Your Opinion: Is "Star Trek" Better or Worse Without Gene Roddenberry?

Which was...zero? I don't remember any wars in TNG. Maybe there were wars mentioned before the show took place, or wars that involved others, but no all out wars. To be fair, I consider a war to be a long lasting event which features sustained conflict with an enemy more than two episodes and often at least a season of a show. I do NOT count Best of Both Worlds or Redemption as wars, because those were isolated conflicts which were resolved rather quickly. The Federation was, to my memory, not involved in a prolonged conflict in TNG, and it is so much the better for it.

I wish to paraphrase The Princess Bride here, "You seem a decent fellow. I hate to disagree with you".

Star Trek is about the most anti-war thing I can possibly imagine. The fact that an entire Star Trek series exists that is dominated by the horrors of war baffles me. The only shows I enjoy less are Voyager (because the Berman era quality control issues were on full display there) or Season 3 of Enterprise (which somehow managed to be an even worse example of Star Trek than even DS9).

 

Cardassia. Maquis. Tzenkethi. Galen Border Conflict with the Talarian.

War is war, even if it's off screen.

 

If anything, it was starting to sound a bit ridiculous just how many wars were always mentioned in the past either prior to TOS or between TOS and TNG that happened off camera. Hell, they even retconned the Cardassian war as happening during TNG's first three seasons, also off camera. It was one of those things where apparently Star Trek preferred to tell the audience it was happening rather than show happening. So to have the Dominion War actually happen on camera for once was a breath of fresh air.

 

Maybe this is a post for the "what's in your head canon" thread, but I largely treat DS9 as non canon unless it directly relates to or affects the story of the TNG movie or episode I am watching. I just cannot reconcile it with the 24th century I love so much. Same with the wars mentioned in TNG. The Cardassian wars were a distant memory in many officer's minds, and could not (and did not in my head canon) take place during any point of TNG. The other conflicts mentioned in the show do not register to me as full on wars. The Maquis, for example, wasn't even a sustained conflict; it was a series of border skirmishes that went nowhere.

 

It's literally stated in The Wounded that the peace treaty was only very recently signed bringing an end to the war.

 

Is it? I need to go back and watch that episode again I guess. Memory Alpha says the war lasted well into the 2350s, with some skirmishes which were not considered part of the actual wars occuring until 2366. It's like the first Khitomer accords as seen in Star Trek VI - how long had it been since the Klingons and the Federation had actually been in an all out war? Unless I'm much mistaken, not since Discovery Season 1, some thirty five years prior. In those three and a half decades it had been a cold war at the worst, especially since there was a Klingon ambassador in later movies.

 

It's literally the opening line of the episode:

 

Look, I'm not going to waste my time arguing semantics all night. I will end my time debating this by pointing out that Picard said "conflict" and not "war". Every other attitude in this episode makes it clear the war has been over for a long time, they just haven't signed a peace treaty yet. You can have Starfleet involved in a conflict with another government without it being all out war. As I already said, look at the Klingons.

 

Both Picard and O'Brien explicitly state that they were in the conflict/war. There was no treaty at the time because Picard was sent to offer a truce and attacked when his shields were down.

PICARD: Last time I was in this sector, I was on the Stargazer, running at warp speed ahead of a Cardassian warship.
TROI: Running, Captain? You? That's hard to believe.
PICARD: Believe it. I'd been sent to make preliminary overtures to a truce. I'd lowered my shields as a gesture of good will. But the Cardassians were not impressed. They had taken out most of my weapons and damaged the impulse engines before I could regroup and run.
​

And there's this at the end:

PICARD:...You know, in war, he was twice honoured with the Federation's highest citation for courage and valour. And if he could not find a role for himself in peace, we can pity him, but we shall not dismiss him. ​

 

The Wounded lays much of the ground work for Deep Space Nine in terms of the war. The Next Generation skirted psst the horrors of war a lot, but I think the Wounded illustrated such pain and disaster perfectly.

The Next Generation liked to flaunt and thumb its nose at military intervention, yet two very popular characters were ostensibly veterans in a recent conflict.

 

Often that is a distinction without a difference. Ask any Vietnam veteran about their service in that conflict and they will most likely tell you a war story.

In other words, calling something a conflict rather than a war is simply a matter of semantics or politics.

 

The Stargazer was lost a long time before the start of TNG. Sounds to me like an extended “conflict” without any major effects on the Federation akin to those we saw in the war with the Klingons in “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” The peace treaty might have been signed around Season 2 of TNG but the battles concluded a long time before then. I mean, we’re technically still at war with N. Korea though the armistice (not peace treaty) was signed in 1953.

I didn’t understand why they created the Tzenkethi/War for DS9’s “The Adversary.” It overcrowded the Lost Era with wars when they could have used the Talarians and that established war, or other threatening aliens they simply didn’t want a war with—the Tholians, Sheliak, Jarada, Breen.

 

Because the guys who wrote the script weren't thinking about those other races, or forgot they existed.

 

There was a rumor that they originally wanted to use the Kzinti from TAS but couldn't for legal reasons.

Memory Alpha kinda disagrees, though apaprently they did pop into RHW's mind when he was naming them.

 

I guess they managed to come to an agreement with Larry Niven, as the Kzinti were shown several times in LDS - one was even a Cerritos crewmember - Ensign Taylor.

As to the thread's original question, I'll let my own personal artwork speak for itself:

 

I can understand this perspective, and it fits with what we see on screen.

Or, and this also fits with what we see in screen, the conflict with Cardassia was a border conflict and only affected those systems along the border. The conflicts continued up to the time the treaty was signed in TNG season 2. Since the Enterprise was never assigned to operate near the Cardassian border until "The Wounded," we never saw the conflict on TNG.

The Korean War, Vietnam conflict, or any other war the US fought since WWII might be good analogies. Outside of a headline, news broadcast, or war protest there were little to no signs of those conflicts affecting day to day life in the US. The father of a buddy of mine was in the Army during Vietnam but, since he was stationed in Alaska, he never saw combat. A lot of US military did not see combat in any conflict since WWII simply because they were not stationed in Southeast Asia or the Middle East.

The Federation is large and a conflict along a border can easily go unnoticed. Picard and O'Brien both served in that conflict but were rotated out prior to TNG

 

Its better that he did not have control forever, otherwise Star Trek would not have evolved. But at least with Roddenberry, there was not an overreliance on grimdark stories. I’m not saying that grimdark doesn’t have a place in Trek – it does – but I think Roddenberry would realize that his vision of an optimistic future for humanity would be needed more than ever in today's world.

He would have also challenged the writers to do better in their storytelling, and a lot of the mediocre stories that have been created from 1990 onwards. I do not think he would have liked how quality of content dipped between 1998 and 2003, and in particular, Voyager’s uneven writing.

But then again, he might not have been onboard with Enterprise to begin with, or at least the way it turned out; it probably would have been based around Robert April instead of Jonathan Archer (though he might have like the decon chamber, and really liked T’Pol and Hoshi). And he probably would not have been onboard with Discovery either, even though it fulfilled his promised of a gay character in Trek, and was a show with a strong female lead character in Burnham. I have a hard time imagining him approving of prequels being made, as he always looked forwards. And he might have a lot of misgivings as to how dark the universe Picard’s inhabits has become. But he’d probably like SNW, and possibly the Kelvin films as well.

So, my verdict is undecided.

 

I know that people had objections on Roddenberry's no conflict rule, but personally, for me, it made sense.
When you look at human behaviour and the fact its a product of environment in which one is raised, then the kind of socio-economic environment that the UFP is 'supposed' to provide (akin to Resource Based Economy) would in reality not really produce conflicts... or at least, they would have diminished by about 90-95%.

On a SF vessel, conflicts would be contradictory to the cohesiveness of a vessel's crew. And one doesn't mean you cannot have disagreements, but I don't think people fully understood the premise that living in the kind of society the UFP was portrayed like would effectively also create fundamentally different kinds of human behaviour.

Also, we don't know that Trek wouldn't have evolved without Rodenberry... the main issue here is he died before we could say for certain on what would have happened.

And yes, I also detest the fact that there is WAY too much reliance of grimdark stories. Writers don't seem to be capable or willing to write different kind of stories about how such a different society would work... to delve into intricate details or how things have changed.

Agreed.

Its possible the shows in question would have still been made... they just might have turned out differently than they have.
In fairness, I think one thing VOY did well in the early seasons (and even later ones) was that Janeway was highly insistent on preserving the principles and ideals of the Federation.
I agree that some of the stories were less than even, but overall, the crew actually did well in regards to maintaining their convictions without succumbing to outdated notions that if you take away the creature comforts, etc. that Humans turn into mindless animals (like Quark described once - Equinox came close to this, but I objected to the premise that the crew would have turned to such lows even with such losses - other SF officers suffered extensive losses and managed to pull through - maybe SF Academy should do a course in how to better mentally prepare people for such possibilities... and its possible they do that, which is why SF does have the reputation it has - we just hadn't seen it - and Equinox could be an exception rather than the rule).

 

A reminder that we’re back tomorrow, Saturday, from 9-11 PM BST (that’s 4-6 PM EDT in the US) with another Trek/sci-fi/everything zoom discussion. Link will be posted in the thread at the time of the meeting. Nothing is recorded, come and go as you like, it’s a diverse and friendly international group, all are welcome! I think there’s a diverse set of opinions in this thread that would be nice to hear from as we discuss the latest episode of DSC and everything else. (Not all members watch DSC so no pressure lol)

 

DS9 had both

that bugs me too. Couldn't the Cardassian war at least have been finished before TNG started?

as for grimdark, i don't like it when it's used for justification for brutality or authoritarianism or war or colonialism. when it's confronting people reacting to those things, though, it can work.