This isn’t a Democracy

[Shada Dukal]

I was recently on a small Trek forum. Really small, no more than 10 people were active, mainly admins and their cronies. They were chewing over obvious things, exchanging platitudes, politely agreeing with each other and patting each other reassuringly on the back. Pretty boring but hardly untypical of a closed community. The usual fan boy blabber and franchise lip service. I did not expect much but from time to time, I pop up at such places in search of real Cardassians no matter how slim the chances might be.

Needless to say, I boldly went into discussions and stretched them to a point where no one has gone before. Hey, that is me, after all.

No franchise or show are sacred to me, I just analyze, dissect, deconstruct and comment on the nuts and bolts, so naturally the fan boys did not welcome my views, I was not optimistic enough and did not tell them what they wanted to hear. Since Trek communities claim to be very tolerant and open-minded, I was curious to see how tolerant these Trekkies were. The results were hilarious.

One of the admins was a posting machine, I have never seen a forum member with more than 25 000 posts – posting trivialities and silly gifs for the sake of posting, petulant like a child that could not have it his way. I guess the whole forum exists only because of him and his buddies never say anything he does not agree with. He routinely accused me of trolling when he did not like my arguments or wanted me to leave the thread.

The admin had several cronies and one of them was a psycho who constantly derailed threads because he was fixated on xenophobia and Western values. On one thread, he declared jihad on the entire Islamic civilization and stated that each person of Muslim origin was a potential terrorist and the entire Islamic culture consisted of barbarians who beat and raped women and threw homosexuals off roofs.

He also claimed that the Western civilization was inherently better than all other cultures that had ever existed on Earth and he was infuriated when I informed him that there were 196 countries in the world today and I was not part of the Western civilization. He simply declared that my Balkan origin (I am a Bulgarian) prevented me from having the correct historical perspective. Some people are born on the right side of history, others not.

It is true that many people in Western Europe are really afraid of the wave of migrants flooding their countries so I can relate to their fears. It is only human to shun otherness, to be suspicious of newcomers who are so different from you. You don’t like them – that is fine, close your borders, if you have borders and the guts to do it. Resorting to helpless hatred when the politicians do nothing, the police force is toothless and the citizens can’t control their own ruling bodies does not make any sense. Those migrants make a full use of the blind spots in the welfare systems, come from war zones, have grown up in failed sates among bombshells so they definitely don’t respect Western values. Such people respect only force and authority but the Western countries have been living in Paradise at the expense of someone else’s hell for centuries and can’t say goodbye to their own hypocrisy. How much do equality and human rights cost when the otherness is at your very throat? Not much, I guess. These are the first abstract nouns to be thrown overboard when the ship starts sinking.

However, pointing your finger at whole cultures, ethnic groups, and countries per se is something else. If this paranoid, slobbering shit flied at a right-wing forum of xenophobes, racists, and white supremacists, I would not be surprised at all. I would not even bother – such people exist and they have the right to say what they think even if I don’t like it.

The absurd was that it was happening on a Trek forum – you know, those New-Age daydreamers and sci-fi nerds who believe in humanism, peaceful space exploration, optimistic futurism, IDIC or shed crocodile tears over fictional evils and storms in a teacup. It was happening with the silent endorsement of the mods who looked the other way when the wacko blurted out bigotries against particular ethnic groups or glorified the accomplishments of the Arian stock. As long as he supported Afro-Americans leads in movies and LGBT or feminist representations in pop culture, he passed for progressive and could freely hate the rest of mankind. The guy is as nutty as a fruit cake but all moderating efforts were aimed at picking on me over rumors, speculations, wishful thinking and personal likes and dislikes.

As you probably guess, they banned me because the defender of the Western civilization (of all people) screeched that I was insulting his beloved franchise. The admin gladly jumped at the opportunity. Another admin came to rescue. The optimism in Trek was restored, the nasty alien was zapped. A real peace-enforcing operation carried out by the book. At first, they tried to censor my posts but I managed to insert a stinging remark in one of them so they were forced to investigate the matter and hid all controversial threads in a special section that was inaccessible to ordinary members. Finally, I received this on my registration e-mail:

Hi Shada Dukal,
You have been warned by (admin’s name) for a comment made in a topic, (link to a topic)
Reason: Warning
Content: (link to a topic)
Penalty: • Given 1 points which will never expire.
• Content moderated - Indefinitely

Note: For trolling and for questioning board policy and the decisions of the moderators. This isn't a democracy. You're a GUEST at (the name of the forum). Please try to remember that.


I assured them that I had never been a guest anywhere. I was either a member or not. I told them to delete my profile and expressed my lack of interest in their message board. Pay attention to this sentence in the note, “This isn’t a democracy.”

You see, Trek isn’t a democracy. I really laughed my ass off when I read it. This is the most sincere and relevant insight that the verbose admin has ever produced. I appreciate it as much as the reply that the Romulan bitch running another forum once sent me.

I have always known it. In fact, what I love about Trek is its unadulterated Cold War chauvinism, First-World self-righteousness, and ill-disguised interventionalism. No other franchise has captured the latent mainstream attitudes so well and has channeled them into a sugary utopia founded on we-vs.-they thinking. Trek documents the fears, hopes, and the guilty conscience of the Western civilization. It is basically “the pioneer” trope – the cowboy who once conquered the Wild West armed with the Manifest Destiny mutated into a brave captain who conquers the space with the Prime Directive. And the best part is that the blame can be shifted onto the aliens.

In space, all warriors are cold warriors. Fortunately, Cardassia isn’t a democracy, either.

Note: I am spearing the nicks of the participants in this farce and the title of the forum itself because I know that there are normal people on that forum whose input I really enjoyed and I am sure that the normal people who like sci-fi are much more than the 5 zealots who dominate the threads.

[Gul Khold]

It does not surprise me at all, considering that I did read some discussions in such forums.

It is also one reason why I distanced myself from the Trekkie community at large. They fall either on this category or on the category of, well, obsessed fanboys. With a few Cardassians in-between.

Well, I think that, on such people, the phrase "You are like the Borg" fits well, don't you agree?

[Shada Dukal]

Well, they are people who don’t make difference between a headcanon, an opinion, a speculation, an extrapolation from information sources or an argumentation. They approach it too personally and emotionally, I guess. This really baffles me – it is just a flickering image on a screen, fictional problems, and venues. You turn off the TV or the computer and it is gone. Nothing real is at stake.

However, how exactly one’s headcanon or speculations are more correct than another’s is beyond me. I can’t understand why fan boys assume that every person who has watched a show or a movie becomes a die-hard fan who should necessarily like everything in the said show or movie. In any case, for most of them the line between fiction and reality is really blurred. What is more, most of them are people who can’t handle even a cashier in the local supermarket if they are shortchanged, I don’t think that they have ever won one real argument. Too soft, obsessed with oversensitivity.

Yes, there was such unanimity of opinions that it was almost frightening. Hive mind. Total assimilation. Still, it was also funny to watch this collective in action, how eager they were to please each other.

[Gul Khold]

It kinda amazes and puzzles me at the same time wheneaver I bump into die-hard fans of, well, anything. You see, like you said, that is completely fictional. It is understandable to see political, ideological or even religious zealots... But shows/films/novel/celebrity zealots? That's... just odd. Perhaps modern psychology should study this phenomena.

Haha, and I thought I was the only one that imagined that XD

"We are the Boring. Your posts and opinions shall be adapted to serve our own. Argumenting is futile." - whatchu think? XD

[Shada Dukal]

Yes, escapism and alienation, no anchors in real life, this is what psychologists say. It is kind of sad, people who can’t communicate very well, they consider all real people not good enough because they are not like the heroes in the movies.

In fact, I suppose that the “ordinary” members are carefully handpicked, only people ready to fit the matrix. There is something else too – It is impossible to make 20 posts a day for years on end as a hobby. This takes too much time so I guess some of the mods are paid. The official forums receive support from franchises and media companies so these corporate shills keep them free of criticism towards franchises, moviemakers, and shows. It looks like an innocent fan initiative but in fact, this is how franchises guide the public opinion and create a favorable impression of their products – by using fan communities as a fifth column.

Exactly, the posts and opinions serve corporate advertising. The Boring need their perfection undisturbed and unquestioned. Individuality kills perfection.

[Gul Khold]

It makes sense, what you said about being paid. Though those people can also be moochers living on parent's backs or simply extremely obsessive...

...I wish I could have means to further study that, but alas, I cannot spy their real lives nor trust what they say XD

[Gazomg]

most moderators are assholes, the sort of people in real life that are clampers, traffic wardens, tax inspectors etc.
The sort of mentally stunted people who pine that they were born too late to be a real nazi

The sort of people who think they can control people and at the same time get offended by typed words on a screen by someone they dont even know