The Jenolan was NOT a runabout. I don't care how many times Okuda spouts that trash. It was clearly a large starship with many decks of windows on the side, and its engines, impulse deck and bridge were the same size as the refit Enterprise's. I don't know where Okuda got the delusion to call it a runabout, but it's crap. http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/jenolan-model-side.jpg
If you want to think of Trek in stagnation just think of Rick Berman. I remember about the time Enterprise ended, he made some comments to someone who suggested setting a new series years after The Next Generation. Berman said to the effect that it couldn't be done because "there isn't anywhere else in the galaxy to go. Ships can already go as fast as they possibly can......." and alot of crap like that. Can't believe Paramount let him run the franchise.
There are lots of things that don't exist in canonical reference in Star Trek: people going to the bathroom and throwing up, for example. Do you think those things don't exist in the Federation too? The fact is, not everything that exists in the Federation made it into the five series and 11 movies. Or even the umpteen Star Trek books. All I am saying is that we have only seen a sliver of non-Starfleet people in all the series. Add every Federation citizen that's been on screen in the various series and movies, and you're talking about incredibly generously 500,000 characters with speaking roles out of a Federation population that has to be in the billions or trillions. Can you really extrapolate from those 500,000 characters what the culture is like for the billions or trillions we don't see? Especially when most of the people we do see are a) in Starfleet and b) we see them only in a moment of crisis and in a limited context? We can't really say what Federation culture is like apart from a few general points, and even some of them contradict each other. The abolition of money talked about by Picard seems to contradict the many references to credits in the series, for example. [/quote] We have hundreds of examples of specifics of Federation culture. If the shows were all based on the premise of deep space exploration and we never saw any examples of Federation life you would be correct. But we do see example after example of that life. Yes, everyone who we didn't see on the show could be a purple skinned Venutian devil worshipper. But that obviously wasn't the writers intent, and they rarely if ever addressed the cultural impact of their shows premise. [/quote] I'll ask my question again. Given we have seen "hundreds of examples of the specifics of Federation culture," and given that Federation culture includes billions to trillions of people on untold worlds, can you really argue that we've seen the sum total of it? That there wouldn't and couldn't be subcultures that the writers -- for whatever reason -- weren't interested in showing? I believe in the specific reference, Archer said that he meditated with the Dalia Lama and attended services at St. Peter's in Rome. So yeah, at least as of his time, there were practicing religious humans. As for whether the characters are religious, we all know that part of Roddenberry's mandate was an atheist outlook. But there were the examples I cited before of religion being snuck in. Also, I would say that by the end of things, Sisko believed in the Prophets and Bajoran religion. He read the prophecies, invoked them to help with miracles, had visions, performed blessings on people and so forth. For the most part, the main characters are silent on the subject of religion. That doesn't necessarily mean it's something humans don't do on the whole. Heck, it doesn't even necessarily mean that the main characters don't do it. It could just mean that the show has focused on the part of their lives where visible displays of religion aren't incorporated: them being at work and in a middle of a crisis. I would say that if you were to film the average religious person in his workplace, there would not be much proof of his/her being religious on a day to day basis there, let alone if you focused on a few specific incidents in that person's life. Sure, you might have the occasional outburst of "My God!" or whatever, but I'd think you could find instances of that sort of thing in Trek if you went looking for it. Certainly we have a broad overview. But in terms of minute details of what's going on at each individual planet and what customs are still being observed or new ones are being started? We don't have enough information to say one way or another. Essentially, you seem to be saying, "If all these things existed, we would have seen them by now." I am saying, "There's plenty of things in the Trek universe that we haven't seen. We can't conclude by their lack of screen time that they don't exist."
That's just too stupid to comment on any further. If there are all of these huge changes to Federation society, they aren't reflected in any of the source material for the show. Considering all of the books, novels, movies and comics make up the source material, if it is outside the normal human experience and doesn't exist in those things, there's no reason for us to think it exists. So yes, Captain Picard goes Pee Pee. No, there isn't any reason to think millions of Federation civilians worship the Q Continuum. One is reasonable, the other would have to be established to be accepted. And as you've admitted we don't see the social impact of these explorations, then outside of your own private version of Trek then it isn't the shared understanding of Trek that the rest of us experience. Thus proving my point. But go on, continue to make the argument that 100 foot klingons that shoot fire out of their ass exist because it hasn't been shown that they don't. All sorts of logical fallacies there.
I think it would be interesting to see panic sweep the people of Earth everytime word got out of one of Kirks discovery of some kind of imminent threat to humanity. The planet killer, V'ger, Nomad.......... I can imagine a man at home hearing the news start out with "Breaking news, Capt. Kirk of the Enterprise reportedly discovered...." and leap up screaming. "FOR GODS SAKE EDNA!!! GET THE KIDS INTO THE SHELTER!! I'LL FIND THE DOG!! NOW MOVE WOMAN!!!"
Another thing... I want to see a series about the USS Redundant. You know...the other ship in the quadrant. "Captain, the Doomsday Machine is heading for Earth!" "Set course, Warp Nine!" "Captain, Uh, Starfleet has asked the Enterprise to handle it." " Not again!"
Actually, I was thinking of doing a story that goes the other way with that. That "the other captain", actually has greater accomplishments, but Kirk got better press. For example, my guy softened up the Doomsday Machine. The thing Kirk fought was the last piece of it.
