You know what I love about Westerns? Same thing is true for Usagi Yojimbo comics by the way. Near the very beginning, the viewer is given all of the information needed. You know who the good guys are, who the bad guys are, and the conflict that is going to exist between them.

Untrue for:

- The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

- High Plains Drifter

- High Noon

- Tombstone

- Unforgiven

- Pale Rider

I mean, you can slag on Star Trek all you want but you don't get to argue against it comparatively by making shit up about Westerns. Gene Roddenberry pitched Star Trek as "Wagon Train in space" and that's exactly what it is. Deep Space Nine is Bonanza in Space. The tropes you're bitching about aren't related to sci fi or anything about sci fi, they're related to poor writing and an unsettled production team, which your friend explicitly warned you about.

The moral dilemma you're griping about is directly confronted: How do you respond to an ethical situation that does not match your ethics? It's the precursor to every single tedious tawdry female genital mutilation storyline we've been dragged through for the past ten years (lookin' at you, Call the Midwife). The "hand waving" you're bitching about is called a "reveal" and it happens at the midpoint. That's so structurally conventional it might as well be in the style guide.

You do this thing where you see something that makes you uncomfortable and then you refuse to confront it and you spin around and slag an entire genre because it's easier than confronting the thing that makes you uncomfortable. Knowing you, your beef with "sci fi" is that in this particular episode you vehemently disagree with the choices of the characters and you refuse to confront the issue presented because you do not see it as a choice.

For the record: Season 1 of DS9 is shit. Season 2 has some moments of brilliance. Season 3 is really good for about half of it, then it descends into shit. Season 4 and beyond are a waste of time. But I'll say this:

If you do not have the fortitude to explore moral ambiguity, thought experiements and social metaphor, stay the fuck away from science fiction. Science fiction, done correctly, is fable, is a substitution game whereby sensitive cultural issues can be examined in an environment where they are less raw. Star Trek leveraged this substitution in culture-changing ways.

Kaiju films? Those are about the predation of Japanese culture and society by Western imperialism. They are the loser's lament for the end of the Meiji Restoration. They are morally simplistic because that which is old is good and that which is new is bad and the exploration of anything - society, culture, science, knowledge - leads to catastrophe. They are Confucianism as entertainment with dudes in rubber suits.

Now, I'm not a writer or a critique or anything of the sort

But if you're gonna come, come correct.