Are the Maquis doing the right thing?
Thanks for the lively discussion all! My take is that the sci fi elements mean you can't cut and paste their experiences onto our morality exactly, but it makes the feeling of conflict relatable, at least emotionally.
32 Comments
charonn0@startrek.website · 13 pts · 27d
In a fully-automated luxury communist utopia, the Maquis are selfish assholes. Clinging to a planet because of the inconvenience of having to relocate. A planet which was never theirs to give or take in the first place. They talk a big talk about being "farmers who made something of the land," and maybe that's true. But they have replicators; farming is a hobby, not a livelihood.
Human, Vulcan, Bolian, etc. Maquis could lead happy, safe lives if only they were willing to lead happy, safe lives. They are not oppressed; they are not fighting in a righteous cause.
Bajorans, such as Ro, have different motivations. Bajor is not a party to the Federation-Cardassian Treaty, and Bajoran colonies were not sacrificed. Ro's motivations are sympathy for the Maquis and hatred for Cardassians. Understandable and relatable motivations, but not heroic.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 27d
fucking a-men!
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 26d
The way you put all that is extremely gross. The same kind of reasoning could be applied to displacing indigenous peoples of North America from their land and forcing them to live in a modern city with a basic income.
Utopia for you isn’t Utopia for everyone. People should have a right to self determination. If people want to farm when replicators are available, I think it’s wrong to tell them not to farm.
The Maquis didn’t start the war with the Cardassians. They had nothing to do with the Federation’s treaty negotiations. The Federation traded away their planets without even giving them a seat at the table.
charonn0@startrek.website · 5 pts · 26d
That's an awful comparison. The Maquis are not a separate, independent culture being dominated or obliterated by another. They were already Federation citizens, born on Federation worlds into Federation culture and society, subject to Federation laws, educated by their own parents and family in Federation values, and the Federation enabled and supported their colonization efforts. The Maquis are a product of the Federation's culture not a victim of it.
And they do have self-determination. They can stay in the DMZ on their planets if they want to, but there are consequences of that choice. And if they do leave the DMZ then they would not even have change their preferred lifestyle. There are any number of uninhabited planets they could relocate to, found new colonies, etc. They have so many options and opportunities open to them that their grievances, however valid they would be under real-world circumstances, seem childish and selfish particularly when the alternative is continuing a decades-long war.
But they did know the border was in dispute, and had been in dispute for decades, before they colonized the area. They can't feign surprise that the border might move if and when the dispute ended.
They did have a seat at the table. They just didn't get their way. That sometimes happens, and it doesn't mean the process was unfair.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website · 7 pts · 27d
Ro's decision is understandable if you consider her life experiences.
The Maquis are not created in universe to be good or bad. They are not black or white, they are gray all the way. Because that's how all freedom fighters/terrorists are in their time. They get their marks from history. Some upstart colonists in the 1770s tend to get a more favorable score from history. For the communists in Cuba it depends who you ask.
Reality is a clusterfuck and politics is the art of what's possible. No one designed the situation to place colonists on these planets, to have a war in the neighborhood, and then have to come up with a compromise to end the killing. It happened and now they have to deal with it. I'd like to see the SWOT analysis of each colonized planet, just to see if they considered risking setting off the stereotypical fascist race in the neighborhood by their presence. That is to say the colonists may not be entirely blameless either. But regardless, the federation made an agreement to end the killing in a big war. They drew a line on a map and that's never not caused other problems in history. In the middle east, in Korea, in Europe, etc. It's often the best solution to end or prevent the fighting but it's still a shit solution that doesn't solve all problems. Indeed, one might argue it may only be a temporary reprieve. So the Maquis are borne out of gray, they do things that are gray, often more on the darker spectrum, and then the authorities come in and also react in dark gray when they poison an entire planet's atmosphere. The writers even threw in some native American tribes having to relocate or accept Cardassian rule to perfect the clusterfuck.
The way some of the Maquis stories are told in late TNG and then DS9 is not the best Trek has to offer. But if you zoom out, the overall situation they've created is realistic and believable. The Maquis are ambiguous, the role of the federation is ambiguous. It's all just gray. And while I don't think it's super unrealistic that they just get wiped out by the Ketracel White addicts, I thought it's a lazy writers' end to a great scenario they had created.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 27d
great take, especially
ruuster13@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 27d
The Traveler showing up to further Wesley's Hero's Journey feels a bit easier to swallow when framed as a "part of the clusterfuck" episode.
dalekcaan@feddit.nl · 1 pts · 26d
I'm never going to be able to swallow Wesley Crusher getting turned into a demigod for being The Most Specialest Boy™ and helping Space Native Americans keep their Space Land.
The most insulting part is that I'm not even using Space Native American as an overly reductive dismissal of a fictional race, they were literally fucking Native Americans in fucking space. It's like one of the writers saw the TOS episode with the black and white people and said, "Nah, too subtle. We need to reenact the Trail of Tears...but in space!"
ruuster13@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 26d
Critical Space Theory
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website · 1 pts · 27d
As far as I'm concerned, that and PIC S2 NEVER HAPPENED!
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 27d
No.
The Maquis are trying to undermine a peace treaty full of compromises. Basically, any time you think the Maquis are doing the right thing, think of what would happen if the compromise the Cardassians would ask for is to have Bajor back, and turn Kira Nerys' favourite planet back into a slave run industrial wasteland.
In the vast emptiness of space, there are plenty of planets that aren't contested. Get the colonisers (which is what these fucking people are) to go there. You have fucking replicator technology, and transporters, you don't need to be hellbent on these random ass planets to the point where you start bombing planets inhabited by sentient beings.
Also, Ira Steven Behr is an edgelord on purpouse, and put up these kinds of divisions and polemics just to make Star Trek not a utopia. Any dilemmas are made just to push established visionary boundries, just to make a "no paradise is attainable" point.
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website · 6 pts · 27d
You could say the exact same thing about the Cardassians.
I don't see any good way to fill in the blank where "forced relocation is fine when _____" is the sentence.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 27d
Yes you could. Which is why they ended up with a compromise for both the Cardassians and the Federation, to create a fragile peace that can be maintained if both parts accept the compromises each on ceded.
“forced relocation is fine when you (are colonisers who) set up base there about 20 years ago, you will get more than handsomely rewarded with an equal or bigger piece of land on a different planet and not be inconvenienced, and it is to stop an interplanetary war.”
EDIT : Added parts in brackets
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website · 3 pts · 27d
For the sake of argument, how many years is the cutoff that flips it from "fine" to "evil"?
Citation needed? I don't think that was ever stated, and "Journey's End" is actually pretty clear about a new home having not even been identified.
The Federation and the Cardassians were not at war when the treaty was signed...
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 27d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquis_(Star_Trek)#Storyline
Bruh we're on an internet board. You really want to split hairs about the fine details of fake politics?
Multiple lifetimes having passed. As in, two sentient lifebeing lifespans, to the point where the original migration is completely removed from living memory. This isn't "all the colonists knew from the moment they were born" this is "We set up that well 10 years ago, and we barely got to use it". You worked as an agreement with an organisation, that has now had to adjust to harsh realities, and you also need to do so.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Journey%27s_End_(episode)
My interpretation of the events is that eventually the butt of a Cardassian rifle is going to welcome it's new home in the heads of one of these native american settlers, and they are going to lament their choices.
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website · 4 pts · 27d
It's sort of the point of the thread, so it seems a little odd to suddenly try to make it sound silly.
This interpretation is completely correct, but it sidesteps the two fundamental questions.
Do the colonists have the right to refuse to leave (I think you've made your position in that clear), and if so, do they have the right to defend themselves when the Cardassians violate the terms that they agreed to and tried to drive them off those worlds?
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 27d
When you word it like that, they deserve to defend themselves if/when the Cardassians violate the terms of the treaty they reached with the former UFP/Current Cardassian colonists.
Which is the key term here. AFAI remember, they agreed to be subjects of Cardassia, which means the planet belongs to the Cardassians, which means they are probably going to mine the shit out of every natural resource on there.
However, if they have specific details they hammered out with these descendants of native americans, I don't think was specified in the episode.
I understand and appriciate that, my point is more that they arrived at "a peace treaty" I don't know if it was to stop a war, prevent a war or whatever, just that "A peace treaty" was made, and the circumstances are irrelevant to the matter of the right/wrongness of Maquis behaviour.
Like, putting a peace treaty at risk presumably would cause a war, or "bad things". That's what I mean. The Maquis are putting peace at risk by throwing their tantrum, regardless of how or why the peace treaty was needed.
ValueSubtracted@startrek.website · 3 pts · 27d
There was an agreement made with Gul Evek - as you said, for them to be under Cardassian jurisdiction, if not full citizens:
However, that's not the way things went down:
Those are the events that led to the Maquis as a resistance movement - before that, there were no Maquis, just colonists who stayed behind.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 27d
I actually think habitable planets in the Star Trek universe are pretty rare. That is the easiest explanation as to why they go so far out of their way to not destroy habitable planets, despite clearly having the technology needed to just blow up planets willy-nilly like the Empire can in SW.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 27d
IDK, the universe is pretty vast, and they seem to be tripping over M class planets. Also, there are several other classes of planet available and they do some terraforming, it wouldn't be too far fetched to say they took a "not quite M-Class" planet and did a little terraforming and had that up for grabs.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 27d
Did any terraforming happen after Project Genesis and Kahn? I haven't watched since Voyager, but I don't remember them explicitly mentioning it in either TNG or DS9
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 27d
They do plenty of terraforming adjacent tasks in TNG, mainly for planets that have recently joined the federation, or are undergoing some kind of collapse prevention. I think the issue with Project Genesis and similar is that they were "bombs" that would instantly overwrite the ecological system on a planet with a predetermined one, wiping out the existing ecological system in the process, to put plainly, killing everything.
The terraforming I'm talking about is stuff like earthquake mitigation, adjusting "atmospheric conditions" to stop greenhouse effects or similar, etc. And it's all signed off in triplicate from the federation etc, not just lobbing a terraforming bomb at a planet on a whim.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Terraforming
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 27d
New head canon: Project Genesis is the actual origin of Exterminaus in WH40K, and during the Dark Age of Technology they forgot how to do the terraforming bit, so it's just a bomb that completely wipes out a planet.
agentTeiko@piefed.social · 1 pts · 27d
Ireland would like to have a word.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 27d
yeah, you wanna explain the good friday agreement to me? Or do you just want all the protestants off the island?
Kirk@startrek.website · -1 pts · 27d
I always felt like they did a pretty poor job of making the audience feel any significant level of sympathy for the Maquis (assuming that was the goal).
Tango@piefed.ca · 3 pts · 27d
I think the main goal of the Maquis was not to evoke sympathy for them, but to put the main characters in interesting moral/ethical quandaries. Both TNG and DS9 did "forced relocation" episodes where the narrative focus was on the fact that there were no "right" answers, only "less wrong" ones.
In that sense, it's like the Kobayashi Maru: the main characters are presented with a no-win scenario and the purpose of the episode is that watching how they deal with that tells us more about who these characters are and what they stand for. Kira's episode certainly helped define her character, especially when Sisko summed it up for her: she was used to fighting for the underdog, but she was on the other side now.
thejoker954@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 25d
I felt/feel Sympathy for the Maquis.
The Cardassians (at least the government) have show time and time again that they will stab you in the back the first chance they get. The federation made a shit deal to appease space Nazis.
Kirk@startrek.website · 2 pts · 24d
I agree, but the particular Maquis we saw tended to be reactionary and narrow minded. I think it could have been presented as a much better grey area situation like in Journey's End.