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[Neonivek]

I honestly don't see what point you're trying to make here.

Nothing, just that sometimes it feels cheap to see aliens trying to seem alien by taking from real cultures while at the same time still trying to sound alien.

[Sirus]

I honestly don't see what point you're trying to make here.

Nothing, just that sometimes it feels cheap to see aliens trying to seem alien by taking from real cultures while at the same time still trying to sound alien.

You realize that "alien" means anything unusual or foreign and not just stuff from outer space, right? By that definition, things from other cultures are alien.

[Neonivek]

I honestly don't see what point you're trying to make here.

Nothing, just that sometimes it feels cheap to see aliens trying to seem alien by taking from real cultures while at the same time still trying to sound alien.

You realize that "alien" means anything unusual or foreign and not just stuff from outer space, right? By that definition, things from other cultures are alien.

Simantics... Just replace alien with inhuman.

[Flying Dice]

I honestly don't see what point you're trying to make here.

Nothing, just that sometimes it feels cheap to see aliens trying to seem alien by taking from real cultures while at the same time still trying to sound alien.

You realize that "alien" means anything unusual or foreign and not just stuff from outer space, right? By that definition, things from other cultures are alien.

Simantics... Just replace alien with inhuman.

So you're saying that people of other cultures are inhuman? Uh, no, that's not semantics. This is one of those cases where knowing what a word means is a good thing, because you're misrepresenting it. It's derived directly from 14th century French alien, and previously from alienus, meaning "foreign, strange, of another". The extraterrestrial connotation came about in the early 1900s.

In other words, "alien" is literally "other", something different from the speaker. To, say, a contemporary U.S. citizen, all of the following are alien to some degree: any city on the coast farther from their home, Poland, 13th century Burgundy, 27th century Earth, Bradbury's Mars, Coruscant, the Q Continuum, and the Borg.


All of that aside, of course invented cultures share traits with our own! Do you realize how difficult it is to create and portray a culture which is entirely divorced from our own in a way that we can comprehend? The closest I can think of is Asimov's The Gods Themselves, with the extrauniversal aliens divided into two types, "hard ones" and "soft ones", with the latter further divided into three sexes, "Rationals", "Emotionals", and "Parentals". Just about everything was as far as it could be from human culture and thought while remaining understandable, and even then it had to be couched in terms which we can interpret properly. We're human, and we write from what we know. The species of Star Trek are by and large humans with different racial worldviews, and so it is sensible that they have cultural elements similar to our own, just as it is sensible for the Horta, being so distinctly alien, to have little in common with humanity beyond the basic drive to have and protect offspring (going solely by TOS canon there).

[Neonivek]

So you're saying that people of other cultures are inhuman? Uh, no, that's not semantics

No, I am saying that pushing something clearly human and ordinary as "soo alien" feels cheap. So almost the exact opposite of what you assume I mean.

In the same way that watching a show about athletics where someone being able to play Hopscotch unterribly being treated as "Amazing" would feel cheap.

Show: "Ohh look the Klingons eat blood pudding they are sooo alien. You should feel how alien they are because of these completely alien attributes!"
Me: "Uhhh, I can buy that at the store."

It isn't constant but this is how I sometimes feel when they push the "alien" aspect. Heck the fact that the translator apperantly is completely ineffective against some easily translatable klingon words is odd as well (mind you, my assumption is that the cultural exchange between humans and Klingons has lead to a few Klingon loan words. Hense why the universal translator doesn't translate some Klingon phrases to english)

[Sirus]

Flying Dice said it better than I ever could.

[Neonivek]

Flying Dice said it better than I ever could.

Too bad he didn't say anything that applies to me.

As mine is how these elements are carried and not that they exist.

Though Flying Dice seems to inadvertingly agree with me.

Proof of this so you don't think I am pulling off a "I win" thing

So you're saying that people of other cultures are inhuman? Uh, no, that's not semantics.

My point is that is exactly what the show makes me feel like it is trying to do sometimes. Pushing very human concepts, things, and even foods as inhuman.

[Solifuge]

I've always gotten a very different vibe from Star Trek. It isn't about how weird the aliens of their universe are, but more an exploration of the facets of human experience, projected onto a strange setting so we can look at them with fresh eyes. It presents the characters and species to prompt us to ask questions about the world and its cultures, and the experience of being human.

Take the Trill, for instance. They're a joined species; a very long-lived symbiotic lifeform that moves from short-lived host body to host body, carrying their experiences with them. Deep Space 9 uses the Trill character Dax to explore elements of gender identity, personality, and outward versus inward natures. She poses some interesting scenarios about how a sentient and social creature with an incredibly long lifespan, who changes bodies from time to time, might form and lose friendships based on their outward appearances as well, and the fact that she manages to stay close to people at all despite this is a testament to her strength of character. Similarly, the Emergency Medical Hologram and Data the Android are not about being strange and inhuman, but rather about exploring the nature of what it is to be human from two different outside perspectives.

[Flying Dice]

Flying Dice said it better than I ever could.

Too bad he didn't say anything that applies to me.

Yes, yes I did.

Though Flying Dice seems to inadvertingly agree with me.

No, no I don't.

What I'm saying is that the various civilizations of Star Trek aren't intended to be alien, they're supposed to be human. Solifuge put it beautifully: the series is about exploring the nature of humanity and morality from different points of view. I usually hesitate to say this, but if you're reading it as "LOL LOOK HOW DIFFERENT THEY ALL ARE", you're doing it wrong.

[Sergius]

They're planets of hats. Human hats.

Like, there's a planet where everybody is a computer engineer. Or something.

Klingons are the silliest because it's so dishonorable to do anything that won't result in your violent death... so it's never made clear how their scientists, farmers, sewer divers, etc work. We know they exist (probably) but... they have no "honor"? Don't they want to have "honor" (it at least would make sense if the whole "death honor wargh" thing was relegated to some warrior caste, but it's never expressed as such.

[Neonivek]

The closest I can find Sergius is from Enterprise where basically yeah... Anyone who isn't a warrior is basically honorless

Ok that and Voyager also explains this a bit more that there are warrior rituals you can basically do at your own house. Like running into the street and cutting people.

Mind you Klingons and their attitudes between their own people and even gender changes constantly in the show.

I usually hesitate to say this, but if you're reading it as "LOL LOOK HOW DIFFERENT THEY ALL ARE", you're doing it wrong.

Sometimes they do, do that.

[Jervill]

From ENT Judgment:

K: "You didn't believe all Klingons were soldiers?"
A: "I guess I did."
K: "My father was a teacher. My mother, a biologist at the university. They encouraged me to take up the law. Now, all young people want to do is to take up weapons as soon as they can hold them. They're told there is honor in victory – any victory. What honor is there in a victory over a weaker opponent? Had Duras destroyed that ship, he would have been lauded as a hero of the Empire for murdering helpless refugees. We were a great society, not so long ago. When honor was earned through integrity and acts of true courage, not senseless bloodshed."
A: "For thousands of years, my people had similar problems. We fought three world wars that almost destroyed us. Whole generations were nearly wiped out."
K: "What changed?"
A: "A few courageous people began to realize... they could make a difference."

[Neonivek]

Mind you while "All Klingons" arn't soldiers they are all warriors (Voyager again)

And may I add that even if you are a soldier it doesn't mean you have honor. If you are an engineer for example and you don't go into battle, you have no honor (thanks again Voyager)

Dear goodness Voyager really fleshed out Klingons for good or ill.

Mind you the #1 thing I still remember about Klingons came from Worf and how he said that the males are expected to play music and read poetry to women, while the women throw stuff at them to injure them.

Which the tapes seem to support. It seems that in Klingon society women take the active role in relationships between the sexes and men take the passive role (during TNG run).

[Sergius]

From ENT Judgment:

K: "What changed?"
A: "A few courageous people began to realize... they could make a difference."

LOLWUT?
Seriously sometimes dialogue... I mean heck, that's like politician talk. It tells us (and the Kolos) absolutely nothing. SAY WHAT SPECIFICALLY CHANGED, Archer you nincompoop.

[SethCreiyd]

Archer (especially in the early seasons) is a horrible character who constantly and needlessly puts his crew at risk, and at the behest of Phlox, deliberately allows an entire alien race to perish when it was in their means to help.  He displays a total lack of common sense in any given situation, ignoring obvious and smarter alternatives to insane courses of action, and he frequently spouts lazily-written nonsense which we're supposed to think is wisdom.

He was a cherry on the sundae of failure that was Enterprise.  NX-01 was the ship of the damned.