I also love the whole “working together as professionals in a team to solve problems with science/technology/strategy/diplomacy/all of the above” aspect of it, and that those abilities were considered by other species to be humanity’s best traits.
It absolutely is. I got into the West Wing for the same reason. It’s very satisfying to watch good people be good at their jobs in important situations
It’s a crying shame that our real life government will almost certainly never reflect the level of competence, effectiveness, and morality portrayed in WW :(
It so good. Tangentially, that was one of the reasons I LOVED the Rogue Squadron books when I was a kid - it’s just a bunch of normal pilots who are really fucking skilled, and are generally good at what they do, but at the same time they don’t magic problems away with “just use the force”. Antilles doesn’t use the force; instead, he just uses incredibly good spatial reasoning and physical coordination in concert with decades of combat flight experience in some of the most harrowing and unbalanced battles the galaxy had seen in his lifetime, and that made him one of the absolute best pilots in the galaxy for a good portion of his career.
I thought about this in the context of RPGs before. Some of my peers seem to enjoy the slapdash chaos of four idiots stumbling through a problem. I’m just like that’s my work day. Can I get a fantasy of four competent people solving problems effectively and without war crimes please?
Normally I’d agree, but I only just watched the TNG episode where they fucked up the prime directive so badly that a bunch of primitives declared (the) Picard a god.
I believe that is too make a fundamental point, originally made by Claude Levi Strauss (not the jeans guy), about exploration.
The sadness of exploration is that you fundamentally can’t undo first contact. Once it’s made everything changes.
That episode shows this and under scribes the necessity of the prime directive and why it is there in the first place. Even with the best intentions one can destroy the fabric of society of an entire civilization.
The other interesting though this episode evokes is the question weather we are ready at this moment. It holds a mirror to us imagining to be space explorers, but how would we cope today?
didn’t Picard let himself get hit by a spear or something to prove he wasn’t one though? pretty sure he was like “fuckin OW. see? SEE? DAMNIT to SHIT that hurts.”
That’s the one. A noble gesture that might have been avoided by simply having someone on watch for natives during the repairs to the observation post, or by keeping the injured alien sedated, under observation or even isolated in sick bay.
Unfortunately the plot required then to be remarkably careless and unobservant.
I remember reading somewhere an article where they talked about (I think) the episode of SNW where Uhura is hallucinating and how no one thought she was crazy when she said something about it because she was a Starfleet officer and they are believed enough to investigate problems like that before dismissing them. Imagine all the times you’ve heard stories about things like someone feeling a pain and the doctor says it’s nothing and then they die of cancer…
I also love the whole “working together as professionals in a team to solve problems with science/technology/strategy/diplomacy/all of the above” aspect of it, and that those abilities were considered by other species to be humanity’s best traits.
I’ve heard it described as “competency porn” before
It absolutely is. I got into the West Wing for the same reason. It’s very satisfying to watch good people be good at their jobs in important situations
It’s a crying shame that our real life government will almost certainly never reflect the level of competence, effectiveness, and morality portrayed in WW :(
No West Wing, only Veep.
Says, “fuckity bye,” in The Thick Of It
Oh wow, I’ve never compared the two before, but you’re absolutely right.
You’ll also see a ton of TNG and DS9 guest stars on WW. Someone working on that show was obviously a big fan.
It so good. Tangentially, that was one of the reasons I LOVED the Rogue Squadron books when I was a kid - it’s just a bunch of normal pilots who are really fucking skilled, and are generally good at what they do, but at the same time they don’t magic problems away with “just use the force”. Antilles doesn’t use the force; instead, he just uses incredibly good spatial reasoning and physical coordination in concert with decades of combat flight experience in some of the most harrowing and unbalanced battles the galaxy had seen in his lifetime, and that made him one of the absolute best pilots in the galaxy for a good portion of his career.
He had to have force powers! How else did he and Biggs get reincarnated into every single Final Fantasy world?
I thought about this in the context of RPGs before. Some of my peers seem to enjoy the slapdash chaos of four idiots stumbling through a problem. I’m just like that’s my work day. Can I get a fantasy of four competent people solving problems effectively and without war crimes please?
Normally I’d agree, but I only just watched the TNG episode where they fucked up the prime directive so badly that a bunch of primitives declared (the) Picard a god.
I believe that is too make a fundamental point, originally made by Claude Levi Strauss (not the jeans guy), about exploration.
The sadness of exploration is that you fundamentally can’t undo first contact. Once it’s made everything changes.
That episode shows this and under scribes the necessity of the prime directive and why it is there in the first place. Even with the best intentions one can destroy the fabric of society of an entire civilization.
The other interesting though this episode evokes is the question weather we are ready at this moment. It holds a mirror to us imagining to be space explorers, but how would we cope today?
didn’t Picard let himself get hit by a spear or something to prove he wasn’t one though? pretty sure he was like “fuckin OW. see? SEE? DAMNIT to SHIT that hurts.”
That’s the one. A noble gesture that might have been avoided by simply having someone on watch for natives during the repairs to the observation post, or by keeping the injured alien sedated, under observation or even isolated in sick bay.
Unfortunately the plot required then to be remarkably careless and unobservant.
I remember reading somewhere an article where they talked about (I think) the episode of SNW where Uhura is hallucinating and how no one thought she was crazy when she said something about it because she was a Starfleet officer and they are believed enough to investigate problems like that before dismissing them. Imagine all the times you’ve heard stories about things like someone feeling a pain and the doctor says it’s nothing and then they die of cancer…