Interesting question

[bladespark]

I was reading something that asked this, and I found it a rather interesting question. So I am asking you folks about it.

Which setting would you rather live in; Star Trek, or Star Wars?

Now, I'm not asking if you'd rather command a Federation star ship or pilot an X-wing, that's a different question entirely. I'm asking if you'd rather be an ordinary citizen of the Empire and the later restored Republic, or of the Federation. Assuming you stay yourself, keep your skills in more or less the same area, adjusted to fit the local tech base, which place would you prefer?

Interesting thought, isn't it? Because on an entertainment level, I prefer Star Wars, even with the massive drop in quality in recent years, to Star Trek. But when it comes to realistically considering the settings, I find Star Trek to be both easier to relate to, and more appealing to live in. Star Wars is essentially feudal. If you're not a ruler of some sort, you're a peasant, a non-entity. (Did you know that even Han Solo is supposed to be descended from some ruling family or other?) Star Trek is much more democratic and egalitarian, so since I'm hardly likely to become a princess or president, I'd rather live there.

Comments

[heffboom-konijn.livejournal.com]

whoa.....I just had a Clerks flask back ^ ^

thats a tough one. but I would go with Star trek due to the fact that (like Spark said) its not so feudal. while I do love star wars sooo much, unless i was a jedi. im going with star trek

[unspeakablevorn.livejournal.com]

Trek, easily.

Vorn

[beetlecat.livejournal.com]

Star Trek Hands down.

The whole idea behind it is that, in the future, everything is perfect and peaceful. War, money, religion(?) and so forth has been eliminated. People work for fun, not because they have to to survive. Yadda Yadda.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't think it's quite that utopian. Internal wars seem to have been done away with, but the Dominion War and the war with the Borg still happened.

But yeah. It is a fairly idealized setting.

[lanabananaotter.livejournal.com]

Star Wars.

I have an overwhelming urge to marry a Zabrak.

[tarathene.livejournal.com]

Definitely Star Trek, for exactly the reasons you stated. In the Star Trek universe people have tried to make things better for others. Star Wars wouldn't fit very will in a Star Trek universe, it almost requires the medieval style fantasy world but just expanded over multiple planets.

[jfoxfire.livejournal.com]

i like to live in Star Wars i love those lightsabers

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

While I much prefer Star Wars as entertainment, I'd have to pick Star Trek. For average Joe Blow citizen, Star Trek is a peaceful, easy to live in society. What we see of Star Wars is filled with conflict, wars, evils such as slavery, genocides, and so on and so forth.

[streakthetiger.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, Star Wars. I don't like phasers. :P

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Do you own a gun in this universe?

[streakthetiger.livejournal.com]

No O_o

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Then why would the Star Trek universe having phasers make any difference? If you in this universe don't own a gun, your Star Trek self wouldn't own a phaser. (And your Star Wars self wouldn't get a light saber either.)

[streakthetiger.livejournal.com]

I know. But I don't like phasers.
Blasters > phasers

:P

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Heh. So you would honestly rather be a peasant in a monarchy/dictatorship than a free citizen of a democracy, because the corrupt police in one place have blasters, and the law abiding cops in the other carry phasers? Even though you personally wouldn't own either of these?

I'm not asking which setting you LIKE, I'm asking which setting YOU your real actual self would want to LIVE in.

[streakthetiger.livejournal.com]

Mhmm.

Besides, i'm only 19. I have my whole life ahead of me. I could grow up to be a bounty hunter. Then i'd get to carry a blaster.
What kinda bounty hunter uses a phaser? ^_-

[ekmahal.livejournal.com]

Neither - Firefly universe!!

Seriously, Star Trek. For the same reasons.

[world-wanderer.livejournal.com]

Firefly would have to be on the list, yes.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'd want to live in the Firefly setting, although admittedly I've only seen the movie. But between an egalitarian democracy, an evil empire replaced by a suspiciously monarchy-like Republic, and a corporate oligarchy, well... I'm still taking the egalitarians.

[doran-eirok.livejournal.com]

The series is very much worth seeing too if you get a chance. In the series the general feel of the setting I tended to get was that if you didn't live under rich and fortunate parents on one of the core worlds, you ended up on a colony that was roughing it in a way much like the wild west days. Which still holds on to plenty of romanticism, but like Star Wars, the average joe probably doesn't have it too great. It's easy to think living in Star Wars would be great because you can be a Jedi, and to think living in the wild west would be great because you can be.. John Wayne or something. But in both these cases, the overwhelming majority of people wouldn't be. You'd probably be a poor frontiersman trying desperately to do enough of whatever you did to make a living, and hoping with all your heart that you didn't get hit by bandits or Reavers or pirates or thugs or what have you.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Ack, though firefly beats both in terms of rockingness, I wouldn't want to live there unless I lived on a core world. Most of the outer ring planets live in 19th century conditions at best!

[world-wanderer.livejournal.com]

Unlike everyone else, I'll have to go with Star Wars. I think that for the most part, Trek shows the bright side. Every society has a dark undercurrent, though in Trek this seems to show most on the frontiers with teh wars with other powers. Also, I think that the socialist society in Trek is too idealistic. Everything is institutionalized out the ying yang. I couldn't do engineering without going to school, and probably a school that would drive me nuts. I wouldn't think of going crazy on everyone, but boring classes might drive me to get a phaser and add a splash of color to everyone's lives, if they don't shoot me up with unobtanium first.

Star Wars however, puts the evil up front and personal. Once you get past the idea that evil exists, you can deal with it. It shows you how bad things can be, so when you find something good, it stands out like a beacon. The universe leads to a richer, though a bit darker, life I think.

The other thing is my engineering. Much like Anakin, I probably would have been picked up early as a perceptive and tech-savvy youngster, though probably not as a slave or Jedi. A long time ago, there were people that could just do stuff that we now pay people dozens an hour, with PHDs and worse, with hours and hours of class time to make it work. I'd find myself in the junkyard or wherever very early, much like Anakin, and by the time I would have graduated from high school, I'd be an accomplished mechanic and technician. Probably working on a smuggler somewhere, but I'd much prefer that to the equivalent to Trek. Much richer.

[thalass.livejournal.com]

I agree! Too many rules, too much red tape, not enough tinkering!

[world-wanderer.livejournal.com]

That's it in a nutshell. And what's with the user pic? I can't quite make out that middle word.

[web-dragon.livejournal.com]

Star trek, if i could choose to live on DS9

[doran-eirok.livejournal.com]

Thought-provoking question. ^..^

For reasons widely agreed upon already, I'd go with Star Trek. The Star Wars universe is generally shown as being a lot more gritty and rough around the edges, which makes for potentially great fiction but actually living in it as an average joe and not a Jedi or somewhat seems like it would be a pretty desperate day to day struggle.

Trek has always shown an idealized and utopian future, which I'm sure has its down sides. Trek has shown us the Federation viewpoint which is always nice and fluffy, and always makes me wonder 'what's going on in the REST of the galaxy?' Sometimes we've gotten to see the more gritty unfortunate parts, but even so. In Trek you know that at least there is that element of a structured society that really is doing pretty well for itself, that seems to have a pretty good balance between stability and freedom. Which is more than Star Wars usually has shown us.

I might need counseling to avoid holaddiction though if I had access to a good dragony program. ^^

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. Given the possibilities, I could pick the Trek universe for the holodeck alone!

[doran-eirok.livejournal.com]

Hehe. It's a big pull, admittedly! The average person prolly doesn't have their very own in their spare room, but there must be civilian accessible ones that you could rent time in. Like paying to go to a gym. I'd lose many paychecks to that... or.. however the Federation allegedly functions without actual money.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

*snickers* The no money thing is highly ridiculous. As the failure of communism demonstrated, too many people just aren't capable of hard work when their only motivation is supporting society. We need personal rewards, we're wired for them. So if you don't use outright money, you have to get something for your efforts, which something has to be scaled to the effort and skill put in, or at least perceived to be so scaled.

[tarathene.livejournal.com]

I'll poke some of the people who have likely read all of the Star Trek books, see what they say. You might not have to actually do much of anything unless you lived on a starship or research station or an outpost world of some kind. People on Earth, do they actually need to do anything or do they just get X number of uses of the replicator for food a day and have a place to live and bathe and such?

[silveradept]

Captain Picard's family still grows and bottles wine. So there are things to do, no doubt, even on Earth.

[tarathene.livejournal.com]

They do, but do they have to do so? Wine falls into the category of things that even now is usually considered a luxury item, and most things in the Star Trek universe, in the heart of the Federation, are probably luxury items if they don't come out of a replicator. People will pay more for things that a person actually spent time on, etc.

[silveradept]

That's true. I would assume that somewhere, even if it is only in collecting the huge amounts of energy the Federation must go through daily, that someone does something that is tantamount to "essential work". Or overseeing the machines that do the collecting. Or something like that. So maybe, maybe not. Perhaps everyone does have to do some sort of work to receive their ration. I don't know.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Agreed with you - Star Trek all the way. Star Wars appears to be a rather unstable universe with lots of upheaval and less than ideal living conditions for the man on the street.

Star Trek, however, is stable, advanced and generally civilised.

[thalass.livejournal.com]

While I agree that Star Trek would be much safer, more stable and such than Star Wars, the type of society the Federation is would tend towards overbearing beurocracy, and too many rules. And while they are quite free, Federation citizens are still restricted by red tape in what they are allowed to do. I probably haven't seen enough Trek, but it strikes me as a society where you have to fill forms out in triplicate to do just about anything, unless you happen to be a starship captain who knows the admiralty personally... :P

Like world_wanderer, I'd go with Star Wars. While it would not be anywhere near as safe as a Federation world, wherever I end up could well give me much more freedom - depending on the world. (Star Wars seems to have a much greater variety than ST - especially post-Empire. I could end up on Tatooine, or I could end up on Coruscant, or somewhere inbetween.

Either way, I would end up as a starship engineer, who is the son of a starship engineer, who is the son of a landspeeder engineer... :P

Thus, I would be happy. Moreso than a Federation world I think.

Then again, this could be my inner Browncoat/Freeholder talking, while the rest of me screams through a gag "live long and prosper! Live long and prospeerrrrr!"

:D

[malakim2099.livejournal.com]

Well, I do own a Lightsaber... so does that mean I'd get a working one instead of a replica? *grins*

If so, put me down for Star Wars... otherwise, I'll echo the general Trek Sentiment. And don't Trek people get paid in "credits" anyway? I admit that my Trek-fu is weak lately.

[aoanla.livejournal.com]

Star Trek is, itself, apparently somewhat confused about the existence of money, or otherwise. The most commonly expressed concept, though, is that The Federation doesn't have a concept of "money" in the sense that modern societies do. On the other hand, lots of other cultures still do, and it seems that even the Federation has some concept of being paid, albeit at an abstract level. There's an aside in a DS9 episode that implies that, for example, Star Fleet employees get a certain allocation of "transporter credits" for personal use each month...

[reaverta.livejournal.com]

So rather than dollars, we're talking closer to the spiritual equivalent of food stamps?

[silveradept]

As I am now, I would probably not exist in the Federation world, unless for some reason, somewhere, there's an outpost that still needs a librarian, and even more so, a children's librarian. We see precious little of the interactions that I would have. Regarding which universe I would choose, it would be heavily predicated as to where I was in that universe when I got the chance to set up shop. In the Federation, Trek holds sway, but if I'm in the middle of an occupation or oppression, or on the run from large menaces like the Borg, then Star Wars might look better.

[lightgreendryad.livejournal.com]

I considered the question before I read your opinion. Then, I read your opinion. You and I have the same opinion for the same reasons. I'd probably also be a commoner, and for commoners, I'd rather be in Star Trek.

[lightgreendryad.livejournal.com]

Aw, man. After reading all the comments, (which I was looking forward to, after I'd posted my initial response), I wonder where my role as an artist would be. The species and cultures and societies seem so much more mixed in The Galactic Empire, which inevitably be a great place for an artist's ideas to grow. However, the religious side and maternal side of me would probably prefer the Trek world, just because of the world's stability.

Surely there's an artist's colony in Trek where Just'In and I can live? Maybe even a nudist's/artist's colony? I find that ideal.