History Headscratchers / StarTrek

* Why did the writers create Section 31? I mean it seems to run contrary to all Star Trek stands for doesn't it? What with Roddenberry's vision of the future being that we humans don't have "Big Brother" watching us from the shadows, doing nasty stuff that no one wants to think about because we'd grown out of our social and political infancy. I know I'm not all that comfortable with the idea, and I'm pretty sure Gene Roddenberry would have been all that keen on the idea while he was alive. So I guess my question is, why did the newer writers create it in the first place.

*** "Or else we phaser you into submission!" It's not mentioned incredibly often, but a star ship's phasers can be set on stun just like the handhelds, and with a wide beam too. (See the original series episode "A Piece of the Action" for a demonstration of this.) Another possibility: "Or else we'll transport these six thousand troops we're carrying right into your citadel." ''Deep Space Nine'' in particular showed that the Federation does have ''some'' shock troops, and the ''Next Generation'' episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" indicated that the Enterprise-D on war footing was capable of carrying that many armed personnel at a time. Of course, considering some of the downright genocidal enemies the Federation was facing in each series, it might well be willing to get a bit nastier and say "Or else we'll release this brand new silicon-based virus of ours on your city; there's no cure and it's extremely contagious and deadly." In the case of the Dominion War, this was the very kind of enemy they were facing, and I should point out the Cardassians and Romulans didn't pull any of ''their'' punches trying to slag (what they thought to be) the Founders' home world. Again, some of the fighting ''was'' hand-to-hand or at least phaser-to-phaser, but this was mostly between troops on star ships and space stations, not on the ground. Having a military still makes sense in a future with transporters, but making them march across a field at each other does not.

*** "what kind of space armada would bother with ground equipment for most of its engagements?" Uh, the kind that sometimes needs to secure ground targets without completely demolishing them in the process? A salvo of modern-day ICBMs (with or without nuclear warheads) can utterly annihilate an enemy city from miles away, and yet the American government has yet to phase out the US Army. It's all well and good to say "Surrender or we'll glass your city from orbit"...until someone calls your bluff. If your enemy knows you need the city intact, or is willing to gamble on you not being the type to wantonly slaughter civilians (which the Federation is decidedly not), then what do you do when you say "Surrender or else!" and the enemy responds "Or else ''what?''"

When the Borg enter a ship they can walk through internal forcefields by "matching phase" with them. This means that when they are doing this you know what phase the Borg drone is using for shielding. Why don't troops just adjust their weapons to counter this known phase set up forcefields and chokepoints to massacare any Borg boarding parties?

*** "Did the apparent deficit of non-white extras somehow negate Star Trek's message of tolerance and coexistence? Is the moral of the show somehow rendered invalid just because there aren't enough black people milling around in the background?" Yes and no. File it under UnfortunateImplications -- the kind of thing that certainly isn't intentional and no one in particular is to blame, but it still ends up reflecting societal values in a way that is, well, unfortunate (except for the implication that non-white = black, although a great many Americans seem to like to forget that other racial minorities exist). Here's why: there is a tendency in Euro-American society to treat whiteness as a kind of default. Black people are black people, Native people are Native people, but white people are simply people and are presumed to be able to represent humanity seemingly through lacking race (check out Richard Dyer's book ''White'' for a good primer on this). StarTrek, while certainly deserving respect for advances in depictions of minorities, still mostly abides by this; as you note, even Star Trek's purportedly postracial future ends up mostly being a white one. For a related point, see this study of the overrepresentation of English and Irish names for StarTrek characters http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/human_names.htm. StarTrek is most certainly not unique in this regard, but it seems possible to suggest that it did less to correct it than it might have. That's all I am suggesting here.

*** Sterilization refers to the elimination of microbial life. DNA is contained in microbial life. The Enterprise is unable to collect any DNA from the planet after what Nu'Daq did to it. Q.E.D., what he did to it counts as sterilizing the planet. I don't see how this is even an issue!

DATA: All life on the planet is being destroyed, sir.
RIKER: Why would anyone want to destroy all the life on an uninhabited, neutral planet with no strategic importance whatsoever?
and later:
PICARD: I believe that one of you has a fragment from Indri Eight.
NU'DAQ: Yes. And there will be no other samples from Indri Eight.
OCETT: What is that supposed to mean?
PICARD: He destroyed the biosphere of the planet after he had taken the sample.
OCETT: Typical Klingon thinking. Take what you want and destroy the rest.

*** The fact that Nu'Daq set out to (and succeeded at) sterilizing the planet is a plot point; he was doing it to make sure nobody else could get the piece of the DNA-puzzle after him.

*** I find just about every part of this post puzzling, not the least the presence of "(ahem)." Ahem what? Do you think that non-white people get paid more as extras? -- in Hollywood, extras are virtually always paid union scale. Or is it that you think L.A. is such a monoracial city that they'd have to, say, import non-white people in from faraway and exotic parts of the world at great expense so they can walk around in the background of scenes? Or that the budget for extras is more than a drop in the bucket for a show that cost at least $1.3 million an episode? Why, why, why would it be impractical to find non-white extras? Perhaps I am not understanding: are you seriously saying "they had to cast white people because that's all they could afford"? Because as a defense for lack of diversity, that is a pretty weak one.

*** I find just about every part of this post puzzling, not the least the presence of "(ahem)." Ahem what? Do you think that non-white people get paid more as extras? -- in Hollywood, extras are virtually always paid union scale. Or is it that you think L.A. is such a monoracial city that they'd have to, say, import non-white people in from faraway and exotic parts of the world at great expense so they can walk around in the background of scenes? Or that the budget for extras is more than a drop in the bucket for a show that cost at least $1.3 million an episode? Why, why, why would it be impractical to find non-white extras?

*** I find just about every part of this post puzzling, not the least the presence of "(ahem)." Ahem what? Do you think that non-white people get paid more as extras (in Hollywood, extras are virtually always paid union scale)? Or is it that you think L.A. is such a monoracial city that they'd have to, say, import non-white people in from faraway and exotic parts of the world so they can walk around in the background of scenes? Or that the budget for extras is more than a drop in the bucket for a show that cost at least $1.3 million an episode? Why, why, why would it be anything other than practical to find non-white extras?