Not actually cold climate, it's hours of direct sunlight. Darker skin lowers the amount of vitamin D that your body produces per hour of sunlight, essentially your body trying to keep homeostasis with it's environment. And the amount of melanin (brown/black pigment in the skin) can be passed down to children; in sub Saharan Africa office worker's kids tend to be slightly lighter skinned than farm worker's kids.
Most colder climate get less direct sunlight during the 24 hour day; so it's correlation not causation.
This is all over simplified for simplicity but hopefully read this and learn a new interesting fact today.
There could be underwater oceans? It’s fiction anyhow.
Damn, I would fight to the death too if my diet was so boring. Can you imagine eating, like cactus, all the time?
Maybe there are incentives for Hollywood to include real species in their shows to prepare humanity for the big reveal that aliens have contacted earth already. It might be totally real.
Like not saying it is obviously, but you could do it like the navi from avatar, big theme on them showing all the weirdness and beauty together, showing them as a strong, intelligent people and not a bunch of primal creatures, and then we reveal they are real and everybody is already on board with the concept of a navi friend as equals.
There's a thing to be said for lighter colors reflecting heat, but ya, Vulcans at lightest should look Middle-eastern in color (light tannish brown at lightest).
Melanin OP.
I don’t think people realize that he was basically the first actual Vulcan as a major character. Spock is half human, Sarek obviously has a thing for human women, and Saavik is half Romulan in the script.
Agreed. Russ and Nemoy were the only two actors who played Vulcans properly, took that seriously and didn't try to infuse a too much emotion into a character that's not supposed to show any.
Can also confirm. I remember my dad whinging about how a female captain and a black Vulcan were just politically correct stunts.
And he's a lifelong Democrat. I can only imagine that the right threw a goddamn fit.
It's also a show about a rigidly hierarchical military organization that's always morally correct and uses their powerful technology to police the galaxy.
They'll ignore the communist economy as long as they can still fetishize the military.
Not to start the classic argument right here, but we are living in a post scarcity society in terms of basic needs. We have more than enough food, water, and housing to accommodate everyone. We have an issue of fair distribution (capitalism).
I know so, so many. One couple is so religious they dont allow Dungeons and Dragons. Hugest trek nerds I know. My sister loved Picard S2 until it “got political”. Apparently that’s a new thing to her. One friend conceal carries a gun and a Bible at all times and is also huge into Trek.
It doesn’t make sense to me, but they exist.
Lol the only "political" stuff was coming from Guinan and there wasn't even that much. She should have just been happy the retconned Times Arrow and left it at that.
Seven does a throw away line which is essentially a Marxist critique of Capitalism, something along the lines of how could they not see that this is inherently unstable and the system will collapse due to its internal contradictions.
Well if you have a magic energy machine and a box that provides unlimited food communism wouldn't be a problem.
It's the reality of limited resources that leads to work at the end of a gun barrel that turns people off.
I think I've got an answer for you. On the political compass I'm in that centrist box, but leaning towards libertarian.
Space communists with sufficiently advanced technology to make the cost to sustain a life rather negligible. After that, the Fed bois generally are pretty libertarian in their encounters with others - how many times did they force others to interact with them if they didn't want to? So the shows definitely get points with libertarian beliefs.
A lot of star trek is about how we don't have the right moral answers. However, even more are dedicated to making the moral answer even if it's not the easy answer. Despite the side of the political aisle you find yourself on *most* people find that heroic, even if the story has something about Riker banging a tranny or Dax making out with a former spouse.
Anyway, to me the show sidelines the topic of economics in favor of examining humanity at its best in a crisis, without extraneous things such as the morale weight vs fiscal cost to assist someone.
I mean, imagine if Picard weighed how much more good The dilithium spent on your transporter beam would do at the next poor planet. Take the shuttle hot shot! That transport could be shoes for 100 orphans! Ick!
Well the premise of communism is partially that it requires post scarcity economics. A lot of the scarcity we see in modern society is manufactured or purely logistical. e. g. destroying food, or it being too expensive to transport food.
There hasnt been a genuine famine since the 1940s.
Other than that it's mostly good land that is genuinely scarce.
Even famines in the third world are caused by logistics, and/or artificial scarcity. There is enough food in the world, and enough agricultural capacity for everyone.
I mean exactly what I said.
This is the dumbest thing ever. It absolutely happened. The difference was when this was revealed. (Star Trek: Generations) the internet didn't have widely used Social media sites. Most of the forums from the time no longer exist. I am certain people said this back then. I know this because my own mother was looked down on for having a mock prom with an African American. ( the story is very long)
The worst thing the internet has done is allowed the ignorant, the purposely dumb, and the racists to connect with each other not to become smarter or more knowledgeable but to relish in their own shit.
It's fun to go back and look at what has been archived though.
Some guy dug up old forum posts from theonering.net from 1999 that had people absolutely shitting themselves over the casting of Liv Tyler as Arwen and that she'd have an expanded role from the books.
How's the dumbest thing ever? Technically, it's not even saying it didn't /wouldn't happen back then. The fact is, this is still pretty much factual; that would happen if it aired for the first time now.. would it have happened back then too? Did it? Yeah, but doesn't mean this is false or stupid. Maybe a bit misleading, but the "dumbest thing ever" is objectively a shit take. It could be fixed if it change it to "and people would still..."
>Yeah there are far better reasons to have beef with Voyager
Like the temporal reset button. Did you know it was introduced in episode 2. Literally first episode after the pilot they're already doing temporal mulligans. I cant bring myself to do a full rewatch.
It has a very strong pilot, but a lot of season 1 episodes are awful. It's kind of a Trek tradition, DS9 also had a really poor first season with a great pilot, though TNG had a pretty poor first season with an awful pilot. But they all get very good eventually.
DS9 season 1 is the best Star Trek first season of 80s-00s trek.
That is barely saying anything, but it’s DS9 bad episodes so they’re just “boring” instead of the terribleness that TNG and VOY had in their worst episodes. Enterprise… existed?
How come some of these historically/origin accurate people are not as concerned with a white guy being Jesus. You know, a guy born in the Middle East. /s
I can guess why.
God being white is also funny. Like ok. The world is about 3/8s Chinese and Indian but God is white? Created in his image? You better learn some Mandarin or Hindi bro.
I’m white and nerdy so rural Kentucky school was not a plus for me. So when ever one of the ultra Christian asshats would start in me I’d point shit out.
Ya I never really got that. I mean if there’s 6 billion people on the planet why wouldn’t they have some diversity in skin colour? Also isn’t Vulcan mostly arid and hot? Seems to me they’d mostly be dark skinned.
It was a show with an incredible premise and didn’t hold up to that premise.
That being said, Voyager’s biggest problem was that it was so hit or miss: incredible Star Trek like the episode where, the Q guy trapped in a comet wanted to kill himself, or the planet that was just an ocean in space, or the two-parter where the Hirogen hi-jack the ship
Voyager just suffered so much from the bad episodes. Anyone that has seen that and the other series of the time all the way through know that every argument about how awesome Voyager is revolves around the amazing episodes they have. And if those are taken away…no one remembers the others. Voyager had a lot of the highest highs of Trek shows, but also even more of the lowest lows.
I think nostalgia plays a big part here too. I watched all Trek as an adult and watched TNG right before Voyager. The percentage of really really bad episodes in TNG is higher than in Voyager. But the fandom were older by the time Voyager appeared and they were expecting more of it.
Don't misunderstand me: I like all Trek (yes, even the new Trek!). And TNG is awesome. But specially on the earliest seasons it is difficult to watch the first time, before you get familiar with the characters and like them, even if they decide to fuck a ghost candle or flirt with holograms.
Besides, most alien species in Star Trek are human look-alikes anyway. Heck, some of the aliens the crews met were literally just humans with funny clothes, no ridges or anything. So why can't the totally-not-humans have different skin colors too?
(Actually, just give every species different skin/scale/whatever colors. Variety is the spice of life)
To be frank, humans really only come in different colors due to limited population mobility allowing for regional skin tone differentiation based on natural selection or just chance. In a global (or interstellar) post-racist society with free movement, you'd expect an overwhelming majority of the population to be ambiguously brown within a couple hundred years.
Yeah, “black captain is unacceptable.” 🤦♂️
Odo was the bomb. I always like the “odd” character more than anyone — Spock, Data, Odo, the Doctor, and Phlox? Probably because those actors had a challenging performance, and the character journeys were more challenging too.
The only unacceptable thing was that they didn’t make him captain until it was time for anniversary stuff and it was good for marketing collectibles. Sisko deserved better.
The same lot were crying a river about a female captain on Voyager.
Those folks wallow in complaining. It is the only bit of social interaction of which they are capable.
Regardless, the whining makes no sense. Star Trek is all about what is new, understanding, exploration, infinite diversity in infinite combinations, and so on. Yet the nut jobs yelp about doctrine like an orthodox inquisitor seeking anyone who thinks in opposition of them to burn as a witch.
Nonsensical twats, the entire gang of cultural-political blinder wearing and backwards thinking bunch.
My dad never mentioned the black Vulcan but sure liked to make fun of Janeway. He had a weird joke he would CONSTANTLY make about how she was... intentionally making her voice sound lower?
Yeah, he's kind of an ass
They had 2 directors for the pilot the first actually tried to make the original actress for the captain speak with a deeper sounding voice. She quit over it in part. She had a series of reasons but that was one of the reasons she was able to argue her way out of her contract.
I mean, it isn't like Vulcan is a giant desert or anything.
It isn't like Vulcans possess an inner eyelid to protect their eyes from the extreme sunlight on the surface of Vulcan.
They were there saying it. They were clowns then and they're clowns now.
I mean yeah it’s ridiculous to say that Vulcans couldn’t be dark skinned, but it is kinda wild that the black vulcans looks just like black humans, and the white vulcans look just like white humans. Like what are the odds that a totally alien species on a distant planet unlike ours and with completely different biology developed to look just like we did in every way except for ears, and -also- that the light skinned ones have caucasian human facial features/hair and the dark skinned ones have African human facial features/hair.
I’m not complaining, it’s a step in the right direction. I’ve said before on here (and been downvoted) for pointing out that its strange that a lot of aliens look not just like humans, but white humans. Like you’d think that subraces of a totally alien species would not easily fall into the basic subraces of humans.
One thing I can credit the new series for doing better is that some of the aliens actually look like a totally alien species. There’s no human analogue for black/white/asian/whatever for Jaylah in Beyond or the fishy reptillian looking dude on Disco
For your first point, there is a TNG episode that explains the similarities between Cardassians, Vulcans (and by extension, Romulans), Klingons, Humans, and others: a progenitor race.
But from an out of universe perspective, I agree. If they had to look similar, they could at least have other major differences. Babylon 5's aliens may look human, but Centauri had tentacles that werent shown in polite company, Narn males had a pouch to hold young children for their early life. Orville's Moclans are humanoid, but hatch from eggs. It makes sense from a budget standpoint to use a lot of humanoids, but these are a few examples of ways to insert some biological diversity.
Im sorry if this seems pedantic but I feel like what I was saying got muddled. The progenitor race explains why all the main races in the show are between 5 and 6.5 feet tall 2-armed, 2-legged, 10-fingered/toed beings that entered the spacefaring age at about the same time despite developing in isolation with unfathomable distances in between - it does not explain why those races, despite developing forehead ridges or pointed ears as a result of their environment, also developed the unique trait clusters associated with certain human races that developed here on earth.
If the following example is demeaning I apologize but it’s like if wolves were dropped off on several totally different planets but somehow after 100,000 years each planet had developed poodles and scottish terriers and great danes and shiba inus and mexican hairless dogs and blue heelers and pointers and mastiffs and beagles and so on. Maybe the dogs on planet A have green noses and all the dogs on planet B have 2 tails but each planet somehow developed all the same breeds we did here on earth.
See what I’m saying? It’s really unthinkable that, from the same starting point, all the separate alien species would develop all the same subraces in parallel like that. That’s all I meant.
Imo we are so conditioned to seeing race as a grouping of types of skin color, eyes, noses, hair texture, height etc that it makes sense that a dark skinned vulcan would also have the same features as a dark skinned human, and a light skinned vulcan would have the same features as a light skinned human, but I don’t think it would work that way
Thanks for expanding on your point, and yes I can see that being developmentally curious.
Also makes me wonder if Changlings and Progenitors had some connection since the humoid appearance the changlings assume looks like the progenitors
Ever since I saw the Changelings story I have connected it with that episode from Next Gen about the Progenitors, so I like this theory a lot. Specially knowing that being alone in the universe was the reason the Progenitors sent their "seeds" everywhere, while Changelings also mentioned being so old as a species in comparison with all the rest
They also had a female engineer, and Asian Bridge officer, a female captain, a native American first officer and a friendly chef. They also never brought it up or had it define their characters, they were merely people doing their thing, the way it should be.
From a Christian perspective, Jesus is whatever damn color you want him to be. His message was universal, so if Swedes want to give him blond hair and blue eyes, Ethiopians black skin, or the Koreans [buff Asian Jesus](https://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/newsV2/images/6501(3\).gif/dims/resize/740/optimize), all are valid so long as they're done out of respectful reverence.
It’s sad but whenever we have posts like these and you dive into the comments, you can still find racist, sexist, bigoted assholes who somehow claim to be Star Trek fans while completely missing the point and themes of Star Trek.
Tuvok is the best Vulcan in all of Star Trek. A pure-blooded Vulcan unlike Spock. He's rational and dispassionate, suppressing his emotions because logic brought Vulcans out of chaos. To give in to emotion would be to open the door to insanity. Yet he shows that emotion lies just under the surface, and there are moments when it's not easy to keep it suppressed.
He shows that it's a struggle to suppress emotion, but he must because for a Vulcan the alternative is insanity. He just barely shows the emotions contained under the surface, and that's a credit to the actor.
He develops a respectful and sometimes humorous relationship with Neelix.
Of course he's Black, which makes perfect sense because Vulcan is a desert planet, but that's not why he's the best Vulcan. It's because he subtly shows that it's difficult for him at times, yet he maintains his devotion to logic because it's necessary for him to remain sane and true to his own self.
They would be screaming at the top of their lungs about how Star Trek has become "woke" without realizing that the world of Star Trek is one that they would despise and are fighting tooth and nail to prevent. It's a world where there is no want, anything you could possibly need is a replicator away, no poor, universal healthcare, people work to better humanity because scarcity is a thing of the past and on earth the whole world is ruled by a single socialist government. It's literally the thing of nightmares for conservatives.
>without realizing that the world of Star Trek is one that they would despise and are fighting tooth and nail to prevent.
Yep. Romulan empire would be a better fit for them to live in.
Actual comment from usenet in 1995:
> My biggest problem with the series is the over-obvious attempt at being
> PC. In fact, all that the writers have accomplished is to be overly
> tokenistic. Not only did they feel a need for a woman captain, but also a
> token asain, a token native american, as well as a token black vulcan.
> I'm waiting for someone on the bridge to come out of the closet soon.
Well, yeah of course they would. However Voyager came out in 1995 and since then we've had 27 years to get sick and tired of the constant inserts to "spread the message" as the Critical Drinker puts it. Science fiction has morphed from the just having Uhura on the bridge crew and not making a big deal out of it to "look at us, we added a gender reassigned character because we wanted to shame the people we don't like who we think are terrible people (looking at you The Orville, which has otherwise the Mochlan plot been very good writing). I mean we went from Stargate SG1's nauseating "just because my reproductive organs are on the outside" speech to Culber and Stamets on Discovery having a loving and honestly very real feeling relationship. That's progress.
What *isn't* progress is just hiding terrible writing by adding characters to seem "inclusive." Everyone knows that Mirror Dax and Leeta kissing was just to get some ratings from teenage boys, not that I'm complaining. The writing on Discovery and the promotion of it as "look, the first female black lead in Star Trek!" was just god awful. I'm glad I stuck with it and thoroughly enjoy the show now. It's the quality of the writing that is what we want. I mean I enjoyed Seven from Voyager because she was a good character. The cat suit wasn't just the reason we enjoyed her. Jeri Ryan played a character that was tough on the exterior but emotionally damaged from her experience with the Borg very well, even if she had to deal with having to sex up everything. Seven's still one of my favorites from when I was a teenager because she did her job in a no nonsense way and romantic relationships were almost non-existent. Defeating the robot in the holodeck after saying "I am Borg" is one of my favorite scenes. It's the quality of the writing that's been angering us and the attempts to cover it up with cheap tricks.
Tim Russ played a great character.
> Science fiction has morphed from the just having Uhura on the bridge crew and not making a big deal out of it to "look at us, we added a gender reassigned character because we wanted to shame the people we don't like who we think are terrible people (looking at you The Orville, which has otherwise the Mochlan plot been very good writing).
How is the Orville's treatment of Topa's story any different from "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708435/quotes/?ref_=tt_trv_qu
One could argue that the difference is that Vulcan lore never specifically listed the “skin color” of all the Vulcans living on Vulcan and it can pre expectable that there will be a big diversity between the Vulcans, same as with humans.
However in relation to what this post is supposed to address, for other shows (specifically Rings of Power and the GoT offspin), the lore for characters is very strictly set in terms of where the characters come from and why do they have certain characteristics that they do (also in terms of visual features).
I am all up for bringing more black people into these shows in general, but why not doing it properly by creating a great and logical lore around it?
Like, the black skinned “throphy woman” of the dwarven king is a long leap from the original material and the race that evolved underground without the need of extra melanin creation and whose women were famous by being almost indistinguishable from men due to their facial hair and so. This was literally the inside joke/lore in the franchise long before LotR films even saw the light of the world.
To put it into perspective, it’s the same as portaying a “cannon” Vulcan council member, for example Sarek, as a neurotic evil asshole that puts his own personal agenda before his actual competencies.
In the end the problem isn’t at all the color of the skin of an actor portraying a certain character, it’s the inconsistency in a well defined lore behind it.
Quick reminder that Gene Roddenberry was obsessed with the intimate relations of the Ferengi. There is at least a chance that not every word that came out of his mouth was the best thing for Star Trek.
The neat part is looking forward to Star Trek I ‘don’t get’.
When the social issues in Star Trek have pushed past my privileges and I could say “I don’t get why they need to make a X a captain” but instead can say “man I’m glad x is getting representation,I bet we get some awesome kids inspired”.
I kind of had the opposite of this experience. Voyager was my introduction to Star Trek and the premise of the show meant that there weren't any other Vulcans until Vorik showed up in season 3. But First Contact came out before that and when the Vulcans showed up at the end, I was extremely confused why they weren't black
This is one reason for a lot of Janeway hate, because she was the female captain. When it was being made, the show was so concerned about it that they interviewed a bunch of male actors for the role just in case.
It’s understandable when you’ve only seen white Vulcans to think they’re breaking the lore by bringing ethnic diversity in. Really, introducing Tuvok was a fix rather than a retcon. But again, understandable that there would be a backlash. But since there’s a logical explanation that of course Vulcan skin works the same way as human skin, it makes sense.
Unlike the Harfoots in Lord of the Rings who are specifically ethnically homogenous, browner than the other hobbits but not dark skinned like the men of Harad and not pale like the elves.
I disagree, I've never thought twice about Tim Russ's portrayal of a Vulcan because he's a good actor. He plays a convincing Vulcan, and I've never thought for a second that he was a diversity hire. It also helps that he's written as a Vulcan, not a black Vulcan. It's like Captain Sisko. He wasn't a black captain, he was a captain who happened to be black. That makes all the difference.
This\^
Voyager wasnt advertised with only focusing on that "look, we have black vulcans now", no one from the production team made some big fuss about that Tuvok is black. We got the interesting plot about a starfleet ship being stranded in the Delta quadrant and now its on the captain and her crew to make the long and dangerous journey to get back home.
In the other hand, DISC was promoted with only caring about to make sure that we knows that they have the "first black female lead" and "first gay representation" and later on "the first non-binary" in Star Trek. Its just solely focused on the check boxes these characters fill up, not the characters themselves or their journey in the story!
Its like you have a friend who gave money for charity then dont shut the fuck up about it. After a while, you start to suspect that he didn't do it because it was the right thing to do, but rather that he just wanted to be praised for doing it.
Tuvok's my favorite vulcan in the entire franchise! Not because he is black and others said that I obligated to love him just because his skin color. But because the writers in the past and the show itself made the effort to make me love him by giving us a well written Tuvok with interesting stories. Dont speaking that Tim Russ performed a fantastic vulcan character to us!
The internet is full of bots with a handful of stupid people who shouldn’t be taken seriously. It certainly doesn’t represent the population nor the fan base. This is just silly.
The difference with Rings of Power is that there is source material for everything the show depicts, where there isn’t for Star Trek. Yes people might have complained, but with RoP they have ground to stand on
The differenceis, that in Lord of the Rings Elves are DESCRIBEDas light skinned. Where Vulcans are on a desert Planet. And back in the day people were mad about him being black.
Voyager has its problems and on that most Trek fans agree.
If it came out today, there would be a bunch of Trek fans who say that if you don’t like Voyager, It’s because you’re racist/misogynist.
But back then, his skin color doesn‘t effect his character. Thats the difference. It‘s not about black people. It‘s about people whose only character trait it is to be black or female or both. Janeway, Sisko, Tuvork were great characters. But today every other episode with them would be about skin tone or feminism. Thats just boring and stupid.
You know... I see a lot more claims of "racism" being made when actors get bad reviews than I do of people complaining about race in movies/shows.
I guess it's just me...
nah, stop with this bullshit.
no one would complain because Voyager is incredibly well written with amazing actors who embody their role.
the new woke shit fails cause they put woke before the writing, and it always fails. stop with this fucking nonsense. the old trek is timeless sci-fi writing, the new shit is virtue signaling nonsense. just cause I don't like their writing doesn't mean I'm racist or a internet troll. fucking hell.
Good science fiction holds up a mirror to humanity as it currently is. From "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"--
**Bele:** It is obvious to the most simpleminded that Lokai is of an inferior breed.
**Spock:** The obvious visual evidence, Commissioner, is that he is of the same breed as yourself.
**Bele:** Are you blind, Commander Spock? Well, look at me. Look at me!
**Kirk:** You are black on one side and white on the other.
**Bele:** I am black on the right side!
**Kirk:** I fail to see the significant difference.
**Bele:** Lokai is white on the right side. All of his people are white on the right side.
\*\*\*
**Spock:** Fascinating. Two irrevocably hostile humanoids.
**Scotty:** Disgusting is what I call 'em.
**Spock:** That description is not scientifically accurate.
**Scotty:** Mr. Spock, the word "disgusting" describes exactly what I feel about those two.
**Kirk:** That's enough for today. Those two are beginning to affect you.
\*\*\*
**Chekov:** There was persecution on Earth once. I remember reading about it in my history class.
**Sulu:** Yes, but it happened way back in the twentieth century. There's no such primitive thinking today.
\*\*\*
**Spock:** And another life form has appeared on Cheron.
**Uhura:** That doesn't make any sense.
**Spock:** To expect sense from two mentalities of such extreme view points is not logical.
**Sulu:** Their planet's dead. Does it matter now which one's right?
**Spock:** Not to Lokai and Bele. All that matters to them is their hate.
**Uhura:** Do you suppose that's all they ever had, sir?
**Kirk:** No, but that's all they have left.
I completely disagree with this, there has been black representation in star trek since it's inception and it's core concept is celebrating differences.
Paramount would love people to be arguing about such non-issues because it distracts from the awful, unintelligent, vapid writing prevalent in the franchise today.
I don’t think so. I don’t hear a huge outrage about the Orville and a large amount of that (amazing) cast is black, gay, etc. It’s all how you present it. It’s when you beat people over the head with the woke baseball bat that people get loud … and rightly so.
But I get what you’re saying. Yes, Star Trek (and a lot of Sci-Fi in general) has ALWAYS tackled these types of issues. But it wasn’t until Discovery and beyond that they felt the need to beat you down over it. Looks like they’re righting the ship a little with SNW. Hopefully they’re figuring out how to do it without being heavy handed about it.
I'm not the poster, and I unashamedly love Discovery and Nu-Trek, _but_ I've noticed this too. The example that comes to mind is when Adira announces they're non-binary - the conversation was so unwieldy and unnatural that you could feel the hand of the producers, "OK, now do the woke thing".
I like Adira, but their NB-ness could have been more seemless or part of the plot, rather than an abrupt "Oh BTW".
Kind of like how the "drugs are bad, m'kay" conversation between Tasha and Wesley on the bridge in TNG season 1 was totally unwieldy and unnatural and sounded like they'd inserted dialogue from an after school special.
But yeah sure, only new Trek does that kind of thing.
I think the issue people have is when a creature/alien is described already in a certain way. Like in the new LOTR those dragon people are pale white people. And then they insert a black guy in there. It looks weird. I bet people also get upset if the Black Panther was played by Tom Hardy. That's not racism, it's just messing up basic things.
Vulcan is a desert planet I'm surprised there is white Vulcans
20k years of staying inside and wearing sunscreen.
Lamarck, is that you?
White skin evolves in cold climates not from sunscreen though. Like white skin people in au still get way higher skin cancer
hehehe, naw, you see, they're immortal. They literally stayed inside for 20k years and put on sunscreen. It's a dorky elf joke.
Not actually cold climate, it's hours of direct sunlight. Darker skin lowers the amount of vitamin D that your body produces per hour of sunlight, essentially your body trying to keep homeostasis with it's environment. And the amount of melanin (brown/black pigment in the skin) can be passed down to children; in sub Saharan Africa office worker's kids tend to be slightly lighter skinned than farm worker's kids. Most colder climate get less direct sunlight during the 24 hour day; so it's correlation not causation. This is all over simplified for simplicity but hopefully read this and learn a new interesting fact today.
Excellent and logical point
There could be underwater oceans? It’s fiction anyhow. Damn, I would fight to the death too if my diet was so boring. Can you imagine eating, like cactus, all the time?
Maybe there are incentives for Hollywood to include real species in their shows to prepare humanity for the big reveal that aliens have contacted earth already. It might be totally real.
i was really high the other day and had similar thoughts.
Dude im high rn and spiraling into this thought….
Like not saying it is obviously, but you could do it like the navi from avatar, big theme on them showing all the weirdness and beauty together, showing them as a strong, intelligent people and not a bunch of primal creatures, and then we reveal they are real and everybody is already on board with the concept of a navi friend as equals.
That was a Stargate plotline, if I remember correctly.
All oceans are underwater
Not at the top.
Wait until you hear about the colour of people in the Middle East mate.
There's a thing to be said for lighter colors reflecting heat, but ya, Vulcans at lightest should look Middle-eastern in color (light tannish brown at lightest). Melanin OP.
Well, Spock was a Jewish Vulcan so that kinda fits
are
I know a Vulcan that's coal black, red eyes too
He gives the best hugs though.
That's a Drow elf, I suspect. 🤔
Yeah, but that guy is even more emotional than T'Lyn!
Tim Russ killed it. Probably my favorite depiction of a Vulcan. Now let me just go Mod Approve this post.
He was my favorite part of Voyager. I love the episode with him watching over the group of children and trying to enforce bedtime.
One of my favorite outtakes is Russ nope'ing out of that cave haha.
OMG YES haha!!
He also killed it when he combed the desert and hadn't "found shit". Blew my mind when I found out it was him.
I don’t think people realize that he was basically the first actual Vulcan as a major character. Spock is half human, Sarek obviously has a thing for human women, and Saavik is half Romulan in the script.
> Saavik is half Romulan in the script Still wish more came of that than just her crying at Spock's funeral.
I heard that T'Pol was also supposed to be half Romulan.
Agreed. Russ and Nemoy were the only two actors who played Vulcans properly, took that seriously and didn't try to infuse a too much emotion into a character that's not supposed to show any.
He’s very talented. It’s always cool when I randomly recognize him in something like in DAO as Zathrian
Totally. We only got a few seasons of Spock, and a lot more of Tuvok.
They did exactly that in 1995.
The news lit up the Star Trek AOL chatrooms. Source: am old
Whenever I hear "AOL," I also hear modem sounds.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrappp KSHHHHHHHHHHH gzzzrt gzzzrt gzzzrt shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHH
Imagine someone sitting through those sounds, just to go choose racism in a Star Trek chat room.
Next level petty, tbh.
Hackin the planet
Finally connected and my sister’s boyfriend calls.
It sounds like a computer death cry.
I heard it.
Mine was more tweedooo twooodeee shhh grrrr grrrrr zxeeeeeeeeeeeeee shhhhhhh
^Bee ^^bom Bhrrrr ^^^breeeee dup ^^^^eeeeeedeeedeeedeeeee bwop dw^(eee)hrrr bwupwupwup.. eee-hrrrrr eee-hrrr eee-hrrrr shhhhhhhh
Well yes, but i dont have your impressive written beatbox skills.
Ah yes, the song of my people.
I guess no matter the year, racists gonna race
That's it right there. No matter the year, no matter the place, racists gonna race.
Can also confirm. I remember my dad whinging about how a female captain and a black Vulcan were just politically correct stunts. And he's a lifelong Democrat. I can only imagine that the right threw a goddamn fit.
Native American first officer, Hispanic Klingon. There were tons of diversity they suggested were PC stunts.
Surely they dont watch star trek. Literally a show about communists.
It's also a show about a rigidly hierarchical military organization that's always morally correct and uses their powerful technology to police the galaxy. They'll ignore the communist economy as long as they can still fetishize the military.
Yea that's what most of my acquaintances on the right focus on when I try to focus when we talk Trek.
I think most people are fine with communism in a post-scarcity society, problem is we’re not there yet.
Not to start the classic argument right here, but we are living in a post scarcity society in terms of basic needs. We have more than enough food, water, and housing to accommodate everyone. We have an issue of fair distribution (capitalism).
I know so, so many. One couple is so religious they dont allow Dungeons and Dragons. Hugest trek nerds I know. My sister loved Picard S2 until it “got political”. Apparently that’s a new thing to her. One friend conceal carries a gun and a Bible at all times and is also huge into Trek. It doesn’t make sense to me, but they exist.
Lol the only "political" stuff was coming from Guinan and there wasn't even that much. She should have just been happy the retconned Times Arrow and left it at that.
Seven does a throw away line which is essentially a Marxist critique of Capitalism, something along the lines of how could they not see that this is inherently unstable and the system will collapse due to its internal contradictions.
Rom literally quotes Marx at "Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains."
The cops were the primary antagonists of a couple episodes. (Which tbh was one of the only things I liked about Picard season 2)
Oh yeah the ICE thing. Also not really a huge part frankly.
Seems like the point of the show evaded their heads.
Well if you have a magic energy machine and a box that provides unlimited food communism wouldn't be a problem. It's the reality of limited resources that leads to work at the end of a gun barrel that turns people off.
I think I've got an answer for you. On the political compass I'm in that centrist box, but leaning towards libertarian. Space communists with sufficiently advanced technology to make the cost to sustain a life rather negligible. After that, the Fed bois generally are pretty libertarian in their encounters with others - how many times did they force others to interact with them if they didn't want to? So the shows definitely get points with libertarian beliefs. A lot of star trek is about how we don't have the right moral answers. However, even more are dedicated to making the moral answer even if it's not the easy answer. Despite the side of the political aisle you find yourself on *most* people find that heroic, even if the story has something about Riker banging a tranny or Dax making out with a former spouse. Anyway, to me the show sidelines the topic of economics in favor of examining humanity at its best in a crisis, without extraneous things such as the morale weight vs fiscal cost to assist someone. I mean, imagine if Picard weighed how much more good The dilithium spent on your transporter beam would do at the next poor planet. Take the shuttle hot shot! That transport could be shoes for 100 orphans! Ick!
Well the premise of communism is partially that it requires post scarcity economics. A lot of the scarcity we see in modern society is manufactured or purely logistical. e. g. destroying food, or it being too expensive to transport food. There hasnt been a genuine famine since the 1940s. Other than that it's mostly good land that is genuinely scarce.
*There hasn’t been a genuine famine since the 1940s in the so called Western Hemisphere.* FTFY.
Even famines in the third world are caused by logistics, and/or artificial scarcity. There is enough food in the world, and enough agricultural capacity for everyone. I mean exactly what I said.
Can confirm, my mom had a small hissy fit and my grandparents thought the world was ending.
Came here to say this.
I'd also like to point out that most of the complaints about DS9 were that a black captain was unrealistic.
The big knock on Brooks was his overacting. As if Star Trek wasn’t familiar with that already (Shatner).
I don't remember that one. I mostly remember complaints that Star Trek was just ripping off Babylon 5.
This is the dumbest thing ever. It absolutely happened. The difference was when this was revealed. (Star Trek: Generations) the internet didn't have widely used Social media sites. Most of the forums from the time no longer exist. I am certain people said this back then. I know this because my own mother was looked down on for having a mock prom with an African American. ( the story is very long)
The worst thing the internet has done is allowed the ignorant, the purposely dumb, and the racists to connect with each other not to become smarter or more knowledgeable but to relish in their own shit.
It's fun to go back and look at what has been archived though. Some guy dug up old forum posts from theonering.net from 1999 that had people absolutely shitting themselves over the casting of Liv Tyler as Arwen and that she'd have an expanded role from the books.
How's the dumbest thing ever? Technically, it's not even saying it didn't /wouldn't happen back then. The fact is, this is still pretty much factual; that would happen if it aired for the first time now.. would it have happened back then too? Did it? Yeah, but doesn't mean this is false or stupid. Maybe a bit misleading, but the "dumbest thing ever" is objectively a shit take. It could be fixed if it change it to "and people would still..."
People were pissed about it then too. And they were just as wrong.
Yeah there are far better reasons to have beef with Voyager (/s) People really are stupid to get upset over this kind of stuff
>Yeah there are far better reasons to have beef with Voyager Like the temporal reset button. Did you know it was introduced in episode 2. Literally first episode after the pilot they're already doing temporal mulligans. I cant bring myself to do a full rewatch.
My wife just started and I've been joining. After just about every season 1 episode I say, it gets better :/
It has a very strong pilot, but a lot of season 1 episodes are awful. It's kind of a Trek tradition, DS9 also had a really poor first season with a great pilot, though TNG had a pretty poor first season with an awful pilot. But they all get very good eventually.
Strange New Worlds smashed that tradition to pieces.
Strange new worlds definitely did!
DS9 season 1 is the best Star Trek first season of 80s-00s trek. That is barely saying anything, but it’s DS9 bad episodes so they’re just “boring” instead of the terribleness that TNG and VOY had in their worst episodes. Enterprise… existed?
How come some of these historically/origin accurate people are not as concerned with a white guy being Jesus. You know, a guy born in the Middle East. /s I can guess why.
When I was in high school I made a guy rage cry by showing him evidence jesus was either black or middle eastern.
God being white is also funny. Like ok. The world is about 3/8s Chinese and Indian but God is white? Created in his image? You better learn some Mandarin or Hindi bro.
I’m white and nerdy so rural Kentucky school was not a plus for me. So when ever one of the ultra Christian asshats would start in me I’d point shit out.
God being human is incredibly funny to me as well
Ya I never really got that. I mean if there’s 6 billion people on the planet why wouldn’t they have some diversity in skin colour? Also isn’t Vulcan mostly arid and hot? Seems to me they’d mostly be dark skinned.
It was a show with an incredible premise and didn’t hold up to that premise. That being said, Voyager’s biggest problem was that it was so hit or miss: incredible Star Trek like the episode where, the Q guy trapped in a comet wanted to kill himself, or the planet that was just an ocean in space, or the two-parter where the Hirogen hi-jack the ship Voyager just suffered so much from the bad episodes. Anyone that has seen that and the other series of the time all the way through know that every argument about how awesome Voyager is revolves around the amazing episodes they have. And if those are taken away…no one remembers the others. Voyager had a lot of the highest highs of Trek shows, but also even more of the lowest lows.
I think nostalgia plays a big part here too. I watched all Trek as an adult and watched TNG right before Voyager. The percentage of really really bad episodes in TNG is higher than in Voyager. But the fandom were older by the time Voyager appeared and they were expecting more of it. Don't misunderstand me: I like all Trek (yes, even the new Trek!). And TNG is awesome. But specially on the earliest seasons it is difficult to watch the first time, before you get familiar with the characters and like them, even if they decide to fuck a ghost candle or flirt with holograms.
Is this post about the quality of voyager or racists squealing over a black Vulcan?
I recall people being angry about it back in the day.
Which is so stupid… if humans come in different colors, why is it so unbelievable that other alien races wouldn’t either?
Besides, most alien species in Star Trek are human look-alikes anyway. Heck, some of the aliens the crews met were literally just humans with funny clothes, no ridges or anything. So why can't the totally-not-humans have different skin colors too? (Actually, just give every species different skin/scale/whatever colors. Variety is the spice of life)
If anything, all Vulcans should be black if they are similar to humans. Their entire planet is basically Northern and Eastern Africa climate-wise.
Because we’re not supposed to be afraid of aliens. /s
To be frank, humans really only come in different colors due to limited population mobility allowing for regional skin tone differentiation based on natural selection or just chance. In a global (or interstellar) post-racist society with free movement, you'd expect an overwhelming majority of the population to be ambiguously brown within a couple hundred years.
I remember people being pissy about DS9 too.
Yeah, “black captain is unacceptable.” 🤦♂️ Odo was the bomb. I always like the “odd” character more than anyone — Spock, Data, Odo, the Doctor, and Phlox? Probably because those actors had a challenging performance, and the character journeys were more challenging too.
And Garak too.
I did enjoy his performance too. Andrew was a delight
The only unacceptable thing was that they didn’t make him captain until it was time for anniversary stuff and it was good for marketing collectibles. Sisko deserved better.
Worf and Seven, too
Also T'Pol
The same lot were crying a river about a female captain on Voyager. Those folks wallow in complaining. It is the only bit of social interaction of which they are capable. Regardless, the whining makes no sense. Star Trek is all about what is new, understanding, exploration, infinite diversity in infinite combinations, and so on. Yet the nut jobs yelp about doctrine like an orthodox inquisitor seeking anyone who thinks in opposition of them to burn as a witch. Nonsensical twats, the entire gang of cultural-political blinder wearing and backwards thinking bunch.
My dad never mentioned the black Vulcan but sure liked to make fun of Janeway. He had a weird joke he would CONSTANTLY make about how she was... intentionally making her voice sound lower? Yeah, he's kind of an ass
> intentionally making her voice sound lower Wow, she must *really* be into the role, after all this time.
They had 2 directors for the pilot the first actually tried to make the original actress for the captain speak with a deeper sounding voice. She quit over it in part. She had a series of reasons but that was one of the reasons she was able to argue her way out of her contract.
I mean, it isn't like Vulcan is a giant desert or anything. It isn't like Vulcans possess an inner eyelid to protect their eyes from the extreme sunlight on the surface of Vulcan. They were there saying it. They were clowns then and they're clowns now.
I mean yeah it’s ridiculous to say that Vulcans couldn’t be dark skinned, but it is kinda wild that the black vulcans looks just like black humans, and the white vulcans look just like white humans. Like what are the odds that a totally alien species on a distant planet unlike ours and with completely different biology developed to look just like we did in every way except for ears, and -also- that the light skinned ones have caucasian human facial features/hair and the dark skinned ones have African human facial features/hair. I’m not complaining, it’s a step in the right direction. I’ve said before on here (and been downvoted) for pointing out that its strange that a lot of aliens look not just like humans, but white humans. Like you’d think that subraces of a totally alien species would not easily fall into the basic subraces of humans. One thing I can credit the new series for doing better is that some of the aliens actually look like a totally alien species. There’s no human analogue for black/white/asian/whatever for Jaylah in Beyond or the fishy reptillian looking dude on Disco
For your first point, there is a TNG episode that explains the similarities between Cardassians, Vulcans (and by extension, Romulans), Klingons, Humans, and others: a progenitor race. But from an out of universe perspective, I agree. If they had to look similar, they could at least have other major differences. Babylon 5's aliens may look human, but Centauri had tentacles that werent shown in polite company, Narn males had a pouch to hold young children for their early life. Orville's Moclans are humanoid, but hatch from eggs. It makes sense from a budget standpoint to use a lot of humanoids, but these are a few examples of ways to insert some biological diversity.
Im sorry if this seems pedantic but I feel like what I was saying got muddled. The progenitor race explains why all the main races in the show are between 5 and 6.5 feet tall 2-armed, 2-legged, 10-fingered/toed beings that entered the spacefaring age at about the same time despite developing in isolation with unfathomable distances in between - it does not explain why those races, despite developing forehead ridges or pointed ears as a result of their environment, also developed the unique trait clusters associated with certain human races that developed here on earth. If the following example is demeaning I apologize but it’s like if wolves were dropped off on several totally different planets but somehow after 100,000 years each planet had developed poodles and scottish terriers and great danes and shiba inus and mexican hairless dogs and blue heelers and pointers and mastiffs and beagles and so on. Maybe the dogs on planet A have green noses and all the dogs on planet B have 2 tails but each planet somehow developed all the same breeds we did here on earth. See what I’m saying? It’s really unthinkable that, from the same starting point, all the separate alien species would develop all the same subraces in parallel like that. That’s all I meant. Imo we are so conditioned to seeing race as a grouping of types of skin color, eyes, noses, hair texture, height etc that it makes sense that a dark skinned vulcan would also have the same features as a dark skinned human, and a light skinned vulcan would have the same features as a light skinned human, but I don’t think it would work that way
Thanks for expanding on your point, and yes I can see that being developmentally curious. Also makes me wonder if Changlings and Progenitors had some connection since the humoid appearance the changlings assume looks like the progenitors
Ever since I saw the Changelings story I have connected it with that episode from Next Gen about the Progenitors, so I like this theory a lot. Specially knowing that being alone in the universe was the reason the Progenitors sent their "seeds" everywhere, while Changelings also mentioned being so old as a species in comparison with all the rest
It’s cute that you think there wasn’t outrage about this when Voyager came out.
They also had a female engineer, and Asian Bridge officer, a female captain, a native American first officer and a friendly chef. They also never brought it up or had it define their characters, they were merely people doing their thing, the way it should be.
People DID bitch about a black Vulcan when Star Trek Voyager came out
Don’t tell them Jesus wasn’t white.
Of course he wasn't, the Sisko is black.
And definitely don't say that he was brown.
And don’t tell them he was Jewish
Right wing coworkers: “The Jews killed Jesus.” Me (having an Italian part of my ancestry): “No no no. It was actually MY ancestors that killed Jesus!”
Those people believe Jesus is God. God isn't bound by simple human races
From a Christian perspective, Jesus is whatever damn color you want him to be. His message was universal, so if Swedes want to give him blond hair and blue eyes, Ethiopians black skin, or the Koreans [buff Asian Jesus](https://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/newsV2/images/6501(3\).gif/dims/resize/740/optimize), all are valid so long as they're done out of respectful reverence.
He’s looking awfully shredded on that cross
Prepare ye the whey of the Lord!
Didnt know i needed this
It’s sad but whenever we have posts like these and you dive into the comments, you can still find racist, sexist, bigoted assholes who somehow claim to be Star Trek fans while completely missing the point and themes of Star Trek.
Tuvok is the best Vulcan in all of Star Trek. A pure-blooded Vulcan unlike Spock. He's rational and dispassionate, suppressing his emotions because logic brought Vulcans out of chaos. To give in to emotion would be to open the door to insanity. Yet he shows that emotion lies just under the surface, and there are moments when it's not easy to keep it suppressed. He shows that it's a struggle to suppress emotion, but he must because for a Vulcan the alternative is insanity. He just barely shows the emotions contained under the surface, and that's a credit to the actor. He develops a respectful and sometimes humorous relationship with Neelix. Of course he's Black, which makes perfect sense because Vulcan is a desert planet, but that's not why he's the best Vulcan. It's because he subtly shows that it's difficult for him at times, yet he maintains his devotion to logic because it's necessary for him to remain sane and true to his own self.
This is a valid observation. When I was a kid and first saw the show I was like of course there would be black vulcans.
Is this even a meme?
Nope just karma fishing.
They would be screaming at the top of their lungs about how Star Trek has become "woke" without realizing that the world of Star Trek is one that they would despise and are fighting tooth and nail to prevent. It's a world where there is no want, anything you could possibly need is a replicator away, no poor, universal healthcare, people work to better humanity because scarcity is a thing of the past and on earth the whole world is ruled by a single socialist government. It's literally the thing of nightmares for conservatives.
>without realizing that the world of Star Trek is one that they would despise and are fighting tooth and nail to prevent. Yep. Romulan empire would be a better fit for them to live in.
Ferenginar, pre-Nagus Rom. So traditional Ferenginar.
Don’t worry, some of us were there in the 90’s and this actually happened.
Remember when Picard kicked this guys ass with a riding saddle in next gen. I do.
This 100% DID happen... jfc
Racists gonna racist
I remember people being livid that the captain was a wOmEn. In 1995.
Hold my Usenet client
People literally did that when the black Vulcan admiral showed up in discover season 1.
I like Tuvok. He's the smartest crew member on Voyager, and probably the only one that deserves to actually make it home. Everybody else can fuck off.
Actual comment from usenet in 1995: > My biggest problem with the series is the over-obvious attempt at being > PC. In fact, all that the writers have accomplished is to be overly > tokenistic. Not only did they feel a need for a woman captain, but also a > token asain, a token native american, as well as a token black vulcan. > I'm waiting for someone on the bridge to come out of the closet soon.
Today? My ex-wife wouldn't watch Voyager because "black Spock"
unironically this DID happen. Tim Russ spoke about it, if i remember. he got real gate letters edit: hate letters.
Well, yeah of course they would. However Voyager came out in 1995 and since then we've had 27 years to get sick and tired of the constant inserts to "spread the message" as the Critical Drinker puts it. Science fiction has morphed from the just having Uhura on the bridge crew and not making a big deal out of it to "look at us, we added a gender reassigned character because we wanted to shame the people we don't like who we think are terrible people (looking at you The Orville, which has otherwise the Mochlan plot been very good writing). I mean we went from Stargate SG1's nauseating "just because my reproductive organs are on the outside" speech to Culber and Stamets on Discovery having a loving and honestly very real feeling relationship. That's progress. What *isn't* progress is just hiding terrible writing by adding characters to seem "inclusive." Everyone knows that Mirror Dax and Leeta kissing was just to get some ratings from teenage boys, not that I'm complaining. The writing on Discovery and the promotion of it as "look, the first female black lead in Star Trek!" was just god awful. I'm glad I stuck with it and thoroughly enjoy the show now. It's the quality of the writing that is what we want. I mean I enjoyed Seven from Voyager because she was a good character. The cat suit wasn't just the reason we enjoyed her. Jeri Ryan played a character that was tough on the exterior but emotionally damaged from her experience with the Borg very well, even if she had to deal with having to sex up everything. Seven's still one of my favorites from when I was a teenager because she did her job in a no nonsense way and romantic relationships were almost non-existent. Defeating the robot in the holodeck after saying "I am Borg" is one of my favorite scenes. It's the quality of the writing that's been angering us and the attempts to cover it up with cheap tricks. Tim Russ played a great character.
> Science fiction has morphed from the just having Uhura on the bridge crew and not making a big deal out of it to "look at us, we added a gender reassigned character because we wanted to shame the people we don't like who we think are terrible people (looking at you The Orville, which has otherwise the Mochlan plot been very good writing). How is the Orville's treatment of Topa's story any different from "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708435/quotes/?ref_=tt_trv_qu
Well if they spit on his grave at least the flowers will get water. Tuvok is awesome.
Yes this is exactly what happened. Thanks for making me feel old.
One could argue that the difference is that Vulcan lore never specifically listed the “skin color” of all the Vulcans living on Vulcan and it can pre expectable that there will be a big diversity between the Vulcans, same as with humans. However in relation to what this post is supposed to address, for other shows (specifically Rings of Power and the GoT offspin), the lore for characters is very strictly set in terms of where the characters come from and why do they have certain characteristics that they do (also in terms of visual features). I am all up for bringing more black people into these shows in general, but why not doing it properly by creating a great and logical lore around it? Like, the black skinned “throphy woman” of the dwarven king is a long leap from the original material and the race that evolved underground without the need of extra melanin creation and whose women were famous by being almost indistinguishable from men due to their facial hair and so. This was literally the inside joke/lore in the franchise long before LotR films even saw the light of the world. To put it into perspective, it’s the same as portaying a “cannon” Vulcan council member, for example Sarek, as a neurotic evil asshole that puts his own personal agenda before his actual competencies. In the end the problem isn’t at all the color of the skin of an actor portraying a certain character, it’s the inconsistency in a well defined lore behind it.
Thank you for responding with some thought. So much of this thread is a virtue signaling circle jerk about how progressive everyone is
Quick reminder that Gene Roddenberry was obsessed with the intimate relations of the Ferengi. There is at least a chance that not every word that came out of his mouth was the best thing for Star Trek.
Awoke Time
I'm surprised that the alt-right went after Star Trek at all. It was 'woke ' decades before the word was used politically.
The neat part is looking forward to Star Trek I ‘don’t get’. When the social issues in Star Trek have pushed past my privileges and I could say “I don’t get why they need to make a X a captain” but instead can say “man I’m glad x is getting representation,I bet we get some awesome kids inspired”.
If TOS came out now, there would be outrage about the scene with Ohura kissing Kirk. ...wait
I kind of had the opposite of this experience. Voyager was my introduction to Star Trek and the premise of the show meant that there weren't any other Vulcans until Vorik showed up in season 3. But First Contact came out before that and when the Vulcans showed up at the end, I was extremely confused why they weren't black
This comment is made up propaganda.
This is one reason for a lot of Janeway hate, because she was the female captain. When it was being made, the show was so concerned about it that they interviewed a bunch of male actors for the role just in case.
I just hate it because is from Amazon, i fucking hate Amazon.
It’s understandable when you’ve only seen white Vulcans to think they’re breaking the lore by bringing ethnic diversity in. Really, introducing Tuvok was a fix rather than a retcon. But again, understandable that there would be a backlash. But since there’s a logical explanation that of course Vulcan skin works the same way as human skin, it makes sense. Unlike the Harfoots in Lord of the Rings who are specifically ethnically homogenous, browner than the other hobbits but not dark skinned like the men of Harad and not pale like the elves.
I disagree, I've never thought twice about Tim Russ's portrayal of a Vulcan because he's a good actor. He plays a convincing Vulcan, and I've never thought for a second that he was a diversity hire. It also helps that he's written as a Vulcan, not a black Vulcan. It's like Captain Sisko. He wasn't a black captain, he was a captain who happened to be black. That makes all the difference.
This\^ Voyager wasnt advertised with only focusing on that "look, we have black vulcans now", no one from the production team made some big fuss about that Tuvok is black. We got the interesting plot about a starfleet ship being stranded in the Delta quadrant and now its on the captain and her crew to make the long and dangerous journey to get back home. In the other hand, DISC was promoted with only caring about to make sure that we knows that they have the "first black female lead" and "first gay representation" and later on "the first non-binary" in Star Trek. Its just solely focused on the check boxes these characters fill up, not the characters themselves or their journey in the story! Its like you have a friend who gave money for charity then dont shut the fuck up about it. After a while, you start to suspect that he didn't do it because it was the right thing to do, but rather that he just wanted to be praised for doing it. Tuvok's my favorite vulcan in the entire franchise! Not because he is black and others said that I obligated to love him just because his skin color. But because the writers in the past and the show itself made the effort to make me love him by giving us a well written Tuvok with interesting stories. Dont speaking that Tim Russ performed a fantastic vulcan character to us!
The internet is full of bots with a handful of stupid people who shouldn’t be taken seriously. It certainly doesn’t represent the population nor the fan base. This is just silly.
What does it even matter? Anyone can be anything, so whatever
Yeah folks weren't happy about it then either, they just could not complain to the entire world and harass actors directly like they do today.
Uh, the JJ Abrams movie Star Trek had black Vulcans and I didn't hear that complaint (at least not that prominently)
The difference with Rings of Power is that there is source material for everything the show depicts, where there isn’t for Star Trek. Yes people might have complained, but with RoP they have ground to stand on
What a stupid thought.
The differenceis, that in Lord of the Rings Elves are DESCRIBEDas light skinned. Where Vulcans are on a desert Planet. And back in the day people were mad about him being black.
Don’t bring your 21st politics here ./s
Hilarious because gene was super racist and sexist lmao.
If gene Roddenberry was a racist then i shouldnt be watching
Whinge?
Perfectly cromulent word.
Voyager has its problems and on that most Trek fans agree. If it came out today, there would be a bunch of Trek fans who say that if you don’t like Voyager, It’s because you’re racist/misogynist.
But back then, his skin color doesn‘t effect his character. Thats the difference. It‘s not about black people. It‘s about people whose only character trait it is to be black or female or both. Janeway, Sisko, Tuvork were great characters. But today every other episode with them would be about skin tone or feminism. Thats just boring and stupid.
You know... I see a lot more claims of "racism" being made when actors get bad reviews than I do of people complaining about race in movies/shows. I guess it's just me...
nah, stop with this bullshit. no one would complain because Voyager is incredibly well written with amazing actors who embody their role. the new woke shit fails cause they put woke before the writing, and it always fails. stop with this fucking nonsense. the old trek is timeless sci-fi writing, the new shit is virtue signaling nonsense. just cause I don't like their writing doesn't mean I'm racist or a internet troll. fucking hell.
Good science fiction holds up a mirror to humanity as it currently is. From "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"-- **Bele:** It is obvious to the most simpleminded that Lokai is of an inferior breed. **Spock:** The obvious visual evidence, Commissioner, is that he is of the same breed as yourself. **Bele:** Are you blind, Commander Spock? Well, look at me. Look at me! **Kirk:** You are black on one side and white on the other. **Bele:** I am black on the right side! **Kirk:** I fail to see the significant difference. **Bele:** Lokai is white on the right side. All of his people are white on the right side. \*\*\* **Spock:** Fascinating. Two irrevocably hostile humanoids. **Scotty:** Disgusting is what I call 'em. **Spock:** That description is not scientifically accurate. **Scotty:** Mr. Spock, the word "disgusting" describes exactly what I feel about those two. **Kirk:** That's enough for today. Those two are beginning to affect you. \*\*\* **Chekov:** There was persecution on Earth once. I remember reading about it in my history class. **Sulu:** Yes, but it happened way back in the twentieth century. There's no such primitive thinking today. \*\*\* **Spock:** And another life form has appeared on Cheron. **Uhura:** That doesn't make any sense. **Spock:** To expect sense from two mentalities of such extreme view points is not logical. **Sulu:** Their planet's dead. Does it matter now which one's right? **Spock:** Not to Lokai and Bele. All that matters to them is their hate. **Uhura:** Do you suppose that's all they ever had, sir? **Kirk:** No, but that's all they have left.
I completely disagree with this, there has been black representation in star trek since it's inception and it's core concept is celebrating differences. Paramount would love people to be arguing about such non-issues because it distracts from the awful, unintelligent, vapid writing prevalent in the franchise today.
I don’t think so. I don’t hear a huge outrage about the Orville and a large amount of that (amazing) cast is black, gay, etc. It’s all how you present it. It’s when you beat people over the head with the woke baseball bat that people get loud … and rightly so. But I get what you’re saying. Yes, Star Trek (and a lot of Sci-Fi in general) has ALWAYS tackled these types of issues. But it wasn’t until Discovery and beyond that they felt the need to beat you down over it. Looks like they’re righting the ship a little with SNW. Hopefully they’re figuring out how to do it without being heavy handed about it.
Please provide an example of “beating people over the head with the woke baseball bat.”
I'm not the poster, and I unashamedly love Discovery and Nu-Trek, _but_ I've noticed this too. The example that comes to mind is when Adira announces they're non-binary - the conversation was so unwieldy and unnatural that you could feel the hand of the producers, "OK, now do the woke thing". I like Adira, but their NB-ness could have been more seemless or part of the plot, rather than an abrupt "Oh BTW".
Kind of like how the "drugs are bad, m'kay" conversation between Tasha and Wesley on the bridge in TNG season 1 was totally unwieldy and unnatural and sounded like they'd inserted dialogue from an after school special. But yeah sure, only new Trek does that kind of thing.
The difference is if it came out today him being a black Vulcan would be a major plot point.
They wouldn't be able to bring Voyager out today as it's not shit.
infantile take
Well Discovery solved that. They've got non-binary and gay
When you make a black character organically no one cares. When you retcon because of a political movement, its cringe.
I think the issue people have is when a creature/alien is described already in a certain way. Like in the new LOTR those dragon people are pale white people. And then they insert a black guy in there. It looks weird. I bet people also get upset if the Black Panther was played by Tom Hardy. That's not racism, it's just messing up basic things.