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Series is set 10 years before the USS Enterprise's five-year mission.
We still don't know much specific information about Star Trek: Discovery, the franchise's return to television after over a decade, but showrunner Bryan Fuller has dropped a few more hints during the Television Critics Association press tour this week.
According to TV Guide , the show's lead character will be a woman, but she won't be the captain of the USS Discovery. All iterations of Star Trek, especially from The Next Generation onward, have had an ensemble cast to some degree, but the commanding officer's perspective has usually been the most important.
"To see a character from a different perspective on a starship, who has a different dynamic [and] relationship with the captain and with subordinates, felt like it was going to give us richer context [and allow us to] have different types of stories with that character," said Fuller.
Discovery will be firmly committed to diversity in casting, a traditional virtue of olderTrek series (at least relative to what other contemporary TV shows were doing). In addition to the female lead, Fuller hopes to cast an openly gay character, and The Hollywood Reporter says that the rest of the seven-character cast will be rounded out by "a female admiral, a male Klingon captain, a male admiral, a male adviser and a British male doctor." Fuller also wants to have more aliens on the show and to have those alien races look more like aliens and less like humans in heavy makeup.
And we're getting a few more details on where Discovery will fit into Trek's vast fictional universe. Fuller says the show is set in the "Prime" Trek timeline—not the "Kelvin" timeline established by JJ Abrams' rebooted film franchise in 2009—and will deal with an event referenced but not fully explored in past Trek fiction. The show will be set a decade before the USS Enterprise's five-year mission documented by the original series, and while this opens up the door to original series characters that fans may already be familiar with, Fuller wants Discovery's first season to focus on establishing the new characters.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2016, @06:42AM
It *is* proof of continued racism, the SJW's are the racists of the present day - going as far as calling for racial segregation at schools to not offend the feelies of the poor minorities (I wish I was making this up).
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2016, @08:57AM
Moderating facts troll :)
http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-new-segregation-on-campus/18385 [spiked-online.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 14 2016, @03:25PM
I'm OK with this, just point me to my white cis-gendered male-only housing please.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 15 2016, @01:15AM
From your linked article:
The segregation and differential treatment that previous generations of student campaigners fought so hard against are now being rehabilitated by young activists. Members of the US Commission on Civil Rights have spoken out against the introduction of racially themed accommodation. In the UK, the gay-rights group Stonewall has said it would prefer to see ‘a culture that is inclusive and accepting’ rather than separate LGBT campus accommodation. Today’s radicals, however, are more likely to view the progressive demand for equality in education and relationships as a dangerous cover for the exercise of white heteronormative power.
I'm not knowledgeable about the topic, but I have the impression that many--if not all--of the requests for segregated facilities are coming from minority students. For example, the Afrikan Student Union made a request of UCLA. [dailywire.com] The Black Justice League made a request of Princeton [princeton.edu] (we had a discussion about it here [soylentnews.org]--although the summary for that topic misrepresents the situation). Feel free to point out examples where "white cis-gendered males" apart from the AC commenter above me are making the requests. If that's happening, I, like you, will question their motivation.
As for the suggestion that "the SJWs" are the only racists remaining, it may appear that way because it's unfashionable to express racist attitudes. I tend to suspect that there are still people who view themselves as members of a superior race, while expressing an ersatz desire for equality and concern that others' racial awareness is "reverse racism."
Let's look at something more concrete. The U.S. Department of Education prepared a report, [ed.gov] "Public School Graduates and Dropouts from the Common Core of Data: School Year 2009-10," which has this to say about recipients of high school diplomas:
Across the United States, the AFGR [Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate] was highest for Asian/Pacific Islander students (93.5 percent) (table 2). The rates for other groups were 83.0 percent for White students, 71.4 percent for Hispanic students, 69.1 percent for American Indian/Alaska Native students, and 66.1 percent for Black students.
For whatever reasons, there are disparities along racial lines that mean many students aren't even getting to college. Some of the ones who have entered college are asking for segregated housing. My assumption is that they intend to advance their own interests. I see a distinction between their requests for segregation with the (largely past) reality of segregation implemented by the majority. These students have comparatively little power; they protest and make requests which are politely listened to, but typically not put into effect. If they happen to have racist attitudes, it doesn't matter much because they aren't in a position to oppress others.
The AC commenter(s) in this thread seem to propose that segregation is inherently racist and furthers racism, that students should learn to cope with taunting as part of their college education, and that integrated housing will help them do so because it will bring them together with students of varying backgrounds. I think the first commenter may agree with me when I say that students who are members of disadvantaged minorities are likely to have insight into what's best for themselves. They may be mistaken in thinking that segregation will be helpful to them. However, other approaches haven't been fully effective. The fact that segregation was used as a means of oppression doesn't mean it can't become a means of equalisation; nor should we reflexively label those who ask for it as the new oppressors.