Strange New Worlds season 2 - SPOILERS

[Umbran]

They did manage to slip in the bit of judging each case on its individual merits which would have at least some effect going forward, without necessarily changing the case of Bashir and his fellow augments in DS9.

Indeed - and Bashir's experience is fairly consistent with the SNW episode. Given Bashir's record, they opted to allow him to continue to serve if Bashir's father take punishment for breaking the eugenics laws.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If anyone needs it spelled out, think of it as trans allegory.

I think that it's rather accidentally-insulting as a trans allegory or similar though, that's the exact problem. It reminds me of a couple of other unfortunate or aged-poorly Trek allegories best left to history. More than a couple actually eesh.

I think having parents using intentional genetic engineering on their unborn children to attempt to achieve "superior" or "upgraded" beings as an allegory for any real-world group, a real-world group which is genuinely being punished for merely being born that way is extremely misguided at best, actively harmful at worst (it also sort of goes against the original characterisation of the Illyrians, where they did it solely due to necessity, never mere whim or < Fiddle on the Roof voice > TRADITION!!!).

If they'd been very careful in how they depicted it, too, that could have worked - but unfortunately repeated attempts to defend the parents unnecessarily doing it as a "cultural tradition" and therefore 'fine and dandy' as it were really undermine that. DS9 attacked the parents for doing it - Bashir was very upset too - and if SNW had also taken a negative attitude towards the people doing (given it wasn't needed - the original Illyrian reason for doing it), or at the very least presented them as misguided or hidebound, I think allegories would have worked better.

The allegorical element is also undermined by the peace-and-love bit at the end where everyone agrees the Federation has been "traumatized" and thus shouldn't be judged too harshly - if this is a trans allegory, what the hell is going on there? We should forgive the TERFs because of the trans-wars which never happened lol? Obviously it breaks down there, but I think it's best not to see this as an allegory, because you're just digging a hole deeper at that point.

We already know that Una's case will not alter the Federation position - Dr. Bashir runs afoul of the same rules against augmentation in DS9.

I could not be more aware! Bashir is one of my favourite characters in Trek (I know, I like a smarmy English guy who loves to needlessly overcomplicate situations, try to act surprised!).

My point wasn't intended to be that they needed to change the Federation position - rather the re-introducing the Illyrians to half-heartedly try to argue a contrary position even though they know that position can't change is, at best, a perplexing writing decision.

Thankfully it seems to be over, hopefully forever, and can be consigned to the same locker as "Profit and Lace".

 

[Umbran]

I think that it's rather accidentally-insulting as a trans allegory or similar though, that's the exact problem. It reminds me of a couple of other unfortunate or aged-poorly Trek allegories best left to history. More than a couple actually eesh.

Well, yeah. If those thigns hadn't aged out of appropriateness, that'd mean no progress on the matters since the 60s. We WANT old allegories to look bad today.

I think having parents using intentional genetic engineering on their unborn children...

So, when considering allegory, there's a major question as to how many of the details you actually take as salient. All analogies fail at some level of detail, or they'd not be analogies, they'd just be the thing you are talking about. If you go too deep, all allegory is a bad fit..

I think you are reading far too deep into the fiddly science details. That is merely my own opinion, though, and have no desire to change your mind, so I'm not going to argue with you over it.

 

[MarkB]

I think that it's rather accidentally-insulting as a trans allegory or similar though, that's the exact problem.

I've seen at least one trans reviewer call it one of the best and most important episodes in all of Star Trek, so at the very least that opinion is not universally held.

 

[Stalker0]

Indeed - and Bashir's experience is fairly consistent with the SNW episode. Given Bashir's record, they opted to allow him to continue to serve if Bashir's father take punishment for breaking the eugenics laws.

Yeah if anything it could suggest a small step forward. Effectively possession versus dealing. If you genetic modify someone.....take them to the cleaners. But someone who has augmented against their will.... they are blameless and have no legal issues.

Whereas in Unas case she was persecuted for what was done to her, so perhaps the law did shift that stance a BIT in that timespan

 

[Maxperson]

Oh, one thought here we ought to consider - humankind is NOT the only species to ever work with genetic augmentation. In ST: ENT there was the "Augment Crisis" plotline.

Khan didn't augment himself. The architect of his augmentation was Adam Soong. One of his descendants, Arik Soong (played by Brent Spiner -Arik was the ancestor of Noonian Soong, who crated Next Gen's Data, Lore, et al.) got hold of some of his ancestor's work - augmented human embryos, which he raised in secret.

Hilarity ensues. Some of Soong's augment "children" eventually steal a Klingon Bird of Prey. Finding out about human augments, and fearing humans were going to augment their military to beat the crap out of Klingons, the Klingons start their own augmentation research. They find a way to augment adult Klingons (it wasn't great - subjects got stronger and faster, and tended to take on some human physical characteristics and then die due to the DNA mismatchs in neurology).

Worse - one of the Klingon augment test subjects had a virus, "Levodian flu", that interacted with the augmentation treatment. The result was an augmentation epidemic that threatened to kill off all Klingons. Eventually, a cure was found that stabilized the virus, so that it stopped after it had given some human-like characteristics, but before it killed.

This plot was intended to explain why some Klingons (the ones in TOS) did not have forehead ridges, while others (Next Gen and later) do.

But it also explains why the Federation as a whole might eschew genetic augmentation - it nearly destroyed the Humans and the Klingons each in their own turn.

Yeah. That augment story was brought up a few posts ago. I either didn't know about it as I stopped watching before the series ended, or I forgot that it existed. All the time police stuff bugged me.

 

[MarkB]

Yeah if anything it could suggest a small step forward. Effectively possession versus dealing. If you genetic modify someone.....take them to the cleaners. But someone who has augmented against their will.... they are blameless and have no legal issues.

Similarly Dal in Star Trek Prodigy, though in that case Janeway had to argue hard to get him any leeway. He was an extreme case of genetic modification, though.

Oh, one thought here we ought to consider - humankind is NOT the only species to ever work with genetic augmentation. In ST: ENT there was the "Augment Crisis" plotline.

Khan didn't augment himself. The architect of his augmentation was Adam Soong. One of his descendants, Arik Soong (played by Brent Spiner -Arik was the ancestor of Noonian Soong, who crated Next Gen's Data, Lore, et al.) got hold of some of his ancestor's work - augmented human embryos, which he raised in secret.

Hilarity ensues. Some of Soong's augment "children" eventually steal a Klingon Bird of Prey. Finding out about human augments, and fearing humans were going to augment their military to beat the crap out of Klingons, the Klingons start their own augmentation research. They find a way to augment adult Klingons (it wasn't great - subjects got stronger and faster, and tended to take on some human physical characteristics and then die due to the DNA mismatchs in neurology).

Worse - one of the Klingon augment test subjects had a virus, "Levodian flu", that interacted with the augmentation treatment. The result was an augmentation epidemic that threatened to kill off all Klingons. Eventually, a cure was found that stabilized the virus, so that it stopped after it had given some human-like characteristics, but before it killed.

This plot was intended to explain why some Klingons (the ones in TOS) did not have forehead ridges, while others (Next Gen and later) do.

But it also explains why the Federation as a whole might eschew genetic augmentation - it nearly destroyed the Humans and the Klingons each in their own turn.

And Dal's case shows that there are plenty of other races doing genetic modification. In the same episode that the full extent of his modifications is revealed, they encounter a backstreet clinic that's basically handing out off-the-shelf mods for specific traits.

 

[Umbran]

And Dal's case shows that there are plenty of other races doing genetic modification.

Individuals are not entire races, though. Some guy is doing modification, doesn't make it a thing for his entire species.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Well, yeah. If those thigns hadn't aged out of appropriateness, that'd mean no progress on the matters since the 60s. We WANT old allegories to look bad today.



So, when considering allegory, there's a major question as to how many of the details you actually take as salient. All analogies fail at some level of detail, or they'd not be analogies, they'd just be the thing you are talking about. If you go too deep, all allegory is a bad fit..

I think you are reading far too deep into the fiddly science details. That is merely my own opinion, though, and have no desire to change your mind, so I'm not going to argue with you over it.

I don't think an allegory needs to represent any particular persecuted group. The experience of being othered and persecuted is one many minorities have experienced. It's just that trans people are the current prime hate target.

If anything, I found more parallels in Una's story with the Jewish experience. We have physical modification of infants in accordance with custom, tradition and deeply held beliefs; forced/faked conversion and ghettos for those who refuse to convert.

But I don't think the intent was to represent any one single group.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Well, yeah. If those thigns hadn't aged out of appropriateness, that'd mean no progress on the matters since the 60s. We WANT old allegories to look bad today.



So, when considering allegory, there's a major question as to how many of the details you actually take as salient. All analogies fail at some level of detail, or they'd not be analogies, they'd just be the thing you are talking about. If you go too deep, all allegory is a bad fit..

I think you are reading far too deep into the fiddly science details. That is merely my own opinion, though, and have no desire to change your mind, so I'm not going to argue with you over it.

That's fair, I just feel this one fails so quickly they probably shouldn't have done it. Thinking further I feel the attempt to defend the parents is the real heart of the allegorical problems.

100% agree that we want allegories to age out, that's a good point, I guess my issue is when they feel off from the time they're in, like this and Profit and Lace (similar gender issues had been addressed far better with various Dax storylines too).

To be fair to SNW I'm only so appalled because every other episode has been so good. If this was ENT quality I'd just have rolled my eyes and said *Awful" rather than really caring. So there's that.