Star Trek: The Original Series and The Next Generation

[Donocropolis]

Oh come on now. Let's be honest here. Lore's conversation and their ability to plot a way for them to eat the Enterprise, shows the CE is quite aware of what it is doing. It doesn't care about other life, it wants to feed to live. Whether that is evil or not depends on whether you're the whale or the plankton. As for whether Picard and crew knew, considering that they uncovered Lore's plot at the end of the CE's debut episode, they can deduce that the CE is sentient and what they were up to.

I know that the episode wants you to feel that the CE's destruction was wrong, but the episode itself is wrong. It's another Jelico moment. And I am wondering how many of them there are in TNG now. I can think of a few in DS9.

Actually, on Star Trek, I feel like the characters occasionally being wrong is a feature, not a bug. It's not (normally) an action show, or one with flawless superheros. The usual layout of a Star Trek show is a team of talented individuals, each with their own individual strengths and weaknesses, doing the absolute best they can to overcome new, difficult, and sometimes morally ambiguous challenges. 95% of the time, they get it right, but there is the occasional "whoopsie."

In the end, if we accept everything we saw with Lore conversation, destroying the CE was most likely inevitable, but I still feel that what was presented in the episode, with what each character knew at the time, Dr. Marr's actions were still wrong. What she did was the vigilante-style revenge murder of the creature before peaceful resolutions had been attempted. I would say that even in-universe, there would have probably been many in the Federation that agreed with you and Dr. Marr. I think it's supposed to be a little bit grey.

 

[The Predaking]

Good points, I just want to touch on one thing though.

but I still feel that what was presented in the episode,

That is my whole point. What they present to you, despite the reality of the situation, is skewing the viewer to make it agree with the show, and they use the characters here to do it just like they did with Jelico.

 

[Donocropolis]

Good points, I just want to touch on one thing though.



That is my whole point. What they present to you, despite the reality of the situation, is skewing the viewer to make it agree with the show, and they use the characters here to do it just like they did with Jelico.

By "what was presented on the show," I had meant more "considering all the facts available to us" as opposed to "the bias of the emotional beats of the story." With the facts available to Dr. Marr and the crew at the time, killing the CE was vigilante murder, not a state-sponsored execution. The end result may well be the same, but they are still different things.

And I always felt differently about Jelico, I guess. I always thought that the episodes portrayed Jelico as an abrasive, hard-to-get-along-with captain, but still capable and doing his best to follow orders and get everything resolved to the best of his abilities. His methods were so in contrast to Picard's that it threw both us the viewers and the Enterprise crew for a loop, but I never thought that they portrayed him as being in the wrong.

 

[The Predaking]

By "what was presented on the show," I had meant more "considering all the facts available to us" as opposed to "the bias of the emotional beats of the story." With the facts available to Dr. Marr and the crew at the time, killing the CE was vigilante murder, not a state-sponsored execution. The end result may well be the same, but they are still different things.

And I always felt differently about Jelico, I guess. I always thought that the episodes portrayed Jelico as an abrasive, hard-to-get-along-with captain, but still capable and doing his best to follow orders and get everything resolved to the best of his abilities. His methods were so in contrast to Picard's that it threw both us the viewers and the Enterprise crew for a loop, but I never thought that they portrayed him as being in the wrong.

That is thing, is he abrasive? Picard didn't think so. Geordi didn't have any issues with him, despite working closely with Jelico. It was Riker that was clashing with Jelico like Jelico was a substitute teacher.

#JelicoDidNothingWrong #CEHadToDie

 

[Donocropolis]

That is thing, is he abrasive? Picard didn't think so. Geordi didn't have any issues with him, despite working closely with Jelico. It was Riker that was clashing with Jelico like Jelico was a substitute teacher.

#JelicoDidNothingWrong #CEHadToDie

Oh, I agree with the Jelico thing. His methods were different than Picard's, but that doesn't make him in any way wrong. Riker was used to a certain amount of back-and-forth discussion about ideas with Picard that Jelico had no interest in, and I think that was more on Riker than Jelico. Jelico rubbed a lot of the crew the wrong way, but I don't think that was due to any actual wrongdoing, just a different style of command than they were used to.

 

[G.B.Blackrock]

Oh come on now. Let's be honest here. Lore's conversation and their ability to plot a way for them to eat the Enterprise, shows the CE is quite aware of what it is doing. It doesn't care about other life, it wants to feed to live. Whether that is evil or not depends on whether you're the whale or the plankton. As for whether Picard and crew knew, considering that they uncovered Lore's plot at the end of the CE's debut episode, they can deduce that the CE is sentient and what they were up to.

I know that the episode wants you to feel that the CE's destruction was wrong, but the episode itself is wrong. It's another Jelico moment. And I am wondering how many of them there are in TNG now. I can think of a few in DS9.

You didn't respond to what I said, even a little bit. I'm stipulating that the CE knows what it's doing. I'm GIVING you that argument.

The question isn't whether Picard and company might have been able to determine sentience. Its whether a non-violent option (including incarceration) might have been found with proper communication. You don't just murder a sentient being, even if you know it's going to kill again, without finding out if a non-violent solution is available (again, stipulating that you can do so without immediate risk to the lives of others).

Remember that the Federation has practically no death penalty. There's a reason for that.

(And, for what it's worth, even if Jellico WAS a jerk, I agree that he did nothing wrong. I'm not even fighting that one.)

 

[The Predaking]

The question isn't whether Picard and company might have been able to determine sentience. Its whether a non-violent option (including incarceration) might have been found with proper communication.

The thing is, the CE didn't need the Graviton pulses to communicate. For all we know it was just distracted by something new. Like showing a grizzly bear a fidget spinner. The CE knew what it was doing when it was killing all those millions of people. Given that it knowingly killed off entire worlds of people, do you think that it could be redeemed/domesticated/or incarcerated? There was no talk about how to offer a non-organic food for it. Their entire hopes were based on communicating with it. We all agree here that even if they could get the graviton pulses to work and communicate with it, they would find nothing but a stone cold killer wanting its next organic life meal. That would have led to step 4 of destroying it.

You don't just murder a sentient being, even if you know it's going to kill again,

I think we are too far apart on this. If you are thinking about it like a person, then yeah, but this isn't a person. It's not even a wild animal, it's a giant space monster that solely exists to feed on massive amounts organic life and strip mine worlds.

without finding out if a non-violent solution is available

Given that we know that the CE knows what it is doing, and can plot with others to do it, do you think that there was a way to do that? And before you lash out saying that they didn't get a chance, I am asking you, not the characters. Do you think that the fully sentient Space monster would have accepted anything from them other than directions to its next meal? Given that you know that this thing is a killer and knows that its killing, and can plot with others to kill.

Also, it's not like after years of study that anyone had an idea of what to try to offer this thing as an alternate food source. Just Dr Marr with an idea on how to shatter it.

Remember that the Federation has practically no death penalty. There's a reason for that.

As I mentioned, the Federation has no problems with the death penalty for certain cases. They left Lore in pieces for 30+ years, and is technically still disassembled after season 3 of Picard. Heck, the Federation admonished Picard for not using Hugh to commit genocide. This organization is a bit flimsy on the rules it picks and chooses to enforce.

(And, for what it's worth, even if Jellico WAS a jerk, I agree that he did nothing wrong. I'm not even fighting that one.)

Jellico was awesome. He not only prevented a war, he saved Picard's life, he crippled an entire enemy armada, and he wanted his crew to only six hours a day. He continues to be awesome in the recent animated series. I hope that he gets to show up in the next live action series.

 

[Dekafox]

I think we are too far apart on this. If you are thinking about it like a person, then yeah, but this isn't a person. It's not even a wild animal, it's a giant space monster that solely exists to feed on massive amounts organic life and strip mine worlds.

This seems to be the crux of the disagreement here(setting aside the "what we know vs what the characters know" arguments). From a certain point of view, your description applies to humans - we feed on massive amounts of organic life, and (current) humanity so far shows tendencies to strip-mine worlds.

Let's replace it with Unicron, who also fits that description, after a fashion. Is Unicron not a person as such? Or Galactus from Marvel - is Galactus not a person? (Of note, his original background is he was the last survivor of a humanoid race in the previous universe before a Big Crunch and Big Bang IIRC, and was forced into his role).

If the Enterprise D encountered Unicron or Galactus, but knew nothing of them, would we not expect them to try to establish communication first before going all universal exterminator on them? Or Primus - if they never met these beings before, how do they know there is any difference between Primus and UNicron before they talk to them? For that matter, there's the potential that Primus did exactly what the CE did, via possessing an organic planet(oid) and transforming it into Cybertron.

Or to keep it within Star Trek, there's also the beings at Encounter at Farpoint.

Is the issue with the CE that it's form is too -alien- to be seen as a person(if we go with the assumption it is sentient and malicious, like, say Unicron). As Picard said in Measure of a Man, "Our job is to seek out new life and there it sits" or floats, in this case.

So if it is sentient, sapient, and malicious, then what makes it different from say, Jack the Ripper, other than scale, that suddenly makes it "not a person"? And if it scale, how does that differentiate it from some of my examples above of beings of that size that could be considered people?

 

[The Predaking]

This seems to be the crux of the disagreement here(setting aside the "what we know vs what the characters know" arguments). From a certain point of view, your description applies to humans - we feed on massive amounts of organic life, and (current) humanity so far shows tendencies to strip-mine worlds.

See you are boiling it all down to base components to make it look not like a Giant Space monster that knowingly eats millions of people and strip mines worlds. Humans, especially in the 24th century, don't strip mine worlds. We might have wrecked this one a bit, but we are learning and growing still. By the time of TNG, Earth is a paradise again.

If the Enterprise D encountered Unicron or Galactus, but knew nothing of them, would we not expect them to try to establish communication first before going all universal exterminator on them? Or Primus - if they never met these beings before, how do they know there is any difference between Primus and UNicron before they talk to them?

The CE has been known and studied for decades at this point. We know everything it's about at this point, and I repeat, its a giant (bigger and faster than a Galaxy class starship) self aware space monster that knowingly kills millions and strip mines worlds in minutes. We also know that it understand Lore, the Graviton pulses weren't needed for communication. Like I said earlier, it was like showing a fIdget spinner to a grizzly bear.

Or to keep it within Star Trek, there's also the beings at Encounter at Farpoint.

Which they made contact with and resolved the situation, Probably due to Q's interference making them super aware of everything that they were doing. Note that the Being didn't even kill the guy in charge that was torturing its mate into being a starbase.

Is the issue with the CE that it's form is too -alien- to be seen as a person(if we go with the assumption it is sentient and malicious, like, say Unicron). As Picard said in Measure of a Man, "Our job is to seek out new life and there it sits" or floats, in this case.

Its not too alien, its been studied for at least half a century at this point as Data was found 30 years prior on Omicron Theta. We know all about this life, just as we know about the Borg. It is malicious and wants to eat organic life and has been proven to plot with others to do so. The only way it could be more obvious is if it had a twilling mustache and a maniacal laugh. There it floats, alright, after in that episode alone, destroying a colony world, murdering several people that didn't make it to the caves including someone that Riker cared for, as well as killing the crew of a ship right before the Enterprise found it again.

So if it is sentient, sapient, and malicious, then what makes it different from say, Jack the Ripper, other than scale, that suddenly makes it "not a person"? And if it scale, how does that differentiate it from some of my examples above of beings of that size that could be considered people?

Scale does matter, You can't imprison, reform, or possibly even contain such a malicious, dare I say, evil creature. It was far too powerful to let go, no way to contain it, and if they could get it to communicate with them, it would just want to know where it could kill at again.


TNG got it wrong because they wanted to say "Vengeance is bad". They should have picked something else beside the CE, something new that wasn't a giant Space Monster but was a case of misunderstanding/lack of communication.

 

[G.B.Blackrock]

Yes, clearly we're too far apart at this point. You seem to ignore what Star Trek IS....

You say we know all about the CE, when that is demonstrably NOT the case, according to the information (not the emotional manipulation, which I'm happy to posit as a concern) in Silicon Avatar itself. They were STILL learning about it, and were cut short as they were trying to learn more.


When you try to ask me (not the characters) certain questions, I can happily say "I don't think so," and have already said they'd likely have to blow the thing up, anyway. But none of that is remotely the point. We're talking about the characters, and what THEY knew, and what is the ethical thing to do based on the knowledge they have. Blowing up the CE at that specific point in time utterly fails that analysis.

 

[Donocropolis]

Agreeing with GB. You (Predaking) keep saying that we know that it's sentient and evil and can understand english just fine and is actively plotting against the humans. While true, NONE of the characters on the show know that. Not knowing that (yet, at least) is what makes Dr. Marr's killing of the creature unjustified.

If she hadn't destroyed the CE, and after a period of communication it became apparent to the Federation that the CE was unredeemably evil and bent on the further consumption of intelligent beings, THEN they may have made the decision to destroy it if no other viable alternatives were left to them.

 

[The Predaking]

Agreeing with GB. You (Predaking) keep saying that we know that it's sentient and evil and can understand english just fine and is actively plotting against the humans. While true, NONE of the characters on the show know that. Not knowing that (yet, at least) is what makes Dr. Marr's killing of the creature unjustified.

If she hadn't destroyed the CE, and after a period of communication it became apparent to the Federation that the CE was unredeemably evil and bent on the further consumption of intelligent beings, THEN they may have made the decision to destroy it if no other viable alternatives were left to them.

The thing is, everything that we know, they should know as well. Everything that we have deduced was based on information that they had prior to the graviton pulse.

 

[Donocropolis]

The thing is, everything that we know, they should know as well. Everything that we have deduced was based on information that they had prior to the graviton pulse.

They knew that Lore had found some method of calling/attracting it, but not that he had been talking to it in the same way that we, the viewers, knew.

 

[Destron D-69]

okay, so anything worth talking about happen in the next episode? I think you two have argued this idea as much as it can be.

 

[Ryougabot]

 

[The Predaking]

okay, so anything worth talking about happen in the next episode? I think you two have argued this idea as much as it can be.

lol.

 

[Donocropolis]

Ha! Yeah, pretty much decided to agree to disagree on that one.

 

[Destron D-69]

Once again, the day has been saved thanks to me Destron. (a badly drawn OC version of the end of every power puff girls episode goes here)

 

[Ryougabot]

 

[Ryougabot]

I was watching Charlie X and was impressed with Kirk's advice about women. I watched more TOS episodes and was even more impressed by how he talked about and treated women. This set me on a quest to find out how Kirk treated women. u/crazunggoy47 said it best I think.

"I just read a fascinating article that has totally turned my view of Kirk around.

Beware: it is a LONG read. (It's about 17,000 words. Most of the relevant stuff to this thread is in Section 1 and 2 however.)

To summarize, the article argues that mainstream culture, and also many Star Trek fans, sees Kirk as a woman-objectifying philanderer who can't keep it in his pants. Many think of him as an arrogant ass who goes around banging green alien chicks. Zapp Brannigan in Futurama plays off this parody, as (to some extent) does Shatner's own character in Boston Legal, Denny Crane.

But, as the article argues, we only ever see Kirk sleep with women (or rather, infer that he does) in a variety of extenuating circumstances. Some examples include:

• Drusilla (Bread and Circuses): a slave women who was sent to please Kirk. Kirk knows they are being watched and that Drusilla's masters would likely punish her for failing to apparently seduce Kirk. (See article for more details).
• Deela (Wink of an Eye): pure manipulation. Kirk had to get close to her to figure out how to stop the Ellosians from taking over the ship.
• Elaan (Elaan of Troyius): She drugged him. Kirk's devotion to the ship actually let him fight her off in the end.
• Miramanee (The Paradise Syndrome): He fell in love with her and cared for her while amnesiac.

I can't think of one circumstance where TOS Kirk gets with a woman for fun except perhaps for Edith Keeler, who is certainly an impressive woman in her own right. And he treats her respectfully (except you, know. Letting her get killed).

Kirk's previous girlfriends that we encounter or hear about through the series generally remember him fondly (with the exception of Janice Lester, of course). They are all accomplished women with full careers, not eye candy or shallow. Examples include:

• Dr. Carol Marcus: molecular biologist
• Areel Shaw, JD: attorney with JAG
• Dr. Janet Wallace: biologist. They broke up to pursue their respective careers

Kirk is capable of longterm healthy relationships. There's no evidence that he treated any of his girlfriends badly.

The article argues that we misremember and misinterpret Kirk's character due to our own expectations based on out-of-control parodies. That we see Kirk kiss a beautiful woman, and that we ignore the context and get carried away and then assume that Kirk-bro is just getting some. But this is unfair and damaging to Kirk's legacy.

What do you think? Does Kirk deserve his rep?"

I know this train of thoroughly will aggravate a few fans, but I propose that Kirk. while not perfect, was not the womanizer that culture paints him out to be.