true

thank you for your comment jsr, for sure TNG and Voyager, for me, keep the ethical or philosophical question much more consistently at the centre of any episode. but also DS9. DS9 maybe is darker, more political and sometimes more commercial in its storytelling, although it still constantly makes you think. a lot.

And it still does something very Trek: it uses species to reflect us. The Ferengi are probably the clearest example , they exaggerate greed, profit, sexism and status to such an extreme that they expose how poor and ridiculous those behaviours can look when you see them from the outside.

So yes, I agree that For the Uniform is not DS9 at its best ethically. But I still see it as an exception inside a series that largely keeps questioning power, war, occupation, religion and responsibility.

What changes much more clearly after Voyager, for me, is the centre of gravity: spectacle and drama increasingly become the engine of the episode, while the ethical or philosophical question becomes secondary.

That is the shift I am talking about.

thank you a lot for your answer and input. I understand the examples, but I still think there is a difference.

Having an ethical issue in the plot is not the same as really exploring it. What I miss is the reasoning: different positions being confronted, the consequences being questioned, the characters actually struggling with what is right rather than simply reaching a solution.

In episodes like The Measure of a Man, I, Borg or In the Pale Moonlight, the ethical question was not just part of the story. It was the story.

That is what feels different to me now. The themes may still be there, but they are often used as part of the sci-fi scenario rather than examined with the same depth.

So my point is not that modern Trek never raises ethical questions. It does.

I think it no longer stays with them long enough.

Can’t you find something better to do? this are my thoughts.

thank you

I think we are talking about two slightly different things.

Your example is about proportion: some means are appropriate to an end and others are excessive.

My point is more about moral legitimacy.

A method can be effective, proportionate and still be ethically wrong because of what it does to someone else.

That is what Star Trek used to examine so well: not only “will this work?”, but what are we becoming responsible for by choosing this way of getting there?

thanks

I don’t find that explanation very credible.

Picard had seven seasons and 178 episodes of TNG, plus the films, in which he went through assimilation, torture, captivity, profound loss, command failures, war and repeated moral crises.

Those experiences changed him, of course. But they never erased the way he thought.

That was one of the strengths of Star Trek: character development did not mean replacing a character’s moral architecture. Change had to grow from what had already been established.

So the issue for me is not that Picard changed. People change. The issue is whether that change feels earned and coherent.

After decades of seeing him confront trauma without abandoning the habit of asking what is right beyond himself, simply saying “the universe became harder, so he became harder” feels too easy.

Star Trek used to make that tension itself part of the story.

That is what makes this version of Picard feel less like evolution and more like a rewrite.

thanks

I completely agree.What I loved about old Trek is exactly this: it did not just present a moral position, it kept reopening the question from different perspectives.

A treaty could be legal and still create injustice. Neutrality could become complicity. Resistance could be understandable and still morally difficult. Starfleet itself could be wrong. And the characters were forced to reconsider what they thought they knew.

That is what made the episodes so powerful. They were not simply telling us what to think — they were making us think.

And often they did it through different species, occupations, conflicts and political systems that clearly reflected real human problems without reducing them to slogans.

That depth is exactly what I miss. Every episode could leave you with a real ethical question after it ended.

tyhank you for your great answer and thinking, I really appreciate you, and I understand your reading, but I still disagree that the ending reaches the same ethical place.

For me, the future of old Trek was not built simply on trust. Trust came from an ethical framework. Old Picard would not just ask a persecuted minority to trust him and the Federation that had already outlawed them. He would first ask: do they have the right to seek protection? From whom? And when does protecting one persecuted group become the destruction of another?

Trek had already spent years asking these questions with Data: when does created life become a person, when does ownership become slavery, and what obligations do creators have toward the beings they create? The Measure of a Man is basically built around that question.

And this is where the Alliance of Synthetic Life bothered me too. They are supposedly a vastly superior synthetic civilisation, yet their reasoning is essentially the most basic human response: you persecuted us, therefore we will destroy you. That felt incredibly simplistic.

One of the strengths of old Trek was that other species did not simply think like humans in different bodies. The Founders in DS9 are a perfect example: their entire perception of identity, individuality, solids and belonging comes from being Changelings. You can disagree with them morally, but their reasoning grows from what they are.

That was what made the encounters interesting. The alien civilisation brought a genuinely different logic to the table, and Star Trek used that difference to make us look at our own conflicts: race, religion, power, minorities, occupation, fear. from another angle.

So yes, the synths eventually stand down. But for me the more interesting Star Trek story was the ethical argument that should have happened before that decision.

tyhank you for your great answer and thinking, I really appreciate you, and I understand your reading, but I still disagree that the ending reaches the same ethical place.

For me, the future of old Trek was not built simply on trust. Trust came from an ethical framework. Old Picard would not just ask a persecuted minority to trust him and the Federation that had already outlawed them. He would first ask: do they have the right to seek protection? From whom? And when does protecting one persecuted group become the destruction of another?

Trek had already spent years asking these questions with Data: when does created life become a person, when does ownership become slavery, and what obligations do creators have toward the beings they create? The Measure of a Man is basically built around that question.

And this is where the Alliance of Synthetic Life bothered me too. They are supposedly a vastly superior synthetic civilisation, yet their reasoning is essentially the most basic human response: you persecuted us, therefore we will destroy you. That felt incredibly simplistic.

One of the strengths of old Trek was that other species did not simply think like humans in different bodies. The Founders in DS9 are a perfect example: their entire perception of identity, individuality, solids and belonging comes from being Changelings. You can disagree with them morally, but their reasoning grows from what they are.

That was what made the encounters interesting. The alien civilisation brought a genuinely different logic to the table, and Star Trek used that difference to make us look at our own conflicts: race, religion, power, minorities, occupation, fear. from another angle.

So yes, the synths eventually stand down. But for me the more interesting Star Trek story was the ethical argument that should have happened before that decision.

That is a different argument though. Poor ratings or advertising performance do not tell me whether the writing still understood what Star Trek was trying to do.

Old Trek was built very deliberately. Michael Piller’s famous question in the writers’ room was essentially: “What is this story actually about?” The plot came after the human, ethical or philosophical question.

Roddenberry also imposed strong limits on how Starfleet characters should behave, because the future was supposed to represent an evolved humanity. Writers could challenge those limits , DS9 did it constantly , but they had to know which ethical line they were crossing and why.

That is why so many episodes feel coherent even decades later. The conflict was not just “what happens next?” but what is the right thing to do, what does it cost, and what does this choice say about us?

Whether Enterprise had enough viewers for UPN is a commercial question.

Whether Star Trek still had that intellectual and ethical architecture is a completely different one.

:(

Exactly. Old Trek repeatedly put the moral cost of the means on the table.

Voyager’s entire premise was built around that question. Rick Berman described it as getting home “at any cost?” and immediately answered: it shouldn’t be at any cost. That was built into the show from the beginning.

Michael Piller was famous in the writers’ room for asking: “What’s it about?” Not just what happens, but what the story is actually examining: paranoia, responsibility, identity, parenthood, fear. The ethical or human question came before the mechanics of the plot.

That is why episodes like Caretaker, I, Borg, The Measure of a Man, Insurrection or In the Pale Moonlight work so well. The characters are not simply looking for the fastest solution. They stop and ask what that solution costs, who pays for it, and whether another path exists even if it is harder.

And the scripts were written with enormous precision. Robert Hewitt Wolfe said DS9 scripts were locked down because the shows were so technical and precise; dialogue was not something actors simply improvised around. The writers were protecting the internal logic of the universe and the characters.

So my point is not “the end never matters”.

It is that a good end never removed the obligation to scrutinise the means.

Old Trek constantly asked: What will this choice do to others? Is the damage proportionate? Is there another way? And sometimes the harder, slower road was still the right one.

That it was part of how Star Trek was written.

agree

I don’t mean nostalgia. My question is whether we are losing a way of thinking that asked us to become better.

Star Trek used ethics, responsibility and self-reflection as part of the story itself. That shaped how many of us thought about power and humanity.

For me, keeping that alive is not about the past. It is about keeping our conscience active.

But that is exactly my point: this is where “the end does not justify the means” disappears.

Old Trek never said trauma would not change you. Picard was assimilated, violated and used by the Borg to kill thousands. In First Contact that trauma turns into rage and revenge , but the story stops him there. Lily confronts him, he recognises what he is becoming, and he changes course. His trauma explains the reaction; it does not automatically justify it.

Janeway does something similar in Equinox: desperation and anger push her too far, Chakotay challenges her, and the story makes that loss of perspective visible.

That was the point of the evolved humanity Star Trek imagined: not people without trauma, anger or fear, but people trying not to let those things decide what is right.

So saying “the universe became harder, therefore Picard and Seven became harder” is exactly what I am questioning. If circumstances are allowed to redefine the ethics, then the end has started to justify the means.

Old Trek asked whether we could suffer, be angry, even be broken , and still stop ourselves and ask: what is right beyond me?

That is the first thing I feel Picard has lost.

I don’t actually think Picard arrives at the same ethical conclusions.

The synthetics are a good example. When they decide to activate the beacon and call for help, Picard’s response is basically to stop them and offer to take them away.

Old Picard, to me, would first have changed the perspective of the question: does a persecuted minority have the right to ask for protection? If yes, from whom? At what cost? And what happens if that protection destroys another population?

That is where the real Star Trek dilemma would have been.

Not simply “don’t call them, come with me,” but a confrontation between rights, fear, survival and consequences, until the most ethical solution possible emerged.

That is why I don’t think the destination is the same. The old Picard was not looking for the solution that worked for him. He was trying to understand what was right beyond himself.

That difference is exactly what I miss.

thank me, dear me. not chat gpt. if you ahve to blame use better your time. I believe in this psot