astronaut_sloth

This right here. I liked how TNG did it. Series premier bring an oldster in to launch, maybe have a special episode or two with another.

If we really wanted Colm back, have it in the premier of Starfleet Academy where the new cadets are going through a hall of distinguished professors and have an elderly O'Brien do a cameo with a sample of one of his lectures. Nice to connect the show to lore and nostalgia but short enough to let the new cast stand on their own.

That said, I agree with Colm. Let O'Brien stay as he is. He had a perfect send-off.

I tend to agree and give a ton of leeway to stupid, offensive stuff from years past that people have evolved from. We all said and did stupid stuff that we regret. However, this isn't offensive, and that's to highlight that Vance either A. regressed in his values from being normal to being weirdly pro-hyper-traditional gender roles or B. has no true beliefs and is just saying what he says because he thinks it wins him votes.

Yeah, they'll probably have to check everything. Though, I wonder if even just checking that everything is good to go would save time from manually re-writing it all. While it may not be a smashing success, it could still prove useful.

I dunno, I'm interested to see how this plays out.

I think this is an interesting idea. If they're able to pull it off, I think it will cement the usefulness of LLMs. I have my doubts, but it's worth trying. I'd imagine that the LLM is specially tuned to be more adept at this task. Your bog-standard GPT-4 or Claude will probably be unreliable.

Yes-ish. The characters were villains, but the organization wasn't necessarily. For instance, in Discovery season 2, Leland and his crew were the villains, but Section 31 was portrayed less as an extremist cabal and more as a misguided morally-grey organization. Less a blight upon the Federation and more an uncomfortable, but integral, part of it.

@setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world captures it well. Instead of being a cabal of extremists doing illegal and immoral things because they think they're connected to a higher purpose, they're a semi-official CIA-like organization.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Section 31 isn't supposed to be a cool or semi-legitimate organization (with ships, insignia, etc.) but rather shadowy and absolutely beyond the pale of legitimacy where very few can stomach what they do. From an artistic/thematic POV, Section 31 should be there to show us that a good society requires work to maintain and that its undoing can come from within by those claiming to protect it by eschewing that society's values. In other words, the ends don't justify the means.

It should be a conspiracy of like-minded individuals that exists parasitically within Starfleet, not an official (or an “unofficial official” agency).

I agree. When 31 was first introduced, and Sloan explained that Section 31 was sanctioned by Starfleet under Article 14, Section 31 of the Starfleet Charter, the implication was that they were people who misinterpreted or construed a (probably minor) part of the Starfleet Charter and used it to justify damn near anything.

Personally, I hate how Section 31 has been changed to be misunderstood, cool good guy/anti-hero types who are doing the wrong things for the right reason. DS9 had it right with portraying them as the villains within who should be snuffed out because the ends don't justify the means.

I can see the allure for places wanting to keep certain trouble-makers out as a precaution, but this gets so close to a privatized social credit score that it's beyond uncomfortable.

Same. SNW has been an interesting pattern for me. The powers that be will make creative decisions that I find dubious when announced (Kirk, musical episode, La'an being related to Khan), but each time, the show pulls it off. I think Paul Wesley has done a really good job, "Subspace Rhapsody" is just so much fun, and La'an is literally my favorite character on SNW.

I’m 100% in favor of me being a dictator for life

This right here. Even as a kid studying history, I never understood why someone would support a dictator. When I was like 9 or 10, we were learning about WW2 or something, and I said, "Wait, Mrs. , you're saying people wanted Hitler to be a dictator and voted for him? Why would someone give up the possibility of being leader themselves?!" I couldn't comprehend how someone wouldn't want to at least have the possibility of having supreme executive authority.

Like, if it were me in charge, then I'm all for it, but some other person? HELLLLLLLL NO! It could be Gary down the block, and he's an asshole.

Depends on your skills. Documentation is always useful. If you have language skills, translation of documentation or helping create language packs/translations.

That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure if I thought about it, I could come up with more.

I noticed that, too, but I just chalk that up to people freezing (fight, flight, freeze).

I think what they're getting at is that we're uncertain the extent age will affect his duties. Will his cabinet and other advisors be really "in control," or will Biden insist on his way forcing others to kowtow. It is certain that the dude is old as hell and if it were he alone, he would be incapable of the job. Since there's a staff and a ton of advisors, the degree of control they have is, well, uncertain.