“Statistical Probabilities”
Written by Pam Pietroforte and Rene Echevarria
Directed by Anson Williams
Season 6, Episode 9
Production number 40510-533
Original air date: November 22, 1997
Stardate: unknown
Station log: Four genetically engineered people under the care of a Starfleet psychiatrist Lieutenant Karen Lowes have been brought to Deep Space 9 to work with Bashir. They were all genetically enhanced as kids and all placed in an institute. They’re also all a bit nutty: Jack talks a mile a minute, Lauren lounges about being flirtatious and sedcutive, Patrick is very childlike, and Sarina doesn’t talk at all. Jack at one point yanks Lauren’s padd away—she’s staring at Bashir’s service record, convinced that he’s in love with her—and jumps on it. When Lowes asks for the padd, he deliberately hands it to her cracked-side-down so it cuts her palm.
Bashir talks with them for a bit. Jack is hostile and motor-mouthed, making accusations, bouncing from topic to topic, and expressing very real (and very justified) resentment at the Federation’s treatment of genetically enhanced people—though it’s obvious that these four were not put away directly because of their enhancements but because of the effect the genetic engineering had on their ability to function.
After a dinner at the captain’s quarters, Bashir discusses the foursome, and the difficulties they’ve had. It’s interrupted by Jack, who has managed to gain access to the comm systems. Apparently there’s a high-pitched whine that only the four of them—and Bashir—can hear. Jack asks for help in getting rid of it or he’ll snap Sarina’s neck. O’Brien shows up and fixes the problem—which Patrick diagnoses just by listening—just as the latest propaganda speech from Damar is about to go live.
Bashir and O’Brien and the foursome all watch Damar’s speech, and Jack, Lauren, and Patrick—who have never heard of Damar before and are only vaguely aware of the political situation—immediately divine that Damar is a puppet, that he’s saying words he doesn’t want to say, that he’s sad, that he doesn’t sleep, that he recently killed someone close to him, and that he works for a dark knight he can’t control. O’Brien and Bashir are impressed to say the least.
Damar’s speech also included a call to the Federation to talk peace so that the hostilities can end. To that end, Weyoun and Damar are coming to DS9, with Sisko ordered to sit across the table and hear their proposal. The Dominion also wants the negotiations publicly broadcast to show that their desire for peace is genuine.
Bashir is thrilled because the “Jack Pack” can’t get enough about the war ever since they saw Damar’s speech, and the doctor is running out of material to give them. And it’s also got the foursome engaged in a project for the first time, and Bashir doesn’t want to lose that.
Kira meets Weyoun and Damar at the airlock. Kira advises Weyoun to not pull his we’re-all-friends-here act on Sisko as he’s not in the mood. Damar responds by snapping that they’re on a mission of peace, and he should damn well get in the mood, apparently missing the irony in stating that when he, very obviously, is not in the mood, either.
After the first session, the Jack Pack study the holographic recording of it. Weyoun offers to redefine the borders based on what people are currently holding, including the Dominion giving up several star systems. Jack, when listening to Weyoun speak in his native tongue rather than the translation (he learned the Vorta language that morning) notices that Weyoun is using a more passive voice than would be expected from someone making a request, and Patrick notices that they avoid looking at the Kabrel system. They obviously want the Kabrel system for something—and it’s Sarina who figures it out. There’s a chemical in the fungus on Kabrel I that can be used to manufacture ketracel-white, something the Dominion still can’t do in the Alpha Quadrant, apparently.
Bashir and the Jack Pack provide several projections and recommendations to Sisko. They say they should accept the proposal, even though it’ll allow the Dominion to produce white in the AQ, simply because the alternative would be for the Dominion to make a huge-ass push before they run out of existing white stores. If they let them have Kabrel, the allies can regroup and wait for the Romulans to enter the fight, which they predict will happen in a year or so. That will combine with tensions between the Cardassians and the Dominion erupting to make things better for the allies.
Sisko is impressed with their projections and agrees to suggest that Starfleet Command accept their recommendations. This is cause for celebration, and they throw an impromptu party. When O’Brien comes in to replace the power coupling, he makes Patrick cry, and then Lauren and Jack figure out that O’Brien misses Bashir because he’s spending so much time with them. They encourage Bashir to go play with O’Brien, which results in some serious teasing of O’Brien by Bashir. But they go ahead and play darts in Quark’s.
Starfleet Command is sufficiently impressed that they’ve decided to allow the Jack Pack access to classified information. However, they have already done a full projection, and there’s no way the allies can beat the Dominion. Bashir goes to Sisko with a recommendation that the Federation surrender.
Sisko is less than receptive to this notion, even when Bashir gives him the long-term projection that a rebellion will eventually overthrow the Dominion and a new Federation will be born. But Sisko is not willing to just roll over because a statistical analysis says he should. He wants the Jack Pack’s help in winning the war, not telling him how to lose it. Bashir is disgusted, as nine hundred billion people will die if the war continues, but Sisko won’t ask a generation of Alpha Quadrant denizens to give up their freedom voluntarily.
Bashir decides to show it to O’Brien, but he takes Sisko’s side and reminds Bashir that someone can disagree with him and not be an idiot. So Bashir decides to prove his point by playing dabo and losing his shirt and going on and on about how they can’t possibly win.
As expected, Starfleet Command rejects the recommendation. Jack refuses to let nine hundred billion people die—if they leak Starfleet’s troop movements to Weyoun, the Dominion can conquer the AQ in a matter of weeks, and only two billion people will die. That’s a lot of lives saved. When Bashir rejects this notion, Jack slugs him. When he wakes up, he’s tied to a chair, the computer’s voice interface is down, and the only person in the room with him is Sarina, who doesn’t talk. But Bashir convinces her that if they’re arrested and charged with treason, she’ll never see Jack, Patrick, or Lauren again.
Jack contacts Weyoun and calls for a meeting. Weyoun is intrigued to say the least. However, while the trio are en route, they’re intercepted by Bashir and a security guard. Meanwhile, Odo shows up at the cargo bay to inform Weyoun and Damar that there’s no meeting.
Sisko isn’t going to press charges, but they’re all going back to the Institute. Bashir points out that Jack’s entire plan to inform the Dominion was derailed because he didn’t anticipate Sarina freeing Bashir. And if he couldn’t see that, what else might they have missed?
O’Brien tries to cheer Bashir up a bit, and then Bashir goes to play dabo, promising Quark that he won’t cause a scene this time. He makes a really crazy bet and wins. The Jack Pack refuse to board their transport until Bashir says goodbye. Sarina actually smiles at him, Lauren gives him a big smooch, and Jack makes him promise to listen if they come up with a way to defeat the Dominion. (Patrick’s still just generally happy.)
The Sisko is of Bajor: Sisko is very tolerant of Bashir’s ramblings, and lets him go on at great length before reeling him back in, willing to take the time to learn exactly how the Jack Pack came by their projections. But he draws the line at surrender, and is unwilling to consider Bashir’s recommendation on that score.
Preservation of matter and energy is for wimps: When Odo finds Weyoun and Damar in the cargo bay, he interrupts Weyoun in mid-suck-up, sardonically saying, “I know, it’s an honor to be in my presence.”
Rules of Acquisition: Quark is less than thrilled with Bashir going all existential on his bar when he loses at dabo, but he’s even less thrilled when Bashir’s double down bet wins at the end.
Victory is life: The Dominion is talking peace in order to consolidate a long-term position in the Kabrel system. It’s unknown how the rest of the negotiations go—they were in the midst of it when Weyoun and Damar got Jack’s call—but given that the war’s gonna continue for another year and a half, my money’s on them not going all that well.
For Cardassia! This episode establishes that Damar has replaced Dukat as the figurehead leader of the Cardassian government. Unlike Dukat, he has accepted the title of “legate.” Weyoun is also making no bones about his subordinate role—where he was willing to string Dukat along and let him believe that he was an ally rather than a minion, Weyoun makes sure to remind Damar just who’s pulling his strings.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet: Lauren spends the entire episode (except when she’s dancing with Bashir) lounging on a divan in various sultry positions, while rejecting Jack’s advances and making advances on Bashir, culminating in an impressive kiss at the end.
Keep your ears open: “There are rules, don’t talk with your mouth full, don’t open an airlock when somebody is inside it, and don’t lie about your genetic status!”
Jack, summing up the episode’s theme and establishing that he probably, at some point, opened an airlock when somebody was inside it.
Welcome aboard: Tim Ransom, Hilary Shepard Turner, Michael Keenan, and Faith C. Salie play the “Jack Pack.” All four will return in “Chrysalis” in the same roles. (Turner previously played the ill-fated Ensign Hoya in “The Ship.” Keenan played Maturin in TNG’s “Sub Rosa” and Hrothgar in Voyager’s “Heroes and Demons.”)
Jeannetta Arnette plays Loews, while recurring regulars Jeffrey Combs and Casey Biggs are back as Weyoun and Damar.
Trivial matters: This is the first of two DS9 episodes directed by Anson Williams, probably best known for playing “Potsie” Webber on Happy Days. Williams will also direct “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” He’d already directed two episodes of Voyager at this point and will direct two more.
Jack was based on the character of Dean Moriarty from the novel On the Road (who was in turn based on Neal Cassady). He quotes Shakespeare when he observes Damar, from both Henry IV Part 2 and Macbeth.
Sarina has gone on to become a recurring character in various Star Trek novels, including Zero Sum Game and the forthcoming Disavowed by David Mack, Plagues of Night and Raise the Dawn by David R. George III, and the recent miniseries The Fall.
The storyline for this episode was partly inspired by Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels, and the concept of psychohistory. (Apropos of nothing, a Fantastic Four novel by the late Pierce Askegren that your humble rewatcher edited back in 1998 called Countdown to Chaos also made use of psychohistory as the Mad Thinker tried to bring about chaos by manipulating small events to eventually lead to a disaster.)
The waltz played during the celebration—to which Bashir and Lauren dance—is “The Blue Danube,” composed by Johann Strauss II.
Two of the group’s predictions—the Romulans entering the war and a rebellion forming among Cardassians—will come to pass, the former in “In the Pale Moonlight,” the latter in the final arc of the series.
The events of this episode will be referenced by Sloan of Section 31 in both “Inquisition” and “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges.”
Walk with the Prophets: “There but for the grace of God.” A diverting little episode that shows us the dark side of illegal genetic manipulation. When you’re doing it in the equivalent of a back alley, sometimes stuff will go wrong. Bashir gets to see how his life might have turned out had his parents not found a good doctor to perform his enhancements.
Still, the episode isn’t quite all it could have been. Oh, there’s some great stuff here. I love watching the Jack Pack dissect Damar based solely on his propaganda speech, and later watching them take apart Weyoun and Damar’s presentation to Sisko. Hilary Shepard Turner and Michael Keenan are particularly strong. Tim Ransom is good at Jack’s manic affect, and his body language is truly spectacular, but there’s a disconnect between how he’s written—as menacing and dangerous—and how he’s performed. I honestly had totally forgotten that he was supposed to be scary and dangerous—notably seen in when he deliberately injures Lowes—because Ransom doesn’t really sell that element of his character.
Still, he sells the rest of it superbly, and the others do quite well, also, particularly Faith C. Salie, who does so much with facial expressions. We also get some great work from Casey Biggs, playing a Damar who is at once thrilled and depressed at where he is. His speech is halting, with none of Dukat’s charisma, and he’s obviously bitter about how he has come to this position of fleeting power. (This will continue to be a theme with the character…)
And the episode does a particularly good job of reminding us that Bashir is still viewed as something of an other by the folks on board, in particular by O’Brien reinforcing that Bashir stand further back from the dartboard.
But then there’s the discussion in Sisko’s quarters, which is the world’s biggest blown opportunity. Sure, Bashir is enhanced to make himself better, faster, stronger, but what about Vulcans and Klingons, who are stronger than humans in general? Or telepathic species or other species that do certain things better than humans? Why is it fair for Worf or Spock or Data to be in Starfleet, or at least be permitted to serve among humans? This is something Worf can speak to more specifically anyhow because of what happened when he was a kid, when his greater strength—and his lack of control over it—led to the death of another boy on Gault. That would’ve been the perfect thing for him to bring up in the conversation with Bashir.
The ending is very well done, as Bashir is reminded that projections are just that: projections. They’re very educated guesses, but they are still guesses, because the universe has way too many x-factors in it. Jack’s inability to predict Sarina’s betrayal is a nice illustration of that caveat. (And in fact the allies will win the war at least in part because of something that nobody in the Jack Pack can possibly be aware of: the Founders consider having Odo return to the Great Link to be of far greater import than winning the war.)
Warp factor rating: 7
Keith R.A. DeCandido reminds everyone that his Sleepy Hollow novel Children of the Revolution will be out this month, just in time for season 2 of the FOX TV show on which it’s based to debut. You can preorder the novel from the SleepyReads web site, or order it directly from Keith, who’ll also autograph it (and you can order a bunch of his other fiction at this link, too…).
Personally, I’d poison that fungus before pulling out. Although why the Dominion can’t replicate it, I’ll never know…
More seriously, shouldn’t the people making all these predictions try to come up with some error bars for them? Because if they’d tried, they would probably have discovered that their long term prediction is pretty much worthless.
…the Founders consider having Odo return to the Great Link to be of far greater import than winning the war.
And this is why I love the whole arc, without this detail being established, sometimes in a subtle fashion, sometimes more overtly, the war ending would have been cheesy rather than dramatic and the whole Odo thing would have been out of left field. This was continuity done right, and wow, what a plan. I loved the B5 wars a lot, but Trek got a lot of this one right.
I can see a group of super genius wonderkids believing in their own infallibility … for a few minutes. It should be obvious to them that the chaotic nature of what they’re trying to model is entirely dependant on the initial conditions, and that even the slightest change might have an oversized effect. (Or it might not. Chaos. It’s what’s for life.) And in the ST universe there’s LOT of unpredictible posibillities. For example, what if a being like Q decided for whatever reason to get involved? A new Borg incursion, but this time into Dominion/Cardissian space? It’s not a calm and quiet little universe.
The only reason this episode works is that the Jack Pack is portrayed as so sheltered and unstable that they really could overlook all that and decide their model of the future is exactly what WILL happen.
This has always been one of my favorite “light” episodes of DS9. I remember watching it as a kid and re-watching it, I see things that were missed in my childlike adoration of Jack’s silliness.
The idea of one unpredictability undermining a giant plan is seen regularly in science fiction, though for the life of me I can’t remember my favorite example. Usually, it’s a computer and it’s human emotion that causes the bump in the road.
Here it’s interesting because the Jack Pack takes into account human emotion (e.g. in the prediction of the rebellion against the Dominion) but they still overlook Sarina.
@3 I think part of the reason they were so willing to ignore their own possibility for error and the chaotic nature is because they were finally participating. They were allowed to do something for and in society, and the last thing they wanted was to admit that they could be wrong. That would mean being shunted off and locked away again.
And in fact the allies will win the war at least in part because of something that nobody in the Jack Pack can possibly be aware of: the Founders consider having Odo return to the Great Link to be of far greater import than winning the war
Pretty much what I meant to say even before I finished reading the whole review. As geniuses as they can be, the Rat Pack’s statistics can’t account for truly unknown variables.
Very enjoyable episode. A nice mix of comedy and tension, well put together by Echevarria.
Krad brings up a good point. There are times when Jack seems to want to come across as menacing, but we never really see it on screen. Whether the actor interpreted the role wrong, or Anson Williams chose to misinterpret it, I don’t know. I recall Ira Behr once said neither he, nor any of the writers had any time to visit the sets, leaving Rick Berman to settle any issues with the actors. It seems to me Ira really should have devoted some time to solve this issue. Tim Ransom’s a terrific actor as it is.
As for Damar, kudos to Casey Biggs and all the character actors who have to play these secondary alien roles under so much makeup and still bring their A-game to their roles. Leave to Ira and his staff to give the necessary value to these secondary characters. In TNG, we would never get to know Damar’s inner conflict they we got to on DS9.
If anything, this episode shows the folly of the Federation’s ban on genetic engineering. As Keith said, the Jack Pack weren’t messed up because they were genetically engineered, but because they were illegally engineered by people without proper oversight and safety standards. But they still illustrate the great potential that genetic engineering could provide for humanity. I’ve said before, it’s paradoxical that ST celebrates the good that technological progress does for humanity in most respects, but is so totally Luddite about transhumanism. Although I’ve also said before that I think this was probably necessary as an excuse for the absence of transhumanism in the original series. Such ideas weren’t a major part of ’60s science fiction, but by the ’90s, it was starting to look implausible that a humanity of the future wouldn’t be genetically or cybernetically augmented, so the writers had to invent this ban on human enhancement to explain its absence.
In general, I’m not entirely comfortable with the episode’s rather stereotyped portrayal of mentally ill people as either comic relief or dangerously deranged. Not to mention the stereotype of nymphomania as a mental illness in Lauren’s case; that’s an ailment that shows up almost exclusively in fiction. And plotwise, it was somewhat contrived; the conceit that they could believe they’d predicted the inevitable outcome of the war wasn’t very plausible; it seems more likely that such a projection would include a range of different possible outcomes resulting from different initial conditions or assumptions. So I didn’t find that aspect convincing.
I was pleased to see Hilary Shepard Turner here, because I’d previously known her as Divatox on Power Rangers Turbo, probably the most fun — and certainly the sexiest — of the Power Rangers’ various archenemies.
Ah Star Trek does the Rainman plot. There really isn’t anything more to say. It does manage to be quite offensive in the stereotypes is uses while doing it though. This is one I’d put down there with Prophet and Lace, Threshold, Spock’s Brain or the first two seasons of Enterprise as being in the worst of Trek
@6
Interesting insight regarding the Federation’s questionable handling of genetically-enhanced folks. Supposedly, they had this ban because of Khan’s actions.
Which begs the million-dollar question. Why was Khan evil?
Even back on Space Seed, he had designs on taking over the Enterprise, despite Kirk welcoming him and his people aboard. I never understood it. This isn’t a character like Magneto, who was brutally persecuted for being both a mutant and a jew. Khan simply felt superior to normal humans. I don’t see how that translated into megalomania and world domination. At least on Star Trek II, he had a plausible revenge motive.
And of course, stereotypes notwithstanding, Jack is a far more plausible genetically engineered character with a superiority complex. Bashir even more so.
@6
That is an intersting point – using the Jack Pack to explain the absence of transhumanism. I wonder why later Treks (TNG, DS9, VOY) couldn’t have added enhancements? They were written/aired after the rise of cyberpunk. The time gap between them and the orignal series could have been used to explain their absence before. I guess VOY addresses this somewhat with Seven of Nine and the kids, but…not quite the same.
It’s not an irrational objection to superhumans, it’s harsh experience, described back in the original series, in Space Seed:
You can see it’s not an unestablished or unreasonable bit of background detail that the Federation might take badly the idea of experimenting with such things again; it would be like “hey, let’s not be hasty about a nationalist movement preaching racial purity, marching about in uniform shirts for a charismatic leader. The Nazis were just an unfortunate misunderstanding, I’m sure these folks will be much more manageable.”
@8:
“Khan simply felt superior to normal humans. I don’t see how that translated into megalomania and world domination.”
Personally, I see it all too easily.
On the topic of the absence of genetic transhumanism, I’d guess that the intricacies of the human brain are almost as unknown in the 24th century as the 21st, and mucking around with the genetic sequences that control it’s development is a kind of roulette for any doctor, whether the federation surgeon-general or some backstreet gene-butcher. Perhaps Bashir is (also) lucky in those terms, and what the admiral says is correct: For every emotionally stable result like Bashir, or relatively benign ‘failure’ of the kinds that affect the Jack pack, there’s an empathically detached (is ‘psychopath’ still used as a technical term?) result like Khan, or worse, and there’s little that federation tech and medicine can do to screen or prevent it.
As well as the legal prohibition route, Star Trek is also taking the Fixed Number of Character Points approach to superpowers, that the points going into powers must be balanced by disabilities either physical or mental. Heinlein did this frequently, making his telepaths either confined to a wheelchair or severely cognitively impaired.
#10
Agreed. And humans for the most part in Trek seem to be getting along fine without transhumanism. Seems like a pointless upgrade in their super intellectual, already competitive enough meritocracy. But I guess if they wanted to lift really heavy debris on the bridge….
I’ve tilted at this particular windmill before, but let me just add my voice to those that don’t see a futuristic society with a moral opposition to human modification as implausible. Particularly only during a few centuries of that society’s evolution.
You could do another Star Trek 75 years after DS9 where the ban has been lifted and I wouldn’t find that implausible either.
As for this episode, absolutely loved it. Great lesson in being the smartest person in the room doesn’t always mean you’re right. I agree that the four don’t represent the most common types of people in an institution. To the best of my understanding, however, no one is denying that they do exist and the combination of those particular foibles was highly entertaining. I didn’t laugh at Jack being manic or any of their problems. I laughed at them poking at O’Brien. I laughed at Bashir in his meeting with Sisko as he’s unconsciously channeling some of their unreasonable certainty and mania. It did a good job of making them interesting, capable, and flawed without merely being comic relief.
At least an 8 for me, maybe a 9.
@8: “Supposedly, they had this ban because of Khan’s actions.”
Which makes no sense to me, because those were nearly four centuries in the past. What society would be so stagnant as to cling to a taboo that’s over a dozen generations old? Societies don’t work that way. New generations, if anything, tend to question or rebel against the assumptions of their forebears. If society goes to an extreme in one generation, the next will see the harm that extreme causes and end up going to the opposite extreme in response.
The Augment crisis in the 22nd century (as seen in Enterprise‘s fourth season) helps justify it, though. Something like that could’ve reinforced the taboo and led to the Federation’s laws against genetic engineering. In particular, I think I suggested in A Choice of Futures that part of the reason for the Federation’s ban was for fear that the Klingons, in the wake of the events of “Affliction” and “Divergence,” would see Federation genetic research as a weapons program and launch a war in retaliation.
@9: “I wonder why later Treks (TNG, DS9, VOY) couldn’t have added enhancements?”
TNG toyed with the idea of transhuman experimentation — Geordi’s VISOR, Picard’s artificial heart, Data’s very existence. The episode “Unnatural Selection” clearly showed a Federation science institution engineering superhuman children, without any mention of it being illegal, since the ban wasn’t invented until “Dr. Bashir, I Presume.”
But if you ask me, the producers were just too timid with the idea. Geordi’s VISOR was barely used as a plot point after the first couple of seasons, except when it malfunctioned or was co-opted to be used against him. And there was no attempt to portray him as just one of many enhanced humans. I think it was sheer failure of imagination. TOS had the advantage of recruiting a lot of accomplished prose SF authors to write for it — Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, etc. — but the later Trek shows almost never drew on the talent or the ideas of the prose SF community, and so they fell behind the literature in their futurism and imagination.
@10: The thing is, though, genetically superior humans are only a threat to other humans if they’re a narrow elite. If the technology were freely available to everyone, there’d be less risk of a genetic elite dominating everyone else.
@11: Yes, I believe “psychopath” is still a technical diagnostic term; I gather it’s “sociopath” that’s somewhat fallen out of favor in formal usage.
@12: Telepaths confined to a wheelchair? Hmm, I wonder if Stan Lee and Jack Kirby read Heinlein…
@13: There’s so much more to it than physical strength, though. Improved senses, improved healing and disease resistance, greater resistance to space radiation, improved adaptation to exotic planetary environments such as high gravity, low oxygen, or the like… the list is endless. In fact, a key idea underlying my original novel Only Superhuman is that it wouldn’t really be possible for humans to thrive in space without genetic engineering to give us radiation resistance, improve our ability to cope with low gravity, and the like. The demands of space and alien worlds would be novel enough that it would be self-defeating not to adapt ourselves genetically to those environments. We’d just be handicapping ourselves needlessly, not to mention condemning whole generations of our space-colonist descendants to shorter, less healthy lives. I don’t see those colonist populations tolerating that for very long.
Not to mention the stereotype of nymphomania as a mental illness in Lauren’s case; that’s an ailment that shows up almost exclusively in fiction.
@6, thank you! I’m not even sure what “nymphomania” is supposed to be in this instance. Lauren is certainly preoccupied with sexual innuendo, but that certainly doesn’t seem to be a legitimate reason for institutionalizing her. Quark, for instance, is a huge flirt, as was Bashir early in the series. If she’s using genetically enhanced strength to force herself on other beings, that’s a problem, but we’re never told that. Seems like another instance of pathologizing female sexuality to me.
The biggest problem with using Khan to explain the ban on genetic engineering is that he was a pre-warp human. Why would the rest of the Federation go along with the ban because humans screwed up once during the dark ages? Some of the older civilizations in the Federation must’ve already had centuries of experience with genetic engineering before humans ventured into space.
The Augment Crisis is a better explanation, or perhaps other species faced similar problems when they experimented with genetic engineering.
The classic example is (as krad mentions) Asimov’s Foundation, where Hari Seldon’s delicate calculations can accomodate all the large-scale perturbances but can’t account for the genetic mutation of the Mule.
@15: Didn’t the novel “Federation” have an organization with a pro-genetic engineering ideology be responsible for World War III? I know the novels aren’t precisely canon, but it kind of tracks with what Enterprise showed us about Colonel Green, and linking genetic engineering to the greatest war in human history (with it’s 600 million dead) and a totalitarian political movement would certainly explan why humans would still be gun shy about genetic engineering centuries later.
That said genetic engineering being associated with two horrible wars in human history still wouldn’t explain why the other Federation races would support a comprehensive ban. Between this and most of the Admirals being humans I’m beginning to think that Azetbur may have been on to something in Star Trek VI when she claimed humans pretty much dominate the Federation. (Though I would say it’s more a Human-Vulcan co-dominium than a “homo sapiens only club.”)
@19 hm your last comment makes me think that it could be the Vulcans that have a problem with human genetic enhancement, and all these various crises and historical examples on Earth are part of their reasons why. Offhand I can’t think of any proof, but Vulcans are long-lived enough and often fairly paternalistic so they can act as a societal counter-weight if they don’t want something, and Earth did run into them early.
Is it really true that the Federation would view Khan as really a pre-warp problem from nearly four centuries prior? It seems to me as though Khan was rather more of a recent problem for the Federation.
@@@@@#19: YES! SOMEONE ELSE REMEMBERS THAT BOOK BESIDES ME!
…ahem. You’re referring to the Optimum movement, and while I don’t have the book handy, Memory Beta says yours is a pretty compelling case.
Yeah, to the Vulcans (and presumably some of the other member races as Humanity seems to be in the shorter-lived species group even with 24thC medicine), Khan and the Eugenics stuff happened a considerably closer experiential time ago than it did for humanity. Plus we have to speculate that perhaps Earth was not the only planet to have that problem. It is possible that other Federation member planets have the same sort of problems in the past. Isn’t it canon that, broadly speaking, all planets that evolve to space travel follow a similar route? Somebody’s Law of Planetary Development or something?
As for how long it takes for silly taboos to die out. Well, look at acceptance of homosexuality, transsexuality and gender fluidity. The old taboos against those are dying very hard indeed, even in supposedly enlightened countries. Or you want a more sinister one, look at the taboos surrounding Judaism. Even after WW2 made it abundantly clear that those prejudices were abhorrent they still flourished. Or, here’s a good one, look at how ships are always referred to as “she”; that one has existed for centuries and is still going in Star Trek. Ideas and concepts once conceived of can take a surprisingly long time to go out of fashion, especially when people accept them as just the way the world works. I’d put money on genetic enhancement being banned being such an integral part of Federation law that no one even thinks about it unless they are flat out confronted with it.
@6 I don’t think Lauren’s a nymphomaniac (technically it would be hypersexuality) because she doesn’t actually act out on any impulses other than deeply kissing Bashir goodbye. Lauren is an egomaniac in that she believes everyone is attracted to her. Had she been sleeping her way across the station starting at the fusion reactor and moving her way up to ops, she would have been hypersexual.
I had three issues with this- first, why is the Jack Pack under the care of Starfleet? These are civilians who should be treated in a civilian psychiatric facility, not a Starfleet facility. It would be like a random psychiatric patient being treated at Bethesda Naval. I assume it’s because the writers sort of default to *everyone* being in Starfleet, but that’s about the only thing I can come up with. Second, why does Starfleet just decide to turn over all of their classified material to the pack. I get that they are greatful for the analysis (and that the plot required it) but it could have at least used some exposition- Sisko having another holographic conference with Ross and other admirals for example- about the decision to just grant these 4 security clearance and have at it. Last, why does Bashir just decide to go along with the surrender plan? There is nothing in his character in 6 seasons to suggest that he is the type to play it safe and surrender- at heart Bashir is a risk-taker (do medicine on the frontier!, be a spy!, I’m a doctor- I treat the enemy!). I don’t like it when episodes go against an established character’s personality for convenience purposes- not without a whole lot of struggle about it.
Other than that, I think Jack as a much more violent person rather than just a really imature and impulsive one could have been an interesting twist, where he could be advocating for increasingly violent strategies before deciding that if the Federation didn’t want to be brutal than the should just surrender. Also, I like the Roddenberry-esque ending- that it was the inherent goodness of humanity that saves the day with Sarina freeing Bashir and Bashir stopping his friends to make the allegory that the Pack’s calculations couldn’t take into consideration the human equation.
All in all, I’d give the episode a slightly lower grade- it was an amusing hour for sure, but there were too many episodes to put it at a 7.
#15
But we’re not talking about realism here; we’re talking about Star Trek. Apparently they’ve found a way to travel in space without genetic enhancements. And I hope we can as well, if we’re clever enough. I’d rather not have an upper class of superhumans walking about, which I think would likely happen given our history and competitive nature. Maybe, hopefully not quite at the outrageous level of Gattaca, but I can’t see it ending well for the non-augments.
Personally, I just hated this episode, the I remember groaning when I got to the next episode with the Jack pack. There wasn’t a thing I took away from either episode that made me feel good about it. I thought the idea was bad, it was badly implemented, and the way that Bashir just blindly agreed with them was so out of left field for me. I suppose I’m being overly harsh, but these episodes with the Jack Pack just irritated me and did nothing for me. To each his/her own, though.
@19: “Didn’t the novel “Federation” have an organization with a pro-genetic engineering ideology be responsible for World War III? I know the novels aren’t precisely canon, but it kind of tracks with what Enterprise showed us about Colonel Green, and linking genetic engineering to the greatest war in human history (with it’s 600 million dead) and a totalitarian political movement would certainly explan why humans would still be gun shy about genetic engineering centuries later.”
No, Thorsen’s organization wasn’t in favor of genetic engineering, but of weeding out the genetically impure — exactly the same as Green’s ideology in “Demons”/”Terra Prime.” (Unsurprisingly, since Federation was written by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, who co-wrote “Terra Prime.”) Also, his Optimum Movement did not cause WWIII, but arose after WWIII as a response to the mutations caused by the nuclear war.
And the novels are not remotely canon. “Canon” is a word that refers to the original, core body of work as distinct from derivative works such as tie-ins and fan fiction. Tie-ins are the opposite of canon by definition, with rare exceptions. And the conjectures of Federation have been contradicted enormously by the film First Contact as well as Enterprise.
@25: “But we’re not talking about realism here; we’re talking about Star Trek.”
Statements like that sadden me, because they show how much the franchise has strayed from its original goals. Roddenberry’s intention behind ST was to create the first SF television series that was realistic, that avoided the larger-than-life fantasy of other SFTV and handled the subject matter just as naturalistically as any medical drama or courtroom drama or adult Western of the era. He consulted with scientists and engineers and think tanks in an attempt to create the most plausible future he could, one of the very few times in film or television history that any SF creator has made that effort. Certainly he made some compromises for dramatic license or budgetary necessity (the ridiculous parallel-Earths conceit of TOS was necessary to make the show affordable by allowing the reuse of costumes and props from historical programs), and he made some missteps along the way, but he always tried to make it believable. When he produced The Motion Picture, he brought in astronaut Rusty Schweickart to consult on the spacewalk scenes to make sure they were realistic, and hired actual rocket scientist Dr. Jesco von Puttkamer as a science consultant; Puttkamer’s memo explaining the physics of warp drive anticipated Dr. Miguel Alcubierre’s famous warp-drive paper by 16 years, lacking only the detailed math that Alcubierre derived.
Unfortunately, few of Roddenberry’s successors have made a comparable attempt at credibility, and so the perception has arisen of ST as just another interchangeable space fantasy. And that’s a shame, because it was its relative plausibility that made it stand above the pack in the first place.
“I’d rather not have an upper class of superhumans walking about, which I think would likely happen given our history and competitive nature. Maybe, hopefully not quite at the outrageous level of Gattaca, but I can’t see it ending well for the non-augments.”
As I said, there doesn’t have to be an elite class if the tech is available to everyone. If you think about it, we’ve already had human enhancement for generations. Perhaps the first real transhuman technology was eyeglasses. And that’s an enhancement that’s available to just about anyone, to the point that it’s considered a basic necessity and there are means for even poor people to get them through medical insurance or other means. Maybe they started out as something only the privileged few could get, but they spread beyond that and are now seen as a universal entitlement. Ditto for things like braces and corrective dentistry — even cosmetic surgery. I think the same will be true of other enhancements.
Sure, you could argue that glasses and braces and the like are just correcting deficiencies — but they’re “correcting” in the sense of allowing everyone to attain a physical ideal that only a few people could’ve achieved naturally without medical help. So far from creating an elite with superior abilities to the masses, these enhancement technologies have created more equality by giving everyone access to that same optimum.
After all, genetic enhancement isn’t going to come all at once. There won’t be a program that breeds superior humans wholesale in a single generation. New enhancements will emerge one at a time, and will initially be privileges for those who can afford them, but will have time to become more widespread and accepted and affordable and to spread throughout the populace, perhaps even coming to be seen as universal entitlements. And since they’ll emerge one at a time, different people will have different augmentations, different advantages.
Besides, I’m talking about basic survival adaptations for space. That’s not about creating “superhumans,” simply about giving evolution a boost, adapting the species to a new environment. Don’t fall into the trap of defining evolution as some kind of “upward” progression. Evolution is outward, not upward — a branching tree rather than a ladder. Species branch out in new directions as they adapt to different environments. An adaptation that will improve a species’ ability to thrive in one environment could actually harm their ability to thrive in another. Humans who adapt themselves to thrive in space, or on Mars or on some superterrestrial exoplanet, may compromise their ability to thrive on Earth. They wouldn’t be a master race, just a distinct subspecies adapted for a distinct environment.
As geniuses as they can be, the Rat Pack’s statistics can’t account for truly unknown variables.
@5 Good point. This is another of those episodes that has a particular resonance in the post 9/11 world: Reminds me of the invasion of Iraq being based on various impressively authoritative-sounding and optimistic projections regarding its outcome (remember Rumsfeld’s phrase about “known unknowns”) as being short and profitable.
I could never buy this episode. The episode makes the fact that there are too many unknown variables out to be some sort of enlightening surprise when it should be a “no duh” kind of thing. There are maybe people who are not educated in science or statistics who might believe that the “sooper smart” people could come up with some projection of the future, but anyone with experience should be cautious about making such definite statements. Maybe since the augments are also crazy and lack experience and education, they might believe in what they are doing, but it just strikes me as odd that Bashir would buy into it. I get that the character can sometimes get swept away when he really wants something (in this case, the idea that the augments can contribute), but he has the experience to know better, and that statistics are based on chance, and as someone else mentioned, should have error bars. Not to mention that yes, there are WAY too many variables to possibly account for, not the least of which is that they have limited information on the enemy’s fleet movements. Maybe an ordinary practicing doctor might not know enough about statistics, but Bashir has been established as doing research and publishing papers. So surely he has some experience in this area.
I also feel uncomfortable with some of the stereotypes in this episode, especially with Jack, whose character just seems completely unoriginal.
The one thing I really did like about this episode is when they go into native language mode. I like that they acknowledge that the UT is always working and it’s not that everyone is always speaking in English. Also, I love the idea that using the UT can cause people to miss subtle changes in meaning due to some quirk of the original language.
As for the genetic ban stuff, I never really thought much about it–probably because I don’t really care. But I can see how the ban would exist–people today get all in a tizzy over genetically modified food, imagine how the populace would feel over genetically modified people.
Fun episode. I really liked it.
That said, as a business major and a guy who had to take a couple of years of statistics classes in college….what bugs me most is that we are never treated to any “margin for error” conversations.
There are soooo many variables in their computations. As anyone who didn’t fall asleep in stats class will recall, a chi squared bell curve type model is used when there are multiple variables and then you get these +/- percentages allowing for impossible to anticipate variables. With this many variables, those percentages would have to climb to a level where any reasonable person would know that these are projections, not facts.
How can you even have future projections without taking into account margins for errors? These guys are supposed to be geniouses, but they can’t remember Stats II? I wasn’t even a statistics major and I found myself having to completely suspend my logic to allow this episode to matriculate.
but then when i did allow it, it was fun. I like the philosophical concept of being able to statistically predict a future events probability and then base your current action on that. especially when the conclusion is that the best way out is total destruction and rebirth.
Funny to think Starfleet is rethinking the casulty count based on this group of misfit geniouses’ think tank efforts. Very fun episode.
When he produced The Motion Picture, he brought in astronaut Rusty Schweickart to consult on the spacewalk scenes to make sure they were realistic, and hired actual rocket scientist Dr. Jesco von Puttkamer as a science consultant
@27
And Isaac Asimov as well.
@29: “But I can see how the ban would exist–people today get all in a tizzy over genetically modified food, imagine how the populace would feel over genetically modified people.”
It’s one thing for a brand-new technology that people don’t understand to meet with initial resistance. But there’s no way the present-day paranoia about GM foods is going to last indefinitely, not as the safety and benefits of GM foods become more and more evident and the kneejerk fear and misinformation give way to real experience and understanding. (After all, virtually every plant and animal product we eat is already genetically modified. It’s called domestication, and we’ve been doing it for millennia.) Caution about the risks of a technology is reasonable, but fanatically outlawing it for 400 years is a deeply dysfunctional extreme and an unrealistic scenario.
And this is why it’s so incongruous in the context of Star Trek. Every new technology meets with fear about its dangers, but ST is one of the few media-SF franchises that’s generally portrayed technological progress as a good and beneficial thing rather than a catastrophic evil. Sure, it’s done episodes about the dangers of robots and computers taking control, but then it’s given us Data and the EMH as more positive examples. It’s done episodes about holodecks going wrong, but it’s portrayed them as malfunctions in an otherwise accepted and useful technology, rather than trying to portray some scenario where virtual reality causes the end of civilization because we get too caught up in our fantasies or something. ST’s normal pattern is to showcase the benefits as well as the risks of progress. And yes, that’s actually what they did with Bashir, and with what Enterprise established about how the Denobulans were able to engineer themselves without falling prey to conquerors like Khan. But given that, it’s weird that they established the idea of the ban in the first place. It’s a poor fit to the overall philosophy of the Federation.
#27
I think Trek tries to make things plausible, not so much probable, within its own universe. And it’s done an okay job, I think, for the most part. I don’t want it to get hung up on statistical probablities. (Forgive the pun.)
I think genetic enhancements may work for the better if, like you say, it’s a gradual progression. But that’s a big if. I can see a runaway scenario, a kind of singularity in genetics that would get out of hand before we could do anything about it. Enhanced soldiers. Enhanced police. Enhanced criminals. An arms race of… bigger arms. And legs. And brains.
And though it doesn’t have to be that way, it very well could. Only the maturity of the species, as depicted in Trek’s future, could control those paranoid and violent urges. Could that maturity be achieved through genetics? Maybe. We shall see. Just keep in mind the human race has a bad reputation for taking things too far. Khan might not be too far off the mark.
@33: “Just keep in mind the human race has a bad reputation for taking things too far.”
Which is exactly my point. It’s taking things too far to ban a technology altogether, to forbid the great good it could do, just because you’re afraid of the harm. That’s never a wise idea, and it’s not the philosophy Star Trek is built on. It makes no sense to fixate only on the risks and ignore the benefits. That kind of one-sided approach is absolutely taking things too far, and it’s just as great an abuse to ban a technology recklessly as it is to wield it recklessly.
Khan happened because of flawed genetic engineering, not because of genetic engineering period. As Arik Soong pointed out, Khan’s Augments were engineered with heightened aggression and ambition, and that was the problem. If their genes had been designed to prompt greater empathy and social consciousness instead, it might’ve been a great boon. It is foolhardy to damn an entire technology just because of one misuse.
@32: Well, that’s certainly a good point. Having not given too much thought to the issue, I guess I don’t have anymore to add than what’s been said.
Although I am reminded of another thought I’ve had regarding the nature of their analyses…the augments in this episode are supposed to have increased mental capacities, true–but the computers in Star Trek are a this point very advanced computationally. Certainly trained statisticians in Starfleet with more experience could use the computers to come up with the same kinds of models. So I don’t see how these people could provide the amazing benefit over what Starfleet already has like the episode says they do.
It also strikes me that this group has something of a fairy tale thing going on. When they are analyzing Damar’s speech, it’s couched in terms of a deposed king and a dark knight and a killed princess. The idea of a new Federation being born out of rebellion on Earth seems to come out of this same kind of viewpoint (and to me is the hardest part of the “accurate projections” plot to swallow–what basis do they have for that?)
Although a funny point–my wife and I were wondering why he has to hand Sisko all the different projections on different PADDs. Same thing with an earlier episode this season where Admiral Ross is handing him different PADDs for different battle plans…couldn’t they all just fit on one?
Tangentially-related trivia: Faith Salie is a regular panelist on NPR’s Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me! So far, I think they’ve only mentioned her role on DS9 once, when the subject of ST came up for whatever reason.
@34
Interesting take. I guess what it comes back to for me is that I don’t think we’ll ever really have that much understanding of the brain. “If our brains were simple enough to understand, we’d be much to stupid to understand them.” As an author yourself I’m sure I don’t need to spell out the possibilities for trouble with a person who is too empathetic. Someone who eventually values the total level of suffering and happiness of the whole population while not being able to relate to individual ambition and the rights of the individual against the majority. Or alternatively an entire society of ‘group thinkers’ might be wiped out because they stagnate.
Even in your original statement you say “might’ve been a great boon.” As a society (and the future Federation is very much a western society value-wise which might or might not happen), we have a low threshold of tolerance for experimentation on people. Especially on the brain. And especially especially on fetuses, babies, or children who could not give consent. It might go how you’re predicting where there’s a controversy, it becomes safer, and then it’s commonplace. But that doesn’t happen with every new idea.
The barriers you bring up to space travel can be dealt with by other means including artificial gravity, more effective radiation treatments, advanced terraforming, etc. I don’t think we’ll reach common ground on this issue, but I found your statement above intriguing and thought it deserved its own response.
@35
I’m a statistician myself and see what you’re saying. The point you’re missing however is a little throwaway line Bashir says (paraphrased): “The model we’re using is constructed so that variations cancel each other out over the long term for more accurate predictions.” I don’t think such a model is possible, but these geniuses supposedly made one which side-steps pretty much all of your criticisms.
@37: Yes, “supposedly” is the word. Because the script said so. You even said you don’t think such a model is possible. I do remember the line you’re talking about and that was the hardest part of this episode to suspend my disbelief on. The “cancelling out” thing sort of implies that they are just then ending up with major events, or averages. But the thing is, on the immediate time scale of the war, and certainly to the extent that it impacts individual lives, “little” details and variations matter.
Not to mention the fact that the whole point of the episode was that the model doesn’t side step my criticisms–the whole example with Sarina actually proves my criticisms. My more specific criticism is not of the use of statistics itself, but the fact that this should’ve been obvious instead of a revelation, as it was to Sisko and O’Brien (although in their cases it was more out of emotional denial than a scientific understanding). I can possibly buy that the augments believed it, as they are crazy and lack experience and real training (experience not only with applied statistics, but in interacting with the world in general). But I cannot accept that Bashir would believe it. And for the record, something like predicting the tensions between the Cardassians and the Dominion could’ve been guesed with no knowledge of statistics, and Starfleet intelligence might reasonably seek ways to make sure these tensions escalate. Or Section 31, which the augments don’t know about, so it again is a variable that couldn’t possibly factor into their equations.
Again, the scene I really liked from this episode is when they deconstructed the holo-recording of the negotiations and even figured out why they want the Kabrel system. I think that is a much better use of their abilities.
@37: Yes, obviously any new technology carries risks. But as I already said, it is unreasonable to focus exclusively on the risks and ignore the benefits. Fire can burn people and buildings, but it also makes food safer to eat, fends off predators, allows working metal, and countless other things. We accept the risks of fire because they are so enormously outweighed by the good it does, and because we can manage the risks if we’re responsible and careful. The same goes for any powerful technology. As a civilization, we have decided time and time again that the benefits of a new technology justify the risks and that the risks can be managed. We didn’t give up air travel because of plane crashes, we just learned to make safer planes.
And the fear of human modification is completely irrational, because we have been modifying humanity with technology ever since we started domesticating plants and treating illnesses. Humanity has already begun evolving in response to technology — for instance, the spread of the gene for lactose tolerance as a result of the domestication of herd animals. (Yes, domestication is technology, in the sociological sense of any applied knowledge that allows us to affect our environment or way of life.) And I think I read that our jaws and teeth have become smaller in response to eating cooked food for millennia. There are many subtle ways in which human technology has affected human biology. We can’t not be reshaped by our technology, so we might as well take responsibility for doing it consciously rather than cling to the dishonest and irrational pretense that we can somehow remain “all natural.”
@35 When e-readers first came out, I noticed that all the sci-fi novels with digitals readers assumed a seperate piece of hardware per book or document. Just comes from extrapolating from the way physical books work, I suppose.
Regarding the statistical analysis, I thought the crew was so overawed by the augments super intelligence that they accepted that the assertion that they had considered all variables and come up with a new, improved form of statistics not subject to normal problems. The revelation wasn’t about the nature of the statistics, it was that the augments were fallible and could make mistakes.
@40: Again, my point is mainly that Bashir should’ve known better, having done medical research and having sat there and worked on the equations himself. I can accept that other people with no experience might’ve been overawed by them and taken them at face value, but not Bashir or anyone else more experienced (e.g., people at Starfleet Intelligence).
@38
The one saving grace is that I remember either ‘long term’ or ‘over time’ being used in that phrase. Therefore, it’s at least marginally conceivable, if incredibly unlikely. Any short term predictions would obviously violate the models assumptions and be invalid.
@39
I think the disconnect is that you keep on saying how humanity shouldn’t fear intentionally changing itself because it’s been doing so unintentionally for a long time. The problem is they can and do harbor such fears. Whether it’s irrational or not doesn’t really matter in deciding if people will do it.
You seem to have abandoned your original assertion that large-scale transhumanism is inevitable and gone to arguing that it’s a good idea that should be implemented. Two totally different points. You might be able to convince me on the second. You won’t convince me that our society will undoubtedly embrace this particular branch on the technology tree for our entire future.
Most problems have multiple different possible technological solutions. Usually one is embraced while the others fall to the wayside. In this future the problems of exploration have been handled by incredible computers, artificial gravity, and mastery of environmental manipulation to the extent that they eliminate the problems you cited originally transhumanism was the solution for. They clearly acknowledge it hasn’t died out. Some people had a moral objection (logically or illogically) and it’s outlawed. Maybe due to this war and the threat from the Borg it sees a revitalization. Maybe instead of a few decades or centuries it takes millenia for science to learn enough about the brain to guide genetic manipulations in a beneficial way. Are any of these that implausible?
@42: Yes, of course we have such fears of genetic engineering, because it’s new. That’s the point I’ve been making all along. It’s natural to show humanity being afraid about the risks of a new and unfamiliar technology, because people always fear the new. But it’s unrealistic to show them continuing to have the exact same fears four hundred freaking years later. People are not that stagnant. The more familiar a technology becomes, the less scary it becomes, especially as its benefits come into play and people see that it’s got more positive ramifications than they realized. Innovations that were feared by one generation are taken for granted by the next, and the warnings about how the new technology would destroy our way of life or bring about a catastrophe are forgotten.
Okay, granted, Trek is a fictional universe wherein one such catastrophe did happen. But such scars fade over time, because individuals do not live 400 years. What mortifies one generation may be seen as a distant and abstract concern for the next, let alone the one after that. So any taboos would be expected to fade. A society can change enormously over the course of centuries. So having people in the 24th Century still basing policy decisions on something that happened in the 20th makes little sense. It’s an artifact of the creators of the fiction all living within a few decades of each other, which compresses the timeline. The writers of DS9 had vivid memories of the events of TOS because they’d only happened a couple of decades earlier, and they imposed that vivid awareness on the characters without realizing that, from the characters’ perspective, those events would be exponentially more remote. (Literally — 20 squared is 400.)
And yes, I do find it implausible that there’s such a complete lack of transhumanism in the Trek future. Partly because of the implausible stagnation I mention above, and also because of the implausibly monolithic nature of Trek-human society. Realistically, once humans begin colonizing space, we’ll undergo enormous cultural diversification. Anyone who disagrees with the majority view of society can vote with their feet, found their own world, and establish their own society following different rules. Even if the dominant society on Earth banned genetic augmentation, that would just promote colonization by groups that were in favor of it. Indeed, we have seen this in Trek, in cases like “The Masterpiece Society” and novels like Infiltrator, but they’re presented as rare cases of isolated societies that have no impact on the greater human culture, and I find that unrealistically imbalanced.
I just don’t buy that relying on technology to survive the hazards of space is a better approach than engineering ourselves so that we don’t need constant technological protection to survive in space. I mean, Murphy’s Law is a basic principle of safety engineering: Whatever failure mode is not protected against will eventually happen. Whatever can go wrong (i.e. is allowed to go wrong) will. If you depend entirely on deflector shields for radiation protection, then as soon as the shields fail, you’re in trouble. But if you’ve had gene therapy that improves your own cells’ ability to heal radiation damage, then you’re safer in the event the technology fails. And really, what rational reason is there to outlaw a treatment that would improve our defense against radiation? Or to enhance our stem cells to compensate for our bodies’ inability to heal and regrow tissues properly in low or microgravity?
The only reason Star Trek shows humanity relying exclusively on technology to solve these problems is because it was created in the 1960s when science fiction hadn’t yet caught on to the full possibilities of transhumanism. But today’s science fiction is full of futures in which humans have enhanced themselves in many ways. It’s not just a question of plausibility, it’s a question of relevancy. Trek’s lack of transhumanism dates it as a work of fiction. It makes it feel quaint and naive.
@43
I think we’ve pretty much beaten the topic to death, but your response inspired one more thought to me.
Maybe the only reason you’re so certain transhumanism will be prevalent 400-600 years in the future is because there’s an alternative we haven’t fully caught on to the possibilities of yet.
I am finding the transhumanism/technology discussion interesting (especially parallels to things like eye glasses) reading.
In regards to the review, especially comments on Jack not seeming as dangerous as he should – he actually didn’t strike me as a character that was supposed to be dangerous. In fact, he reminded me of what I envision my 3 year old being if he stayed at his current maturity level – hyper, prone to lashing out, but bright/easily excited/eager to help out when in the right mood. I kind of wanted to give him a hug.
@44: As I said, the point is not about the “real” future, it’s about Star Trek‘s relevancy as a work of science fiction. There is so much SF out there doing so much with the idea of transhumanism as a story seed, and Trek is missing out on that because it’s mired in the conventions of the decade in which it was created. If they’d had a little more imagination and foresight, the makers of the ’80s and ’90s Trek shows could’ve included more transhumanist concepts in TNG and DS9 — done more with Geordi’s VISOR, featured more characters with enhanced abilities, not limited the portrayal of augmentation to villains like the Borg — and been less retro as a result.
>> “This episode establishes that Damar has replaced Dukat as the figurehead leader of the Cardassian government … Weyoun is also making no bones about his subordinate role—where he was willing to string Dukat along and let him believe that he was an ally rather than a minion, Weyoun makes sure to remind Damar just who’s pulling his strings.”
I wonder why this is? Is it because Weyoun is disgusted with the problems that came out of Dukat and blames his own treatment for them, and is determined not to repeat the “mistake”? Or is it just because Damar isn’t deluded and arrogant enough to believe the “ally” treatment anyway?
>> “Tim Ransom is good at Jack’s manic affect, and his body language is truly spectacular, but there’s a disconnect between how he’s written—as menacing and dangerous—and how he’s performed. I honestly had totally forgotten that he was supposed to be scary and dangerous—notably seen in when he deliberately injures Lowes—because Ransom doesn’t really sell that element of his character.”
Eh, a more brutal portrayal could have been interesting, but it also could have taken the negative stereotypes even further down a dark road. Meanwhile, I found Ransom’s portrayal of the character quite believable. A madman who acts childlike some of the time (a more manic type of childhood than Patrick’s, of course), so that you forget that he’s actually capable of being dangerous and violent when the mood strikes him — that feels real and tragic to me.
>> “But then there’s the discussion in Sisko’s quarters, which is the world’s biggest blown opportunity.”
I thought Worf not being involved in birthing Kirayoshi was the world’s biggest blown opportunity? ;-)
>> “(And in fact the allies will win the war at least in part because of something that nobody in the Jack Pack can possibly be aware of: the Founders consider having Odo return to the Great Link to be of far greater import than winning the war.)”
Also partially because of Section 31 engineering the Founders’ disease. The Jack Pack probably doesn’t even know that Section 31 exists.
Although it is impressive that they managed to predict the Romulans’ behavior when Sisko’s uncharacteristically extreme actions were part of that event. (Maybe the Romulans would have eventually joined the war for other reasons anyway?)
@43 — But today’s science fiction is full of futures in which humans have enhanced themselves in many ways. It’s not just a question of plausibility, it’s a question of relevancy. Trek’s lack of transhumanism dates it as a work of fiction. It makes it feel quaint and naive.
OR a different take on the future that sets it part from the run of the mill “today’s science fiction” I”d rather see a different take on it than the current trend. As far as a society not accepting genetic engineering 400 years after it began due to a few remote events, its plent plausable– humanity has carried through on plenty of bad ideas and bias for thousands of years, what’s another 400? Is this anti-Trek message? Well, yes, but DS9 has continually shown us that paradise is not perfect. The Maquis, Section 31…it fits the theme, in my opinion.
I enjoyed this episode a lot more than I thought I would. A nice quiet little hour to show us a group of geniuses not as lucky as Bashir.
@48: It’s not different from the trend, though, it’s just being outdated and trapped in the past. There are many different explorations of transhumanism in fiction today. That’s the point — there are many things that can be done with the idea, but the lack of imagination and genre-savviness on the part of Trek’s writers kept them from exploring a rich vein of story possibilities. Basically TV writers, for the most part, are not very SF-literate. They tend to lag about two decades behind the prose. They didn’t choose to offer an alternative view of the future where transhumanism was avoided; they just didn’t consider the possibilities, and by the time they realized that it made them out of date, they were stuck with it, so they slapped on the very awkward patch of the genetic engineering ban (contradicting their own continuity in the process — see “Unnatural Selection”).
@50:
The views on genetic engineering of people expressed in Trek are a product of the 1930s & 1940s, and it shows.
Remember, it was someone by the name of Adolf Hitler who wanted to create an “improved humanity” by weeding out genetic elements he didn’t like and selecting traits he did like.
So I can understand why the writers of Trek viewed the future possibility of selecting certain genetic traits for people as a “no-no”. They viewed it as another attempt to breed a “master race” which certainly brought back bad memories.
“Let Mother Nature take her course” was the overriding message of this episode.
The interesting thing I always thought about it this: The further into the future we go, the more accurate the predictions will be. Or something like that. So, if their projections of the present are wrong, the future will be wrong.
At the end, Bashir told Jack that he couldn’t even see what was right in front of him. That is the flaw in their projections.
Ahh. I loved this episode. I am going to set aside the moral philosophy on genetics because I think has been pretty well coved here, and focus more on the wonderful characters brought to life in this episode. The Jack Pack were a well needed breath of fresh air. Were they borderline offensive stereotypes of mental illness? Sure they were. But for me, that made them no less enjoyable to watch. The acting was fun, over the top and reminded me of TOS/TAS. The whole plot was a ridiculous mess but I sure as hell enjoyed the journey.
Jack IS dangerous because he’s highly unpredictable and unable to perceive/care about consequences – essentially zero empathy and a lot of spastic energy.
Ransom played that very well.
Christopher L Bennett: Pro-Borgification of humanity!
I love it when the Federation’s attitudes towards genetic enhancement get discussed. Deep discussions about Transhumanism depressingly don’t happen very often in the world these days, so it’s great when Star Trek brings them up.
And while I agree with CLB on most of his points, I wanted to possibly challenge an assumption that’s getting made: that the Federation has a blanket ban on all genetic enhancement.
I don’t think that’s true, and my thought comes mainly from a rather silly episode of TNG: Genesis. In that episode, Barclay starts getting sick because the genes typically responsible for human immunity to the disease is dormant in Barclay, so she gives him a gene therapy to turn it on.
To me, that suggests that the Federation isn’t above using genetic engineering to adapt people to the rigors of space travel. It’s possible that Starfleet personnel go through rounds of gene therapy to increase tolerances to radiation as well as provide stronger immunities to alien diseases.
I think the prohibition on genetic engineering in the Federation is mainly to do with enhancing physical and mental abilities in general: making someone extremely intelligent like Julian, for example. And while I agree with CLB that it’s about time the humans of the 24th century stopped worrying about making a bunch of Khans, it’s at least more understandable that humanity is hesitant towards the possible dangers of enhancing the human brain rather than just being Luddites that believe any genetic engineering is wrong.
@56/CaptainJovannis: “I wanted to possibly challenge an assumption that’s getting made: that the Federation has a blanket ban on all genetic enhancement.
I don’t think that’s true, and my thought comes mainly from a rather silly episode of TNG: Genesis. In that episode, Barclay starts getting sick because the genes typically responsible for human immunity to the disease is dormant in Barclay, so she gives him a gene therapy to turn it on.”
But gene therapy is not the same thing as genetic enhancement. The therapy you’re describing is simply curing a deficiency, bringing Barclay’s genes into line with the healthy human norm. Federation law certainly allows that. Genetic enhancement means using genetic engineering to improve on nature, to give people abilities beyond what natural evolution provided. And that’s what’s illegal. The law isn’t about preventing diseases or disabilities from being treated, it’s about preventing the creation of superhumans like the Augments that could use their superior abilities to conquer or oppress others.
Of course, it’s strange that this ban on transhuman abilities only applies to genetics and not to bionics like Geordi’s VISOR, which is certainly an ability far beyond those of mortal men. It just underlines the arbitrariness of the ban.
@57: Gene therapy is a tool for genetic enhancement. Whether gene therapy is used to correct a deficiency or to enhance upon nature is surely an argument over semantics. In Barclay’s natural state, those genes were dormant. Using a gene therapy to activate those genes is in itself an enhancement: it improved upon what nature dealt to Barclay.
Having this level of technology to develop and deliver gene therapies in this way, it would be rather bizarre if the Federation didn’t employ these treatments more broadly to improve disease and radiation resistance. Indeed, we have evidence in Trek that by the 24th century, humans are living a lot longer, well past 100. It’s hard to imagine medicine advanced as much as is portrayed if doctors didn’t use gene therapy to enhance the resilience of nature.
But you are right that Trek hasn’t been very consistent in how it applies these things. Like with Geordie, you would think that a society that has this advanced gene therapy tech would have been able to correct his blindness in utero. But as you say, instead they use cybernetics to enhance him beyond what could even be accomplished with genetic engineering.
So yeah, my point is that if a space-faring society has developed gene therapy to such a degree that they can turn on dormant genes in an out-patient procedure with a quick hypo spray, it’s only logical and would make sense for them to use that same technology more broadly to increase disease and radiation resistance. Assuming they don’t just because they don’t want to create megalomaniacal geniuses seems a leap, or at the very least strains credulity. So while there’s no proof one way or the other, I choose to headcanon that they aren’t that incredibly Luddite in their philosophies on genetic “enhancement.”
@CaptainJovannis: ” Gene therapy is a tool for genetic enhancement. Whether gene therapy is used to correct a deficiency or to enhance upon nature is surely an argument over semantics.”
Your second sentence refutes your first. When we’re talking about enhancement, as you acknowledge in the second sentence, we’re talking specifically about improving on nature. This is the point. I have never said that the Federation bans all genetic therapy. My interpretation has always been that it allows genetic engineering to correct deficiencies, but outlaws its use to create superhumans. That is not “semantics,” that is clarifying my position.
“it’s only logical and would make sense for them to use that same technology more broadly to increase disease and radiation resistance. Assuming they don’t just because they don’t want to create megalomaniacal geniuses seems a leap, or at the very least strains credulity.”
Hey, don’t blame me for Star Trek‘s stupid idea. I don’t “assume” a damn thing. It’s what the text says, and I think it’s dumb as hell, but that’s what’s there.
Lockdown rewatch, I always had a soft spot for this episode and it’s aged not to badly at all, The Jack Pack are all very good and the scene where O’Brien is caught out just wanting to spend time with Bashir is marvellous. But for me the big thing here is the first indication that Damar is going to be a major player going forward, his interactions with Weyoun are if anything even better to watch than Dukats as Weyoun clearly thinks so little of him he doesn’t even pretend to show him any respect, Casey Briggs really brings the tragedy out in this character over the rest of the series. kudos. 8 out of 10 from me.
@15CLB: On the subject of transhumanism in SF prose and Star Trek’s failure to avail itself of noted SF prose writers in the 1980s and 1990s, I’m reminded that William Gibson wrote the single worst episode of The X-Files (in its original run, at least).
I’m always forgetting that Jack wasn’t played by Hank Azaria. On rewatch, I don’t think his Jack would have been very different from Tim Ransom’s. There’s a resemblance, and this was around the same time Azaria was playing a sweet-tempered, if disengaged, scientist on Friends.
My only real objection to this episode is the fact that Damar and Weyoun were apparently given free, unmonitored run of the station while they were there, as leaders of an enemy nation. Unlikely!
I’ve always considered Sisko himself as the one person who changed history and proved the “Jack Pack” wrong. The Federation didn’t give the Dominion Kabrel, so there was no “stalling.” The Jack Pack predicted the Romulan’s entrance into the war would happen in a year, but to me, it seems that thanks to Sisko, they joined the war sooner than a year. I don’t think they could have predicted Sisko’s “immoral” actions that brought the Romulans into the war, so it seems it all happened sooner than expected.
The thing is the Federation would have lost the war already if not for the Prophets intervening and eradicating their fleet.
There’s a production blooper I’ve never noticed before in the scene where Bashir first goes to visit his genetically enhanced brethren. When Patrick mentions Bashir might have lived with them at the institute had he told the truth, the camera cuts away to Jack. As he approaches Bashir, Patrick can be seen just at the edge of the screen with a goofy smile on his face, wearing glasses. He also has his costume open at the front and you can see he’s wearing a black undershirt. I think you can pretty much call it an outtake because Michael Keenan’s smile is not the childlike smile he wears when he’s in character as Patrick. It’s more the smile of a practical joker on the set caught on camera that went unnoticed in post production.
#6 and #16 raise a point I was also baffled by when rewatching the episode: why exactly is Lauren locked in a mental institution? Based on this episode, her only psychological issues seem to be hypersexuality and an inflated ego (which makes her think everyone’s attracted to her). Those may cause some problems for her, but they would be treated with therapy, not by putting her in a closed psychiatric ward. Even today, people aren’t put in an institution because of hypersexuality, so why would they do so in the utopian 24th century?