#starfleet values

[spacedocmom]

Doctor Beverly Crusher @SpaceDocMom Safe spaces - including clean air, water, safe food, protection against dangerous pathogens, and protection against weapons - should be a right for everyone. emojis: black heart, blue heart, masked, shield 5:39 PM · Apr 26, 2024

[spacedadsupport]

Jean-Luc Picard @SpaceDadSupport Be very wary of those who insist on "debate" or "discussion" when it's someone's civil rights on the table. There's no debate to be had; trans women are women, trans men are men, anyone with a uterus gets to decide what grows in it or not, bodily autonomy is essential to freedom. 2:11 PM · Sep 28, 2023

[eastsideofthemoon]

Anyway, season 1 of Discovery is a bop.

[b-radley66]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Expanded Universes (General) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Ensemble Cast - BAN, Lawrence Styles Additional Tags: Border Patrol, Deltans, Family, Intrigue, Section 31 Series: Part 4 of Borderlines: Book II - War Drums Summary:

Meeting family. Who’s really the dumbass? The former captain of the Excelsior would like a word. Section 31and a new recruit.

[joshuaalbert]

i regret to inform you i am once again thinking about bev's weird changeling kid jack who stays in the medical field both bc his mom's legacy is worth something and because he has a genuine interest in solid physiology rather than being a professional nepotism baby. i do not give a fuck about canon jack ii but the version that lives in my head and uses the newfound stability at the end of the series to go to medical school and both his mother and his adopted father are very proud of him and there's a joke about "doctor crusher" and they both turn around....he compels me a little.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Tuvok, Beloved.

[knittinglizards]

poking around looking at people's general feelings about the recent trek series and I have to say im pretty deeply irritated by criticism that starts and stops at the idea that stories going further in depth into starfleet as an imperial power and the violence inherent to that are against the spirit of the original. like if you consider the idealism/hope for a better world/realization of a brotherhood of man sort of themes to BE the spirit of it, i would think engaging critically with elements of domination presented by the original is more productive (possibly even more faithful) towards that spirit than just pretending they don't exist

[planet4546b]

alright i finished season 1 of disco. when i first tried disco and disliked it like a year or so ago i was initially judgemental bc it seemed sort of needlessly dark and to be telling a very different story than the typical trek utopias (didnt help that i had only seen tng at the time), but its genuienly kind of genius how they start in a much darker place and then EXPLICITLY end on the hopeful note of ‘we still have to choose kindness and believe in utopian ideals in order to get to that utopian world, a ‘good’ universe is one in which people make the active choice to do good’, and that they do it through burnham’s character arc and her slowly working through her trauma. i think a lot about how different treks are made for the era they’re made in, and the idea that disco is the same, and is made for our era and continues to pull through the thought that we can choose to make a better universe, is so exactly in line with what i love about trek and is just an absolute delight. disco also imo has much stronger character writing than a good chunk of other treks, i really love all of the characters, and im super excited to keep watching!!!!

[youareenoughphan]

I fucking hate this Lorca guy

[vulcanhello]

star trek the savage trade was. so much. there were implications. there were friendships. there were ten thousand unfulfilled ideas. it was not well written but it WAS a ten course meal of food for thought

the most interesting part of this book was the complexity between spock and valek which was completely disregarded even though it arguably had the most interesting stuff going on. for example; when they meet up again after over ten years

varen is her twin brother, which we’ll get to. but here she’s pretty rude towards spock, despite later telling kirk that she felt bad for bullying him/formally arguing against his existence when they were kids. which. okay. only to LATER find out she’s been amongst humans for over ten years. she even starts this little romantic thing with kirk like this

she does stuff like this multiple times. kirk as the narrator even frequently mentions how ‘un-vulcan’ her actions are

i thought it might have been heading in a direction where she also felt like her emotions were getting the better of her as a kid, maybe making her feel like spock was better than her even being half vulcan, but no. it was just about her going along with every other vulcan’s prejudice towards him. then there was this whole thing where she came to take back her opinions because she respected sarek and amanda so much, and of course once spock grew up and proved himself’ she respected him too. but like. there’s so much there. the main point made here regarding all this was that vulcans underestimated spock because obviously spock is great but he couldn’t earn respect until he proved himself in his profession. until then though it was public debate over his existence. imagine your classmate getting up and arguing you shouldn’t be alive. and the only person who’s disagreeing with her is her brother. WHICH.

next point: spock ‘when i feel friendship for you i feel ashamed’ has longtime childhood friends he still keeps in contact with? obsessed. what’s this? you’re not going to include him in the narrative? bro. varen is apparently spock’s only friend from way back and this isn’t even talked about. it’s basically just the reason why valek was angry with spock as kids but she already didn’t like him so it wasn’t like her brother and spock being friends was a catalyst. what i’m getting at is that this author put SO MANY interesting things in the story and then just didn’t use them. ACTUALLY GOING OFF THAT

obsessed when novels mention sybok. this one’s especially interesting as according to her, sybok was seen as better than spock. in the final frontier novel it went that sybok felt like an outcast already, and was noticeably more emotional than other vulcans. spock, who assimilated and became as vulcan as possible to offset being half human, was still seen as less? insanity. i just feel like there’s so much going on here talking about spock’s childhood and then when you read the end of the savage trade spock’s just chillin with ben franklin absolutely uncaring (which good for him. if i met a childhood bully who was now everything she bullied ME for? i would be ruthless. spock elects to lose to benny frank in chess multiple times so he’s above all that)

anyways there was so much the author could have done with valek because she was really really interesting but her and spock almost never interact and it ends up falling pretty flat. LOST OPPORTUNITIES, like pretty much every star trek book in existence

ok one final thing the spock and varen being vulcan lab partners thing was really cute

[ireallyamabear]

The choice to put Una Chin-Reily on a Starfleet recruitment poster in the late 2370s seems a nod to the extraordinary person she is and her exemplary service, but Boimler’s enthusiasm for her as a personal hero cannot mask the fact of what Starfleet execs are really doing here: while it is Starfleet tradition to honour esteemed personnel from its centuries of history, we have to look at the poster as a product of its time: it seems clear that, shortly after the devastating death toll and the rapid militarisation of the Dominion War, putting a prominent figure of the Great Exploration Age - and notedly someone who had not served in the Klingon War - as the poster person for Starfleet is an indictment that contemporary young people of the Federation are not drawn to the service as it is in their time anymore.

Critically, Starfleet has to use somebody from a 120 years ago, a timeframe that would lap generations of even especially long lived member species like Vulcans or Denobulans, to attract new recruits. Boimler says himself that seeing Una as a representative and her motto - “Ad astra per aspera” was: “Uh, it was a really big reason why I joined.” Clearly there is a wealth of recognisable Starfleet officers from 2370 and onwards, but their entanglement in the Dominion War, or at least in the Borg threat makes them unsuitable as role models for people like Boimler who cannot help but associate these contemporaries with the horrors of war and intergalactic conflict. Thus, the retreat to a “safe” historical narrative, with Starfleet still being about peaceful exploration reflects the growing divide between the realities of a colonised galaxy, the ongoing need of new bodies to fill the posts on all those ships and space stations and the aspirations and values of young people today. In this essay I will question whether Starfleet can keep its promise of scientific integrity in the face of growing political unrest in the UFP and ask what “Number One” herself would have thought about-

[spacedocmom]

Doctor Beverly Crusher @SpaceDocMom Attendance rewards/punishments in schools/workplaces are ableist and not conducive to health care. In Starfleet if I say my patient needs rest, I can make that an order that even someone above my rank has to obey. Your society could learn a thing or two about this. emojis: black heart, blue heart, masked 3:24 PM · Sep 22, 2023

[spacedadsupport]

Jean-Luc Picard @SpaceDadSupport Rebel against capitalistic oppression in your era by liking yourself for who you are in spite of all the commercial interests telling you otherwise. 3:22 PM · Oct 21, 2023

[vintagegeekculture]

Because she was an intentionally mysterious woman initially only seen in a single episode, and before she got an on-air backstory in the recent streaming series, Star Trek supplementary material developed contradictory information on who - or what - Number One, the female first executive officer of the Enterprise, was. To my count, she has four different, completely incompatible backstories in the comics and novels, and this is absolutely unique in Star Trek, which usually keeps it consistent.

Peter David, in his New Frontier novels, identified Number One as a long lived immortal human mutant (like Flint from the original series) named “Morgan Primus” who was an early genius in cybernetics and artificial intelligence, which is why the Enterprise computer has her voice. One of the names Morgan Primus assumed to hide her immortality was Morgan Lefler, and one of her daughters was Robin Lefler, Wesley Crusher’s love interest from the Next Generation Series played by Ashley Judd. Robin Lefler did not inherit her mutant ability to heal all injuries.

Alternatively, the DC Star Trek Comics of the early 1980s said that Number One was from an obscure planet of peaceful, open, friendly telepaths who resemble humans exactly, and that she was present at first contact with Starfleet. They explained that her blunt, direct, undiplomatic manner is due to her being from a telepathic culture that values total honesty. This would make her the first telepath on the Enterprise, with Spock and Arex coming later. Her planet was created before the Next Generation, but her species being a peaceful, open, telepathic race resembling Mediterranean humans who are not well known or commonly encountered in the original series era….well, that certainly sounds an awful lot like Betazoids to me. If this backstory is true, she may have been the first Betazoid seen on screen, in much the same way fans generally believe Trelane was either Q or a member of the Q Continuum.

D.C. Fontana’s only Star Trek novel, “Vulcan’s Glory,” was one of the earliest attempts to give the character a backstory, and was the most consequential long term. The first novel set in the era of the first Star Trek pilot with Captain Pike and a young Spock, "Vulcan's Glory" identified Number One as being an Illyrian, a race of human-like beings who specialize in species wide breeding programs and genetic improvement. This genetic superiority is why she was cool, intellectual, aloof, and a bit arrogant. Her nickname “Number One” came from the fact she was the supreme product of the hyper-competitive Illyrian system, and won at everything from academics to athletics. According to DC Fontana, her actual Illyrian name is impossible to pronounce, so when dealing with humans, she assumed the human name “Una Chin-Riley.” Una of course, being “Number One” in Greek.

As DC Fontana is such an important figure in Star Trek history and only actually wrote one Star Trek novel in her life, many future materials used the backstory established in “Vulcan’s Glory,” like the David Stern Pike-era novels of the 2010s....but more importantly, the Discovery and Strange New Worlds series, which canonized the “Una Chin-Reilly” name by using it on screen (I remember gasping when Pike called her Una in a Discovery episode, meaning they were going with the Fontana backstory, a detail that may not have been significant to the casual viewer). Since DC Fontana wrote “Vulcan’s Glory” in the 80s, a lot more information was learned about the role of genetic engineering in the Federation, however, and interesting things were done in that series to bring her in line with everything we’ve learned since in Deep Space 9 and Enterprise about augmentation and the society wide prejudice against it. For example, they established that the fact Number One was Illyrian was not public knowledge, but that she pretended to be human her entire life.

The one person who didn’t see fit to give her a backstory or even a real name was John "Johnny Redbeard" Byrne in his comic series about the Cage era Enterprise, who thought the mystery of the character was the most interesting thing about her, and he was deliberately cagey about any details. To Johnny Redbeard, she was just “Number One.” There was a running joke that every time someone says her actual name, or when we see her personnel file, it was blurred out, or somebody’s thumb was over it, and so on. It was rather like the running joke where Mr. Burns never remembers Homer Simpson's name. Johnny Redbeard loves mystery men and women who don't talk about their past, since that was the characterization he famously gave to Wolverine in his X-Men comics.

The one detail of Number One's past that is clear is that Number One in Byrne's comics is competent, mysterious, and has mystique, certainly, but she is completely human, without any powers. Byrne always got exasperated that his X-Men co-creator Chris Claremont added fantastical and far out details to the background of X-Men characters (like how Nightcrawler's girlfriend Amanda turned out to be a sorceress) because he felt "some people should just be allowed to be normal." Byrne always said his original idea for Wolverine's "true" backstory was that he was a Vietnam veteran in intelligence who volunteered for bionic experiments that wiped his memory, and disliked the idea he was immortal, and vetoed the very, very early Dave Cockrum idea Wolverine was an actual mutated wolverine who achieved sentience and a human shape (which early X-Men comics hint at). Byrne was reportedly enraged that they gave Moira MacTaggart a mutant power, as he saw her as just being a scrappy Scottish housekeeper.

Johnny Redbeard didn’t give Number One a past (other than to show she was on the Enterprise's shakedown cruise with Robert April as a rookie officer), but he did give her a future, as he showed an older Number One as a starship commander in the Kirk era (aging gracefully with a white tuft like Tongolele), and later, a flag officer in the Motion Picture era.

To what extent are these backstories compatible? Well, with what we currently know about Number One, that she hid her true species and status to avoid prejudice, it could be that some of the other versions were tall tales she spread to obscure her true origins. The John Byrne idea she served as an Ensign with Robert April in the Enterprise's very first mission hasn't been confirmed, but hasn't been denied, either. The Peter David "Morgan Primus" backstory is completely incompatible, but perhaps there are some elements to it that are true, like the idea that the early part of her career involved working as a computer engineer in artificial intelligence, which is why the computer has her voice.

[worflesbian]

also really interesting to me the way that everyone is always like 'b'elanna you should embrace your heritage more' 'b'elanna why don't you like being klingon' 'come on these three fun facts we learned about your culture make it seem so cool' until she says hey i have to induce a coma so i can enter my people's afterlife and save my mother. and then they say woah there we meant you should learn some drinking songs or wear fur more often not this crazy shit. like yeah putting yourself at risk of death may seem a little extreme but klingon culture is always extreme! fundamentally klingon culture as it stands in the 24th century is incompatible with a lot of federation values and morality, which makes it very interesting but also very difficult for starfleet officers to accept anything but a heavily diluted version of it and i don't think that some of the voyager crew realised until this episode that encouraging b'elanna to accept her heritage might mean her doing things they can neither accept nor rationalise.

it's one thing to tell her she's wrong and that they wouldn't reject her for being klingon and another thing to confront a cultural obsession with death.

[shanastoryteller]

Star Trek please!! Happy Halloween

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6

Admiral Archer is unwilling to take his rescission at face value and demands a more complete explanation. To Spock's relief, and the gathered students' disappointment, he's willing to hear it in his private office.

Captain Pike slips in behind them, which gets him an irritated scowl but the admiral allows it. Spock is only marginally surprised by this. Admiral Archer and Captain Pike are known to be on good terms and James Kirk had entered the academy on Captain Pike's recommendation.

"Explain," Admiral Archer demands.

Spock hesitates.

Starfleet is of course aware of the events that took place on Tarsus IV and so they must be equally aware of James Kirk's role in it. While Admiral Archer certainly has the clearance to know the particulars, it does not mean that he does, and Spock is loathe to reveal these particulars, even to someone who could find them out himself. Additionally, Captain Pike does not have the necessary clearance, and while he does not think that James Kirk would allow his presence if he did not wish him to know, or had not already told him, Spock cannot be certain and there is no way for him to ask.

"Commander," Admiral Archer snaps. "Is this a joke to you?"

"No, sir," he answers. He doesn't find any of this funny at all.

James Kirk steps up next to him and rests a hand on his shoulder. Spock resists the urge to flinch and shoots him a disapproving look. The contact is not skin on skin, but any casual contact is discouraged. James Kirk is very well aware of Vulcan customs.

Then again, his point of contact for Vulcan culture is Sybok. His brother had been significantly more... affectionate after Tarsus IV. Spock wonders if that's something he picked up from his association with James Kirk.

"It's alright," James Kirk says warmly. "Spock, tell Admiral Archer whatever you want him to know."

He doesn't remove his hand. Human's run hot, their physiology not perfectly calibrated to survive in the deep heat of the desert, but even still James Kirk's hand feels unusually warm.

"I was unaware of Cadet Kirk's background with facing impossible odds when I made my accusation," he says. "Having been made aware of it, my perspective has shifted. Cadet Kirk does not allow rules or the constraints of logic prevent him from doing what he believes must be done. This was what he was demonstrating by bypassing and reprogramming my system."

He can feel James Kirk staring at him but he doesn't take his eyes of Admiral Archer.

Admiral Archer frowns. "You didn't know he was on Tarsus IV with your brother?"

That he already knows is a source of relief. The incredulity is less.

"Spock had exams the time I went to Vulcan," James Kirk says. "Sybok loves an excuse to go off-planet, so we usually meet up on Earth. Spock and I have never met before." He turns to him with a grin that Spock is distinctly uncomfortable having aimed in his direction. "I should have known the second I saw you. You look a lot like your mother."

Being compared to one's mother on Vulcan is a high compliment. Or it's supposed to be. Spock's had those same words hurled at him before, but it was with cruelty, as a way to demean him rather than honor the woman who bore him.

James Kirk say the words easily, exactly as they are intended to be spoken.

"You're driving me to drink," Admiral Archer says.

Spock has no idea how to appropriately respond to that.

"What about me? You're driving me to drink," James Kirk says, "which is driving Bones to as of yet unknown heights of nagging. The stress isn't good for him but he keeps threatening me with hypos when I tell him that. Can't I just be concerned for my friend?"

That is not an appropriate response on top of being incomprehensible.

Admiral Archer rubs his forehead. "Chris."

"Sir," Captain Pike returns, grabs the back of James Kirk's jacket, and hauls him out of there like grabbing a wayward kitten by the scruff of its neck.

Spock stands there, unsure, until Admiral Archer glances up and says, "You too, Commander. I'll consider this matter closed."

He nods, "Thank you, Sir," and steps outside to an empty hall. Captain Pike and James Kirk are nowhere to be seen.

Once he returns to his quarters, he video calls his brother.

He doesn't pick up.

Typical.