A note about Sisko’s rank: it’s not uncommon in real life for Lieutenants and Commanders to have full command of smaller vessels and stations. It makes sense as you need to get command experience before you get the rank of captain and get assigned the “big” ships. I always thought making Sisko a commander reflected the “pause” his career took after the borg and the lowly nature of the DS9 assignment. I just felt like it was great writing.
I think that sounds like a good in-universe explanation for Sisko's rank, especially considering that the character was planned to be a Commander from the outset. Thus, the fact of Sisko being that rank doesn't bother me, but if it is really true that the discussion about upping the character's rank revolved around race, that bothers me.
Worth noting that a Captain in the US Navy is on the same pay grade as a Colonel in the other branches of the military, and like them, the next promotion is 'gated' by the need to attend Staff College. It would be *extremely* unusual for someone under 40 to hold such a rank, so by those standards - Sisko gets his 4th pip at 39 - he's on a fast track. Pretty sure that out of all the main series captains, only Kirk gets promoted younger.
My favourite thing about Shaw is that he goes from an introduction where you could not give fewer fucks if an airlock accidentally cycled with him inside, to an exit from the show where you actually feel something. That's great use of an original character introduced for this story arc. It's something shows so rarely pull off.
My love for Shaw is actually the reason why I dislike his ending, because this redemption through death trope is just really cheap. What I felt in his moment of exit is just sad disappointment that they used this expected tired trope instead of allowing the character to be more interesting.
I was pretty young but I still remember the racist backlash against Sisko and the sexist backlash against Janeway. Shit never ends but I feel like it's getting better, however slowly.
The "real" question is do you/did you get the Felix/Oscar Reference(s)? Was in High School in the early 90's didn't yet have Internet, and just 5 Major Networks (ABC,CBS,NBC,PBS,Fox... With UPN and WB just around the corner) with a few Independent Stations where Shows in Syndication/Re-Runs like Star Trek and The Odd Couple were just one of many shows in regular rotation. Since I first got DirecTV in late 1997 (and a DVR in 2002) and I suppose over the last 10+ years with Streaming... I suppose I need to remind myself that "The Next Generation"(s) coming up after me... Just are less and less likely to be relying on OTA TV in Real Time anymore. So those Re-Runs of The Odd Couple, Star Trek, or (Insert Old Show here) can be easily ignored and not even given 5 minutes much less 30 minutes... Because nobody "needs" to wait for the next show to pop up and/or skipping Ads for stuff is easier.
I saw a complaint a few years ago about how Voyager’s cast was “mostly women” and I wanted to ask how one third equaled “mostly” in that person’s mind.
I don't know why "Knight Rider in space" got an appeal to nostalgia comment when the original pitch for Trek itself was, "wagon train to the stars."it should have been pretty clear that's where the comparison was going. "Similar to this concept, but in a this setting."
Also...keep in mind that Knight Rider itself wasn't really an original concept. It was basically the same as The Lone Ranger, only set in the modern day, with a talking car instead of a horse and a sidekick.
About renaming the Titan to Enterprise. There is a naval tradition that renaming a ship for no good reason calls bad luck upon that ship. Now, Starfleet is not a naval outfit as such, but it is very much structured and operated as a navy, so they would probably not so casually rename a ship like the Titan, especially one with such an illustrious carreer.
I've always liked it when Star Trek treats Starfleet like an 18th century navy. Like McCoy's nickname coming from "sawbones," or that "tall ship" poem in Star Trek V (not to mention the old ship's wheel they had bolted to the deck). Or, hell, the entire opening sequence of Generations.
I hadn't even thought about how galling it would be to that crew to have their ship suddenly/randomly renamed. Like, what? We're changing it to Enterprise just because some celebrity captain of an older Enterprise was onboard? I mean, with Seven taking over, it might make more sense to rename it Voyager, but that wouldn't fit the theme of Picard at all.
Doesn't the fact that it's called STARFLEET make it implicit it's a navy? Navy literally means "fleet of ships", from old French Navie and Latin Navigium, Navis meaning "Vessel, Ship". The only reason we associate it with boats is because the only ships we have right now are seaborn in virtually all cases, and what we call maritime branches in most militaries.
Its easy for folks to miss what its like to be a crew of a ship, and what that ship, that home, means to you, and what it would be like to have it essentially stolen from you.
Thing is, while I understand what Steve was going on with this, within the context of Star Trek, renaming/rechristening another ship (unnamed in canon, in this case) as the Enterprise-A at the end of ST IV happened to much greater fanfare and adoration. Of course, Picard S3 was trying to ape this good feeling in addition to all of the other aping it did for fan service, but the major difference here is the Titan and her crew are one of the linchpins of the season and it does seem disrespectful for her to be renamed as the Enterprise at the end, precisely because we've gotten to know the Titan and her crew, whereas the ship that became the Enterprise-A was anonymous before the renaming.
@@talon262 I believe the 1701-A was originally supposed to be the USS Yorktown. But, as STV shows, it was a newly-constructed ship, so even in-universe it wouldn't have had a history (or much history) prior to the rechristening. There's also the USS Sao Paolo, which *should* have become the NCC-74205-A (and only didn't due to DS9 not having the budget for all the new CGI scenes they'd have to render) which could, potentially, have been in service for at least a year or two prior to its rechristening.
In the Kira section you mentioned that once the cause is gone people stop being terrorists, but DS9 showed us otherwise. We saw people who shifted to “any alien” as a target after the Cardassians left because that’s all that they knew. The show made the case that they were wrong and Kira showed people can change but it is easier for some than others.
Terrorists are like anyone else who does combat for a profession: the skills they instill and the experiences they saddle a person with can make it very hard to transition back to civilian life.
@@jimballard1186 When you have a skill set, it's natural to look for ways to apply it. I had a summer job painting houses a couple decades ago, and it still annoys me to see a bad paint job.
When a vessel reaches the prominence of having its Naval Construction Contract registry locked, it should be a written rule that you do not just go and rename it on a whim!
I was about to say that I think Sisko beginning the series as a commander is a great move because it establishes how much his grief derailed his life and "broke" him by the metrics of a Star Trek protagonist; but then I realized I can't remember those ideas ever really being explored. From day one, he just turns on his leadership abilities like Data activating or deactivating his emotion chip, and any richness I perceive in that backstory is mostly supplied by my imagination.
The first episode has him basically considering retiring from Starfleet as soon as he finishes this - as he believed - temporary assignment. And I guess you could assume that while he could easily be a captain, such promotion warrants getting a ship under command, something that Sisko definitely didn't want, given his family situation. Just like Riker, as seen in Best of Both Worlds, he's likely elligible for a promotion any time he wants, he just didn't want it. Of course, that was never mentioned after the wormhole was discovered, so... yeah.
Yeah, that would have been an interesting area to explore. It's not hard to see that in the fact that he'd been in charge of the Utopia Planitia shipyards in the interim instead of in space, but you do have to read into it. And it all goes away as soon as he takes the job. I mean, sure, his encounter with the Prophets shifted his POV a great deal, still.
I like how the false visions Sisko experiences at the beginning of Season 7 act as an epilogue to Far Beyond The Stars. Making the people telling Benny he's crazy for imagining the DS9 story be *actual evil demons* is a great capstone on the message.
Shaw is cool because the actor executed well, which is testament to how many people love him despite the fact that the character is by design 'everything wrong with the last 20 years of Starfleet' Calling a hypothetical Seven show 'Knight Rider in Space' is like calling Star Trek 'Wagon Train in Space', does that guy know know what an elevator pitch is?
I feel compelled to point out that those who detransition, the overwhelming majority of those people report that they do so due to societal and familial pressures. The rate of people who transition and remain that way is close to 98%.
Seriously. Just saying, the only times I ever question my own transition it's because our bassackwards society is so damn hard for trans people to live in sometimes. And I've never been one to let society dictate my choices to me.
That was a great way to describe why shows shouldn't "feel fanficcy". I too have read a lot of fanfiction (though not much for Trek). Fanfics can get away with doing things that should absolutely NEVER be done in any official media. First, fans ship everyone with everyone else. Second, fanfics can explore a lot of themes that official media would never possibly be able to do (for both writing and budgetary reasons). There are bad fanfics too sure, but there are some real diamonds in the rough that are amazing. But even a lot of the good fanfics I've read would NEVER work as official episodes. Also, I don't see why anyone had any issue with your Knight Rider reference. You were clearly spinning an idea, and then you used a Knight Rider reference as a joke. People need to lighten up.
15:29 Remember when fan fic used to be called practice? It's what you do while learning a discipline. And it's called "discipline" because you're expected to discipline yourself into writing professionally. As in, using structure and standards and learning rules first in order to create and world-build in a way that makes sense and isn't a meandering wishlist of kewel and rad things you've always wanted to see at various points in the lore. You don't hand in your first draft of a story and story notes with tons of inaccuracies and spelling gaffes as your final and hope the copy editor or show runner doesn't notice.
"It is this random episode where nothing happens unrelated to the plot" is their claim yet they still like TOS/TNG/VOY even though that is basically what almost EVERY episode is!
What I mean is it's like so many other self contained, sci-fi story, bottle episodes. Holodeck malfunctions, or virus on the ship, or random planet adventure, or whatever. The only difference is the message is right there on surface...and some people don't like that message.
Before Knight Rider even existed, Don Bellisario pitched the concept of a talking automated vehicle/human pilot team in an episode of the original Battlestar Galactica, "The Long Patrol". So you could say we've already gotten "Knight Rider in Space".
The fun of "What I Would Do" is that you can rewrite the entire series in the case of Picard in your head, and the sad part is, that it's only in your head. I mean, all the elements were there for a three-year arc of the final act of the Borg, the Queen, Data, and Picard with Seven of Nine being the main representative of the Legacy generation, inheriting all of what it means to be Starfleet. But it was presented so haphazardly that we never really got to see that except in blunt statements, and little action toward the idea. In the 3rd season, it became all about Jack Crusher, when it should have been about Seven of Nine due to her interaction with the Borg cube in Season 1. The whole thing with Jurati and the transwarp tunnel could have been the lead-up to the coming of the Borg Queen--attracted by Seven's time in the cube, and yet, it was left off for possible future shows. (It might even still be there for Starfleet Academy for all we know). And while they could still have Jack in the show, that could've been a part of Season 2, and taken out the time travel part. Even the first episode where Picard talks of family and the future could've been about Jack and not an ancestor. But, we got what we got, and will move on. But because of the disparity of the series and what they were trying to achieve, it's going to remain forgettable.
I (fairly casual ST fan) always assumed that the reason Sisko was a commander rather than a captain had something to do with the fact that DS9 isn’t a ship.
I seriously think this universe is ripe for things other than running around among the stars. I can't imagine how to implement some of them but I suspect writers better than I am could pull it off. My favorite pitch is "Two Guys, a Girl, and a Replimat."
I really do like the parsley in the teeth metaphor because I’ve just turned 40 and looking back on my life I’ve definitely had to come to terms with my own sexism, racism, bigotry and entitlement and I really wish that when I was younger I could have had people around me in my life to point those things out. One of the best parts about watching this channel is seeing a recap of an episode I watched as a child and missed a lot of the messages in the show. On a subconscious level I think I knew they were there, I remember feeling uncomfortable watching the shows sometimes but I could never vocalise why. But I think it helped lay the foundations or sew the seeds of understanding and becoming a better person.
I would die to see a Trek episode where one of the main crew, or at least a common recurring character, is introduced having mood problems that get worse over a couple of episodes until the doctors realize the character is trans and everyone is just like, "Oh, thank God, that's all it is? I thought it was Luverian brain parasites! Shoot, the doctor can fix this on your next lunch break." Then a message goes out updating the crew to use the correct pronouns and everyone is just chill with it for the rest of the series. Obviously you'd need to be careful not to sound dismissive, like bottom surgery will solve all the issues a trans person faces, but it could be done well.
Regarding Seven: Fenris Ranger vs. Knightrider, a valid comparison would be Deep Space 9 to Babylon 5. The premise of the latter pair is essentially "important space station where drama happens". But they go in completely different directions. Similarly, the Seven: Fenris Ranger vs. Knightrider pair have similar premises, but could easily go in entirely different directions.
I think Sisko being a Commander in the beginning really serves the story. It underlines the assignment being kind of a forced one. They couldn't have pulled that with a captain. Taking orders from Picard, it just works.
My genuine response when I see a Trek Actually comment response video pop up in my RUclips notifications is “oh boy! Comment response time!” I really enjoy these videos, for the thoughtful comments left by other viewers, Steve’s responses to them, especially when they bring up examples and points overlooked in the original videos, the jokes, from commenters and/or Steve, & the times when Steve gets the opportunity to rip apart a stupid thoughtless comment (with CLASS [imagine that word spoken by Marisa Tomei’s character in My Cousin Vinny]). Keep up the good work, Steve!
I think Kira's position with the Dominion is even worse than collaboration... she's become an Appeaser. Historical context, back when Hitler looked at the British Empire and saw that world wide colonies and explotation of Not British People had made the nation rich and affluent and said "Well why commit the resources of doing it to a far away land when there's perfectly good lands and peoples to exploit right here in Europe?" And began his expansionist efforts... and NO ONE wanted to fight him about it. So they did everything BUT fight him about it at first. Treaties and negotiations and attempted placation until A Chunk Of Poland is the price of peace, and people in power still think a treaty is gonna stop this. If we just Negotiate A Bit Better, we can make it all go away. Certainly Something Will Satisfy Germany, And Then We Can Go Back To Brunch. Once war broke out, Appeaser was a vile insult. It meant you'd been more than complacent, that you tried to *placate* the forces that we are now suffering under on a misguided idea that They Could Be Placated. Appeasers failed to listen when the Reich broadcasted their plans to the world and PRETENDED that a signed piece of paper and some territory changing hands was gonna make things stop when it just Made It So Much Worse By Giving Them What They Wanted Without A Fight. Kira slowly realizing that *Bajor is in this, and cannot avoid being part of the field, and The People Of Bajor Cannot Stand For This* revives the part of her that KNOWS how this ends, that the longer the conflict is put off the stronger the Dominion's hand will be, and starts planning.
I know, the show was called Picard and that's why Picard's son was the MacGuffin rather than Seven, so I totally understood their reasons. That said, they could have developed something more for the audience to feel an attachment to his character if he's going to be that pivotal. I think most of us ended up caring even more for Captain Shaw than Jack Crusher, although we could anticipate that character's death coming light years before it arrived.
Many Intiraymi followed me during the first season of ST: PIC on Twitter after I said “Man they did Icheb dirty” & I followed back only to discover that he is profoundly weird
Y’know, I realize we’re all supposed to see Shaw’s refusal to call Seven by her chosen name as bigoted and unlikable, because hey, it’s just like deadnaming, boo. But if your preferred personal name is actually more like a rank designation in a military hostile to the one you’re serving in, and which by the way killed a bunch of your crewmates’ friends & family… I’m pretty sympathetic to a CO saying “absolutely not; pick literally anything else. “
I think Data had the best answer to this in season 2 of TNG, when he said "One of these is my name, and one is not." Seven of Nine was the name she had when she regained her individual identity and sense of self, and "Annika Hansen" was someone she hadn’t been for decades before that.
@@snakebitcat Sure, of course. But diegetically Shaw would be perfectly justified in… just not giving a shit about any of that. At least not relative to the pretty reasonable principle of "we're not going to use enemy ranks as names on a military vessel."
@@normativeHe absolutely would not be justified in that. If someone went to war with a nation that had a different culture and then had to work with somebody who had a name from that culture would it be okay to force them to change? Absolutely not. He was just wrong in that and letting his pain justify him hurting others. Plus; Even in the story Seven of Nine wouldn't be a "Rank", that's just how the Borg are grouped and named. He could see it that way, but that would still be him being a bigot and wrong, which he is.
@@thod8820 say it's 1963 and you're working at NASA with some former Nazis. Say one of them likes to be called by his Nazi rank and he says it's a harmless nickname. I would not be down with that.
@@burbanpoison2494 Seven of Nine isn't a rank though. It's just a number that differentiated her from the rest of her squad, so essentially the closest thing the Borg had to names. It had nothing to do with her responsibilities within the Collective. If she'd asked people to call her "Drone" you might have a point. But I still think I'd lean in her favor, because Drone could be intended as a chosen name based on her previous culture, whereas something like Reichsinspekteur would be obvious trolling.
As a navy vet who actively despised the ship I served on, if the navy had renamed it for any fucking reason I and most the crew would've come incredibly close to outright mutiny. You. Do. Not. Change. A. Ship's. Name. Not without extreme extenuating circumstances.
I tend to make distinctions between fan fiction and fan wank, the latter referring to a sub category of fan fiction that is so self indulgent that it is unlikely to be of interest to anyone other than the author. There’s also fix fic which refers to fiction that exists entirely to fix a problem (real or imagined) within the canon. Fix fic has a lot of overlap with continuity porn which is fiction that serves little if any purpose beyond explaining away continuity errors within canon. I do sympathise with a lot of this frustration with continuity errors for the simple reason that it’s sloppy workmanship. I can even understand why people dream up their own little ways of fixing these errors, and I can further understand why people might share these ideas with other fans, however I seldom feel these ideas need to be made into stories.
An interesting callback to Far Beyond the Stars is at the start of the final season when Sisko finds the Orb of the Emissary. The visions he has of being locked up in mental hospital, the doctor/Dahmar calls him Benny Russell. The visions are then explained as an attempt by the Pah-Wraiths to trick Sisko. It really drives home who are the bad guys in Far Beyond the Stars
Julian in the med bay, handing out gender affirming care like skittles. What a ledgend. True facts tho if I could completely transition in the space of a lunch break I woulda done it years ago. I've attempted to get top surgery twice, and both times I got as far as the consult with the surgon only for no one to call me with an appointment, so I call them, hear the "Oops You Must Have Slipped Through The Cracks Speech, the doctor isn't in right now but..." and then wait another week for a phone call. Do that dance for a month, fall into the depression hole where I stop being a functional person, and then realize from that depression hole you're gonna have to start the process all over again because it's been nearly a year. I'm so tired. I'm a 32DDD and deal with constant pain, but keep getting denied care because apperently the surgon decided my titties were more important than my well being x.x
Captain and Commander are both titles and ranks. Hence Captain Boobob may be Commander of Starbase Whoohah and Commander Boobob is Captain of the Starship Whoohah. A quick google of naval rank will help those who don’t know why they’re using particular titles as the Great Bird of the Galaxy based Starfleet rank on US Navy rank.
With respect to the fanfic discussion: I think people need to remember that criticism of work is NOT criticism of the person. If you want to truly improve your craft, you need to be willing to take a beating of your work. Good constructive criticism is worth its weight in gold-press latinum. In my youth I wrote science fiction short stories and it took a lot of looking to find critique groups to actually give you those beatings to improve your craft. "Far Beyond The Stars" is peak Trek, and Sisko is the best captain. Fight me. 😁
On the topic of Shaw after his redemption I do wish he had lived because I would have enjoyed an entire show with him on it. So it is too bad but I understand why they had to wrap up his story arc completely.
I had a conversation about this very thing with a friend of mine who is in our 70s and I’m in my 60s. And we’re both very frustrated with the quality of writing in books and TV and movies today because everything‘s written at a fifth grade level. Years ago, I could read things that were written for young adults, but they were written for adults now it seems like everything’s written for young adults who never completely grew up out of being children.
Fanfic. On Ao3 you can find fic that reads like a 13yo wrote it but honestly, most of the fic there is/has been written by adults, who obviously have different levels of writing ability. But not all fanfic is immature.
The highest praise I ever got for my Voyager fic about Sevantha was fans saying they wish I could've written for the show. They're wrong as I was working with benefit of over 15 years of hindsight, but I appreciated it nonetheless. :)
@@arklestudiosoutside of smut (and to an extent within it) I am looking for writers who make me feel like they have a window into that time space continuum.
Love all your Steve Shives videos. 👍👍👍👍😎😎😎😎 You know, for a video made with 'minimum effort', you had some interesting points to make in reply to posters comments, especially to do with "Far Beyond The Stars".
These comment response videos always highlight what I consider one of your best qualities: being open to and receptive of feedback and (constructive) criticism. Thank you for that.
If DS9 and Voyager were released today, they would scream that it is woke DEI hires. That's what some said at the time, though the racism and misogyny were thinly cloaked with the use of PC instead of woke and DEI. New paint, same intolerance.
Props for mentioning I/P in the terrorism convo. Amazing how this is still relevant. Terrorism isn't just people being mean for no reason. When you treat people like dogs, like vermin, when you give them nothing to live for and nothing to lose, terrorism happens. It's entirely foreseeable. And, just as DS9 depicted some of Kira's past actions as dubious, the terrorist acts in themselves, when they kill civilians, are awful never justified. But they happen for a reason, and if you want them to stop, you remove the reason.
While I think it’s important to realize that terrorists can be the result of oppression, I think it’s a mistake to simplistically equate that with “terrorism is our fault and all we need to do is not be oppressive.” When an incel goes and shoots a room full of people, should my takeaway as a woman be, “oh gosh, guess I shouldn’t have denied that guy sex?” There are a lot of ways people end up in a position to do awful and violent things. Most of them have some emotionally understandable motive at their heart - I do believe that incels are genuinely hurting, for instance - but not every act of terrorism can be attributed directly to the weak being oppressed by the powerful, or can be easily solved by just Not Doing That. Sometimes terrorists are really just awful people having disproportionate responses to the world around them.
Exactly, though my mind went to ISIS, or the January 6th insurrection dickheads. Now, I mean, to be fair, they'd probably stop being terrorists if everyone agreed to just let them have their caliphate/put Trump back in the White House, but that's because they'd have the power and authority of a state and we don't generally call those actors terrorists, not because they'd stop being bad people or doing bad things.
I have to say I disagree. Terrorists are people with political agendas that are in opposition to a dominant socioeconomic formation. Murderers are people who kill for their own fucked up personal reasons. Dylan Roof is a racist, incel, murderer. Osama bin Laden is a terrorist fighting western imperialism.
I was around when DS9 first aired late teens I think when it started? Either way, I completely missed any sense of 'black guy can't be a captain' in terms of pop culture reaction, presumably thanks to there being no internet to speak of. To me, lead guy was just... lead guy. I can't say I even noticed his rank, or his eventual promotion, let alone his skin colour. I don't mean "oh I'm such a saint, I'm colour blind" or whatever, Just... well, Sisko was in charge so respect the chair sort of thing. I just sort of accepted that especially as Cardassian shitfuckery towards the B'jorans was a solid distraction anyway. In fact, I don't recall that I particularly noted Sisko's actual blackness until FBTS - when obviously it was a large part of the point, and I spent 45 minutes with my hand over my mouth in horror and tears in my eyes at just how good the performances were. The relief I felt when we got back to "reality" was really palpable.
While I don't always agree with you Steve, your points are always carefully and logically articulated. Not sure how someone got "I hate new things, I hate seeing old things" from your videos, but then some people miss that Star Trek is left-wing so 🤷
Steve: "How much of a racist a-hole do you have to be to be upset about a [fictional ] black space station captain?" I glance over at WH40K fans upset about female Custodes (?) characters. Yep. It's still around.
Retired Navy here, regarding Sisko's being a Commander instead of a Captain. In the Navy, if you are in charge of a smaller command (submarine 👍, destroyer, etc) you start off as a Commander. Then if your tour is successful, you can be promoted to Captain at the end. Still get called Captain the whole time because the Navy can't stand to keep things simple. I can totally understand that most people wouldn't know about that though, and possibly even the writers didn't know that either
would love to see your HR character deal with Star Trek's tendency to name/rename ships as references to other ships. maybe a guide on how to read a CV? "now you might think that this person had a job transition here, because they went from working on the Titan to the Enterprise. well, you'd be wrong. some asshole decided to change the name, so now I need to know for my daily job duties that these are the same ship."
With fanfic vs professional writing - No matter the age of the writer, the motivations are different. And that doesn't necessarily make fanfic _worse_ but it does mean that it gets _weird_ when things on screen feels like fanfic. (What makes - most - fanfic (and non-fanfic amateur fiction published online for free) worse than - most - professional writing, even when the fanfic writer is experienced rather than the early days of my writing of it a couple of decades back is that most fanfic authors can't afford the rigorous editing process with external editors that professional writing is meant to get, meaning there isn't as much opportunity to polish the, no matter how many editing passes the fanfic author does) What gets fascinating as a reader (or viewer in the case of the work I've gotten into recently) is when the motivation shifts and what was once a fan work that happens to have entirely OCs starts to turn into an original IP that happens to share a genre. Because even when there isn't a shift in quality, you can kind of feel it when that happens. And by gods if you're not watching it in production order that shift can produce turbulence in the viewing experience. "Oh... This earlier season is clearly a fanwork whereas the first season I watched just happened to share a genre... Huh."
Closest I have ever being to be a Black person in America? A driving while Black incident. The cheer fear that emenated from my friends was... eye opening to say the very least.
On sisko's rank, I think from an in-fiction point of view it's quite surprising that the commander of Deep Space Nine isn't an admiral. We previously saw admirals in charge of large starbases on the show, and the fact that outside of wartime federation ships don't really travel in fleets kind of relegates admirals to desk jobs during peacetime. And at the outset of the show this particular starbase is a little beyond the federation's border at a potential flashpoint for a future war, and is positioned to be a major diplomatic posting over the next several years as the federation pursues the goal of convincing the Bajorans to join the federation. Admirals in Star Trek tend to serve more as foils and narrative devices and they might not have wanted to surrender those plot levers, but admirals still have commanders so it's not an insurmountable issue. You could just look at it as purely a difference in word choice but I feel that if they had decided to make Sisko an Admiral it might have slightly changed how they handled some stuff in the show, particularly around the Dominion War in unique ways.
Obviously it changed, but the first season or two the fact that DS9 is also pretty clearly underfunded and understaffed shows it wasn't seen as very important to Star Fleet. Maybe later on... but well it's a tv show, replacing Sisko with an admiral at that point wouldn't be any fun.
Sisko writing his own trials in the past present and future was always obvious to me even as a black boy decades ago Surprised you missed it, as old as you (we)are
If I was the only white guy in an ethnic restaurant (Mexican, Asian, Creole, what-have-you), I would probably experience the same flash of insight as you... I would also think "This is probably a dang good restaurant!"
7:04 The flip side of Shaw not calling Seven by her chosen name is Seven's lack of understanding of Shaw's PTSD regarding the Borg, and how referring to a crewmember with a Borg name brings back all that trauma. Seven understood it as a personal attack against her. Shaw was doing his best to manage his own trauma.
Star Wars Interview - Firmus Piett, interviewing for the CIO of Security on Axxila Prime. Thank you for joining us today, Firmus Piett. You are interviewing today for the open position that we have in the Security Department here on Axxila. After reviewing your resume, you were a former Admiral in the Imperial Navy? "Yes." What are your greatest strengths/weaknesses? "I'm a very experienced and able officer, as you can see on my resume. That would be my greatest strength. Weaknesses? Well, I hate working with bounty hunters. I just like to know where a person's loyalties lie before I work with them." How would your previous co-workers describe you? "I was Admiral Kendal Ozzel's personal confidant on many occasions as he was my superior before I served as Admiral on the Executor. He would describe me as loyal, dead pan and blunt at times, but with a dark sense of humor." Tell me something about yourself that isn’t on your resume. "Well, I have excellent survival skills, that's for sure. In one such incident in the past, I was serving as Fleet Admiral in the Imperial Navy when a fighter pilot actually, purposefully flew into the bridge of the Executor, causing the Executor to veer out of control and crash into Death Star II. To this day, I can't believe my luck, but I was able to fall off the dias, scramble off the bridge and get out in an escape pod. I thought I did pretty well all of those years serving Lord Vader and the Emperor directly." Tell me about a past difficult work situation. How did you overcome it? "Lord Vader had replaced Admiral Ozzel and Captain Viett, and I had only just began to serve under him, and there was this particular incident when we were in orbit over Bespin near one of their mining colonies. Lord Vader specifically directed me to deactivate the hyper-drive on a contraband YT freighter. My team did it - I verified the order myself - but in a key moment, the ship got away to hyper-drive as we were readying our tractor beam. I was frozen in shock, and to this day, I have no idea how that happened. But Lord Vader kept me as Admiral, and I overcame my daily fear at first by indulging in my lifetime love of Axxilian Negronis, but I'm happy to say that I'm 3 years sober." Describe a time when you had to work with someone whose personality or work style was very different from yours. "Lord Vader was a very curious fellow at times. One time I even saw him without his helmet, although it was from the rear, but he seemed to have a barely controlled rage about him, and you always had to remain on your toes and be as punctual as possible with him. I demanded a great deal of preparation from my team during that time to have the most flexibility for anything to happen, and to be ready for any order to be given. I basically did whatever he told me." Very well! When can you start? "Today." You will receive a salary that will be on par with an average position of CIO of Security earnings in the Core Worlds, but there will be room for bonuses and incentives. "I'll take it." Excellent. Here's a uniform. "Thank you."
29:30 YES EXACTLY! "They" always will quip with what does that have to fo with anything, like tossing back at the Bible thumpers the likes of Nunbers 5 or 31 or pointing to long held policies some under the guise of Zoning laws with redlining certain zipcodes and of course our fair financial system of variable rates offered for two different people with the exact same education and wealth but one just seems to have a much higher interest rate for some reason we just cant seem to qualify. 🤔
11:26 it's probably not their intent but in Japan family owned businesses often adopt someone into their family so that the new CEO has the same surname that's why every CEO of Toyota is always a Toyota family member. As for renaming a ship that is against naval traditions
To clarify I think that the Enterprise is the flagship of Starfleet and always will be much the same way whatever fixed wing aircraft the US president is on is always Air Force One
I was literally just thinking yesterday how your comment response videos are a smart idea because instead of just replying in comments like most creators, it lets you create more content for your channel. So I'm glad to see at the beginning of this video your honest, serious self-assessment confirming this.
They didn't need to kill Shaw to give him a closed arc. The set up is there with him helping rewire the Titan's engines and him fanboying over Geordi. Just have him decide he misses engineering and request a transfer to the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. Which fans of the SCE novels would've appreciated I'm sure.
Shaw going from his survivor's guilt over Wolf 359 causing him to treat Seven badly to accepting her and sacrificing himself to allow her to defeat the Borg was a beautiful arc that I felt was done really well.
11:37 "Steve, it's the 21st Century, stop making old references to Felix and Oscar from The Odd Couple; a show made in the 1970s after the first airing of the original Star Trek series which spawned a massive franchise that your video series talks about."
*_Update:_*_ this is, as far as five minutes of research can tell, completely wrong_ I thought the objection to Sisko being a Captain (at the series start) was strictly a naval / nomenclature one-if you're in charge of a base, you're a commander, only people in charge of ships are captains-which is why he got the promotion when we got the Defiant. Not defending it-it's the 24th century! They can make up whatever ranks they want! But I know some of the writers (RDM, for instance) really care about those nitpicks.
Yes, this was my understanding as well. Also I always like when characters get a promotion in a Show. It implies the the world, characters etc. are progressing.
Upon further research: I am not sure how I got this idea in my head-US naval bases are commanded by O-6 officers (aka Captains), and besides-Sisko wasn't promoted for a _full year_ after the assignment of the Defiant. Leaving up the original comment as to document my ignorance-hopefully enough people click through to see the claim debunked.
“Only people in charge of ships are captains” hasn’t really ever been true of the naval rank. In U.S. navy, for example, it’s equivalent to a colonel. Even back in the age of sail, youd have Commanders (or ‘Master and Commander’) or even lieutenants “captaining” ships, as well as temporary higher ranks like commodores. perhaps you’re thinking of the term the crew/staff might use in talking (with the definite article in front), when referring to the one in charge: “the captain” of a ship, which could be one of several ranks, or “the commander” of a base similarly doesn’t have to be of commander rank. In other words you could be on a navy ship and refer to “the captain” of the ship whose rank is not Captain and same re: base and “the commander”
There is a gradient to Star Trek's morality episodes. IMO Star Trek is at its best when its messages aren't beating you over the head. They make an allegory and let the audience connect the dots to the real-world equivalent. Let the audience ruminate on where this applies in the real world, it makes us/them feel at least somewhat clever. The more Star Trek beats you over the head the more it comes across as preachy. I don't think the Sisko episode qualifies in this regard, even if it is a bit heavy handed. I think about Star Trek Discovery - if they did an episode like this you would probably see Burnham straight up turn to the camera and say "Racism bad, okay? Racism bad". Edit: Admittedly, the flip side to this argument is that there are a surprising number of conservatives who watched/loved Star Trek who now call it woke when it always was. I guess those morality messages were flying straight over their heads. So maybe we do need a main character to turn to the camera and explain racism bad.
Ira Behr said, during the DS9 documentary, that people shouldn't get too comfortable with the show. I think Trek is at its best when it makes people (particularly those used to seeing Trek as comfort food) uncomfortable with its progressive messages.
There is something ironic about Shaw dying on the Titan to help Picard only to end up having his ship be renamed in honor of Picard. I’m hoping we get Shaw’s ghost back to chase Picard around.
I get the theories on Sisko's rank during the first half of the series. I personally thought it was cool to see a Captain rank earned in real time rather than in either flashbacks or told via exposition. Like as if we were on the ride with Sisko, serving with him. It was the first time seeing that & what makes him stick out from most Captains besides ...half the Discovery Cast.
Yeah, weren't they originally going to have Alexander Siddig play the lead? Then they thought him TOO young, and went with Avery Brooks. I think i remember hearing that somewhere.
Having lived through the Troubles (admittedly in mainland Britain which made it easier) I actually like that with Kira they demonstrated how hard simply stopping being a terrorist can be. There were problems of her making that others wouldn't have because she was and now shouldn't be. The Circle was a nice touch too.
I have a trans friend. She doesn't use, or like the whole "assigned male at birth" terminology. Because it's goes back to what George Carlin said about euphemistic language, "changing the name of the condition doesn't change the condition". She will outright say that her body is male, while her mind/brain/'sense of self", whatever you want to call it, is female...because that's the entire problem, that's what being a trans woman means. She's known since she was 8 years old. This can actually be detected on things like brain scans, there are elements of the scan that will show the same as a female brain. She is considering surgery at some point but isn't completely set on it, simply because of the risks involved. We don't have the technology to fully flip the body gender. Sure there are a lot of things we can do to help. HRT is a big help of course. And surgery DOES help in a lot of cases, it's just risky. And of course we should always try to continue developing new ways to help trans people. But neither my friend, nor I (as a normal cis white guy) like using euphemistic language to try to deny or change the condition.
I saw Icheb's death in Picard prior to watching (very recently) the late seasons of Voyager. I had no idea that Icheb appeared in so many episodes. While he's not a loveable character, I had assumed, from the way he was killed off, that he was a one-off or throwaway character that only Voyager superfans would remember. So yeah, even though Voyager is even less good than I expected, and I'm not a big Icheb fan, I am retroactively kinda grossed out by how they treated the character. Oh well... btw I forgot there was a character called Bejayzul. WTF!
I'm pretty sure my biggest irritation with Shaw dying is that the character had great moments and a wonderfully detailed growth arc, which shows that the writers were capable. It's the brightest shining star in the Dog Turd nebula. Leaving Shaw alive would be an empty promise for more wonderful moments for him from him/future writers.
A note about Sisko’s rank: it’s not uncommon in real life for Lieutenants and Commanders to have full command of smaller vessels and stations. It makes sense as you need to get command experience before you get the rank of captain and get assigned the “big” ships. I always thought making Sisko a commander reflected the “pause” his career took after the borg and the lowly nature of the DS9 assignment. I just felt like it was great writing.
In the Spanish Navy Commanders are actually called "Frigate Captains" (Capitán de Fragata), and are allowed to take full command of a smaller vessel.
Exxactly, few people know that when Bligh was in Command of HMS Bounty, he actually held the rank of Lieutenant
I think that sounds like a good in-universe explanation for Sisko's rank, especially considering that the character was planned to be a Commander from the outset. Thus, the fact of Sisko being that rank doesn't bother me, but if it is really true that the discussion about upping the character's rank revolved around race, that bothers me.
Worth noting that a Captain in the US Navy is on the same pay grade as a Colonel in the other branches of the military, and like them, the next promotion is 'gated' by the need to attend Staff College. It would be *extremely* unusual for someone under 40 to hold such a rank, so by those standards - Sisko gets his 4th pip at 39 - he's on a fast track.
Pretty sure that out of all the main series captains, only Kirk gets promoted younger.
Same
My favourite thing about Shaw is that he goes from an introduction where you could not give fewer fucks if an airlock accidentally cycled with him inside, to an exit from the show where you actually feel something. That's great use of an original character introduced for this story arc. It's something shows so rarely pull off.
My love for Shaw is actually the reason why I dislike his ending, because this redemption through death trope is just really cheap. What I felt in his moment of exit is just sad disappointment that they used this expected tired trope instead of allowing the character to be more interesting.
Episode 1: who is this Shaw asshole?
Episode 7: if they kill Shaw I'm suing Paramount
You're not wrong. He was an emotional journey
I was pretty young but I still remember the racist backlash against Sisko and the sexist backlash against Janeway. Shit never ends but I feel like it's getting better, however slowly.
Seriously, the sexist criticisms of Voyager were deeply confusing, because the nerds were describing a show that was not on the screen.
The "real" question is do you/did you get the Felix/Oscar Reference(s)? Was in High School in the early 90's didn't yet have Internet, and just 5 Major Networks (ABC,CBS,NBC,PBS,Fox... With UPN and WB just around the corner) with a few Independent Stations where Shows in Syndication/Re-Runs like Star Trek and The Odd Couple were just one of many shows in regular rotation. Since I first got DirecTV in late 1997 (and a DVR in 2002) and I suppose over the last 10+ years with Streaming... I suppose I need to remind myself that "The Next Generation"(s) coming up after me... Just are less and less likely to be relying on OTA TV in Real Time anymore. So those Re-Runs of The Odd Couple, Star Trek, or (Insert Old Show here) can be easily ignored and not even given 5 minutes much less 30 minutes... Because nobody "needs" to wait for the next show to pop up and/or skipping Ads for stuff is easier.
And now all the terrible people are pretending they didn't say what they said.
I saw a complaint a few years ago about how Voyager’s cast was “mostly women” and I wanted to ask how one third equaled “mostly” in that person’s mind.
@@rocketdave719 That guy must really hate the makeup of the Earth's population! 🤣
I don't know why "Knight Rider in space" got an appeal to nostalgia comment when the original pitch for Trek itself was, "wagon train to the stars."it should have been pretty clear that's where the comparison was going. "Similar to this concept, but in a this setting."
I always wondered about that. It *isn't* "Wagon Train" in space. Wouldn't the Paramount executives have noticed that right away?
@@robertmiller9735 It's not...but that's how Roddenberry pitched it to the network.
Also...keep in mind that Knight Rider itself wasn't really an original concept. It was basically the same as The Lone Ranger, only set in the modern day, with a talking car instead of a horse and a sidekick.
About renaming the Titan to Enterprise. There is a naval tradition that renaming a ship for no good reason calls bad luck upon that ship. Now, Starfleet is not a naval outfit as such, but it is very much structured and operated as a navy, so they would probably not so casually rename a ship like the Titan, especially one with such an illustrious carreer.
I've always liked it when Star Trek treats Starfleet like an 18th century navy. Like McCoy's nickname coming from "sawbones," or that "tall ship" poem in Star Trek V (not to mention the old ship's wheel they had bolted to the deck). Or, hell, the entire opening sequence of Generations.
I hadn't even thought about how galling it would be to that crew to have their ship suddenly/randomly renamed. Like, what? We're changing it to Enterprise just because some celebrity captain of an older Enterprise was onboard? I mean, with Seven taking over, it might make more sense to rename it Voyager, but that wouldn't fit the theme of Picard at all.
Doesn't the fact that it's called STARFLEET make it implicit it's a navy? Navy literally means "fleet of ships", from old French Navie and Latin Navigium, Navis meaning "Vessel, Ship". The only reason we associate it with boats is because the only ships we have right now are seaborn in virtually all cases, and what we call maritime branches in most militaries.
Its easy for folks to miss what its like to be a crew of a ship, and what that ship, that home, means to you, and what it would be like to have it essentially stolen from you.
Thing is, while I understand what Steve was going on with this, within the context of Star Trek, renaming/rechristening another ship (unnamed in canon, in this case) as the Enterprise-A at the end of ST IV happened to much greater fanfare and adoration. Of course, Picard S3 was trying to ape this good feeling in addition to all of the other aping it did for fan service, but the major difference here is the Titan and her crew are one of the linchpins of the season and it does seem disrespectful for her to be renamed as the Enterprise at the end, precisely because we've gotten to know the Titan and her crew, whereas the ship that became the Enterprise-A was anonymous before the renaming.
@@talon262 I believe the 1701-A was originally supposed to be the USS Yorktown. But, as STV shows, it was a newly-constructed ship, so even in-universe it wouldn't have had a history (or much history) prior to the rechristening.
There's also the USS Sao Paolo, which *should* have become the NCC-74205-A (and only didn't due to DS9 not having the budget for all the new CGI scenes they'd have to render) which could, potentially, have been in service for at least a year or two prior to its rechristening.
In the Kira section you mentioned that once the cause is gone people stop being terrorists, but DS9 showed us otherwise. We saw people who shifted to “any alien” as a target after the Cardassians left because that’s all that they knew. The show made the case that they were wrong and Kira showed people can change but it is easier for some than others.
Terrorists are like anyone else who does combat for a profession: the skills they instill and the experiences they saddle a person with can make it very hard to transition back to civilian life.
@@jimballard1186 When you have a skill set, it's natural to look for ways to apply it. I had a summer job painting houses a couple decades ago, and it still annoys me to see a bad paint job.
If you think about it, the writing doing better by Seven than by many other characters is a running theme for her
I was gonna say the same thing. XD
Good for her 😉
When a vessel reaches the prominence of having its Naval Construction Contract registry locked, it should be a written rule that you do not just go and rename it on a whim!
Martok and Sirella, Definite power couple. Love how Martok just is totally smitten in love with her snipe and sass :) She is magnificent ;)
By far Trek, Actually Comment Response is my favorite of your series Steve. Keep up the conversations and love for the community.
I was about to say that I think Sisko beginning the series as a commander is a great move because it establishes how much his grief derailed his life and "broke" him by the metrics of a Star Trek protagonist; but then I realized I can't remember those ideas ever really being explored. From day one, he just turns on his leadership abilities like Data activating or deactivating his emotion chip, and any richness I perceive in that backstory is mostly supplied by my imagination.
The first episode has him basically considering retiring from Starfleet as soon as he finishes this - as he believed - temporary assignment. And I guess you could assume that while he could easily be a captain, such promotion warrants getting a ship under command, something that Sisko definitely didn't want, given his family situation. Just like Riker, as seen in Best of Both Worlds, he's likely elligible for a promotion any time he wants, he just didn't want it.
Of course, that was never mentioned after the wormhole was discovered, so... yeah.
Yeah, that would have been an interesting area to explore. It's not hard to see that in the fact that he'd been in charge of the Utopia Planitia shipyards in the interim instead of in space, but you do have to read into it. And it all goes away as soon as he takes the job. I mean, sure, his encounter with the Prophets shifted his POV a great deal, still.
I like how the false visions Sisko experiences at the beginning of Season 7 act as an epilogue to Far Beyond The Stars.
Making the people telling Benny he's crazy for imagining the DS9 story be *actual evil demons* is a great capstone on the message.
Thanks!
16:50 if hes having an issie with Knight Rider in space, Inhope he doesn't think Steve was going to lean toward the Muppets PIGS IN SPACE! 😅
We need to remember that TOS is still a product of its time, hindsight from fifty years in the future is a wonderful thing.
Shaw is cool because the actor executed well, which is testament to how many people love him despite the fact that the character is by design 'everything wrong with the last 20 years of Starfleet'
Calling a hypothetical Seven show 'Knight Rider in Space' is like calling Star Trek 'Wagon Train in Space', does that guy know know what an elevator pitch is?
- Are you well
- No
-I'm so gradafied to here that.
-what? hey.
I feel compelled to point out that those who detransition, the overwhelming majority of those people report that they do so due to societal and familial pressures.
The rate of people who transition and remain that way is close to 98%.
Seriously. Just saying, the only times I ever question my own transition it's because our bassackwards society is so damn hard for trans people to live in sometimes. And I've never been one to let society dictate my choices to me.
That was a great way to describe why shows shouldn't "feel fanficcy". I too have read a lot of fanfiction (though not much for Trek). Fanfics can get away with doing things that should absolutely NEVER be done in any official media. First, fans ship everyone with everyone else. Second, fanfics can explore a lot of themes that official media would never possibly be able to do (for both writing and budgetary reasons). There are bad fanfics too sure, but there are some real diamonds in the rough that are amazing. But even a lot of the good fanfics I've read would NEVER work as official episodes.
Also, I don't see why anyone had any issue with your Knight Rider reference. You were clearly spinning an idea, and then you used a Knight Rider reference as a joke. People need to lighten up.
15:29 Remember when fan fic used to be called practice?
It's what you do while learning a discipline.
And it's called "discipline" because you're expected to discipline yourself into writing professionally.
As in, using structure and standards and learning rules first in order to create and world-build in a way that makes sense and isn't a meandering wishlist of kewel and rad things you've always wanted to see at various points in the lore.
You don't hand in your first draft of a story and story notes with tons of inaccuracies and spelling gaffes as your final and hope the copy editor or show runner doesn't notice.
"It is this random episode where nothing happens unrelated to the plot" is their claim yet they still like TOS/TNG/VOY even though that is basically what almost EVERY episode is!
What I mean is it's like so many other self contained, sci-fi story, bottle episodes. Holodeck malfunctions, or virus on the ship, or random planet adventure, or whatever. The only difference is the message is right there on surface...and some people don't like that message.
Before Knight Rider even existed, Don Bellisario pitched the concept of a talking automated vehicle/human pilot team in an episode of the original Battlestar Galactica, "The Long Patrol". So you could say we've already gotten "Knight Rider in Space".
Also previewed "Quantum Leap" with "Experiment on Terra"
@@richardhamburg7903 Indeed!
Wild- I’ve often been the first black person people have ever met
They’re surprised I’m so normal and not tv
That reaction tells me a lot
i am reminded of the pakleds calling every federation ship an enterprise 😂
Boimler: It's the Titan!
Pakled: It's another Enterprise!
The fun of "What I Would Do" is that you can rewrite the entire series in the case of Picard in your head, and the sad part is, that it's only in your head.
I mean, all the elements were there for a three-year arc of the final act of the Borg, the Queen, Data, and Picard with Seven of Nine being the main representative of the Legacy generation, inheriting all of what it means to be Starfleet. But it was presented so haphazardly that we never really got to see that except in blunt statements, and little action toward the idea. In the 3rd season, it became all about Jack Crusher, when it should have been about Seven of Nine due to her interaction with the Borg cube in Season 1.
The whole thing with Jurati and the transwarp tunnel could have been the lead-up to the coming of the Borg Queen--attracted by Seven's time in the cube, and yet, it was left off for possible future shows. (It might even still be there for Starfleet Academy for all we know). And while they could still have Jack in the show, that could've been a part of Season 2, and taken out the time travel part. Even the first episode where Picard talks of family and the future could've been about Jack and not an ancestor.
But, we got what we got, and will move on. But because of the disparity of the series and what they were trying to achieve, it's going to remain forgettable.
I (fairly casual ST fan) always assumed that the reason Sisko was a commander rather than a captain had something to do with the fact that DS9 isn’t a ship.
Grey's Alien Anatomy? SCIS Alpha Centuri? Space.. Suits?
I seriously think this universe is ripe for things other than running around among the stars. I can't imagine how to implement some of them but I suspect writers better than I am could pull it off. My favorite pitch is "Two Guys, a Girl, and a Replimat."
As long as "Two Guys, a Girl, and a Replimat" has Ryan Reynolds and Nathan Fillion, I'm in.@@rmdodsonbills
I really do like the parsley in the teeth metaphor because I’ve just turned 40 and looking back on my life I’ve definitely had to come to terms with my own sexism, racism, bigotry and entitlement and I really wish that when I was younger I could have had people around me in my life to point those things out. One of the best parts about watching this channel is seeing a recap of an episode I watched as a child and missed a lot of the messages in the show. On a subconscious level I think I knew they were there, I remember feeling uncomfortable watching the shows sometimes but I could never vocalise why. But I think it helped lay the foundations or sew the seeds of understanding and becoming a better person.
And now I want to hear Jeri Ryan say "engage super pursuit mode" in that commanding Seven of Nine voice.
Really? You are going to bring up Super Pursuit Mode? That hurts. lol
A lot of shows have the sort of knight rider theme going. If so then the mandalorian is basically knight rider in space
I would die to see a Trek episode where one of the main crew, or at least a common recurring character, is introduced having mood problems that get worse over a couple of episodes until the doctors realize the character is trans and everyone is just like, "Oh, thank God, that's all it is? I thought it was Luverian brain parasites! Shoot, the doctor can fix this on your next lunch break." Then a message goes out updating the crew to use the correct pronouns and everyone is just chill with it for the rest of the series.
Obviously you'd need to be careful not to sound dismissive, like bottom surgery will solve all the issues a trans person faces, but it could be done well.
OK - it's been a while, and I've never seen that collection behind you before. And ... THEY MAKE A TRALANE FIGURE?! Well _damn!_
Sisko being a commander is built in character development for when he gets promoted.
Regarding Seven: Fenris Ranger vs. Knightrider, a valid comparison would be Deep Space 9 to Babylon 5. The premise of the latter pair is essentially "important space station where drama happens". But they go in completely different directions. Similarly, the Seven: Fenris Ranger vs. Knightrider pair have similar premises, but could easily go in entirely different directions.
I think Sisko being a Commander in the beginning really serves the story. It underlines the assignment being kind of a forced one. They couldn't have pulled that with a captain. Taking orders from Picard, it just works.
My genuine response when I see a Trek Actually comment response video pop up in my RUclips notifications is “oh boy! Comment response time!”
I really enjoy these videos, for the thoughtful comments left by other viewers, Steve’s responses to them, especially when they bring up examples and points overlooked in the original videos, the jokes, from commenters and/or Steve, & the times when Steve gets the opportunity to rip apart a stupid thoughtless comment (with CLASS [imagine that word spoken by Marisa Tomei’s character in My Cousin Vinny]).
Keep up the good work, Steve!
I think Kira's position with the Dominion is even worse than collaboration... she's become an Appeaser.
Historical context, back when Hitler looked at the British Empire and saw that world wide colonies and explotation of Not British People had made the nation rich and affluent and said "Well why commit the resources of doing it to a far away land when there's perfectly good lands and peoples to exploit right here in Europe?" And began his expansionist efforts... and NO ONE wanted to fight him about it.
So they did everything BUT fight him about it at first. Treaties and negotiations and attempted placation until A Chunk Of Poland is the price of peace, and people in power still think a treaty is gonna stop this. If we just Negotiate A Bit Better, we can make it all go away. Certainly Something Will Satisfy Germany, And Then We Can Go Back To Brunch.
Once war broke out, Appeaser was a vile insult. It meant you'd been more than complacent, that you tried to *placate* the forces that we are now suffering under on a misguided idea that They Could Be Placated. Appeasers failed to listen when the Reich broadcasted their plans to the world and PRETENDED that a signed piece of paper and some territory changing hands was gonna make things stop when it just Made It So Much Worse By Giving Them What They Wanted Without A Fight.
Kira slowly realizing that *Bajor is in this, and cannot avoid being part of the field, and The People Of Bajor Cannot Stand For This* revives the part of her that KNOWS how this ends, that the longer the conflict is put off the stronger the Dominion's hand will be, and starts planning.
Star Trek already has its Knight Rider in Space; it’s Prodigy (and is amazing)
I know, the show was called Picard and that's why Picard's son was the MacGuffin rather than Seven, so I totally understood their reasons. That said, they could have developed something more for the audience to feel an attachment to his character if he's going to be that pivotal. I think most of us ended up caring even more for Captain Shaw than Jack Crusher, although we could anticipate that character's death coming light years before it arrived.
Many Intiraymi followed me during the first season of ST: PIC on Twitter after I said “Man they did Icheb dirty” & I followed back only to discover that he is profoundly weird
Y’know, I realize we’re all supposed to see Shaw’s refusal to call Seven by her chosen name as bigoted and unlikable, because hey, it’s just like deadnaming, boo. But if your preferred personal name is actually more like a rank designation in a military hostile to the one you’re serving in, and which by the way killed a bunch of your crewmates’ friends & family… I’m pretty sympathetic to a CO saying “absolutely not; pick literally anything else. “
I think Data had the best answer to this in season 2 of TNG, when he said "One of these is my name, and one is not."
Seven of Nine was the name she had when she regained her individual identity and sense of self, and "Annika Hansen" was someone she hadn’t been for decades before that.
@@snakebitcat Sure, of course. But diegetically Shaw would be perfectly justified in… just not giving a shit about any of that. At least not relative to the pretty reasonable principle of "we're not going to use enemy ranks as names on a military vessel."
@@normativeHe absolutely would not be justified in that. If someone went to war with a nation that had a different culture and then had to work with somebody who had a name from that culture would it be okay to force them to change? Absolutely not. He was just wrong in that and letting his pain justify him hurting others.
Plus; Even in the story Seven of Nine wouldn't be a "Rank", that's just how the Borg are grouped and named. He could see it that way, but that would still be him being a bigot and wrong, which he is.
@@thod8820 say it's 1963 and you're working at NASA with some former Nazis. Say one of them likes to be called by his Nazi rank and he says it's a harmless nickname. I would not be down with that.
@@burbanpoison2494 Seven of Nine isn't a rank though. It's just a number that differentiated her from the rest of her squad, so essentially the closest thing the Borg had to names. It had nothing to do with her responsibilities within the Collective. If she'd asked people to call her "Drone" you might have a point. But I still think I'd lean in her favor, because Drone could be intended as a chosen name based on her previous culture, whereas something like Reichsinspekteur would be obvious trolling.
As a navy vet who actively despised the ship I served on, if the navy had renamed it for any fucking reason I and most the crew would've come incredibly close to outright mutiny.
You. Do. Not. Change. A. Ship's. Name. Not without extreme extenuating circumstances.
I tend to make distinctions between fan fiction and fan wank, the latter referring to a sub category of fan fiction that is so self indulgent that it is unlikely to be of interest to anyone other than the author.
There’s also fix fic which refers to fiction that exists entirely to fix a problem (real or imagined) within the canon. Fix fic has a lot of overlap with continuity porn which is fiction that serves little if any purpose beyond explaining away continuity errors within canon.
I do sympathise with a lot of this frustration with continuity errors for the simple reason that it’s sloppy workmanship. I can even understand why people dream up their own little ways of fixing these errors, and I can further understand why people might share these ideas with other fans, however I seldom feel these ideas need to be made into stories.
Gene pitched the TOS literally as "Wagon Train' to the stars."
What's wrong with pitching a 7of9 series at "Knight Rider in space."
An interesting callback to Far Beyond the Stars is at the start of the final season when Sisko finds the Orb of the Emissary. The visions he has of being locked up in mental hospital, the doctor/Dahmar calls him Benny Russell. The visions are then explained as an attempt by the Pah-Wraiths to trick Sisko. It really drives home who are the bad guys in Far Beyond the Stars
Hey! I made the comment responses! I'm very proud.
Julian in the med bay, handing out gender affirming care like skittles. What a ledgend.
True facts tho if I could completely transition in the space of a lunch break I woulda done it years ago. I've attempted to get top surgery twice, and both times I got as far as the consult with the surgon only for no one to call me with an appointment, so I call them, hear the "Oops You Must Have Slipped Through The Cracks Speech, the doctor isn't in right now but..." and then wait another week for a phone call. Do that dance for a month, fall into the depression hole where I stop being a functional person, and then realize from that depression hole you're gonna have to start the process all over again because it's been nearly a year.
I'm so tired. I'm a 32DDD and deal with constant pain, but keep getting denied care because apperently the surgon decided my titties were more important than my well being x.x
After all, there were plenty of skittles to be had in the med bay. Until they glued the lids down.
Captain and Commander are both titles and ranks. Hence Captain Boobob may be Commander of Starbase Whoohah and Commander Boobob is Captain of the Starship Whoohah. A quick google of naval rank will help those who don’t know why they’re using particular titles as the Great Bird of the Galaxy based Starfleet rank on US Navy rank.
With respect to the fanfic discussion: I think people need to remember that criticism of work is NOT criticism of the person. If you want to truly improve your craft, you need to be willing to take a beating of your work. Good constructive criticism is worth its weight in gold-press latinum. In my youth I wrote science fiction short stories and it took a lot of looking to find critique groups to actually give you those beatings to improve your craft.
"Far Beyond The Stars" is peak Trek, and Sisko is the best captain. Fight me. 😁
On the topic of Shaw after his redemption I do wish he had lived because I would have enjoyed an entire show with him on it. So it is too bad but I understand why they had to wrap up his story arc completely.
I had a conversation about this very thing with a friend of mine who is in our 70s and I’m in my 60s. And we’re both very frustrated with the quality of writing in books and TV and movies today because everything‘s written at a fifth grade level. Years ago, I could read things that were written for young adults, but they were written for adults now it seems like everything’s written for young adults who never completely grew up out of being children.
Fanfic. On Ao3 you can find fic that reads like a 13yo wrote it but honestly, most of the fic there is/has been written by adults, who obviously have different levels of writing ability. But not all fanfic is immature.
The highest praise I ever got for my Voyager fic about Sevantha was fans saying they wish I could've written for the show. They're wrong as I was working with benefit of over 15 years of hindsight, but I appreciated it nonetheless. :)
@@arklestudiosoutside of smut (and to an extent within it) I am looking for writers who make me feel like they have a window into that time space continuum.
I just want Seven’s Ranger ship to have a poster of The Hoff in her quarters. She could talk to him like Steve talks to Riker.
And the ship would reply in the Hoff's voice?😁
I'll see myself out. 😕
Love all your Steve Shives videos.
👍👍👍👍😎😎😎😎
You know, for a video made with 'minimum effort', you had some interesting points to make in reply to posters comments, especially to do with "Far Beyond The Stars".
In "Trouble with Tribbles" the person in charge of Station K-7 was Commander Lurry. He was played by a White Actor.
31:30 had that same feeling in elementary school, I was the only former USSR Ashkenazi Jew in a classroom full of Mizrachi and Ethiopian Jews.
These comment response videos always highlight what I consider one of your best qualities: being open to and receptive of feedback and (constructive) criticism.
Thank you for that.
If DS9 and Voyager were released today, they would scream that it is woke DEI hires. That's what some said at the time, though the racism and misogyny were thinly cloaked with the use of PC instead of woke and DEI. New paint, same intolerance.
"theres nowhere for bigots to hide in the 24th century" that's a line im sad has somehow never been said in a star trek episode
@@ummacnaiTo be fair I was paraphrasing a comment that Steve had read out in his video.
Props for mentioning I/P in the terrorism convo. Amazing how this is still relevant. Terrorism isn't just people being mean for no reason. When you treat people like dogs, like vermin, when you give them nothing to live for and nothing to lose, terrorism happens. It's entirely foreseeable. And, just as DS9 depicted some of Kira's past actions as dubious, the terrorist acts in themselves, when they kill civilians, are awful never justified. But they happen for a reason, and if you want them to stop, you remove the reason.
While I think it’s important to realize that terrorists can be the result of oppression, I think it’s a mistake to simplistically equate that with “terrorism is our fault and all we need to do is not be oppressive.” When an incel goes and shoots a room full of people, should my takeaway as a woman be, “oh gosh, guess I shouldn’t have denied that guy sex?”
There are a lot of ways people end up in a position to do awful and violent things. Most of them have some emotionally understandable motive at their heart - I do believe that incels are genuinely hurting, for instance - but not every act of terrorism can be attributed directly to the weak being oppressed by the powerful, or can be easily solved by just Not Doing That. Sometimes terrorists are really just awful people having disproportionate responses to the world around them.
Exactly, though my mind went to ISIS, or the January 6th insurrection dickheads. Now, I mean, to be fair, they'd probably stop being terrorists if everyone agreed to just let them have their caliphate/put Trump back in the White House, but that's because they'd have the power and authority of a state and we don't generally call those actors terrorists, not because they'd stop being bad people or doing bad things.
I have to say I disagree. Terrorists are people with political agendas that are in opposition to a dominant socioeconomic formation. Murderers are people who kill for their own fucked up personal reasons. Dylan Roof is a racist, incel, murderer. Osama bin Laden is a terrorist fighting western imperialism.
This perspective is deeply flawed. The argument has nothing to do with the point being made and the reasoning is based in ignorance
I was around when DS9 first aired late teens I think when it started?
Either way, I completely missed any sense of 'black guy can't be a captain' in terms of pop culture reaction, presumably thanks to there being no internet to speak of. To me, lead guy was just... lead guy. I can't say I even noticed his rank, or his eventual promotion, let alone his skin colour. I don't mean "oh I'm such a saint, I'm colour blind" or whatever, Just... well, Sisko was in charge so respect the chair sort of thing. I just sort of accepted that especially as Cardassian shitfuckery towards the B'jorans was a solid distraction anyway.
In fact, I don't recall that I particularly noted Sisko's actual blackness until FBTS - when obviously it was a large part of the point, and I spent 45 minutes with my hand over my mouth in horror and tears in my eyes at just how good the performances were.
The relief I felt when we got back to "reality" was really palpable.
While I don't always agree with you Steve, your points are always carefully and logically articulated. Not sure how someone got "I hate new things, I hate seeing old things" from your videos, but then some people miss that Star Trek is left-wing so 🤷
Steve: "How much of a racist a-hole do you have to be to be upset about a [fictional ] black space station captain?"
I glance over at WH40K fans upset about female Custodes (?) characters. Yep. It's still around.
The difference being that there's nothing in Trek canon that implies that black captains were never a part of Starfleet.
Retired Navy here, regarding Sisko's being a Commander instead of a Captain. In the Navy, if you are in charge of a smaller command (submarine 👍, destroyer, etc) you start off as a Commander. Then if your tour is successful, you can be promoted to Captain at the end. Still get called Captain the whole time because the Navy can't stand to keep things simple. I can totally understand that most people wouldn't know about that though, and possibly even the writers didn't know that either
would love to see your HR character deal with Star Trek's tendency to name/rename ships as references to other ships. maybe a guide on how to read a CV? "now you might think that this person had a job transition here, because they went from working on the Titan to the Enterprise. well, you'd be wrong. some asshole decided to change the name, so now I need to know for my daily job duties that these are the same ship."
With fanfic vs professional writing - No matter the age of the writer, the motivations are different. And that doesn't necessarily make fanfic _worse_ but it does mean that it gets _weird_ when things on screen feels like fanfic.
(What makes - most - fanfic (and non-fanfic amateur fiction published online for free) worse than - most - professional writing, even when the fanfic writer is experienced rather than the early days of my writing of it a couple of decades back is that most fanfic authors can't afford the rigorous editing process with external editors that professional writing is meant to get, meaning there isn't as much opportunity to polish the, no matter how many editing passes the fanfic author does)
What gets fascinating as a reader (or viewer in the case of the work I've gotten into recently) is when the motivation shifts and what was once a fan work that happens to have entirely OCs starts to turn into an original IP that happens to share a genre. Because even when there isn't a shift in quality, you can kind of feel it when that happens. And by gods if you're not watching it in production order that shift can produce turbulence in the viewing experience. "Oh... This earlier season is clearly a fanwork whereas the first season I watched just happened to share a genre... Huh."
Hey, Steve, I got the "The Odd Couple" reference. Don't feel bad.
Closest I have ever being to be a Black person in America? A driving while Black incident. The cheer fear that emenated from my friends was... eye opening to say the very least.
On your fan fiction topic: as soon as fan fiction does not feel as fan fiction any more, it might be stuff fit for a show...
I've read some Game of Thrones fanfic that was *way* better than what they aired for the last few seasons, sooo...
On sisko's rank, I think from an in-fiction point of view it's quite surprising that the commander of Deep Space Nine isn't an admiral. We previously saw admirals in charge of large starbases on the show, and the fact that outside of wartime federation ships don't really travel in fleets kind of relegates admirals to desk jobs during peacetime. And at the outset of the show this particular starbase is a little beyond the federation's border at a potential flashpoint for a future war, and is positioned to be a major diplomatic posting over the next several years as the federation pursues the goal of convincing the Bajorans to join the federation. Admirals in Star Trek tend to serve more as foils and narrative devices and they might not have wanted to surrender those plot levers, but admirals still have commanders so it's not an insurmountable issue. You could just look at it as purely a difference in word choice but I feel that if they had decided to make Sisko an Admiral it might have slightly changed how they handled some stuff in the show, particularly around the Dominion War in unique ways.
Obviously it changed, but the first season or two the fact that DS9 is also pretty clearly underfunded and understaffed shows it wasn't seen as very important to Star Fleet. Maybe later on... but well it's a tv show, replacing Sisko with an admiral at that point wouldn't be any fun.
Shaw seemed like one of your Starfleet characters (lawyer, HR etc).
I really liked him ;)
Sisko writing his own trials in the past present and future was always obvious to me even as a black boy decades ago
Surprised you missed it, as old as you (we)are
If KITT lands on planets like the 58 Corvette sequence from the film Heavy Metal, then I'm all in! 🎶 Radar... Rider. Radar... Rider. 🎶
I vicariously love these. Eat'em up, Mr. Shives. "People say dumb shit on the internet, but jokes on them, cause I've got the microphone!"
If I was the only white guy in an ethnic restaurant (Mexican, Asian, Creole, what-have-you), I would probably experience the same flash of insight as you... I would also think "This is probably a dang good restaurant!"
Just as an aside, white people have ethnicities too. White folks are also ethnic.
It happens a fair bit where I live in central California.
7:04 The flip side of Shaw not calling Seven by her chosen name is Seven's lack of understanding of Shaw's PTSD regarding the Borg, and how referring to a crewmember with a Borg name brings back all that trauma. Seven understood it as a personal attack against her. Shaw was doing his best to manage his own trauma.
I'd watch Kitt in Space heck throw in the Hoff with long ears, let's go.
5 bucks Steve's version of "parsley in your teeth" is "your flies' unzipped"
@@richardvinsen2385 One apostrophe too many, one "are" too few.
Star Wars Interview - Firmus Piett, interviewing for the CIO of Security on Axxila Prime.
Thank you for joining us today, Firmus Piett. You are interviewing today for the open position that we have in the Security Department here on Axxila. After reviewing your resume, you were a former Admiral in the Imperial Navy? "Yes."
What are your greatest strengths/weaknesses? "I'm a very experienced and able officer, as you can see on my resume. That would be my greatest strength. Weaknesses? Well, I hate working with bounty hunters. I just like to know where a person's loyalties lie before I work with them."
How would your previous co-workers describe you? "I was Admiral Kendal Ozzel's personal confidant on many occasions as he was my superior before I served as Admiral on the Executor. He would describe me as loyal, dead pan and blunt at times, but with a dark sense of humor."
Tell me something about yourself that isn’t on your resume. "Well, I have excellent survival skills, that's for sure. In one such incident in the past, I was serving as Fleet Admiral in the Imperial Navy when a fighter pilot actually, purposefully flew into the bridge of the Executor, causing the Executor to veer out of control and crash into Death Star II. To this day, I can't believe my luck, but I was able to fall off the dias, scramble off the bridge and get out in an escape pod. I thought I did pretty well all of those years serving Lord Vader and the Emperor directly."
Tell me about a past difficult work situation. How did you overcome it? "Lord Vader had replaced Admiral Ozzel and Captain Viett, and I had only just began to serve under him, and there was this particular incident when we were in orbit over Bespin near one of their mining colonies. Lord Vader specifically directed me to deactivate the hyper-drive on a contraband YT freighter. My team did it - I verified the order myself - but in a key moment, the ship got away to hyper-drive as we were readying our tractor beam. I was frozen in shock, and to this day, I have no idea how that happened. But Lord Vader kept me as Admiral, and I overcame my daily fear at first by indulging in my lifetime love of Axxilian Negronis, but I'm happy to say that I'm 3 years sober."
Describe a time when you had to work with someone whose personality or work style was very different from yours. "Lord Vader was a very curious fellow at times. One time I even saw him without his helmet, although it was from the rear, but he seemed to have a barely controlled rage about him, and you always had to remain on your toes and be as punctual as possible with him. I demanded a great deal of preparation from my team during that time to have the most flexibility for anything to happen, and to be ready for any order to be given. I basically did whatever he told me."
Very well! When can you start? "Today." You will receive a salary that will be on par with an average position of CIO of Security earnings in the Core Worlds, but there will be room for bonuses and incentives. "I'll take it."
Excellent. Here's a uniform. "Thank you."
29:30 YES EXACTLY! "They" always will quip with what does that have to fo with anything, like tossing back at the Bible thumpers the likes of Nunbers 5 or 31 or pointing to long held policies some under the guise of Zoning laws with redlining certain zipcodes and of course our fair financial system of variable rates offered for two different people with the exact same education and wealth but one just seems to have a much higher interest rate for some reason we just cant seem to qualify. 🤔
11:26 it's probably not their intent but in Japan family owned businesses often adopt someone into their family so that the new CEO has the same surname that's why every CEO of Toyota is always a Toyota family member. As for renaming a ship that is against naval traditions
To clarify I think that the Enterprise is the flagship of Starfleet and always will be much the same way whatever fixed wing aircraft the US president is on is always Air Force One
I was literally just thinking yesterday how your comment response videos are a smart idea because instead of just replying in comments like most creators, it lets you create more content for your channel. So I'm glad to see at the beginning of this video your honest, serious self-assessment confirming this.
They didn't need to kill Shaw to give him a closed arc. The set up is there with him helping rewire the Titan's engines and him fanboying over Geordi. Just have him decide he misses engineering and request a transfer to the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. Which fans of the SCE novels would've appreciated I'm sure.
Shaw going from his survivor's guilt over Wolf 359 causing him to treat Seven badly to accepting her and sacrificing himself to allow her to defeat the Borg was a beautiful arc that I felt was done really well.
11:37 "Steve, it's the 21st Century, stop making old references to Felix and Oscar from The Odd Couple; a show made in the 1970s after the first airing of the original Star Trek series which spawned a massive franchise that your video series talks about."
I'mma be honest, Felix and Oscar, I have no flipping clue. I shrug and move on.
That's what Wikipedia is for!
*_Update:_*_ this is, as far as five minutes of research can tell, completely wrong_
I thought the objection to Sisko being a Captain (at the series start) was strictly a naval / nomenclature one-if you're in charge of a base, you're a commander, only people in charge of ships are captains-which is why he got the promotion when we got the Defiant.
Not defending it-it's the 24th century! They can make up whatever ranks they want! But I know some of the writers (RDM, for instance) really care about those nitpicks.
Yes, this was my understanding as well. Also I always like when characters get a promotion in a Show. It implies the the world, characters etc. are progressing.
Upon further research: I am not sure how I got this idea in my head-US naval bases are commanded by O-6 officers (aka Captains), and besides-Sisko wasn't promoted for a _full year_ after the assignment of the Defiant.
Leaving up the original comment as to document my ignorance-hopefully enough people click through to see the claim debunked.
“Only people in charge of ships are captains” hasn’t really ever been true of the naval rank.
In U.S. navy, for example, it’s equivalent to a colonel.
Even back in the age of sail, youd have Commanders (or ‘Master and Commander’) or even lieutenants “captaining” ships, as well as temporary higher ranks like commodores.
perhaps you’re thinking of the term the crew/staff might use in talking (with the definite article in front), when referring to the one in charge: “the captain” of a ship, which could be one of several ranks, or “the commander” of a base similarly doesn’t have to be of commander rank.
In other words you could be on a navy ship and refer to “the captain” of the ship whose rank is not Captain and same re: base and “the commander”
@@GSBarlevah, you corrected it as I was typing my reply. Cheers! :)
There is a gradient to Star Trek's morality episodes. IMO Star Trek is at its best when its messages aren't beating you over the head. They make an allegory and let the audience connect the dots to the real-world equivalent. Let the audience ruminate on where this applies in the real world, it makes us/them feel at least somewhat clever. The more Star Trek beats you over the head the more it comes across as preachy. I don't think the Sisko episode qualifies in this regard, even if it is a bit heavy handed. I think about Star Trek Discovery - if they did an episode like this you would probably see Burnham straight up turn to the camera and say "Racism bad, okay? Racism bad".
Edit: Admittedly, the flip side to this argument is that there are a surprising number of conservatives who watched/loved Star Trek who now call it woke when it always was. I guess those morality messages were flying straight over their heads. So maybe we do need a main character to turn to the camera and explain racism bad.
Ira Behr said, during the DS9 documentary, that people shouldn't get too comfortable with the show. I think Trek is at its best when it makes people (particularly those used to seeing Trek as comfort food) uncomfortable with its progressive messages.
There is something ironic about Shaw dying on the Titan to help Picard only to end up having his ship be renamed in honor of Picard. I’m hoping we get Shaw’s ghost back to chase Picard around.
13-year-old me would have gone crazy to have Star Trek: Knight Rider in Space.
I get the theories on Sisko's rank during the first half of the series.
I personally thought it was cool to see a Captain rank earned in real time rather than in either flashbacks or told via exposition. Like as if we were on the ride with Sisko, serving with him.
It was the first time seeing that & what makes him stick out from most Captains besides ...half the Discovery Cast.
"It's not a _ripoff_ of Knight Rider ... it's an *_homage"_*
Yeah, weren't they originally going to have Alexander Siddig play the lead? Then they thought him TOO young, and went with Avery Brooks. I think i remember hearing that somewhere.
Having lived through the Troubles (admittedly in mainland Britain which made it easier) I actually like that with Kira they demonstrated how hard simply stopping being a terrorist can be.
There were problems of her making that others wouldn't have because she was and now shouldn't be.
The Circle was a nice touch too.
I have a trans friend. She doesn't use, or like the whole "assigned male at birth" terminology. Because it's goes back to what George Carlin said about euphemistic language, "changing the name of the condition doesn't change the condition". She will outright say that her body is male, while her mind/brain/'sense of self", whatever you want to call it, is female...because that's the entire problem, that's what being a trans woman means. She's known since she was 8 years old. This can actually be detected on things like brain scans, there are elements of the scan that will show the same as a female brain. She is considering surgery at some point but isn't completely set on it, simply because of the risks involved. We don't have the technology to fully flip the body gender. Sure there are a lot of things we can do to help. HRT is a big help of course. And surgery DOES help in a lot of cases, it's just risky. And of course we should always try to continue developing new ways to help trans people. But neither my friend, nor I (as a normal cis white guy) like using euphemistic language to try to deny or change the condition.
I saw Icheb's death in Picard prior to watching (very recently) the late seasons of Voyager. I had no idea that Icheb appeared in so many episodes. While he's not a loveable character, I had assumed, from the way he was killed off, that he was a one-off or throwaway character that only Voyager superfans would remember. So yeah, even though Voyager is even less good than I expected, and I'm not a big Icheb fan, I am retroactively kinda grossed out by how they treated the character. Oh well... btw I forgot there was a character called Bejayzul. WTF!
I'm pretty sure my biggest irritation with Shaw dying is that the character had great moments and a wonderfully detailed growth arc, which shows that the writers were capable. It's the brightest shining star in the Dog Turd nebula. Leaving Shaw alive would be an empty promise for more wonderful moments for him from him/future writers.
I'm totally writing that Knight Rider in space since you said it Steve!
As for couples; they may never have been nor likely will ever be a couple, but I always did ship Boimler and Mariner. Opposites attract sort of thing.
"these videos involve no labour from me" - he says putting a collosal effort into creating another one of these intro jokes