I did a lot of cleaning last night

And early this morning, until the cats came up to find out why I wasn't in bed yet. I tried putting them outside, but some kind soul let them in five minutes later and I didn't want to ask them not to at three in the morning.

While I cleaned (and it was urgent, believe me), I watched DS9 on Netflix. Truly, it is the best Trek, though I've always preferred Voyager's theme song. I'm up to the episode where Sisko and O'Brien get stuck on the forcibly low tech planet with the obsessed cult leader. I've never understood the premise of this. It seems like on Star Trek, humans and others colonize new planets every day. There seems to be an unending supply of habitable planets that conveniently are not already habited, and terraforming makes that supply even more unending. Plus, from the rate of colonization, even if we limit ourselves to no more than one small colony per planet (which seems more than enough space for even a larger colony!), you have to imagine that the population of humans on earth and established planets has got to still be up there in the billions. Otherwise, why would they colonize so aggressively?

So, to believe this episode, we have to believe that in order to found her low tech paradise she had to resort to trickery and sabotage? She couldn't honestly find enough low tech enthusiasts to go live in the past with her, she had to take people who, having no interest in living this way, perforce had no skills? And had to learn them all from scratch?

I don't believe it. I don't believe that in a whole galaxy of humans, billions or more, she couldn't found a colony the way she wanted without cheating. Hell, even if her main impetus was plain sociopathy and the desire to be the center of everything it probably still would've been easier to do it without lying.

Also, this is the episode that reminds me that Star Trek's economy makes no damn sense. It's the ubiquity of replicators that gets me, every time.