The current trend in American sf towards quite militaristically themed programmes is unfortunate perhaps (a little too rah-rah army) but unavoidable given the leanings of the U.S govt of late (and the so-called "War on Terror").
(Is it weird to blockquote yourself?)
Anyways, I guess I must have picked up on this vibe from the ether as this morning I found a link to a blog post (http://barnesm.journalspace.com/) from a few days ago on this very topic. (Which may or may not do a much better job on it than I did :)
Another example of how our scif-fi, and perhaps these are a reflection of societal changes, is the attitudes held by the protagonists are moving towards a more 'total war' mind set.
In Star Trek: the Next generation ' I, Borg' (1992) the federation is facing an enemy (The Borg) that is threatening to wipe it out, (- although in spite of this the population of the federation never seems to drop below billions of beings), when the Enterprise crew develop a computer virus to infect their pet Borg 'Hugh' and send him back to the collective this virus would wipe the Borg out. Do they choose to eliminate the 'greatest threat the federation has ever faced', NO of course not, everyone in the crew from the captain down are bleating about stuff like: Hugh's now an individual, we don't have the right to wipe out a species…etc.
Now contrast this with
Battlestar Galactica: reimaged 'A measure of salvation' (2007) where humanity is down to less that 50,000 and the Cyclons hold the numbers, the weapons and the reproductive advantage, when a way is found that if they kill the infected cyclon prisoners when they are in range of a resurrection ship when these cyclons ('skin jobs' as they call them, thank you Blade Runner) download they will infect the entire race, (trust me it makes sense in the series) and die. Both the president Roslin and Commander of the Military Adama hesitate all of 2 seconds before they put in motion the plan for Genocide, any hand wringing, any 'do we have the right', they initiate the plan as soon as possible.
Interesting reading
