Well yeah there’s so much more. Transporters are magical devices that either work or not work depending on the needs of the plot. Nobody even considers whether it’s actually them on the other side of that transporter beam. They can cure diseases with it except when they can’t. They can create copies of people with a transporter but for some reason bad guys like the Dominion never explore this despite being willing to clone soldiers. Why does anyone bother boarding a ship instead of beaming everyone on the ship into their brig (or into space if they’re bad guys? Because transporters are just magic that work according whatever is needed by the story. The consequences of this technology is never really explored which is what science fiction normally does.
Q is straight up a sorcerer, in the episode where he loses his power it’s straight up stated the Q have the ability to alter the constants that govern science at will. Literally magic. Geordi doesn’t respond with “this fundamentally changes how we need to think about physics” as a scientist would when given an indication that scientific theories are incomplete. Nope it’s just “we can’t do that because we aren’t Q” and everyone moves on. It’s just commonly accepted that aliens have magic because they are aliens and it’s rarely questioned.
Star Trek II is often regarded as the best Trek movies and it’s about a villain with a planet destroying weapon. Ah but wallpaper over the planet destroying weapon with the fact that it can be used to instantly terraform planets that sounds sciencey enough so no one will notice the actual story is just a villain with super weapon.
The list goes on and on. Star Wars actually does more to explore the consequences of technology and people having special abilities than Star Trek does. Exploring consequences is what science fiction is about not sounding sciency.
Now to be clear, I like Star Trek, and have watched a lot of it. I’m just not under an illusion about what it is. It’s great at exploring social issues and ethics and uses it’s fantastical setting to allow the audience to see issues from a different perspective. And that’s great. And occasionally there are a few ethical issues that is actually science fiction, like “Measure of a Man.” But those episodes are more the exception than the rule. The bulk of Star Trek is creating scenarios to discuss morals and ethics where the “science” is actually just magic.
I also like Star Wars. And the whole pretentious thing about Star Trek being sci-fi while Star Wars is fantasy is annoying and false. Star Trek is more fantasy that Star Wars, it’s just that Star Trek has more technobabble to make it sound vaguely sciencey. But it’s mostly just the Odyssey + technobabble.
Well yeah there’s so much more. Transporters are magical devices that either work or not work depending on the needs of the plot. Nobody even considers whether it’s actually them on the other side of that transporter beam. They can cure diseases with it except when they can’t. They can create copies of people with a transporter but for some reason bad guys like the Dominion never explore this despite being willing to clone soldiers. Why does anyone bother boarding a ship instead of beaming everyone on the ship into their brig (or into space if they’re bad guys? Because transporters are just magic that work according whatever is needed by the story. The consequences of this technology is never really explored which is what science fiction normally does.
Q is straight up a sorcerer, in the episode where he loses his power it’s straight up stated the Q have the ability to alter the constants that govern science at will. Literally magic. Geordi doesn’t respond with “this fundamentally changes how we need to think about physics” as a scientist would when given an indication that scientific theories are incomplete. Nope it’s just “we can’t do that because we aren’t Q” and everyone moves on. It’s just commonly accepted that aliens have magic because they are aliens and it’s rarely questioned.
Star Trek II is often regarded as the best Trek movies and it’s about a villain with a planet destroying weapon. Ah but wallpaper over the planet destroying weapon with the fact that it can be used to instantly terraform planets that sounds sciencey enough so no one will notice the actual story is just a villain with super weapon.
The list goes on and on. Star Wars actually does more to explore the consequences of technology and people having special abilities than Star Trek does. Exploring consequences is what science fiction is about not sounding sciency.
Now to be clear, I like Star Trek, and have watched a lot of it. I’m just not under an illusion about what it is. It’s great at exploring social issues and ethics and uses it’s fantastical setting to allow the audience to see issues from a different perspective. And that’s great. And occasionally there are a few ethical issues that is actually science fiction, like “Measure of a Man.” But those episodes are more the exception than the rule. The bulk of Star Trek is creating scenarios to discuss morals and ethics where the “science” is actually just magic.
I also like Star Wars. And the whole pretentious thing about Star Trek being sci-fi while Star Wars is fantasy is annoying and false. Star Trek is more fantasy that Star Wars, it’s just that Star Trek has more technobabble to make it sound vaguely sciencey. But it’s mostly just the Odyssey + technobabble.