I don't think tens of millions are anything to scoff at. Even if it wasn't a large percentage, the war should've left a big scar in the average citizen. At least, DS9 made it seem so. It doesn't have to make sense in our world, with numbers and everything, but for the sake of the story, it's just like any big war on Earth. And the same thing with the Borg. Who knows if the majority of the people haven't seen a Borg or really don't care about xBs. But you guess that most citizens would have a basic sense about them being extremely dangerous.
But what's conservative? Not believing that utopia is achievable? I mean, none of the writers are conservative at all.
I think it's more conservative to imagine a utopia without showing how it's actually achieved, thinking that's it's just something that will happened sooner or later and we should all just be hopeful about it, like what TNG did for so long.
I mean, you're right, the utopia was a thin aspect of Star Trek that was never actually that thought out, but it was used as a device for pushing those morality lessons each episodes, putting the enlighten humans against savage aliens all the time.
Even the use of money wasn't actually well-thought until TNG. We see references to buying, selling, and credits through TOS, the movies and later.
But it was nonetheless something that took over the narrative of what Star Trek was about. I mean, just look at how fans react to even the slightest indication that there are problems with the Federation. No wonder writers feel the urge to challenge the notion.
I think the conservative aspect I"m thinking of isn't necessarily in the hard c ideological kind but in that there's a sort of status quo maintenance in Star Trek's writing in some ways. In terms of how Star Trek views the human, a lot of what Star Trek considers the human to be tends to reflect on an immutable notion of the darkness underneath, or the inherently corruptible nature of the human. I think DS9 was the most strict in regards to this and Picard seems to be following suit in a sense. It's not that these views think of the human as a purely negative being or that they don't consider positive change, but that they often can't see beyond this perspective - that being human is to be flawed in some essentialist way. There's a radical pursuit here that I think is missed in adhering to this notion of humanity. Yes, the mere depiction of a utopia that is treated as a given is also outdated, but then so is the critique of it as such. I think it takes new ways of seeing these things in this medium, to really touch on the future society of Star Trek and its ability to provide insightful potentialities.
Continuing from that, I think that this is part of what keeps Star Trek mired in these poking at Utopia, or the 'how perfect is it' kinds of stories, which is conservative in a formal sense. I think instead of focusing on dismantling narratives it would be more fruitful at this point, at least in terms of doing something exciting or original, in actually really delving into what a Star Trek utopia could look like and what it would be outside of the need to poke at flaws. What kind of difficulties and challenges could arise for humans outside of succumbing to some darker nature? I think there was this brief moment in Star Trek history, where these potentials for a different kind of storytelling came into being, and I'd like to see it pushed farther than it has been in the past. To go where no one has gone before. Instead of getting back to where we've been - even if I don't strongly dislike what Picard is doing on that level. I think our current era of what is basically the prehistory of artificial general intelligence is a perfect match for providing insightful challenges to a utopic Star Trek future, to see what advanced AI outside of conventional forms would mean to what we could be or become. Instead of relying on a lot of the stock Trek things like aliens that are just this one facet of some contemporary aspect of what we are.
I don't think the didactic nature of some of Star Trek was really a bad thing and that it can actually be a useful tool to engage with ideas in a rewarding manner, both for the writer and audience.The writing in Star Trek that has been about prodding the dark side is still giving us a morality lesson of a sort but I think it's done in a way where it still comes off as a righteous engagement with ideas that the writers often consider to be endlessly necessary. Instead of viewing political engagement in the sense that stories must engage with what is happening right now in this instant, we can still have political stories but that reflect on a future that is coming for us - a future governed by automation and intelligence beyond what we understand now. Which isn't through atomized entities like the android. Something more like V'Ger.
I also think that the fact that there is a lot of people that seem to be considerably impacted by the idea of a Utopian future shows that it is a powerful idea. Probably more so than the inverse. It's something that because of this is probably worth delving into with a lot more clarity and detail, instead of just keeping up with the tried and true 'well actually' approach. I think of things like The Prime Directive, which is basically a thought experiment seen in popularized media. That's still kind of crazy, that we ever got something like that. I've had many great discussions dissecting the different instances of that concept and it's what made stuff like TNG rewarding. It's still fairly revolutionary to make a television show that makes people think in that way. Much like most television, I don't think Picard is bringing anything that compelling to the table like that. This is what creating Utopia can do through the medium of television - it can be thought provoking because it's a way of examining ourselves and where we are now and where we could be. The more defined, the better. I don't think the vanilla allegory of 'it's like now but in the future' is all that challenging in this regard and isn't as provocative. At least from what we've seen so far. To simply poke at ghosts of perfection doesn't really challenge all that much either.
I mean, if one were to examine the discourse, what is there to talk about in Picard that is all that thought provoking? We can say that yes they're doing an allegory to the current state of affairs with refugees. It feels a little shallow though, without much conceptual undergirding, which I think is a result of the narrow focus so far. It's just like where are the ideas?
The problem with playing the numbers game with wars is that there are all kinds of factors that might influence a society and government other than casualty rates.
The Viet Nam War was a minor war with relatively few deaths, yet it had a major impact on the American psyche for decades, elements of which still persist to this day.
Well, when it's potentially a quadrillion vs tens of millions it just becomes absurd. It's like getting a paper cut or something.
