WI: "Star Trek" was shown in the East Bloc during the Cold War?

Although in OTL, the East Bloc countries (especially Poland, Hungary, and the USSR) had a large degree of sci-fi fandom, they never aired the "Star Trek" Original or Next Generation series on TV, until after Communism fell in the 90s, nor they showed the Star Trek movies in theatres.

In Hungary, Star Trek: The Original Series, concurrently with The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, only started airing in Hungarian TV with Hungarian dubbing around 1997, and this was also the time when older Star Trek movies started to be shown on TV, and newer movies started to be shown in local cinemas. Despite this, a Hungarian Star Trek Convention complete with dressing-up as characters from the Show (perhaps the first such occasion from a former East Bloc country) was organized by the year 2000. By 2003, a healthy Hungarian Trekker Scene was around.

But what if for some reason, the East Bloc wasn't so isolated from this franchise and even in the late 60s, many Eastern European countries started airing the Original Series, showing the movies in the 70s, and also airing the Next Generation in the late 80s? How would this have effected Eastern European culture?
 

marathag

Banned
PoD French never develop SECAM for thier color TV Standard, going with PAL instead: a full European standard on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
So those in Western Poland and Hungary are able to catch Western Transmissions of TOS.

They are popular enough that in the late '70s they are broadcast direct
 
PoD French never develop SECAM for thier color TV Standard, going with PAL instead: a full European standard on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
So those in Western Poland and Hungary are able to catch Western Transmissions of TOS.

They are popular enough that in the late '70s they are broadcast direct

PAL signals could still be picked up by SECAM TV-sets, they just simply showed up without color, in an "old timey" black and white version. The main opponent in a scenario like this would be the language barrier. There weren't/aren't many Hungarians and Poles who could speak German above a very basic level, and likely wouldn't learn it for a TV-Show, (though learning Klingon might have been a more interesting task that they would have undertaken :) )
 
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The Klingon language was never heard until Star Trek: the Motion Picture in 1979. I thought this film was horrid. Apart from the story being boring, I hated the uniforms, which to me looked like pajamas.

While OP tells us Star Trek was never shown in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War, the British action series The Professionals was big in then-Czechoslovakia, although I'd have thought the villains would often hail from the Eastern Bloc.
 
Dallas was shown in Romania and was quite popular. The regime allowed It, because they thought it showed the corruption and depravity of capitalism.
 
Dallas was shown in Romania and was quite popular. The regime allowed It, because they thought it showed the corruption and depravity of capitalism.
That's like the story of the Soviet local leader who wanted to show the locals how oppressed people were under capitalism, so he commissioned a showing of The Grapes of Wrath.

The proletarians were properly impressed. "Oppressed American peasants have motorcars!!!"
 

Deleted member 94680

Dallas was shown in Romania and was quite popular. The regime allowed It, because they thought it showed the corruption and depravity of capitalism.

Isn’t this the mindset that would prevent Star Trek being shown? Wasn’t Star Trek a criticism of the Warsaw Pact and a thinly veiled analogy of the Cold War?
 

marathag

Banned
They had money in TOS. Money not existing was a stupid idea that TNG cooked up because Roddenberry had his head up his ass.

From Memory-alpha
During an excursion to 1986-era San Francisco, James T. Kirk told Spock about 20th century Earth, saying, "They're still using money. We need to get some." He then sold eyeglasses that Leonard McCoy had given him for $100. Later on, while Kirk was having dinner with Gillian Taylor in a restaurant and was unable to pay there, Gillian asked sarcastically, "Don't tell me they don't use money in the 23rd century," and Kirk earnestly replied, "Well, we don't."
...
Outside of Earth, money and other forms of currency were still used in the 23rd and 24th century, by the Federation itself, individual Humans, and other Federation species. One form of such currency was the Federation credit.


The Human philanthropist Carter Winston acquired a vast personal fortune during the late 23rd century. (TAS: "The Survivor"
The Federation credit was a monetary unit used by the United Federation of Planets.

Although it was stated on more than one occasion that the economy of the future was very different, and that money no longer existed on Earth from as early as the late 22nd century or in the Federation as late as the 24th century, this medium of exchange did still exist within that period. All known examples of credit use were via transactions outside or on the periphery of the Federation. (DS9: "In the Cards"; VOY: "Dark Frontier"; Star Trek: First Contact)

In 2267, Engineer DeSalle euphemistically wagered "credits to navy beans" that the USS Enterprise could penetrate a force field with its impulse drive. (TOS: "Catspaw")

Later that same year, Uhura was offered a tribble for ten credits by a bartender on Deep Space Station K-7, a border outpost on the edge of Federation space. She later received one gratis from fellow Federation citizen Cyrano Jones. (TOS: "The Trouble with Tribbles")

In the 2250s, the Federation placed a bounty of 100,000 credits on Harry Mudd. (ST: "The Escape Artist")

In 2269, Harry Mudd was selling love potion crystals on Motherlode, a planet outside Federation jurisdiction, for three hundred credits apiece. (TAS: "Mudd's Passion")


In the previous instances, it was not specified that the credits in question were of Federation origin.

Almost a century later, the Federation would have paid the Barzanian Planetary Republic, a non-Federation government, 1.5 million Federation credits as a lump sum and then 100,000 credits every Barzanian year for the rights to the Barzan wormhole. The transaction never transpired, once the wormhole's instability became apparent. (TNG: "The Price", okudagram)


Ronald D. Moore commented: "By the time I joined TNG, Gene had decreed that money most emphatically did NOT exist in the Federation, nor did 'credits' and that was that. Personally, I've always felt this was a bunch of hooey, but it was one of the rules and that's that." (AOL chat,
1997)
)
That said, a post-scarcity economy with replicators that can recreate any matter, save Latinum, and Holodeck entertainment, how does money fit in for
the average member of the Federation?

Is it truly pure Marxism, 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' ?
 
From Memory-alpha
Memory Alpha really isn't that informative in this regard. Its trying to take fifty years of stuff and condense it into a singe cohesive whole that all fits together, and that means there's always going to be stuff picked out or ignored. The fact is that the TOS federation DID use money. People pursued wealth and were happy to obtain it. This was a point in multiple episodes, as well as Kirk threatening to dock Scotty's salary if he didn't do something or other while the engineer was in charge of the ship. I.e. the crews were paid. People who worked and operated mining colonies in particular were shown to be very wealthy if things went well.

The Federation of TOS was a capitalistic society, and it was only retcons much, MUCH later that tried to handwave that away.
 

chankljp

Donor
But what if for some reason, the East Bloc wasn't so isolated from this franchise and even in the late 60s, many Eastern European countries started airing the Original Series, showing the movies in the 70s, and also airing the Next Generation in the late 80s? How would this have effected Eastern European culture?

Well, if we are talking about the series being officially broadcast on state TV and shown in cinemas, instead of having VHS copies getting smuggled into the country, we will need a POD in which someone high-up in the government decide that it would be a good idea to spend their country's limited supply of hard currency in purchasing the screening rights from NBC/Paramount, and for that they will need to see some sort of value in doing so (Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus was shown in the USSR in 1967, for example, for this exact reason).

Either that, or the screening rights will have to be gifted to them, perhaps in a sort of 'soft power' cultural exchange initiative? Maybe with the POD being that something similar to the 1959 American National Exhibition that was held in Moscow happening again later on, with the Star Trek series being one of the exhibits that were taken to the USSR as a sample of American popular culture?
 
For what it is worth, throughout the Cold War West German TV broadcasts were received and watched in most of East Germany. Also "Star Trek" shows a future where the Communists won so there is something in this discussion that I am missing.
 

marathag

Banned
The fact is that the TOS federation DID use money. People pursued wealth and were happy to obtain it. This was a point in multiple episodes, as well as Kirk threatening to dock Scotty's salary if he didn't do something or other while the engineer was in charge of the ship. I.e. the crews were paid. People who worked and operated mining colonies in particular were shown to be very wealthy if things went well.

The Federation of TOS was a capitalistic society, and it was only retcons much, MUCH later that tried to handwave that away.

But where Enterprise was going, was areas on the periphery of Federation claimed space, where the Miners didn't have access to the Replicators and Holodecks.

And for being paid, that makes one wonder if those payments meant access to said Holodecks and Replicators, with Credit for those areas of space where they were not available

Otherwise, why would anyone ever leave the holodeck, except to play with the free toys and gadgets from the replicator, while eating into gluttony, that you could never reach, since the Federation has seemed to be able to cure 99% of whatever could go wrng with the human body?
 

chankljp

Donor
Also "Star Trek" shows a future where the Communists won so there is something in this discussion that I am missing.

Not really. The entire focus on the Federation being a moneyless society is something that isn't really focused upon until the TNG era.

Plus, if we include materials from the expanded universe, in one of the TNG novels , as someone with an interest in Earth history, Captain Picard actually have a VERY low opinion on the Soviet Union, while outright saying that for all it's flaws, the Federation's diversity and multiculturalism was directly taken from the principle from the 'old United States'... Both of which being points that I think Soviet censors will be VERY displease with.
 
And for being paid, that makes one wonder if those payments meant access to said Holodecks and Replicators, with Credit for those areas of space where they were not available

Have you ever WATCHED TOS. There were NO holodecks or replicators on the Enterprise, and there is absolutely no evidence that they existed ANYWHERE in the Federation at that point. And frankly, even IF they did it’s completely irrelevant because the SHOW, you know the thing BEING shown and the effects thereof doesn’t have it.
 
Also "Star Trek" shows a future where the Communists won so there is something in this discussion that I am missing.

TOS didn’t. Like Marathag you’re taking Roddenberry’s TNG retcons and retroactively applying them to the original show.

But if you think that TOS was pro-communist then I have three words: The Omega Glory.

Written BY Roddenberry.
 

GeographyDude

Gone Fishin'
. . . a post-scarcity economy with replicators that can recreate any matter, save Latinum, and Holodeck entertainment, how does money fit in for
the average member of the Federation? . . .
Except for admissions to Star Fleet Academy!

I mean, a fair number of episodes seemed to have urban bleakscape in which government, and more importantly society itself, had seriously declined, a scary level of violent crime, serious shortages, even of food, etc. Or, at least refer to such situations off camera.

Contrasted to life on the Enterprise with friends and meaningful activities.

Perhaps stuff in the middle is not interesting enough for dramatic purposes (or not the extremes for a story to arc across, but I still think a skilled writer could do a shitload of good stories with the added benefit of greater realism and believability)
 

marathag

Banned
Captain Picard actually have a VERY low opinion on the Soviet Union
Picard didn't think much of the point Q was making in this, not Soviet Uniform as well,
180
on being against Communists, and on wearing military costumes, apparently not ever having looked in a mirror.
 
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chankljp

Donor
Look... I think this thread is getting really derailed. What the OP asked for was the impact of the Star Trek TV series and films being shown in the East Bloc during the Cold War in our world, not the Federation's socialism/communism in-universe (A discussion that belongs in the 'Fandom' forum). Lets try to get back on topic.
 
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