[janeway72]

It's hardly allegory if you use the Taliban. You can make political points without being so obvious. Arthur Miller used the Salem Witch Trials to make a point about McCarthyism. He never mentioned Communism. If I want to see a movie about the Taliban, I'll go and see a war movie. If I want to see sci-fi with a morality twist then I'll go and see Ster Trek

[horatio]

Originally Posted by chator

That's a lot more inline with the Trek I know about than Capt. Pike's idea that a Member of a 20th century religious political movement show up on board the Enterprise and say, "ok, I'm here. The Party can start now. How are you officer Chekov? Yes I understand you are a little uncomfortable, I would be too if my people invaded your country and slaughtered thousands, but don't worry. That was a long time ago, I have nothing against working with a Russian, just don't speak against Mohommed, or I WILL KILL YOU!

Precisely, the main idea of Trek is that we have left these kind of issues behind us in the future.

Originally Posted by janeway72

It's hardly allegory if you use the Taliban. You can make political points without being so obvious. Arthur Miller used the Salem Witch Trials to make a point about McCarthyism. He never mentioned Communism. If I want to see a movie about the Taliban, I'll go and see a war movie. If I want to see sci-fi with a morality twist then I'll go and see Ster Trek

I don't think that they are mutually exclusive.
The two wars the US is involved in at the moment in Iraq and Afghanistan are quasi-wars against former allies, the Mujahedin who have been supported to fight the Soviets and Saddam Hussein (of course the much longer part of the war is the civil war that emerged after Hussein was overthrown) who has been supported to keep Iran at bay.
This just cries for Prime Directive stories. The lovely thing about them is that they are more counter-intuitive than many other morality stories. Just take my example, doesn't it make perfect sense to support poor aliens who are attacked by Klingons?

[chator]

I can imagine a dialogue between Capt. Pike's Taliban crew member and Capt. Kirk.
"It is the will of Allah that we go to this star system next."
"No, I'm the Captain, I decide."
"No? You disagree? DIE, CAPTAIN KIRK, DIE!!!!!"

[janeway72]

Originally Posted by horatio

I don't think that they are mutually exclusive.
The two wars the US is involved in at the moment in Iraq and Afghanistan are quasi-wars against former allies, the Mujahedin who have been supported to fight the Soviets and Saddam Hussein (of course the much longer part of the war is the civil war that emerged after Hussein was overthrown) who has been supported to keep Iran at bay.
This just cries for Prime Directive stories. The lovely thing about them is that they are more counter-intuitive than many other morality stories. Just take my example, doesn't it make perfect sense to support poor aliens who are attacked by Klingons?

But you are talking about allegory not what the thread suggested..."using the Taliban." Your Klingon story allegory and does explain the Afghan situation without naming them. You can't be so obviously political as to use the Taliban... you can allude to them... or else you take the chance of upsetting those who do not agree with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[thestartrekker]

Oh please! Religion, contemporary religion never made it into Trek before why start now. It would go against Roddenberys humanistic vision. Any allusions to religion were always explained away as aliens, non-corporeal entities and such. Other races had religions, Klingons, Bajorans, but not the humans. All of a sudden they pop now?
If you mean to do an allegory of something, maybe, but I don't thing thats the direction Abrams is going:
"The second one has an obligation to go deeper and maintain the fun and adventure in the sense of optimism and scale that ['Trek' originator Gene] Roddenberry created," Abrams said. "But I do think it has to evolve and not become some polemic over-the-top, on-the-nose allegory. It needs to be something that is not just about the characters meeting each other and having their first adventure; it needs to be about having their most meaningful one." .
http://www.mtv.ca/news/article.jhtml?id=21666

[Samuel]

I suppose one question is did Roddenberys vision simply ignore strong religion, or did it suggest religion was more or less gone? The one thing that comes to mind is McCoy saying the Bible was myth. Those are fighting words to countless millions of people. I also kinda took STV to say the existence of God was only the goal of a madman... but then later "well hey, maybe God does exist after all" when it looked like he might be right. Of course sci-fi can get away with that and people will say so what.

Anyways, as a story the search for God was pretty boring and I'm sure nobody is going to revisit religion.

[kevin]

Originally Posted by horatio

Precisely, the main idea of Trek is that we have left these kind of issues behind us in the future.

Which is why non-human alien races still have them.

I don't think that they are mutually exclusive.

The two wars the US is involved in at the moment in Iraq and Afghanistan are quasi-wars against former allies, the Mujahedin who have been supported to fight the Soviets and Saddam Hussein (of course the much longer part of the war is the civil war that emerged after Hussein was overthrown) who has been supported to keep Iran at bay.
This just cries for Prime Directive stories. The lovely thing about them is that they are more counter-intuitive than many other morality stories. Just take my example, doesn't it make perfect sense to support poor aliens who are attacked by Klingons?

I think it calls for a Prime Directive story if we can establish a consistent application of it in terms of Star Trek.

Unfortunately, there's as many instances of Starfleet/The Federation ignoring the Prime Directive as there is of them standing by it. That's the difficulty in some PD stories. Coming up with a situation that - now we know the Federation is willing to set it aside when it suits - is believable enough for the audience to believe the Federation would stand by the PD in the given circumstances.

A PD story could be great, but it's not an automatic improvement.

Originally Posted by Samuel

I suppose one question is did Roddenberys vision simply ignore strong religion, or did it suggest religion was more or less gone? The one thing that comes to mind is McCoy saying the Bible was myth. Those are fighting words to countless millions of people. I also kinda took STV to say the existence of God was only the goal of a madman... but then later "well hey, maybe God does exist after all" when it looked like he might be right. Of course sci-fi can get away with that and people will say so what.

I think GR (and this is just myself) wanted to show that religion didn't lead to conflict among humans by that time. That tolerance had been reached and that faith/religion was a personal matter.

General Federation society was secular and multi-cultural turning the search for answers inwards.

There are indicators that beliefs are still observed in Trek (the chapel in Balance of Terror etc, and that others do not believe, as McCoy's line might suggest of him) but it was indeed far from dwelled upon. He might also have been copping out a bit.

He posited a lot of changes in basic human behaviour in a short space of time.

[NCC_1701A]

Originally Posted by thestartrekker

Oh please! Religion, contemporary religion never made it into Trek before why start now. It would go against Roddenberys humanistic vision. Any allusions to religion were always explained away as aliens, non-corporeal entities and such. Other races had religions, Klingons, Bajorans, but not the humans. All of a sudden they pop now?
If you mean to do an allegory of something, maybe, but I don't thing thats the direction Abrams is going:
"The second one has an obligation to go deeper and maintain the fun and adventure in the sense of optimism and scale that ['Trek' originator Gene] Roddenberry created," Abrams said. "But I do think it has to evolve and not become some polemic over-the-top, on-the-nose allegory. It needs to be something that is not just about the characters meeting each other and having their first adventure; it needs to be about having their most meaningful one." .
http://www.mtv.ca/news/article.jhtml?id=21666

If they they had no religion then why did the Enterprise have a chapel?

[SouthernSpockette]

Originally Posted by Captain Pike

This would be great for the movie as it would address issues of todays conflicts and send a message that we can all get along.

Under normal circumstances I would concur that such a character should be included, however in this case I do not believe this to be a wise choice because Taliban ideaology oppresively discourages characteristics that illustrate Star Trek's vision and function.

Square peg in a round hole.

[jla1987]

I always took Trek to be ultimate diversity. If someone believes in God, Kahless, the God of Sha Ka Ree, or whatever; then that's great. I think by the 23rd Century, most Earth-based religions were on the way out and by the 24th, it was all gone. I doubt that you would be looked down upon even if you did believe in a God in either of those centuries.