(Sorry, I just geek out about Star Trek and the real life subtext that applies to the era when the show is being made.)

Nowadays, we have this huge world wide network where people can learn about stuff that happens in other countries almost instantaneously and look up any information they want. Whereas in the '60s, that would've been hard to imagine. Second contact seems more feasible to audiences with the Internet.

By the time of Lower Decks, they show that such trickery is much easier to spot, and they can more easily double check with headquarters to make sure that these orders were legit.

And that speaks to a real life subtext of the difference between when TOS and TWoK were made vs. nowadays...

In The Wrath of Khan, space station Regula I gets a message from a brainwashed Chekov saying that the USS Reliant should take over the Genesis Device and the orders were made by Admiral Kirk. The Regula I crew had no way of easily checking to make sure, and just would've had to assume that was true.

Agreed. And it speaks to the difference in technology between the 2200s and the 2300s, too (and the 1960s and 2020s for that matter). They didn't have as wide a communications array due to not having as many ships or outposts, so it would've been harder to check in on planets they'd already visited.

It makes too much sense. The big leagues in Star Trek explore so many strange new worlds that they don't have time to check back on them, so they leave and just assume everything will work itself out. Something would've happened to ensure the necessity of second contact, and that something was Khan.

So as I was watching the movie last night, I quipped, "None of this would have happened if the USS Cerritos had showed up for second contact."

And then I stopped and was like, "...Holy crap. This is probably why second contact became a thing by the time of Lower Decks, isn't it?" 🤯

And both of these songs also spotlight that the reason cities are so great are because of their diversity and how you can meet so many different people of different backgrounds and perspectives living there.

Which... also spotlights why country prefers small towns, doesn't it? 🥴

YEAH

It's funny, BTW. For as much as modern country music simps over small towns being "authentic America" or whatever, two of the best country songs from the 21st century, "City of Immigrants" by Steve Earle and "Hate Lives in a Small Town" by Aurelio Voltaire, are about cities.

Ah yes, my favorite month, Dismember.

(As someone who lives on a mountain road in rural Virginia, I DO NOT get modern country music's praise of small towns and rural living, so apologies if I'm rather opinionated about it. 😅)

That's what I figured, yeah. Any true country/punk crossovers in the 2020s would have to be more akin to outlaw country and the genre's original working class roots, and would also have to be alternative enough that Nashville couldn't get upset about it.

Yeah, I genuinely do think that 9/11 was the turning point. There was "patriotic" (read: nationalist) country music before then, but after the country music establishment (read: Clear Channel) banned the Dixie Chicks for speaking out against Bush, it basically leaned fully into nationalism.

(Writing "folk punk" instead of "country punk" was on me, NGL. I was INCREDIBLY tired yesterday and was balancing out like five different tasks while writing these. Like I can absolutely understand how folk punk would be a thing, just not country punk.)

Keep in mind, my mind got onto this subject because Nashville threw such a big hissy fit over Beyoncé winning Best Country Album that the Grammys split up the category into two. If that's how they reacted to R&B mixing with country, I can't imagine how a punk/country crossover would be received.

One's abrasive, the other's melodic. One's about distrust in and disdain for authority, the other's about love for rural living and respect for the American way (at least since 9/11, not counting old-style outlaw country and the like). Where's the crossover between the two genres?