Ok I know people will say this is weird but watch through Star Trek Enterprise with Captain Archer since that was supposed to be a reboot for Star Trek that pulled in new fans. It explains the origin story of how humans got into space which I think helps a lot of newer watchers ground themselves in the universe easier. Make sure to make fun of it when it gets too absurd and always have a lighter nearby to hold up during the theme song.

Then go through TNG, Voyager and DS9 jumping between them every episode so you move through all three at the same time. I have been watching Star Trek with my gf this way and it is really fun to compare between the shows and it makes the bad episodes of any one particular series less exhausting because you get to take a break from that show.

Whenever you feel like it watch newer trek and catch up on it, I like all of it and some of it is really good.

Sprinkle in TOS episodes as you go, especially when there are direct callbacks to specific episodes (the SNW episode that echoes a TOS episode is a blast to watch right after watching the associated TOS episode they did such a good job).

In fairness, it’s less controversial and more that the line is outright offensive. At the time, people were being murdered by acts of terrorismin in the troubles, so to wontonly say that those attacks are effective and will get results was extremely insensitive. It’s sort of like saying 9/11 was an effective use of terrorism shortly after it happened, or the 2015 Paris attacks.

I mean I get that it is a pretty touchy subject, but honestly at the end of the day the 9/11 attacks were stunningly effective at doing exactly what Bin Laden wanted us to do, get involved in a long drawn out war that undermined the stability of the US and accelerated its collapse.

The asshole literally wrote this all out in a letter and I am glad it made the rounds recently because we took the bait hook line and sinker. If as a society stories had trained us to think of terrorism not as some existential evil that comes from satan but rather a brutal political/military strategy enacted to accomplish certain logical political aims we might have been more equipped to deal with a 9/11 response more rationally. Specifically maybe we wouldn’t have just signed off on US warhawks throwing Iraq into the mix for absolutely no good reason than imperialism (Bin Laden must have been whooping and hollering happy when he heard the US decided to get itself stuck in TWO endless wars because of his actions).

You’d think after eating all that kale you wouldn’t be so rudee

It took me playing the classic masterpiece designs of board gaming like Agricola, Concordia and Dominion to make me realize how bloated most strategy video games are.

It ain’t about how complex the system is, it is about how meaningful and interesting your choices are and honestly some video games are just horrendous at making you do 1000 little tasks that don’t really matter.

I haven’t played stellaris though.

Something I find funny is that a lot of people who don’t know Star Trek that well and have only seen a couple of episodes assume Star Trek is the super optimistic view of humanity that is unrealistically positive about humanities future when if you actually look at the timeline in the 2000s and 2100s Star Trek is actually seriously apocalyptic. Humanity doesn’t turn to a good future out of some inevitable human kindness, it tries violence over and over again until some crazy guy makes a warp engine out of the rubble of destroyed civilization and the Vulcans show up.

I dunno but damn that Bell guy looks exactly like Sisko its weird

Literally one of the biggest plot lines in Discovery is struggling with a lovecraftian horror that annihilates entire planets and having the heroes save the day by sticking to a philosophy of diplomacy, logic and understanding even when most people are clamoring to just nuke the shit out of it?

Also, Picard can be silly but nowhere in its DNA does it abandon the heart of Star Trek for the pew pews? At the end of the second season the only thing that saves the day is characters coming to an understanding and trust with one another? Picard doesn’t have a big fist fight on a cliff or something. The only thing that works to resolve the conflict is establishing trust with a character who has the power to unleash a massive enemy?

…did you watch the same shows I did?

Yeah they have flaws, lots of em, but I don’t think your read on those shows is fair.

On the flip side a lot of times the only reason characters survive encounters with entities far more powerful than them is a laser like focus on understanding what an unknown entities motivations are.

I love it when a Star Trek captain phones up some evil looking spaceship that is blowing shit the fuck up and is like “what is it precisely that you want?”. The alien picking up inside the ship usually doesn’t want to talk and it takes the captain cutting through several layers of bullshit until they discover why and the why usually drastically changes the situation.

At the same time, this strategy isn’t portrayed in a naive way that encourages aliens to walk all over starfleet, when you understand the motivations of romulans you understand you better blow them the fuck up if they start testing you or they will see it culturally as a weakness and invade…

Further, there are entities that are just an order of magnitude more powerful that can’t be stopped with any degree of force like Q and the characters just have to deal with it which I like because it keeps Star Trek from becoming a power fantasy about super heroes.

The way I read it is miles o’brien is supposed to be the blue collar everyman character that draws in people who don’t usually like star trek but they just miss the mark on that often and they make it doubly uncomfortable by also making miles o’brien a very flawed, pretty close minded person which causes cognitive dissonance like you said because all the other characters love him.

Maybe hot take: This was the episode that confirmed my feeling that Miles O’Brien isn’t necessarily a good person, there are definitely aspects to him that are good, he does do a lot of good, but he is chock full of a lot of prejudices he just often doesn’t seem interested in overcoming and everyone around him seems ok with just letting him be that way.

False

Hell yeah it better continue

It is a Carl Sagan science documentary where he discusses science and astronomy with the viewer while hiking through stunning mountains.

It’s a good thing Riker is pretty.

Imagine an episode where Riker goes around acting like his normal pretty self and charming the shit out of people… but he is the first of the crew to be affected by a virus that subdues the human capacity to be authentically charming and all of a sudden all the normal ridiculous shit he gets away with because he is so charming starts back firing on him. At the worst part of the episode for Riker he would go to sit down with a fellow shipmate who was upset at him because he messed up a delivery of a joke and offended them but as he is in the middle of the Riker manuever he just plows the chair over clumsily.

Yeah but in Star Trek’s future they have headlamps… but for your hands

Dont tell me you are one of those people who who are so naive they ACTUALLY believe humans came up with that Birds Aren’t Real conspiracy? Lol some people can’t see the truth when it is right there screaming in their face. It is clearly a crow psy-op campaign to distract humanity from uncovering their preparations for crowmeggedon. We are running out of time to raise people’s awareness, we have to speak up before the only ones left to speak have beaks….

It would make way more sense for Stargate cosplayers to be at a renfaire since every single planet they went to on that series seemed to have villagers at about the renaissance level of technology (gotta wonder, did they have access to a bunch of medieval/renaissance sets for cheap lol?).

Of course, if you went as Stargate cosplayers you would have to basically dress up as para military wannabe chuds who’s personalities revolve around owning useless guns (like sword person who is obsessed with swords but way less fun) and being a bigot. People might not even recognize you are in costume and just assume you are a bunch of losers who express their freedom by going to renfaires carrying around murder weapons and dressing in tactical gear.

sigh

…better to go as the Star Trek cosplayers lol.

Well I haven’t gotten that particular conspiracy theory off the ground yet, still trying to get people in on that one.

I think it is everything you could want from a conspiracy theory though, you just steal all the same talking points from flat earthers but apply the conspiracy in so much more of a petty and meaningless direction that I think it has real potential.

Pretty much the lamest conspiracy theory. There are better ones like Rhode Island is actually the third largest state in the US but the other states are trying to keep it down.

True, I guess at least we can feel good knowing we are all guaranteed conclusions with our own lives, if not with our tv shows.