This is Kirk and Riker slander.

Kirk doesn’t deserve that kind of reputation, whereas Riker does.

Even TOS had a blatant anti-racism episode where the conclusion was very much explicitly “if we don’t get along, we’ll be left extinct on an empty, dead husk of a planet”.

I suspect there may also be some kind of tactical doctrine where federation ships are meant to hold their ground , give out some warnings, and take a few punches to the nose before going all out. Since they arent going to dodge a phaser anyway they might as well stand firm as a show of strength. Federation policy is very firm about starting a firefight so it’s likely need to have the record be very clear that they arent aggressors.

That does make sense, considering that Federation shields are pretty tough, and the Federation itself probably doesn’t want to seem the aggressor by firing first.

For the most part, a Federation ship can just tank a shot with barely a scratch (unless it’s an equivalent power), and that might arguably be a better show of force than firing back.

Once CGI became more common in the mid to late 90s I think the opposite trend wound up happening. DS9 has clouds of federation ships that in theory should be sniping at each other from thousands of KM away charging into a dominion cloud. I think voyager wound up usually striking a better balance of old school staredowns with the occasional cool thing like coming out of warp right on top of someone and blasting them and tractoring another ship away. Enterprise also has quite a lot of maneuvering though the nx class is smaller than the other hero ships.

True, I think that many of the complaints are just the differences between the two, although at the same time, with CGI being as cheap as it is, it might also be nice to see them make use of that agility, rather than just having it just be something that only exists in theory.

Throwing my own 2 slips in, I think that Enterprise went the complete wrong way with it, by trying to “logically” explain the visual differences in Klingons, like DS9 trying to logically extrapolate the mirror universe (Enterprise also didn’t help there).

No explanation was needed (although it might have been funny to put Worf in the classic Klingon makeup), and adding one just made things a bit worse.

Honestly, the riots are probably fine, since anyone with no context would just see it as generic protest footage, or something along those lines.

Some massaging a few decades from now could tie it to the 2025 sanctuary city riots, or some other historical event instead of Jan 6 with barely any changes at all.

The Elon Musk reference definitely aged poorly, though, although having some diversity in views around historical inventors could be pretty interesting in its own right. Someone might hate Cochrane because he ended up with the credit for the warp engine, even though he didn’t build it, and only did it for the fame and money, while others might respect him for his contributions to humanity, and being instrumental in Earth’s official First Contact with aliens.

It’s got a very TOS-style of writing and story to it.

I remember seeing a fair few people pitch a fit about the Burn, for example, even though “angry man has a tantrum and nearly blows up the universe”, and “child with godlike powers” are common TOS plots.

They tried something new, which I don’t mind them for, but I don’t think it mixed well with people being used to more TNG-styles plots, and the writing not being that great. Still, it managed to help kickstart the modern revival of Trek, and gave us (non-wheelchair) Captain Pike, so it wasn’t all bad.

And a Russian and Japanese crew member at the height of the Cold War. Not just as background, but as one of the main crew.

Kind of like how TOS was almost flagrantly progressive at the time, with women not only being equals on the bridge, but being allowed to wear what they wanted, like miniskirts, without having to dress like the men, but today, it’s seen as an artefact of the times, and as a sign of the comparatively regressive attitudes of the day, rather than the feminist icon it was when the show aired.

Just look at Lore. He wiped out a colony, and could do far worse damage if he was both more competent and stable. It eventually escalated to the point where Data had to shut him down, due to the danger he posed to the rest of the Federation.

Especially since there was also the plot line of them being being hunted down for the advanced technology that’s part of their bodies (which is great for a bit of horror/dystopian writing. The doctor or bashir getting hunted down for their technology, and modified genes, respectively). With the possibility of a friendly Borg Collective, that kind of attitude could become pretty ugly.

Someone could snag a few unsuspecting Jurati Collective members, and start pulling them apart, effectively farming them.

It would be interesting to see how that goes, since while the Federation is more accepting of other former on/off enemies, like the Klingons, they’re much less friendly with the Borg, seeing the drones as a member of their former species, just with implants that can be removed, rather than as Borg.

Does make you wonder whether that attitude also extends to non-organic/humanoid beings. Would there be someone hunting down Exocomps for their parts, if they started developing their own improved versions of things that might otherwise be off-the-shelf parts?

It’s fairly clear that some parts of the Federation see non-organic beings as mere machines, and therefore not sapient, or deserving of the rights afforded to other humanoids.

Earth isn’t the only Federation species with no mentioned on-screen fleet, though (Betzed and trill also don’ maintain their own). You would expect that there would be more, rather than just the token alien in a sea of humans.

Especially if it’s international, 3 credits isn’t the same for everywhere.