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The General Star Trek Thread of Earl Grey Tea, Baseball, and KHHHAAAANNNN

C

Cheerilee

Member
Kimaka said:
I don't think he hid so much as he refused to acknowledge that he was the bad guy. It was always hilarious watching his scenes with Kira because he keeps trying to get her approval and to get her to say that is a good man and tried his best during his occupation despite doing nothing to stop it and taking multiple Bajoran women as concubines. His warped view of his actions was always there but didn't come out until Waltz and later episodes which sadly slipped into cartoony territory.
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To be fair, the Occupation had been going on for decades and racking up a multitude of atrocities well before Dukat was even born, and he grew up in a propaganda-fueled society that told him this was right.

And then as soon as he gains any real power (not nearly enough power to end the Occupation, in fact he's still being pressured to maintain production),
he decides that he wants to be the hero of Bajor, so he cuts their brutal forced-labor quota in half, ends child labor, and improves their food and medical treatment. All obviously great things, and against everything he has been taught.

And the Resistance responds to his gesture by killing 200 Cardassians on the one-month anniversary of Dukat's appointment. A direct spit in the face of Dukat and his gift. It didn't matter what Dukat did for Bajor, after everything that "Cardassians" had done to them, they were simply unwilling to accept any Cardassian hero. That he would even try to help them was an insult. They refused to let him be the hero. So he was twisted into a villain.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
Cheerilee said:
To be fair, the Occupation had been going on for decades and racking up a multitude of atrocities well before Dukat was even born, and he grew up in a propaganda-fueled society that told him this was right.

And then as soon as he gains any real power (not nearly enough power to end the Occupation, in fact he's still being pressured to maintain production),
he decides that he wants to be the hero of Bajor, so he cuts their brutal forced-labor quota in half, ends child labor, and improves their food and medical treatment. All obviously great things, and against everything he has been taught.

And the Resistance responds to his gesture by killing 200 Cardassians on the one-month anniversary of Dukat's appointment. A direct spit in the face of Dukat and his gift. It didn't matter what Dukat did for Bajor, after everything that "Cardassians" had done to them, they were simply unwilling to accept any Cardassian hero. That he would even try to help them was an insult. They refused to let him be the hero. So he was twisted into a villain.
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Yeah Dukat's a jerk and a creep, but he's definitely the most sympathetic villain we've ever had in Star Trek. Dukat was too inflexible to admit that he still carried out atrocities, and Kira and co. were all to willing to always have the Cardassians be The Bad Guys.

It's a shame they turned him into plain crazy religious nutjob at the end.
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Damar needed more set up early on once he was introduced. Dukat was irredeemable, and I think any attempt to go there with his character would have been silly.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
DrForester said:
Damar needed more set up early on once he was introduced. Dukat was irredeemable, and I think any attempt to go there with his character would have been silly.
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lastplayed said:
As much as I like Damar, it would've been cool had Dukat taken his place instead. It would have been a nice wrap up for the character.
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I don't think Dukat needed to be redeemed. So what, he's a jerk, and depending on your definition, a war criminal. But I think there would have been something pretty interesting about him dying to save Cardassia and essentially getting the recognition and glory he wanted without being able to enjoy it.

Are you really going to argue that "he gets surgery, sleeps with the nun, gets possessed by ghosts and tumbles into the fire pit" was a fitting end?
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
I actually thought the Pah-Wraith angle made a lot of sense. Here is a man at the top, and his entire world is ruined when Sisko gets the prophets to intervene. Dukat's life is ruined by them, it makes sense he would seek out their enemies and ally himself with them.

Now the stuff with Kai Win could have been improved, if not all out removed.
 
L

lastplayed

Member
Exactly. I don't think it would have been a complete redemption. It just seems a more fitting arc than what happened to him in the end, which was completely insane.
 
C

Cheerilee

Member
Thinking about Dukat, there was that episode where the station went on lockdown, and I think that revealed some major backstory on Dukat/Garak.

Dukat's father may or may not have been a traitor. Dukat says that his father's only mistake was trusting Garak, but was Dukat's father really a criminal, or was the government "testing" the depths of his patriotism? In our modern, human society, entrapment is illegal, but I doubt the same holds true on Cardassia.

Then Dukat's father was brought to court, but we know that Cardassian court isn't there to determine guilt or innocence, you're already automatically guilty by the time you reach court, and it's not "guilty until proven innocent", there is simply no defense for you, full stop. The purpose of Cardassian court is for you to beg for nonexistent mercy, and to provide propaganda for the masses.

Then Garak tortured and killed Dukat's father. Dukat eventually tried to exact vengeance on Garak, but failed and moved on with his life.

At some later point, Garak may have had some moment of conscience, and hesitated to do the wrong thing when ordered, and was stripped of everything because of it.

But years later, Garak is still gleefully willing to throw Dukat's father's forced confession in Dukat's face, and Dukat still wants to see Garak dead.

Also, when Dukat tries to step off the locked-down station, a program put in place by his superiors kicks in, taking away all of his power and ordering him to die with dignity. It doesn't seem surprising to me that deep down, Dukat really just wanted to run away from Cardassian society, and be welcomed on Bajor.

I think it would've worked to have Dukat and Garak being forced to work together to reform Cardassia.
 
F

Fathead

Member
Dukat was a survivor. The pah wraith crap was lame. He should have ended up as some integlactic refugee, hated by Cardassians, a failure to the Dominion, war criminal to Bajor and the Federation, but somehow still going.

And Kai Winn should have been executed for being annoying.
 
S

SpoonyBard

Banned
Fuchsdh said:
I don't think Dukat needed to be redeemed. So what, he's a jerk, and depending on your definition, a war criminal. But I think there would have been something pretty interesting about him dying to save Cardassia and essentially getting the recognition and glory he wanted without being able to enjoy it.
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It would have made most sense in terms of drama. I wonder even if the studio forced the writers to keep Dukat as the bad guy till the end, in order to not confuse random viewers, who may watch episodes out of order...
 
H

Henchmen21

Banned
Saw a family Trick or Treating in Star Trek Costumes. Husband was in Next Gen Red, Wife was in Next Gen Blue and little kid was in DS9 Gold.
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Patric Stewart went as a really red shirt.

PCEmlGF.jpg
 
H

Henchmen21

Banned
So I was watching "Encounter At Farpoint" off of Startrek.com and is it me or are these taken from the Blurays? The video seems really clean and the effects seem way sharper than I remember.
 
Darkmakaimura

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Henchmen21 said:
So I was watching "Encounter At Farpoint" off of Startrek.com and is it me or are these taken from the Blurays? The video seems really clean and the effects seem way sharper than I remember.
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I've tried watching an episode of Voyager on ST.com and it was absolutely horrible. Bad video quality and buffering like crazy.
 
F

Fragamemnon

Member
Was bored this weekend and watched both "Lower Decks" and "For the Uniform" just because they are both badass Trek. Good times.

Now finding it hard not to go totally ham Sisko-style on a coworker who is completely dead weight and useless.
 
A

Aiustis

Member
Fragamemnon said:
Was bored this weekend and watched both "Lower Decks" and "For the Uniform" just because they are both badass Trek. Good times.

Now finding it hard not to go totally ham Sisko-style on a coworker who is completely dead weight and useless.
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Lower Decks is my favorite TNG episode.

Also I'm almost done rewatching DS9 :( I always forget how much I love the characters.
 
G

gdt

Member
I'm on my phone so i can't do it. Go to Netflix...the DS9 finale....45:47 in. Someone fucked up by missing that haha. Its hilarious.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
DrForester said:
You'll have to grab a screencap. Weyoun looks fine unless I'm missing something, and the Female Changeling is supposed to have bits falling of her.
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That really bothered me in what was it, "The Dogs of War" where Odo finally goes to shit when they're infiltrating a Dominion base? He impersonates the Female Changeling right down to the present state of her decay without so much as seeing her beforehand. How was that possible?
 
G

gdt

Member
I also am disappointed that Kirk and Spock start out as friends. Instead of some character development happening...

Oh well 60's TV.
 
K

Kaladin

Member
TrekGaf.....

I want to get into the novels, particularly the ones which take place after the end of the regular TV / movie timeline.

Is the Destiny trilogy the best starting point for this? There are a lot of these things across that trilogy, the Typhon Pact and now The Fall.
 
K

Kaladin

Member
From looking at previous discussions it looks like Destiny is a good jumping off point.....and it seems like there aren't many here into the EU books. Maybe I can add to that.
 
F

Fuchsdh

Member
DrForester said:
I have a soft spot for the Shatner books. They're self insert fanfic stories, but surprisingly enjoyable.
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Shatner might have wanted more adventures of Captain Kirk being a badass, but he and his writers have always delivered.

I've always enjoyed Diane Carey and Susan Swartz's work, as well as Peter David's series (which I've thought would be an excellent tonal template to use for another Star Trek TV series.)
 
B

brian577

Banned
gdt said:
Yeah i can't watch TOS. Can someone recommend some must see episodes? watching Space Seed now...
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Corbomite Manuever
Balance of Terror
Arena
Errand of Mercy
The City on the Edge of Forever
Mirror Mirror
The Doomsday Machine
The Ultimate Computer
The Tholian Web
The Cloud Minders
 
J

JoshuaJSlone

Member
gdt said:
I also am disappointed that Kirk and Spock start out as friends. Instead of some character development happening...

Oh well 60's TV.
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Main characters on old Star Trek are lucky if they even get two names.
Mr. Sandman said:
I want to get into the novels, particularly the ones which take place after the end of the regular TV / movie timeline.

Is the Destiny trilogy the best starting point for this? There are a lot of these things across that trilogy, the Typhon Pact and now The Fall.
Click to expand...
It's a pretty deep rabbit hole, depending on how complete you want to be. Each 24th century series has its own post-series stuff going on, then there are the big crossover things. I was reading post-TNG books until I hit one of these crossovers and looped back to read post-DS9 stuff so I wouldn't run into DS9 "spoilers" too soon. But this accounts for dozens and dozens of books, so that's not for everyone.

Destiny isn't too bad a jumping point, but it does build on some of the Borg-y TNG novels immediately preceding it so they might be even better. One of the advantage of Destiny as a crossover thing is that things are kept fairly simple without there being a lot of DS9 or Voyager in it. DS9 because for a long time its post-series content stayed within 1-2 years of the end of the series, so it hadn't really caught up to even the point of Nemesis. They've since yada-yada-yada'd DS9 forward a few years so it's in line with the rest, though. The biggest players in Destiny are Picard's Enterprise-E, Riker's Titan, and a post-DS9 Dax on the Aventine.
Mr. Sandman said:
The newer EU stuff, Destiny -> Typhon Pact -> The Fall seems to be creating continuity in the books.
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Right. Books written to take place during the shows were basically like one-off episodes that everyone was supposed to forget about and never reference again, but all the post-series stuff is kept pretty tight.

The books are into 2385/2386 now, so I'm pretty curious how they're going to take on the Hobus supernova stuff that's not too far ahead.
 
K

Kaladin

Member
JoshuaJSlone said:
It's a pretty deep rabbit hole, depending on how complete you want to be. Each 24th century series has its own post-series stuff going on, then there are the big crossover things. I was reading post-TNG books until I hit one of these crossovers and looped back to read post-DS9 stuff so I wouldn't run into DS9 "spoilers" too soon. But this accounts for dozens and dozens of books, so that's not for everyone.

Destiny isn't too bad a jumping point, but it does build on some of the Borg-y TNG novels immediately preceding it so they might be even better. One of the advantage of Destiny as a crossover thing is that things are kept fairly simple without there being a lot of DS9 or Voyager in it. DS9 because for a long time its post-series content stayed within 1-2 years of the end of the series, so it hadn't really caught up to even the point of Nemesis. They've since yada-yada-yada'd DS9 forward a few years so it's in line with the rest, though. The biggest players in Destiny are Picard's Enterprise-E, Riker's Titan, and a post-DS9 Dax on the Aventine.

Right. Books written to take place during the shows were basically like one-off episodes that everyone was supposed to forget about and never reference again, but all the post-series stuff is kept pretty tight.

The books are into 2385/2386 now, so I'm pretty curious how they're going to take on the Hobus supernova stuff that's not too far ahead.
Click to expand...

At least the Star Trek novels are a pretty short read. I think Destiny is only 800 and something pages and that is 3 books. Even at my pace of 50 pages or so at a time it should be a quicker read.
 
F

firehawk12

Subete no aware
I remember liking the McKenzie Calhoun books, even though they don't end because the series just stops. It was the first Trek "series" that wasn't connected to any of the shows, but was still set in the universe, so unlike the other novels, it felt like it could take chances that even the shows couldn't.

But I mean, nowadays you have 30 Borg ships invading the Alpha Quadrant (why didn't they do this in the first place?), so I have no idea what is going on in the universe nowadays unfortunately. lol
 
A

Aiustis

Member
firehawk12 said:
I remember liking the McKenzie Calhoun books, even though they don't end because the series just stops. It was the first Trek "series" that wasn't connected to any of the shows, but was still set in the universe, so unlike the other novels, it felt like it could take chances that even the shows couldn't.

But I mean, nowadays you have 30 Borg ships invading the Alpha Quadrant (why didn't they do this in the first place?), so I have no idea what is going on in the universe nowadays unfortunately. lol
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I liked those too!
 
K

Kaladin

Member
JoshuaJSlone said:
The books are into 2385/2386 now, so I'm pretty curious how they're going to take on the Hobus supernova stuff that's not too far ahead.
Click to expand...

Wasn't that plot point created for the new movies though? I'm not sure if it existed before. If the books are continuing in the universe created for TNG-DS9-VGR and on, then they might just ignore it.

Mirrorverses and all that jazz.
 
J

JoshuaJSlone

Member
Mr. Sandman said:
Wasn't that plot point created for the new movies though? I'm not sure if it existed before. If the books are continuing in the universe created for TNG-DS9-VGR and on, then they might just ignore it.

Mirrorverses and all that jazz.
Click to expand...
It's supposed to be that the supernova was in the existing Trek universe, so that the old Spock of the new movies is the Spock we're all familiar with. I presume the novels will go with it, but I'm curious if they go about it very differently than the Countdown comics did. Certainly that had some characters in much different places than they are in current novels, like neither Picard nor Worf being on the Enterprise anymore.

I guess the alternative is they completely ignore it and thus solidify the novels as yet another alternate timeline, safe from conflicting with any further official developments in the prime timeline.
 
K

Kaladin

Member
JoshuaJSlone said:
It's supposed to be that the supernova was in the existing Trek universe, so that the old Spock of the new movies is the Spock we're all familiar with. I presume the novels will go with it, but I'm curious if they go about it very differently than the Countdown comics did. Certainly that had some characters in much different places than they are in current novels, like neither Picard nor Worf being on the Enterprise anymore.

I guess the alternative is they completely ignore it and thus solidify the novels as yet another alternate timeline, safe from conflicting with any further official developments in the prime timeline.
Click to expand...

It would be interesting to see how they handle that. My guess is they ignore it and use the EU as an alt timeline for TNG-DS9-VGR based stories going forward.
 
F

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Aiustis said:
I liked those too!
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I had Peter David sign my Starfleet Academy books - which served as prequels for the Excalibur series. I wonder if I still have them. lol

I wonder why he stopped writing those books... He's probably not in a position to write now because of his health, but the Excalibur books stopped well before the health issues came up IIRC.
 
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