The most unbelievable part of Star Trek combat of any kind was The Red Shirt effect.
In real combat, death doesn’t discriminate. Anyone who steps into battle tends to have a roughly even chance of dying. So when DS9 got invaded or the Defiant took a pounding, we should nearly always see one or more primary characters biting the dust.
And while that did happen at times, like with Jadzia Dax, it didn’t happen nearly as often as it should have.
They could do a whole series set after DS9 about these types of questions. Maybe something that alludes to questions around Russia and China but still aims for peaceful outcomes?
… mixing in philosophy sci-fi questions?
… You know the sort of stuff Gene Roddenberry was doing from the beginning?
At this point in the series, humanity has been through some shit and ship and crew have been pummelled relentlessly. They had every right to abandon the people there on that planet to their chosen fate. The crew could have taken the ship and gotten away… but the old girl still had some fracking fight left in her
It’s several seasons in but there are plenty of other battles… but also mystery and intrigue. And like DS9 it deals with a lot more gray area than other sci-fi shows of the time did.
The show has variety and great pacing overall except maybe the miniseries which can be a slow build since they’re so long. Which makes sense since they’re, in essence, a pilot building up for the show.
They’re great too. But man after that the first episode 33 just dives right in.
I love how the number of humanity’s survivors in the show intro updates throughout the show. The detail is a nice touch.
I’m fine with the occasional pew pew space battle, but one of the reasons I have always valued Star Trek over Star Wars is because Starfleet tries to talk things out first and usually only resorts to violence when faced with an imminent threat.
The funny thing about the Jedi is that talking things out first is supposed to be their job. The “Wars” part of Star Wars only happened because a thousand years of peace fell apart because Palpatine’s evil space magic was stronger than the Jedi’s or something, so they didn’t get to tell the Senate that political corruption was bad, actually.
Anyways, that’s why the new Star Wars series should be about the internal politics of the High Republic, the most interesting part of Star Wars.
While initially moth-balled due to diminished Borg presence (pre First Contact), the Defiant project spearheaded by Sisko was a much earlier jump toward militaristic thinking within Starfleet’s leadership. The appearance of the Dominion, of course, ratcheted up that mindset. Picard’s ardent claim that the main function of the Federation was exploration/peace was hardly reflected by its actions in that time period. Borg, Breen, and badmirals set a dark path going forward for a while.
Not to mention, the enemy gets a vote too, and the Dominion had decided around the inception of the Dominion War that they wanted to bring the savage and myopic Federation under the enlightened rule of the Founders, and diplomatic efforts were outright refused.
As much it was a divergence from UFoP non-confrontational/staunchly diplomacy-first standard doctrine at the time, I feel like this can actually be explained in a very rational fashion, in a way that parallels reasonable and prudent geopolitical calculus in the real world today: you should consider and devise contingencies for any number of unlikely situations so you’re not caught entirely flat-footed by unlikely or unexpected events.
But, sometimes your best guess is way off. The Federation had no idea what the real strength of the Dominion was up to the point they sent an absolute shitload of 100% military capital and tactical strike ships through the space anüs, and then it somewhat quickly became clear that they were in conflict with an adversary that could actually go toe to toe with the combined might of most of the alpha and beta quadrants, and said adversary was genuinely strong enough to stand a real chance of winning outright.
Edit: also not to mention:
S6E6 is more than a bit deus ex machina in regard to that last bitconsidering the Prophets just wished an absolute shitload of Dominion ships into a cornfield. In terms of modern day analogies, it’s actually a similar strategic bottleneck to the Kerch bridge from Russia to Crimea.
Picard’s ardent claim that the main function of the Federation was exploration/peace was hardly reflected by its actions in that time period. Borg, Breen, and badmirals set a dark path going forward for a while.
The main function of the Federation is to explore and expand equality among its members during peace times, defend itself when other threaten to prevent this, and with the guiding hand of Section 31, do more of the former than the latter.
They were either the most powerful weapon in Star Trek history, able to destroy multiple enemy ships with a single burst, or they were basically a laser pointer. There never seemed to be any middle ground.
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