[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by Mennonite

I haven't watched this show yet, but I do occasionally lurk on online discussion of it. Seeing Frakes' comment about "Roddenberry's vision" reminded me of a comment someone made about Mirror Lorca.

Now when Roddenberry created TNG he wanted there to be zero conflict amongst the main characters. Humans had evolved beyond almost all of their pettiness. It reached a point in one of the episodes (The Neutral Zone season 1) that one of the characters is shocked, shocked to find out that humans once feared dying.

This commentator made the point that the writers are damaging the character because the thing that makes him interesting - his questionable morality - is simply because he's from the Mirror Universe and not because he is a complex character with depth.

Basically, it would be like saying that Sisko did what he did in In the Pale Moonlight was because he was from the Mirror Universe instead of being a good man who had to do an evil thing for the greater good.

Though, come to think of it, Sisko did suddenly grow a goatee...

Hence why Roddenberry's vision was kinda hokey and why apparently DS9 isn't highly regarded by some associated with the overall brand. I guess.

The way I can rationalize Roddenberry's vision with the need to have non-boring ass characters (that is to say, ones with flaws that aren't supposedly found in 24th century Federation worlds) is that the crew of the Enterprise, regardless of era, epitomizes the best Starfleet can ever have in terms having near perfect humans / aliens living in accordance which what Roddenberry idealized.

But when you get further away from Earth and the Federation flagship Enterprise, you're more likely to see flawed people and the drama of whether or not they will live up to the Federation's (Roddenberry's) ideals.

Hell, Eddington spells this out in the Maquis arc in DS9.