Seto Kaiba

To be fair, the VFs in Macross Frontier and Macross Delta are all directly linked designs from the same generation and base model. It's somewhat less than surprising that they all look similar. That's from FamilySoft's Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Remember Me for the NEC PC-9801... one of a trio of Macross strategy games FamilySoft made. That said, it's not a post-First Space War Destroid. FamilySoft's Macross games were all side stories set during the First Space War. Remember Me used a mixture of events from the TV and Movie versions, while its sequels Skull Leader and Love Stories used Movie version events in their stories. The original mecha introduced in FamilySoft's games - the VF-X3 Medusa, LDR-04 Maverick, and SDP-1 Stampede Pack - were presented as original/improvised developments by the Macross's onboard factory similar to the SDR-04-Mk.XII Phalanx Destroid in the official setting. You had to unlock 'em via the resource management mechanic in the games. The Maverick was the long-ranged missile counterpart to the Phalanx meant to work in concert with the Monsters for long-range suppression attacks. (In an entertaining coincidence, the remarks in the game manual imply that its full designation also ends in Mk.XV same as the later Super Defender.) Yeah, all of the designs in Palladium's Absolutely Not The Sentinels Sourcebook (AKA the UEEF Marines Sourcebook) were either Imai Files designs used basically unaltered or this kind of "frankenmech" (Palladium's own term) standing in for the Sentinels designs that had been deemed too close to the original Macross ones to safely use. If you look, most of 'em are made from a combination of Legioss, TLEAD, and Auroran parts that are wildly out of scale with each other.

Nah, it's gesture control... they've got some kind of mini-computer terminal embedded in their press-on fingernails.

... but that's demonstrably not true. Macross 7 was, and still is, absolutely the apex of "glowy" for the franchise. Nothing in Macross before or since comes close to a rock band fighting space kaiju and their vampire army thanks to being given the ability to fight by weaponizing The Power of Rock with tokusatsu-esque VFs, what might as well be DBZ-style power levels, glowing battle auras, and energy beams made of pure emotion. They took it right down to frigging zero immediately thereafter in Macross Dynamite 7, which is about the main character from Macross 7 traveling to a remote planet to be a wandering space bum and accidentally getting caught up in a fight between the a taciturn conservationist, the local cops, and some space whale poachers with nothing but an acoustic guitar, his wits, and whatever VF was left unattended. There was nothing particularly outlandish in Zero or Frontier except Sara Nome's fold songs having the power to restore the Birdhuman because her entire lineage were created for that one specific job by the Protoculture. Delta's Tactical Sound Unit Walkure is just a pale shadow of the shenanigans Sound Force got up to in 7... the only thing remotely unconventional about Walkure is that they use song to counter a dangerous disease. Their equipment is all stuff we've seen before, and even using songs to counter mind control is right outta 7.

We've seen a lot of hyperbolic nonsense on this score, and it is exactly that... nonsense. Macross has always been heavily involved in selling the music used in the anime. This isn't new. This isn't even any more extreme than what was done in Macross 7. It's just this time it was a girl group instead of a rock band. Even the tech that some lambasted as "magical girl"-esque was not new by any means. It was well-precedented tech from previous shows. Kawamori and co. like to experiment with Macross, approaching its core concepts from different angles and viewpoints. That's why we've had such a diverse body of stories, and why we really shouldn't waste our time trying to predict what Kawamori will do next. He's going to put together some bizarre combination of concepts and it'll work suspiciously well. In the past, we've had stories that de-emphasize mecha, and stories that emphasize mecha over the rest. Macross's creators mix things up to keep it fresh. Been there, done that... in Macross 7, actually. The show's principal antagonists, the Protodeviln, were energy beings from higher-dimensional space that were accidentally trapped in the bodies of bio-tech superweapons the ancient Protoculture created during the height of their civil war. The only way they could survive in three-dimensional space was to harvest higher-dimensional energy (spiritia) from the minds of living beings, and created the Supervision Army to help them not starve to death. The titular emigrant fleet discovered that certain rare individuals could produce a lot more of that higher-dimensional energy and even unconsciously control it to a certain extent, and invented a way to weaponize it by collecting, amplifying, and focusing it. (You could grossly oversimplify the series by saying a rock band fights emotion-vampires by blasting them with the emotional high of rocking the f*ck out.) Technically, we've also seen songs create force fields in Frontier and Delta as well. The Vajra communicate and manipulate fold waves by "singing" (albeit not anything humans would recognize as song) and can use those fold waves in manners identical to purely technological solutions humanity uses to do things like warp spacetime into an impassible barrier. The Protoculture ship Sigur Berrentzs in Macross Delta had a similar capability.

I'm not aware of any translation patches for those PC Engine SuperCD games... but then, I haven't exactly looked very hard for one either since I can read enough Japanese to get by. I suspect a lot of it may be that you didn't watch all of Macross 7... since that sets up a LOT of the later stories, but is also one huge expansion on the backstory of the Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series that explains how the Protoculture civilization fell and why, and introduces us to those directly responsible for it as the show's principal antagonists. It's also what set up a lot of the nature of in-universe dramatizations of the First Space War, since it introduced the idea that DYRL? was a movie in the universe (at least, within a show, the concept was also explained in print media) and had the main characters be involved in filming another TV docu-drama based on the First Space War during the course of the story. (There's also the vague implication that Macross II is a work of speculative fiction in-universe, since almost the entire OVA soundtrack seems to be the galactic billboard Top 40 and the Minmay Attack Girl has some brief cameo appearances.)

Sort of... Macross II: Lovers Again is officially classified as a parallel world story, but like the main continuity it does kind of cut a dash between the two versions albeit in a way that draws far more heavily in DYRL? than the TV series. You could argue that it's technically drawing more on the novelization of DYRL?, as the Macross is shown to have had the Daedalus and Prometheus as its arms during the First Space War in Macross 2036 and Macross: Eternal Love Song, as well as in some promotional material made for the OVA itself before its release. (It has some distinctly TV-esque bits, like Quamzin not dying fighting Roy, and instead living on Earth briefly before acquiring a ship and fleeing into space... albeit only to return as an antagonist in Macross 2036 and Eternal Love Song.) It's just Kawamori being auteur... he doesn't want to end up in continuity lockout the way some properties (e.g. Gundam) have done. He wants to be free to tell the stories he wants to tell, so his attitude towards continuity is a "broad strokes" one when it comes to the TV shows. Other materials, like light novels, manga, games, artbooks, and so on tend to do a bit more with actual continuity because they're marketed to fans who are naturally inclined to want that kind of thing. It's kinda like how Gundam has the AU stories for folks who want just a standalone story and the UC for die-hard fans who are into continuity porn. Yeah, Kawamori has indicated directly or indirectly on a number of occasions that he's not keen on direct sequels and the like. His attitude towards the Hikaru-Misa-Minmay situation is that their story arc had a natural conclusion, so it's best to let it be. They've sailed off into the metaphorical sunset. The stuff about not wanting to feed HG is just fan conjecture AFAIK. HG never had any rights to Macross's sequels apart from the merchandising rights to DYRL? it got in '01, so it's not like they can do anything even if Macross went on a TV series referencing spree. Nope... it's just the author's personal preference, and as we've shown his preference changes on a case-by-case basis. Eh... the official Macross timeline essentially takes the TV series version of the story as gospel and the entirety of Macross 7 is one long explanation of the mentioned-only Supervision Army from the TV series version of the story and all references to the ancient Protoculture are built on that. It's just that they seem to prefer to use the more visually impressive DYRL? designs to be used in subsequent animated works that are set after it. It's explicitly not the case, though. Later titles perceptions of history may be muddied somewhat by the many, MANY in-universe docu-dramas about Lynn Minmay and the First Space War that were filmed using later versions of real ships and mecha like Do You Remember Love? using postwar VF-1's and having a West Point-class training ship with a holographic camouflage applied to it stand in for the Zentradi mothership. Many characters are more familiar with and connected to those dramatizations than the actual history, esp. since Do You Remember Love? was one of those films that defined a generation when it came out in 2031.

So... fun thought, I think this might actually be the first time we've seen art of a VF-11D being used for its intended purpose as a training aircraft. We've seen the ELINT/AWACS conversion the VE-11 Thunder Seeker, the modified VF-11D's used by the Jamming Birds and the Thunder Focus camera aircraft used to film Vanquish Races, but I honestly can't recall ever seeing a VF-11D in regular military markings being used for its intended purpose. Source is the Hasegawa 1/72 Thunderbolt Test Pilot School type kit: https://www.hlj.com/1-72-scale-vf-11d-thunderbolts-test-pilot-school-hsg65866

Barring what we've been told about the forthcoming Macross Delta: Absolute Live!!!!!!, Macross doesn't really do sequels as such... each story is effectively stand-alone. Macross 7 borrowed from the TV series and DYRL? movie in equal measure, sometimes in the same scene. Like when they were shooting The Lynn Minmay Story in-series, and had a DYRL? Vrlitwhai next to a TV Quamzin. After Frontier, there's the implication that the SDF-1's redesign was partly becuase they used bits that were made for the mass production Macross-class ships that all follow the DYRL? design. What they're depicting, though, is the version of the ship's launch from the TV series as well as the ship's origin from the TV series. The same scene also points to TV series order of events for the bombardment of Earth and the Minmay Attack, albeit with DYRL? visuals. Like I said, Kawamori likes to mix and match... seemingly without rhyme or reason. EDIT: I should add that there are several other depictions of the First Space War that use the DYRL?-style SDF-1 Macross design but give it the Daedalus and Prometheus, including the novelization of the movie and the Macross the First manga.

"Canon" is a pretty useless concept, since Kawamori considers every Macross series to effectively be stand-alone and inconsistently picks and chooses bits he likes in any given story. Later Macross titles have referenced the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series, however. This is Animation Special: Macross Plus and Macross: A Future Chronicle offer some insight into how TV and Movie designs are said to coexist. For instance, the version of the VF-1 Valkyrie from the Super Dimension Fortress Macross TV series is said to be representative of the first five production blocks of the VF-1 Valkyrie while the Macross: Do You Remember Love? version of the Valkyrie is representative of Block 6 and later VF-1 Valkyries. There's a similar attitude taken with Exsedol's design, with the one being what he looks like as a miclone with his special genetic traits stripped out and the other being what he looks like normally when he's a giant. The SDF-1 Macross itself is said to have properly had the Daedalus and Prometheus and been retrofitted into how it appeared in DYRL? during its restoration. Pretty much all the technical material takes the attitude that there are parts of both versions that are accurate in the "true" history, usually in the form of the TV version being early model hardware and DYRL version being later model hardware. We've seen other, explicit nods to the original series in a few shows directly too. The New UN Spacy 33rd Marines are shown to have the TV and Movie body armor designs in use concurrently. The honor guard that greets Sheryl when she lands on Gallia IV was entirely decked out in TV version body armor. (They seem to have presented the TV version as infantry armor and the one from the movie as a pilot suit instead.) The Zentradi suffering from Var syndrome in Macross Delta's first episode also have the TV version armor on. Berger Stone's summary of music's history as a "weapon" in Macross also uses the Supervision Army gunship design for the pre-restoration SDF-1 Macross... the one from the Macross Model Hobby Handbook that never made it into the show proper. He uses BGM from the original series for that sequence too, and the completed SDF-1 Macross is shown taking off with no arms, meaning this is the TV version (the DYRL? version already had ARMDs attached when it took off, as seen in the game adaptation). When the topic turns to song, the song Minmay is shown singing is Love Drifts Away (even though the visuals are her DYRL dress and DYRL Zentradi). Ernest Johnson's office aboard the Macross Elysion has, as decoration, a TV version SDF-1 Macross model that has the Daedalus and Prometheus. Milia, in Macross 7, has her TV series VF-1J Super Valkyrie as a privately owned VF... until Gamlin borrows it and it gets wrecked. She has a TV version pilot suit for it as well. IIRC, we also see TV series versions of the UN Forces uniform worn by the old timers who crew the Monster destroid as well. Millard Johnson in Macross Plus may be a walking TV series reference, as Macross Chronicle connected him to Hikaru as one of his subordinates in the SVF-1 Skulls. (Max was Skull Leader instead in DYRL?.) Macross the Ride makes explicit reference to the Angel Birds, the flight demonstration unit that only appears in the TV series, with an Angel Birds VF-19 variant. Nope, the two do not discuss it... the closest they get is screening selected clips from the in-universe version of the movie Do You Remember Love? which has some scenes that are not in the real world version of the movie like Max and Milia's wedding in Meltran uniforms.

For one, they're not really "the universe's 3 greatest folk heroes"... its more like "Minmay and those two other guys". Roy, oddly enough, seems to have far more enduring notoriety than Hikaru in-universe. Of the original main trio, Minmay was the only one who was properly famous. Even then, her enduring fame and her status as one of Earth's cultural icons has a lot more to do with the various in-universe dramatizations of her life filmed after she left Earth back in 2012 than it does with her actual achievements in her brief music career. Her legend grew in the telling, you see. For a good while, the New UN Government covered up the disappearance of the Megaroad-01 for fear that its disappearance might damage the public's confidence in the Humankind Seeding Project. It's unclear when exactly they declassified it, but in the Macross Frontier series, wealthy Zentradi business mogul Richard Bilra collaborates with Macross Galaxy in an attempt to use the proposed galaxy-wide zero-time fold communications network to find Megaroad-01 in 2059. Shady businessman Berger Stone presents an unverifiable rumor that Lady M is somehow connected to Megaroad-01 in Macross Delta in 2067 too. A fansub group jumped to the conclusion that Minmay was Lady M and put it as fact in their fansubs... Officially, the show's creators never gave Lady M an identity.

Macross II: Lovers Again's prequel games - Macross 2036 and Macross: Eternal Love Song - also had a number of new riffs on Zentradi mecha: http://www.gearsonline.net/series/macross/2036/

Because they're all an island unto themselves... sometimes explained as them all being dramatizations of a "true" Macross history. In practical terms, it's best not to think about it too hard. Kawamori takes whatever designs and story beats he particularly likes from any given version and uses those in the next with, or without, explanation.

Valkyries are Macross's most iconic design works... one of the main things that visually sets Macross apart from the hundreds of other mecha anime out there. If you want boring, generic, slow 'n stompy, ground-bound robots there are loads of other titles that can oblige you. Like Gundam. Please bear with us while we attempt to locate a vomiting reaction image strong enough to properly express the full extent of our disgust. I'm pretty sure citing a Palladium Books "original" design from their "please don't sue us" collection in the Absolutely Not The Sentinels sourcebook is as close to objectively bad taste as it gets. Even Robotech fans hated the designs in that book. But the reality is that it's not, and it really doesn't belong here.

If we're REALLY picking nits, there isn't even really an agreed-upon universal definition of "utopia" beyond "a perfect society"... there've been lots and lots of different takes on the idea over the years since the term was first coined in 1516. Star Trek's utopia fits into a few of the broad categories that've been defined in literature since the term was coined. First and foremost, the Federation is a Socialist Utopia, in a style similar to the ones described by Wells, Efremov, and Morris. It's free of capitalism and consumerism, and in retrospect regards them as disruptive influences on society. The egalitarian distribution of food and goods, as well as essential services like education and medical care, made money a societally-irrelevant concept and led to its abolition. Citizens only do work they enjoy and which is for the common good, leaving them more time for the pursuit of the arts and sciences. The Federation also has characteristics of a Scientific Utopia, similar in nature to the idea first toyed with by Francis Bacon. Advanced medical technology has greatly extended the human lifespan and has generally freed humanity from things like disease, disability, and untimely death. Advanced manufacturing technology (matter synthesizers, replicators) has displaced humans from menial manufacturing roles and other advanced technology had taken over the majority of other kinds of menial labor. Education is ubiquitous, and everyone has unrestricted access to humanity's collective achievements in the arts and sciences. The expansion of humanity's collective body of scientific knowledge is a primary cultural goal. It's also an Egalitarian Utopia, as the Federation has true social and legal equality among all species, races, genders, sexual orientations, religions, and what have you. You could also say it's a Democratic Utopia, in that the government is set up in such a way that it truly represents the interests and collective will of the people. Again, universal accord is not a prerequisite for a utopia... there have been many, MANY different takes on the underlying concept in its almost 2,400 year documented history. Y'see, that's not really a workable example of what you're trying to say. Yes, Sisko's has limited seating... but everyone has equal access to Sisko's and nobody's going hungry either. If Sisko's has no free tables, they can wait or go to one of the other restaurants in the area at which they are equally welcome. If that doesn't suit, they can use a transporter and visit any restaurant anywhere on the planet (or orbiting space stations) that suits their fancy. If their heart is set on a particular dish, they can get it just as easily from a replimat or out of their personal replicator. It might not taste exactly the same as a dish prepared in a real kitchen (whether people can truly distinguish replicated food from real food is debatable, as food snobs are heavily involved in the "can" side) but it's just as nutritious if not moreso and it's available on demand at whatever temperature best suits it and/or your preferences. (It wouldn't be surprising if Sisko's offered replication patterns for its dishes too, as a form of "takeout".) A "has not" in this case is someone who isn't able to get a meal at all. Not being able to get into Sisko's at a specific time is an inconvenience, not a lack of equal access.

Yeah, Gene Roddenberry was a great idea man but not much of a writer. Like George Lucas, he needed a support staff to filter his ideas and convert them into something the audience would actually want to watch. Gene strongarmed his way into creative control using the few rights he retained to the property, and his weird restrictions on what the writers could and couldn't do drove a number of them to quit at the end of the first season. Roddenberry's lawyer was such a tyrant about it he was eventually banned from Paramount's premises after being caught making unauthorized edits to scripts. There's nothing about the definition of a utopia that requires an absence of all conflict...

That's why Star Trek stories are set out on the frontier... because the premise of Star Trek is that the future will be a better, brighter place where we will solve all of humanity's societal problems. Star Trek is an examination of our modern societal issues, which are projected onto various alien species or lost human colonies that Starfleet encounters to allow the audience to examine them from an outside perspective unhampered by the blind spots and biases we develop by living with those societal flaws all our lives. That the Federation is a utopia is the whole point of Star Trek. It's an aspiration for the future, and a way to point out where we're falling short right now. That wasn't the actual issue... the issue that had the writers livid with Roddenberry was that you need conflict to develop characters and Gene was adamant that the crew of this new starship Enterprise were simply too advanced and too professional to disagree on the best course of action or points of morality.

Does anyone still watch Game of Thrones? It seems like that fandom vanished off the face of the f*cking Earth after its final season.

Hmm... as someone who used to be in charge of maintaining and updating a fleet of over 150 prototype vehicles for a government project, being a crew chief would be my personal hell. Love: General Galaxy VF-171 Nightmare Plus. It's known to be a highly robust machine with performance that doesn't put excessive amounts of stress on its systems or its airframe, it'd be a nice and easy machine to maintain. Loathe: General Galaxy VF-9 Cutlass. The "origami Valkyrie" has an excessively complex transformation that would be an absolute nightmare to maintain the actuators on, and the -E variant has an acknowledged disquieting tendency to spontaneously explode.

Yeah, that's how they've been hyping it... whether it'll actually turn out that way is another matter entirely. Remember, they made a similar pitch with Star Trek: Discovery season two and that turned into an even bigger dumpster fire than season one. I'm inclined to suspect it would have been well-received. Remember, between the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: Discovery we had the three terrible action-ized Star Trek movies by Jar-Jar Abrams that were already making people nostalgic for real Star Trek. Discovery was always going to fail. Partly because it's following in the aesthetic and thematic footsteps of those terrible soft reboot movies, and partly because it was so preoccupied with trying to be Game of Space Thrones that it became unwatchable for a lot of the same reasons Game of Thrones did. That, I would point out, is thematically incompatible with Star Trek as a whole. The entire premise there is that humanity is fundamentally Better Than That.

Well, there is a nonzero probability that you may be in luck then... ViacomCBS and Secret Hideout are currently trying very hard to distract shareholders and viewers alike from the disastrously bad viewership numbers Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard are getting, as well as from the distinctly frosty reception Lower Decks is currently getting, with news of their latest Star Trek: Discovery side story proposal: Strange New Worlds. It's a way for them to reuse the art assets, sets, etc. made for Discovery for another show, but they're talking it up as a return to classic form with a more episodic format and the classic optimism of real Star Trek. It's supposedly set to feature Anson Mount returning as Captain Christopher Pike on the USS Enterprise.

Yeah, letting Gene off the leash in the development and first season production of Star Trek: the Next Generation was definitely a mistake. Natasha Yar's character basically came about because Gene wouldn't stop perving on Jenette Goldstein's character Vasquez in Aliens. He was so taken with the idea of a macho latina marine that that's basically all the original version of Yar's character - named Macha Hernandez - was. Her only other character trait was hero-worshiping Picard and Riker. She didn't really get any better fleshed-out in development, except in that her hero worship of Picard and Riker was generalized into a PSA about how awesome the Federation is and once they cast Denise Crosby she got rewritten into a Ukrainian to better fit her looks. Adding Worf basically made her post as security chief redundant anyway. That's why the writers didn't know what to do with her, and why they were planning to write her out of the series even before Denise Crosby announced she was going to quit. The Maquis were a pretty interesting addition to the setting, IMO... though a rebellion made up of folks who mainly adhered to Federation standards was never going to be much of a success against a brutal regime like the Cardassian Union. (That they borrowed the name of the dubiously effective French resistance was intentional.) Well, description of the Federation economy has been necessarily vague since throwaway remarks by various writers don't often line up... but from the outset they were consistent on the note that the Federation's utopian civilization had effectively eliminated contemporary human failings like hunger, disease, war, homelessness, etc. and created a society where all people were able to contribute and lead rich, full lives. Putting some of the pieces together, the post-scarcity New World Economy that's described appears to have had what amounts to universal basic income and housing, provided for by the ubiquitous matter synthesizers and the replicators that replaced them. Even an unemployed person could still have a roof over their head, fresh and healthy food to eat, free access to medical care and education, etc., while those who wanted more out of life had to work. Since most material possessions became essentially worthless when synthesizer or replicator tech could duplicate almost anything with ease, it would've been fairly easy to refocus humanity's competitive energy into how much you can contribute to society. They make a lot of noise about that aspect of it in TNG, DS9, and VOY, that the focus is on self-improvement and betterment of society. Living on a place like Janus VI as a miner would be pretty hefty bragging rights in that regard, given how the planet's resources are said to be able to provide for the energy needs of dozens of other worlds. Now you're contradicting yourself... it's not a "thin veneer" if it's a concrete reality that those people were raised in, accustomed to, and want to perpetuate, and point to as a beacon of hope for the greater galaxy.

Star Trek: Picard, being set principally outside Federation territory, absolutely did not need to sh*t all over the Federation and Starfleet the way it did. It was completely unnecessary to the story, and it didn't make a lick of sense when examined in any kind of depth or context. Of course, a lot of what went into Star Trek: Picard's story was absurd, hopelessly out of character, or completely pointless attempts at cheap drama... which is probably why the series lost more than half of its audience in the space of a single season. The writing was just that bad and the audience knew it. As noted in my previous post, that assertion doesn't tally with the fact that we've seen on many occasions that Federation citizens living out on its frontiers or beyond its borders still hold the same high-minded ideals even without the comforts of the Federation's developed worlds. (Taken to some pretty extreme places in TAS with people like Carter Winston, a wildly successful trader who kept giving away his fortune to help Federation colonies in need.)

Granted, that's probably true... it doesn't actually change the result, but it would materially change every other aspect of the story because the characters were likable enough for the audience to get invested in them and their adventure. Even if the ending is a literal deus ex machina where the power of god kills the Nazis because they're too damn stupid to know what they're doing, it wouldn't be as meaningful if Indy weren't there to make it feel like a win for the good guys and the climax to a fun, high-stakes adventure. One of the main problems with all of the new Star Trek produced under Kurtzman's leadership is that the characters are awful and unlikable people who hate each other with a passion. Picard is, in a way, even worse than Discovery in that there's really no reason for these characters to be as sh*tty as they are. Especially Raffi, who is a drug-abusing waster who somehow contrives to blame Jean-Luc Picard for her being kicked out of Starfleet... even though his presence was apparently all that was keeping her from an involuntary discharge as it was. It's so stupidly hypocritical of her. How dare the famous Jean-Luc Picard let the consequences of her sh*tty life choices catch up with her!

Not really, no... By in large, when we've seen the antics of various disreputable or outright criminal individuals like Harcourt Fenton Mudd, Cyrano Jones, Kivas Fajo, "Ardra", etc. they're either operating outside of Federation space or on the very fringes of it. The reason they're out there on the periphery of Federation territory to begin with is that they're wanted by other, less humane governments (like the Klingons) and the Federation Starfleet's highly principled officers don't shoot to kill even if you shoot first, and the justice system there is vastly more forgiving and humane than what many of the Federation's neighbors have to offer. That wholesome, advanced attitude is what we see out on the frontier, where all the real (meaning pre-Kurtzman) Star Trek shows are set... where all the problems aren't solved yet. We've never really gotten a good look at the Federation's core worlds, except to hear them described as "paradise". Even the Maquis, Federation settlers living a hard life on undeveloped worlds in the demilitarized zone separating Cardassian and Federation space, are shown to be generally principled people who just want to be left alone to live their lives in peace. Their style of terrorism is pretty toothless until Eddington loses the plot and even he goes to great lengths to ensure there's little to no loss of life even as he's deploying chemical weapons on a planetary scale. That's how stupidly advanced and high-minded the Federation is... even when its citizens turn to honest-to-goodness terrorism they refuse to actually hurt anyone if it can be avoided. Bajor's basically the Federation frontier planet we see the most of, and while it starts out troubled it goes from a recently occupied world used to violent oppression and equally violent resistance to a basically utopian society in the space of just a couple of years with the Federation's help. The Federation's principles and high standard of living are no simple veneer, that was the reality of daily life in the Federation until Kurtzman decided it wasn't gritty enough for his tastes. That's the essence of the whole speech Sisko gives in "The Maquis" that has him lay out the fact that life in the Federation is paradise because the problems of society are solved already... it's only out on the frontier where people are living rough and still getting society set up that there are still unsolved problems, which is the whole reason the Federation fails to really relate to the Maquis and understand their grievances, because the problems the Maquis were dealing with were alien concepts to the vast majority of the Federation populace. Kurtzman's cack-handed attempt to turn Star Trek into Star Wars aside, what we're seeing in Picard is non-Federation civilian life... all but the first few episodes take place outside of Federation space. These interstellar sh*tholes like Freecloud or the Romulan refugee planets are outside the Federation's borders and governed by someone else... which makes the show's whole argument against the Federation particularly incongruous. The problem with that ending is it comes out of nowhere with no build-up... the Federation just decides, offscreen, that it really ought to do the thing it's supposed to be all about, seemingly independently of anything Picard has said or done in the entirety of the season. It's very much a deus ex machina ending, albeit different from the rather more literal one that Sutra tried to bring about seemingly for shiggles and because every Soong-type android is obliged by law to have an evil twin.

So when its first season ends it'll have lost only 49% of the audience it started the season with? I have to admit, I didn't expect Picard to do well from the outset, but I never expected it'd be the franchise's all-time worst performer in terms of viewer retention by almost a factor of 3. It lost 30% of its audience in the space of just the first five episodes, and 50% by its season finale. I'm floored. That puts Picard's first season roughly on par with the Voyager or Enterprise's losses over their entire seven or four season runs if you discount the series openers. Wow. Just... wow. I think there's an excellent argument for Patrick Stewart's reluctance to return for season two of his series being motivated by the audience's hatred of the show.