January 24, 2020 - Thoughts On Star Trek: Picard - Episode 1

 Thoughts On Star Trek: Picard - Episode 1 - January 24, 2020


Let's get a discussion going on this, shall we?


I just watched the very first episode of 'Star Trek: Picard' last night and I can see how events here might explain the diminished Federation in Season 3 of 'Star Trek: Discovery'. What Starfleet did after the rogue synthetics committed the Mars massacre was erase a bit of the diversity that made Starfleet unique and they forced it on to the galaxy through the Galactic Charter. I know the Romulans appreciated Picard's attempts to try and help them during the supernova crisis, but that appreciation died when Starfleet as a whole stood by and responded with apathy. The survivors were left to their own devices to put their nation back together using the fragments of other broken nations, hence the society within the Borg cube and the androids being there.


Instead of offering humanitarian aid to survivors after the fact, Starfleet instead chose to ban production of all synthetics with the belief that they were ALL dangerous instead of those who were responsible for the attacks on Mars and Utopia Planitia. They took away diversity and instilled a sense of apathetic conformity that demanded the destruction of all that was different. Dahj and her lover had violent impulses, yes, but they were capable of controlling them and there was no need for those Romulan superpolice to destroy those lives. Picard called out Starfleet for their apathy and views of conformity because in adapting those constrictive views, they surrendered their identity.


Obviously, even in the midst of whatever Picard does next, Starfleet does not seem to learn their lesson and they continue to diminish themselves by their own apathetic, limited views. The trailer for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3 shows a flag representing a heavily diminished Federation and I feel like the galaxy at large will tire of the behavior and break away. This, I believe, is the beginning of the galaxy losing their belief in the Federation and the promise that it had back when Captain Jonathan Archer helped set the foundation for it. All in all, Star Trek: Picard is turning out to be a fascinating series.

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