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STAR TREK: TNG, Homeward, S7x13, GALLIFREY GALS GET WARPED
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- čas přidán 1. 05. 2023
- A family member we've never heard of? No way!
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In Heart of Glory from Season 1 Worf told the Klingons he had a Foster Brother, and they went to Starfleet Academy together, but his brother dropped out.
Yep, I would have too, if helping people was a CRIME.
"Worf never talked about him, never mentioned him...."
No, that tracks for Worf.
“… I *had* forgotten you existed..”
Almost as much as for Spock.
@@ianburns1167 Yeah, considering he never ever told Kirk that his father was the revered Sarek
WORF: "When my foster brother and I were of age, we entered the Starfleet Academy. He hated it and returned to Gault. I stayed." (S1E20)
I remember one discussion before the start of season 7, listing the loose plot lines which this would be their last chance to address. One of them was Worf's adoptive brother, who was mentioned once back in season 1, but we had never learned anything else about him.
One other makeup experience that Michael Dorn took perhaps a bit too much pleasure in was an episode of DS9 where several of the other characters were "surgically altered" to appear Klingon. This included characters played by actors who had been notably unsympathetic, and now they were finally forced to go through the Klingon makeup experience once themselves.
Renee (odo) apparently loved the Klingon make-up as it was a faster application than his normal make-up.
The late Paul Sorvino was known from GOODFELLAS and is the father of actress Mira Sorvino was a big fan of the old Star Trek show
Another episode dealing with the debate surrounding General Order One, but the big draw when this first came out was Paul Sorvino. This was four years after Goodfellas, and a year after "The Firm". To see someone of his cachet playing a role in an episode of TNG was definitely a rare treat. But Paul Sorvino cut his acting chops in TV, from the film "Dummy" with LeVar Burton to "Law and Order".
Worf thinking on his feet is priceless: "It is said when these lines are seen in a pool of water..."
Geordi: GOTCHA
The brother thing isn't that weird to me. It is possible that he is a bio child of Worfs adopted parents or they both could be adopted children. And I really like Paul Sorvino so I just accept it, lol.
Worf mentions his brother early in season one
"Siblings appear without ever having been mentioned before" This is the brand for it, yes. Lore being a known example.
@@StarkRG That leaves out Tasha. 😂 edit: & Picard!
It is kids for the original series characters popping out the woodwork.
At least with Data, he himself didn't know about Lore, lol.
@StarkRG Kirk actually came first.
Ishara Yar anyone?
Nikolai is your classic hero, from a certain point of view. Doinh the right thing, motivated by love, having a wacky adventure and making a great lifestyle sacrifice. He's just not a young pretty boy.
And we're seeing things from. The perspective of the rules following adults.
Not sure why it took me so long, but between Kat's dark eyes and empathic nature, are we sure they're not part Betazoid? Has anyone else asked this yet? 😂❤
We only can hope Worf replicated the chronical he took with a... well, with a replicator, and beamed the real thing back down.
Always a good sign when we have to head canon to fix the writing 🤣
Maybe they returned the one that Vorin had with him?
So excited for next week's reaction!
🕯
Haha, i forgot what was coming next.
Oh yes.
Oh that reminds me, I’d better dig my grandmother’s journal out of storage. I think it’s in a box with all her candles.
Reaction = Yes, Episode = No
Isaac Asimov wrote in the first of his Foundation novels; “Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.” This quote from one of the characters in the book is perhaps meant to sound contradictory, since we tend to associate morality with righteousness, but in this case it is clear that a stubborn adherence to the Federation's Prime Directive would have resulted in the needless deaths of many people. Had Nikolai's plan worked flawlessly, the people would've been saved without even being aware of what was really happening and thus their society wouldn't have been interfered with. Unfortunately, one of them escaped, and had he not committed suicide, would've posed a huge problem, with the knowledge he now possessed. I feel like the writers having him kill himself was more for the sake of convenience than anything else.
It's the conflict between ethics and morals really. Ethics being the rules, our best fit model for most situations because life is complicated and we have to simplify. And Morals being what's actually right, however we define that. Now I'd certainly say saving those people was right. But there are also really obvious reasons the ethical rules they violated to do it exist.
We also learned in a previous TNG episode, that they don't have enough people to grow a society. They're going to die off soon anyways.
LET their society find out.
IF someone can't handle the fact they are not alone, or whatever, they deserve everything that happens to him or her.
Big universe, time to wake up.
@@TheCastellan And it's exactly that callous, holier-than-thou attitude that the Prime Directive is designed to counter.
@@ianburns1167 Suuuuure....keep status quo. Like the CRAP we got here.
“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”
― Albert Einstein
Red pill, Ian, red pill.
Kat: You can't just hide them in a holodeck program, Nicoli.......................
Us: au contraire mon ami
Love you both.
For those keeping score this is the 4th time this season we've been introduced to a relative who was previously unknown or never mentioned, 5th if you count Lore in Decent part 2. Even the video description is pointing it out now
Season 7 is cited as an example of TNG being a victim of its own success. All the writers and producers that made the previous seasons so great were moving onto other Star Trek projects. There were no adults left in the writers' room to stop this from happening.
It doesn't honestly bother me that much ngl. I agree it would be better if they'd seeded them in dialogue beforehand but it doesn't break my suspension of disbelief for a character to have not mentioned a relative before that episode.
He was actually y first mentioned in Heart of Glory. He's not completely out of nowhere.
From S1E20 ("Heart of Glory") WORF: "When my foster brother and I were of age, we entered the Starfleet Academy. He hated it and returned to Gault. I stayed."
I've actually seen that scenario of a romantic relationship in a similar context having some unintended consequences and an awkward power dynamic.
In this case it was an American woman who was volunteering in Malawi for a few months - she had a very public relationship with a Malawian man that she met out there: totally consensual, and you might instinctively think it would just be positive all-round, but actually it had a really negative impact on him afterwards. She wasn't from a space-faring starship but she might as well have been: she dropped into rural Malawi from nowhere into the lives of people who know little of what goes on beyond their village, obviously with wealth, health, freedom, and power unlike anything they knew - so he was essentially bound to that life with no prospect of leaving it, while she could (and did) fly away at whatever moment she chose. Because the relationship had been public, once she had left he suddenly found that Malawian women were all really put off because this was so far outside their comfort zone: they didn't want to follow in the footsteps of a white woman, it was just too weird for them, and both men and women kept him a little more at arms length than they had before. In a society where almost everyone marries and has kids in their late teens, he was single for many years after that brief fling.
The charity she was volunteering with now has a really strict non-fraternisation policy as a result: for the volunteer it's an exciting fling, but for their partner it's someone dipping in and upending their life.
Well, if they having kids in their teens, can't say much about those folks to begin with. :P
@@TheCastellan it’s a very different culture in general. The average age in the country is 16 years old, so by the time they’re having kids they’re in the older half of the population.
The Prime Directive not allowing interferance when a culture is facing extinction from a natural disaster makes no sense to me. The entire benefit of the PD in the first place is for a culture to grow naturally, but that can't happen if it dies through something it can't control. It makes sense to not intervene during a war because that's their issue to solve but when it's a natural phenomenon outside of their influence then it's just pointless to let them die.
I tend to agree with you. But at the same time, if a passing starship had redirected an asteroid about to cause cataclysmic devastation we'd all be Voth.
The argument has been made that what if saving them means that later on they go on to have an impact on another planet's species.
In this episode they've impacted the entire future of the planet and system the crew moved them to. Any life that would've potentially evolved on that planet is now impacted by the presence of these new settlers.
I'm of the mind that you do the right thing now and damn the consequences because if the Prime Directive were truly so cut and dry then Starfleet should be dismantled and Earth should enter into extreme isolationism in order to avoid "interfering".
A natural environment is one that's always changing. This allows species to arise, and they either adapt or perish. If life was saved from every natural disaster, we'd still be single-celled organisms.
@@Raja1938 Sure, not evert natural disaster should be intervened. But this isn't a test of their ingenuity, they're centuries away from the ability to prevent it or escape technologically, they'll just die for some abstract principle.
...nature selected them for extinction. (Dr. Ian Malcolm)
I forgot they had done this holodeck scheme before they used it later. Though, the seeds of the idea were established in "Ship in a Bottle".
Vorin finding his way into a future world kinda reminded me of the Vincent Ward film " The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey".
Another long lost unknown family member shows up.
This is definitely a mid-season episode.
😁 🖖
Worf mentioned having a foster brother in season 1.
I’ve been waiting for this one for a long time - love it! But not because of its greatness, but because of the office-water-cooler-conversation - the debate around it. …. I have long disagreed with our great Gallifrey Gals on the idea that “The Prime Directive” is treated casually, or “loosey-goosey,” by the writers depending on the direction of this-or-that story and the needs of the script. Strongly disagree. I think it is an aspect of Absolutism of the show that allows this-or-that story to develop the characters in certain situations. Pre-warp, non-human peoples are NOT to be influenced or manipulated; but warp-using societies and human societies that happen to not use warp technology do not count. And we have some GREAT episodes that take the fringes of those examples and develop the characters, since different characters have different opinions, pushing the story forward. But finally, in ‘Homeward,’ we have an example of The Prime Directive being broken, the characters being of the same opinion, and yet we the audience seem to agree with Paul Sorvino. And thus disagree with Picard and The Prime Directive.
So The Prime Directive applies to all non Federation peoples, pre or post warp capable. It's just that in the case of pre-warp societies it's deemed that ANY interaction whatsoever including just allowing knowledge of aliens existence, is considered a violation. Interfering in the internal affairs of a warp capable society is also not allowed. This is showcased in one of the Klingon civil war episodes where they don't take sides, and try to remove themselves from the situation. (Until it's discovered there's on going Romulan involvement and the conflict is no longer considered just an internal Klingon matter at that point. )
@@G3rain1 Okay, yes, I should have been more specific. The Prime Directive does have multiple sections (or what have you). But here, we're just dealing with this kind of thing. The violation of interacting with the pre-warp societies, rather than political interactions with non-Federation peoples. I should have been more clear on my point of just the "Total Non-Interference" 'sections' for pre-warp people that aren't human.
If Doctor Who was in the Trek universe, I could see Federation equivalents of wanted posters saying "Starfleet enemy #1" with Tom Baker's picture on them. >_>;
Worf's brother saved those people.
Another quality returning house cat video!
I think people are forgetting : "Who Watches the Watchers". Those people were barely into huts and were explained about space flight and there were no issues there. And then we're back here saying it's a bad idea and of course he would commit suicide. Picard could have talked about that experience putting the person at ease. Sometimes the writers throw out previous show's scripts into a black-hole and forget about them, that's for sure.
"Who Watches the Watchers" subtly shows us how Religions are created out of thin air! "The Picard"!
Yeah this episode gives the aliens absolutely zero credit at adaptability. "No, we don't want them to question their beliefs so we'll just let them die needlessly."
@@jamesalexander5623 "Subtly." Star Trek is many things but subtle it aint, and I always found that a really ham fisted atheist message jammed into interesting sci-fi.
@@ianburns1167 Wow your Religious Beliefs threatened by a TV Show? Calm Down and Pray!
@@jamesalexander5623 I wasn’t threatened, I was insulted. By, in fact, the kind of reactionary nonsense you clearly think you’re above.
It's not impossible that Worf's Human parents had a natural-born child. You don't go around announcing you have a sibling everywhere you go...? 🖖
Wait you don't?!
No, but you'd think he'd ask his parents when they visited, "BTW- How's Nikolai?". We normally saw their greetings.
Worf should’ve gone to retrieve the scroll.
When the the Boraalans reach the modern age their scientiest are going to have some very interesting findings when they map their geneom. Not only will their DNA not be related to any of the animals on their planet but if Nickolai and Dobara's children spawn a liniage then they are going to find none Boraalan DNA in a percentage of their population.
What happens when the baby is born with half human DNA? How does that affect the development of these people in the long run? Do they ever figure out that they started out on a different planet?
That's a "prime directive" question. It would create gaps in their anthropology and genetic studies. Imagine flying into space and then humans show up and say, "ya, 2000 years ago humans relocated your race and a human stayed with all of you."
@@theendistheend123 I would suspect that when the learned of genetics it would bolstered any religious beliefs. "Everything on this planet shares DNA, except us we were created by our god to be special"
I don't even think they have enough people to form a survivable population LOL
@@patsk8872 You're probably right. They might attribute the obvious genetic differences to inbreeding.
It doesn't matter. They don't have enough people to survive as a society anyways.
5:00 If the holodeck needs to be turned off to be repaired just gas them all to sleep and put them in stasis until its fixed. The stasis is so one of them doesn't wake up and make Picard his god like last time
One of those not-that-many episodes that are *not* in my Top 5.
Iirc, Paul Sorvino was a big Trek fan (which he passed on to his daughter), and I think he just really wanted to be in an ep, which contributed to.. this. But yeah, Nikolai as a character is, at the least, not too well-executed. We don’t have enough time to decide we ought to like him. From the first, he’s breaking the Prime Directive, causing grief for his brother, the Enterprise, Starfleet. And he has to for the pacing of the story. AND this is pretty much every major action/decision he does through the story. Even when it’s an action we ought to empathize somewhat with, like saving this otherwise doomed civilization, it comes knowing he’s causing more shit to do it.
Not knowing about family members until they appear is a Star Trek tradition. Going back to TOS, We didn't know Spock was half human until his mom showed up, or Kirk had a brother until he got killed. Piccard's brother and his family in France only shows up that one time. As for this story, it has triumphs and tragedies. Other people have been confronted with learning there were people in space, but this was the first time someone committed suicide over it. Yes, it's tragic, but his civilization survives. It's good to see the Prime Directive challenged and not taken for granted.
Spock states in The Cage that "One of my ancestors chose to mate with a human." Not sure if that line made it into The Menagerie, though.
And while technically correct, even Spock probably wouldn't refer to his own father as his ancestor. 😆
And that's not even the last surprise family member for Spock. (Any more could be a spoiler.)
@@ZipplyZane Spock's family is full of surprises, even now!
There is a whole book of articles by anthropologists (of varying genders and sexualities) about the role of sex and sexuality in fieldwork. It is a very complex topic, and, yes, the power imbalance often makes it unacceptable. The book is called “Taboo”, I think.
The thing I HATE about this episode is the ending, making it seem as though Paul Sorvino is doing a good thing by staying behind instead of the fact that it is a horrible thing! What do you think is going to happen to these people with a leader - cuz you know Paul Sorvino is going to be their leader - when they need extra crops, medicine, and other necessities? HE IS GOING TO DO IT! When his baby gets a fever, he’s going to use his knowledge to make it better. When the crops are failing, he’s going to use his knowledge to make them better. It is a horrible violation of The Prime Directive!
Prime Directive is DOGMA.
It's not a violation because the prime directive is a starfleet policy, Nikolai isn't part of starfleet so it does not even apply to him. But even if it did ... so what? Calling what Nikolai is doing horrible is is awful, it shows a complete lack of empathy. If a policy demands people die it should be ignored and broken.
@@philippschmidt80 Plus this:
“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”
― Albert Einstein
Therefore, I submit that the prime directive is EVIL, and needs to go the way of the dinosaurs.
Plus, "A private little war" proves how the prime directive is IMPOSSIBLE to enforce.
@@philippschmidt80 Ooh, that's an interesting point, that he's not Starfleet. .... But I think that The Prime Directive is a Federation thing, more than just Starfleet, and of course, he is Federation. He's observing them for the Federation. But it's an interesting argument.
I think that, in this case (and 'Pen Pals' Season 2), if the planet is dying and there is 100% death guaranteed, that Starfleet ought to be able to do what Paul Sorvino's character does -- throw 'em on a holodeck and take 'em somewhere else. But of course the big scare is that, well, even if the crops they know how to grow are able to flourish on the new planet, the fauna will be different. And then there's their lack of genetic diversity, such a small population. Then there's the eventual revelation for this society that they are the only survivors, the only people left on 'their' planet.
@@TheCastellan I have no intrinsic problem with dogma.
"Nicholai inserted himself somewhere where he wasn't supposed to" in more ways than one ;)
Ha!
I’ve always wondered if stuff like this is why Crusher isn’t a captain: penchant for violating the Prime Directive in such cases. And it’s not just her. Bones had a similar streak, like you knew in such cases, he was always gonna make a similar decision, so.
I think it’s also incidentally true that she otherwise would be capable and also hasn’t pursued higher rank as far’s we’ve seen up to this point, but I feel like this may be a common pattern with medical officers.
You're forgetting that McCoy eventually became an Admiral(See TNG Season 1/Ep 1).
However, that was probably strictly in Star Fleet's Medical Corp, and I suppose there is quite a difference between the primarily administrative decisions of a Medical Corp Admiral, and the immediate front-line decisions which a Star Ship Captain is forced to make.
@@jowbloe3673 This gets discussed in an upcoming episode.
Totally with Kat on this one. At best I’d say this episode hasn’t aged well. I think the better option for this script would have been for Voren? (The archivist) to angrily reveal the truth to his people. Nikolai would then have to be confronted by his partner’s anger at being lied to.
Feels like that’s the original version of the script and some exec said, “no no that’s too spicy for early nineties family tv”
What didn't age well in this? There's conflict, but not from a villain. It's actually from a friend, which makes it even juicier. Should Nikolai have saved them? No, but he did and now we have to deal with it. Should Data have contacted his pen pal? No, but he did and they had to deal with it. Literally the same episode, IMO. Technically, Nikolai isn't Starfleet. He's not bound by the Prime Directive.
@@jkhoover Awesome Nikolai.
I think Worf's brother should be in jail for his interference.
It's definitely divisive. Some people want Nicolai in jail, and others want Picard, and NO ONE is happy.
In jail for what?
@@philippschmidt80 As a Federation cultural observer, he would've been required to adhere to the policy of non-interference.
Going to jail for saving life?
*claps* IF I were Worf's brother, I'd make a MEDIA FEEDING FRENZY.
@@Raja1938 “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”
― Albert Einstein
As a living person, I'll say the Federation are arrogant elites looking down at the peasants.
Geordi: Computer, create a foe that can defeat Data. ... Also, implement common-sense access controls for all computer terminals and doors.
It was a glitch due to power failure. Not bad programming.
@@jkhoover power failures usually cause Enterprise doors to not open, and that's why the Worf Maneuver.
oh good. the next episode reaction. cant wait. im excited for their suffering.
As security officer he has to take the chronicle because that one kid wrote about Worf in it. I think it was his way of mitigating his brother’s breaking of the prime directive. Sorta trying to erase his and his brother’s involvement in this cultures history. As bad as that is lol
The Prime Directive is such a mess, and it's such a messy issue. On the one hand you can see why they're so extreme about it - look at the atrocities and calamities humans have caused in the past. Even out of good intentions, nevermind the imperial impulse which we haven't matured as for past as we'd think.
And it's genuinely hard. If the United Federation of Planets had existed a thousand years earlier (less Earth) and the Andorians had turned up and cured the Plague what would have happened to us? For that matter if a passing starship 65 million years ago had redirected an asteroid about to cause cataclysmic ecological devastation we wouldn't exist.
So the Federation has decided they have the power to play God but lack the wisdom, and so have decided not to try. Is this moral cowardice, the wisdom of knowing your limits, good intentions gone too far? That's why they write episodes stress testing the idea.
“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”
― Albert Einstein
One more week,🕯
The problem with the prime directive is that it often only applies to members of starfleet. Federation citizens are sometimes held accountable for their actions to interfere with it, but often not.
And outside of federation space it's not really a thing, if your planet is a primitive world in the klingon or romulan empires you're just conquered and get to live as a serf your entire life on that one world, which is why we don't often see a huge variety of species serving on alien vessels. That's a different topic tho.
Not just Starfleet. From what we've seen in this series and TOS, the PD also applies to official Federation scientists/anthropologists, diplomats, as well as the merchant service. Agree with you on the 2nd point, and would explain why Kirk readily offered the primitive-seeming Organians advanced tech. Since border planets can't be shielded from interference, there was no point in even trying.
Something worth considering, getting into the ethical mess of this. Is extinction the ultimate harm that can befall a people? A story is over, and a world is ended. But everything ends. It's the same questions faced in end of life care, writ large.
at the time, there couldn't be an "everyone dies" resolution, because people simply wouldn't take an "everyone dies" resolution.
...until DS9 rolled up, with Sisko being Sisko and giving three olympic fucks about "everyone dies", and it was a massive win.
and then, Game Of Thrones rolled up where literally "everyone dies", and it ALSO was a massive win.
and even THEN and SO, with people accepting the resolution of "everyone dies", they would still not understand that a story isn't less worth telling _because of_ "everyone dies".
that a story is tragic doesn't mean it is not worth telling.... it's just that people has grown so accustomed to "happily ever after", that they don't know how to handle them.
Paul Sorvino is a wonderful actor.
I hate this episode, HATE IT! The prime directive as presented here is a vile policy and Picard is the worst this episode, he is totally fine with letting an entire civilization die, makes a big stink about Nikolai saving some of them and then when the one guy kills himself dares to blame Nikolai for his death when he would have died days earlier if it was up to Picard. Ugh.
The Prime Directive _is_ a vile policy. Just, this episode was a very amateurish and ham fisted way of explaining that.
The Prime Directive is implemented the exact same way in Pen Pals, almost the same episode. Nikolai was selfish. He wanted to save his wife and kid, and didn't care who he harmed in the process. We also learned, in a previous episode, that they don't have enough people to survive has a society anyways. They're going to die off no matter what. Picard was right.
@@jkhoover How kind......
Suicide is a rough subject in any medium. If you are witness to it are and can't prevent it, you are messed up for life. My Gramma got a car for her 16th birthday in 1931. Then he takes his own life. Then her second son does this too. My Gramma was seriously messed up and was on some serioud medication when I was a kid. I didn't learn all this until I was older. I tell my daughter all the time that suicide and depression is nothing to joke about.
The worst part of the episode is the resolution. While we may not see them in the tents as they transport, I find it hard to believe that being in tents somehow prevented the people from experiencing theirs bodies being broken down atom-by-atom and converted to energy, then reassembled. Every other example of beaming made it clear that the subject being transported was aware of the process. This time though, out-of-sight means out-of-mind and hiding in tents made them blissfully unaware.
How should you react when something happens to you and you have nothing to base it on? "Did you feel something?" - - "Hmm, a little dizzy for a second. Well, we're on the surface, it's probably normal".
This is one of those episodes which certain writers and fans HATED when it came to the Prime Directive by the way. Picard flat out shut down the idea of saving people, and writers like Keith DeCandido _loathe_ the idea that the hero of the story will not bend over backwards to try to save people no matter the cost. I guess it's debatable how conflicted Picard is over the decision or not, and to be fair, that particular writer has often made jumps in logic that I could never see the justification. (He considers "The show tells us that Riker might be given to sexual assault" based on Violations largely because he thinks the writers 'left it too far up in the air where the memory was changed' -- I'm vitally certain another Star Trek novelist called him on that saying it was pretty damn obvious just because RIKER WOULDN'T DO THAT -- and don't get me started on his views on Geordi's love life.) I think this episode at least showed both sides, showed that Nikolai was at best right for the wrong reasons, and in my mind the absolute right thing to do would have been to yes, save the village, but plan ahead. Thinking on your feet can get people killed.
I always thought that the Prime Directive was supposed to be about not intervening in the internal matters and natural development of a people, even if those people look like they're going to destroy themselves. The idea that they would simply stand by and watch as a planet is destroyed by a natural disaster that would be beyond anyone's ability to avert and not evacuate those people simply because they had not yet invented faster-than-light interstellar travel is just beyond comprehension. I think maybe some of the writers misunderstood the Prime Directive in a similar way that some writers misunderstood Troi's empathic abilities. In any case I was not a fan of this episode.
@@foxtrotalphaone Well, the idea saving a species can't be viewed in isolation vis a vis the PD. In a changing environment, species will arise and either adapt or perish. It's a natural process. If a civ can develop the means to escape disaster or seek out help to do so, then they survive. If an outside power does that, it's picking and choosing who the survivors are. The villagers in this episode weren't the only living things on that planet. Do they deserve to survive just because they appear humanoid?
@@foxtrotalphaone It's the exact same episode as Data's pen pal, and Picard's stance was the same then. I believe the writers have it exactly right. Noninterference is noninterference.
@@foxtrotalphaone it's a doctrine of moral laziness.
@@jkhoover making the federation 'the big club', like George Carlin spoke it.
"It's a big club, and YOU aint' in it!"
Next week's reaction will be...interesting.
When it comes to humanitarian aide, the Prime Directive can go straight to Hell.
To borrow a quote from a different franchise:
"Stand amongst the ashes of a trillion dead souls, and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer."
"Computer, lock holodeck door."
But seriously it's hard to say what you would actually do if you found yourself watching a village of people obliviously about to die, when you have the power to save them all, and could even do it without their knowledge. Especially if you knew them. I mean I think the pregnancy was a little on the nose... because the obviousness of that choice kind of dilutes the moral dilemma, and yeah it's a creepy power dynamic situation to begin with.
so, we're doing Insurrection, 5 years before Insurrection.
neat!
Come on Kat. You can't blame Nikolai. If it wasn't for him, Voren wouldn't have been alive to take his own life.
This appears to be from the writer's room, what have you got left? But you know? I like it.
Does this remind you of "Pen Pals?"
it certainly does
Yes, and I used to be supportive of violating the rule where an entire planet was at risk vs a single species but have change my thinking somewhat since. In Trek, we see more exotic lifeforms like Horta, Organians, etc. that could potentially arise if Picard allowed a planet to meet its natural fate.
It's the same plot. Data interfered, now we have to deal with it. Nikolai interfered, now we have to deal with it.
Well, it's ok. Surely this will be the worst episode of the season... 🤣
Lol.
Did she say that? Did I miss it, or are you just saying that?
Forgive me if I'm wrong, as it has been a long time since I've watched this episode and it wasn't in the clips, but from what's shown and what I remember, there isn't enough information on his brother's relationship with his wife or whatever you want to call her, to really form any objective opinion. While I understand and agree with all of the concerns regarding their relationship that you brought up, I don't recall them going into detail about, how they met or fell in love, let alone that he targeted her, or that he manipulated her into having feelings, which seems to be the implications that you were making. Again, I share all of those concerns and there are definitely a lot of questions to be answered, also shout out to Penny Johnson Jerald, whom I completely forgot was in this episode and who goes on to play Kasidy Yates, in DS9.
Ooooohhhhh we're almost there
The episode we've been waiting for
SUB ROSA
Good luck ladies. We're all counting on you.
Reaction we've been waiting for. I've never looked forward to the episode.
The only problem I've ever had with the prime directive was the idea of letting a species die off due to a natural disaster or catastophe when you have the ability to save them. Because what would be the point of not interfering in the natural evolution of a people if they all get destroyed? Thats such a waste. Obviously if you could save them you'd have to do it in a way where they wouldn't notice So they wouldn't think you were some kind of god, and thats where I've always had a constant back and forth with it, but looking back on this episode, what Nikolai did concerns me greatly. Especially considering what happened now that there's a child who will be born that's half human in a species that only has about a dozen people left to repopulate.
I'd imagine that, as a species, they'd have significant amounts of human biology if they manage to survive and continue thriving. If there's about a dozen of them, you'd expect them to be about 5-10% human once they've all blended together.
It could have a huge effect, from different reactions to drugs, changes in behaviour, appearance. It probably wouldn't be lost on them that the offspring of that human dude would look different from the others. It'd be spooky once they became advanced enough to analyze their own genome, realized they're not native to their own planet, and they have a substantial amount of non-Boraalan genetics. Definitely would be pretty trauamatic.
In a changing environment, species arise and will either adapt to change or perish. It's a natural process. An outside power coming into save them would be picking and choosing winners arbitrarily. Which species do they save? The ones that look the most humanoid, but not creatures like dolphins or octopus that arguably have similar or higher intelligence? Star Trek leads us to have a bias toward humanoids due to budgetary concerns, but in a more realistic scenario it'd be far less clear who should be saved.
@@Raja1938 “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”
― Albert Einstein
@@TheCastellan Doesn't answer my question.
Prime Directive = Zero Tolerance = Zero Thinking.
I like this episode, but I hated that he took the chronicle in the end. The guy died to save the one that was lost, and Nikolai just gives that one away! So I agree with you there, but otherwise I thought you had some weird takes on this.
Se you out There! 🖖13
“Sometimes it’s better to intervene than just stand by and watch an innocent suffer.”
-Gandhi
“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”
― Albert Einstein
The prime directive in a nutshell.
Not really, as the prime directive includes not giving phasers to less advanced cultures
And letting people.....DIE.
And the prime directive ONLY works on PAPER.
Watch the TOS episode, "A private little war", which shows the prime directive is IMPOSSIBLE to enforce. Someone ELSE will interact with 'lesser species'.
Federation acts like a 'the big club', like George Carlin used to talk about. "It's a big club....and YOU ain't in it!". Like a big, snooty country club, only for the hoi polloi.
@@TheCastellan Only reason it didn't work in that ep is because Neural was a border planet. The PD works for planets well within UFP space.
@@Raja1938 And no only in TOS did we see them interact with folks without warp drive:
Eminear 7 in "A taste of Armageddon"
We seen them interact with people who had no space travel:
"A Wolf in the Fold"
COUPLED with they interacted with people who had not even invented the wheel, yet:
"Friday's Child"
I say again, it only works on PAPER. And remember what Einstein said above.
@@TheCastellan Eminiar VII and Capella IV had pre-existing contact with interstellar life, so interaction not an issue. Warp capability is only a pre-requisite if there's been no previous contact. Same with Argelius II, though I don't how you're certain they hadn't yet invented the wheel.
There's a lot of previously unmentioned family members turning up this season, which is usually a pretty clear sign it's time to wind the show down. But I may be a bit biased because I hate the Prime Directive and stories about the Prime Directive, because the whole thing is built around an infantilizing attitude toward other cultures. Just because people don't have iPads and warp drives doesn't mean they can't understand "Hey, we think you're in danger, do you want us to help you move somewhere that'll be very different than you're used to, but safer?" Which is how actual ethical engagement with other cultures according to actual real-world anthropology orgs works--you don't lie, don't hide, offer information and help as needed, but leave them in control of what they do with it, and don't proselytize anything or try to change how they do things. (Also you don't fuck them, just to be clear that NOBODY in the episode is being ethical around any of this.) Point is, you treat them as adults who are as intelligent as you are, with their own values, and respect their right to make their own decisions based on those values without trying to manipulate them either way by either withholding or imposing your own knowledge and views.
This is one of those episodes of TNG that don’t sit right with me. Not only because they retconed Worf having a human brother when neither Worf nor his parents ever talked to Worf or to others about their family as though they had another son, but the whole taking these people and moving them to another planet goes completely against the Star Trek philosophy. And that it creates the huge problem that, in hundreds of years from that point, when those people discover generics, they will be confronted with the question of how come all animals and plants on this planet seems to be related but NOT THEM! The harm is incalculable.
Nikolai should have been thrown into the brig the moment those people were discovered and trialed upon his return to Earrh.
I think they'd be able to handle that discovery if they've progressed to the point of studying genetics. Pretty sure their whole society wouldn't just collapse.
"And that it creates the huge problem that, in hundreds of years from that point, when those people discover generics, they will be confronted with the question of how come all animals and plants on this planet seems to be related but NOT THEM! The harm is incalculable."
It's still less of a problem than extinction, which is the ultimate harm.
Worf mentioned his brother back in season 1.
Nikolai really "inserted" himself in there, eh? 😏
I like this episode but Picard's hardcore stance on non-interference annoys the piss outta me.
Meaning ends with the loss of the minds that give meaning to the universe. There is no morality in extinction, thus the people needed to be saved, and since it was desperate circumstance it demanded desperate actions, so I think Nicolai did the right thing by saving them.
Why did Nicolai only save the species that looked most human? There were probably millions of others that he seemed content to let die....animals, plants, etc. which may well have been intelligent, even sentient.
I’ve always liked this episode because of how much I disliked it. To watch everyone on the enterprise, who are usually held up as these paragons of morality, how Picard usually solves everything with a sage speech,compound mistake after mistake, is so human.
what isn't shown, and more like 'left to the viewer to understand', is that Picard gives these speeches _because_ of all the shit he's been through.
when Picard goes "don't do this", he's not being a totalitarian bigot.... he's saying "don't do this, because you're not ready to face the consequences", _BECAUSE_ he has already faced a similar scenario before, and everything we're witnessing as "Picard's current life" is actually "the aftermath of those scenarioS", plural.
Q showed it in Tapestry, with his major "What IF?" episode.
what SHOULD be shown, is the aftermath for the one person responsible for this, which is Nikolai: arrested for interference, sabotage, and cultural contamination,... maybe sentenced to exile, which would conveniently find him landing on the same planet with these people left to live his life in the dark ages.... "conveniently" for the "happy ending", but at least it would be shown that it remains on record, and that the Federation does prosecute this, so that IT would be known and not taken lightly, SO THAT Picard wouldn't have to give his speeches every time hinting at just this.
he'd be like "Check the record! You do this, you're out!"
Yeah, let's get this bullshit episode out of the way and move on.
AKA, Michael Dorn needed a break from the prosthetics.
(8K]_/
It's the episode they said would be the dumb one. Lol.
I had forgotten what a dull season this was. Another talky episode in which barely anything happens.
God forbid they have intellectual episodes. How dare they!
This is a pretty bad episode. Long list brother that was never mentioned? Holodeck nonsense? Contrived worldwide disaster?
Yeah, it's pretty bad...
But not as bad as next episode!
Next episode (Sub Rosa) is the one I've been waiting for you to review - the absolute worst episode ever.
Not just of Trek, but if television. Ever.
Prepare to lose some brain cells.