Are the Maquis doing the right thing?
Thanks for the lively discussion all! My take is that the sci fi elements mean you can’t cut and paste their experiences onto our morality exactly, but it makes the feeling of conflict relatable, at least emotionally.
In a fully-automated luxury communist utopia, the Maquis are selfish assholes. Clinging to a planet because of the inconvenience of having to relocate. A planet which was never theirs to give or take in the first place. They talk a big talk about being “farmers who made something of the land,” and maybe that’s true. But they have replicators; farming is a hobby, not a livelihood.
Human, Vulcan, Bolian, etc. Maquis could lead happy, safe lives if only they were willing to lead happy, safe lives. They are not oppressed; they are not fighting in a righteous cause.
Bajorans, such as Ro, have different motivations. Bajor is not a party to the Federation-Cardassian Treaty, and Bajoran colonies were not sacrificed. Ro’s motivations are sympathy for the Maquis and hatred for Cardassians. Understandable and relatable motivations, but not heroic.
The way you put all that is extremely gross. The same kind of reasoning could be applied to displacing indigenous peoples of North America from their land and forcing them to live in a modern city with a basic income.
Utopia for you isn’t Utopia for everyone. People should have a right to self determination. If people want to farm when replicators are available, I think it’s wrong to tell them not to farm.
The Maquis didn’t start the war with the Cardassians. They had nothing to do with the Federation’s treaty negotiations. The Federation traded away their planets without even giving them a seat at the table.
That’s an awful comparison. The Maquis are not a separate, independent culture being dominated or obliterated by another. They were already Federation citizens, born on Federation worlds into Federation culture and society, subject to Federation laws, educated by their own parents and family in Federation values, and the Federation enabled and supported their colonization efforts. The Maquis are a product of the Federation’s culture not a victim of it.
And they do have self-determination. They can stay in the DMZ on their planets if they want to, but there are consequences of that choice. And if they do leave the DMZ then they would not even have change their preferred lifestyle. There are any number of uninhabited planets they could relocate to, found new colonies, etc. They have so many options and opportunities open to them that their grievances, however valid they would be under real-world circumstances, seem childish and selfish particularly when the alternative is continuing a decades-long war.
But they did know the border was in dispute, and had been in dispute for decades, before they colonized the area. They can’t feign surprise that the border might move if and when the dispute ended.
They did have a seat at the table. They just didn’t get their way. That sometimes happens, and it doesn’t mean the process was unfair.
fucking a-men!