beccaelizabeth | Entries tagged with star trek

Yesterday I finished watching Picard season 2.
(trigger warnings: suicide, murder, death of characters we know)

... I dont know quite what I thought of it, but I know I felt ever so many things, probably as per their plan, including getting very big feelings about the whole age and mortality thing.
( Read more... )

So I dont know what I think of Picard, because it makes me feel.

Also the biggest feels were about the bits I saw on tumblr already.
I like the no surprises version fine, which is good, because tumblr be like that.

I do feel that Picard makes more sense as its own thing than it does if I think (or feel) too much about fitting it in with every other Trek. It tells a strong emotional arc that seems self contained.

But it did keep my whole attention, to the point that I put it on in theory while I did my exercise for the day, but in practice I only got the exercise done in the last hour of the day, because watching.

... I did get the second Perfect Month this year, and my 500 move goals since I got this watch, so, feeling pretty good about exercise. 🖖

When I finished with Picard I ate dinner and started watching Discovery seson 3.
Only the first episode so far.
That's feels heavy but in kind of an opposite direction?
Time travel, and heavy losses, but, hope.
Hope that Starfleet and the Federation is worth building, as many times as it takes.

So I stopped after that one episode, partly because it is one in the morning, but mostly because that is a much better set of feels to try and fall asleep on.

Finished watching Picard season one.
Many different times it made me cry, probably not in the ways it was trying to.
There were things about the last episode solution I very much liked
but
nothing with Data.

I want to argue with that very much.

I can see how the writers got that story from available parts
but

... I paused very long after writing but.
Big complicated.

I do not know if I liked it.

I want to argue with many of it but
I do not know.

So now it is two in the morning and I should have left the last two episodes for tomorrow.

But I wanted to see how it would go.

... and now I still want to see what happens next, which I guess is the part writers care about.

Grumpy and full of feelings though.

I shall sleep.

... now I'm thinking about xovers and the tonal difference is something...

ANYways

Today I listened to the first 4 adventures in Big Finish Audio Stranded, where the 8th Doctor is stuck living in London and is bad at it until things turn from How To Get Employment to more of a How To Survive Aliens thing. It has the weirdest cast and to start with I wasnt wondering what they'd do with it because it's Big Finish and it just looked like they were stirring their favourite people together, but now people are mentioning paradox a lot, so they might do something complicated instead. There's at least three factions here that dont want to let the others know about them because they're out of sequence somehow, and possibly more, so things are getting Complicated. Which so far is fun. Shall see what they do with it.

After that I watched Picard...

... well actually I put the iplayer on and discovered they have Bagpuss so I watched one of them. I like Bagpuss, it's nice revisiting old friends.

Which was the feeling I had made me choose Picard.

But the first episode is explaining how things went wrong and home is all different, so that was :( , but in exactly the way they intended.

I must say though ( Read more... )

I'm not sure about the science in this science fiction, but it is stomping on all the feelings buttons quite effectively, so I'll keep watching.

Interesting day.

I think I slept like twelve hours today.
Dreamed a lot of random bits.
Holodecks and pirate captains and religion in space.

( Read more... )

But in with the usual dream weirdness there were some good plot seeds about freedom, and religion, and legacy. And what is the shape of the future, and who will get there, and how will they be fenced in.

I like throwing mythic people at Starfleet, because the conditions the myths arose in and the values they represent will combine with Starfleet in interesting ways.

... xovers are fun.

But I should get up now and eat a food and so forth.

ugh, awake. boring.

I finished watching Discovery season one.
I can see the story they set out to tell, I can see why they had to go through all them places to tell it, but the only time all season that they did what I'd wanted to watch was
"We are Starfleet".

... okay, I also liked watching Lorca ( Read more... )

At the end of season 1 I'm looking forwards to season 2, but mostly because they might finally start telling stories of the shape I wanted to see.

There were good bits but if I hadn't known the ending I'd have just figured the writers had missed the point of Star Trek. Because that happens. As is, I can see what they were doing, and it had many interesting parts and pieces.

So now I'm trying to think of a story that has the kind of characters I like (has a Plan, gets people to follow it) but also the good guy things (meets other people understanding that they too have a plan and it may well be better).

I think the difference is between bad captain good captain too? Like if the orders are top down then the ship is only as big as the captain, but if the captain is only where the efforts of the ship are coordinated then it is so much bigger.

Stuff to think about, bits that are fun to watch, characters with personalities. That's a good start.

I have started watching Discovery season one
(I did not trust them, so I waited for certain spoilers and then to hear they fixed it)

The Klingon redesign is bizarre, and the choice to use Klingon with subtitles adds to the problem. It's awkward and distancing, and between makeup and costuming I'm unconvinced a Klingon can express an emotion. Nobody sounds fluent in their own language and it's ponderous slow, plus again not very emotive when you can't follow what words are stressed let alone how. It doesn't make them alien, just boring.

Because I knew stuff in advance I'm not angry or having many feelings about the plot so far, two episodes in. I can see why people want to avoid spoilers, but I don't see how being upset would enhance my day.

Series hasn't grabbed me yet, but I like the characters fine so far.

I dreamt something long and complicated about Spock and a culturally significant meal that humans translated as lasagne. None of the ingredients originally matched, of course, but it had that layers and sauces thing going for it. And the translation seemed handy for Vulcans, since it was traditionally a guest gift that you adapted to suit the host, so suddenly they knew where in the human recipe book to look for the local versions, though they'd have to change a few things in several sorts just so everyone could digest them. That's what Vulcan lasagne was about, blending the different parts to make a pleasing whole.

It was the sort of thing which, when made by hand, took for flipping ever to make, and wouldn't stay nice to eat for very long, so if someone arrived with a steaming hot serving dish full of it, it was Very Rude to not let them in to eat it together.

So when someone was shutting Spock out, being too Vulcan about not wanting anyone to see them lose emotional control while they were in their final illness, Vulcan culture had an answer: good food!

But to make it, he needed the Family Dish, and his sister had inherited the china. So he contacted her and she brought what she had, but the Dish was not there. Instead there was a record of the last person who it had been served to, who had kept it, as was traditional. Sarek had gifted it to Picard, who kept it among his most honored personal treasures, knowing it was not for the Captain of the Enterprise but rather for Picard as an honorable representative of the Picard family. It would be Proper to pass it on to a younger generation in due time, though always with the understanding it properly belonged to Sarek's family. So it sat there being a rather layered reminder of how Picard had and had not contributed, in his own mind, to his family, and given that they'd mind melded, that might well have been intended. Considering Sarek had such a mixed family by such mixed means, when his possibly genetically engineered son and his adopted daughter turn up to ask for the dish back, it is rather a demonstration that Picard has options, and inherently an offer of continued connection.

For his part, Picard can understand from a bunch of different angles why someone might not want Spock to see them lose themselves, and he can also see that Spock's control is more tenuous than it traditionally has been. This connection matters very much to him. So Picard offers his support, with a human style hand connection, and certain memories very much on his mind.

Spock at first experiences this as a rebuke, one from the memory of his father, and tries to pull himself together while feeling even more hurt. But then he unpacks the layers to see that his father had similar experiences, from the other side, and it gives him more depth of perspective, which is greatly needed to sustain him right now.

And then he sets out to cook Vulcan Lasagne.

There isn't a single ingredient in it that's from the original recipe, though many parts are from Vulcan. And he has put thought into who can digest what, with every ingredient.

I do not know if the dish was well received. I hope so. It would be terribly lonely to think you have to get ill and die alone, just from misunderstanding how Vulcans view emotion. They understand how much effort goes into control, and how awful it can feel to lose it, but in extermis the cause is certainly sufficient. The important parts, the reason for control, include not breaking bonds of fellowship that could last for generations, if both parties will it.

... and as dream ideas go this one is lovely and layered. You could do whole generations of diplomacy, the family to family kind, with just this one dish. Asking for it back so you can make a new friend could be done to include the previous honored friend in the new connection. You'd have to communicate clearly about your reasons, to avoid causing offence anywhere. And to see all this play out on a family tradition level between people who have spent whole careers as diplomats for their entire species, but have had... difficulties with that other level...

well, it's delicious.

I don't know as it could fit into canon well enough to call it proper fanfic though. The newest canon I haven't seen and the older stuff I haven't seen for a long time.

But I like the ideas.

Without a bus ride between the closing credits and trying to talk about it
all I can say about this movie is
gets me right in the feels.

I mean I'm fed up about Star Trek being whoosh boom at the same time as finding that some very satisfying whoosh boom. And stuff Kirk says about having to let the war be over. And the final demise of that guy who thinks 'struggle' can only mean armed conflict, and the way it was unity that beat him, and just the way the crew clicks an everything works. Feels!

... and then reality feelings, because it's not just Spock and Chekov
and wow am I overload now.

... and now I'm feeling more sympathetic about the Doctor Strange bad guy, because death sucks, and you would want to bring everyone you care about with you if you found the out. But the out is not to get rid of time. Stuff happens an we make choices and become. Hating that it ends doesn't mean it's worth giving that up. Look at what they did.

One day humanity is going to go into space and take these movies with them, the heart of their mythology.

... or, you know, we'll all go boom and die, but Star Trek makes me believe in a future, and that's pretty damn hard some days. Together we'll make it.

I've been thinking on structure and theme, and how the beginning could connect to the rest of the movie better.
( Read more... )

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2597424.html

I been reading a lot about the Star Trek Reboot movies and several come up with how it was so clever to have them kick off with time travel that explicitly alters the history of the 'verse.

Which kind of proves really nobody did watch Enterprise.

Because that's their first episode, and persistent plot thread.

I could only watch Enterprise once I'd been back watching Doctor Who and reading comics for a while and acclimatised to the flexibility of the concept 'canon', because really, seen as a prequel, they're Doing It Wrong. Plus there was a whole lot about Vulcans I couldn't be having with.

... but I fancy Malcolm so I kind of watched them all anyway. I just went through on my recorder box and made edited down good bits versions of anything I kept.

... okay, pretty bits versions.

ANYway, doing clever time travel that gives you complete freedom to play with the established 'verse = Enterprise, whatever you think of the results.

Movies? Remix.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2596643.html

I very nearly didn't watch this one at the cinema. Even without reading past the spoiler cut, none of my friends seemed excited, or even vaguely approving. There wasn't a sudden explosion of fic, or indeed any fic that turned up where I was reading, where there had been for the previous movie. And I was somewhat apprehensive about that whole 'Darkness' bit, since grimdark is a pervasive problem.

But hey, it's Star Trek! I always watch Star Trek!
... but now I've watched it I am far from convinced it is Star Trek.

Plus some of the more familiar complaints would apply even if it were just some random movie with spaceships.

So it's kind of hovering on the line between 'those hours could have been better spent sleeping' and 'kinda wish I hadn't given them my money'.

But it only actively pissed me off when it was most directly a remix of previous Trek. And at those points, it really and sincerely did.

( Read more... )

So was there any of the film I liked?

... I liked the music. I stayed to the end of the credits listening the music.

*really big sigh*

So maybe this wasn't my best day for watching. I've been awake a really long time. My original plan involved coming home much earlier, but I just finished college (all! finished! Work returned and log book picked up and Done now!) so I wanted to Do Something.

This particular something leaves me wanting to write my spaceship movie. Not wanting to watch this one.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2596545.html

Today's song stuck in my head is 'too many dicks on the dance floor'.

My dreams, as a break from the usual adventuring, included Spock, chocolate frosting, and pon farr.
And rather a lot of other people.
Especially since at that point I realised it was a dream and started making suggestions to my subconscious.

Most of the dream was about a sort of hidden object game adventure where we had to find the pieces to some war robots and also uncover the means to communicate with them. ( Read more... )

Later dreams featured a very much younger Tony Stark, looking like a very much younger RDJr. ( Read more... )

And then I woke up again again and decided 12 hours asleep was really quite enough.

I'm in really quite a good mood, but the sleeping all the time leaves me very little time to do anything with said good mood, so is less helpful than it could be.

Yesterday I went to Sainsbury's and bought a bunch of new foods because the old foods weren't helping. So today I got up because I decided I wanted vegetable spring rolls for breakfast. They're very nice.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2481291.html

I've been thinking about the economics of the Federation, Starfleet, and what bits are tricky to understand.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Money has a lot of quotes on it.
Simplest explanation for inconsistencies is writers forgot the 'no money' rule or couldn't grok it.
But I was mostly wondering how it could work, not how canon suggests it works.

Like, right now people exchange money for goods and services; prices vary wildly, but broadly speaking they are driven up by scarcity. Limited resources are divided up into bits that are owned by some legal entity and then they get bought and sold.

The Star Trek future posits that replicators and other advanced technologies pretty much take the limits off. There is no scarcity. You can have whatever you want, the replicator just makes it for the asking. So, no money.

But there's areas where that isn't so simples, stuff replicators can't make. The most obvious one being work. ( Read more... )

The results of work, of people rather than replicators working, would also be exchanged in some way. And owned, probably. I mean, if you spent ages making art and some collector dude stole it you'd still think of it as stealing even if you weren't expecting to get money for it. And Jake talked about selling his first book, even though it seems to be projecting late 20th century publishing models and ignoring even the current blog model as a publishing avenue. I mean, if nobody works for money, then it's all much more like fanfic. Fanfic writing works by giving. But art and stories aren't going to leave someone stranded if nobody gives them one.

The big question really is, how much does the Enterprise cost?
Who owns starships, and how can they possibly be exchanged?

I haven't the slightest clue of an answer. I can see how Starfleet works, but Starfleet aren't the only starship owning and operating entities, or the only humans.

And how does one arrange passage on a starship? Or get a colony together for a new world?

( Read more... )

Where the houses go remains scarce. ( Read more... )

I quite like the idea of not trying to accumulate money, but there's a lot of difference in just getting rid of it. How do they swap goods and services? And how long are you likely to be stuck waiting for that house you want?

Plus, access to education, and access to subsequent work. It's all very well showing students competing for admission to Starfleet Academy. Selective schooling, only take the best, since you want them to not blow up the big ships or the neighbours. Seems fair. But what happens for the education of everyone who doesn't get in? Is it like now and some people are stuck getting City College? And what difference does it make to them, if they don't get in the top universities? We know how you get a job in Starfleet. There's very tough competition, and more for every promotion. So is that what people in the future strive for, not the rewards from jobs but the jobs themselves?

... I can't really see people competing for care work. Just, in general. It don't seem likely.

Would the jobs that are harder to get in to still be the higher prestige work? Starfleet is selective so it is seen as of higher value to humanity than an inclusive recruiter?

And I'm not getting into the politics. The who is in charge and how. Even though that tangles with economics very extensively.

So, conclusion: Starfleet economics is difficult to make sense of.

er, surprise?
given that mostly they was stories about stuff blowing up.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2336022.html

Had a dream involving many, many, many clones of Captain James T Kirk. Pretty reboot version. Many of them wearing very little. And dancing sexy. For an audience that would indeed get to take one home with them.

The fact that this was a total horror story might not be immediately apparent from that summary.

I guess it's a good sign that even my subconscious knows that growing clones for sex trafficking is deeply, deeply creepy. Especially when they all seem to be on something. And lacking essential Kirk-ness.

*shudders*

So in the dream I stalked out, and ( Read more... )

So now I'm left kind of wanting to write some complex political Star Trek fanfic, mixing series and alt canons liberally, with at the center of it this bio politics that maps in places to disability rights and in other places really really doesn't. ( Read more... )

The major problem with doing this as fanfic is unfamiliarity with source. And, okay, the genius of the reboot movie is it changed up so much all you really need is that one movie and some vague ideas, but such an approach would bug the hell out of me. I don't know Kirk, except from movies. How can I be writing him?
And do I really want to be writing him, and be constrained by the judgements of Doing It Wrong, or can I tell a better story with someone else?

... ignoring the whole thing where I haven't been writing. I think my word output this year is pretty high, I did more than 50K on the summer project, but it hasn't been words that are fanfic. For ages.

Also, fanfic does not tend to like original characters, especially ones that are necessarily a lot like the author. Only this is a story about disability, bodies and brains and minds and how they interact, about social constructs and social connections and how people relate to each other and how artificial and alien that can be even with only humans around, and if there isn't an autistic person in the middle of the story it's a whole different story. The whole genetic memory and katra thing can say less when you're only talking about the one kind of brain. It's a story with me in it or it's a different story. But fanfic doesn't tend to want that.

Really I can't be ignoring the 'haven't finished a fanfic in very long time' aspect, because I won't be doing this one, I'll be going back to my Contemporary Narrative essay and then going back to college.

But for a freaky nightmare this one had some interesting bunny possibilities.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2321608.html

I have finally finished rewatching all 7 seasons of Star Trek the Next Generation.
Season 7 had the most episode that I'd never seen before, but All Good Things I'd seen a great many times, since it tends to win those 'best of' surveys.
In context though it fits with the weirdness, the focus on altered states of mind and people playing alternate versions of their characters, fits into the season real well. Those however are always the bits that make me all squirmy uncomfortable watching it. We know Picard is making sense, but nobody else knows, so it's all weird in the interactions.

Still makes me kind of tearful by the end. Seven years! All done now.

... think it was a good place to stop.

The other thing I have learned is my season 7 DVD box set is completely and consistently borked. It won't play the last two minutes on episodes 2 and 4. On any disc. At all. It just freezes and, if I'm lucky, stops as if the disc has ended. And it's not just on my shiny upscaling box, it's on the regular DVD player too, so it's the discs, not the box. Great. I need another box set that actually works. *sigh*

Also, having watched on both the upscale and the regular, dear god the upscaling does good things for the picture. Some bits are unwatchable on the old set. Yikes. Old version all muddy and trailing ghosts, new set shiny colors and crystal edges almost all the time. It's a very nice box I bought there.

I like the internet: I went on YouTube and found the missing minutes when I particularly needed them.
It's frustrating because the main plot wraps before those two minutes but the emotional resolution is held over for the tag scene, every time. I discover from this process I care about the emotions more than the bare plot, especially after this many rewatches. I want the closeups of people looking glum or happy or realising what their friends mean to them! It's the payoff for the whole episode. Or on occasion the whole season.

Picard joining the poker games: :-)

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2123144.html

Hi Wil *waves*
... I can sort of see why he grew the beard. I'm just saying.

So, this was an interesting choice for how to leave the character. Instead of starfleet like he'd always been aimed at, his has a vision of his dad being all 'stop following me' and quits. Okay then. Not like we'd been cheering Wes on since the beginning. No problem.

... actually I can remember really relating to that little revelation. I saw this first time around, though there's large chunks of this season I did not see. I suspect that means it was turbulent times. But when I was a teenager I was stuck doing what I was told, and I had to start over with my studies after I got a chance to choose the topic myself, so, Wesley doing the vision quest thing? Excellent relatable.

It's just a little odd to have your character go off to ascend to another level of existence. I mean, that doesn't usually happen.

What is cool though is the writer did it to show that not everyone wants to be in uniform and go serve on a fighting ship in starfleet. That's a past time for it sort of a demonstration right there.

Not so much cool, what about his mum? Is none of his lifelong motivation about the actual surviving parent? What happened to the relation between mother and son? Is there no story there? *sigh*

So what I wanted to post about was: North American Indians? What, they don't have a name any more? Cause I thought there were lots of different names and different peoples doing their thing, with languages and specific traditions and all. But maybe they got all joined up and went off on this 200 year planet quest and that's the best name they could decide on. Still... their story meeting Wesley's story like this is... I can see what the writer connection is, it's all about following your fathers, trying to be same, trying to be different, trying to be a good father and a good son. It's good stuff. It's just, they're writing about some culture that isn't white and standard for the setting, and they're writing them solely to provide inspiration for the white kid. I feel I've seen this before. A few times. Or, you know, a lot.

The bit with the pointing out that actually moving them on again again is Not Cool is an interesting starting point, but the other part of what bugged me was there were white people in charge at Starfleet, there's an Indian representative they can listen to and ignore, and it's like they're saying the power structure is, racially, much like it is in the USA right now. Power is white and petitions are native and going to be ignored. Where's the Admiral with a relevant ancestry? Where's the dissent within Starfleet from the equally powerful? We spread out to the stars and the power balance stays the same? How screwed is that?

Also: everyone talking to the Captain is a bloke? Great... one minority per ticky box is it?

The Wesley story worked, basically, but the other story bugged me.

PS Have in fact done all the reading I brought home with me from college already, hence the Trek. Next time shall bring two books and be optimistic so I'll have more to read when I'm done.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2119909.html

I just watched Genesis.
I... what? I mean, what?
... somebody decided to film that. On purpose.

I know they do all sorts of terrible things to science. I'm well aware of this. But there's terrible, and there's terrible-and-pointless. I mean, really, what was the point of all that? 'Worf turns into a giant exoskeleton thingy!!!' That's like a bunny, not an actual plot. It reveals nothing about characters. Not the transformations, and not the resolution. Nobody had to act in character even once in the whole episode. It's so depressing.

Season 7 is on something. Possibly the newbie-fanfic something. There's a lot of weird dream stuff going on, including entire deeply depressing episodes where almost all of it was just a dream, a lot of being possessed, including Data being handed multiple personalities right after he did the amnesia thing, and now this turning into whole other species. It just seems like they ran out of steam so they kept turning them into something else entire.

The only one I can remember this season that was worth watching was Lower Decks, and that wasn't even about the usual main characters. Oh, and I skipped watching Parallels again-again-again, but that was okay as I recall; and once again, not about the existing setup. The Pegasus is the closest it got to proper ordinary story, and that was quite good, except I feel weirdly dislocated watching it because of having watched the Enterprise ep that weaves in with it.

I've only watched the first 19. Three out of 19 isn't encouraging though.

On the other hand, it makes me not sad the series ended.
On the gripping hand, it makes me sad I'm not sad the series ended.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2119451.html

I've just started watching more ST:TNG, 'Thine Own Self'. Data loses his memory and wanders around with a box marked 'radioactive' without knowing what 'radioactive' means. But he is talking, with words, in language. How can the story justify that he has language, words, understands words, can read the word 'radioactive', and yet cannot remember that a box marked up in red with 'radioactive' on it is dangerous? Because the whole plot turns on that one implausibility, and it has lost me from the get go. Saying he has words but no personal memory is more workable for an artificial life form. Saying he has words but forgot this and only this word is ridiculous.

It isn't a case of applying SF standards of suspension of disbelief, it isn't about tweaking physics or biology to new rules, it's about saying something is both true and not true at once, he both does and does not know the word.

Fail.

... hang on, I just thought of a loophole. Data is not wearing his comm badge. He is communicating with a local in a language not specificed. He initially echoes the words and then discovers how to express himself. What if he's only talking their language? If he has lost English but has accessed the local language then he would lack the words for concepts they have not discovered. It still doesn't explain how he can read English, but plenty of words can be sounded out without being understood. So he's not using his usual language chip, just a local one.

Right, now I can watch the rest of the episode without having to fast forward through that story.

*watches five more minutes*

... nooooo, he just demonstrated advanced scientific knowledge, including words like organic and chemical that the teacher doesn't know. So that doesn't work either.

He knows too much and too little at once. It's just screwed.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2119370.html

I'm watching the season 7 DVDs of Star Trek the Next Generation. ( Read more... )

So I've stopped watching for a while.

Are there any more suicides this season? Child deaths? People driven mad by horrible traumas? Because there's a limit to how much of that I could watch in a row. I have reached that limit for the day. Possibly the week.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2116439.html

So yesterday I discovered you can play other people at scrabble online.
... oops.
... my essay progress, let me show you it: [-insert essay here-] *facepalm*

So then I was awake between about 0400 and about 0100, and then I got maybe four hours sleep, at generous estimate. I woke up with a headache, which I still have, at 0900, after painkillers. Clearly today is also going to be productive.

I've been watching more Next Gen, usually one episode per meal break like I had been doing with Enterprise. It's interesting because now I'm up to season six I'm finding episodes I'm reasonably sure I haven't seen before. Everything through 'Chain of Command' I have seen; though there was a bit of a scene that surprised me, Memory Alpha reckons the BBC edited it a tiny bit for the timeslot. Aquiel I might have just forgotten. I know I've seen Tapestry, a bunch of times. I think I've seen Birthright before. But Starship Mine and The Chase? If I ever saw them I forgot every last one of the details, which don't seem likely. Even though they are fairly forgettable and a bit bland. And daft. A message in the dna? :eyeroll:

Mind you, if humans had the technology to seed a message in the dna across the universe, you know someone would hack it for teh lolz. Would not leave a message of peace and hope though.

... could not leave a message of peace and hope that turns a tricorder into a holo emitter by making a computer program that executes itself when scanned by completely alien technology. Bug sci fi and science are not so much related.

Now I'm wondering, if I did miss these, what was up at the time? I think I can guess, Memory Alpha says these eps are from early 1993 so math says I'd be 15 and quite a lot of my late teens is best left forgot. But I got sidetracked just now trying to find out when they were on the BBC, because it's unlikely to be the same date, right? And I'm sure I found a list once. I was looking for exactly when a particular DS9 episode was on. But now I can't find any such data. Is annoying.
ETA: Memory Alpha says the BBC showed them first run up until 1992: 6 May - "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" airs on the BBC. This episode marks the end of the corporation's rights to air the series in first-run. ; that with the end of season 3 plus the cliffhanger from season 4. After that they moved to Sky for first run from Family onwards. So we were seasons and years behind. It's possible my viewing was interrupted by changing houses even. /ETA

Stories interact with their contexts at time of production and consumption. Films get labelled with one particular date on the DVD case, but even films aren't that simple. Staggered release in different markets. TV also, different channels get different times, sometimes different by years. Channel One (Virgin One as was) only just finished showing Enterprise, and Channel One is as far as I know the only channel I could get that showed it. Stories stretch out, even as 'first' broadcast. And then readers find them for years, on repeats or on DVD. New meanings are created every time they're seen new. Is interesting.

Next Gen seems a bit cold and distant. Technobabble rather than emotion. And not many consequences for most people. Worf gets the strongest storyline because things that happen to him change him. He gets promoted, he gets mated, he gets a son, he tries to send him off to be raised by his parents, he has him back and has trouble with him, he re-explores Klingon culture as a parent trying to transmit the essentials to his child. It's a strong story that only gets stronger if you follow it through to DS9. You can read the whole of both shows as Worf's story and get a lot of out it that way. But it highlights how little actually happens to anyone else. Few promotions, no changes in their personal lives that last more than one episode, no knock on consequences, and little revealed about their home cultures. Deanna's mum gets a good story that makes progress, Deanna does not. We learn about the Federation mostly by noticing what they consider normal, or abnormal. The everyday way their world works just isn't dug into much. And as for culture, it's all Shakespeare and classical music, things that are already old today. You end up wondering if humans gave up on creating culture and cocooned in an imagined idealised past. It's creepy.

I find even in the middle of rewatching the whole seven seasons the people in my head remain the DS9 crew. DS9 put their people through a lot of changes, had a lot of consequences going on, had emotional connections, relationships, marriages, births, deaths, the whole deal. And it was much the better for it.

But probably harder to syndicate. :eyeroll:

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2090809.html

I was reading something from college about disappointment and women. It was all about how disappointment cuts you off from even dreaming of a better future and then cuts you off from your past because the person that had that past was clearly sadly mired in illusion.

So then I was depressed.

Now I'm watching Next Gen. Specifically I'm watching Counsellor Troi eat chocolate. Er, possibly watching repeatedly. I'm finding it more interesting than stories with actual kissing. She's really sincerely into that chocolate.

I'm watching season 5. I just watched Disaster, where Picard is stuck in a turbolift with children and Worf has to deliver a baby. Whoever thought that one up was having fun.
*looks it up*
Teleplay By
Ronald D. Moore
Story By
Ron Jarvis & Philip A. Scorza
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Disaster_%28episode%29#Background_information
... and yeah, the first thing the writer says is "I thought let's just have fun with it." It totally shows.

I really like this one. Everyone has their tense little problem to solve, everyone is cut off from the usual massive resources of the ship, there's difficult decisions, and a whole lot of emotional awkward to cut through to get practical stuff done. And everyone shows they can get stuff done, which really is not always the case. Staying in character and still giving them new things to do is a challenge by season 5, and this one really manages it. I particularly like Troi making the hard decisions. It works double by showing she's an officer too and by showing how difficult it is when Picard et al do it.

I do not so much like watching the bits with the kids. I can see how they're good story, I just kind of *facepalm* and stay that way.

I liked the bit with the baby though. Of all the people to help with a birth... :-)

I now have 24 hours and 50 minutes before I have to get up for college. But I only have to stay awake at college until about 1300, if I get the bus back right after lessons. So my plan for today is to stay awake until this afternoon and hope that will work out, since the whole 'sleep at night' thing is apparently not working out at all.
So, lots more Star Trek today then.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2087604.html

I've been watching more Next Gen and got up to Darmok.
I reckon this is the most useful episode ever. For one, it's how we in fandom communicate with each other, only we elaborate on the basics. Shared stories, shared references, creating connections. (Not the bit with fighting the invisible monster together... unless you want to get metaphorical about isms...)

Mostly though Darmok is the episode that made it possible to explain my autistic brother. Even a little bit. Because for years, this was what he did. Only he didn't use character names and titles, he'd just quote, and clearly since you had all the same people in your head you would know exactly what he was talking about. The words would only make the illusion of sense. If you thought you understood the words you had probably missed the point. The actual communication was in the emotional content of the quoted scene, or just in the persona of the quoted character. Be Data to figure things out, be Picard to get things done. And it usually was Next Gen, because back then we could both quote extensively, any episode you liked. So my brother made sense... in a very specialist geek way.

At least that was what I figured then. I reckoned I could understand him. It has been a very long time since then, and we no longer watch all the same things, and quite often I haven't a clue what he's on about. Also quite often he'll make a fairly straightforward sort of sense (and you'll wish he'd just stop saying 'bosom buddies' especially with the hand gesture :eyeroll:). And sometimes he's just sharing a funny, probably, except again the funny must be in the parts of the scene the rest of us would have to have memorised. Plus there's some hope of figuring out 'Put the bunny back in the box'. The time he was making whale or dolphin noises over and over and over and over and over and over and over? *big shrug*

Quite often I am glad I no longer live with him. I love him, he's my brother, but there is a limit to my tolerance for repetition. Also, he always tries to sort my DVDs, and they're already in my order, thanks.

BUT. Anyway. For a while there we understood each other, probably, sort of. Darmok.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2087257.html

I have started watching the film Star Trek Generations, the one that hands over from original to next gen characters. It got to the bit where Data decides to put the emotion chip in and I got all grouchy with it.

( Read more... )
*glares at story*

Neurodiversity! Keep perfectly worky brain! Be yourself!

But no, we get the other sort with the 'cure' idea. The one where he concludes he's deficient and needs the missing piece to fix him. Given the iconography of autism awareness lately it's just a bit much.

I know it's going to work in to the themes in different ways as the story grows but it's really making me grumpy just sitting there.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2071080.html

Lwaxana Troi rocks. I like it that they do all the same usual things she always does but then it turns out serious and you can see how she gets her position, because she's fierce and articulate and persuasive and loving and doesn't back down at all. I like the bit where she talks about how her life has been full... okay, overflowing sometimes... because it's like she knows she can be a bit much but it's because she's bouncing it back. She lives just as large as she possibly can. Is good.

I obviously do nto like the idea of killing everyone when they're 60. Killing anyone ever is a bad idea. Letting them kill themselves is just wrong. Live every last drop of it, is the only way.

I read on Memory Alpha something comparing this ep to Sarek, with aging there meaning loss of mind and dignity. But if that's supposed to be the extreme then that's still a life with plenty in it. People loved him and looked after him and respected him too. The bit in this ep where the guy says that one love isn't enough to keep living for is just plain wrong.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2063541.html

This was a good one. Family, knock on consequences of Worf and Picard's choices, and basic rights and freedoms.

"You know, there are some words I've known since I was a schoolboy: ' With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.' Those words were uttered by Judge Aaron Satie as wisdom and warning. The first time any man's freedom is trodden on we’re all damaged. I fear that today..."

It would be less depressing if this sort of warning wasn't needed so continuously.

Crossposts: http://beccaelizabeth.livejournal.com/2063193.html

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beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

Entries tagged with star trek

Star Trek Picard and Discovery

Picard

Doctor Who and Picard

Dreams

Star Trek Discovery

(no subject)

Vulcan Lasagne

Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek Into Darkness continues to niggle

Just felt the need to say

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Dreams and more dreams

Who cleans the loos on the starship Enterprise?

Things that sound like such a good idea

ST:TNG All Good Things

ST:TNG Journey's End

ST:TNG Genesis & Masks and season 7

Disbelief

ST:TNG Inheritance & Homeward

ST:TNG season 6

ST:TNG Disaster

ST:TNG Darmok

Star Trek Generations

ST:TNG Half a Life

ST:TNG The Drumhead