How Pike won the Culture War within Starfleet and doomed them all

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[LoreReloaded]

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[baltham]

I would argue that Starfleet's pacifist doctrine, during the first half of the 24th century, was a distortion of Pike's own philosophy. While Pike was willing to make sacrifices, I do not believe he was willing to casually throw lives away much less put them in danger as evidenced by his hesitation to fire on the Romulans when the Farragut was in the firing lane. What we witnessed during the TNG/DS9 era was the mentality of a bloated and deluded bureaucracy which is evident in both of it's policies and administration.

[philippschwarz]

"A wise king never seeks out war, but, he must always be ready for it." - Odin, MCU

[nateweinberg]

I personally believe that this was everyone’s belief during that time not Just Pike and Spock, these seeds of pacifism was something even Kirk shared in some respects during the original series, Kirk however knew it was necessary to take certain steps if it meant saving the federation.

[nONLY_DRock]

You certainly took the words right out of my mouth! By the end of Strange New Worlds, I felt like the philosophy of Star Trek was, at first, invalidated. But it's not invalidated. It just needs a sobering reminder that some people can't be reasoned with, that some have such alien motivations that they won't be compatible with your own. In the end, you have to stand up to them, or else even worse things will happen.

Maybe eventually when they figure out you're not a pushover, they'll extend an olive branch. After all, the Romulans, Klingons, and Borg eventually did.

[henrikharbin]

I like how, in E1, he basically said, "Okay, go ahead and destroy yourselves... Or don't . But choose wisely. We're here if you want our help".

[doctorwhom]

I'd say a big hallmark of the federation foreign policy (if it exists behind the scenes as a cohesive strategy) is to make peace on terms favorable to their enemies, with the intent of economically dominating their enemies.

Take cloaking: on the surface agreeing to a ban on cloaking technology is... Really really really dumb. On the other hand the Romulans could scarcely expect a better treaty so the peace had real value to them, they'd only break it if they thought they could win. But, we see time and time again that developing countermeasures to cloaking is easy and making better cloaking is really hard. So the Romulans were stuck putting more and more resources into a tactical advantage while the Federation just kept expanding and developing. Eventually the Star Empire was dominated economically and fell apart after the supernova.
Or take the Klingons, who wound up with a fleet of obsolete Birds of Prey, or the Cardassians who got bogged down with the Marquis. Each time the Federation accepted neutral or unfavorable terms, made little to no demands, and used their diversity and economic might to surpass their foes.
Of course, when faced with the Borg or Dominion, enemies who would accept nothing less than total surrender and subjugation/extermination this plan failed.

[jameslewis]

It does seem that Starfleet under the perview of UFP would continually forget the phrase 'if you want peace, prepare for war'. I don't think the original Pike would influence this to be true, it is more of a thing brought about by politicians who are less than realistic about the importance of maintaining a strong defensive force. Take what is going on with Ukraine and Russia this year. If the Russians had not seen Ukraine as a soft target (because the military was run down over many years), the current war probably would not have happened - it is the same with the UFP who seem to consistantly degrade the military part of Stafleets duties meaning that the Federation tends to lurch from periods of being militarily strong and then soon becomes week again a relatively short time later (and probably under attack from someone who sees them as a soft target).

[toddfraser]

Sometimes you need a sword, and sometimes you need a plow. If you turn all your Plows to swords then you all starve. If you turn all your swords to plows, then you get attacked, killed and defeated. Pike and Picard are not failed captians with a failed ideology, but good captians for the right type of work. While Kirk and Sisko handle other problems much better, however tend to lag when Deplomacy is needed in comparison. Or you have Janeway who leaves a path a chaos in her wake.

[karljackson]

@Lore Relaoded - TBH I, like you, have been more dystopian with my Trek than most of my fellow Trek fans. I got a lot of flak for CHEERING (yes I literally cheered) when The Dominion War broke out. I think what a lot of Trek fans either are in denial about or flat out ignore is that even in the Roddenberry days of Trek, the Federation fought a number of wars - not conflicts - but WARS -with the Romulans, the Klingons, the Gorn, the Tholians, and others. We the audience simply didn't SEE them, but they are cannon nonetheless. Far too many of us lose sight of the fact that just because we might want to live in peace with out neighbors, it doesn't automatically follow that our neighbors want to live in peace with us. The Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians are inherently expansionist societies, so no one ever "gets along" with them without a show of force (and real talk for a moment - The Federation is expansionist too, we just spin it by calling it "exploration"). The same with The Dominion - there COULD have been peace with them from the outset - had The Federation simply surrendered. And I think that's a very realistic talking point that way too many of us Trek fans are in denial about. Sometimes if you want a good future, you're going to have to fight for it.

So yes, I cheered when outright war with the Dominion broke out.

First, because there was going to be a war in an established Star Trek franchise and the fans were going to see it. Secondly, because we were going to see all the major characters make some really hard life and death decisions, and live with the consequences. And for that, DS9 is the best Trek so far, "In the Pale Moonlight" is the best individual episode of Trek ever, and anyone who doesn't think that Benjamin Sisko is just as much the "best and brightest" that Humanity and Starfleet has too offer as Picard is can go tickle my phaser banks.

[Spritespitfire]

There is a phrase that kept going through my mind throughout this 'From a certain point of view'; but considering what he did this season, I respectfully disagree with that assessment. First the Gorn; he didn't try to make peace with them or reach out to them when they tried to kill him and his crew the first time he out witted them and the second time went full 'Aliens' on them. He outwitted the Shepherds when faced with an advisary that was either matched or better then Enterprise's tech. He showed caution then cunning when he had to deal with pirate outside of the Federation Space. He showed true genuine disgust when a body of a child was presented to him when he was dealing with a 'love interest of the week' to the point that I believe that he advised that the planet was avoided. He showed strength during the first episode when he said "I have the bigger stick" and dropped the Enterprise into low orbit to show he was serious about the warp bomb destroying the planet he was on, and gave them a choice... let us help or blow yourselves up then left it up to the planet governments to deal with that. I also don't agree with using an episode that was a cautionary tale to Pike himself with the time crystal, to show how events lead up to the 'golden age' of the federation getting blown out of the sky by the Borg / Dominion. Did he have a peaceful side to him, yes. Did he lead or give advice in that direction, yes. But make no mistake, when it came to warring and killing, he wasn't lacking in the chops to do what needed to be done.

[joshualau]

I don't think it's just Pike, I think it's also Georgiou as well. And keep in mind Pike still is a member of Georgiou's generation of ship captain.
How many blamed Burnham for the Klingon war, but not Georgiou's peace offering being a sign of weakness/Federation expansionism to T'Kuvma?

[epicurius]

Part of my problem with the argument that Pike influenced Spock, who led to Starfleet giving up military preparedness, beyond giving way too much influence to Spock, is that in TOS, Spock doesn't really seem to be that pacifist. He's the one who argues for blowing up the Romulan ship in Balance of Terror, he's the first one to distrust Khan in Space Seed, and he helps Kirk sabotage the Klingons in Errand of Mercy. He's no warmonger, but his attitude about force doesn't seem to be that different than Kirk's.

[Aaronlune]

As much alternate timeline stuff as we get, I think we are far cry away from being able to say Pike doomed Starfleet or the Federation. It could very well be that the destruction of principles you describe was averted from occurring earlier in the time line thanks to him. You have a very particular reading of the story that I don't agree with, but respect your right to have that take and don't exactly think you are wrong from coming away from the show with that interpretation.

[matthewgreenwood]

I have been a loyal follower of this channel since it’s early conception before you even went full-time with it. I’m not trying to be negative just voicing my concern. With that being said I feel like the channel has started to become more politicized with too much social commentary. Now I might very well be in the minority with my observation and opinion but I wanted to provide some feed back.

[forestwells]

Where ever it came from, I've always felt that Starfleet suffered from too much idealism. A treaty with the Romulans promising to never develop a game changing tech? Too much.

It's good that they wanted peace first, but they wanted peace second, third, all the way to fifth or higher, which makes them a target. The Borg was a wake up call that sometimes peace isn't possible. Without it, they never would have survived the Dominion.

Peace first is fine and noble, but I'd argue they needed to put strength second, so that when peace failed, they were fully ready to fight. And they needed to not pay such a high price for peace, which let's face it, more often than not led to MORE conflict in the long run. Just look at the "demilitarized" zone. Yeah, that sure made for a lasting peace. A chain of events that helped Cardassia join the Dominion.

[AaronCMounts]

Writers have to tell gripping, suspenseful stories with hard hitting conflicts and compelling narratives to keep their audience's interest. It's hard to do that when your characters live in a "Mary-Sue-Topia" of eternal peace, prosperity and tranquility (as the Federation was often portrayed as in the past). You can make outgroup races all one-dimensional villains, but that gets old and wears out, rather quickly.

So you HAVE to have some dystopian elements in your world. You HAVE to introduce and exploit flaws within your societies that can be exploited because that is a deep well from which, you can draw conflict and weave gripping stories that will keep audiences clamoring for more.

[walter]

This was such a good episode! When i watched the original series and saw that Spock was willing to being executed to help Pike, you knew they were close. Strange new worlds is showing us just how close they were. One thing that has disapointed me about strange new worlds is the in the short trek with Spock and Una in the elevator it was said that pike was a good fighter. We're only seen a few glimpses of that. His bravery was implied in DS9 since they named a medal of valor after him, and we do see that bravery on display, which is nice

[GeofftheIronwolf]

The big problem is they turned star fleet captains into diplomats. That shouldn't be their job. And the federation not having a standing military force, even if in peace time a small force, or having something like a Top Gun program for starfleet officers so you have a highly trained cadre of military minded officers is just plain stupidity.

[KeyOrion]

It has always been the Federations rule to not fire first. Let the other group fire first, and then defend yourself after the first volley. In fact in the majority of the show, the Federation has always fought back, but only after an aggressor had attacked first. This of course was Roddenberry's idea, since World War II. We wouldn't start the fight, but we would finish it. You'd be hard pressed to find a handful of episodes beyond, "The Wounded" where a Federation Captain fired first. But in that episode Captain Maxwell was not acting under orders from the Federation.

This is not a "Culture War", where we're supposed to attack first, without just provocation. Which begs the question of, "What constitutes Just Provocation?" Someone pushes you, you push back. Someone tries to knife you, you fight back. Someone opens fire on your position with a weapon, and you fight back. Don't start the conflict, but if conflict is inevitable then make sure you come out on top.

So, is this a weakness? No. Even in todays world we try to understand why a conflict was started, and resolutions in order to de-escalate or stop it. And we only continue in an aggressive stance only if we have no other choice but to do so.

Conflict in the series is what nearly destroyed Earth. Three world wars. The eugenics wars. There may be a moment in the future where we might just say, enough is enough.

The Federation's motto towards conflict, "We will not start the fight. But we will finish it, if necessary." This isn't weakness, this is prudence. This is restraint.

We have seen the Mirror universe of the human race, where "The Ends justify the means by any means possible." And if we lived in a Mirror Universe, we'd be at each others throats. Literally.