Star Trek Into Darkness Discussion

Even then, I've never been comfortable with the idea that Crusher could go on a serve as Captain of a Medical Ship. Maybe "Captain" in the sense that everyone onboard defers to her judgement (Not sure what the medical terminology for such a person would be), but in terms of the actual command deck, it should be your typical Tactical crew.

The Captain of a Medical Ship has more to worry about then going down to the extensive sickbays and "pitching in". Unless these ships also have roving bands of Doctor-Engineers maintaining these ships.

Troi's role should have been more in line with Neelix's from Voyager - a morale officer in charge of off duty events, recreation, and (of course) counseling.


EDIT: As for those who dislike Abrams new version of Trek, I'd honestly recommend giving Star Trek Online a shot. It's Free to Play now, and I decided to try it on a whim...it's set in the Prime universe, post-Romulus' destruction, at the dawn of the 25th Century. There's a lot of lore and backstory in the missions (Indeed, the second mission has you revisit P'Jem - the site of the Vulcans' surveillance outpost for Andoria in Enterprise). It carries the story Post TNG.

Seems interesting thus far. The Klingons have basically gone frothing at the mouth insane now that the Romulans are no longer a major power to hold them in check, and hostilities have reignited between the Klingon Empire and the Federation. The Romulans have descended into near anarchy with the disappearance of Empress Sela, and the latest Developers Diary heavily suggests they're soon to be a playable faction. The Dominion is re-marshaling its forces in the Gamma Quadrant, possibly seeking a new offensive in the wake of the erupting hostilities in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. On top of all this, The Borg have returned.

Not seen since Janeway delivered the vicious blow to the Collective and their Transwarp network, the Borg are back and they're not what they once were. While they still seem intent on assimilation, their behavior is....erratic.

Throw this atop both 3 Dimensional Space Combat extremely reminiscent of Starfleet Command, and 3rd Person Shooter Ground Missions (Poor Man's Mass Effect), along with three separate career tracks (Tactical, Science, Engineering) with numerous ship classes to access and unlock (And mix-and-match to make your own vessel) and it's a decent - if tad unwieldy - venue for "True" Trek.

But it's now made even better. Last time I tried it when it first came out, all the missions were the same - Space Combat followed by Ground Combat. After less then a day, the formula had grown incredibly stale. Now though? You've got Diplomacy missions, First Contact situations, Relief Expeditions, Anomalies to chart and catalog...you know. The other side of Trek and not just the gung-ho side.

What's even better is these are all parallel leveling tracks. You can take a mixture of all of them, or just stick with one (Meaning there is an opportunity to never fire Phasers in Anger). If these had been available at the start of the game, I would have been hooked from the get go.

Well, gotta stop comparing Starfleet to modern day human military. That's something some of these hardcore military types who are so confused with Trek need to do. Starfleet is not full of the knuckle draggers like we seen in Aliens or Starship Troopers and so on who just go "Sir, yes sir!" or constantly saluting each time an officer walks by (thank god) or doing the spit 'n polish routine. Star Trek's not Platoon. As for Crusher captaining a medical ship, makes sense to me. Don't see what all the fuss is about. I mean you got an archeologist commanding the Enterprise.

Starfleet might have command structure, but it's duties include scientific, exploratory, diplomatic, and defense.

It all makes sense, especially considering it's composed of hundreds of aliens of different culture and mentality.



As for the online game, I won't know until my new computer is finished, since that game is a beast when it comes to memory, graphic cards and everything.

The problem with us "hardcore military types" is Starfleet itself doesn't know what it wants to be. It started out as a rather ad hoc affair in TOS, went "legit" in the movies, becoming something more akin to a real military (But one that allows the ambassador to a potentially hostile alien power to sit in on briefings of causing a interstellar incident with the next largest galactic power. Thank goodness the Romulan Ambassador had the personality of a piece of dry toast or else somebody would have noticed him!).

Then TNG came along and relaxed the whole organization once again, but then you had things like the Cardassians and the Borg threats that tried to insist Starfleet was better organized and more disciplined then it tried to convince us it was.

Then you get DS9 and the Dominion War. Even if TNG saw a "demilitarization" of Starfleet, the Dominion War's very narrative - plus the fact Starfleet was constructing legitimate, acknowledged warships - means that whatever we would like to believe, Starfleet became a Military Organization. There's just no other way to do it and maintain discipline.

At least Star Trek Online manages to side step the argument all together. With the war against the Klingons, defending against the Romulan remnants, keeping an eye on the Dominion, and the reappearance of the Borg, Rank takes a back seat to Competence. (Hence why Fresh-out-of-the-Academy Ensigns/Lieutenants can find themselves commanding Light Cruisers)

Even if you try and go ' it's a para military organization', no matter what the mission purpose is, the structure is still there. You have officers and enlisted. You have ranks. You have chain of command.

I think Rust said it best- Starfleet was not ever really defined as to what type of entity it was, and it evolved to suit the purposes of the stories as needed.

I know Gene was going for the utopian, perfect future and all that and wouldn't view or label SF as military per se, but it's hard to equate that when SF is used as the military arm of the UFP against enemy threats. It might not be envisioned as the primary role, but it's still there. Playing around with labels is just fluff.

Starfleet just had some military stuff in it, but was not a true military....thank goodness, because if it really became a true, military industrial complex, we'd have citizens loosing their rights, freedoms, and privacy in the name of security, martial law on all the planets and god knows what else. You want that, go hang with the Romulans, where military pretty much runs the government. I don't want to see Trek become Aliens or Starship Troopers where we see a Starfleet with everyone in buzzcuts, camo, standing to attention the remaining time when they are not saluting, going, "SIR, YES, SIR! anytime they open their lips, brandishing guns bigger then they are, and some crusty sargent calling his guys maggots and turds. Plus I don't want Trek to become a never ending series of war stories, if I want war stories, I'll watch Roughnecks.

Trek is something I like because it is NOT like what you see today.

Like that line from "Insurrection"
Picard: Do any of you remember when we used to be explorers?

That's the Trek aspect I want to see come back, exploration, and knowing what guys like JJ Abrams are like, we'll never, ever see that again, and THAT's something that worries me.

Heck, even in the Vanguard novels, the crew of the Sagittarius were on a familiar fashion with each other, where it was a very laid back atmosphere.


And once I get my own Trek 3D comic going, I am going to bring back that long missing exploration element and also not feeling like we're on some ship you'd expect to see in Starship Troopers or Aliens.

Cruel Angel wrote:

Even if you try and go ' it's a para military organization', no matter what the mission purpose is, the structure is still there. You have officers and enlisted. You have ranks. You have chain of command.

I think Rust said it best- Starfleet was not ever really defined as to what type of entity it was, and it evolved to suit the purposes of the stories as needed.

I know Gene was going for the utopian, perfect future and all that and wouldn't view or label SF as military per se, but it's hard to equate that when SF is used as the military arm of the UFP against enemy threats. It might not be envisioned as the primary role, but it's still there. Playing around with labels is just fluff.

Well, remember, it's in the future, a future where humanity gets to finally grow up for a change, and mingling with various alien mentality. Defense is just one of Starfleet's roles. Starfleet is like a Swiss Army knife, it has many features and uses, it has the cork screw, the nail file, and the bottle opener, not just the knife itself. And one thing to do when dealing with a mentality like this is to stop thinking the world there is like the one we are in now.

And since new Trek is pretty much now going to be Star Wars with cleaner ships, at least on the outside, might as well use a Star Wars quote to say it in a nutshell. It's like what Yoda said, "Unlearn what you have learned".

When I started to research hyper dimensional physics, I had to stop thinking 3 dimensional and chuck out Newton and Einstein to understand it, and I did, and can see these incredible things happening, that we can benefit from, if we can stop thinking in a locked pattern that most people these days (but many are beginning to wake up) to really new forms of doing things, like how things we think can not work, but they in fact can.


Gene's Starfleet/Federation can be a reality if it is given a chance to become a reality.....though to some people, mainly people in business, politics and military (though the three work hand in hand, if the past several milena are of any indication) finds the concept terrifying and downright sickening. That's because a world like that would have no room for them, folks who want power and wealth just for the sake of power and wealth, in any way.

And in fact, one of the best post-Dominion War stories in the books examines this very issue. The Federation President and Picard and the TNG crew must deal with the consequences of militarization of Starfleet. Once the war is over, how do soldiers go back to exploration? How do you go back to living a normal life after fighting a war? As Picard said in Insurrection,

'Does anyone remember when we used to be explorers?'

I think that starting in Enterprise, Starfleet was more of a pure scientific organization, like NASA. But as space proved to be meaner than they expected, they had to adapt. In Archer's time, they had the MACOs.

But, with TOS, we saw a reflection of the Cold War. Because there wasn't an actual war, the Fleet had a more defensive posture, and cautious exploration became more prominent.

As the peace with the Klingons grew more and more strained during the movie era, especially the Genesis incident, the military posture grew more important. This was brought to a head in Part 6.

Then, in response to Khitomer, the galaxy was at relative peace for a long time until the Enterprise C sacrificed itself, cementing the Klingons as allies. Because of this relative peace, the TNG crew lived relatively peacefully, and so the focus became more on exploration.

Therefore, any militarization we see is in response to specific threats that the Fleet faces. They are a non-military organization, but due to specific enemies, they sometimes have to adopt military tactics and discipline.

I'd not call NASA totally scientific, since it IS in fact a military organization. Go read the NASA charter, it is military, and Eisenhower made sure it was. It even has a self imposed prime directive, the Brookings Report.

Anyhow, Starfleet has military aspects, I just said that, but it is not a pure military entity, as seen in many TNG era stories. Picard himself is more of an explorer and archeologist than anything else.

I agree Castellan. I personally enjoy both types of stories. Exploration can be exciting too, if done well. So can shoot em up space battles. My 2 favorite movies, Wrath and First Contact, were both action based. However, on TV, my favorite eps tend to be exploration. Especially TOS. My favorite ep of all time, The Inner Light, has not a single phaser fired, and yet brings me to tears every time I watch it. So I am torn between the exploration and action aspects of it.

I wish they would take a chance more with the movies.

I know I lean more heavily toward the action adventure, but it can't be like that all the time. Sometimes the story, whatever it is, clicks with me... sometimes it doesn't.

From the classic movies, my favs are 6 and 2. Won't get much argument there from most fans. But ask me what my fav TNG film is and I answer Insurrection, that usually leads to puzzled expressions and 'Didn't you like First Contact'?

Yes, I liked it, but not as much as Insurrection.

Cruel Angel wrote:

I know I lean more heavily toward the action adventure, but it can't be like that all the time. Sometimes the story, whatever it is, clicks with me... sometimes it doesn't.

From the classic movies, my favs are 6 and 2. Won't get much argument there from most fans. But ask me what my fav TNG film is and I answer Insurrection, that usually leads to puzzled expressions and 'Didn't you like First Contact'?

Yes, I liked it, but not as much as Insurrection.

You and I are brothers.

I too find Insurrection the best of the TNG films. Mostly because it's the only one that feels like TNG.

Rust wrote:

You and I are brothers.

I too find Insurrection the best of the TNG films. Mostly because it's the only one that feels like TNG.

Exactly. I thought it had that feel of a TNG episode.

And I seem to remember people criticizing it for being just that... that somehow a feature film needs to be more than just 'like watching a regular episode'.

mattmanw54301 wrote:

I agree Castellan. I personally enjoy both types of stories. Exploration can be exciting too, if done well. So can shoot em up space battles. My 2 favorite movies, Wrath and First Contact, were both action based. However, on TV, my favorite eps tend to be exploration. Especially TOS. My favorite ep of all time, The Inner Light, has not a single phaser fired, and yet brings me to tears every time I watch it. So I am torn between the exploration and action aspects of it.

I wish they would take a chance more with the movies.

My own favorites are Devil in the Dark, Immunity Syndrome, Encounter at Farpoint, Where No One Has Gone Before, Home Soil, Where Silence Has Lease, The Outrageous Okana (Yes, I liked that one, he was very likeable....he was a sorta Han Solo, but not an @$$hole), Contagion, The Royal, Time Squared, The Survivors, Captain's Holiday, Masks, Genesis, and the like.

If they do battles, I prefer the Balance of Terror type, where you see both sides and what they are going through, and the Romulan captain was very likeable, and I felt really bad when he committed hos honorable suicide, since this guy shows that the Romulans are not the butchers humans like Stiles said they were.

Also, I want to see a story where the governments of Earth after the Vulcans first show up, try to give their excuses for why they hid the truth of alien life for so long.

A lot of people hate on Insurrection, but I honestly liked it alot. The humor seemed more natural, and the whole cast got in on the story. The only part that still makes me roll my eyes to this day is the 'manual steering column' scene.

I also dug the speech that Picard gives to the one Sona to make him switch sides. And then the subsequent scene at the end where we see him hugging his estranged mother. Still gets me choked up.

Some of my fav TNG eps are:

Measure of a Man
The Defector
The Wounded
The Drumhead
Darmok
A Matter of Time
Ethics
I, Borg

My fav classic eps:

Man Trap, Galileo 7, Balance of Terror, Court Martial, Errand of Mercy
Changeling, Journey to Babel, Doomsday Machine, Obesssion, Wolf in the Fold
Trouble With Tribbles, Piece of the Action, Patterns of Force, Ultimate Computer
Enterprise Incident, Whom Gods Destroy, That Which Survives

I saw And The Children Shall Lead as a young child, and it creeped me out at the end with the melty face angel. Same with the Salt Vampire. They creeped me out. This was when I was like 4 years old.

Let's see... TNG

1) Hide and Q, Big Goodbye, Conspiracy
2) Peak Performance, A Matter of Honor, Outrageous Okona
3) Booby Trap, Vengeance Factor, The Hunted, A Matter of Perspective, Captain's Holiday, Hollow Pursuits, Best of Both Worlds
4) Future Imperfect, Devil's Due, First Contact, Qpid, The Drumhead
5) Darmok, Unification, Conundrum, The First Duty, The Next Phase
6) Schisms, Rascals, Chain of Command, Tapestry, The Chase, Frame of Mind
7) Gambit, The Pegasus, Lower Decks

mattmanw54301 wrote:

A lot of people hate on Insurrection, but I honestly liked it alot. The humor seemed more natural, and the whole cast got in on the story. The only part that still makes me roll my eyes to this day is the 'manual steering column' scene.

I also dug the speech that Picard gives to the one Sona to make him switch sides. And then the subsequent scene at the end where we see him hugging his estranged mother. Still gets me choked up.

Insurrection I enjoyed a bit, it felt like an episode of the show. And it showed Picard doing the right thing, and not following orders or crap like that.

Plus that chick was a bonified MILF.

By happy we did not see a steering wheel come out like we seen in some Trek spoofs and parodies. The whole parking brake gag, along with "punch it!" in Trek 2009 was a real eye roller compared to the joystick bit.

I loved Insurrection as well. I loved the great interactions between the crew. For the same reason, I liked Star Trek V, I loved seeing Kirk, Spock and McCoy working together as a team and spending their time off together. Another thing I liked in the movie series was how Spock evolved after his encounter with V'ger.....he was ok with showing a bit of his human side. Even watching him in the 2009 movie,Spock was far less serious than his younger self. Nimoy is amazing!

For all the grief that part 5 gets, I loved the interaction between Kirk, Bones, and Spock. The humor hit all the right marks for me. And you can see the genuine affection too. Same with most of the charactarization of the main cast. Unfortunately, the plot wasn't the best, but still. Great moments. Also, we get more background info on Mccoy than we have EVER seen before in the scene where Sybok 'heals' him.

The scenes of the Trio around the campfire, eating beans with a slightly drunk McCoy lecturing Spock and McCoy about their reckless actions,and finally, Kirk's confession that he knew he would not die, because they were with him...great stuff.

So, watching Insurrection now!!

mattmanw54301 wrote:

For all the grief that part 5 gets, I loved the interaction between Kirk, Bones, and Spock. The humor hit all the right marks for me. And you can see the genuine affection too. Same with most of the charactarization of the main cast. Unfortunately, the plot wasn't the best, but still. Great moments. Also, we get more background info on Mccoy than we have EVER seen before in the scene where Sybok 'heals' him.

The reason number five gets flak is for the visuals, I think, and those folks who think, "spirituality and science can NOT be together!" (though I think the two NEED to be together, especially since one needs wisdom to create technology and to use it the right way.....nuclear energy being probably the best example).....but remember, there was a strike going on at the time, and Shatner had to make due with what he had available. Shatner even asked Paramount for a couple of million dollars to go and pretty much remaster the film's visuals, and a few million is practically coffee money for Paramount, but they still refused him. The story itself is pretty darn good, my one problem with the great barrier in the center of the galaxy, when it should be on the for end of it, but it's not a huge deal.

And don't forget Spock being born and Sarek going, "....so human....", and Spock looked like he was holding back tears because, to me, it seems he let his dad down from the beginning. You know, like if you had a dad who never, ever said "Well done, son/daughter!" to you, no matter how hard you try. Makes me wonder how far a Vulcan's memory can go back, now that I think about it.

My problem with Star Trek V comes from the fact the crew - like Chekov and Sulu - betray Kirk at the drop of a hat after having "their pain taken away".

These are the same folks that threw their careers away to go after Spock with Kirk in Star Trek III.

I didn't buy it.