I haven't posted in a while, oops.

[skywaterblue]

First, if you have yet to see it: I made this awesome comic about why the Founding Fathers kind of suck.

Or at least my position is that the Founding Fathers can hardly be called on to help us sort out healthcare, as a. they were not exactly a monolithic bloc on thoughts about the responsibilities of a Federal government and b. none of them are exactly equipped for the 21st century, if you know what I mean.

Anyway: here are also, some thoughts on Ben Sisko. Namely, they were kind of all over the map on his family history, weren't they? Joseph Sisko being alive was a retcon they kind of barely get away with because Sisko doesn't exactly refer to his father in the past tense, just the heart attack. But then they go off and decide he's half-Prophet, which is weird because: dude, Ben Sisko has siblings? You know? Judith who lives in Oregon.

Just sponsored by the fact that I randomly hit his biography on Memory Alpha and was shocked to be reminded that in addition to Judith he also has two unnamed brothers (!)

Comments

[fashionbeast.livejournal.com]

The best part about the founding fathers is that they knew that they didn't have a perfect system set up, and that they couldn't predict the future, so they create a government that could change and adapt. That's the whole point of a democracy, the goverment is able to adapt to the needs of the people.

We're kind of unique in this respect. Britain has had a number of violent revolutions over it's history in order to effect change, and France was pretty much in non-stop revolution from the late 1700s until the Belle Epoque. ("Sacre chat! We are not slaughtering ourselves and/or Prussians for once in our lives! Let's get drunk after painting class and fuck!")

Meanwhile, over here, Charles Stross kind of nails us to the wall on the unspoken American undercurrent of hatred for the poor.

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

This, hard. Stross is right. I always think America is like, one good swill at the voting booth away from fascism, though.

(I'm being perfectly serious: I know what fascism is, the elements of fascism in the Republican party are seriously creepy.)

[ahkna.livejournal.com]

I suppose since Ben thought his step-mother was his real mother that his siblings technically would only be his half-siblings? But he would have grown up thinking they were related by both their mother and father.

Although that sounds somehow implausible.

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

So Sarah ditches Joseph with baby Ben, and somehow Joseph finds and marries another woman and makes babies with her so that baby Sisko never has reason to doubt?

Yeah, it seems kind of skeptical, but we don't actually know enough (in my opinion) about families on Earth in the 24th century to judge. Maybe that kind of thing is common.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

The Sisko has siblings? Colour me shocked. I really didn't know that. Is that mentioned in s1 (the only season I don't have on dvd, though I have some tapes)?

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

I knew about the sister, we've seen her in the books before and she gets mentioned more than once in passing.

Apparently the brothers are mentioned in "Paradise" and never again...

[orbitaldiamonds.livejournal.com]

Excellent webcomic!

And good point about Ben Sisko. Though he could just be like me and refer to his half-siblings as simply "sister" and "brothers."

[skywaterblue.livejournal.com]

It's been a while since I watched that episode, a couple of months, but I think how it goes down is that Joesph never told him that his step-mother wasn't his biomother. Though how he got away with that in the 24th century, when you can DNA test with the household tricorder, I do not know.

I'm glad you enjoyed the comic!

[orbitaldiamonds.livejournal.com]

Hm, maybe it just didn't occur to him to. *shrugs*

I sure did. :)