Star Trek and Idealism vs cynicism

[bloodtide]

Or you could do it as a planet-of-the-week show in which the investigators are an elite squad that investigate crimes that, while rare, are non zero in something as vast as The Federation.

Yes, it could be done.....but only as a show with a very focused megaplot.

The Elite Cops that travel the Federation to help the local cops with the rare crimes could work. Though, all that "crime" might not feel like Star Trek.

I don’t think there being occasional crimes makes the Federation not a utopia - even in a society where everyone has enough to eat, a nice job if they want it, all the rights, and a place to live, people will still want things and people they can’t have. They’ll murder for envy, jealousy, pride, lust, anger, and even greed. Most classic golden age murder mysteries have culprits who at least appear to have enough. And I’d certainly copy the feel of those stories - things are cosy and simpatico on the surface, but people are all still people, and that means some will do the wrong thing even if they know better.

The Federation ideal is that there would be little crime as all the technology would prevent most of it.

And crime really does destroy the "ideal utopia". You can't really have crime drama WITHOUT a dark, gritty crime filled society....drama needs fuel.

BUT even more then that is the utopian ideal that people just would NOT commit crimes, not matter what. That people, humanity would just: Be Good. Such people exist today.....Star Trek just has a world were it is nearly everyone.

Would a Golden Age Crime show even work? Someone does a crime....no modern drama...and they just catch the person?

 

[MarkB]

Yes, it could be done.....but only as a show with a very focused megaplot.

The Elite Cops that travel the Federation to help the local cops with the rare crimes could work. Though, all that "crime" might not feel like Star Trek.

The number of courtroom dramas we've had in Trek, and those mostly focused upon Starfleet personnel in particular, would seem to belie that.

The Federation ideal is that there would be little crime as all the technology would prevent most of it.

That sounds like a surveillance state, hardly the Star Trek ideal. In any case, Trek features plenty of frontier worlds without such luxuries, and technology is equally as capable of enabling crime as preventing it.

 

[Ryujin]

Yes, it could be done.....but only as a show with a very focused megaplot.

The Elite Cops that travel the Federation to help the local cops with the rare crimes could work. Though, all that "crime" might not feel like Star Trek.

There's another way, for which we've had previous examples, and that supports the Federation's ideals. It's redemption. The Federation is known to have a number of rehabilitation colonies. We've seen a couple and know about more. If you want to still show the Federation as a forward thinking society (and i very much do) then you show that people, who have been criminal, can be brought back into society in constructive ways. Garth of Izar had his mental instability corrected in a such a place. Tom Paris came back and became the trusted helmsman of Voyager.

 

[bloodtide]

The number of courtroom dramas we've had in Trek, and those mostly focused upon Starfleet personnel in particular, would seem to belie that.

But that is one episode of a show. Not a whole show on just that single topic.

That sounds like a surveillance state, hardly the Star Trek ideal. In any case, Trek features plenty of frontier worlds without such luxuries, and technology is equally as capable of enabling crime as preventing it.

Though...well, Star Trek IS a surveillance state.

And yes you could make a Star Trek: Frontier show........maybe even: Star Trek: Federation Primeval

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Such people exist today.....Star Trek just has a world were it is nearly everyone.

Indeed. The question is, how do we create a world where nearly everyone is like that? Recent history has shown that technology can turn lots of people bad, which kind of implies the reverse is possible.

So, my idea for a Star Trek show is, just how do you go about building a utopia, without is being a secret dystopia?

 

[Ryujin]

But that is one episode of a show. Not a whole show on just that single topic.

Though...well, Star Trek IS a surveillance state.

And yes you could make a Star Trek: Frontier show........maybe even: Star Trek: Federation Primeval

They had the chance to do that and screwed it up royally. "Enterprise."

 

[MarkB]

But that is one episode of a show. Not a whole show on just that single topic.

Well yeah, just like not every episode is a vacation episode, or a comedy episode, or a medical drama episode. They're generalist shows. The point is, there are enough such examples to indicate that the Federation - and even Starfleet itself - is not a crime-free zone, and that if you did want to dedicate a whole show to the subject, it would not lack for material.

Though...well, Star Trek IS a surveillance state.

Not to that great an extent. Sure, on a starship you can ask the computer exactly where anyone is (not that there seems to be any lack of ways around that for a dedicated criminal), but that's not necessarily the case outside of militaryexploratory and humanitarian vessels, and even where it is, there aren't exactly cameras in every corridor showing exactly what everyone's doing.

And yes you could make a Star Trek: Frontier show........maybe even: Star Trek: Federation Primeval

A major theme of the Federation is exploring and settling new worlds, expanding frontiers. It's the first four words of the show's original mission statement. A Star Trek show would, if anything, be more at home there than on the more long-settled worlds of the Federation.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well yeah, just like not every episode is a vacation episode, or a comedy episode, or a medical drama episode. They're generalist shows. The point is, there are enough such examples to indicate that the Federation - and even Starfleet itself - is not a crime-free zone, and that if you did want to dedicate a whole show to the subject, it would not lack for material.

Not to that great an extent. Sure, on a starship you can ask the computer exactly where anyone is (not that there seems to be any lack of ways around that for a dedicated criminal), but that's not necessarily the case outside of militaryexploratory and humanitarian vessels, and even where it is, there aren't exactly cameras in every corridor showing exactly what everyone's doing.

A major theme of the Federation is exploring and settling new worlds, expanding frontiers. It's the first four words of the show's original mission statement. A Star Trek show would, if anything, be more at home there than on the more long-settled worlds of the Federation.

The point was never that society is perfect in the future in Star Trek, just that a better society is possible. It is a society that has solved a lot of societal ills, but problems still remain. Even if you just look at their medicine, which is way better than ours, they still occasionally have mishaps with things like people reacting to treatments. I think the essential feature here is it isn't cynical about it. I again would point to that Mark Twain episode where Twain is searching for the hidden flaws of their society and doesn't believe they have gotten rid of things like poverty.

 

[trappedslider]

The point was never that society is perfect in the future in Star Trek, just that a better society is possible. It is a society that has solved a lot of societal ills, but problems still remain. Even if you just look at their medicine, which is way better than ours, they still occasionally have mishaps with things like people reacting to treatments. I think the essential feature here is it isn't cynical about it. I again would point to that Mark Twain episode where Twain is searching for the hidden flaws of their society and doesn't believe they have gotten rid of things like poverty.

It would have been interesting to see Twain on Deep Space Nine

Cadet Nog: It's not my fault your species decided to abandon currency-based economics in favor of some philosophy of self-enhancement.
Jake Sisko: Hey - watch it! There's nothing wrong with our philosophy. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity.
Cadet Nog: What does that mean exactly?
Jake Sisko: It means... it means, we don't need money.

 

[Staffan]

It would have been interesting to see Twain on Deep Space Nine

Cadet Nog: It's not my fault your species decided to abandon currency-based economics in favor of some philosophy of self-enhancement.
Jake Sisko: Hey - watch it! There's nothing wrong with our philosophy. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity.
Cadet Nog: What does that mean exactly?
Jake Sisko: It means... it means, we don't need money.

This always struck me as one of those things where it got somewhat exaggerated. The Federation clearly has some kind of internal economy. The Picard family owns a vineyard and a castle in France, and in Picard Jean-Luc employs several Romulans as servants. We see private ownership of starships, both with Kassidy Yates and with Cristobal Rios. Sisko's dad runs a restaurant.

What seems more likely to me is that the Federation is... not quite a post-scarcity society, but almost (I believe the Infinity setting uses the term "iota-scarcity") – there are some things that are in limited supply, and of course you can't pop up land out of nothing, but there are systems allowing for a robust basic income. People don't need to work, but some still do, and those who do probably don't work anywhere near the 40+ hours we work today.