Boldly Going In The Wrong Direction

Perry de Havilland writes an interesting article on why Star Trek’s United Federation of Planets is really just a "authoritarian collectivist quasi-communist society (the government is clearly paramilitary) with a totally non-monetary command economy."

Another good blogger, Moira Breen weighs in with these observations.

He also brings up something I’ve always noticed – that there is no military discipline in this militarized organization. Usually the existence of a military code of justice is apparent only when some mentally-unbalanced high-ranking Fed official goes on a McCarthyite binge. (Have you also noticed that all the Fed "desk" pooh-bahs are corrupt, insane, infested with alien larvae, or complete flaming pricks?) One mutters "court martial, court martial, court martial" as the action unfolds in episode after episode, but nobody’s ever busted. They just get asked into the ready-room and lectured on inappropriate non-commander-respecting behavior.

In fact, that’s one of my big beefs with Star Trek. All the hippy, New Age, touchy feely crap. That’s part of the reason why I’m so big on Babylon 5. While Captain Picard would try and talk his way out of things, Captain Sheridan would just nuke the holy living crap out of them. At least with Enterprise they’re going back to the basics, but I could certainly live without Captain Archer getting the crap beaten out of him in every episode. You’d think he’d know how to throw a punch by now…

And yes… I’m a geek…