Star Trek: The Original Series and The Next Generation

[The Predaking]

I'm breaking my "never respond to you" mantra because this is so important to say.

I wholeheartedly reject the premise that "justice" for murder can only exist if the perpetrator is killed. I cannot state this strongly enough.

The flaw in your concept here is that the Perpetrator isn't a sentient being. Its a like giant space shark that has killed hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions, already and will continue to do so, as that is its nature and what it does. To paraphrase Jaws, "Its miracle of evolution, as all it does is float around, eat entire worlds, and make baby sharks". The CE is more deadly than the Borg, as the Borg usually leave the planets intact. The worlds are barren wastelands after the CE comes through. You aren't going to reform this creature. At best they would have been able to send it to another area of space to be someone else's problem. It needed to be destroyed, to do otherwise, would have been a dishonored to the memory of those that it had already killed.

 

[ooo-baby]

Mod stepping in here.


Debate ideas, but don't insult your fellow posters.

Or you’ll have to answer to Captain Kirk:

He runs a tight ship.

 

[Dekafox]

The flaw in your concept here is that the Perpetrator isn't a sentient being. Its a like giant space shark that has killed hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions, already and will continue to do so, as that is its nature and what it does. To paraphrase Jaws, "Its miracle of evolution, as all it does is float around, eat entire worlds, and make baby sharks". The CE is more deadly than the Borg, as the Borg usually leave the planets intact. The worlds are barren wastelands after the CE comes through. You aren't going to reform this creature. At best they would have been able to send it to another area of space to be someone else's problem. It needed to be destroyed, to do otherwise, would have been a dishonored to the memory of those that it had already killed.

That leaves out the context of the episode. At the time Picard and co first meet the CE, they don't KNOW that it's not a sapient being. Hence why they try to make contact etc, to make sure they don't kill it because of a misunderstanding. After all, look how the Horta situation turned out in TOS.

 

[The Predaking]

That leaves out the context of the episode. At the time Picard and co first meet the CE, they don't KNOW that it's not a sapient being. Hence why they try to make contact etc, to make sure they don't kill it because of a misunderstanding. After all, look how the Horta situation turned out in TOS.

Well, the Horta killed a few dozen people in retaliation for killing thousands of its young on its home world. this was a misunderstanding that was corrected to allow both species to coexist.

The CE literally destroys worlds. It's a known threat to the entire galaxy, and it wasn't doing so due to a misunderstanding. Communication with it would probably go just about as well as it did for Brent Spinner in Independence Day.

Like I said previously, TNG framed situations wrong a few times, and here is another case where they Jelico'ed it.

 

[Copper Bezel]

Not really what the federation does consistently though. I mean the Federation captured Lore, and he is a fully sentient being that had a kill count far below the CE, and they just disassembled him forever.

Completely true, but this might not be a typical case of inconsistency on the part of the writers. "Measure of a Man" and "The Offspring" pretty much exist to remind us that Starfleet specifically and possibly the Federation at large have disturbingly little respect for synthetic life, a rare thing that carries straight over into Picard.

It needed to be destroyed, to do otherwise, would have been a dishonored to the memory of those that it had already killed.

The Federation isn't an honor culture. The practical argument that the CE is a clear threat and couldn't just be reasoned with is not very compelling, because we all know that when communication failed they would choose to destroy it anyway, so the question of whether they'd destroy it to save lives in the present isn't a question. But you can't save lives in the past, and dishonor isn't any different as an argument from revenge. Especially if you're convinced that they really knew all along that it wasn't intelligent and couldn't be convinced to go eat a nebula instead, you're giving the sea 300 lashes here.

 

[ooo-baby]

When a pitbull or any other dog, pig, pet, farm animal, etc. kills a child, we shoot it dead. We don’t send it to animal training camp.

When a bear, crocodile, or any other wild animal kills and eats a human we hunt it down and kill it. We don’t send it to a nature preserve.

When a child, infant fell into a gorilla enclosure and the gorilla was swimming around with the toddler, not harming it, they shot the gorilla dead based on the simple assumption it might harm the child, no questions asked. They did not try to communicate with the gorilla to try to determine it’s intentions first.

That’s just the way it is. And I would not want to change that. Would you?

 

[Destron D-69]

the thing i always liked about trek was that you were able to watch episodes and you could take away from it what you wanted to. Were the tng crew wrong in an episode... maybe? a lot of them were left open-ended. kill the CE, let it keep going and just hope the next planet it kills is on the Romulan side of the NZ? you're not wrong to see it either way. I'm undecided, I haven't watched it in over 2 years, so I'd have to see it again before I'd know where to hang my hat.

 

[The Predaking]

The Federation isn't an honor culture. The practical argument that the CE is a clear threat and couldn't just be reasoned with is not very compelling, because we all know that when communication failed they would choose to destroy it anyway, so the question of whether they'd destroy it to save lives in the present isn't a question. But you can't save lives in the past, and dishonor isn't any different as an argument from revenge. Especially if you're convinced that they really knew all along that it wasn't intelligent and couldn't be convinced to go eat a nebula instead, you're giving the sea 300 lashes here.

It doesn't eat nebulas though(aside from an off hand comment in Lower Decks). Let me quote Picard himself:

"…an unknown kind of creature, capable of stripping all life from an entire world… insatiably ravenous for the life force found in intelligent forms like us."

That is what it is, and all it does. From the Wiki:

The Entity functioned as a giant electromagnetic collector and needed constant power, converting organic matter into energy. Once the Entity ravaged a planet, the planet's natural resources were completely stripped. No further life would be able to grow for many years. Everything, including vegetation and bacteria, was completely converted.

So at best, you can send it to various uninhabited worlds where it could strip mine them, but eventually you are going to run out of those worlds. Or end up with worlds with wildlife on it. It needs a ton of Organic lie to eat. I should also mention that the CE had just killed a crew of a freighter right before the Enterprise encountered it and put it down like the cocaine space bear that it was.

 

[Dekafox]

I brought up the Horta situation because it's another example of a non-Carbon-based lifeform that no one expected to be intelligent until Spock did his thing. That's the thing about the ideals of the TNG-era(at least) Federation in general, and Picard's command style in specific - you try the peaceful approach first before you write anything off. This was a First Contact situation, much like the creatures in Encounter At Farpoint(another example!), and as far as they knew maybe they could communicate with this thing too -at first-. The guns come out AFTER talking fails, not before - that's Picard the diplomat, not the spacegun cowboy.

 

[G.B.Blackrock]

The flaw in your concept here is that the Perpetrator isn't a sentient being. Its a like giant space shark that has killed hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions, already and will continue to do so, as that is its nature and what it does. To paraphrase Jaws, "Its miracle of evolution, as all it does is float around, eat entire worlds, and make baby sharks". The CE is more deadly than the Borg, as the Borg usually leave the planets intact. The worlds are barren wastelands after the CE comes through. You aren't going to reform this creature. At best they would have been able to send it to another area of space to be someone else's problem. It needed to be destroyed, to do otherwise, would have been a dishonored to the memory of those that it had already killed.

Given that they'd just determined it might be possible to communicate with the Crystalline Entity (coupled with the fact that Lore seemed able to communicate with it), the possibility of it being sentient was very definitely placed on the table.

 

[Destron D-69]

Janeway would have had the entire species eradicated before her 2nd coffee... it would have cost voyager 4 shuttles and 58 torpedos to do it, but they'd be back next week

 

[Dekafox]

This may have been posted before, but it's never NOT a good time to do so:

We now return you to your regularly scheduled morality discussion, already in progress.

 

[The Predaking]

Given that they'd just determined it might be possible to communicate with the Crystalline Entity (coupled with the fact that Lore seemed able to communicate with it), the possibility of it being sentient was very definitely placed on the table.

Lore sort of just lured it places. But I will definitely concede the point that it may well be sentient and we didn't get the chance to find out. In fact, let's say that this thing is super sentient, and it thinks, feels, loves, hates, and just generally experiences life like you and me. Does it matter when all it does is strip mine entire worlds of their organic life in order to keep itself alive? This thing was a natural destruction machine of galactic scale. Giving it the "Vulcan hello" should be standard procedure.

 

[Destron D-69]

Yes, friends, act now; destroy Unicron! Kill the Grand Poobah! Eliminate even the toughest stains! Wreck-gar and the Junkions - if it's a good enough strategy for them, i think it'd work here too

 

[TM2-Megatron]

Lore sort of just lured it places.

Except that Lore specifically spoke to it over an open channel when he drew it to the Enterprise, told it he would be masquerading as Data, and detailed his plan. Presumably he'd figured out how to communicate with it prior, and made use of some kind of translation algorithm he developed himself.

 

[The Predaking]

Except that Lore specifically spoke to it over an open channel when he drew it to the Enterprise, told it he would be masquerading as Data, and detailed his plan. Presumably he'd figured out how to communicate with it prior, and made use of some kind of translation algorithm he developed himself.

I will have to rewatch that scene, as I completely forgot about that.

 

[Sabrblade]

Picard even wanted to reason with the Borg the first time he ever met them, despite Guinan insisting over and over that doing so was impossible.

 

[ooo-baby]

The plot to most sci-fi horror movies:

It’s kind of appropriate it’s Star Trek Next Gen’s Brent Spiner who got killed by the alien, after he and Picard arrested and reprimanded the mother whose son was killed by the Crystalline Lattice Entity. Data even made her feel guilty and awful at the end of that episode.

The Crystalline Entity is not a sperm whale and we are not cuttlefish. Listen to her Picard.

 

[ooo-baby]

Captain Kirk, unlike Picard and Data, seems to have more warmth, empathy, and compassion for humans along with strength and decisiveness:

Kirk is a rare breed. Every Starfleet Captain since him has been sort of like Spock, very cold, Vulcan and regimented. McCoy was right:

(cued to 0:30)

They’re like robots. Kirk had his priorities straight, people come first.

 

[Copper Bezel]

Kirk is a rare breed. Every Starfleet Captain since him has been sort of like Spock, very cold, Vulcan and regimented.

I have to assume you mean chronologically, because Archer and most of the captains from the whole Discovery era are not "since" Kirk. But you're still hopelessly wrong as usual. Sisko isn't necessarily the most compassionate captain in all of Trek, I think Pike probably beats him out as the single most compassionate captain in Trek, but he is the most passionate and emotionally "there". Shaw is by the book and specifically lacking in compassion, but he's as far from robotic or Vulcan as a human can be.

And it cannot be stressed enough, just so you understand this, the reason that everyone in TNG is a little stiff is because Roddenberry had the freedom to make it that way.