TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name

3781 readers

1220 users here now

/c/TenFoward: Your home-away-from-home for all things Star Trek!

Re-route power to the shields, emit a tachyon pulse through the deflector, and post all the nonsense you want. Within reason of course.

~ 1. No bigotry. This is a Star Trek community. Remember that diversity and coexistence are Star Trek values. Any post/comments that are racist, anti-LGBT, or generally "othering" of a group will result in removal/ban.

~ 2. Keep it civil. Disagreements will happen both on lore and preferences. That's okay! Just don't let it make you forget that the person you are talking to is also a person.

~ 3. Use spoiler tags. This applies to any episodes that have dropped within 3 months prior of your posting. After that it's free game.

~ 4. Keep it Trek related. This one is kind of a gimme but keep as on topic as possible.

~ 5. Keep posts to a limit. We all love Star Trek stuff but 3-4 posts in an hour is plenty enough.

~ 6. Try to not repost. Mistakes happen, we get it! But try to not repost anything from within the past 1-2 months.

~ 7. No General AI Art. Posts of simple AI art do not 'inspire jamaharon'

~ 8. No Political Upheaval. Political commentary is allowed, but please keep discussions civil. Read here for our community's expectations.

Fun will now commence.

Sister Communities:

!startrek@lemmy.world

!memes@lemmy.world

!tumblr@lemmy.world

!lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world

Want your community to be added to the sidebar? Just ask one of our mods!

Honorary Badbitch:

@jawa21@startrek.website for realizing that the line used to be "want to be added to the sidebar?" and capitalized on it. Congratulations and welcome to the sidebar. Stamets is both ashamed and proud.

Creator Resources:

Looking for a Star Trek screencap? (TrekCore)

Looking for the right Star Trek typeface/font for your meme? (Thank you @kellyaster for putting this together!)

founded 10 months ago

MODERATORS

Stamets@lemmy.world

FlyingSquid@lemmy.world

The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world

The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website

negativenull@lemmy.world

191

I've got a spicy take, but desperately want to get it off my chest (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by Ashyr@sh.itjust.works to c/tenforward@lemmy.world

102 comments fedilink hide all child comments

My wife and I are rewatching The Next Generation and just finished Measure of a Man, the episode in season 2 in which Data’s personhood is legally debated and his life hangs in the balance.

I genuinely found this episode infuriating in its stupidity. It’s the first episode we skipped even a little bit. It was like nails on a chalkboard.

There is oodles of legal precedent that Data is a person. He was allowed to apply to Starfleet, graduated, became an officer and rose to the rank of Lt. Commander with all the responsibilities and privileges thereof.

Comparing him to a computer and the judge advocate general just shrugging and going to trial over it is completely idiotic. There are literal years and years of precedent that he’s an officer.

The problem is compounded because Picard can’t make the obvious legal argument and is therefore stuck philosophizing in a court room, which is all well and good, but it kind of comes down to whether or not Data has a soul? That’s not a legal argument.

The whole thing is so unbelievably ludicrous it just made me angrier and angrier. It wasn’t the high minded, humanistic future I’ve come to know and love, it was a kangaroo court where reason and precedent took a backseat to feeling and belief.

I genuinely hated it.

To my surprise, in looking it up, I discovered it’s considered one of the high water marks for the entire show. It feels like I’m taking crazy pills.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] thessnake03@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

In hindsight, there's a book that sort of covers Data early career, or at least what he was doing when Picard met him. The main focus of the book is Picard's time before the Enterprise. https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/The_Buried_Age

Noone is sure what to make of Data at that point. He is doing some computer database management stuff at some remote location and is content to just do that. Picard shows him how to have aspirations for more.

Starfleet never really thought or cared about Data's needs or wants, let alone sentience, until Maddox wanted to vivisect him