The Trump Presidency, Season 2

Katheryne Helendale

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Translation: "We in the Justice system are now pathetic cowards who are scared to challenge criminals who happen to be very powerful."
The entire Justice Department is responsible for what is going to happen to us all over the next four years!
 

Soen Eber

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DEI was successful early on because the companies who were doing it were also ahead of the curve on a lot of other things, and better at finding useful practices that other companies ignored. Then it became "This successful company does DEI so we should too," and too often it became a half-assed attempt that was just "You're doing it wrong."

Of course you can't blame management. And that started deflection from the obvious sources onto the obvious targets, just like umptybillion times in the past..
 
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detrius

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LOL, of course I WANT the star trek future. But what I meant is how I've met some people who act like it's a serious policy goal. It's just a dream!
I wouldn't even know what policies they're referring to as Earth rarely gets visited in the shows. All we know about life on this planet is what we get to see through the lense of a militaristic organization, so we know that Ben Sisko's father owns a restaurant and that at least two other officers own a vineyard - but we still can't say for sure if they're using money. Picard's vineyard seems to be a cultural heritage site and Boimler's family uses its vineyard in an attempt to hook up their son with unreasonably attractive farm girls.
 
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GoblinCampFollower

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I wouldn't even know what policies they're referring to as Earth rarely gets visited in the shows. All we know about life on this planet is what we get to see through the lense of a militaristic organization, so we know that Ben Sisko's father owns a restaurant and that at least two other officers own a vineyard - but we still can't say for sure if they're using money. Picard's vineyard seems to be a cultural heritage site and Boimler's family uses its vineyard in an attempt to hook up their son with unreasonably attractive farm girls.
There are a few subtle hints in the show/movies that it's supposed to be a socialist utopis but it's vague and you're mostly right. In one movie someone from the past asks how much the Enterprise all costs and Piccard just kind of laughs and says the pursuit of wealth doesn't matter to them. They seem to imply they don't use money but that's still of course way too vague to say how their society actually works. It's just supposed to be perfect.
 

Soen Eber

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There are a few subtle hints in the show/movies that it's supposed to be a socialist utopis but it's vague and you're mostly right. In one movie someone from the past asks how much the Enterprise all costs and Piccard just kind of laughs and says the pursuit of wealth doesn't matter to them. They seem to imply they don't use money but that's still of course way too vague to say how their society actually works. It's just supposed to be perfect.
It's been long recognized that the official Federation currency is Handwavium.
 

Noodles

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Yeah, there is no currency, but they still have stockpiles of weath based things so they can deal with aliens who do use currency, mostly The Ferangi.

Star Trek kind of gets even more weird when you look at the aliens though. Like what kind of society are the Vulcans or the Klingons? They are all very, one dimensional in the end, almost like animal more than sentient races of aliens.
 

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Banks has been involved in a long-running legal row with the former Observer journalist Carole Cadwalladr, whom he sued for libel after she suggested he had a “covert relationship with the Russian government”, something he said was false and defamatory.

The insurance tycoon won a partial victory in the Court of Appeal in 2023, with Cadwalladr ordered to pay legal costs. Her legal team has since said it intends to challenge the verdict at the European Court of Human Rights. The case followed earlier revelations in The Sunday Times that Banks had attended three meetings with the Russian ambassador to Britain throughout the Brexit referendum campaign and its aftermath, raising questions about attempts by Moscow to influence the result.
Evernote Link
 

GoblinCampFollower

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Yeah, there is no currency, but they still have stockpiles of weath based things so they can deal with aliens who do use currency, mostly The Ferangi.

Star Trek kind of gets even more weird when you look at the aliens though. Like what kind of society are the Vulcans or the Klingons? They are all very, one dimensional in the end, almost like animal more than sentient races of aliens.
This is a common problem in fantasy and scifi... every race of non humans is one dimensional. ....mostly because it's too much work to world build a HUGE diverse race of people who are realistically diverse, but also not just clones of humans that look different. It's hard to imagine aliens that are different from humans but not all the same.

This is also a common limitation in characters for role play or writing stories. Most "characters" are just the author/player or are one dimensional since it's hard to imagine a complex character in every detail who's not just you. ...even harder to imagine a whole civilization of them.

MAYBE it's fair to say that an alternative people are not 1 dimensional, but humans would think they are since they tend to skew very hard in a different direction from humans. Like the Klingons are on average a lot more aggressive and militaristic than humans, so we see them as one dimensional in that way... but they see nuance more among each other and who has weird hobbies of their own kind that humans don't see.... and they'd see humans as one dimensional hippies. ...Vulcans even more so.
 

Veritable Quandry

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Babylon 5 is probably the best example of having complex alien species. The races that get significant amounts of screen time have internal divisions and fully fleshed out characters who develop over their arcs. Londo and G'Kar have a linked arc that takes them both through a lot of heavy emotional growth. Farscape comes a close second.
 

GoblinCampFollower

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Babylon 5 is probably the best example of having complex alien species. The races that get significant amounts of screen time have internal divisions and fully fleshed out characters who develop over their arcs. Londo and G'Kar have a linked arc that takes them both through a lot of heavy emotional growth. Farscape comes a close second.
I never watched Babylon 5 but know I need to.... I hear nothing but good things about it. And maybe that's kind of the key to a more believable alien race, having internal divisions. Humans have many cultures. A HUGE race of billions of aliens should also have many cultures, even if none of them are like human cultures. Though it's also believable if a fascist regime in one such race eliminates all the others...

I also really liked Farscape. I think they did this well. They had a few aliens who were very complex, but also not just like humans.
 

Soen Eber

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Babylon 5 is probably the best example of having complex alien species. The races that get significant amounts of screen time have internal divisions and fully fleshed out characters who develop over their arcs. Londo and G'Kar have a linked arc that takes them both through a lot of heavy emotional growth. Farscape comes a close second.
Babylon 5 still has cheat codes: Centauri are Roman/Rennaisance Italian based, Mimbari are Asian based, and Narn are angry, exploited honorable barbarian colonials. The other alien races are mostly broad-brushed and painted in competing-states colors. Still, about as thought out and complex as possible for a series of 46 minute episodes.
 
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Soen Eber

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Who are the Shadows?
Dressed-up stock archetypes, devils and unknowable gods. They supply the threat, the wonder, the mystery, and just enough insanity to drive the plot in new and unexpected directions for the protagonists to bounce against. No plot, no story. Same for the Vorlons, different sides of the same plot coupon generator.

All are tropes. Some writers are better with them, and dress them up with multiple layers to make them real enough to echo myth, reality, and dreams to the point where they touch the Jungian vein and make us believe. All fiction is composed of painted cardboard sets just sufficient enough to frame a story to the point of making it saleable.

Yes, I've read too many books on writing fiction. It works for politics, too.
 
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Kamilah Hauptmann

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Dressed-up stock archetypes, devils and unknowable gods. They supply the threat, the wonder, the mystery, and just enough insanity to drive the plot in new and unexpected directions for the protagonists to bounce against. No plot, no story. Same for the Vorlons, different sides of the same plot coupon generator.

All are tropes. Some writers are better with them, and dress them up with multiple layers to make them real enough to echo myth, reality, and dreams to the point where they touch the Jungian vein and make us believe.
Translation: people don’t actually want something new.
 
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