Star Trek: The Next Generation

Summary
Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his trusty shipmates explore the galaxy. Along the way they encounter all kinds of weird diplomatic situations, conflicts, engine trouble, and anomalies. But that's what exploring is all about.

So, instead of just listing what I liked and what I didn't like, I'm going to write about different themes and motifs that pop up throughout the seven seasons. Yes, I did just watch all seven seasons.

The Prime Directive
The Prime Directive is pretty much my favourite thing about Star Trek. It's the most important law of the United Federation of Planets, or something like that, that's why it's called the Prime Directive.

The Prime Directive has two parts, the first part is that agents of the Federation cannot make their presence known to people who do not have warp technology, that is, they can't do space travel outside their own star systems very well. This is to prevent interference with the natural development of people's cultures and societies and science and stuff like that. It also prevents people from taking advantage of other people who have lower technology or a less developed society.

The second part is that agents of the Federation cannot interfere in the internal affairs of other governments without invitation. When the Federation is invited to interfere, they usually mediate conflicts and do diplomacy.

Other sub-sections of the Prime Directive include prohibitions on dealing weapons, taking sides in local conflicts, altering the timeline by time travelling, and all kinds of other wonderful things.

I like the Prime Directive because it prevents people with advanced technology from taking advantage of lesser developed people and because it promotes peace.

Jean-Luc Picard treats the Prime Directive as a philosophy, different situations call for different interpretations of the Prime Directive. And I like that approach too because it makes it flexible. It's not rigid.

Sometimes the Prime Directive really sucks. Like when a planet destabilizes, and all the pre-warp cultures on the planet will die, The Prime Directive prohibits intervention because that would interfere with the natural development of things. So, they're just supposed to let the people die. Luckily, there's usually someone around who's willing to violate the Prime Directive in order to save the pre-warp people. And then they get into a huge conflict with Jean-Luc Picard, who eventually concedes on some points and helps save the people.

A Starship Captain is a Wonderful Thing...
Jean-Luc Picard is an exemplary starship captain. He's a great leader because he's good at making decisions and being confident and taking risks. He loves diplomacy, and always looks for ways to preserve peace, and for peaceful solutions to problems. But he's not afraid of a good fight, and he won't back down or compromise just to avoid one.

He thinks of himself as an explorer, rather than a military man or a diplomat, though. His mission is to explore the galaxy, find out about it, find new life and all that wonderful stuff.

He's a bit of a philosopher and poet, too. He loves Shakespeare, and has lots of Shakespeare's works memorized. He knows his philosophies too. In fact, he knows way more than you'd think possible. And it always comes in handy in tricky situations. His knowledge of philosophy and poetry make Picard a rich character.

He's got some flaws, but they're few and far between. For example, he doesn't like children much.

In short, it seems very important for a starship captain to be a well rounded person with a rich and well-developed internal life.

Surprisingly Vulnerable
The Starship Enterprise, flagship of the United Federation of Planets, is surprisingly vulnerable. It is often outgunned by single ships. Its shields seem to be easily compromised by either brute force or by hacking. Speaking of hacking, even the ship's computer systems are surprisingly vulnerable, they're almost always being hacked and their security and command codes being compromised. (That's what they get for using Windows.)

Whenever an incident occurs onboard the ship, it usually degenerates into a drawn out investigation, I often wondered, "why don't they just check the surveillance cameras?" But there are no surveillance cameras. Why not? Well, one possibility is that in such an advanced society, the privacy of the people is given a higher value, and this precludes the use of surveillance cameras. However, no one on the show actually says so--that's just my theory. My other theory is that the writers would have to come up with more complicated mysteries if there were surveillance cameras.

Hmmm... So, maybe the Enterprise is so surprisingly vulnerable on purpose. It sure is convenient for the writers.

Cheap Suspense
The Enterprise crew is always getting into trouble. Always. And no matter what the problem is, it almost always threatens the whole ship and all the lives on board. And no matter what the problem is, the ingenious crew always manage to solve the problem and pull through with only minor injuries at the very last minute. Always. Of course, it wouldn't be much of a show if they lost the ship every time they had a problem. Because then, that would just be unrealistic.

Great Characters
I really liked the characters on this show. They were well rounded and rich characters with real-life issues that they managed to overcome by relying on the wealth of resources at their fingertips: their own inner strength, their wonderful friendships, and the holodec.

Evolution and Technology
Jean-Luc Picard often argues that the human race has evolved. That people are no longer what they were before. War, greed, and all the really bad stuff that plagued humanity's past have largely been eliminated.

I disagree. The show features some pretty advanced technology, for example, the Transporter. The transporter is able to convert matter into energy and back into matter again. Transporter technology is used in the replicator system and the holodec. With the replicator, you can program the computer to make whatever you want it to make and it will make it for you by converting energy into matter. With the holodec, you can use transporter technology to recreate any environment or activity artificially. If you want to go swimming, just program yourself a beach, if you want to go horseback riding, just program yourself a horse, and it's there.

All this technology requires tons of energy, though. No worries, Anti-matter reactors provide more than enough energy at very low cost.

Why have war or greed or any crime at all when you can have anything you want at the push of a button? I argue that Star Trek's human being hasn't evolved at all. Take away all the technology and you have the same old greedy human being.

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There's lots to talk about, but I'm through for now. Maybe I'll add more later.