Star Wars or Star Trek?

[ABronyAccount 4,260]

Well, literally every cast of characters we follow in every series and movie is Starfleet. Whenever civilians are brought in it's usually colonists getting resupplied or protected from mauraders, or scientists working with Starfleet on remote assignments.

There are plenty of private jets in the real world, but in military techno-thriller fiction you almost never encounter them.

[Steamworks 95]

Trek has only shown a handful of human civilian ships. They've never said they don't exist. They do tend to be closer to a shuttlecraft in size when they show up. I also imagine a lot of civilians don't bother with private spacecraft. A warp core breach isn't exactly as insignificant as a busted head gasket. 

[AaronMk 501]

Civilian vessels aren't nearly as full of drama as would-be exploratory and adventurist military vessels. Civilian craft of every scope stay well within the comfort zone of established norms and safety. You wouldn't see Venetian trade ships busting new trade-routes to India or China because the merchant fleet isn't outfitted for constructing new trade-routes or encountering the unknown dangers of new worlds. Larger military or specially purposed ships (exploratory vessels) would have the space and size needed to carry the needed supplies and weapons to theoretically repel or discourage  threats man-made or natural as opposed to otherwise ill-equipped and ill-disciplined civilian endeavors.

 

Which is not to say it's impossible in the Star Trek world where the ships are equipped with machines that can produce literally whatever you want from seemingly thin air or a reserve of raw material that be cooked up to make whatever at the 3d level. In theory then a civilian space-vehicle could forge new frontiers. But we come down to two areas unresolved: the training of the crew  for these areas, and the interests of the clientele to go to places where they're not even sure they want to end up being.

 

There'd be a big difference between travelling through space on a known route between known objectives and going somewhere unknown. The journey will be much the same as going somewhere known but you never know if in the end the destination is even safe or worth the journey if no one is prepared on a psychological level to be there.

 

And on a writing level a civilian-based Star Wars or Star Trek just wouldn't be as fascinating or full of intrique and mystery as the Jedi battling the secretive workings of the Dark Side or the Enterprise or Voyager crew wandering into new worlds which pose new moral and philosophical problems for the main characters to overcome to solve not only the larger problem but their own personal problems as well. A Civilian version would probably end up being a show that tries to break from normal  sitcom routines by branding itself under these larger franchises and with sci-fi stamped in the background. But it'll still be Normal Joe struggling to get the consumer-level replicator to actually make the right cafe mocha and failing every time.

 

Or the probable ignorance of greater happening if it were Star Wars, which however comes with the added benefit of the civilian-level plot(s) ending up more like an actual western, just with more Tuskens than Mexican banditti.

[Aaargh Zombies 46]

On 11/09/2016 at 9:29 PM, ABronyAccount said:

Well, literally every cast of characters we follow in every series and movie is Starfleet. Whenever civilians are brought in it's usually colonists getting resupplied or protected from mauraders, or scientists working with Starfleet on remote assignments.

Star Wars goes to great lengths to explain that both the Empire and the Rebels use private companies to build their warships and their fighters. I've got a Starwars technical manual and I can tell you which companies produce the turbo lasers on an Imperial Star Destroyer, or the engines on an X-Wing. They even go into details about the competition between companies for contracts and how some companies failed to get the Empire\Rebels to buy their ships so they started selling them to individual governments or to security companies.

The expanded universe is pretty detailed, and a lot of it is modeled after the way that things are done in real life.

There are plenty of private jets in the real world, but in military techno-thriller fiction you almost never encounter them.

I think that I may need to disagree with you there. If we look at the movie Independence Day as an example, we see Air-force One. Which was build by Boeing. Will Smith's character flies an F18. Which was build by McDonnell Douglas. Both are private contractors. If there is a jet of some kind it's usually either Boeing or Leer.

Most science fiction\military shows\movies set close to our time period show recognizable aircraft.

Even shows that are set in the future often feature ships with very different designs so you know that they were build by different companies. Take the original Battle Star Galactica. The different colonies produced different types of ships.

We also see a lot of civilians in the later series of Star Trek. DS9 is set on a civilian station, Enterprise has many episodes where they encounter civilians and the later episodes have many scenes set on Earth.

I guess that what we almost never hear in Star Trek is the use of a brand name, and we almost never see company logos. Not even on clothing. In fact most characters n Star Trek don't have logos or pictures on their clothing at all. Unless it's a federation logo.

[ABronyAccount 4,260]

7 hours ago, Aaargh Zombies said:

Star Wars goes to great lengths to explain that both the Empire and the Rebels use private companies to build their warships and their fighters. I've got a Starwars technical manual and I can tell you which companies produce the turbo lasers on an Imperial Star Destroyer, or the engines on an X-Wing. They even go into details about the competition between companies for contracts and how some companies failed to get the Empire\Rebels to buy their ships so they started selling them to individual governments or to security companies.

The expanded universe is pretty detailed, and a lot of it is modeled after the way that things are done in real life.

Star Wars and Star Trek do a lot differently with their respective universes and where they put the narrative focus. It probably helps that Lucas himself was a military hardware nut and had plenty to say about how different ships compared in role and design to WWII fighter planes.

7 hours ago, Aaargh Zombies said:

There are plenty of private jets in the real world, but in military techno-thriller fiction you almost never encounter them.

I think that I may need to disagree with you there. If we look at the movie Independence Day as an example, we see Air-force One. Which was build by Boeing. Will Smith's character flies an F18. Which was build by McDonnell Douglas. Both are private contractors. If there is a jet of some kind it's usually either Boeing or Leer.

But in Trek you'd have to think up all the different companies and contractors, keep track of them, and maintain canon accounts and "show bibles" for them. Maybe Trek's just not into that shade of world-building?
 

7 hours ago, Aaargh Zombies said:

I guess that what we almost never hear in Star Trek is the use of a brand name, and we almost never see company logos. Not even on clothing. In fact most characters n Star Trek don't have logos or pictures on their clothing at all. Unless it's a federation logo.

Which is exactly why it's a world in which I aspire to live. A world where people finally said "Why do we put up with ads and branding everyfrickin' where? It's just garbage cluttering everything up demanding our money!"

I'd like to believe it was autoplaying video ads in the first Holosuite that did in all marketing forever after. From that point on, people had just had enough.

[The Doctor 39]

Star Trek's Utopia was nice, but often times pretty unrealistic.  One reason DS9 is my favorite Trek series.  They show the Federation as a great place, but were not afraid to look at the dark side of things, or how things didn't make sense. 

 

But some things, not just being illogical, were downright disgusting.  The Prime Directive, which has a logical use in the original series was really perverted into something disgusting in the later series.  TNG could be hit and miss, it never really came up in DS9, but Voyager and Enterprise really went to horrible extremes with its interpretation.  Letting entire civilizations die when they could do something.  Even Enterprise had an episode where a spacefaring species was looking for aid for a disease that would wipe out their species, the ship found a cure, and Archer decided to not give it to them.  Episode ended with he and Doctor Phlox patting themselves on the back. 

[StarlightGlimmer 37]

I'd say both are good. I like them both equally.

[Derpy Man 40]

Do watch alot of Star Trek, Tv and movies. But I prefer Star Wars, new one got me into more and like BB8.

[Aiadeva 29]

Personnaly I love both... Well, actually Star Wars is my favourite, because I prefer this universe than the Star Treck's one.

But both are really good and even though I haven't seen the original serie of ST (shame on me  ) I love the movies. Just hoping they're as good as the serie o_o"

 

[Lunar Holiday 150]

You know, I haven't really gotten into either of them :/

They seem really sweet, though! And their universes are MASSIVE, but as far as space adventures go...

Firefly, Firefly, Firefly

(And maybe some Doctor Who)

[hiigaran 11]

2 hours ago, Lunar Holiday said:

You know, I haven't really gotten into either of them :/

They seem really sweet, though! And their universes are MASSIVE, but as far as space adventures go...

Firefly, Firefly, Firefly

(And maybe some Doctor Who)

 

Firefly is great of course, but you'd be completely fahrbot to not kick back with some raslak and watch Farscape instead!

[Galacter 57]

Star Wars. Mainly because it's the first of two space genre's that I watched and got hooked on it. Not a fan of Mr. Skywalker turning Sith however.

[Lunar Holiday 150]

1 hour ago, hiigaran said:

 

Firefly is great of course, but you'd be completely fahrbot to not kick back with some raslak and watch Farscape instead!

I'm always on the hunt for good space things! Thanks!

[Galacter 57]

3 hours ago, Lunar Holiday said:

I'm always on the hunt for good space things! Thanks!

I recommend a good comedy, despite how long it's passed since ending, of the space genre known as Tripping The Rift. Very humorous indeed.

[Lunar Holiday 150]

Just now, Galacter said:

I recommend a good comedy, despite how long it's passed since ending, of the space genre known as Tripping The Rift. Very humorous indeed.

Hey, thanks!

Man, I love seeing my free time slowly shrivel up and die!

[Galacter 57]

3 hours ago, Lunar Holiday said:

Hey, thanks!

Man, I love seeing my free time slowly shrivel up and die!

You never fail to amuse me Pink One. 

[Lunar Holiday 150]

Just now, Galacter said:

You never fail to amuse me Pink One. 

I try my very hardest!

[Galacter 57]

3 hours ago, Lunar Holiday said:

I try my very hardest!

In addition to that I do recommend the first Star Wars movie should you need a little more time "wasted".  Can't beat the originals which brings out the new.

[strangephantasm 77]

I hate the wonky ass morality of Star Wars. The whole Jedi order is full of idiotic hypocrisy. Plus, I loathe any philosophy that espouses "balance" rather than the ultimate triumph of good.

[Netburst Celeron 45]

I like both, but I'm more of a Star Trek fan.

I was introduced to Star Trek first (when DS9 and Voyager were airing), and it hooked me before Star Wars got a chance to.

Also, I was very young and stupid at the time, and I was under the impression that if you liked one, you had to dislike the other. I blame my sister for perpetuating that myth.

[Magnus 1]

I'm a Star Wars fan since my early childhood. I love the movies and almost all of the video games.

Star Trek never really interested me, I can't even say why.

[Dabmanz 5]

Star wars is my favorite.