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War and how Star Trek covers it
The argument goes that if you dislike the use of conflict in STD, then surely you must dislike DS9 and its Dominion War arc, for containing similar grim and intense plot points. I'm gonna tell you why that's bullshit in a minute. But first I'd like to state my own bias. I love DS9. It is, without a doubt, my favourite version of Star Trek. Whereas I view STD as perhaps the most shallow, reductive version of the show ever, Voyager and Enterprise included. There's absolutely a personal bias.
So here's why I feel that war works in DS9 while it categorically doesn't work in Discovery.
So here's why I feel that war works in DS9 while it categorically doesn't work in Discovery.
A nuanced look at the causes and effects of war
First lets look at how DS9 presents its war, in a complete vacuum. I have further arguments about the broader scope of DS9 which I'll iterate later, but lets for a moment look at the Dominion war arc as its own, self contained thing. From "Call to Arms" to "What you Leave Behind".
From the get-go, we're given a basic primer for the conflict. "Call to Arms" sets up all of the major players, barring 2 who appear in season 6 and gives us a gist of the 2 political motivations of the sides. The Federation are concerned that the Dominion are arming Cardassia for an invasion, which they are, and the Dominion is worried that the Federation are going to cut off their only means of access to the Alpha Quadrant, which they are. War ensues and things do not go to plan for either side.
Moving forward we view the war from numerous perspectives, the Federations (mostly) bright, idealistic notion that diplomacy can eventually save the day, the Klingon lust for battle and the damage it's doing to their society, the Cardassian revanchist attitude and the growing up their society has to do, the Founders total lack of empathy and, importantly, the Bajoran dilemma of peaceful occupation. We see characters on all sides struggle with these facets of their society. We see how war really, genuinely affects these people and their beliefs.
If the Dominion War arc is about anything, it is about the death of innocence. Nobody is spared the horror of war. Nobody comes out of it clean or even necessarily better for the experience. Individual episodes broach topics like PTSD, breaking your own moral code for "the greater good" the death of a loved one, witnessing war crimes perpetrated by your own side and coming to term with being a collaborator.
And yet it would be unfair to say that this is the only thing that the arc does. There are many light-hearted episodes interwoven throughout the 2 seasons. Often they focus on seemingly trivial diversions for the crew. And I believe that these episodes are completely necessary to the success of the arc. Sure, not all of them are good, but they serve to keep the crew "human", or rather, relatable. Sure, Sisko is the man that lied and cheated to bring a neutral state into the war, but he's also the man that organised a baseball tournament against his Academy bully because he wanted to have some fun and also "fuck that guy".
In the end, compassion is as important as strength of arms in deciding the end of the war. The Allies are willing to save their dreaded foe from genocide, despite the option to let them all die. The Dominion alienates it's own allies, the Cardassians and meets their growing discontentment with oppression and violence until finally the back breaks.
In short, we engage with every member of the crew to explore facets of the human condition and to get across the important, but often overlooked, message that war is hell.
From the get-go, we're given a basic primer for the conflict. "Call to Arms" sets up all of the major players, barring 2 who appear in season 6 and gives us a gist of the 2 political motivations of the sides. The Federation are concerned that the Dominion are arming Cardassia for an invasion, which they are, and the Dominion is worried that the Federation are going to cut off their only means of access to the Alpha Quadrant, which they are. War ensues and things do not go to plan for either side.
Moving forward we view the war from numerous perspectives, the Federations (mostly) bright, idealistic notion that diplomacy can eventually save the day, the Klingon lust for battle and the damage it's doing to their society, the Cardassian revanchist attitude and the growing up their society has to do, the Founders total lack of empathy and, importantly, the Bajoran dilemma of peaceful occupation. We see characters on all sides struggle with these facets of their society. We see how war really, genuinely affects these people and their beliefs.
If the Dominion War arc is about anything, it is about the death of innocence. Nobody is spared the horror of war. Nobody comes out of it clean or even necessarily better for the experience. Individual episodes broach topics like PTSD, breaking your own moral code for "the greater good" the death of a loved one, witnessing war crimes perpetrated by your own side and coming to term with being a collaborator.
And yet it would be unfair to say that this is the only thing that the arc does. There are many light-hearted episodes interwoven throughout the 2 seasons. Often they focus on seemingly trivial diversions for the crew. And I believe that these episodes are completely necessary to the success of the arc. Sure, not all of them are good, but they serve to keep the crew "human", or rather, relatable. Sure, Sisko is the man that lied and cheated to bring a neutral state into the war, but he's also the man that organised a baseball tournament against his Academy bully because he wanted to have some fun and also "fuck that guy".
In the end, compassion is as important as strength of arms in deciding the end of the war. The Allies are willing to save their dreaded foe from genocide, despite the option to let them all die. The Dominion alienates it's own allies, the Cardassians and meets their growing discontentment with oppression and violence until finally the back breaks.
In short, we engage with every member of the crew to explore facets of the human condition and to get across the important, but often overlooked, message that war is hell.
Flashy Laser Wars in Space Against Orcs
In contrast, Discovery's Klingon War arc is, while superficially similar in spots, nothing but superficial. Our enemies aren't nuanced. They're torturers and rapists and cannibals that slaughter indiscriminately. Our good guys are good because they have the decency to decide that genocide is bad and, eventually, decide that torture is very bad. The one time that we might actually get a character who is emotionally scarred by his tenure as a prisoner of the Klingons, it is telegraphed harder than SOS that he's actually suffering from a suppressed personality. Once he's able to remember all of Voq's memories alongside his own(?), Ash shows none of the shock and horror he did previously. Now I'm not a therapist, but I suspect being cut open, literally flayed and then subjected to sexual torture is one of those things that doesn't just resolve itself psychologically.
Besides that it's all the same. The Klingons do something horrible and the crew look troubled by their warlike ways. Lorca suggests doing something more extreme to combat the Klingons and the crew manage to skip a beat or 2 before going along with it. The characters don't grow in meaningful ways and really don't seem all that phased by the impending doom of the Federation.
In the end, the war is resolved by allowing a prodigious torturer and murderer to hold Quo'nos ransom because she can be trusted, maybe. No lessons learned. No hard truths revealed about the crew beyond "if you grew up in a world that is pure evil you'd probably be an asshole".
Besides that it's all the same. The Klingons do something horrible and the crew look troubled by their warlike ways. Lorca suggests doing something more extreme to combat the Klingons and the crew manage to skip a beat or 2 before going along with it. The characters don't grow in meaningful ways and really don't seem all that phased by the impending doom of the Federation.
In the end, the war is resolved by allowing a prodigious torturer and murderer to hold Quo'nos ransom because she can be trusted, maybe. No lessons learned. No hard truths revealed about the crew beyond "if you grew up in a world that is pure evil you'd probably be an asshole".
Earning a war arc
A larger and, I think, more compelling argument for why DS9's war arc worked (beyond better pacing, theming writing, acting, visuals, etc.) was that the war was earned and appropriate for the story. We watched through 5 seasons, 3 of which had the Dominion as a direct threat to the Federation, before we got the Dominion War. In universe, that's about 3 years of build up to the conflict and roughly 6 from the start of the show.
In that time a huge amount of groundwork is laid for character development and setting development. We know the real reasons that all of the big players end up going to war. We get to see the plots of Dominion infiltrators play out and eventually get discovered by the crew. We understand why Cardassia and Gul Dukat sided with the Dominion, and we know why, in the long run, the Cardassians will regret that decision.
TNG had this great tendency to blue-ball the audience with a potential war with the Romulans. From the end of Season 1 till late season 6, every few episodes there was a flash of tension within the Neutral zone, only for a last minute plan to save the day. DS9 seemed to be doing something similar with the Dominion. A dozen different incidents that could have led to war were calmed by quick thinking and the diplomatic skills of the crew. So, even as war seemed almost inevitable, the audience could potentially believe that it wouldn't happen. That Sisko or Odo or Kira would pull off another masterclass of compromise and understanding.
When Sisko made it clear that it was to be war, even then I'm sure people were expecting a fake-out. A last minute easing of tensions, maybe by Ziyal or Kira appealing to Dukat's better nature, something akin to what happened in "Way of the Warrior".
Instead, DS9 fell, Bajor was peacefully occupied and Starfleet were sent in full retreat. It was a punch in the gut. As the story went on things didn't magically turn around, either. Even with the costly recapture of DS9, the Dominion and Cardassians seemed confident of eventual victory. Not only did we care about the survival of the crew, but for the survival of the Federation itself. For all the questions that DS9 asked of the Utopian Federation and all the flaws that it revealing in its facade, we had firmly learned that the Federation was worthwhile. Now, with all of that knowledge, we were shown that another force, a stronger force, could take it all away. Of course, it's easy to state that the show never would have allowed the Federation to fall, and that's fair, but it could have irreparably damaged the dream of the Federation. The stakes were known and they were high.
Such is not the case with Discovery's Klingon War. If you are a neophyte, watching Discovery as your first Star Trek experience, then you get none of the build up we see in DS9. "The Federation must Survive!" the show tells you. But it never tells you why. Why are the Federation worthwhile? The show is very busy telling us how the Klingons are villainous, violent and violating and showing us how people from the universe of assholes are assholes. But, as I've stated in other rants, we're given no impetus to root for the Discovery or its Starfleet, besides them looking like us. Ironically, this is very much a case of racial profiling that I'm sure the creators of STD would be appalled to see applied to real world ethnicities.
And if you are well versed enough in the stories and factions of Star Trek to care, then you know too much for Discovery's shitty, off-brand version of "enlightened humanity" to be enjoyable. The story and timeline don't line up with other tellings of that time period. The visuals and thematics are jarring and the show actively shits on you for knowing established things about the setting.
The war itself is alluded to frequently. It's going badly, is the general theme of things. Klingons being rat bastards, killing and so on. Starfleet being goodguys and dying a bunch. This all has the emotional impact of any of Micheal Burnhams lines on the crew, which is to say, hollow indifference. Stamets at least tries to look bummed out when Lorca guilt trips him with a recording of the desperate pleas from a mining colony. The occasional significant glance is shared between the bridge crew regarding developments during the war and Ash makes a pithy speech during what CBS lawyers think a party is about all the sacrifices they've made. Any actual success they have in making the stakes feel high are dashed by the knowledge that, in about 10 years, everything will be fine and the cold war will be back on.
My argument is that, given the way Star Trek is structured, it is very important to establish what the crew and setting are like and why we should root for them well in advance of throwing a serious, season long conflict at them. That probably seems like storywriting 101 to you and yet here we are, with Discovery, continuing to exist.
In that time a huge amount of groundwork is laid for character development and setting development. We know the real reasons that all of the big players end up going to war. We get to see the plots of Dominion infiltrators play out and eventually get discovered by the crew. We understand why Cardassia and Gul Dukat sided with the Dominion, and we know why, in the long run, the Cardassians will regret that decision.
TNG had this great tendency to blue-ball the audience with a potential war with the Romulans. From the end of Season 1 till late season 6, every few episodes there was a flash of tension within the Neutral zone, only for a last minute plan to save the day. DS9 seemed to be doing something similar with the Dominion. A dozen different incidents that could have led to war were calmed by quick thinking and the diplomatic skills of the crew. So, even as war seemed almost inevitable, the audience could potentially believe that it wouldn't happen. That Sisko or Odo or Kira would pull off another masterclass of compromise and understanding.
When Sisko made it clear that it was to be war, even then I'm sure people were expecting a fake-out. A last minute easing of tensions, maybe by Ziyal or Kira appealing to Dukat's better nature, something akin to what happened in "Way of the Warrior".
Instead, DS9 fell, Bajor was peacefully occupied and Starfleet were sent in full retreat. It was a punch in the gut. As the story went on things didn't magically turn around, either. Even with the costly recapture of DS9, the Dominion and Cardassians seemed confident of eventual victory. Not only did we care about the survival of the crew, but for the survival of the Federation itself. For all the questions that DS9 asked of the Utopian Federation and all the flaws that it revealing in its facade, we had firmly learned that the Federation was worthwhile. Now, with all of that knowledge, we were shown that another force, a stronger force, could take it all away. Of course, it's easy to state that the show never would have allowed the Federation to fall, and that's fair, but it could have irreparably damaged the dream of the Federation. The stakes were known and they were high.
Such is not the case with Discovery's Klingon War. If you are a neophyte, watching Discovery as your first Star Trek experience, then you get none of the build up we see in DS9. "The Federation must Survive!" the show tells you. But it never tells you why. Why are the Federation worthwhile? The show is very busy telling us how the Klingons are villainous, violent and violating and showing us how people from the universe of assholes are assholes. But, as I've stated in other rants, we're given no impetus to root for the Discovery or its Starfleet, besides them looking like us. Ironically, this is very much a case of racial profiling that I'm sure the creators of STD would be appalled to see applied to real world ethnicities.
And if you are well versed enough in the stories and factions of Star Trek to care, then you know too much for Discovery's shitty, off-brand version of "enlightened humanity" to be enjoyable. The story and timeline don't line up with other tellings of that time period. The visuals and thematics are jarring and the show actively shits on you for knowing established things about the setting.
The war itself is alluded to frequently. It's going badly, is the general theme of things. Klingons being rat bastards, killing and so on. Starfleet being goodguys and dying a bunch. This all has the emotional impact of any of Micheal Burnhams lines on the crew, which is to say, hollow indifference. Stamets at least tries to look bummed out when Lorca guilt trips him with a recording of the desperate pleas from a mining colony. The occasional significant glance is shared between the bridge crew regarding developments during the war and Ash makes a pithy speech during what CBS lawyers think a party is about all the sacrifices they've made. Any actual success they have in making the stakes feel high are dashed by the knowledge that, in about 10 years, everything will be fine and the cold war will be back on.
My argument is that, given the way Star Trek is structured, it is very important to establish what the crew and setting are like and why we should root for them well in advance of throwing a serious, season long conflict at them. That probably seems like storywriting 101 to you and yet here we are, with Discovery, continuing to exist.