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Old February 24 2009, 08:28 PM   #365
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Re: A Singular Destiny review thread (possible spoilers)

ProtoAvatar wrote: View Post
EXACTLY. Agression and xenophobia cannot be defining characteristics of species who come together in order to inaugurate an era of peace and understanding.
See my comments above re: the United States. We practically invented the idea of a state dedicated to promoting peace and understanding, but we also have a history marked by extreme xenophobic aggression, including race-based slavery and genocide. It is unreasonably simplistic to assume that any entire civilization -- let alone an entire species -- is defined by a single set of traits. Humanity is fraught with contradictions, and the same is probably true for most other species as well, despite the tendency of TV Trek to reduce its aliens to monocultural stereotypes.

And yet, cannon - and most books - establish that agressionn and xenophobia toward the Federation and toward each other are part of the make-up of most Typhon Pact members.
You keep restating this even though it's been disproven. Reiterating a falsehood doesn't make it truer.

The members of the typhon pact were shown, in cannon, to be xenophobic towards everyone, including each other. Give me cannon examples of them being anything but xenophobic, if you wish to prove your point - and I'm not talking about a small faction with no power in their society; I'm talking about their policies and actions as a species.
Hint: If you want your arguments to be taken seriously, don't use the stereotypical misspelling of "canon."

Romulans have allied with Klingons and the Federation in the past, and were willing to ally with the Dominion. Obviously their foreign policy is not defined by simple xenophobia.

There is absolutely no evidence of Gorn xenophobia. They defended against a perceived attack on their territory. After that, they actually ceded Cestus III to the Federation and had no problem with them starting a colony there, so clearly they didn't hold a grudge for the events of "Arena." One radical faction of them assassinated the Gorn leadership and started a war of aggression, but it was brought down and the Gorn then became Federation allies against the Dominion. IDW's Alien Spotlight: Gorn shows a Gorn crew attempting to offer rescue and humanitarian aid to a crashed Starfleet shuttle crew; the misunderstanding and conflict in the story results mainly from the xenophobia of one of the humans. Marvel's Star Trek Unlimited had a story in which the Gorn defended against an incursion on a sacred cemetery world that had been defiled by a human archaeologist, but once Kirk showed respect for the Gorn's dead, they were willing to engage in more amiable relations. I don't recall ever seeing or reading anything that portrayed xenophobia as a Gorn trait.

I never said - or implied - that it is. By "occidentals" I mean NATO in general and Americans in particular.
Which is a ludicrous use of the term, and one that grossly oversimplifies the issues involved.

Iran may have good reasons to hate the Americans - the point is, the hate is real.
Americans had real hatred of the Japanese during and after WWII. Now we're allies. Just as it's foolish to assume that an entire civilization has only a single attitude across its entire population, it's equally foolish to assume its attitudes will remain constant over time.

And the gorn's justification: we killed invaders. Pfft!

This is definitely NOT how the Federation would have responded in a similar situation.
No, it isn't. There's no question that the Gorn are highly aggressive in the defense of their territory. But being different from the Federation doesn't make them evil monsters bent on the Federation's destruction. If you think that different automatically means evil, then you need to go back to the beginning of Star Trek and start over.

Tell me, do you think the Horta are a xenophobic and militant species because of the mother Horta's take-no-prisoners actions in protecting her eggs? The situations of "Devil in the Dark" and "Arena" are highly similar (and conceived by the same writer).

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