Is this my nerdiest post? Yes. Anyway,
The Star Trek wiki had something interesting…
Paul Schneider modeled the Romulans on the ancient Romans, naming the species’ homeworlds after the mythical founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. “It was a matter of developing a good Romanesque set of admirable antagonists that were worthy of Kirk,” Schneider related. “I came up with the concept of the Romulans which was an extension of the Roman civilization to the point of space travel, and it turned out quite well.” (Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 34) D.C. Fontana reckoned that Schneider basing the aliens on the pre-existing Roman civilization was the cause for the writer receiving insufficient credit for creating the Romulans. (“Balance of Terror” Starfleet Access, TOS Season 1 Blu-ray) Gene Roddenberry, interested in ancient Rome himself, approved of the initial depiction of the Romulan species. “He loved Paul’s having endowed the enemy-Romulans with the militaristic character of the ancient Romans,” wrote John D.F. Black and Mary Black. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 11, p. 19) Roddenberry’s original concept of the Romulans, however, was that they represented 1960s’ Chinese Communists.
Yes, Romulans are somewhat based on the Roman Empire and are xenophobic conquerers, but Westerners often ignorantly attribute these traits to communist countries anyway.
Then there is the Klingons, again, the Klingons are nothing like communists, (they’re a patriarchal empire) and yet I’ve seen people say they were based on the Soviets.
So what do you think?
I think it will depend on who was writing, who was producing, and when the series was produced. The Klingons have served as stand-ins for China, which inspired their original appearance. In the 6th movie, they clearly meant to represent a post-Chernobyl USSR, though the strength of the analogy is questionable.
My theory is that when the Klingons were brought back for Deep Space Nine’s 4th season, they were intended to represent the USA, whereas the Federation was now more analogous to the USSR. The Federation had largely eliminated class conflict, while the Klingons were still ruled by wealthy noble families. They Klingons couldn’t take a shit without talking about how brave and honourable they were, but they snuck around in cloaked ships, and showed no hesitation in killing civilians. When the Cardassian fascist military government fell and was replaced by a democratic assembly, the Klingons immediately declared war on them. Feels pretty American to me.
Man I should go back and finish DS9
It may not have gained the mainstream appeal of TOS and TNG, but DS9 is Trek at its absolute best. It is also Trek at its most overtly leftist. A cast that would be considered diverse today back in the 90’s, an anti-facist insurgency portrayed in a nuanced but mostly positive light, absolutely biting racial commentary, a main character that could be considered a trans allegory, and one of tvs first homosexual kisses (again, in the 90s) to name just a few things. The entire series is about leftist ideals and convictions being tested and it’s asperational AF. It’s not perfect by any means, it had to make it on American television after all, but rarely does something so overtly leftist do just that. I recommend any comrades who haven’t seen it check out the episodes “Bar Association” and “Far Beyond the Stars”.
:quark: :rommunism: :dax-stoked:
hexbear is severely lacking in DS9 emotes
One of this sites many injustices is the lack of antifa Kira emojis.
Time for you to be the change you want in the world…
Like the ending of DS9 probably has the most wild finale of any Trek show to date but the series as a whole is very good, especially in the later seasons when the Dominion war is in full swing.
Apparently they wanted to fully kill off Sisko but Avery Brooks made a huge stink about it saying it wasn’t right, so it is some sort of compromise.
He wanted Sisko to promise to return cause he didn’t want to depict a black man abandoning his son. Being killed was never on the table he was gonna just permantly and willingly go join the prophets
What? Voyager and Enterprise both have waaaaaay more wack finales.
I mean Sisko ascends to godhood, which I guess isn’t the first time that a character has become a higher life form but it still felt kind of out of place for ST if that makes sense.
voyager’s finale made more sense at the time it first aired because ds9’s finale was SO loving slow and sentimental; that it both needed to set itself apart and it barely had any support for a finale from paramount.
also, at the time of the airing of it’s later seasons voyager had been threatened by the type of cancellation that enterprise endured several times so we were lucky that we got a true finale at all. if it weren’t for the introduction of seven of nine; garrett wang nominated as the sexiest man alive; the mild but significant enough notoriety of nasa’s sojourner’s success; stars wars movie revival; and ds9 hadn’t ended a year before leaving voyager as the only trek on available for the first time in a decade on tv and movies we wouldn’t have had a finale at all.
enterprise’s finally was never meant to be a finale; but it became one once paramount pulled the rug out from beneath enterprise by surprise.
You really should, you’re depriving yourself something beautiful
It’s the beat trek
This is an interesting way to look at the Klingons, I honestly never thought about it that way.
For me the biggest problem is perhaps that very clearly everything Starfleet actually does is coated in liberalism ideals of the 90s where we(the Fed) are the only ones worth saving unequivocally. When the PD is invoked and when the Feds refuse to interfere in greater conflicts or choose “peace” it is seen as moraly justified. The Maqui arc, even though I still believe the “settlers” narrative is BS and a shitty allegory for hack writers of the time, that whole arc is just a hint at US blowback from “terrorists” they created themselves while refusing to admit they did anything wrong.
I think the worst part about it is the dominon war arc. The Federation is represented as this ubiquitous undeniable force that must not fall, obviously they’re meant to represent us and are the heroes, but when more objectively “moral” questions arises like the Dominion + Romulan pact we get Sisko committing a war crime just to bring their whole civilization to their side.
Heck I’d even say the Dom war aged extremely well, the entire Fed rethoric about how the
westgood guys can’t fall to the brutal savage monstersRussia/Chinais entirely 100% on equal to 2020’s US MSM rethoric about how it is US in the west and our liberal ideas vs everyone else.That to me is the biggest nod to American FP in the series? In the Pale Moonlight is a ridiculously awesome episode obviously, but Sisko is very much presented as an allegory of the US state department and the CIA doing whatever they need behind the scenes to get their “friends” and allies to do what they want.