This theory also explains why TNG is nice and rose colored while the ENT Era is hyper critical b/c all "facts" are vetted by the Vulcan high command and despite the factual short falls; Archer succeeds in the formation of the federation charter.
I'm been saying it recently: nearly every episode begins with the words "Captain's Log, stardate" and a number. We are literally watching whatever the "Captain" wrote down in his log. book, and, if you've ever seen a log book, you know: there's a lot of room to embellish the details
I think an easier explanation for the "change" in Borg being born or never giving birth is just that Riker was doing a visual glance at the cube's room and made an assumption. We know now that the Borg assimilate babies and accelerate their growth. That might just be what Riker was looking at at the time.
I was going to say something similar. From Riker's perspective and a non Borg, we would make such an assumption. From Seven's point of view and was part of the collective, she would know a lot more on the subject.
there is also the possibility that, despite their own best efforts, the borg are not a monolith. I don't care how advanced you are, you are not going to be able to get everything over millions of cubes spread over a quarter of a galaxy to not hsve significant differences.
Yea lol. But tbh the answer to all of these contradictions is bad writing. That's it. Nothing more to it. The lore like this are just fans trying to cope with their fav show being sub par and thus do the writers job for them by filling in such holes. This idea that this is propaganda is like the mass effect 3 introdoction theory. Where it essentially explains the main ending making no sense to describing Shepard is being brainwashed so it doesn't make such sense. In reality the writers even confirm it's just because they fucked up
This Federation historian idea is how Roddenberry described TOS at some conventions. It also makes Enterprise's last episode make a lot more sense. Was the whole show a holodeck simulation?
Roddenberry suggested pretty much the same in Kirk's preface to the TMP novelization, that TOS was a somewhat fictionalized version of Kirk's five year mission.
It's interesting that in TNG S1E04 The Last Outpost, when Portal asks about the Federation, Data starts to note that the Federation "has allowed the small and weak to be destroyed by the evil and powerful" (or words to that effect). He's referring to the application of the Prime Directive, but it's an interesting moral point. The Federation is well aware of who it is.
Watching the Orville actually kind of solidified this theory for me. On the Orville you see characters drinking soda on the bridge, using the synthesizers to get edibles, not just alcohol, etc. We see them doing things that feel familiar to us TODAY, but we've never seen anyone on a Trek show do. This is stuff that a government would certainly want to leave out of propaganda, even if the members of Starfleet actually did them.
Interesting theory. It is made even stronger by the opening lines of TOS and TNG - "These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise." We definitely are watching a serial, and the overall setting is third person, even though the individual stories are typically told in first person. As to what type of program this is, that is an open question because we don't have a lot of out of universe context. The Lower Decks/Strange New Worlds crossover would have us believe that the stories are passed down somehow, and there is a degree of hero worship or halo effect. But that doesn't imply propaganda. Just rose colored glasses of those who came before. And that is normal in any society. Hero tales, even if they have warts, are part of the social glue that holds a society together. And aspiration for those of today to live up to the example set by their ancestors. I think you can make a good argument that these are stories told after the fact, but propaganda is a supposition without enough support. Hell, we could be watching period dramas from a few hundred years after the events in the show. Or it could be an accurate retelling of events in a documentary. There is no way to know without a larger context.
The only thing that kinda destroys this theory is the entirety of DS9 Nobody knew the Kai had anything to do with Siskos disappearance. Sisko deleted the log that confessed his accessory to a murder... There's a lot of things that just couldn't have been documented or explained. I mean prime example you might want to look into. The prophets take the form of whoever is at ds9 when talking to people... In the episode where Sisko reaches DS9 as the minefield is destroyed he may have some idea of who is in Ops but there's a founder there and Damar as well as Dukat. I don't think Sisko even knows who he is at this point... It's actually why I believe the Prophets did talk to Kai Winn in the final episodes. They needed a traitor of her moral calibre to do the right thing and betray the Pay Wraiths. If they showed her any real attention her whole life their plan would ultimately fail. They needed her to oppose the Emissary... So aye it can't all be propaganda.
Events like that could be us seeing unredacted versions of accounts of those events. Like in the Ciaphas Cain series of books, we're told how the propaganda is making him out to be a big hero, but the books are told from his point of view and then edited by a friend so we see things as they "actually" are, and we also hear what the propaganda says. But also don't listen to him either, because in a galaxy full of unreliable narrators, he's probably the LEAST reliable of them all, due to the worst case of imposter syndrome in galactic history.
@@jasoncrowell8863 well the thing about unredacted accounts doesn't really explain how we have footage or any account of what happened in the Fire Caves at DS9 but nobody returns from the encounter in universe the disapearance of kai winn and sisko is a complete mystery. I mean sure it could be a theory on what happened we are being shown... however it kinda disregards audience interaction thats good. I bring up that in universe they don't know what happened to Sisko is that Lower Decks does reference it as a mystery they believe its a cover up of some kind. N thats the kinda good interaction im talking about. If we never seen Checkovs Gun sure we won't expect it but ultimately we appreciate being in the loop than surprises. Saying all of Star Trek is propaganda is way more stretch needed to establish that the idea behind the concept is definitely in the universe just not exactly directly shown to us.
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough its certainly plausible... I mean I watch Star Trek alot just to build theories and hunt for clues for them. I did explore this concept because of the finales of Enterprise and Jake Sisko. However it paints Starfleet in a bad light on the regular... if it was propaganda its not very good propaganda. I mean when Jake was covering the Dominion command at DS9 he worded it in the worst possible light. I actually find that whole section super weird because to be fair the Dominion didn't actually do much wrong at all. I mean they came to the aid of the races that litterally tried to bombard them out of existence. The way they countered it was guide their plan into a trap n Starfleet sat back and just watched. Ya even got a suspected Section 31 operative delaying their effort. (This channel actually gave me the idea to look for plausible Agents in the maquis and Eddington fits the bill like perfectly. He only turns up for big events except a handful of episodes which don't seem big till you consider this possibility) I mean to jump to later series... Picard had no idea about the Changeling virus antidote being witheld he was appalled by the notion. Just like how Captain Freeman read the Tuvix logs and was horrified at what Janeway had done. If the show Star Trek was a federation propaganda documenting events. Its very odd these things would appear in the show and not be common knowledge to Captains let alone Cadets.
They have time travel and stealth technology. Witnessing the past without intervention shouldn’t be hard. Heck in some episodes in TNG and voyager we saw several alien characters even humans do just that
I've had this as a fan theory for a long time, ever since watching the videos about whetther the federation is evil. I think some the ships (the enterprise exists, only it's maybe never or rarely sent out, used more for show) and events happen but they're retold in more extreme stories and with more heroic characters. Maybe even entire stories were made up, like the borg could just be made up to scare the population into thinking they need the federation. It would explain why the borg have never launched a full scale invasion. Trust us the borg exist, we just stopped them before they reached earth. Itbwould also explain why the same ship is always the only ship nearby, it's cause it isn't, they've taken a real event and then swapped the ships with the propaganda ship. Things like lower decks and discovery could also fit. Discovery shows a future without the federation and it's terrible. Lower decks shows low ranking officers who love starfleet despite having rubbish jobs, like cleaning out holodeck filters and showing that even the non hero ships that you will be assigned to are good.
I like it. It lines up with the way I've decided to view Star Trek: not as in-universe Galaxy Quest-style historical documents, but as heightened retellings of stories that happened in an already heightened reality. Fantasy upon fantasy. Rowan J. Coleman released a video recently that suggests seeing ST not as a "universe" with true internal consistency, but as a mythos: The stories and details don't have to line up perfectly any more than do the stories about King Arthur.
@@LoreReloadedhere's one you missed.... where's all the normal looking people?..... Everyones a type of handsome.... Did they let Khan kill off all the so called "ugly"people??? And before anybody brings up Barclay and Tilly ..... wrong!!! Barclay is basically the future Jerry Lewis and Tillys the hot big girl That's something to investigate
I've heard this theory put forward for Star Wars as well, and it makes a lot of sense. You can't convince me they didn't program Porkins astromech to hyperspace ram the Death Star. It is also the canon explanation for the continuity error in Macross II: Do you Remember Love, that movie is basically Pearl Harbor in universe, a very popular 'baser on the true story' war film.
Never trust a Japanese rendition of Pearl Harbor. They were so delusional they thought the immortal, god emperor willed it all along. Well sorry it was really Tojo pushing that agenda.
I'm a tractor trailer driver for UPS. In the office they have a sign. Here walk the safest drivers on America's highways. It always reminds me of the moment when Kirk mentions to Spock that he is the best first officer in Starfleet. Obviously that line, like every line, is written for the viewer in order to consciously or subconsciously give them pride twords the characters in the show they are watching. I love this propaganda theory because it offers a more immersive explanation of this.
My personal headcanon for years has been "Holonovels." The Enterprise finale pretty much confirmed that dramatized holonovel versions of Federation history exist and people often use them to experience those events. TOS is the way it is because it is specifically a series of Holonovels written by Kirk. Everything about that series makes sense if you view it that way. Any kind of error or continuity issue you can either attribute to the writing style or skill of the holonovel writer (Kirk for TOS) or whatever clearance level we have to know that information. TOS being a pretty civilian rather than historical documentation has a rather low security clearance level, so Kirk had to write around a lot of events which casual enjoyers would not be privy to. The Enterprise finale is framed around a character we never see before and seemingly the whole crew leans on, and Riker takes that role. This tells us that he is in a more fictionalized version of these events. He probably picked that rather than a more accurate version because he grew up with them as a kid. He wasn't looking for accurate events, he was looking for the things that inspired him to become the officer he was now. That context actually makes both that episode and how it fit within the the events of the original TNG episode make more sense. Realizing Riker likely revisits childhood Holonovels like this one adds a lot to his character, and it is likely common among the crew. Lower Decks pretty much confirms this, with the main cast holding regarding historical figures in the same way we do with franchises in modern pop culture.
This happens also in the novel “Ship of the Line” by Diane Carey. While in transit, Picard plays holodeck recreations of several TOS episodes, which were created using Kirk’s logs; it even explains why they couldn't use the shuttle to pick up the men in “The Enemy Within”.
I said something like this to a friend of mine 35 or so years ago. In my analogue, Star Trek was a widely popular Federation entertainment show about Star Fleet. Being entertainment, it is fictionalized and tidied up. That was why the characters are mostly heroic, the heroes hardly do wrongdoing, the uniforms and technology change frequently, Star Fleet seldom loses conflicts, and Star Fleet and the UFP are almost perfectly self-correcting. It also explains why the show is replete with propaganda.
My theory is that the TNG episode Parallels explains all continuity issues in the franchise. As Data states "All possibilities that can happen, DO happen in alternate quantum realities" I like most fans detect continuity issues, and yes they bug me at times. I just chalk it up to that episode being in a different quantum reality. As long as the Star Trek series stays entertaining and with good stories, I will continue to watch. Flaws and All.
I love this theory, and It did go completely over my head. It does explain away a lot of the inconsistences as data is copied and re transcribed again and again, errors crop up, and get exponentially worse as the copying continues.
You definitely could have found a better example for a contradiction than the Borg baby thing. Seeing how that has an in-universe explanation of Riker just making a guess.
@@LoreReloaded They assimilated 7 of 9 when she was a child, so why wouldn't they assimilate the children of other races when they took over their worlds? Why leave the children to die on a empty world - or worse, leave the possibility that some survive and become a threat to the Borg. The Borg assimilate an entire species, adults and children included. If they think that a species is worthy to become part of the Borg Collective, why would they not assimilate all of it, if possible. The Borg don't seem to be so mindless as to waste lives of a species that they want. At one point, the original Borg species probably did reproduce biologically, so they do know how to raise children. Waiting a few dozen years for them to become adults would not be an issue. Another good point would be that young children, with their minds mostly empty of the influence of their race and culture, would make better drones - no need to reprogram their brains to wipe out individuality, as at that age, that concept hasn't even occurred to most children. It would be far easier to just raise them as Borg, without the influences of their culture and society to erase. 7 of 9 was already old enough to be an "individual" being, very young children aren't at that point yet.
@@LoreReloaded Janice Lester in TOS episode Turnabout Intruder says that female Captains are not allowed in Starfleet. Kirk backs that statement up saying that it is unfair. Obviously in prequel series we see that female Captains were allowed at the time & even earlier.
The thing with the borg babies could easily be explained by Riker just plain guessing because they had almost no experience with the borg at the time. As for most of this though, if we are dismissing that it is a narrative written by different people with less than perfect regard for each others work and working under the assumption that it were a real world, it makes sense.
There is also the entire future borg thing with the episode in Voyager. It's not even connected there and could be something that came from stuff on the mobile emitter that the actual characters had zero idea was even there because of the Temporal Prime Directive and they were already walking a fine line there because of necessity considering their only doctor is a hologram. The borg babies that Riker found could also be from an assimilated planet, and use a different assimilation method there since they still require growth, even if accelerated by other means.
Good theory. One of the reasons I love DS9 is how they showed other perspectives on the same events. We see how the Bajorans, Ferengi, Klingons, Cardassians, and Trill might view the same situation in a completely different way, and the show is willing to explore this tension of viewpoints, rather than dismissing them with a Picard style "We have evolved beyond the need for understanding and tolerance of other cultural perspectives". The greatest stories embrace the inherent tension between different perspectives and points of view.
I doubt that. At least given what we see of people, most people don't use the 24th century version of Twitter as their primary source of news. And most people also don't spread "hateful content"...because we don't see many people having the sort of prejudices that would cause people to spread that sort of content.
It would certainly explain why the commercial bumpers and the cold open often start with a portion of a log entry. The events we are witnessing are 100% from the point-of-view of one of the characters, and whose log entry we are hearing suggests whose point-of-view we are witnessing.
Ohhh that explains why Kirk is so "good" with the women folk. Just like the stories I tell the guys about my conquests, that have very little to do with reality. Edit: Come to think of it. That's exactly What the Shatner Star Trek novels are. Shatners over the top conquest stories to his mates. Those are some serious ego stroking.
I agree that this is very possible. Note: The first Dune book is 21 years older than me. Older, smarter people than me probably thought of this first, but I’ve never heard it or read it anywhere. Also, this does NOT contain spoiler for the movies. It is about the books. Ok? Here I go. Something I thought of after reading an article about Dune part 2. In the original book, Princess Irulan is basically the narrator. She chose to become Paul’s historian and helped shape his legacy in chronicling his reign. That means she could have written things that are not 100% true or might be seen a different way to help shape her narrative. Propaganda, if you will. If there are any inconsistencies in later books where Frank Herbert (and later his heirs chosen to keep writing the story) either forgot something or chose to retcon it, that could be explained away in-universe by simply saying that Irulan chose to tell it differently, forgot, or never know to begin with. That idea of an author forgetting something isn’t an insult to authors. People forget things when they write enough stories over time. We all forget things everyday! Famous sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke got his wires crossed sometimes and would accidentally have a character do something when he or she had already died on a different planet before that. At some point, he allied with this fan site where they had this massive timeline that helped him keep his alien ducks in a row and better tell his stories. Smart move. What I said about retconning also happens. Things can suddenly be changed after being established for years, or after a very short time. TV pilots change things sometimes. Not even recasting characters or changing to entirely different characters. You can make huge changes to a character from just one episode to the next. It’s not sci-fi/fantasy, but Criminal Minds is great example. In the pilot, Morgan called Garcia and needed her help with something in finding a kidnapped woman alive before it’s too late while also hurting down the villain. At one point, she told him to talk to the department of “too da$& bad” or something. (Sorry, it’s been a LONG time since I saw that episode). The writers depicted her as just not caring at all about human life or stopping the monster. They radically changed that and made her a weird but sweet and caring person who you’d always want on your side. If you or someone you love is missing, you’d want her to help in the search. If you are a bad guy, you do NOT want her helping hunt you down. Sadly, there is sometimes just plain sloppy writing. Again, this isn’t sci-fi or fantasy, but it’s the perfect example. In the pilot of Bones, Bones and Booth know each other and don’t get along or like each other. Bones is very technical and hates slang. In the early years, it would pain her to use it in a normal sentence unless she was quoting someone. In episode 5x16, we see flashbacks to how she and Booth met, worked on a case, were attracted to each other, and fought after something went wrong on the case. At one point, she mentioned getting taken off the case because she punched someone in the “schnoz”. The Temperance Brennan character wouldn’t have said that unless someone had a weapon to the head of someone she cared about. Even then, she’s then be correcting the use of the word and possibly recounting the history of the different names for the nose. She would have said “nose” at the very least, or possibly gone into detail about the name of the bone and type of cartilage. I see 3 possible reasons for this lame mistake. 1. The episode writers for 5x16 were all newer and didn’t watch those earlier seasons enough (or at all) to get a feel of the characters. 2. The established episode writers made a stupid mistake that doesn’t fit. 3. The writer didn’t care about their work enough to care about the inconsistencies like that. Sorry to ramble. I just thought it an interesting idea that a book series written partly as a chronicle by a character could be partly unreliable. While no one is perfect, I like to give storytellers the benefit of the doubt. This idea of Irulan shaping the tale allows for this.
Just as Star Wars is pro-Jedi pro-Rebellion propaganda that paints the Sith and Empire as evil, so too with Star Trek and the Federation. I'd love a Romulan centered Star Trek show, a few of the novels have done this and, for me at least, it expands the Universe of Star Trek enormously.
That's kinda how I started viewing it since the mid 2000s. For every IP I view. The movies and tv shows are basically documentaries. The novels are like history books
I'm glad you're touching on this again. I remember this having been implied in your episode about the Terra Prime group, and I'm glad you're expanding on it now. Star Trek just being a longer version of "To Boldly Go" or "Trials and Tribble-ations". What if, hear me out, "Living Witness" is the truth. There's a video idea for ya!
The doylist explanation is obviously that Gene Roddenberry wanted to create a utopic universe in the sixties, but I still agree with you watsonian explanation. Even though my childhood innocence dies a little each time I admit it: The federation is far from perfect, and the series are probably an inaccurate account of what actually happend.
I never thought about this, but it honestly makes sense. and like you said, it doesnt even need to be orchestrated or nefarious. Historians are people too, and given enough time and people working on it a subtle bias could creep in. Just from doing their jobs
5:38 Comstar does two things. Telecommunications and espionage. Outside of a few shows, most of comstar's entertainment is broadcasted from different nations. The cloak and dagger soviet method is when the threat of the power balance is going to lean heavily to one nation. Sldf discoveries, natural innovation, free thinkers, even wmds and roguetech. The houses and prephery are more likely to produce their own propaganda.
I dunno about Trek itself, but this *has* been explicitly done in at least one other franchise. The original Macross series ran in Japan in 1982. In 1985 there was a cinematic movie that compressed 26 episodes into a 2 hour movie, animated from scratch, with many stylistic and storytelling differences. When asked about the differences, one of the people in charge said, “The TV show was what happened, and the movie is like some big dumb sloppy Hollywood blockbuster based on a historical event that gets a lot of details wrong.” Macross 7 was a spinoff series from a decade later that was set 25 years later, and had older versions of the character in the cast of the new show. The subject of the movie comes up, and one of them looks annoyed and says, “I was there. The actual events played out a bit differently.” Now it gets trippy: The next spinoff was a prequel called “Macross Zero.” And the next spinoff after that was called “Macross Frontier,” set 10 or 15 years after Macross seven and in the middle of Frontier, the plot revolves around them *making* a movie based on the events of Macross Zero. It later becomes clear that “Macross Zero” actually *IS* the movie they made in the “Macross Frontier” series. As of the last series, it’s been explicitly stated that the 1985 Macross movie was made as deliberate propaganda by the government *IN* the Macross universe to distract people from a real issue.
I've said similar things before, that it's a docudrama not a documentary so things might be inconsistent or contradictory to serve the narrative that is trying to be told at the time, the different shows having different capabilities is indicative not of the particular abilities available to starfleet but the time and effort it would take to create adequate facsimiles for broadcast. The 2300s enterprise would have tech better than the best we could imagine today, so the 1950s representation is gonna have trouble recreating what would eventually be commonplace
Good theory but one question: Who are we? If this is a presentation, who is the target audience of the propaganda film? Remember, your theory is in universe. That means that we as the audience are a knowable quantity to the natural beings of this universe. This makes sense to me personality, but I'm thoroughly insane. I often feel like I'm a galaxy sized parrot octopus ensnared by the illusion of a child race who's somehow tricked all my Matrioska brains into thinking I'm a carbon based biped living in Seattle. Maybe they think I'm going to swat them out of existence on a whim. And I'm almost certain that I would so never do that. Maybe that's what's really happening in Star Trek too. In other words, theories are fun. Great video as always.
All top secret Level "Admirslity only" because after the glorious return of the voyager, seemingly solving the Borg issue on the was, they decided to make her not only Admiral, but a public hero figure to restore pride after the domi ion war, that showed ppl the vulnersbility. So no one was to even think of touching Janeway
Something I’d like to get the Lore Reloaded take on. Everyone likes to talk about in the pale moon light and the moral and ethical complexity of it, it is a great episode. However a similar event happened in way of the warrior when sisko and crew decided to betray the klingons and warn the cardassians. Aside from the moral and ethical implications I can’t help wonder what effect it would have had on later events with the dominion if they hadn’t warned the cardassians
5:57 Particularly when it comes to TOS, and TAS, which I watched for the very first time after all of the other series, in my mind I always told myself, “Ah, these are the tales of the larger-than-life Captain Kirk, as seen through the lens of the Ferengi, who have made a holo-series based on old, lost logs from the Enterprise.” Obviously in regards to continuity and technology, but also when it comes to conservative, or outdated ideas of 1960s society, especially pertaining to racial and gender inequality and discrimination.
I just want to point out the fact that I feel fairly certain that Lore loaded and I do not share the same politics and I don't agree with all his interpretations and stuff like that. In the same token I find all of his videos interesting and usually entertaining so i enjoy watching his stuff, especially the stuff I don't agree with them because that's for me the most interesting when he's well when I'm trying to hear different opinion than the one I already have. Now I'm a big Star Trek fan and I suspect he likes Star Trek more than I do since he's got this channel and I don't. But I just want to point out that it's nice to listen to someone with different opinions and sometimes he changes mine and even when he doesn't I still find myself entertained. So if he ever reads this and I doubt he will. But thank you for good content. I really enjoy it
Would ComStar even allow the Dominion to reach Betazed? Hell no! They'd have Tukayyid'd the Bajor system so hard, the Dominion would be reeling from it 25 years later!
I think if this was the case we'd have commentary. The Dune series for example is clearly propaganda written by princess what's her face, but that's addressed in every book.
I know this might be controversial but I kinda never seen much contradiction about Borg lore and standards... I mean when Riker finds the baby Borg it's all assumptions he doesn't actually know. Then when 7 of 9 sees a 29th century borg being conceived she states the only assimilate this makes no sense. So either A... This is a contradiction. Or B the Borg don't mind assimilating children. I feel the Answer is B... Not because of Icheb or 7 of 9 but the baby they found on the same cube as Icheb. The maturation chamber is cause it's easier to keep child drones in stasis in till they are at peak physical capacity of well fully developed. The chamber normally accelerated the process but this Cube malfunctioned leaving the children protected from the damage that took out every drone onboard.
Propaganda and Starfleet cover ups are the topic of the new book Firewall, it's about 7 and she comes to joint the Fenris Rangers in Picard. Very good book and goes along with the theory.
Documentaries, and/or maybe "based on a true story" books and movies? (Holo-novels and holo scenarios, with old style text and flat screen media for the aficionados out there.) I suppose the writers have to work with "Uncle Fred" and Starfleet before they get even close to Memory Alpha. Think of the movies "The Longest Day" or "Saving Private Ryan". As for larger than life characters, they do exist, such as "Mad" Jack Churchill, Adrian Carton de Wiart or Douglas MacArthur...
Your thinking on many of these matters fits many of my own going back many years. Great vid! This theory might also explain why so many aliens in all the series are shown speaking English in circumstances where even a Universal Translator cannot possibly explain why they are! Just a minor point. Propaganda is spelled with an a after the second P. Not an o.
I have always held that in ANY TV show or movie, what we see on screen is only ever an interpretation of events. That's why there are so many humanoid aliens, why Babylon 5's spaceships look like that or why "security camera footage" can pan and zoom in high definition, almost as if a movie camera was used instead instead of the cheapest device they could get away with. The idea that the creation of these "historical records" comes with some kind of authorial intent is new, though.
I always took the Borg baby thing to be they don't reproduce, but they would take the baby and start the assimilation process, and that Riker just filled in blanks about an unknown species to them. Also militaries and scientific organizations actually do change uniforms and there is usually a transition period. If they didn't English soldiers would still be wearing metal armor.
From the in universe perspective ? - either temporal or "Q's" interference thus massive changes only known to the outside observer. From out of universe perspective ? - just bad writting - retcons, better technology and bigger filming budgets :P
I do adore this theory. It effectively explains the unrealistic ness of "genes vision" in trek. I also think that this is theory is supported in show because remember, before DS9 and not really again until STD almost all trek shows started episodes with log entries. That effectively makes the whole episode a depiction OF said log entries and those log entries would undoubtedly be longer than a single line of text to address the various issues they would face. This effectively explains why DS9 is so much darker as its more close to being an actual depiction of events sans the propaganda. That WOULD have made a wonderful premise had they made Section 31 a full show instead of a movie. The show would focus on depicting the reality of how the federation actually works. But you know that fundamental of an alteration to the themes of the show would have fans absolutely rioting. Just like fans do about everything now.
This can all be explained by the theory that the show startrek is actually set in the 210th century and focuses on the narrative POV of one set roll players' playing out a series of fictional events in a romanticised version of the distant past as part of some kind massively multiplayer larping game. This game is so grand in its scope that it is not played out on a computer or in a holodeck deck but in real space on a litteral galactic stage. Most characters portrayed in the show are serious roleplayers, but occasionally, you get the first-time or casual player who doesn't have a real costume show up and play a Q, organian, V'ger, the guardian of forever, tramain or something🤔
The Borg babies could be explained by Riker making an incorrect assumption that the infants were born from Borg. It’s entirely likely that they were recently assimilated infants.
this is more then just a theory. weather its propaganda or not, its definitely "second hand information" its why so often shows are started to reflect the captains log read offs so often.
As others have said I think this fits TOS and TNG, DS9 not so much Unless it's like a historian from … what, from farther in the future than the Temporal Cold war? Maybe Sisko came back at some point and admited everything from ITPML and shared his experiences in the Fire Caves, which let the future Christopher Nolan put in some cool speculative dialogue between Win and Dukat but that just seems like a stretch.
Riker saying the Borg were born organic and 7 saying they assimilate is not a contradiction. It was Rikers opinion that was simply incorrect but based on his limited observation and information at hand. What we leaned later from 7's assimilation is that babies and children are placed in maturation chambers after assimilation until they are sufficiently mature to aid the collective.
Matt Patt did this theory 7 years ago. Happy to see a Trek channel doing the same. I feel like Trekies destroyed his theory just because he isn't a long time viewer
I don’t find the changing uniforms at all an issue. I was in the US Navy for 15 years, in that time I saw four different working Uniforms. Starfleet having a Fleet Uniform, Starbase Uniform, and War Uniform just doesn’t seem completely out of place.
It's a fun theory but to me that's a theory based on getting too deep into the universe and forgetting that it is actually a fictional piece of 20th/21st century drama entertainment. However, even then, most of this can be explained by in-universe 'reality'. Military uniforms and fashion evolve over the decades. The military uniforms and especially utility wear of the 80's is vastly different to that in 2023 for example, and Star Trek Generations even shows the crossover of TNG/DS9 uniforms (Even if the IRL reason is amusing), so we see uniform evolution. As for the change of tone; in TOS it WAS the wild west; the Enterprise was on a 5-Year exploration mission to new regions. TNG was the Golden Era of Peace and post DS9 sees a badly mauled Starfleet that has just come through a major, brutal war that killed millions and rewrote the entire mindset of the Federation, so is legitimately more dark and militaristic. And we do often see the characters being flawed, imperfect beings. Even Picard has moments where his fears, flaws and vices are on display. A fun one to discuss but not one I go in for.
I have one big problem with the theory: The one episode where this assumed POV cannot be applied. The ST: VOYAGER episode "Living Witness" takes place hundreds of years after the USS Voyager came through. They never specify how many centuries have taken place by the time the Doctor is accidentally re-activated, but they imply that it was far enough into the future that this takes place sometime around the era where ST: DISCOVERY moves into in later seasons. In order for the "Propaganda Theory" to apply, there would have to be a functional Federation at that time for that episode to be presented in that manner. As there is no one who could process the story in that fashion, the theory falls apart. It's not a bad theory on the surface, but this episode is a pretty strong stress point to test it, and unfortunately it can't sustain a hit like this...
Read the ENT / DS9 book "The good that men do" where we are treatet to the actuall events of the last episode of star trek enterprise by (a now declasified ) historically accurate record once kept by section 31
Not really sure that there are that many contradictions; two people having different opinions (Riker & Seven) that contradict each other based on what they know or see is extremely realistic. We also have a series which is suppose to be set in the future, so it would make sense for new shows to show wildly fantastical technology - as opposed to something that wouldn't make sense in modern standards. That said, the idea that we are watching videos of events would be an extremely big saving grace for Star Trek if it is embraced in full - if you don't like a specific series then maybe the next story will be better.
Which Goegre Lucas has always thought that when your watching Star wars your seeing it though the eyes of the Wills powerful force beings... Also somthing to remember is these shows are no different to shows like the Band of Brothers a WW2 TV show which can have similar errors as Star Trek. Which even after 80 years historians find new infomation about WW2 diospite it being in living memory and so well documented and researched.... So yeah I think it's best to look at all stories as just stories and not as if you were there.
I don't hate this fan theory, that recent Very Short Trek made fun of this I thought you would've made mention of that ,Voyager's Living Witness or the Enterprise finale (shudder)
DS9 I think was when a Utopian Empire comes into contact with the irregularities of the outer edges of their utopia. LoL 😅😅. Roddenberry ideas were horrific
The problem is that roddenberry saw Science Fiction as a tool to spread his utopian ideology, rather than a discipline in itself. As a result the worldbuilding was neglected. Hell, even the concept of the Federation first appeared around the middle of the first season in TOS. Because of this, the mythology ofthe universe is a random collection of ideas without an underlying structure to hold them in place. The concept of (no) money, for example, makes no sense in-universe. Itfirst came up in ST IV: The voyage Home. But in a TOS episode it was specifically said that (at that point) the Federation had invested some seven millions credits. They even had the name for the Federation currency.
The only Star Trek episode that may have been considered extremely biased by history was the season finale of Enterprise. It's been referenced that the last episode was told as a holodeck flashback but it was based on Commander Rikers point of view. Star Trek Picard later fixes any potential inconsistencies between the NX-001 Enterprise that was supposed to be the last of it kind decommissioned and the different NX-001 that ended up at the Star Fleet museum. As Sigmund Fried would say," Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." I have to concur that Lore Reloaded has over thought the Star Trek universe. He may have injested some illicit substances and postulated this just like the pot smoking scene in Animal House between Prof. Jennings and student Larry Kroger.😅😅😅😅😮😮😮😮
This theory also explains why TNG is nice and rose colored while the ENT Era is hyper critical b/c all "facts" are vetted by the Vulcan high command and despite the factual short falls; Archer succeeds in the formation of the federation charter.
What's with all the gay story lines and romance. Very un-trek.
I'm been saying it recently: nearly every episode begins with the words "Captain's Log, stardate" and a number. We are literally watching whatever the "Captain" wrote down in his log. book, and, if you've ever seen a log book, you know: there's a lot of room to embellish the details
TOS did something that no other Trek has done with the Log. It was told in the past tense.
Somebody's just watching this in a holosuite. You basically just turned the entire franchise into These Are the Voyages.
Did he? Or has it always been that way?
I think an easier explanation for the "change" in Borg being born or never giving birth is just that Riker was doing a visual glance at the cube's room and made an assumption. We know now that the Borg assimilate babies and accelerate their growth. That might just be what Riker was looking at at the time.
Exactly
I was going to say something similar. From Riker's perspective and a non Borg, we would make such an assumption. From Seven's point of view and was part of the collective, she would know a lot more on the subject.
@@SetoShadowVT yeah it isn’t a contradiction for a character to just be wrong about something they don’t know much about
there is also the possibility that, despite their own best efforts, the borg are not a monolith. I don't care how advanced you are, you are not going to be able to get everything over millions of cubes spread over a quarter of a galaxy to not hsve significant differences.
I‘m so glad to see another person who understands that unreliable narration is a thing!
I DO love how you overthink Star Trek, Lore Reloaded. You make the meta-universe even more interesting.
the way his mind functions thoroughly captivates me. always provides some solid food for thought
🇮🇱Wars
🇮🇱Trek
Yea lol. But tbh the answer to all of these contradictions is bad writing.
That's it. Nothing more to it.
The lore like this are just fans trying to cope with their fav show being sub par and thus do the writers job for them by filling in such holes.
This idea that this is propaganda is like the mass effect 3 introdoction theory. Where it essentially explains the main ending making no sense to describing Shepard is being brainwashed so it doesn't make such sense.
In reality the writers even confirm it's just because they fucked up
@@mr.voidroy6869 "there is nothing more to it" then proceeds to say a whole lot more about it, which suggests there is a lot more to it 🤔
@@beepboop204 you notice if you use your reading skills, that I used an analogy and then explained it.
This Federation historian idea is how Roddenberry described TOS at some conventions. It also makes Enterprise's last episode make a lot more sense. Was the whole show a holodeck simulation?
Like I said to Orange, it doesn't matter if it is or not, the point is ENT is the historic record on file.
Roddenberry suggested pretty much the same in Kirk's preface to the TMP novelization, that TOS was a somewhat fictionalized version of Kirk's five year mission.
@@Wzrd8
Ah-HA!
So C. "Trip" Tucker DID fake his death!
I can believe that, now.
😉
It's interesting that in TNG S1E04 The Last Outpost, when Portal asks about the Federation, Data starts to note that the Federation "has allowed the small and weak to be destroyed by the evil and powerful" (or words to that effect). He's referring to the application of the Prime Directive, but it's an interesting moral point. The Federation is well aware of who it is.
Quark and Garrak have an interesting chat pretty close to this topic. Root Beer was the metaphor.
Yes. The Insidious Rootbeer Theory. A very good theory.
@@robertmiller2831” its insidious, just like the Federation”
Watching the Orville actually kind of solidified this theory for me. On the Orville you see characters drinking soda on the bridge, using the synthesizers to get edibles, not just alcohol, etc. We see them doing things that feel familiar to us TODAY, but we've never seen anyone on a Trek show do. This is stuff that a government would certainly want to leave out of propaganda, even if the members of Starfleet actually did them.
Interesting theory. It is made even stronger by the opening lines of TOS and TNG - "These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise." We definitely are watching a serial, and the overall setting is third person, even though the individual stories are typically told in first person. As to what type of program this is, that is an open question because we don't have a lot of out of universe context.
The Lower Decks/Strange New Worlds crossover would have us believe that the stories are passed down somehow, and there is a degree of hero worship or halo effect. But that doesn't imply propaganda. Just rose colored glasses of those who came before. And that is normal in any society. Hero tales, even if they have warts, are part of the social glue that holds a society together. And aspiration for those of today to live up to the example set by their ancestors.
I think you can make a good argument that these are stories told after the fact, but propaganda is a supposition without enough support. Hell, we could be watching period dramas from a few hundred years after the events in the show. Or it could be an accurate retelling of events in a documentary. There is no way to know without a larger context.
actually, i suspect that in this theory, we could be watching altered 'public history' as little as 30 to 50 years after the fact.
The only thing that kinda destroys this theory is the entirety of DS9
Nobody knew the Kai had anything to do with Siskos disappearance. Sisko deleted the log that confessed his accessory to a murder... There's a lot of things that just couldn't have been documented or explained.
I mean prime example you might want to look into. The prophets take the form of whoever is at ds9 when talking to people... In the episode where Sisko reaches DS9 as the minefield is destroyed he may have some idea of who is in Ops but there's a founder there and Damar as well as Dukat. I don't think Sisko even knows who he is at this point... It's actually why I believe the Prophets did talk to Kai Winn in the final episodes. They needed a traitor of her moral calibre to do the right thing and betray the Pay Wraiths. If they showed her any real attention her whole life their plan would ultimately fail. They needed her to oppose the Emissary... So aye it can't all be propaganda.
Events like that could be us seeing unredacted versions of accounts of those events. Like in the Ciaphas Cain series of books, we're told how the propaganda is making him out to be a big hero, but the books are told from his point of view and then edited by a friend so we see things as they "actually" are, and we also hear what the propaganda says.
But also don't listen to him either, because in a galaxy full of unreliable narrators, he's probably the LEAST reliable of them all, due to the worst case of imposter syndrome in galactic history.
@@jasoncrowell8863 well the thing about unredacted accounts doesn't really explain how we have footage or any account of what happened in the Fire Caves at DS9 but nobody returns from the encounter in universe the disapearance of kai winn and sisko is a complete mystery. I mean sure it could be a theory on what happened we are being shown... however it kinda disregards audience interaction thats good.
I bring up that in universe they don't know what happened to Sisko is that Lower Decks does reference it as a mystery they believe its a cover up of some kind. N thats the kinda good interaction im talking about. If we never seen Checkovs Gun sure we won't expect it but ultimately we appreciate being in the loop than surprises. Saying all of Star Trek is propaganda is way more stretch needed to establish that the idea behind the concept is definitely in the universe just not exactly directly shown to us.
@@stewartbugler I mean who ever put these shows together in universe might have just put in a theory that is commonly believed as fact.
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough its certainly plausible... I mean I watch Star Trek alot just to build theories and hunt for clues for them. I did explore this concept because of the finales of Enterprise and Jake Sisko. However it paints Starfleet in a bad light on the regular... if it was propaganda its not very good propaganda.
I mean when Jake was covering the Dominion command at DS9 he worded it in the worst possible light. I actually find that whole section super weird because to be fair the Dominion didn't actually do much wrong at all. I mean they came to the aid of the races that litterally tried to bombard them out of existence. The way they countered it was guide their plan into a trap n Starfleet sat back and just watched. Ya even got a suspected Section 31 operative delaying their effort. (This channel actually gave me the idea to look for plausible Agents in the maquis and Eddington fits the bill like perfectly. He only turns up for big events except a handful of episodes which don't seem big till you consider this possibility)
I mean to jump to later series... Picard had no idea about the Changeling virus antidote being witheld he was appalled by the notion. Just like how Captain Freeman read the Tuvix logs and was horrified at what Janeway had done.
If the show Star Trek was a federation propaganda documenting events. Its very odd these things would appear in the show and not be common knowledge to Captains let alone Cadets.
They have time travel and stealth technology. Witnessing the past without intervention shouldn’t be hard. Heck in some episodes in TNG and voyager we saw several alien characters even humans do just that
I've had this as a fan theory for a long time, ever since watching the videos about whetther the federation is evil.
I think some the ships (the enterprise exists, only it's maybe never or rarely sent out, used more for show) and events happen but they're retold in more extreme stories and with more heroic characters.
Maybe even entire stories were made up, like the borg could just be made up to scare the population into thinking they need the federation. It would explain why the borg have never launched a full scale invasion. Trust us the borg exist, we just stopped them before they reached earth.
Itbwould also explain why the same ship is always the only ship nearby, it's cause it isn't, they've taken a real event and then swapped the ships with the propaganda ship.
Things like lower decks and discovery could also fit. Discovery shows a future without the federation and it's terrible. Lower decks shows low ranking officers who love starfleet despite having rubbish jobs, like cleaning out holodeck filters and showing that even the non hero ships that you will be assigned to are good.
I like it. It lines up with the way I've decided to view Star Trek: not as in-universe Galaxy Quest-style historical documents, but as heightened retellings of stories that happened in an already heightened reality. Fantasy upon fantasy. Rowan J. Coleman released a video recently that suggests seeing ST not as a "universe" with true internal consistency, but as a mythos: The stories and details don't have to line up perfectly any more than do the stories about King Arthur.
Huh, I'll have to go find that. Haven't actually seen it
@@LoreReloadedhere's one you missed.... where's all the normal looking people?.....
Everyones a type of handsome....
Did they let Khan kill off all the so called "ugly"people???
And before anybody brings up Barclay and Tilly ..... wrong!!!
Barclay is basically the future Jerry Lewis and Tillys the hot big girl
That's something to investigate
I've heard this theory put forward for Star Wars as well, and it makes a lot of sense. You can't convince me they didn't program Porkins astromech to hyperspace ram the Death Star. It is also the canon explanation for the continuity error in Macross II: Do you Remember Love, that movie is basically Pearl Harbor in universe, a very popular 'baser on the true story' war film.
Never trust a Japanese rendition of Pearl Harbor. They were so delusional they thought the immortal, god emperor willed it all along. Well sorry it was really Tojo pushing that agenda.
I'm a tractor trailer driver for UPS. In the office they have a sign. Here walk the safest drivers on America's highways. It always reminds me of the moment when Kirk mentions to Spock that he is the best first officer in Starfleet.
Obviously that line, like every line, is written for the viewer in order to consciously or subconsciously give them pride twords the characters in the show they are watching.
I love this propaganda theory because it offers a more immersive explanation of this.
My personal headcanon for years has been "Holonovels."
The Enterprise finale pretty much confirmed that dramatized holonovel versions of Federation history exist and people often use them to experience those events.
TOS is the way it is because it is specifically a series of Holonovels written by Kirk. Everything about that series makes sense if you view it that way. Any kind of error or continuity issue you can either attribute to the writing style or skill of the holonovel writer (Kirk for TOS) or whatever clearance level we have to know that information. TOS being a pretty civilian rather than historical documentation has a rather low security clearance level, so Kirk had to write around a lot of events which casual enjoyers would not be privy to.
The Enterprise finale is framed around a character we never see before and seemingly the whole crew leans on, and Riker takes that role. This tells us that he is in a more fictionalized version of these events. He probably picked that rather than a more accurate version because he grew up with them as a kid. He wasn't looking for accurate events, he was looking for the things that inspired him to become the officer he was now. That context actually makes both that episode and how it fit within the the events of the original TNG episode make more sense. Realizing Riker likely revisits childhood Holonovels like this one adds a lot to his character, and it is likely common among the crew.
Lower Decks pretty much confirms this, with the main cast holding regarding historical figures in the same way we do with franchises in modern pop culture.
This happens also in the novel “Ship of the Line” by Diane Carey. While in transit, Picard plays holodeck recreations of several TOS episodes, which were created using Kirk’s logs; it even explains why they couldn't use the shuttle to pick up the men in “The Enemy Within”.
I said something like this to a friend of mine 35 or so years ago.
In my analogue, Star Trek was a widely popular Federation entertainment show about Star Fleet. Being entertainment, it is fictionalized and tidied up. That was why the characters are mostly heroic, the heroes hardly do wrongdoing, the uniforms and technology change frequently, Star Fleet seldom loses conflicts, and Star Fleet and the UFP are almost perfectly self-correcting. It also explains why the show is replete with propaganda.
My theory is that the TNG episode Parallels explains all continuity issues in the franchise. As Data states "All possibilities that can happen, DO happen in alternate quantum realities" I like most fans detect continuity issues, and yes they bug me at times. I just chalk it up to that episode being in a different quantum reality.
As long as the Star Trek series stays entertaining and with good stories, I will continue to watch. Flaws and All.
I love this theory, and It did go completely over my head. It does explain away a lot of the inconsistences as data is copied and re transcribed again and again, errors crop up, and get exponentially worse as the copying continues.
You definitely could have found a better example for a contradiction than the Borg baby thing. Seeing how that has an in-universe explanation of Riker just making a guess.
Feel free to comment and post your own
@@LoreReloaded They assimilated 7 of 9 when she was a child, so why wouldn't they assimilate the children of other races when they took over their worlds? Why leave the children to die on a empty world - or worse, leave the possibility that some survive and become a threat to the Borg.
The Borg assimilate an entire species, adults and children included. If they think that a species is worthy to become part of the Borg Collective, why would they not assimilate all of it, if possible. The Borg don't seem to be so mindless as to waste lives of a species that they want. At one point, the original Borg species probably did reproduce biologically, so they do know how to raise children. Waiting a few dozen years for them to become adults would not be an issue.
Another good point would be that young children, with their minds mostly empty of the influence of their race and culture, would make better drones - no need to reprogram their brains to wipe out individuality, as at that age, that concept hasn't even occurred to most children. It would be far easier to just raise them as Borg, without the influences of their culture and society to erase. 7 of 9 was already old enough to be an "individual" being, very young children aren't at that point yet.
@@LoreReloaded Janice Lester in TOS episode Turnabout Intruder says that female Captains are not allowed in Starfleet. Kirk backs that statement up saying that it is unfair. Obviously in prequel series we see that female Captains were allowed at the time & even earlier.
The thing with the borg babies could easily be explained by Riker just plain guessing because they had almost no experience with the borg at the time. As for most of this though, if we are dismissing that it is a narrative written by different people with less than perfect regard for each others work and working under the assumption that it were a real world, it makes sense.
There is also the entire future borg thing with the episode in Voyager. It's not even connected there and could be something that came from stuff on the mobile emitter that the actual characters had zero idea was even there because of the Temporal Prime Directive and they were already walking a fine line there because of necessity considering their only doctor is a hologram.
The borg babies that Riker found could also be from an assimilated planet, and use a different assimilation method there since they still require growth, even if accelerated by other means.
‘From the looks of it….’
“Anakin good and evil is a point of view….”
-Chancellor Palpatine
Good theory. One of the reasons I love DS9 is how they showed other perspectives on the same events. We see how the Bajorans, Ferengi, Klingons, Cardassians, and Trill might view the same situation in a completely different way, and the show is willing to explore this tension of viewpoints, rather than dismissing them with a Picard style "We have evolved beyond the need for understanding and tolerance of other cultural perspectives". The greatest stories embrace the inherent tension between different perspectives and points of view.
Conspiracy theory! Next you're gonna try and tell me that the Borg went back in time and tried to stop Cochran's warp flight...
I would imagine the Federation censors stuff like "hateful content", "fake news" and "misinformation" much like big tech and big government today.
I doubt that. At least given what we see of people, most people don't use the 24th century version of Twitter as their primary source of news. And most people also don't spread "hateful content"...because we don't see many people having the sort of prejudices that would cause people to spread that sort of content.
@@jasoncrowell8863 Well, that's what they want you to think. Sounds like you have submitted to Federation propaganda hook, line, and sinker. ;)
It would certainly explain why the commercial bumpers and the cold open often start with a portion of a log entry.
The events we are witnessing are 100% from the point-of-view of one of the characters, and whose log entry we are hearing suggests whose point-of-view we are witnessing.
Ohhh that explains why Kirk is so "good" with the women folk.
Just like the stories I tell the guys about my conquests, that have very little to do with reality.
Edit: Come to think of it. That's exactly What the Shatner Star Trek novels are.
Shatners over the top conquest stories to his mates.
Those are some serious ego stroking.
I agree that this is very possible.
Note: The first Dune book is 21 years older than me. Older, smarter people than me probably thought of this first, but I’ve never heard it or read it anywhere. Also, this does NOT contain spoiler for the movies. It is about the books. Ok? Here I go.
Something I thought of after reading an article about Dune part 2. In the original book, Princess Irulan is basically the narrator. She chose to become Paul’s historian and helped shape his legacy in chronicling his reign. That means she could have written things that are not 100% true or might be seen a different way to help shape her narrative. Propaganda, if you will. If there are any inconsistencies in later books where Frank Herbert (and later his heirs chosen to keep writing the story) either forgot something or chose to retcon it, that could be explained away in-universe by simply saying that Irulan chose to tell it differently, forgot, or never know to begin with.
That idea of an author forgetting something isn’t an insult to authors. People forget things when they write enough stories over time. We all forget things everyday! Famous sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke got his wires crossed sometimes and would accidentally have a character do something when he or she had already died on a different planet before that. At some point, he allied with this fan site where they had this massive timeline that helped him keep his alien ducks in a row and better tell his stories. Smart move.
What I said about retconning also happens. Things can suddenly be changed after being established for years, or after a very short time. TV pilots change things sometimes. Not even recasting characters or changing to entirely different characters. You can make huge changes to a character from just one episode to the next. It’s not sci-fi/fantasy, but Criminal Minds is great example. In the pilot, Morgan called Garcia and needed her help with something in finding a kidnapped woman alive before it’s too late while also hurting down the villain. At one point, she told him to talk to the department of “too da$& bad” or something. (Sorry, it’s been a LONG time since I saw that episode). The writers depicted her as just not caring at all about human life or stopping the monster. They radically changed that and made her a weird but sweet and caring person who you’d always want on your side. If you or someone you love is missing, you’d want her to help in the search. If you are a bad guy, you do NOT want her helping hunt you down.
Sadly, there is sometimes just plain sloppy writing. Again, this isn’t sci-fi or fantasy, but it’s the perfect example. In the pilot of Bones, Bones and Booth know each other and don’t get along or like each other. Bones is very technical and hates slang. In the early years, it would pain her to use it in a normal sentence unless she was quoting someone. In episode 5x16, we see flashbacks to how she and Booth met, worked on a case, were attracted to each other, and fought after something went wrong on the case. At one point, she mentioned getting taken off the case because she punched someone in the “schnoz”. The Temperance Brennan character wouldn’t have said that unless someone had a weapon to the head of someone she cared about. Even then, she’s then be correcting the use of the word and possibly recounting the history of the different names for the nose. She would have said “nose” at the very least, or possibly gone into detail about the name of the bone and type of cartilage. I see 3 possible reasons for this lame mistake.
1. The episode writers for 5x16 were all newer and didn’t watch those earlier seasons enough (or at all) to get a feel of the characters.
2. The established episode writers made a stupid mistake that doesn’t fit.
3. The writer didn’t care about their work enough to care about the inconsistencies like that.
Sorry to ramble. I just thought it an interesting idea that a book series written partly as a chronicle by a character could be partly unreliable. While no one is perfect, I like to give storytellers the benefit of the doubt. This idea of Irulan shaping the tale allows for this.
Just as Star Wars is pro-Jedi pro-Rebellion propaganda that paints the Sith and Empire as evil, so too with Star Trek and the Federation. I'd love a Romulan centered Star Trek show, a few of the novels have done this and, for me at least, it expands the Universe of Star Trek enormously.
That's kinda how I started viewing it since the mid 2000s. For every IP I view. The movies and tv shows are basically documentaries. The novels are like history books
I'm glad you're touching on this again.
I remember this having been implied in your episode about the Terra Prime group, and I'm glad you're expanding on it now. Star Trek just being a longer version of "To Boldly Go" or "Trials and Tribble-ations".
What if, hear me out, "Living Witness" is the truth. There's a video idea for ya!
The doylist explanation is obviously that Gene Roddenberry wanted to create a utopic universe in the sixties, but I still agree with you watsonian explanation. Even though my childhood innocence dies a little each time I admit it: The federation is far from perfect, and the series are probably an inaccurate account of what actually happend.
I never thought about this, but it honestly makes sense. and like you said, it doesnt even need to be orchestrated or nefarious. Historians are people too, and given enough time and people working on it a subtle bias could creep in. Just from doing their jobs
5:38 Comstar does two things. Telecommunications and espionage. Outside of a few shows, most of comstar's entertainment is broadcasted from different nations. The cloak and dagger soviet method is when the threat of the power balance is going to lean heavily to one nation. Sldf discoveries, natural innovation, free thinkers, even wmds and roguetech. The houses and prephery are more likely to produce their own propaganda.
Gene Roddenberry said as much back in 1979. Rather, James Tiberius Kirk did in his Preface to Star Trek: The Motion Picture's novelization
I dunno about Trek itself, but this *has* been explicitly done in at least one other franchise.
The original Macross series ran in Japan in 1982. In 1985 there was a cinematic movie that compressed 26 episodes into a 2 hour movie, animated from scratch, with many stylistic and storytelling differences. When asked about the differences, one of the people in charge said, “The TV show was what happened, and the movie is like some big dumb sloppy Hollywood blockbuster based on a historical event that gets a lot of details wrong.” Macross 7 was a spinoff series from a decade later that was set 25 years later, and had older versions of the character in the cast of the new show. The subject of the movie comes up, and one of them looks annoyed and says, “I was there. The actual events played out a bit differently.”
Now it gets trippy: The next spinoff was a prequel called “Macross Zero.” And the next spinoff after that was called “Macross Frontier,” set 10 or 15 years after Macross seven and in the middle of Frontier, the plot revolves around them *making* a movie based on the events of Macross Zero. It later becomes clear that “Macross Zero” actually *IS* the movie they made in the “Macross Frontier” series.
As of the last series, it’s been explicitly stated that the 1985 Macross movie was made as deliberate propaganda by the government *IN* the Macross universe to distract people from a real issue.
Are you saying we're interacting with...historical documents? ;)
I've said similar things before, that it's a docudrama not a documentary so things might be inconsistent or contradictory to serve the narrative that is trying to be told at the time, the different shows having different capabilities is indicative not of the particular abilities available to starfleet but the time and effort it would take to create adequate facsimiles for broadcast. The 2300s enterprise would have tech better than the best we could imagine today, so the 1950s representation is gonna have trouble recreating what would eventually be commonplace
The entire ST:ENT series was a holodeck simulation being played by Riker 200 years after the event.
This is brilliant. The victorious get to write the history.👍🏾
Good theory but one question: Who are we? If this is a presentation, who is the target audience of the propaganda film? Remember, your theory is in universe. That means that we as the audience are a knowable quantity to the natural beings of this universe. This makes sense to me personality, but I'm thoroughly insane. I often feel like I'm a galaxy sized parrot octopus ensnared by the illusion of a child race who's somehow tricked all my Matrioska brains into thinking I'm a carbon based biped living in Seattle. Maybe they think I'm going to swat them out of existence on a whim. And I'm almost certain that I would so never do that. Maybe that's what's really happening in Star Trek too. In other words, theories are fun. Great video as always.
This is a good Theory it only breaks down for episodes where the captain clearly deletes the log after creating it
(Like on ds9)
Because lost logs are never recovered ?
@@LoreReloaded that is very true I can only Wonder of all the recovered logs they got from Janeway LOL
All top secret Level "Admirslity only" because after the glorious return of the voyager, seemingly solving the Borg issue on the was, they decided to make her not only Admiral, but a public hero figure to restore pride after the domi ion war, that showed ppl the vulnersbility. So no one was to even think of touching Janeway
It does make sense, it would explain how they are able to reference so much stuff in Lower decks
That...makes the most sense
Something I’d like to get the Lore Reloaded take on. Everyone likes to talk about in the pale moon light and the moral and ethical complexity of it, it is a great episode. However a similar event happened in way of the warrior when sisko and crew decided to betray the klingons and warn the cardassians. Aside from the moral and ethical implications I can’t help wonder what effect it would have had on later events with the dominion if they hadn’t warned the cardassians
5:57 Particularly when it comes to TOS, and TAS, which I watched for the very first time after all of the other series, in my mind I always told myself, “Ah, these are the tales of the larger-than-life Captain Kirk, as seen through the lens of the Ferengi, who have made a holo-series based on old, lost logs from the Enterprise.” Obviously in regards to continuity and technology, but also when it comes to conservative, or outdated ideas of 1960s society, especially pertaining to racial and gender inequality and discrimination.
What if - bear with me on this one - this is all just a TV series?
That's silly
@@LoreReloaded fair enough
I just want to point out the fact that I feel fairly certain that Lore loaded and I do not share the same politics and I don't agree with all his interpretations and stuff like that.
In the same token I find all of his videos interesting and usually entertaining so i enjoy watching his stuff, especially the stuff I don't agree with them because that's for me the most interesting when he's well when I'm trying to hear different opinion than the one I already have. Now I'm a big Star Trek fan and I suspect he likes Star Trek more than I do since he's got this channel and I don't. But I just want to point out that it's nice to listen to someone with different opinions and sometimes he changes mine and even when he doesn't I still find myself entertained. So if he ever reads this and I doubt he will. But thank you for good content. I really enjoy it
These videos are always great for a laugh.
Keep it up.
Interesting a lot of things I didn't think of Lore. Keep up the great work
Would ComStar even allow the Dominion to reach Betazed? Hell no! They'd have Tukayyid'd the Bajor system so hard, the Dominion would be reeling from it 25 years later!
I think if this was the case we'd have commentary. The Dune series for example is clearly propaganda written by princess what's her face, but that's addressed in every book.
But we do.. how does most every episode begin? "Captains Log.."
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think you just convinced me to give Picard another shot.
I know this might be controversial but I kinda never seen much contradiction about Borg lore and standards... I mean when Riker finds the baby Borg it's all assumptions he doesn't actually know. Then when 7 of 9 sees a 29th century borg being conceived she states the only assimilate this makes no sense.
So either A... This is a contradiction. Or B the Borg don't mind assimilating children.
I feel the Answer is B... Not because of Icheb or 7 of 9 but the baby they found on the same cube as Icheb.
The maturation chamber is cause it's easier to keep child drones in stasis in till they are at peak physical capacity of well fully developed. The chamber normally accelerated the process but this Cube malfunctioned leaving the children protected from the damage that took out every drone onboard.
I think peoples making Star Trek never watched Star Trekm
Propaganda and Starfleet cover ups are the topic of the new book Firewall, it's about 7 and she comes to joint the Fenris Rangers in Picard. Very good book and goes along with the theory.
Documentaries, and/or maybe "based on a true story" books and movies? (Holo-novels and holo scenarios, with old style text and flat screen media for the aficionados out there.) I suppose the writers have to work with "Uncle Fred" and Starfleet before they get even close to Memory Alpha. Think of the movies "The Longest Day" or "Saving Private Ryan". As for larger than life characters, they do exist, such as "Mad" Jack Churchill, Adrian Carton de Wiart or Douglas MacArthur...
Your thinking on many of these matters fits many of my own going back many years. Great vid! This theory might also explain why so many aliens in all the series are shown speaking English in circumstances where even a Universal Translator cannot possibly explain why they are! Just a minor point. Propaganda is spelled with an a after the second P. Not an o.
I have always held that in ANY TV show or movie, what we see on screen is only ever an interpretation of events. That's why there are so many humanoid aliens, why Babylon 5's spaceships look like that or why "security camera footage" can pan and zoom in high definition, almost as if a movie camera was used instead instead of the cheapest device they could get away with. The idea that the creation of these "historical records" comes with some kind of authorial intent is new, though.
Elim Garak sitting in a recliner, smoking a cigarette, drinking a beer, whistling and pointing at the tv.
I always chalked Riker's comments on the Borg to him completely misunderstanding a less-advanced maturation chamber.
So... You're saying that the entire franchise is an outsized version of the Voyager episode 'Living Witness'?
Interesting video, always great when you upload, goose approved
I thought of it more as rose tinted glasses, they make things sound better than they were
My head snapped up when I heard the name ComStar. Goddamn.
Oh nice. My story on display =D
This is how I feel everytime when I bingewatch DS9
I always thought of it in this manner which might explain why i don't have an issue with things other people do.
I always took the Borg baby thing to be they don't reproduce, but they would take the baby and start the assimilation process, and that Riker just filled in blanks about an unknown species to them. Also militaries and scientific organizations actually do change uniforms and there is usually a transition period. If they didn't English soldiers would still be wearing metal armor.
From the in universe perspective ? - either temporal or "Q's" interference thus massive changes only known to the outside observer.
From out of universe perspective ? - just bad writting - retcons, better technology and bigger filming budgets :P
This makes so much sense.
Voyager episode. Course Oblivion. Wasn’t shown from a starfleet historians pov. It was from the creatures’.
I do adore this theory. It effectively explains the unrealistic ness of "genes vision" in trek.
I also think that this is theory is supported in show because remember, before DS9 and not really again until STD almost all trek shows started episodes with log entries. That effectively makes the whole episode a depiction OF said log entries and those log entries would undoubtedly be longer than a single line of text to address the various issues they would face. This effectively explains why DS9 is so much darker as its more close to being an actual depiction of events sans the propaganda.
That WOULD have made a wonderful premise had they made Section 31 a full show instead of a movie. The show would focus on depicting the reality of how the federation actually works.
But you know that fundamental of an alteration to the themes of the show would have fans absolutely rioting. Just like fans do about everything now.
I played with the idea of _falsified log entries_ couple years ago. Not so unsimilar take. : D
This can all be explained by the theory that the show startrek is actually set in the 210th century and focuses on the narrative POV of one set roll players' playing out a series of fictional events in a romanticised version of the distant past as part of some kind massively multiplayer larping game.
This game is so grand in its scope that it is not played out on a computer or in a holodeck deck but in real space on a litteral galactic stage.
Most characters portrayed in the show are serious roleplayers, but occasionally, you get the first-time or casual player who doesn't have a real costume show up and play a Q, organian, V'ger, the guardian of forever, tramain or something🤔
The Borg babies could be explained by Riker making an incorrect assumption that the infants were born from Borg. It’s entirely likely that they were recently assimilated infants.
Everything we see in Voyager is likely the viewpoint from the bioneural gel-packs that are integrated throughout the ships' various systems.
Finally we take a proper gander at the true nature of trek.
this is more then just a theory. weather its propaganda or not, its definitely "second hand information" its why so often shows are started to reflect the captains log read offs so often.
Very interesting
As others have said I think this fits TOS and TNG, DS9 not so much Unless it's like a historian from … what, from farther in the future than the Temporal Cold war? Maybe Sisko came back at some point and admited everything from ITPML and shared his experiences in the Fire Caves, which let the future Christopher Nolan put in some cool speculative dialogue between Win and Dukat but that just seems like a stretch.
I agree with you. I joked to a friend once in fact we see Federation propaganda. So I am with your conclusion.
This theory is strikingly similar to the theme of my IMDB reviews.
"When The Legend becomes *FACT* , print *The Legend* ."
--- Wm. Randolph Hearst.
Riker saying the Borg were born organic and 7 saying they assimilate is not a contradiction. It was Rikers opinion that was simply incorrect but based on his limited observation and information at hand. What we leaned later from 7's assimilation is that babies and children are placed in maturation chambers after assimilation until they are sufficiently mature to aid the collective.
Just like the episode "the warship voyager"!
Those second hand accounts were just crazy!! But were they truly innacurate?! 🤔
The episode was called “Living Witness” (s4, e23).
@@augiegirl1 ahh thank you. Its been a while 😅
This is so meta, I'm not sure I exist anymore...
You don't. You're just a figment of my deranged imagination.
Matt Patt did this theory 7 years ago. Happy to see a Trek channel doing the same. I feel like Trekies destroyed his theory just because he isn't a long time viewer
I don’t find the changing uniforms at all an issue. I was in the US Navy for 15 years, in that time I saw four different working Uniforms. Starfleet having a Fleet Uniform, Starbase Uniform, and War Uniform just doesn’t seem completely out of place.
It's a fun theory but to me that's a theory based on getting too deep into the universe and forgetting that it is actually a fictional piece of 20th/21st century drama entertainment.
However, even then, most of this can be explained by in-universe 'reality'. Military uniforms and fashion evolve over the decades. The military uniforms and especially utility wear of the 80's is vastly different to that in 2023 for example, and Star Trek Generations even shows the crossover of TNG/DS9 uniforms (Even if the IRL reason is amusing), so we see uniform evolution.
As for the change of tone; in TOS it WAS the wild west; the Enterprise was on a 5-Year exploration mission to new regions. TNG was the Golden Era of Peace and post DS9 sees a badly mauled Starfleet that has just come through a major, brutal war that killed millions and rewrote the entire mindset of the Federation, so is legitimately more dark and militaristic.
And we do often see the characters being flawed, imperfect beings. Even Picard has moments where his fears, flaws and vices are on display.
A fun one to discuss but not one I go in for.
I agree really really reaching
I'm sorry, but I can't get over the misspelling of "Propaganda," in the overlay. I do agree with the thesis though.
I have one big problem with the theory: The one episode where this assumed POV cannot be applied.
The ST: VOYAGER episode "Living Witness" takes place hundreds of years after the USS Voyager came through. They never specify how many centuries have taken place by the time the Doctor is accidentally re-activated, but they imply that it was far enough into the future that this takes place sometime around the era where ST: DISCOVERY moves into in later seasons. In order for the "Propaganda Theory" to apply, there would have to be a functional Federation at that time for that episode to be presented in that manner. As there is no one who could process the story in that fashion, the theory falls apart.
It's not a bad theory on the surface, but this episode is a pretty strong stress point to test it, and unfortunately it can't sustain a hit like this...
Read the ENT / DS9 book "The good that men do" where we are treatet to the actuall events of the last episode of star trek enterprise by (a now declasified ) historically accurate record once kept by section 31
Not really sure that there are that many contradictions; two people having different opinions (Riker & Seven) that contradict each other based on what they know or see is extremely realistic. We also have a series which is suppose to be set in the future, so it would make sense for new shows to show wildly fantastical technology - as opposed to something that wouldn't make sense in modern standards. That said, the idea that we are watching videos of events would be an extremely big saving grace for Star Trek if it is embraced in full - if you don't like a specific series then maybe the next story will be better.
Which Goegre Lucas has always thought that when your watching Star wars your seeing it though the eyes of the Wills powerful force beings... Also somthing to remember is these shows are no different to shows like the Band of Brothers a WW2 TV show which can have similar errors as Star Trek. Which even after 80 years historians find new infomation about WW2 diospite it being in living memory and so well documented and researched.... So yeah I think it's best to look at all stories as just stories and not as if you were there.
I don't hate this fan theory, that recent Very Short Trek made fun of this
I thought you would've made mention of that ,Voyager's Living Witness or the Enterprise finale (shudder)
Damn! It fits perfectly 😅
DS9 I think was when a Utopian Empire comes into contact with the irregularities of the outer edges of their utopia. LoL 😅😅. Roddenberry ideas were horrific
this is now canon
The problem is that roddenberry saw Science Fiction as a tool to spread his utopian ideology, rather than a discipline in itself. As a result the worldbuilding was neglected. Hell, even the concept of the Federation first appeared around the middle of the first season in TOS.
Because of this, the mythology ofthe universe is a random collection of ideas without an underlying structure to hold them in place. The concept of (no) money, for example, makes no sense in-universe.
Itfirst came up in ST IV: The voyage Home. But in a TOS episode it was specifically said that (at that point) the Federation had invested some seven millions credits. They even had the name for the Federation currency.
Maybe. I have a running list and scripts that I do. Either inspired the idea or encouraged me to move it up the list
The only Star Trek episode that may have been considered extremely biased by history was the season finale of Enterprise. It's been referenced that the last episode was told as a holodeck flashback but it was based on Commander Rikers point of view. Star Trek Picard later fixes any potential inconsistencies between the NX-001 Enterprise that was supposed to be the last of it kind decommissioned and the different NX-001 that ended up at the Star Fleet museum. As Sigmund Fried would say," Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." I have to concur that Lore Reloaded has over thought the Star Trek universe. He may have injested some illicit substances and postulated this just like the pot smoking scene in Animal House between Prof. Jennings and student Larry Kroger.😅😅😅😅😮😮😮😮