Unconvincing straw man insult.

Good writers create strong heroic characters without regard to their race or gender or any politically correct bias, for example, John Ringo's books. Perhaps he does it for a wider readership. STD on the other hand is biased political brainwashing of the viewers with premeditation. It's disgusting.

freedomforall -
When I read my first Lee Child I was surprised to learn that he has a significant female readership. I had a suspicion he has an eye on the politically-correct market, on reading more I find those themes are becoming tiring.

MM, good points-
a commander should command the whole operation not just a part of it,
and I like the reference to inheritance.

As you say it a common fault. In visual media it is hard to convey the technical and analytical competence required for success in war, or managing railroads, but easy to portray heroism. The simple and lazy approach is to show the heroism and imply the mental competence, and combine all in the main character.

(My question was on a (mis)perceived objection to troops on one side in violent conflict disguising themselves in a vehicle of the other).

I watched Band of Brothers and re-watched certain episodes and I read the book. We only follow a handful of the thousands in the 101st Airborne. It is a matter of context.

When Roddenberry first envisioned "Star Trek" he thought of it as a "Wagon Train in space." In the TV show Wagon Train we have the main characters (wagon master, scout, cook, lead guy number 2, and maybe another), but a changing cast of settlers moving West as each train is assembled and transported. Each Wagon Train episode was a story centered on a settler as the continuing action provided an "arc" across the season. It was very innovative for the time.

Gee, you must speak good Klingon because that sounds like something from T'Kuvma's opening lines.

So, you did not like Dagny Taggart?

The essential perception in science fiction in general and Star Trek in particular is that the viewer responds to the characters actions from values based on ideas rather than the color of their skin - blue, or green, as it happens - or their gender (of which the species with five might be us after all).

Do you find it impossible to cheer for R2D2 because it has no race or gender, but is just a machine? I just do not understand your philosophical assumptions as related to that statement: "... being put off by all the women in authority..."

I had to google head-cannon and it took me to headcanon or head-canon. One n. (You engineers... In the shop where I now work, an engineer needed to turn a nut, so I handed him an adjustable wrench. He sighed and came over and took the 5/8 out of the box. Same thing here: canon, not cannon.)

Back in the 20th century Armin Shimerman told me at a Star Trek convention that he was an admirer of Rand, and had read The Fountainhead in college and was going to read Atlas Shrugged ahead of filiming the coming season. As you know, he played Dr. Ferris in Atlas Shrugged.

Anyway... I have not seen the episode "Starship Down." I will watch it. I do know the other episodes. "The Great River" was highly entertaining. I just tried to find the Quark speech I remember but keep getting directed to a different episode with the same lines, apparently. Planet Ferengeron never had slavery.

That said, I am not sure that it is a "legitimate complaiint" when judging art. Again, consider the difference between Rand's consistent condemnation of ante-bellum Southern society and her praise for Gone With the Wind. Would GWTW have been a better story told from the viewpoint of a southern abolitionist? (Sarah Moore Grimké (1792–1873) and Angelina Emily Grimké (1805–1879).)

And we do have "libertarian" science fiction such as Alongside Night and other works by J. Neil Schulman (who just passed last August). Also, L. Neil Smith's Pallas is just one in a series of realistic scifi. His "Bucketeers" yarns are more fantastic. They spin off of his alternate universe from The Probability Broach with its laissez-faire society. Not surprisingly, he wrote a series of Lando Calrissian books.

Just for one thing, although I produced of a showing of Alongside Night here in Austin. It was not as good a production as Discovery not by lightyears. Ideology is not a substitute for craftsmanship. (On my blog here: https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2... )

I don't know why they piled on you like that, or what their aesthetic theories are, but Minus 7 seems extreme.

First, I disagree about Burnham's "death wish." Remember that she was raised on Vulcan. She is accepting the judgment of the court martial. I agree that she being something a martyr in her head - oh, woe is me; I deserve this; but I tried to do the right thing and look where it got me - but that would be in line with what we know from basic criminology andd penalogy. Some convicts go through "stages" as they mature into their sentences. Most claim to be unjustly accused and wrongfully convicted. I think that she is just accepting her sentence as a logical outcome of her actions.

Context is important. I mention that in the context of the episode "Context is for Kings." Lorca says, "Absolutes are for slaves." Rand called her philosophy Objectivism, not Absolutism. Absolutes exist. Context is how they are applied. It is why we go around in circles here on questions such as capital punishment and abortion. Some admireres of Rand's works want absolute answers where they cannot exist. Context defines the answers. Read Rand's speech at West Point and other commentaries on the war in Vietnam.

Context is not expediency. In "The Vulcan Hello" the line that slides by is that the Vulcans first crossed into Klingon space when they were fired upon. Also, the next line is that "until a treaty was established..." So, there was a treaty. Negotiation was possible. Burnham's errors from that point just compounded.

I think that overall the writers did a great job on this, even as they made other mistakes and left oversights and omissions. Unlike novels and movies, TV writing is a production process on schedule, more like factory work. Sometimes quaility is only five 9s.

(I have not seen Season 2. We are number 55 in line for 1 of 11 copies at the city library. Laurel could get it on Amazon.)

"It can be interesting to discuss the extent to which science fiction writers who claim special imagination fail to envision any utopia more innovative than open-handed socialism. On that basis, the Star Trek franchise has been criticized by libertarians "
This is a legitimate complaint, but it varies from episode to episode. In Treachery, Faith, and the Great River, the Nog does work and makes a bunch of trades and everyone ends up better off. They treat it as if it's some kind of weird anomaly. I don't know if the writers were tongue-in-cheek, but it leads you right to "wow, doing work and making trades made everyone happy. Who would have thought it!?"

In Starship Down, Quark debates economics with an alien who paraphrases parts of The Communist Manifesto. I got the idea the writers were trying to show both sides but clearly didn't understand the capitalist side of the argument. Even worse are preachy episodes like The Neutral Zone that are cringe-worthy in their self-righteousness.

Most episodes don't get into the details on laws and economics, so it's easy to create liberty-friendly head-cannon.

Often Trek would make more sense if the ships had a crew of a dozen or fewer people. It's often hard to understand why we see a few people having all the action on a ship with hundreds of people, esp if the main characters are supposed to be directors in charge of managers who have their own teams. In Day of the Dove they came out and said bulkheads deployed locking most of the crew on lower decks. If feel like it would make sense to say that happened in most episodes.

Shame, we could use better shows for TV.

Never saw the show on TV, just saw it on Netflix and thought I'd give it a try. I only watch the vids during the most boring of times...just to stay awake on the late shifts...laughing, just waiting for something to break in the building.

Maybe it's my thick skull that protects me from that crap but I did see that change as the episodes progressed...but that was only the first 5.

As I stated, I'll see if that changes.

Every episode is to promote feminist, misandrous anti-white rubbish. Look for the sub-text, OUC.

It is a thing on Star Trek and a lot of these mass media science fiction war dramas that the captain goes on away teams and leads battles from the front. Sure, when George Patton was a Lt. Col. in World War I, he distinguished himself by leading a tank charge. And, yes, in Europe and other cultures where you inherit your social rank, the leaders are easily replaced because they bring so little to the table. That said, given the training and experience required, given the investment and expectations for future returns, you do not throw away your leadership. That would be all the more true in the future of Star Trek.

Just to say about Discovery Cdr. Burnham and Capt. Georgiou board the Klingon ship. But we are told that Starfleet is for explorers and scientists, not soldiers. I would have polled the crew for who had weapons training or security experience or had been decorated for bravery, etc., and put together a plan. But I do not write for television.

Thanks. Last night we watched the first episode of Veronica Mars, expecting it to be like Nancy Drew. It was unappealing.Perhaps typified as a picaresque or anti-hero story, Veronica Mars is certainly somewhere along the naturalism spectrum in which actions are irreducible primaries. The main character is also morally unattractive, seeking one-upsmanship, and carrying out contextually impossible actions to get one over on the other guy. Three episodes into Discovery my wife tagged Captain Lorca as the bad guy, though with little concrete evidence, but some expectation from plot and character. Then we waited to see how that would develop. With Veronica Mars we agreed right away that the rich guy was the bad guy and her Mom was sleeping with him and the sheriff is on the take and blah-blah-blah.

In the first episode, I wasn't sure I was going to like it, being put off by all the women in authority, figuring this would be nothing but a feminist narrative but soon found the characters relatable, before I knew it I had watched 5 episodes...will be watching season 1 disc 2 next.

We'll see if I change my mind...I am still on the edge of doing so.

I would never send the captain into hand-to-hand combat on an enemy vessel
MM, could you please elaborate, explain this?

STD is a good acronym for the content of that show. Diseased rubbish.