Is this my nerdiest post? Yes. Anyway,
The Star Trek wiki had something interesting…
Paul Schneider modeled the Romulans on the ancient Romans, naming the species’ homeworlds after the mythical founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. “It was a matter of developing a good Romanesque set of admirable antagonists that were worthy of Kirk,” Schneider related. “I came up with the concept of the Romulans which was an extension of the Roman civilization to the point of space travel, and it turned out quite well.” (Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 34) D.C. Fontana reckoned that Schneider basing the aliens on the pre-existing Roman civilization was the cause for the writer receiving insufficient credit for creating the Romulans. (“Balance of Terror” Starfleet Access, TOS Season 1 Blu-ray) Gene Roddenberry, interested in ancient Rome himself, approved of the initial depiction of the Romulan species. “He loved Paul’s having endowed the enemy-Romulans with the militaristic character of the ancient Romans,” wrote John D.F. Black and Mary Black. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 11, p. 19) Roddenberry’s original concept of the Romulans, however, was that they represented 1960s’ Chinese Communists.
Yes, Romulans are somewhat based on the Roman Empire and are xenophobic conquerers, but Westerners often ignorantly attribute these traits to communist countries anyway.
Then there is the Klingons, again, the Klingons are nothing like communists, (they’re a patriarchal empire) and yet I’ve seen people say they were based on the Soviets.
So what do you think?
I’ve never once thought of them as a stand in for a nation, so much as stand ins for archetypes of human flaws. Klinks with their fascistic war mongering, worship of the military/state, mythology, etc. Romulans that operate with a sense of cloak and dagger manipulation. It’s the sly trickster and the bullish brute.
Now the Ferengi… Like… Was Rodenberry antisemitic?
Edit: I picked it up the term “Klink” from formerly playing Star Trek Online (come to think of it, I played with some chuds). As some others have pointed out, this is clearly a slur of the fictional race. While it’s not hurting the non-existent Klingons, the concept of slurs finding a way into our fictional vocabulary is clearly shows how fascistic ways of thinking can permiate our culture. Not only that, but Klingons can be a rhetorical stand in for real peoples to marginalize and malign. Unless there’s a consensus that it should be deleted, I’m going to leave it up for now. I think of it as a call to be vigilant against how these larger systems can colonize our own ways of thinking.
no, they thought the ferengi were going to be the new klingons, and most of the grasping at antisemitism is from DS9, which Armin Shimerman (Quark) denies, after Gene died.
I thought the writers on DS9 said they specifically set out to flesh out ferengi and distance them from what they saw as uncomfortably close to stereotypes?
They did, Armin Shimmerman and Max Grodenchek (Rom) are Jewish and quite a few guest ferengi actors were as well. There was an intended effort there.
That’s good to hear they were trying to un-flatten them. OG Trek had some… Issues. Their heart seemed to be in the right place, but it was def colored by the times.
Did you just invent a slur for Klingons?
kl**k is a slur
I didn’t invent it, I picked it up from formerly playing Star Trek Online. Upon retrospect, though it is a fictional race, a ehem “nick name” of a fictional race that could be a stand in for any number of actual peoples is problematic. Seems to me that this is an artifact of the larger cultural influence that fascism has on us. That said, I feel I should leave it up as a case study/reference of such things. Unless we come to a consensus that it should be taken down.
that term for klingons is way too close to a real slur to be ok
Oh shit, didn’t think of that lol. I used to play Star Trek Online and it kind of found it’s way into my vocab.
idk im just some cracker