this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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Commie trek (lemy.lol)
submitted 2 weeks ago by nzmaa@lemy.lol to c/greentext@sh.itjust.works
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[–] immutable@lemm.ee 112 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I like how none of the points are correct.

At best they could be a critique of the lives of the people that voluntarily join up to starfleet. Really the only thing that rings true is that, like any military, they have uniforms and you have to follow the orders of the chain of command.

They show tons of citizens of the federation doing whatever the fuck they want. Doing weird science experiments, going to conferences, settling planets, running a vineyard in France, Captain Siskos dad just has a restaurant for the fun of it.

[–] darthelmet@lemmy.world 51 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Yeah this feels like a critique from someone who’s never watched Star Trek.

The bit about the food is pretty funny. Like sure, a few times people have mentioned liking some non-replicated food better, but in general it seems like it’s about as good as the real thing and you can get ANYTHING you want anywhere you have a replicator without needing the skills of a chef.

Then there’s Voyager where the crew prefers to use their limited replicator rations rather than eat the slop Neelix makes lol. Actually, that’s something that never made sense to me: Why were they so limited on replicator usage? Doesn’t it just convert energy into matter from the reactor powerful enough to power a warp drive? In general I find it kind of silly when they turn off the lights and stuff to “conserve power” when there’s trouble. Like the lights are drawing any meaningful amount of power compared to warping the fabric of time and space.

[–] Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 19 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I mean, converting energy into matte, when you could be using said energy to get home does seem a bit wasteful.

Replicating 1 gram of matter from energy takes 90 TJ, so replicating a sugarcube would be roughly the power of a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.

[–] darthelmet@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah I guess. Although I guess the question is how much energy does warp drive use or how much energy does the engine output given some amount of dilithium or whatever? No real way to know since it's sci-fi. As far as I know the only physics we have on this is that paper that showed you'd need negative energy to make warp happen. Which is obviously not super helpful for figuring out what it would be in the hypothetical world of Star Trek where they found some way to make it physically possible.

I just imagine that their energy production has to be absolutely insane for warp travel to not only be feasible, but a fairly common thing more akin to launching a boat than a NASA mission.

[–] Zoot@reddthat.com 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You bring up a good point however, its basically a generator, and it needs fuel. So even if its not much energy saved, saving any was crucial for them when they never knew where they could next get dylythium.

So even though leaving the lights on only costs a couple cents day, well if you're traveling for 10 years, those couple bits of energy add up. Especially considering they did have a decent sized crew and children on top of it!

[–] taladar@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 weeks ago

Not to mention that this was written in the 80s and 90s. Lighting was signficiantly more of the average person's energy bill before LEDs so it made sense to the audience back then.

[–] CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago

They were conserving energy because it was hard for them to find the crystals they need. That said the lights are bound to be nothing compared to converting energy to matter or maintaining a warp field.

[–] joyjoy@lemm.ee 45 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Op is confusing The Federation with The Borg.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 22 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Or military vs civilian life.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 weeks ago

Yup. And civilians absolutely live on military ships in Star Trek, though we don't see them much because the show tends to focus on the military team members.

[–] gnuplusmatt@reddthat.com 39 points 2 weeks ago

only on a starship, earth is mainly soul food restaurants and vineyards

[–] Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works 31 points 2 weeks ago

Anon has been assimilated by the Borg.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 27 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

As far as the show shows the audience, the uniform isn't even a requirement. They wear it more out of pride than because they have to. They do change their clothes often. Early seasons even show it being pretty common to wear a new culture you're just meeting's clothing.

They can also eat whatever they want. They even get paid! The first or second episode of DS9 explains that starfleet personnel stationed in places that aren't part of the federation and still use currency, get per diem of whatever local currency is used. It's maybe only like the equivalent of $10, but it still affords them the chance to do a bit of capitalism; and we most commonly see this as damn near everyone eating at Quark's instead of the replimat.

DS9 is the main reason I would love to see more Trek series that don't take place on a Starfleet starship.

[–] Samsy@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I thought there are other hints, like races are countries. (For example klingons are russians etc)

Political I thought the Borg are the real commies. (In a GOP nightmare version)

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Aren't the Romulans the Russians? The Klingons always seem to just be doing random war things and were mostly just doing their own stuff, whereas the Romulans seem to have some kind of actually coherent strategy.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 weeks ago

I never got "communist" from Star Trek. There seemed to be very limited top-down control outside the military, trade seemed to be an important backdrop, and automation largely replaced the necessity for people to fill any particular role. So what it seems like is a low-touch society where automation serves the needs of the common people, but operates within a capitalist framework. If it was communist, I think we'd see a lot more conflict between the various races, but they're largely happy with the equilibrium they've struck (outside various periods of conflict).

I think if we were to explore the Star Trek universe, we'd see a lot of corporations and whatnot controlling significant portions of the interstellar economy. But since we largely follow military and diplomatic groups, we just don't see what the rest of society looks like.

[–] Okokimup@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Is incentivates a word? I better check my dictionotomy.