Rolling a Hard Six...(Another open letter to RMB)

 ...About How Akiva Goldsman is a hack

Hi Alex,

Yeah, I know that I'm pushing my luck. But like Commander Adama says, sometimes you have to roll a Hard Six...

Anyway, after episode 3 of season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , Mr. Burnett launched into a great rant against Akiva Goldsman. I loved it and thought he was right on the money. If you want the juicy details, here's the video....  

But here is the cliff note version....there is nothing original about SNW and Goldsman argument for messing with the date of the Eugenics Wars was basically 'If we don't do it, people will figure out that Star Trek is just a TV show' and that it wouldn't be possible in 'our universe anymore. "And that would be silly"

As Mr. Burnett pointed out, Star Trek always showed us a 'possible' future. Not our future. It's always been a fictional universe and the viewers have always know this. Now, there's much more to Mr. Burnett's rant, so IMHO you should watch the video. For now, however, I just want to add...

My Own Little Rant

To begin with....are there Sanctuary Districts ? Are they magically going to spring up in less then a year ? Is Goldsman going retcon Deep Space Nine's "Past Tense" next year ? Is he going to retcon Star Trek: First Contact become there isn't a real warp scientist called Zefram Cochrane ? Where does it end, genius ? 

Second, this is Star TREK not Star GATE. This is not a jab at Stargate SG-1 and it's spin-offs. In fact, I love Stargate. That's how you do a show that might be set in our universe. Gate gets it right, Trek is off by light-years. And that's okay, because that's how Trek rolls. But Goldsman, as a show runner, should know that. 

And if you want to deal with something silly in Trek, answer me this....where the hell is NCIS in the 24th century ? I'm talking about the real-life organization, not the TV show. Although....the folks running the NCIS franchise would probably do ten times the job making good Trek then Secret Hideout's collection of hacks. But I digress, so let's take a look at the list of black marks on Starfleet Security's record....

1. The Leyton Coup - Stopped by Starfleet Security ? Nope....if it hadn't been for Sisko and Co...
2. Khitomer Conspiracy -- Thank you, Captain Kirk.
3. Parasite Invasion from TNG -- Nice work, Jean-Luc.
4. Everything Section 31 has been up to...
5. ...And the fact that your own people *in* Security and Intelligence are in cat boots. I mean, CAHOOTS with Section 31 !  
6. Every other evil Admiral you never caught or stopped.

Long story short, Starfleet Security as been both woefully incompetent and corrupt. And there has never been any fallout !? Now, I'm not going to say the Pentagon has never made mistakes. Hell, it's far from perfect. That's another thing I learned from Stargate. 

But establishing NCIS and making it a civilian agency outside the chain-of-command is not a mistake. It's part of the US Navy's system of checks and balances. 

So, why is there no NCIS in Star Trek ? Simple...because that would kill a lot of cliches and tropes. And that's all Goldsman and co know how to write...tropes and cliches.

Anyway, that's all I have. Maybe over to Mister Burnett, probably not. Have a nice day either way.

Regards,

Ruben A. Hilbers (Commander Nash)