Discovery bringing Georgiou back in season 2 as a Section 31 agent felt to me like the show was doing this, and is what put me off that show specifically. I really like the majority of modern Trek shows, and even like 2 out of 3 of the Kelvin timeline movies.
I think they brought her back in an attempt to backpedal the absolute fucking disaster that was season 1. I honestly enjoy Discovery as sci-fi, but when I rewatch Season 1 I can’t shake the feeling they took another IPs pilot and stretched Star Trek over it like a horrible skinsuit.
It had exactly the opposite effect for me. I greatly disliked season 1 of Discovery but thought they wrapped it up well enough at the end of the season that they could move on. Georgiou showing back up in season 2 read to me as them having learned absolutely nothing and doubling down on the disaster rather than backpedaling from it.
I was generous, even patient, with Strange New Worlds and enjoyed it for the most part, if only because it was not Discovery and its tiresome contrarian “what if evil people… adorable scamps? What if everyone is kind of an asshole? What if moral ambiguity makes the audience feel very very smart while justifying whatever the writers want to show without feeling bad about it?”
It was an experience explaining to my wife (who only watched SNW and Lower Decks and The Orville and only knew about TOS from secondhand sources) that Kirk would totally strike a truce with the Gorn… and that’s why some of them were just chilling, having a nice wedding in Lower Decks that Rutherford rudely interrupted.
Georgiou eventually turned on her S31 superiors, joined the Discovery crew, and tried to make the Mirror Universe better when the Guardian (sort of) gave her the opportunity.
Space Hitler felt kind of bad about some things and made some space friends and promises to make the next Space Reich a little nicer. No need for Space Nuremburg, for real.
So what about any of that screams “the Terran Empire did nothing wrong” to you?
I wasn’t talking about you in particular, nor was I making the connection to that character when I was talking about red flags until you forcibly made it for me.
Read again. I was talking about people posting sometimes hours-long screeds in public zone chat channels in an online game about how badly they want to exterminate undesirables, that also happen to almost universally identify with the Terran Empire or Section 31 between such rants.
Because you went off into the weeds to make excuses for a specific character, I did happen to roll my eyes at the “the mass murdering dictator is sorry and that somehow means she is okay now, feeling bad and promising to be nicer rebalances the scales in a way that karmically un-kills everyone she murdered” argument, though it was a different topic and wasn’t even connected to what I was saying about toxic fans (and the actual topic brought up in this thread).
Are you continuing to believe that your sidetrack fandom-driven defensiveness had much to do with what I was talking about to begin with, even after I answered your still-silly and increasingly-off topic claim that a character feeling bad and promising to do better somehow un-does the atrocities she did before?
I’m not going to congratulate you for your favorite bad writing cliche.
Nah genocide isn’t my jam… But yes, I believe the Dominion war wouldn’t have ended without the virus. The Dominion would have just kept sending ships and Jem’Hadar from the Gamma quadrant.
Edit: btw I dislike the way DIS “unshrouded” section 31. It was much cooler in DS9 where we were left to wonder whether it actually existed or not, or it was just Sloane being godlike in his manipulation skills.
It’s fiction, after all, and if a writer wants to say torture works (like on “24”) or that there simply is no other way than poisoning an entire planetary population for the sake of interstellar peace, that is the way it is in that fiction.
Of course, because it’s fiction, and whatever the writer says is the only solution winds up being the necessary solution. That’s why torture provides useful and accurate information and is necessary in “24” and why poisoning an entire planetary population is necessary with no other options presented as possible for the sake of interstellar peace in DS9.
The problem is in carrying that implied (intentional or not) message away from the fiction and holding it as real-life wisdom instead of a work of fiction with its own convenient Thermian Arguments to justify pretty much anything the writer wants to justify.
It’s a massive, massive red flag when someone goes the “Terran Empire/Section 31 did nothing wrong” route.
It’s very common in zone chat on Star Trek Online. Some fascists just hang around Earth Spacedock all day there, posting nonstop fascist screeds.
Discovery bringing Georgiou back in season 2 as a Section 31 agent felt to me like the show was doing this, and is what put me off that show specifically. I really like the majority of modern Trek shows, and even like 2 out of 3 of the Kelvin timeline movies.
I think they brought her back in an attempt to backpedal the absolute fucking disaster that was season 1. I honestly enjoy Discovery as sci-fi, but when I rewatch Season 1 I can’t shake the feeling they took another IPs pilot and stretched Star Trek over it like a horrible skinsuit.
It had exactly the opposite effect for me. I greatly disliked season 1 of Discovery but thought they wrapped it up well enough at the end of the season that they could move on. Georgiou showing back up in season 2 read to me as them having learned absolutely nothing and doubling down on the disaster rather than backpedaling from it.
I was generous, even patient, with Strange New Worlds and enjoyed it for the most part, if only because it was not Discovery and its tiresome contrarian “what if evil people… adorable scamps? What if everyone is kind of an asshole? What if moral ambiguity makes the audience feel very very smart while justifying whatever the writers want to show without feeling bad about it?”
I like Strange New Worlds. Very much hoping they complicate the Gorn cliffhanger they left the last season off with though.
It was an experience explaining to my wife (who only watched SNW and Lower Decks and The Orville and only knew about TOS from secondhand sources) that Kirk would totally strike a truce with the Gorn… and that’s why some of them were just chilling, having a nice wedding in Lower Decks that Rutherford rudely interrupted.
Your wife has watched 3/4 of the good modern Trek series and should watch Prodigy. (and the TNG era Treks)
She lost interest after the first episodes of Prodigy, but I may try again sometime. I heard good things and it’s better to watch new shows together.
It’s very good and only gets better as it goes on. Season 2 was fantastic.
Georgiou eventually turned on her S31 superiors, joined the Discovery crew, and tried to make the Mirror Universe better when the Guardian (sort of) gave her the opportunity.
Space Hitler felt kind of bad about some things and made some space friends and promises to make the next Space Reich a little nicer. No need for Space Nuremburg, for real.
So what about any of that screams “the Terran Empire did nothing wrong” to you? Or would you rather keep deflecting?
I wasn’t talking about you in particular, nor was I making the connection to that character when I was talking about red flags until you forcibly made it for me.
Read again. I was talking about people posting sometimes hours-long screeds in public zone chat channels in an online game about how badly they want to exterminate undesirables, that also happen to almost universally identify with the Terran Empire or Section 31 between such rants.
Because you went off into the weeds to make excuses for a specific character, I did happen to roll my eyes at the “the mass murdering dictator is sorry and that somehow means she is okay now, feeling bad and promising to be nicer rebalances the scales in a way that karmically un-kills everyone she murdered” argument, though it was a different topic and wasn’t even connected to what I was saying about toxic fans (and the actual topic brought up in this thread).
Spare me the catty Reddit zingers.
Cool cool, you’re just inserting irrelevant comments into a discussion I was having with someone else.
Truly dazzling.
Are you continuing to believe that your sidetrack fandom-driven defensiveness had much to do with what I was talking about to begin with, even after I answered your still-silly and increasingly-off topic claim that a character feeling bad and promising to do better somehow un-does the atrocities she did before?
I’m not going to congratulate you for your favorite bad writing cliche.
Hey look, the guy who broke the land speed record on the way to Godwin has thoughts on cliches!
Well, section 31 did save the whole alpha quadrant from the Dominion…
If you believe there was no possible way to do that without an unaccountable space CIA, believe what you will.
If you’re not also posting real-life extermination apologia in public zone chats in online games on the side, good enough for me.
Nah genocide isn’t my jam… But yes, I believe the Dominion war wouldn’t have ended without the virus. The Dominion would have just kept sending ships and Jem’Hadar from the Gamma quadrant.
Edit: btw I dislike the way DIS “unshrouded” section 31. It was much cooler in DS9 where we were left to wonder whether it actually existed or not, or it was just Sloane being godlike in his manipulation skills.
It’s fiction, after all, and if a writer wants to say torture works (like on “24”) or that there simply is no other way than poisoning an entire planetary population for the sake of interstellar peace, that is the way it is in that fiction.
Of course, because it’s fiction, and whatever the writer says is the only solution winds up being the necessary solution. That’s why torture provides useful and accurate information and is necessary in “24” and why poisoning an entire planetary population is necessary with no other options presented as possible for the sake of interstellar peace in DS9.
The problem is in carrying that implied (intentional or not) message away from the fiction and holding it as real-life wisdom instead of a work of fiction with its own convenient Thermian Arguments to justify pretty much anything the writer wants to justify.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxV8gAGmbtk