long time verifying that Martha is human, he insists on giving her "compensation" in the form of a piece of paper in an alien language (it's never clear what it is), and [[spoiler:when the hospital doesn't blow up they send it back to Earth.]]

** TheMaster, especially in her recent incarnation as "Missy". On the one hand, each incarnation gleefully delights in being called "insane", "twisted", or "evil". That being said, The Master's plans often fall under "Annoy The Doctor" as much as they do under [[TakeOverTheWorld "Rule The Universe"]]. ''The Magician's Apprentice'' and ''The Witch's Familiar'' has Missy reveal that she views her rivalry with The Doctor as being akin to people texting one another. She also points out that her relationship with The Doctor is so ancient that it's impossible to compare them to the human concept of "romance".
** The nanobot Vardies from [[Recap/DoctorWhoS36E2Smile ''Smile'']] were originally designed to make sure human colonists were happy, which typically meant they had enough water, oxygen and food. Unfortunately, the Vardies then decided to expand their definition of "happiness" out into complete and total contentment with ''everything'': which backfired the moment [[spoiler:somebody died for the first time. When their relatives were naturally grief-stricken, the Vardies, who had no concept of what "grief" was, much less that it was temporary, interpreted it as a disease that could be spread from person to person.]] Thus, you end up with a city where [[HappinessIsMandatory anyone who's not smiling and happy about everything]] has to be euthanized before they can spread it to anyone else.

* Kilgrave in ''Series/JessicaJones2015'', played by Creator/DavidTennant. It's in [[http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/david-tennant-interview-jessica-jones-actor-on-feeling-sympathy-for-kilgrave-and-the-golden-age-of-a6740856.html Tennant's opinion]] that Kilgrave has this because, let's face it, how can a man who has the power to make people do whatever he wants, perhaps even without meaning to, possibly be able to retain any normal sense of ethics? It could be that ''anyone'' might be warped and changed by this power, and would start to see the world differently from everybody else. That he was ten years old and had been subjected to frequent and painful experimentation when he developed this power lends itself to this interpretation.

* Sometimes discussed in ''{{Series/Supernatural}}''. Because of [[TheHunter the nature of their work]], Sam and Dean occasionally run into Pagan gods and monsters who see nothing wrong in killing and eating people in order to survive.

*** The entity Nagilum in the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E2WhereSilenceHasLease Where Silence Has Lease]]" traps the Enterprise in a strange NegativeSpaceWedgie, kills a {{Redshirt}}, and decides to kill a good portion of the rest of the crew to fully explore the concept of death. It seems to truly have no idea that the crew might not be wild about this idea.
*** In one fanfic, there was a discussion of Q vs. Nagilum among the core cast--who would you rather deal with? The conclusion was Q, because in his own odd way he seemed to like humans in general and the "Enterprise" crew in particular, while Nagilum seemed to be indifferent to anything but the results of his experiments.
*** In the episode "Liaisons", had ambassadors from a race that lacked the concepts of antagonism, pleasure and love. One of them studied antagonism by being a jerk to Worf, one of them studied pleasure by pigging out, and one of them tried to learn about love by stranding Picard on a planet and taking the form of a human woman.
*** While Q is portrayed as being an adversary of humanity, he might embody this trope. In the episode "True Q", he even claims his race has the right to decide whether humans live or die because of their superior morality, a characterization with which Picard disagrees, to put it mildly.
*** Although Q is a particularly malicious member of his race. While the Q Continuum do fall under this Trope, Q himself is particularly sadistic and condescending compared to the others, and isn't the best comparison for how his species thinks (the Continuum once kicked him out and turned him into a human for being an embarrassment).
*** Malicious perhaps, though it's not hard to make the case that every time Q shows up (on TNG anyway), he does the human race a favor - even if it's a lesson or warning that costs lives. He really seems to like humanity, but is happy to make liking him back nearly impossible. Which makes him perfect for this page.
*** In the final episode he actually saved humanity indirectly by dropping hints about what the continuum was doing so that Picard could stop it. In an earlier episode where he was acting as their agent he admitted the Q as a whole considered humans a possible future threat.
*** In the extended canon novel Q&A it is revealed that Q's tests had a point all along... turning Q into a case of ValuesDissonance. [[spoiler:A race known as Them have returned to decide the fate of the entire universe. It turns out They created our universe (the Q included) and, like many others they created before ours, They are now going to destroy it... because They are no longer entertained by it. The Q knew all along and had essentially given up. Q, however, (yes that one) had tested countless races and decided on Humans, Picard in particular, to prove the worth of keeping our universe around. It works. Picard convinces Them to let the universe remain... by ''laughing'' at the absurdity of the situation. All along Q had been teaching Picard to have a sense of humor about things that were out of his control just so he would have exactly this reaction when the time came.]]
*** And then you [[FridgeLogic begin to realize]] that the fans of Star Trek are essentially [[spoiler:Them]]... what with the recent drastic decline in the franchise's popularity. [[FridgeBrilliance EPIC!]]
*** In the episode "Allegiance," Picard is whisked away to a strange prison with three strangers and replaced by a doppelganger on the Enterprise. When he figures out the experiment he and the others have been unwittingly participating in, his captors (a group of previously unknown aliens) reveal themselves and return him to his ship. They explain that they sought to understand command structures, which do not exist in their culture. When Picard tells them that what they've done is wrong, they claim not to understand the "primitive" concept of morality. But it's clear, when Picard gives them a taste of their own medicine, that he doesn't entirely buy their alleged Blue And Orange Morality, and that maybe they're just ''assholes''.
*** Another example is the Klingon concept of honor, which doesn't track exactly to any human honor system. For instance, hiding in a debris field to ambush anyone who comes to rescue survivors is considered perfectly honorable, and you can officially strip someone of honor for political reasons. Worf is unusual in that his honor is a code of behavior understandable by humans, more like a KnightErrant than anything, but it confuses the hell out of other Klingons.
*** Note that Worf's code of honor is TECHNICALLY the same as the other Klingons, the difference being that he stands by it while other Klingons often tend to interpret the 'honorable' thing as being 'the thing that gains them glory.' The other Klingons he encounters tend to believe that he will also do what serves himself first, then get surprised and offended when he declares that he will follow through with his promises and oaths.
*** Fridge brilliance to be found here: Worf was raised on a human colony (and later Earth). Even though he's well read in the facts of what constitute honourable and dishonourable ''acts'' for a Klingon, he has very little firsthand experience with the Klingon expression of it (where it's practically [=EXP=]), and instead expresses it like a human (a state of mind).
*** In the episode "Suddenly Human", the ''Enterprise'' crew discovers a human teenager amongst a group of stranded Talarian teenagers. They soon learn that he was the son of a Starfleet officer who died in a Talarian attack, the Talarian captain took him in as his son since according to Talarian tradition, he is allowed to claim the son of a slain enemy after he lost his own son in a Starfleet attack.
*** In the episode "Empath," the aliens torture the Enterprise officers in order to awaken the title character's compassion.

** In the episode "Allegiance," Picard is whisked away to a strange prison with three strangers and replaced by a doppelganger on the Enterprise. When he figures out the experiment he and the others have been unwittingly participating in, his captors (a group of previously unknown aliens) reveal themselves and return him to his ship. They explain that they sought to understand command structures, which do not exist in their culture. When Picard tells them that what they've done is wrong, they claim not to understand the "primitive" concept of morality. But it's clear, when Picard gives them a taste of their own medicine, that he doesn't entirely buy their alleged Blue And Orange Morality, and that maybe they're just ''assholes''.

* The Borg in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' were a lot like this originally, before eventually being humanized by the addition of the Borg Queen in the movie ''First Contact''.

** The entity Nagilum in the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E2WhereSilenceHasLease Where Silence Has Lease]]" traps the Enterprise in a strange NegativeSpaceWedgie, kills a {{Redshirt}}, and decides to kill a good portion of the rest of the crew to fully explore the concept of death. It seems to truly have no idea that the crew might not be wild about this idea.
*** In one fanfic, there was a discussion of Q vs. Nagilum among the core cast--who would you rather deal with? The conclusion was Q, because in his own odd way he seemed to like humans in general and the "Enterprise" crew in particular, while Nagilum seemed to be indifferent to anything but the results of his experiments.
** In the episode "Liaisons", had ambassadors from a race that lacked the concepts of antagonism, pleasure and love. One of them studied antagonism by being a jerk to Worf, one of them studied pleasure by pigging out, and one of them tried to learn about love by stranding Picard on a planet and taking the form of a human woman.
** While Q is portrayed as being an adversary of humanity, he might embody this trope. In the episode "True Q", he even claims his race has the right to decide whether humans live or die because of their superior morality, a characterization with which Picard disagrees, to put it mildly.
*** Although Q is a particularly malicious member of his race. While the Q Continuum do fall under this Trope, Q himself is particularly sadistic and condescending compared to the others, and isn't the best comparison for how his species thinks (the Continuum once kicked him out and turned him into a human for being an embarrassment).
*** Malicious perhaps, though it's not hard to make the case that every time Q shows up (on TNG anyway), he does the human race a favor - even if it's a lesson or warning that costs lives. He really seems to like humanity, but is happy to make liking him back nearly impossible. Which makes him perfect for this page.
*** In the final episode he actually saved humanity indirectly by dropping hints about what the continuum was doing so that Picard could stop it. In an earlier episode where he was acting as their agent he admitted the Q as a whole considered humans a possible future threat.
** In the extended canon novel Q&A it is revealed that Q's tests had a point all along... turning Q into a case of ValuesDissonance. [[spoiler:A race known as Them have returned to decide the fate of the entire universe. It turns out They created our universe (the Q included) and, like many others they created before ours, They are now going to destroy it... because They are no longer entertained by it. The Q knew all along and had essentially given up. Q, however, (yes that one) had tested countless races and decided on Humans, Picard in particular, to prove the worth of keeping our universe around. It works. Picard convinces Them to let the universe remain... by ''laughing'' at the absurdity of the situation. All along Q had been teaching Picard to have a sense of humor about things that were out of his control just so he would have exactly this reaction when the time came.]]

** Another example is the Klingon concept of honor, which doesn't track exactly to any human honor system. For instance, hiding in a debris field to ambush anyone who comes to rescue survivors is considered perfectly honorable, and you can officially strip someone of honor for political reasons. Worf is unusual in that his honor is a code of behavior understandable by humans, more like a KnightErrant than anything, but it confuses the hell out of other Klingons.
*** Note that Worf's code of honor is TECHNICALLY the same as the other Klingons, the difference being that he stands by it while other Klingons often tend to interpret the 'honorable' thing as being 'the thing that gains them glory.' The other Klingons he encounters tend to believe that he will also do what serves himself first, then get surprised and offended when he declares that he will follow through with his promises and oaths.
*** Fridge brilliance to be found here: Worf was raised on a human colony (and later Earth). Even though he's well read in the facts of what constitute honourable and dishonourable ''acts'' for a Klingon, he has very little firsthand experience with the Klingon expression of it (where it's practically [=EXP=]), and instead expresses it like a human (a state of mind).
** In the episode "Suddenly Human", the ''Enterprise'' crew discovers a human teenager amongst a group of stranded Talarian teenagers. They soon learn that he was the son of a Starfleet officer who died in a Talarian attack, the Talarian captain took him in as his son since according to Talarian tradition, he is allowed to claim the son of a slain enemy after he lost his own son in a Starfleet attack.
* In ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' the non-humanoid [[Recap/StarTrekS3E22TheSavageCurtain Excalbian]] race provides another example; they view such concepts as "good" and "evil" as being so foreign that they decide to test them experimentally by staging a battle between representatives of the two.
** In the episode "Empath," the aliens torture the Enterprise officers in order to awaken the title character's compassion.
* In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' The episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E06CaptivePursuit Captive Pursuit]]" was all about this trope. The first alien from the other side of the wormhole, who calls himself Tosk, makes friends with O'Brien and is revealed to be the prey of another species, and both that species and Tosk view the hunt involved to be ancient and honorable for all involved. Tosk even refuses asylum on [=DS9=], even though he will be turned into a zoo exhibit for the rest of his days, the most dishonorable outcome of the hunt. O'Brien is especially troubled by this, and actually subverts the trope a bit by making a compromise between the two moralities: he frees Tosk so that he and his pursuers can have the hunt they desire, and so that Tosk has an opportunity to live the way he deems most honorable, all while allaying O'Brien's conscience about Tosk's fate.
** The Cardassians, specifically their justice system, where the verdict is announced before the trial begins. The trial only happens to explain why and how the crime was accomplished and justify the initial verdict. The system is justified by the Cardassian's attention to detail and their perception that they cannot make a mistake (although it is proven wrong in Star Trek multiple times). This extends to all aspects of Cardassian culture, with "Enigma" (mystery) novels always end with everyone being guilty: the mystery lying in who is guilty of what. Starfleet people are shown to be unable to understand that system.
** The Ferengi have their own concept of right and wrong, which is closely related to what is profitable and what isn't. Their whole value system is related to profit and greed (which is seen as "the purest feeling"). Again, Starfleet people are shown to be unable to comprehend the Ferengi and their morality, feeling superior to them because Starfleet morality is all about being generous, peaceful and impartial. In turn, the Ferengi feel they're superior, because they would never even consider enslaving another sentient being (if only because slaves can't buy anything), while humans have a rather sordid history of doing just that.
** The Prophets exhibit a lot of this, especially in Ben Sisko's backstory. They are StarfishAliens to the extreme. They exist outside of normal space time and, because they do not experience the passage of time, they have a lot of issues understanding the human experience. They possessed Ben Sisko's mother and ensured that she married his father and gave birth to Ben. Once you know what happens there is a degree of Squick involved, because it amounted to rape in the end (although it wasn't Joseph's fault because he didn't know that his wife was being controlled and the relationship wasn't her desire). The Prophets never understood that there was anything wrong with what they did, and indeed the Prophet that possessed Ben's mother uses her appearance in his mind when communicating with him for the rest of the series.
* The Mari, a one-episode race in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', are telepaths who prosecute thoughtcrime. However, they are in no way fascist (indeed, the laws have made the police almost obsolete and there are very few left) and the head constable is genuinely trying to do the right thing. While their laws are draconian and lead to the episode's problems, the fact that they have laws regulating thoughts is presented as a logical consequence of a telepathic society.
** The Hirogen. They are a race of hunters, only they have no problem hunting sentient beings (and sometimes eating them) and do it as a way of life. Though they have a moral code about respecting difficult prey and are perfectly willing to hunt prey that doesn't have to be killed or can be revived, as long as they prove to be a challenge.
* An early episode of ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' had the crew being continually attacked by a mystery ship for no apparent reason. T'Pol points out that not every species out there necessarily behaves in a way that would make sense to humans. They never find out what the aliens' motivation was, but they did successfully test their new weapons on them.