that we shouldn’t take dates on the show literally other than as an indication of the general order in which things happened

I absolutely am fine with this take now, especially. Ultimately, what we are talking about is the narrative importance of the events. If we want to have episodes where the characters go to “today” today must continue to exist within the narrative. If the narrative says that the world was noticeably different in 1996 - move it to 2036. If we’re still going strong move it to 2056.

These changes don’t make as much difference in the narrative that was being told to begin with.

I don’t think that changes anything that was previous established. Picard established that Soong did illegal genetic experiments, but it does not stipulate that his experiments were illegal because of a prior genetic research ban. Soong later recovers the 1996 Khan Project file.

My take is that Romulan time agents went back in time to hide the Khan file. They perhaps moved Soong away from that avenue of research not knowing how the Confederation would play into it. In any case it didn’t work because Picard did his own time shenanigans pushing Soong to take more drastic measures.

In less than a year the Khan project has found a new home in Canada with new research partners. The Noonien-Singh Institute has Adam Soong’s fingerprints on it somewhere, but it’s unclear where. In any case whether there is a connection or not, Soong discovers the Khan project from 1996 in 2023. In SNW the Khan project has only just begun a year later and already has found its Khan.

I thought it was a clever way to handle it, but it was… strange because it telegraphed it’s narrative purpose rather than keeping it as part of the narrative. But I mean - to be fair I can’t think of a better way to make it work than exactly what they did and I thought it kind of worked out well all things considered.

Pursuant to this and maintaining consistency with the CO/XO dynamic on many Starships it’s totally reasonable to have a small vessel commanded by a Lt. Cdr. who we call the Captain, with a Lieutenant as the first officer.

Tuvok is such an example as he is almost always referred to as Lieutenant and later he’s promoted to Lt. Cdr properly, but he wore Lt. Cdr. rank insignia for like maybe the first season without anyone really correcting it.

It’s true that Tilly was not ‘promoted’ to any rank and kept her rank simply being assigned a position, however, I think it’s weird for her to be the XO except that she was part of the principle cast and they needed to give her a reason to be part of the overarching narrative for each season.

but it feels big to actually use the word?

I felt the same way. This reminded me of Discovery’s Admiral Vance openly admitting to ending capitalism being a goal of the Federation.

I don’t think it’s the best season of Picard. I think, in fact, it was the worst if only because it did not fit narratively within the rest of the Picard series. It was essentially a soft reboot of the series letting most of the primary cast disappear and replacing them with the nostalgic cast for the finale.

I agree though, Lower Decks and Prodigy did it first and did it better than Picard because they stayed true to the ideals of Starfleet and the Federation and made this a main point of the series. Something that I think both animated shows do extremely well. Contrast this with Picard’s Starfleet and Federation - they are in this position because they are spies, torturers, and liars who engage in grave robbery and allow themselves to be constantly defeated at their own hand by hubris only to be saved not by Federation and Starfleet ideals, but by the opposite (as presented.)

I also think that this same phenomenon happens in TOS as well although to a much less noticable degree. While that crew was always depicted as a little more willing to bend the rules, the movies had them breaking all the rules with a smirk and I think part of that was just the desire to hammer into the same nostalgia that Picard 3 tries to do. Unfortunately, Picard 3 doesn’t give us original characters or original concepts and so it needs to be maintained through relationships to existing characters.

I think part of the original intent was to have Starfleet be that Merchant Marine fleet and serve similar roles, however that was largely left on the cutting room floor. As a result I think the best way to understand a Merchant Marine ship like perhaps the SS Puget Sound (a Federation colony ship) could indeed be a Starfleet vessel (made by Starfleet), commissioned by the Federation, but commanded by a crew which hold Merchant Marine ranks and not Starfleet ranks. A Federation Colony Ship.

This would help explain the massive function of a 22nd or 23rd century Starfleet being operated entirely by a military organization. It’s not, many aspects of the fleet are controlled by the Merchant Marine service. A Federation Freighter likewise would be any freighter commissioned by the Federation and therefore likely to be crewed by the MMs.

We do not know when the UEF was formed. It could be a relatively new initiative having taken longer to get started without the help of the Vulcans. The USS Iowa is a United States Starship whereas the UEF Enterprise is the United Earth Fleet ship. Sometime between Kirk’s birth and the ‘present’ Earth was finally able to form a central government (or at least a centrally organized spacefleet) under one banner.

I think narratively it’s just a much more enjoyable to not have Odo shift shape onscreen, especially as it gives him the ability to overpower a lot of people. In the early episodes this needed to be shown so we could understand Odo’s character, but by the fourth season (both when he was a solid and not) we knew enough about the Changelings that we didn’t need to show this as frequently and had to figure out more creative ways to to get around Odo.

Narratively rank is very important especially when you are trying to demonstrate a paramilitary organization in the confines of a television series. I think there are probably often arguments about this. Why is Ezri written as a counselor and an Ensign instead of a science officer of a higher rank?

I do think there is real world relevance sometimes. We see Worf and Geordi get promotions and become a larger part of the series with more screen time and character development. This works narratively to distinguish the change. An “on screen” promotion indicates some sort of character growth. We see this happen with Sisko likely because the only reason to distinguish him at first was because he was written to have a fairly minor (in universe) role which was greatly expanded.

In recent years I think rank has been downplayed as there are so many inconsistencies and patterns and anti-patterns throughout the series. It’s important that you’re able to tell a story where if someone is supposed to be in charge they have the appropriate rank for this. This is one of the reasons Discovery effectively promoted Tilly rapidly (all the way to being the XO for a little bit) because she was a pivotal part of the cast and needed screen time. In fact Discovery doesn’t “ignore” rank it rather ignores rank conventions by having a mutineer on the bridge as a ‘specialist’ and a command staff that almost just takes turns at the wheel.

In Lower Decks we can assume narratively no one is going to get promoted permanently or demoted permanently because the show depends on that dynamic. If we look to Strange New Worlds we see rank downplayed to a large degree because everyone’s rank is so close together. This is important to get Spock of a low enough rank so that he can be promoted to commander later. (Frustratingly there are still inconsistencies here. There seems to be confusion between Lt. and Lt. Jg. and Nurse Chapel’s rank, which may be provisional because she may be a civilian contractor who has a temporary commission and then later joins with a regular commission of a lower rank - or her rank is just not important - is also out of continuity.) But importantly for SNW - narratively it makes sense to have these people of these ranks in these positions so it just works.

In a more realistic depiction people would be moving through ships much more quickly. There would be fewer officers and they would move through the ranks regularly and not stay in one position for 7 years. Likewise mostly Enlisted people would be spending a few years at most and moving onto other careers in civilian life as most people don’t want to be in the military forever and if they do they become officers. Miles O’Brien (despite the insignia being weird) is probably most accurately depicted. He served on many posts, he left posts for some period of time and then returned to them in new capacities, he moved between posts. He joined in 2345 and by 2375 he was probably ready for retirement or in the case of a utopian future, moving back to Earth to teach at Starfleet until he is absolutely ancient because he’s got nothing better to do and he loves his job.

I suspect this isn’t covered for a variety of reasons, but what we do see shows an Earth steeped in nostalgia blending with technology that alleviates the overwhelming majority of material concerns. No one needs to worry about food, shelter, clothing, or profit. They work to better themselves for its own sake and they relax and stuff.

I think the message is that Earth is boring and humans, having created paradise, left it for knowledge of the stars. Civilian life is coffee and breakfast in the morning before dropping the kids off at school, plenty of time to pursue niche hobbies, and probably also time to pursue some career interest and education.

However, you raise an interesting point in that civilians from the perspective of Starfleet officers are even more out there. These are folks who often wanted to go even further than the rest of society wanted to go. Fringe people with eccentricities to un civilized to stay within the Federation. The intersection of these two kinds of civilians is what I would like to explore.

A happy family who have lived in paradise are suddenly Swiss Family Robinson or Lost in Space style thrust into deep space and must survive without the comforts of paradise would be an interesting way to tell the story of what it’s like to be a civilian in the Federation.

Yes this is likely a consideration, but I also wonder if the ability for humans to live both without interference and in harmony with natural surroundings is now taken as a given such that no one is expecting anyone to deface or damage the redwoods even if they had set up their camp there to complete their research.

Whoa! Good catch. That timeline almost lines up exactly and it’s very possible that O’Brien was referring to Una. It could also be that O’Brien is indicating that sentiments have maybe changed somewhat in 100 years, something that we are lead to expect from SNW. And indeed Bashir is allowed to stay in Starfleet without even having to find a technical loophole and Richard’s punishment is considered harsh at 2 years. Given the future utopia that we’re dealing with and the historical significance of the crime I think what we’re seeing is that no one really does this anymore and so it’s not really an issue.

I really hate that Prodigy was unrewened because a courtroom episode of Prodigy where Dal gets the right to serve in Starfleet and the Starfleet ban on genetic augments is lifted would be a pretty cool.

undefined> Two is that Jim’s in error - he’s never been the only one who calls George “Sam”, and that erroneous belief is what the android picked up.

I like this explanation. I like the explanation that James had always called his brother Sam because he had a hard time saying ‘George’ when he was little. And so James has established himself as 'the only person who calls him ‘Sam’ and that may even have been factually true for some time.

But at some point, perhaps when joining Starfleet. George got tired of being associate with that other George Kirk and he missed his brother calling him Sam and so he got a new posting on a new ship and the first time they asked “name” he said “Sam.” And now everyone calls him Sam. Something that James Kirk might know about, but also doesn’t consider it valid because only James calls him Sam even if that isn’t technically true - it’s true enough for James and therefore true enough for the Android to pick up on.

Prodigy is canon insofar as everything is canon when it happens on screen. I like to think of the canon containing all Star Trek works right down to your fan fiction novel or your “head canon” with some things being more canonical than others and with those things which are seen on screen either as a film or TV episode are the most canonical of the canon. Prodigy still fits that bill. I doubt that there will be anything as canonical that would “undo” what Prodigy did. But if that happened we would just incorporate the conflict into the canon like we always do.

I want to push back on the conversation between Jack and Bashir in “Statistical Probabilities” a little bit given additional context from Strange New Worlds “Ad Astra per Aspera.” I don’t think it’s fair to say that all augments are treated the same way. It’s unlikely I think, that even if Bashir were to have not lied to get into Starfleet he would have been prevented either by law or by policy of doing anything even remotely scientific - including medicine or other gene research.

However, I don’t think we can take Jack at his word that he would have been institutionalized in the same manner. If we believe that the genetically modified people we see from the Institute in Deep Space Nine weren’t driven mad by their perceived incarceration then we have to believe that side effects of the genetic modification process caused unexpected neurological abnormalities and personality disorders that we see typified by that group.

Dal, for instance, in Prodigy does not fear institutionalization in the Federation, but rather he fears he won’t be let into Starfleet. Presumably he may also be precluded from other career choices that he’s just not interested in, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that being an augment is criminal as much as it is laws have created a system whereby modified people, especially modified humans, are treated as second class citizens. This might even extend to people who have DNA sequencing done for legitimate medical reasons like Chakotay. I like to imagine Chakotay and Una and Bashir having similar experiences even though their circumstances were unique. The human willingness to look past reason and into bigotry doesn’t go away, but it’s focused on the genetically modified.

And it takes decades, centuries even, for the laws to change even a little bit and even longer for the people to accept those changes.

I would really like to see a series which focused on establishing a colony and the specific challenges that settlers face. There are probably a lot of interactions between civilian Federation organizations, civilian individuals, colonial governments, and Starfleet. I think there’s a lot to explore here.

My assumption was that Vasquez Rocks was playing itself and that it was no longer a state park because there was no longer a state. Most of the Earth outside of cities has probably largely been left to the wilderness and as such parking your RV in any place is probably allowed if not unusual.

Earth is a functional paradise. It doesn’t alleviate people from all suffering, especially emotional suffering, but there is nothing that Raffi could not have if she wanted it including a different house in a different part of the world. She is self-isolating, but she doesn’t have to.

There is no “bad” economic outcomes on Earth anyway. I suspect that economic stratification comes in the form of human diaspora. Once you leave Earth to live on a colony or even just to live off-world, you might find that the world you move to doesn’t have bustling cities yet and so there are no tickets to the opera.

But these are choices that we assume are more freely available.