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What are the biggest red flags when talking with a Trek "fan"?
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this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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Risa
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It's a massive, massive red flag when someone goes the "Terran Empire/Section 31 did nothing wrong" route.
It's very common in zone chat on Star Trek Online. Some fascists just hang around Earth Spacedock all day there, posting nonstop fascist screeds, and if they're ever actually out in their ships, without fail it's "ISS" prefix with names like "AYN RAND."
Disclaimer: Yes some people play bad guys in their games, but I don't think just playing the part involves hours-long rants about why the (slurs here) need to be wiped out in zone chats.
EDIT: I think I'll add "fervent Discovery apologists, especially ones that stan for space fascists after contrived apology arcs," if only because of their repeated tendency to feel very smart to the point of undue arrogance about contrived "what if mass murdering dictators... actually good once the protagonist buddies up with them?" bad writing cliches.
Discovery bringing Georgiou back in season 2 as a Section 31 agent felt to me like the show was doing this, and is what put me off that show specifically. I really like the majority of modern Trek shows, and even like 2 out of 3 of the Kelvin timeline movies.
Georgiou eventually turned on her S31 superiors, joined the Discovery crew, and tried to make the Mirror Universe better when the Guardian (sort of) gave her the opportunity.
Space Hitler felt kind of bad about some things and made some space friends and promises to make the next Space Reich a little nicer. No need for Space Nuremburg, for real.
So what about any of that screams "the Terran Empire did nothing wrong" to you? Or would you rather keep deflecting?
I wasn't talking about you in particular, nor was I making the connection to that character when I was talking about red flags until you forcibly made it for me.
Read again. I was talking about people posting sometimes hours-long screeds in public zone chat channels in an online game about how badly they want to exterminate undesirables, that also happen to almost universally identify with the Terran Empire or Section 31 between such rants.
Because you went off into the weeds to make excuses for a specific character, I did happen to roll my eyes at the "the mass murdering dictator is sorry and that somehow means she is okay now, feeling bad and promising to be nicer rebalances the scales in a way that karmically un-kills everyone she murdered" argument, though it was a different topic and wasn't even connected to what I was saying about toxic fans (and the actual topic brought up in this thread).
Spare me the catty Reddit zingers.
Cool cool, you're just inserting irrelevant comments into a discussion I was having with someone else.
Truly dazzling.
Are you continuing to believe that your sidetrack fandom-driven defensiveness had much to do with what I was talking about to begin with, even after I answered your still-silly and increasingly-off topic claim that a character feeling bad and promising to do better somehow un-does the atrocities she did before?
I'm not going to congratulate you for your favorite bad writing cliche.
Hey look, the guy who broke the land speed record on the way to Godwin has thoughts on cliches!
https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/i-created-godwins-law-in-1990-but-it-wasnt-a-prediction-it-was-a-warning/
Do you have anything else to add but more seething rage? You brought up Godwin's law first there. Was that because of some guilty conscience about the edgy contrarian character cliches you stan for that needs to be buried under more smug Reddity zingers?
I really doubt they were taking their other conversation that seriously and I don't think you need to either
Scroll up.
See how they reacted to my mirthful humor-intended comment, meme face and all, about the dubiousness of the writer-contrived "reformed" character mentioned.
Play enlightened mediator all you want but you responded to my post in particular, 16 hours later.
\
This does not read as mirthful, it just seems like a mean-spirited, dismissive misrepresentation of their position . Sorry for bringing up what you said yesterday
To me, neither does this:
Hypocrisy is super common among people that wave around pretenses of enlightened mediation, so I'm not surprised. Playing the "mean spirited" card while selectively ignoring the escalating petty hostility from the other poster isn't surprising either.
I'd rather just move on. If some edgy fan wants to stan for edgy characters from what might be the worst of recent Trek shows, I can't stop them. What I said about what I see as red flags is only highlighted by that exchange, and will further advise me any time I see another edgy fan stanning for the Terran Empire or the like.
Their reply was after your facetious comment with the meme face. Have you considered they were trying to meet your energy?
All of this hinges on your belief that my meme-faced comment, loaded with space-this and space-that word choices, was insufficiently mirthful.
You're taking this exchange way too seriously.
That's OK. You should really consider if your comments are being misunderstood as dismissive instead of "mirthful" and how you can clarify that. Can always be better at communicating
Take your own advice there. You have failed to persuade me and have come across as condescending and sanctimonious while also obviously picking a side while pretending to be a neutral mediator.
No.
I originally wrote, as per the OP, about what I saw as red flags with Trek fans, and that exchange (and this one) have only reinforced how I feel about Terran Empire and Section 31 stans and apologists, no matter how an edgy character in Discovery might have felt bad after the fact after making some friends.
Ok, I do! I never meant to be neutral, I just thought you were getting worked up over a misunderstanding. Good luck with being mirthful and dazzling and all
You keep replying, all while trying to emphasize how very not mad you surely are with your passive aggressive fuming.
The point of this thread was red flags from toxic fans. You're only signaling your exceptional toxicity to me, reinforcing how I feel about Terran Empire/Section 31 apologists, and all for... what?
And you keep doing it after your zero-self-awareness sniveling about bad communication. I hope you're part of Trump's election campaign because I really, really want to see him lose.
I'll fume and snivel and won't insinuate your irritation the whole way to making sure trump loses 🫡
Your ongoing "not mad" passive aggression and last word game is reinforcing how I feel about toxic Trek fans that stan for the Terran Empire.
Well that doesn't make sense, I only like the mirror universe and section 31 as fun style breaks in ds9. Go niners!
Yet you're still here, your last word game continues, and you can have it because you're added yourself and your concern trolling, with distinction, to the toxic fans that I've already mentioned are red flags to me.
Now, get your last words in and congratulate yourself for wasting your time making me more convinced in how I feel about toxic fans like yourself.
I think they brought her back in an attempt to backpedal the absolute fucking disaster that was season 1. I honestly enjoy Discovery as sci-fi, but when I rewatch Season 1 I can't shake the feeling they took another IPs pilot and stretched Star Trek over it like a horrible skinsuit.
It had exactly the opposite effect for me. I greatly disliked season 1 of Discovery but thought they wrapped it up well enough at the end of the season that they could move on. Georgiou showing back up in season 2 read to me as them having learned absolutely nothing and doubling down on the disaster rather than backpedaling from it.
I was generous, even patient, with Strange New Worlds and enjoyed it for the most part, if only because it was not Discovery and its tiresome contrarian "what if evil people... adorable scamps? What if everyone is kind of an asshole? What if moral ambiguity makes the audience feel very very smart while justifying whatever the writers want to show without feeling bad about it?"
I like Strange New Worlds. Very much hoping they complicate the Gorn cliffhanger they left the last season off with though.
It was an experience explaining to my wife (who only watched SNW and Lower Decks and The Orville and only knew about TOS from secondhand sources) that Kirk would totally strike a truce with the Gorn... and that's why some of them were just chilling, having a nice wedding in Lower Decks that Rutherford rudely interrupted.
Your wife has watched 3/4 of the good modern Trek series and should watch Prodigy. (and the TNG era Treks)
She lost interest after the first episodes of Prodigy, but I may try again sometime. I heard good things and it's better to watch new shows together.
It's very good and only gets better as it goes on. Season 2 was fantastic.
Yo, if you don't mind a bit of the Clone Wars getting in your Trek, Prodigy is a fantastic watch, Admiral Janeway is in the running for my favorite Star Fleet officer.
Well, section 31 did save the whole alpha quadrant from the Dominion....
If you believe there was no possible way to do that without an unaccountable space CIA, believe what you will.
If you're not also posting real-life extermination apologia in public zone chats in online games on the side, good enough for me.
Nah genocide isn't my jam... But yes, I believe the Dominion war wouldn't have ended without the virus. The Dominion would have just kept sending ships and Jem'Hadar from the Gamma quadrant.
Edit: btw I dislike the way DIS "unshrouded" section 31. It was much cooler in DS9 where we were left to wonder whether it actually existed or not, or it was just Sloane being godlike in his manipulation skills.
Of course, because it's fiction, and whatever the writer says is the only solution winds up being the necessary solution. That's why torture provides useful and accurate information and is necessary in "24" and why poisoning an entire planetary population is necessary with no other options presented as possible for the sake of interstellar peace in DS9.
The problem is in carrying that implied (intentional or not) message away from the fiction and holding it as real-life wisdom instead of a work of fiction with its own convenient Thermian Arguments to justify pretty much anything the writer wants to justify.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxV8gAGmbtk
Every captain gets a little genocide, as a treat.