The first television interracial kiss.
It wasn’t even the first one on Star Trek.
That Vulcans cannot feel emotions because of their biology. They actually suppress them and have been trained to do that since they are children.
That Klingons are honorable.
Very true. We are misled by how Worf tries to be a stereotypically honorable Klingon because he is culturally human. He has little knowledge of how Klingons raised in Qonos understand honor.
@concrete_baby @rdh worf is like an adult religious convert who understands certain rules to be inflexible that people who grew up in the religion understand to be optional at best
@julieofthespirits @concrete_baby @rdh
Everyone in Ireland knows that type. The second-generation Yank who harkens back to an Old Country that never really existed, all shillelaghs and corned beef.@faduda @julieofthespirits @concrete_baby @rdh One recalls the one good scene in the otherwise contemptible The Devil’s Own: his Irish-American host family serves corned beef and cabbage to baffled and appalled (ostensible) Belfast man Brad Pitt.
@faduda @concrete_baby @rdh an even better metaphor tbh
@faduda @concrete_baby @rdh I guess the difference is that most people from the Home Country can’t stand the Diaspora Nationalist, so why do other Klingons put up with Worf, do they just see it as useful to have an ally in the Federation so they never say anything to his face
@julieofthespirits @concrete_baby @rdh
I mean, we like Joe Biden mostly because he annoys the Brexiters, so yeah.@faduda @concrete_baby @rdh I mean Joe Biden’s one saving grace is that he’s somehow not the most godawful politician in the world right now because God has left us to die in this hot car we call Earth
Also what humans perceive as honorable may not be the same what klingons see as honorable
That the Prime Directive only applies to pre-warp civilizations.
You’re not wrong, but man the Prime Directive would make a whole lot more sense if it did. The commonly misunderstood version of the PD that is intended to prevent cultural contamination is clear and simple. Given its status as the literal top rule, the actual PD—a generalized non-interventionism/pro-isolationism dictum—is oddly complex, vague, and lacking a focused objective.
Besides the fact that the Prime Directive is violated constantly, what am I missing about it?
It’s about interference with non-Federation governments and cultures in general. The Prime Directive forbids mucking about with Romulan politics, for instance. Worf gets away with a lot of things that would violate the Prime Directive in regards to the Klingon Government because he has dual citizenship and is a member of Klingon nobility.
The ban on contact with pre-warp civilizations is also more specifically uncontacted pre-warp civilizations (you can chat with them if they’re already buying Romulan ale from the Ferengi because the damage has already been done) and more generally pre-interstellar civilizations (warp drive is the usual way a civilization becomes interstellar, but there are alternative methods).
My pet peeve, that warp drive works like the Alcubierre Drive. It doesn’t.
Spock is the first or only Vulcan in Starfleet. The crew of the Intrepid would like a word.
These can be tough, since three generations of fans have worked on later shows or ancillary official materials. E.g. Startrek.com used to say that about Spock.
Lots about Klingon history: they stole warp tech from the hurq, the hurq (who came after Kahless and stole his relics) are the gods of ancient Klingon myth. Klingon warrior culture is a recent aberration (claims one lawyer whose parents were undervalued academics). Kahless lived a thousand years before TNG. That’s only half the time since Surak or Charlemagne, but fans want to see him more like King Arthur or Robin Hood.
T’Pol would be the first Vulcan in Starfleet, no?
She started off as Vulcan High Command but officially joins Starfleet later on in ENT.
She joined the United Earth Starfleet, though. If someone wanted to get really pedantic, they could claim there’s a possibility she resigned her commission before the transition to the Federation Starfleet.
But yeah, T’Pol, the senior staff of the USS Intrepid, the various admirals we’ve seen in Disco and SNW, all would have joined Starfleet before Spock.
