Star Trek man sits funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVIGhYMwRgs

For real this seems like a major red flag.

Let’s not think about the Reddit of today, let’s think about Reddit of old. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

I can agree with this to a degree, but can’t we just not think of reddit? I mean, back then, I don’t recall redditors obsessing over other sites as much as I have seen on lemmy. Digg was the top dog, and I don’t recall daily threads about reddit’s numbers or how it wasn’t matching up.

It was just it’s own thing and not constantly comparing itself to it’s alleged competition. I feel like that helped it grow into it’s own thing, and we should give lemmy a chance to do the same instead of trying to turn it into reddit 2.0. That said, I might just be forgetting—there could’ve been constant ‘sky-is-falling-because-we-aren’t-Digg’ posts—but I just don’t recall them.

While I don’t regret watching it—and I’d probably even throw on a new season if it gets one—I felt like it was missing any true classic episodes. I also kept having this strange sense of familiarity with episodes, as if it was just repurposing or rehashing older Star Trek plots.

I kept thinking, “Wasn’t there a TNG/DS9/Whatever episode that explored this same general concept/idea, but better?”. It felt like it was maybe borrowing just a bit too much from it’s inspiration.

I was on reddit before the digg exodus, and the current state of lemmy feels somewhat reminiscent of those times. When communities are smaller there is just a completely different feel than the 1 million+ subscriber goliaths some subreddits became.

Atomic Robo! Not enough people talk about Atomic Robo.

To name a few other sci-fi ones: Saga, Low, Black Science, and if you love pulpy sci-fi there is also Fear Agent. They have some really cool art too.

From Black Science #1:

Edit: Oh, also want to shill James Stokoe’s Aliens: Dead Orbit just because I’m in love with the art in everything he does.

Yeah, luckily, around the time I started to burn out on the endless events and reboots in Marvel and DC was when I feel like Image Comics really hit its stride. I wanna say early to mid 2010s(?) they really started branching out/expanding in what they published, and finding recognition and success—well, as much as comics can expect—for it.

Now that you mention it, it does give off those 5th Element vibes. Though, The Endless Nation is actually comprised of Native Americans, so it’s the complete opposite of aliens in both the extraterrestrial sense and the immigrant sense.

No one really knows what went down, but at some point they went into isolation for a considerable time, then emerged as a technological superpower. As the comic puts it:

There is no record of the internal revolution which resulted in the Machine State, only the oral history of cast-out believers who now reside in the dead country. One day there was no Machine State, and then the next there was.

I think I’ve watched it completely at least four separate times; I love it so much. It’s just such good fun.

I’ve been watching the X-Files. Back in the day I’d only ever sometimes catch episodes here and there on TV, so this is actually the first time I’ve sat down to watch the whole thing. Only partway through season one at the moment, but really digging it.

It was incredibly refreshing in that it was almost just slice-of-life at times; so much time was dedicated to just getting to know the characters in not necessarily extreme scenarios.

I like how this mentality is still a thing years later. I read the first three as they came out, thought “what a great trilogy!”, and then “Oh no…” when I saw it was going to continue. Even if it’s great, I’m of your opinion, I just want the main characters to be happy already! I still haven’t read the sequel trilogy to this day, lol.

I’m actually going through this myself as well! Currently, I’m just starting book 2. Seeing the “before”, noticing how mindsets were often the complete opposites, then watching the very beginnings of the shift towards the 40K universe everyone is familiar with—it’s all fascinating.

I was planning to do the first 3 before taking a break to give some other things a shot. It’s fantastic, but I don’t think I’m ready to wholly dedicate myself to the 50+ books in the series just yet.

Something to put a spotlight on books would be cool. Back on reddit, printSF existed solely for that because the main science fiction hub was dominated by television and film. It would be nice if there was a place for both in one community here rather than splitting them. In the vein of pinned discussions maybe a “What are you reading? What are you looking for? What do you recommend?” type thread could get some book discussions going.

I have just been using this script. Simple and works great. Also, it let’s you setup multiple home instances so if you have a back up account elsewhere to deal with downtime or an account for other things 👀 it’s fantastic.

Whenever I think of my favorite episodes, I think of what are probably the cliché and blatantly obvious ones: In The Pale Moonlight (DS9 S06E19), Measure of a Man (TNG S02E09), and The Inner Light (TNG S05E25). TNG and DS9 are my most rewatched Treks, so they are always freshest in my mind.

You bringing up Living Witness (Voyager S04E23), though, has reminded me of how phenomenal an episode it was—and I completely agree with it being a top five. I have my problems with Voyager, but, from time to time, it could crank out some truly classic Trek.

The Endless Nation was so cool. I love me some East of West. Someone give me that animated adaption, please.

You guys know you can post images, right?

I feel like campiness has become a lost art form. Stuff these days generally tends to take itself very seriously while Stargate was self aware and knew how to lean into it. At the same time—as you mentioned—it wasn’t afraid to do more tonally serious episodes from time to time. I think that mix is what allowed it to have such a long run.