thank you a lot for your answer and input. I understand the examples, but I still think there is a difference.

Having an ethical issue in the plot is not the same as really exploring it. What I miss is the reasoning: different positions being confronted, the consequences being questioned, the characters actually struggling with what is right rather than simply reaching a solution.

In episodes like The Measure of a Man, I, Borg or In the Pale Moonlight, the ethical question was not just part of the story. It was the story.

That is what feels different to me now. The themes may still be there, but they are often used as part of the sci-fi scenario rather than examined with the same depth.

So my point is not that modern Trek never raises ethical questions. It does.

I think it no longer stays with them long enough.

thanks

tyhank you for your great answer and thinking, I really appreciate you, and I understand your reading, but I still disagree that the ending reaches the same ethical place.

For me, the future of old Trek was not built simply on trust. Trust came from an ethical framework. Old Picard would not just ask a persecuted minority to trust him and the Federation that had already outlawed them. He would first ask: do they have the right to seek protection? From whom? And when does protecting one persecuted group become the destruction of another?

Trek had already spent years asking these questions with Data: when does created life become a person, when does ownership become slavery, and what obligations do creators have toward the beings they create? The Measure of a Man is basically built around that question.

And this is where the Alliance of Synthetic Life bothered me too. They are supposedly a vastly superior synthetic civilisation, yet their reasoning is essentially the most basic human response: you persecuted us, therefore we will destroy you. That felt incredibly simplistic.

One of the strengths of old Trek was that other species did not simply think like humans in different bodies. The Founders in DS9 are a perfect example: their entire perception of identity, individuality, solids and belonging comes from being Changelings. You can disagree with them morally, but their reasoning grows from what they are.

That was what made the encounters interesting. The alien civilisation brought a genuinely different logic to the table, and Star Trek used that difference to make us look at our own conflicts: race, religion, power, minorities, occupation, fear. from another angle.

So yes, the synths eventually stand down. But for me the more interesting Star Trek story was the ethical argument that should have happened before that decision.

:(

Exactly. Old Trek repeatedly put the moral cost of the means on the table.

Voyager’s entire premise was built around that question. Rick Berman described it as getting home “at any cost?” and immediately answered: it shouldn’t be at any cost. That was built into the show from the beginning.

Michael Piller was famous in the writers’ room for asking: “What’s it about?” Not just what happens, but what the story is actually examining: paranoia, responsibility, identity, parenthood, fear. The ethical or human question came before the mechanics of the plot.

That is why episodes like Caretaker, I, Borg, The Measure of a Man, Insurrection or In the Pale Moonlight work so well. The characters are not simply looking for the fastest solution. They stop and ask what that solution costs, who pays for it, and whether another path exists even if it is harder.

And the scripts were written with enormous precision. Robert Hewitt Wolfe said DS9 scripts were locked down because the shows were so technical and precise; dialogue was not something actors simply improvised around. The writers were protecting the internal logic of the universe and the characters.

So my point is not “the end never matters”.

It is that a good end never removed the obligation to scrutinise the means.

Old Trek constantly asked: What will this choice do to others? Is the damage proportionate? Is there another way? And sometimes the harder, slower road was still the right one.

That it was part of how Star Trek was written.

agree

I don’t mean nostalgia. My question is whether we are losing a way of thinking that asked us to become better.

Star Trek used ethics, responsibility and self-reflection as part of the story itself. That shaped how many of us thought about power and humanity.

For me, keeping that alive is not about the past. It is about keeping our conscience active.

I don’t actually think Picard arrives at the same ethical conclusions.

The synthetics are a good example. When they decide to activate the beacon and call for help, Picard’s response is basically to stop them and offer to take them away.

Old Picard, to me, would first have changed the perspective of the question: does a persecuted minority have the right to ask for protection? If yes, from whom? At what cost? And what happens if that protection destroys another population?

That is where the real Star Trek dilemma would have been.

Not simply “don’t call them, come with me,” but a confrontation between rights, fear, survival and consequences, until the most ethical solution possible emerged.

That is why I don’t think the destination is the same. The old Picard was not looking for the solution that worked for him. He was trying to understand what was right beyond himself.

That difference is exactly what I miss.

your udnerstanding is superficial. I suggest you to read again , understand better, and judge less

I think we are mixing two different things: consequences in a character’s biography and ethical consequences as part of the storytelling.

Yes, Picard shows consequences: ageing, Borg trauma, losing his position, conflict with Starfleet. I am not denying that at all. My point is that this is not the same thing as the older Trek habit of stopping and asking:

Was this action right? Was it proportionate? Did we have the right to do it? What responsibility follows from it?

That distinction matters.

Sisko poisoning the Maquis colony is actually a good example of where old Trek itself failed to examine something as deeply as it should have. I can criticise that episode too. I am not claiming every old episode was ethically perfect.

I am talking about the overall narrative architecture.

Across TNG, DS9 and Voyager, ethical reasoning was repeatedly built into the story itself. Characters had recognisable moral structures, and those structures were so consistent that in several episodes a change in behaviour was enough for the others — and for us — to realise that someone had been replaced, possessed or manipulated. That level of trust came from coherence.

That is what I find weaker in Picard.

Seven can move from a character built around discipline, restraint, logic and moral self-construction to revenge and vigilante violence, without the story really earning that transformation.

Jurati can kill Maddox while manipulated — and I am not saying she should necessarily have been punished; she might well have been cleared — but older Trek would likely have made the question itself part of the story: coercion, responsibility, guilt, consent, manipulation. Instead the explanation largely replaces the ethical examination.

And with Picard himself, my objection is not that he is old, traumatised or imperfect. I actually find that potentially interesting. My objection is when his established way of reasoning disappears because the plot needs him to react differently.

So no, I am not asking for morally perfect characters or consequence-free heroes.

I am asking for ethical coherence.

Old Trek could show someone doing the wrong thing. But very often, the fact that it was wrong — and why — was the story.

That is the difference I am talking about.

Exactly. And I would go even further: trust in old Trek was not sentimental or naïve. It was the consequence of ethical consistency.

The writing was so coherent that, in several stories, a character behaving differently was itself enough to suspect that something was wrong — that they had been replaced, possessed or manipulated. The audience knew their moral architecture that well. Certain choices simply would not have belonged to that person.

That is how strong the character writing was.

Now characters can suddenly act against values built over years because the plot needs conflict, and we are asked to accept this as “more realistic”.

I don’t.

For me, it is weaker writing and a poorer idea of humanity.

Old Trek imagined trust as something civilisation could actually achieve: people listened, reasoned, shared a problem, challenged each other and still trusted the other person’s integrity. Ethics was not separate from competence — it was part of competence.

Modern Trek often replaces that with suspicion, trauma, aggression and interpersonal conflict. That may resemble us today, but then what future are we actually imagining?

If centuries of progress give us better technology but essentially the same ego, distrust and emotional chaos, then the utopian idea has disappeared.

And perhaps that is the real issue: we have become so accustomed to cynicism that ethical coherence now looks unrealistic.

To me, that says more about our present than it does about old Star Trek.

That example actually reinforces my point.

Kevin’s destruction of the Husnock is not presented as acceptable or morally neutral. It is treated as horrifying, and Picard is visibly shaken by the scale of what he has done.

That is exactly the distinction I am making: old Star Trek absolutely showed people crossing terrible ethical lines, but -->>>the story knew a line had been crossed. The moral consequence was part of the episode.

My argument is not “old Trek characters were always good."

It is tha: ethics were part of the narrative structure!!

A character could fail morally, but the failure itself was examined. That is very different from normalising revenge, violence or ethical compromise as simply another aspect of character development.

Exactly. For me, Star Trek was never just science fiction. It was always a human question: what could we become if we genuinely chose to become better?

Even TOS, rough as it was, was already pushing boundaries — putting Uhura, a not only white skin and woman, on the command and imagining a future where that was simply normal. The same principle continued through the franchise: different planets and species were rarely just “aliens”; they reflected real cultures, conflicts, prejudices and political or social problems from our own world, but displaced far enough to let us examine them differently.

Even the science was treated with unusual discipline. Much of it was speculative, of course, but it was usually extrapolated from real scientific ideas rather than used as random fantasy. The strength of Star Trek was coherence — scientific, cultural, ethical and psychological.

That is why “look at what we can become” matters so much more to me than “look at what we are.”

If the future simply reproduces our present cynicism, ego, revenge and moral shortcuts with better technology, then we have advanced technologically, but not as human beings.

And Star Trek’s most radical idea was always that perhaps we could do both.

Yes sure a lot and a lot… but Seven is the clearest example for me.

In Voyager, she repeatedly learns to restrain impulse, revenge and Borg-style utilitarian logic in favour of individual rights and ethical judgement. In Picard, she becomes a vigilante and ultimately kills Bjayzl out of revenge even after Picard explicitly challenges that choice. … she changed is nto mroe seven of nibe and all the character behind…

More broadly, Picard normalises extrajudicial violence, revenge and “necessary” moral compromise much more than TNG/Voyager did. My point is not that older Trek never crossed those lines . DS9 absolutely did. The difference is that older Trek usually made crossing the line itself the ethical problem of the story.

That distinction matters to me: not “nobody ever does wrong”, but the narrative still knows that the means require moral scrutiny.

I don’t think nostalgia is the issue.

I’m not saying old Star Trek was morally pure. DS9 in particular had characters crossing serious ethical lines. My point is that the line mattered: when someone crossed it, the story examined the moral cost.

What feels different in Picard is not that it is darker. It is the loss of ethical and character coherence. Too often the characters seem to react as the plot requires, rather than from the moral architecture built around them over decades.

Seven is the clearest example for me. Of course she should change after twenty years. But moving from discipline, logic, self-control and the struggle to build an ethical individual identity toward revenge and punishment needs a convincing bridge. I don’t see enough of that bridge.

Old Trek repeatedly asked:

We can do this — but should we?

Sometimes the characters answered badly. But the consequences of that answer were part of the story.

That is what I miss. Not the 1990s. Not old sets. The coherence and the ethics.