How did Janeway ever get a command?

[Deepcrush]

Blade Runner did however spawn Soldier, Total Recall and Total Recall series. So on its own its not to much but with what it created its an impressive topic.

[Mikey]

Right author, wrong work. Blade Runner was based on Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? while Total Recall was based on Dick's short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale."

[Deepcrush]

I meant the line of movies themselves.

[Reliant121]

I missed a lot of stuff and am commenting quite late but whatever.

Personally, I think that dark IS realistic. Life's shit, always has been and in many ways will continue to be. Politics, wars, disease, relationship problems; it's not going to change because we've magically turned into high and mighty superior beings in the space of 300 years. It is NOT going to happen. I have no problem with having a bright and optimistic outlook on life, but EVERY star trek series apart from DS9 (in my opinion) had a horribly cheesy, namby-pamby look on life. I personally don't like it. At all, I find no interest in things being nice and dandy. But its a personal thing.

[Atekimogus]

I missed a lot of stuff and am commenting quite late but whatever.

Personally, I think that dark IS realistic. Life's s**t, always has been and in many ways will continue to be. Politics, wars, disease, relationship problems; it's not going to change because we've magically turned into high and mighty superior beings in the space of 300 years. It is NOT going to happen.

That - for me - is EXACTLY the point of Star Trek. The people in Star Trek are still the same homo saphiens we have nowadays with all the strength and weaknesses BUT they have advanced their science to a point were many of the most pressing issues of today (famine, diseases, poverty) are simply no issues anymore.

It is indeed my hope, that one day we will achieve such a state and I can only imagine what other positve effects this will have on a society as a whole. Is it a fools hope? I believe not. I am not of noble breed and my parents are not very wealthy yet here I am discussing issues with people across the globe in the knowledge that during my short life I received already enough medical treatments for issues which would have had me killed thrice over in any other age. Progress through science, and we are just beginning.

[Reliant121]

Perhaps I am simply far more cynical than I have any reason to be at almost-16, or perhaps I am just British, but the basic negative things that go on in society (Greed, elitism, selfishness etc) will never go away. Science cannot change people THAT dramatically IMO.

[Atekimogus]

The dreamer is always more powerful than the cynic.

I do get your point, one can look at the society and say....ah well, ancient egyptians, romans, mongols, mediaval times, nowadays....people didn't change much and never will. Their motivations are pretty much the same as thousands of years before, eating, drinking, money, sex etc.... .

Or you can look at all the nice things science brought us and what makes our lives easy and comfortable and view that as progress. Greed, elitism selfishness are not admirable qualities, yet they are part of humanity and I would rather ease those negative aspects with scientific solutions than via breeding them out of our genome. Hell, I only need to think of all those horrible diseases I do not have to worry about anymore and ask you how is this not progress? (smallpox, bubonic plague, hell even a burst appendix could cash you in only 150 years ago)

[SolkaTruesilver]

I really liked DS9 because nearly 50% of the main cast (wait, lemme count... Odo, Kira, Quark, Jake, against Sisko, Dax, Bashir, Worf, O'Brian..) wasn't in Starfleet. Hell, of those, only Kira was actually part of the military, the other ones were civilians!

It was nice to finally see something that was remotely close to "real life". the interaction of these shiny Poster Boy of Morality with not-so-perfect characters, that you might still like and grow fond of. What really did it for me is that Sisko & Co. didn't shoved their "Superior Morality" into the local's throat like TNG did on so many occasion, a fact Worf had to learn the hard way. Sisko's discourse about "Shades of Gray" was great.

In summary, it was nice to see people not as perfect as Starfleet without having them being bellitered for being what they were.

[Reliant121]

The dreamer is always more powerful than the cynic.

I do get your point, one can look at the society and say....ah well, ancient egyptians, romans, mongols, mediaval times, nowadays....people didn't change much and never will. Their motivations are pretty much the same as thousands of years before, eating, drinking, money, sex etc.... .

Or you can look at all the nice things science brought us and what makes our lives easy and comfortable and view that as progress. Greed, elitism selfishness are not admirable qualities, yet they are part of humanity and I would rather ease those negative aspects with scientific solutions than via breeding them out of our genome. Hell, I only need to think of all those horrible diseases I do not have to worry about anymore and ask you how is this not progress? (smallpox, bubonic plague, hell even a burst appendix could cash you in only 150 years ago)

I don't deny that illness is very much a bettered area, I would almost certainly not be here where I born even 10 years before I was. And Famine/disease/poverty are quite clearly alleviated.

What I meant by real life being dark was the dark that is presented in the likes of the books mentioned earlier, and found in DS9. Deep political turmoil, war, conflict etc. That is not going to just go away.

[Griffin]

..., I would almost certainly not be here where I born even 10 years before I was...

I know its tangential, but if you don't mind my asking, to what do you refer?

[Mikey]

That's the thing - DS9 wasn't by any stretch dystopian. It was better described, depending on your point of view, as grittier/darker/more realistic or even mundane. There is something to be said for both sides of the coin. TOS and TNG were presentations of Roddenberry's ideals, predicated in part as an antithesis of what he saw during the course of his military service. DS9 was more an exploration of what would happen given that milieu, but confronted with the ills of what to us is a more realistic society.

[Reliant121]

..., I would almost certainly not be here where I born even 10 years before I was...

I know its tangential, but if you don't mind my asking, to what do you refer?

I contracted Kawasaki's disease when I was 4 (this was in 1999). It has been around for quite some time, discovered in 1967 in Japan, but the fact it is incredibly uncommon in the western hemisphere hindered diagnosis. The doctor had said if it were 10 years earlier, where globalisation was less prevalent, it might not have been diagnosed in time as it progresses VERY quickly.

[Graham Kennedy]

Could you give me a view pointes to good TOS novels?

Ones I enjoyed :

"My Enemy, My Ally"
"Enterprise : The First Journey"
"Chain of Attack" - in some ways, this is a TOS version of Voyager. Enterprise finds herself thrown millions of light years across space and lands in an area dominated by warlike races. Unlike Janeway, Kirk kick's everyone's ass and gets his people home. It's a great book!
"Spock Must Die!"
"Rules of Engagement"
"Dreadnought" - though it has the biggest Mary Sue character I ever read
"Deep Domain"
"Dreams of the Raven"
"Strangers from the Sky"

Some of them are contradicted by canon - Spock Must Die, especially, has an ending that would have changed all of Trek history. But I don't really care, in and of themselves they are good stuff.

[Mikey]

I'm not well-versed in the novels, but I enjoyed A Stitch in Time, a DS9 novel written by none other than Andrew J. Robinson.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Dreadnought, Graham? Dude... that one sucked, IMHO. Piper was an awful character, and the politics in it were . I use that novel as one of my 'what not to do' when writing fic.

Sorry, man. But gotta disagree there.

EDIT:

Reliant, I lived with an emotionally and mentally abusive stepfather for eleven years who left my mother and I with emotional scars and a second mortgage, among other things. I... need optimism in my fiction. Without it... no. There are one or two exceptions, but the vast majority of stuff I listen/watch/read needs that hope and at least an earn your happy ending.