I have been rereading Carol Plum Ucci’s excellent teen novel, “What Happened to Lani Garver”, and that caused me to start considering angels, and what they really are.
That is a lovely discussion of a fascinating episode. When I first saw DS9 (when it first came out) I enjoyed it as a story - rewatching it recently (I have now splashed out and bought the DS9 box set) I was shocked at how plausible its world seemed - I could imagine the world actually being like this in five years time. Sadly, it is less far-fetched than when the programme was made. I especially liked the way they included Jadzia's experience of a 'nice' world that is not actively malevolent, but has no idea how the people in the sanctuary cities live and does not care to know.
So thank you for a very thought-provoking discussion. I had never thought about the names - but they can't be a coincidence. Let us hope that we do manage to hear those angels.
Thanks, Anne! Deirdre and I are re-watching the show on Netflix; getting the complete boxed set seems like a good idea to me. ;) Because certain things strike you differently when you see an episode again, which means this show is worth watching at least twice--therefore, worth owning!
But yes, this episode in particular seems terrifyingly probable--indeed, likely. It's scary how close they came to imagining our near-future, way back in the '90s, And I agree with you about Jadzia's experience. This may be the most accurate forecast of all; good, well-meaning Neoliberals defending capitalism without having a clue about its costs.
One of our real-life Angels was surely Martin Luther King Jr. And one of the things he said that I've struggled with is that "liberals" might do more harm than the active racists or the knowingly greedy. I can now see what he meant. We do still have time to change course, and I, too, hope we manage to hear those angels.
I a revisiting this in the wake of Star Trek: Discovery, which is finally showing in Britain on a TV channel I can access. We are still only about 2/3 of the way through the first season, but after disliking the first few episodes (I still don't care for the new Klingons - in my mind the Worf Klingons are still the real ones) I am beginning to enjoy it. I especially like Lieutenant Commander Saru - the idea of a highly evolved prey species that lives in a state of perpetual anxiety bordering on terror and must fight to master it is an interesting one, and Doug Jones is predictably brilliant - but I also rather like the naive young cadet Tilly and the navigator and doctor (who has just died). In short, it is the characters that are winning me over. But it has made me come back to this essay, because, yet again, we have angel-names - Michael Burnham and Gabriel Lorca! It's all the more glaring because, while other names seem to be assigned to the same gender as they are in our world, Michael is clearly female, and we have so far had no
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Thank you for such a thoughtful reply. I felt like that for a long time about Discovery - I made the decision not to buy the Netflix subscription that would have allowed me to watch it, and am only watching it now because it is on a channel that I can access for free. As I said, it is mostly the characters who have drawn me in - and while I like it, I still tend to feel that, while on its own terms it is very enjoyable, it isn't really 'Star Trek'. I think it is the feel of the thing that is quite different - it lacks the hope and optimism of both TOS and the three 'second wave' series
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So thank you for a very thought-provoking discussion. I had never thought about the names - but they can't be a coincidence. Let us hope that we do manage to hear those angels.
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But yes, this episode in particular seems terrifyingly probable--indeed, likely. It's scary how close they came to imagining our near-future, way back in the '90s, And I agree with you about Jadzia's experience. This may be the most accurate forecast of all; good, well-meaning Neoliberals defending capitalism without having a clue about its costs.
One of our real-life Angels was surely Martin Luther King Jr. And one of the things he said that I've struggled with is that "liberals" might do more harm than the active racists or the knowingly greedy. I can now see what he meant. We do still have time to change course, and I, too, hope we manage to hear those angels.
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