Why does the Terran Empire use the Hunger Games to choose a new emperor and how is one chosen as a competitor?
Is being a pretty 15-19 year old the primary prerequisite?
I'm hesitant to give the Section 31 writers this much credit, but a recurring theme from Star Trek (especially since TNG), is the notion that people are a product of the cultures they come from, and asks the question of if they can grow beyond it.
This move showed us that Terran empire causes suffering for everyone, even for the top leaders. The system is working for nobody and yet they are all stuck within it. The system of abusing children to choose a new leader seems engineered to make sure that nobody can escape.
Georgiou, somehow, escaped. And now she's (in her own words) "a monster with a conscious (ie: useless)" in a system that has no need for monsters. She felt useless to change the empire, and useless to do anything once she found it no longer surrounding her.
That sidesteps the question of why all of these comically evil people are okay with using this arbitrary contest to determine succession, instead of the usual route of organically murdering each other until someone emerges who is good enough at disposing of potential assassins that they keep the throne for a while?
I didn't watch the movie, so I'm probably missing something. Did Georgiou also have to deal with a bunch of normal assassination plots after officially gaining the throne? Or are we to assume that by virtue of winning this contest, she is widely seen as too dangerous for anyone to attempt to usurp?
The Macguffin of the story, the Godsend, was a built by Georgiou as a deterrent against anyone trying to overthrow her. She says there were always plotters and coups.
That sidesteps the question of why all of these comically evil people are okay with using this arbitrary contest to determine succession, instead of the usual route of organically murdering each other until someone emerges who is good enough at disposing of potential assassins that they keep the throne for a while?
I'm saying they're not ok with it, but they are trapped in the current system. It's like, an allegory, maaan.
I didn’t watch the movie, so I’m probably missing something. Did Georgiou also have to deal with a bunch of normal assassination plots after officially gaining the throne? Or are we to assume that by virtue of winning this contest, she is widely seen as too dangerous for anyone to attempt to usurp?
Sort of the latter, which is kind of the central plot device.
It’s very unsatisfying.
An empire overflowing with ambitious and unscrupulous climbers who have all decided to allow young Georgiou to have the crown.
Ya let’s make the unhinged evil empire very civil and obedient so our protagonist actually back into the throne instead of actively seizing it. How convenient.
Ultimately it feels like they want to have their cake and eat it too: Georgiou is the baddest bitch, but also she was just trying to survive man! She cried when she murdered her own family, under coercion and duress!
I guess I liked her better when she was bonafide evil.
I've always thought that the Terran Empire is inherently abusive, and that Georgiou is best used as the ultimate nature vs. nurture case study.
In that sense, I was glad to see some aspects of her younger life explored. I find this "Hunger Games"-esque concept at least more interesting than the "revenge-seeking ex-lover" part of it, which was a lot less compelling to me.
I appreciate your thoughtful take. Maybe these are unavoidable contradictions when the simple premise of evil twins is stretched too far.
I could see it as part of a Tetrarchy type system. For periods during the Roman Empire there wasn’t a single Emperor there were 4. A junior (Caesar) and senior (Augustus) emperor for the Western and Eastern empires.
The Roman Empire’s government had two major related problems. It never established a stable and reliable means of succession and because of that the Emperor couldn’t delegate major problems to anyone else because that person would become a threat to overthrow the Emperor. The Tetrarchy was an attempted solution. Two emperor’s would share power and have junior colleagues that they could delegate tasks to who would eventually succeed them. It didn’t really work out and only lasted about 30 years before Constantine made himself sole Emperor.
The Terran Empire would clearly face similar problems with regards to succession. I could see an Emperor setting up a system where a junior Emperor was chosen by the Hunger Games method. I also wouldn’t expect it to last.
In another timeline, the two-part pilot of the Section 31 series would just be Mirror Universe Hunger Games 😥
I'm guessing that this is something they do if the previous emperor dies of natural causes or willingly abdicates.
I can't remember how many candidates they said there were, but I assume each one is sponsored by some kind of nobility within the Empire.
With both The Hunger Games and the Terrans being inspired by the Roman Empire, I didn't think it was entirely out of left field (with the caveat that the Mirror Universe is a very silly place).
In DIS, it's stated that Starfleet
discovered a chimeric strain on the subatomic level in the Terran stem cell, implying that this could explain the Terran inclination towards malevolence.
Georgiou described the Terrans as "untroubled by pesky motivations", other than revenge. Kovich observed that they created the Terran Empire for no particular reason beyond simply feeling like it.
So it's possible (and on-screen appearances don't really seem to dispute this) that Terrans are just mean and, subsequently, emotionally immature leading to the Hunger Games-esque line of succession you're describing.