yes, it would be boring 💯

I think the other major challenge of writing sci-fi that is sometimes overlooked or misunderstood by fans is that the best (IMO, obvs.) sci-fi has always been less about “exciting things happening in space” and more about

  1) examining current society and the human condition using a canvas that removes many of the constraints of (say) historical fiction and allowing for more subtle use of allegory^ to get people to think about things in new ways because they’re not being channeled into routine patterns by the stories conforming to existing or historical reality or prejudices – the most obvious example is perhaps “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”, which delivers an anti-racism message inside the Trojan horse of starships & aliens & spandex (oh my!) 🙃, and

  2) presenting possible better futures for consideration – sometimes futures radically different from our current reality – without having to carry all the sociopolitical baggage of the usual non-sci-fi discourse of the day

^ OK, often not terribly subtle 🤪

/me sends link to my wife with “oh no…!”

then: “I really don’t think I need these”

then: “OK, maybe the spoon rest & oven mitt…”

🤪

“Lt. Plaice Holdor at your service!” 🫡

yes, Star Trek has always been like this – but so is every other show on TV, and I think that the reason we sometimes feel this way about Star Trek in particular is because we’ve come to idealise the Federation and think of its people as highly competent, the “best of the best”

all fiction requires a degree of suspension of disbelief, sci-fi perhaps quadruply so. many shows not only proceed at “the speed of plot”, but also often the answer to the question “why on Alpha Braga IV would you do that??!?!?” is “because narrative imperative” 💁‍♀️

I, too, get frustrated by some of the very obviously bad SOPs in Starfleet, like

– routinely sending all your senior officers on the same away mission & leaving the starship under the command of a lieutenant

– having senior officers on an away mission that includes a tactical security team & allowing the senior officers to lead the assault (see also, every cop show ever)

– not having standing orders that “if something seems even the slightest bit weird (e.g. you’re having visual or auditory hallucinations, events seeming to repeat themselves, etc.) then you must report it immediately”

– etc., etc., etc.

and I do also think that some specific episodes or recurring tropes exhibit particularly lazy writing in this regard, when a few tweaks could deliver the same outcome / message without requiring characters to do boneheaded things that are beneath their skill & intelligence, and I’d love to see some more instances where the writers do a bit more work to solve the more difficult writing challenge of having the characters exhibit the highest levels of competence & good procedures / tactics / strategies but still end up in situations that they then need to work together (and with others) to solve. it’s not like “superior alien intelligence / technology / resources exceeds the capability of Starfleet personnel operating at maximum efficiency, but our heroes manage to prevail anyway” isn’t a rich vein to mine

but as someone else has commented, the story – and in Star Trek’s case, very frequently the message – is the point, not so much the details of how we got there

so we watch anyway, and we enjoy immensely, and we love deeply, and we forgive the writers (usually) 🖖