You're used to it by now, the 5th part in my September 2022 #threadtrek re-post and expansions.
Day 15: Klingons
from Tos, to Tng, and subsequent shows, their looks... changed... with some explanations...
I won't go into what the explanations were, nor Discovery's look, simply because I don't want to spoil the first, and haven't seen the latter's.
Their culture and history only grow as the shows explore them, from warmongering but not all that formidable and human-looking in TOS...to their complex rituals, politics and sacrosanct quest for honor and death by honor in TNG, DS9, Voyager, and again in prequels, where both looks and culture continue to be explored.
They killed their gods, they live with strict codes and rules in chains of command, often valiant but some can be doom, gloom, depressed and even cowardly... they love drinking blood-wine, fighting, have cloaking devices, not always good parents, not always so honorable either.
Oh, They have a language you can officially learn...
Day 16 :Earth's ugly past
Where do we begin??? Trek, being a sociopolitical Sci-Fi saga, has explored the topic in numerous episodes, even entire shows. So, grab a seat, this may be the longest sub thread yet.
TOS The Conscience of the King. An actor is believed to have been a governor who committed mass murder. Explores the very notion of war crimes, as early as S1Ep12 from 8 Dec 1966.
TOS The Doomsday Machine. First of several such stories about a disastrous war machine gone wrong. The crew or someone always has to find a way to diffuse before it hits a planet, believed to be the enemy by its computer.
Just a few episodes later, The Changeling explores a probe gone super intelligent... except that it sterilizes entire planets by killing its inhabitants...
TNG, DS9, Voyager all bring back these concepts at various moments. This could be a whole other entry or entries...
TNG's pilot sees Q's first (on-screen) appearance, judging humanity for its atrocities. A dystopian future (for when it aired, but in the past of the pilot) with various awful military practices.
With super-soldiers programmed by his government, but discarded after the war, with nothing to rehabilitate and de-program, so they could live a normal life...
TOS
Space Seed + movie II
Wrath of Khan (+reboot reimagined Khan)
Similar to Danar seen above, Khan is a superhuman born of genetic research. Fictionalized earth horrible past, with ww3 being the result of these super humans.
The dates of the war changes a few times, so we can surmise that TOS eugenics wars are one reality, and subsequent results/memories with changed dates would be close realities but not the same. Either way, they all explore the same ideas. That is to say, war is bad, stop making super soldiers... they'll always come back to bite ya, one way or another.
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are trapped in a planet's distant pasts, in TOS All our yesterdays, explores various earth ugly past with savagery, witch hunting, superstition, and dark ages' legal system.
DS9 Past Tense. Refers both to some of our current history of the 1970's economic collapse & 1971 riots in Attica, but also, for DS9's future (episode from 1995, story : 2024) to which USA has sadly gone to fulfil its prophecies.
Despite some campy aspects, this two-part story's dialogues and scenes all pertain to the world we live in, especially the USA in 2010's and early 2020's.
Final example of earth ugly past. WW2 explored in Voyager the killing game, and Enterprise Storm Front , down to nazi-looking uniforms, harassments and especially in the Hirogene's case, atrocity in reviving and patching the crew over & over.
For WW2, TOS had also explored but I already discussed in this for day 7 (read this blog-series part 2).
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