And so Jean-Luc Picard has finally gotten off Earth, so now the action can start, right?
Well, sorta kinda. Picard makes a stop on the way to Freecloud (to Musiker’s annoyance), and we get yet still more backstory and exposition, as well as at least a little bit of action, as well as a couple of amusing original-series callbacks.
Having said that, we’ve gotten more cultural details about the Romulan people in these four episodes of Picard than in the entirety of the previous 53 years’ worth of TV shows and movies, so there’s that…
The Romulans were introduced in “Balance of Terror” in 1966, during the first season of the original series. Later that season, in “Errand of Mercy,” the Klingons were introduced. The two empires have continued as both antagonists and allies in the years since, but the Klingons have received considerably more focus. They appeared in six episodes of the original series, where the Romulans were only in four (and in two of those, “The Deadly Years” and “The Way to Eden,” no Romulans actually appeared). Due to Worf being part of the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine cast, and B’Elanna Torres being part of the Voyager cast, those three shows tended to explore Klingon culture more than Romulan culture, and with notable exceptions like TNG’s “Unification” two-parter and especially the brilliant “Face of the Enemy,” comparatively little was done with the Romulans. Many episodes (“Tin Man,” “In the Pale Moonlight,” “Message in a Bottle,” “Babel One”/”United”/”The Aenar”) and movies (Nemesis, the 2009 Star Trek) that have had them as the bad guys still didn’t really do anything with them.
Buy the Book
Network Effect
Picard has changed that. Every episode has had new revelations about the Romulan people, and it’s been glorious, from the card games they play to the concept of Ganmadan (basically the Romulan version of Ragnarok) to the introduction of the Bene Gesserit—er, that is, the Qowat Milat, a group of, basically, warrior nuns. They follow the practice of absolute candor (hence the episode’s title), which I love. The Romulans were established from jump as an offshoot of the Vulcan people, and this is an interesting notion that feels like it evolved from Vulcan’s embrace of logic and the oft-stated dictum that Vulcans do not lie. The Qowat Milat always tell the truth, regardless of how unpleasant that might make things.
A bit of history: While it’s never been made explicit onscreen, it’s generally been assumed that the Romulans broke away from Vulcan around the time of Surak’s adoption of the principles of logic and suppressing one’s emotions, philosophies that the Romulans themselves do not follow in the least. This in particular has been explored in various works of tie-in fiction about the Romulans. The assumption has often been that they left because they rejected Surak’s logic, but the Vulcan’s Soul trilogy written by Susan Shwartz and the late Josepha Sherman has a different, very nifty take: that the Romulans were Vulcans who were sent off world by Surak with his blessing, because the chaos on Vulcan in Surak’s time was such that he was concerned his teachings about embracing logic wouldn’t survive. The intent of the exodus to Romulus was to preserve Surak’s teachings, but the hardships of the journey across the stars led to the Romulans instead rejecting Surak.
The Qowat Milat feels very much like a remnant of the Romulans’ Vulcan past (especially given the matriarchal hints seen in places like “Amok Time,” and aided by the outfits that look very much like those worn by female Vulcans in that episode as well as The Motion Picture and The Search for Spock and various Enterprise episodes). It helps that Amirah Vann, the only Qowat Milat with a speaking part aside from Elnor (more on him in a minute), imbues Zani with a regal-yet-friendly presence that reminds me favorably of Camille Saviola’s portrayal of Kai Opaka on DS9.
We meet the Qowat Milat in Yet Another Expository Flashback, as we see the planet Vashti, the hub for the relocation of Romulan refugees following the supernova that was the impetus behind the story of the 2009 Star Trek. Picard has made friends with some of the refugees, particularly the Qowat Milat, who have aided in the relocation efforts, and especially a young boy named Elnor, whom the Qowat Milat have taken in.
Elnor is played as a boy by Ian Nunney, and then in the present as an adult by regular cast member Evan Evagora (listed in the opening credits for the first time here), and I gotta say I liked him better as a kid who eagerly devours the copy of Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers that Picard gives him and who learns how to fence than I do the dour grownup. I must confess to thinking of Elnor as I saw him in the previews and promo material as Space Legolas (his Tolkien-ish name aided in that), and then at the top of the episode I was thinking he’s more Space d’Artagnan—but by the time the episode ended, I realized he’s Space Yojimbo, as he feels a lot like he’s channeling Toshiro Mifune’s ronin character in Yojimbo, Sanjuro, and Machibuse.
Men generally don’t get to be Qowat Milat, but Elnor—an orphan with nowhere else to go whom Zani and the others took in—has trained to become one of them anyhow. Picard comes to Vashti for the extra muscle that a Qowat Milat would provide, and he knows he can count on their help because, as is revealed at the very end, they will only pledge their sword to a notion if it’s a lost cause.
Elnor, is pissed that Picard basically abandoned him—a feeling shared by most of the Romulan population of Vashti, expressed verbally by a former senator. Tenquem Adrev, played with eloquence by Evan Parke, rips the Federation in general and Picard in particular for how they handled the refugee crisis. Adrev then challenges Picard to a duel, and it’s always fun to see Sir Patrick Stewart wield a sword. He actually does so twice in the episode. However, Elnor then beheads Adrev in one swipe, which is also when he announces that he’s decided to dedicate his sword to Picard’s cause despite being annoyed with him.
(That sword, by the way, must be made of some kind of impressive alloy and sharpness, as—despite what you may have been told by the Highlander franchise—it’s damn near impossible to behead someone with one swipe of a sword. There’s a whole lot of bone and muscle in the neck to hack through, and there’s a reason why beheadings are usually done via things like guillotines, which build up a lot more momentum than a sword swipe ever could.)
Back on La Sirena they have their own problems, as they come under attack by a local gang leader, and here’s where we get the two original series callbacks. The first is simply that the actors all have to shake in their seats and bounce around the bridge—though nobody actually falls out of their chairs, which would make the callback complete. And the reason why they’re bouncing around is the second callback, as the gang leader who’s attacking them has an old-style Bird of Prey, the Romulan ship we saw used in “Balance of Terror” and “The Deadly Years.” It’s fun to see that model—which TNG abandoned in favor of the warbird design—given the 21st-century F/X treatment. While I normally don’t give a hoot about ship design, this particular one was a delight.
The attack is mostly there so that the rest of the cast has something to do, and even at that, they’re not entirely successful. Musiker really needs more to do than bitch to Picard and then go ahead and do what he asks anyhow, though Michelle Hurd continues to play her with an acid bitterness that obscures brilliant competence and professionalism. And Jurati has literally no purpose in this particular story, but she’s on the ship, so they turn her into Sylvia Tilly for an episode, babbling annoyingly at Rios while he’s trying to read and generally just providing word vomit to fill time and justify Allison Pill’s place in the opening credits.
Santiago Cabrera is having way too much fun playing the various holograms on the ship. Having met the medical and navigation ones, this time ’round we get the Emergency Hospitality Hologram (who re-creates Picard’s study in Labarre on La Sirena‘s holodeck so they can keep using the set) and “Emmett,” who is apparently a pilot, and who mostly only speaks Spanish. He also looks like he’s just been on a bender.
I must confess to being real curious about how these various holograms came about and who programmed them and any number of other things. Rios declares angrily, “I hate that fucking hospitality program,” and in fact the EHH deactivates the minute Rios walks into the room, which is obviously a standing order. It feels like he didn’t choose the holograms, but they all look like him. It’s actually kind of entertaining, and it’s a great acting exercise for Cabrera—which is good, as the character of Rios is still pretty nowhere.
We’ve already seen the Federation’s side of the decision to abandon the Romulan refugees to their fate, and this episode shows us the Romulan side of it, and I continue to intensely dislike this particular plot choice. Again, we’ve been down this road before with the Klingons in The Undiscovered Country, not to mention the fact that the Federation has always been about helping people, going all the way back to “The Corbomite Maneuver” when the Enterprise offered to aid the First Federation ship when they appeared to be in distress even though that ship had been nothing but hostile. The entire history of the franchise is one where our heroes help people even if they’re an enemy, whether it’s the Gorn captain that Kirk’s been put into an arena with or the depowered entity who’s now stuck on your ship and being menaced by the Calamarain or the Jem’Hadar who were attacked by rogue elements or the various hostile Delta Quadrant powers that Voyager encountered but nonetheless provided help to when needed, and on and on and on, including the entire arc of Enterprise that showed Earth bringing species that were at loggerheads together to form the Federation. The Dominion War ended, not due to military might, but due to an act of compassion: Odo offering to return to the Great Link and cure the Founders of the disease that was ravaging them. It’s not a coincidence that dozens of Star Trek episodes open with the crew responding to a distress call.
So the entire foundation of Picard is one I’m having incredible difficulty wrapping my brain around. This is not what Starfleet has ever been, and I’m just not buying it right now.
The title character isn’t exactly coming off well, either. Last week we found out that he abandoned his aide when he resigned, and this week we learn that he abandoned an entire planet full of refugees. Picard just flushing and restarting his life is one that has had awful consequences, ones that he doesn’t really seem to be facing. There’s handwavey gestures toward it, but ultimately, Picard is getting off pretty easy for being a total douchecanoe, and I really hope that the series remembers that actions have consequences that can’t be solved by saying “I’m sorry” in Stewart’s lovely, heartfelt voice.
I haven’t even mentioned the Borg Cube part of the story yet, but that’s mainly because not a whole helluva lot actually happens there. Narek continues to seduce Soji (there’s an adorable scene of them sliding down a very smooth surface) and Rizzo and Narek continue to channel the Lannister siblings for no compellingly good reason. We do get one revelation, though: apparently the Tal Shiar/Zhat Vash think there are lot more than two daughters of Data, as Rizzo indicates that there’s a whole mess of synths that look like Isa Briones out there somewhere, and Narek’s attempting to learn where they are without activating her and turning her into the killing machine that Dahj turned into.
The episode ends with Jeri Ryan pulling a Leonard Nimoy by being listed as a special guest star in the opening credits, but not actually appearing until the very last second with one line of dialogue. Nice work if you can get it. We’ll get more of Seven of Nine next week when we finally get to Freecloud, and hopefully the whole cast will have something to do…
Keith R.A. DeCandido picked that title for the review because St. Jude is best known as the patron saint of lost causes in Christian lore.
There are lots of little “side views” of Romulan culture that are being afforded here, like the deep-seated cultural preference for secrecy and privacy (the false front door, the hidden passenger manifests, etc) which obviously manifests in the Romulans “reliable treachery – like basing a a weapons placement and military base on a Bajoran moon after being given leave to set up a military hospital – the Romulans were all like “What?!? we need to protect the hospital, Bajor.”
The Church of Total Candor probably makes these women pretty much despised by Romulan society at large, then. No wonder they turned themselves into an order of Ninja Nuns. I also really, really appreciated the demographic diversity we see in the slice of the Romulan people we get to see. Different types of people, fashions, etc. I’m old enough to remember the preposterous backlash over Tuvok being “black” because Vulans we all saw previously are fair-skinned and silky-haired. I waged that stupid fight on a Prodigy Messageboard (!) asking knuckleheads to descibe a typical human. I also liked how they added the explanation about the heavier brows and forehead creases as being basically an ethnic trait (which, at least to me, suggests a long-seated dominance of Romulan government by one region/culture during the TNG era – all the Romulans we saw in positions of authority have the pronounced foreheads. That “nation” must been in power at the time.)
Space Legolas, Space d’Artagnan and Space Yojimbo walk into a bar . . .
@krad Thanks for mentioning Machibuse. I didn’t realize there was a third film with that character.
I understand about rising and then not fulfilling the expectations, but don’t the Romulans actually know that Picard essentially got fired for trying to help them? I would believe more if someone younger confronted and accused him, not an old former senator. That moment was not entirely convincing to me.
This series should be called Star Trek: Whipping Boy. Seems like Picard is on a journey to visit as many beings as possible that he has hurt, neglected, or just generally pissed off.
I quite enjoyed this one. Vashti was an aesthetically pleasant amalgamation of Asian motifs, and I’m enjoying the exploration of different aspects of Romulan culture. They’re quickly becoming my favorite Trek species.
We’re certainly seeing more telegraphed resolutions in the themes this episode presented. Predictions – The Zhat Vash (likely a future version of the Tal Shiar) approach to averting Ganmadan/Ragnarok (the details of which are likely the “secret so profound it could break minds”) is to overtake the Federation of the recent past and use it as a tool against the emerging Borg/Synth uprising that will consume all organic life (aside from some surviving future Romulans presumably). They were willing to write off the lives of millions of their own species (by interrupting the relocation) just for this strategic foothold within the Federation – which would have been less of a moral dilemma given that so many had already died in their future, but, this also means that their standards for what a victory in Ganmadan looks like will be very low, and billions may still die in the coming conflict under the direction of the Zhat Vash. They’ll go for sure fire survival no matter the casualties, where the Qowat Milat would go for the long-shot miracle that saves countless lives. Just as the good (Data essence) in Soji will ultimately win out, no doubt thanks to Picard’s influence, the honorable approach of the Qowat Milat will win out over the premeditated Zhat Vash plot, again no doubt thanks to Picard’s guidance. At any rate, it’ll be interesting to see ragnarok employed not as a traditional prophecy, but as an observed future event. I imagine the sister and brother are present day Tal Shiar, and the sister has been initiated into the secret, where he has not. The Romulan ship that was assimilated likely belonged to time travelling Zhat Vash agents who failed in their mission.
As for the state of the Federation, it should rebound once the Borg threat is rooted out and eliminated, Ganmadan is averted, and the Zhat Vash cease to exist as their timeline splits from prime reality. Picard will be redeemed as a savior of the Romulan people, and all people. Or something like that.
Yesterday, just before watching this episode, I read the “Last best hope” by Una McCormack, which tells the story of evacuation of Romulans. It made me more emotional than I expected; it is not pretty to watch Starfleet descend from high ideals to… well, politic, and at the same time Picard being broken by it – very slowly. But it introduces the Quowat Milat. I´m not sure how well I´d understand this episode without having read the book first; I think it gives a good backstory.
This is my favorite episode yet, with some really terrific dialogue and character work from Michael Chabon. Dr. Jurati’s ramblings about space travel were a lot of fun, and I’m wondering just how many more holographic avatars Rios has. We’re getting more insights into Romulan culture; this show has fleshed out the Romulans better in four episodes than TNG and DS9 did in a dozen years. And Picard is being written in a nicely complex way — he’s sympathetic and caring and devoted to his mission, but still limited by his intellectual, reserved nature. When Elnor was asking him why Picard needed him, you could tell that he was seeking a personal, emotional answer and was hurt by the pure calculation of Picard’s stated rationale.
Peyton List has never been sexier (in part because I don’t think I’ve heard her do an English accent before), but the fact that the guy her character is flirting with is her brother makes it creepy. I’m not crazy about that part.
It would also be nice if they hadn’t spoiled the surprise appearance at the end by listing the actress’s name in the opening titles. Also, it was rather antiquated writing to have all the characters defaulting to male pronouns for the unidentified pilot of the ship that came to their rescue. Scenes where all the characters expect someone to be male and then they surprisingly turn out to be female are a trope that should’ve died out by now. And these days, we’ve finally figured out that it’s okay to use “they/them” for an unidentified person, because singular “they” has been part of English for centuries longer than the artificial, erroneous rule forbidding it.
Keith, it’s interesting that you see the Qowat Milat as Vulcan-like. I saw them as the opposite, since their philosophy is to be completely open in expressing one’s emotions, to always say exactly what they feel rather than repressing it, whether through logical discipline like Vulcans or through cunning and deception like mainstream Romulan society. I’ve seen it pointed out that Romulans should be as overwhelmed by their passions as Vulcans are and should have as much need to regulate and cope with them as Vulcans do, and in general have done so by regimenting themselves in service to the state rather than to logic and intellect. It seems the QM have tried to cope with their emotion by embracing it — they just flow where the raging current takes them rather than trying to resist it, and thus can be more at peace with what they feel.
As for Elnor’s sword, I assume it’s some kind of high-tech futuristic blade honed to monomolecular thinness, like a Niven variable sword. Not much point in wielding a sword in a high-tech space-age society with ray guns unless the sword has some kind of high technology in itself.
“So the entire foundation of Picard is one I’m having incredible difficulty wrapping my brain around. This is not what Starfleet has ever been, and I’m just not buying it right now.”
But that’s the whole point — that Starfleet and the Federation have lost their way. ST has always shown that “good only triumphs over evil if good is very, very careful,” that maintaining the Federation’s ideals requires eternal vigilance and there’s always the risk of backsliding — as we saw with the conspiracy in TUC, with “The Drumhead,” with the compromise-in-wartime storylines of DS9 and DSC, with Insurrection, and with just about every Section 31 story. But in the past, the heroes have always managed to pull Starfleet back from the brink and keep it true to its values. This time, they failed. It makes sense, really — this was a Federation still deeply scarred by the Dominion War, and it stands to reason that a lot of people would be fearful and traumatized and inclined to isolationism. So it stands to reason that the additional trauma of the synth attack would give those reactionary forces more support in the conversation and push the Overton window far enough in their favor that they got their way this time.
But I assume the arc of this series is going to be about Picard reminding the Federation of what it used to stand for and changing things for the better once again. It’s just that in these serialized times, it takes more than one episode or movie or season to bring it about.
Massively off-topic:
KRAD, would you consider doing a series of reviews of THE WILD, WILD WEST?After Robert Conrad’s recent passing, I re-watched a few eps and greatly enjoyed them. The series did have a lot of SF elements (it might count as the first steampunk tv series), and you’ve already re-watched two ’60s TV shows (TOS and BATMAN ’66).
@1/LadyBelaine: “I also liked how they added the explanation about the heavier brows and forehead creases as being basically an ethnic trait (which, at least to me, suggests a long-seated dominance of Romulan government by one region/culture during the TNG era – all the Romulans we saw in positions of authority have the pronounced foreheads. That “nation” must been in power at the time.)”
I realized long ago that most of the Romulans we saw in TOS were wearing helmets that covered their foreheads, so I tended to assume that most Romulans had always had ridged brows and it was just the ruling/elite minority that still looked Vulcan (because the helmetless ones were mostly commanders and subcommanders in the show and ambassadors in the movies). I figured that ethnic elite had fallen from power by TNG. Now, though, it looks like the smooth-browed “Southern” Romulans are more common than I thought.
@3/Valentin: “I understand about rising and then not fulfilling the expectations, but don’t the Romulans actually know that Picard essentially got fired for trying to help them?”
He could’ve still come back as a civilian. He could still have done whatever he could to stay in touch with them and help them through the transition, even if he lost the ability to evacuate more people. And in Elnor’s case, his sense of betrayal is personal — Picard never came back to see him, to read to him, to teach him and be his friend, or maybe to adopt him and give him a home.
I think Picard’s fatal flaw that we’re learning of here is that he’s too inexperienced with failure. For most of his life, he always managed to find a way to triumph, and this time he made grand promises and suffered the greatest failure of his career, and it broke him. He didn’t know how to pick himself up from it, so he withdrew into solitude and depression, considering himself unworthy to help anyone.
They’re playing Picard as the Great White Hope in this — it’s no accident that his outfit in the opening brings up the paternal colonialist types, lofty and privileged. This story so far has been about Picard’s arrogant use of what he sees as his cachet but is really his inherited privilege. He might be *right* for good reasons, but the way he’s handling that is catastrophically wrong. You see it in both large and small things — like his assuming the front desk person will recognize him; he’s even prepared for an out rush of admiration…but not for nobody noting who he is.
He’s made a lot of wrong choices — that entire fourteen years has been a temper tantrum and a *huge* sulk. Zhaban and Laris are well aware of this, and work at accommodating him. He has another tantrum with the reporter, and another with Admiral Clancy.
His responding to that initial “no soup for Romulans!” edict was the reaction of the Great White Saviour being thwarted by bureaucracy and not being aware enough of himself to have a plan B, C, and so on. He doesn’t even turn to Rafi for help — he quits at the first hurdle, presents that as a fair accompli, and gets her inadvertently fired while he runs away and sulks, abandoning *everyone*.
Starfleet and the Federation may have failed, but Jean-Luc Picard failed too, perhaps more so. The Federation is complicit in genocide-by-negligence…and so is Picard. He’s starting to wake up now, but *everyone* is mad at him because of this, and do they should be. That he thinks he’s pursuing a lost cause is a sign he’s getting it now — but has he realized yet that *he’s* the most lost cause of all? He can’t correct the horrendous mistakes he made. Saving Soji doe nothing to make amends for what he did
Christopher: I didn’t say the notion of absolute candor was Vulcan-like, I said it sounded like something that evolved from a Vulcan philosophy — but in a very Romulan direction, one that embraces passion and emotion.
And I’m fine with individuals or small groups being shown to stray from the utopian ideals of the Federation, but there are two problems with Picard‘s approach to my mind: One is that there are so many other examples; this well has been dipped into so bloody often, and it’s tired. Two is that this is a systemic problem, one that affects all of Starfleet; it’s too widespread for me to buy it in the context of the last 54 years’ worth of stories that have almost all been about how helping someone else is the default position for our heroes.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Oh, and as for Jeri Ryan’s billing — to have someone not be listed in the credits involves significant negotiation. Actors get paid more if they’re listed in the opening credits as opposed to the guest credits, and that’s not something Ryan should give up in order to preserve a story surprise. Nor should CBS have to jump through extra negotiating hoops to preserve a secret that isn’t really that big a secret, given that Ryan has been all over the promos for this…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
What I enjoyed the most in the episode was Picard finally showing some spine and taking command at various times. Up to this point, he’s been a kind of overly mild-mannered grandfather who seems way too patient for the situation. Yes, he’s a lot older and can’t make the moves that he used to, but he’s got to start busting chops to move this narrative forward. And yes, I agree… Musiker has to stop complaining all the time, and stop calling Picard JL. That annoys the hell out of me. :)
But I’m still liking it a lot. The Romulan background stuff has been fascinating so far.
@11 / krad
I agree – it’s a tired narrative, especially when a conspiracy theory is involved, as it is here. However – whether it’s a new administration or a silent coup, a sudden shift in policy or a slow reversal, rank and file members of real world governments have two choices – stay in line or get out. Many choose to stay in line and try to maintain some of the old ways of governance, as we are seeing in Picard.
In addition to the sword likely being high tech metallurgy, Romulans presumably share Vulcans’ superhuman strength. (Though I don’t recall that ever being shown.)
mschiffe – Romulans ARE Vulcans are they not?
@16
They WERE Vulcans, a few thousand years ago (grabs my copy of Diane Duane and Peter Morwood’s excellent The Romulan Way), but after leaving their home planet in generational ships, losing most of them along the way, and having to utilize some genetic witchery to survive, they are their own species now.
@11/krad: As I said, it makes sense in the wake of the Dominion War that the Federation would be more damaged and timid than it’s ever been at any time in its history, given how close it came to destruction. There are probably a lot of people who still cling to the UFP’s traditional values, but this is the one time they lost the battle to set policy, the one time they were outnumbered or outcampaigned by the opposition. Not so different from current events, where the majority of Americans reject or despise the policies of the current leadership but are failing to stop them from taking hold.
And yes, I know all about how credits work, but there have been multiple times when a big surprise guest star has voluntarily agreed to be left out of the main titles to avoid spoiling the reveal. It’s usually a special credit, the first card in the end titles with special notation, which pays more than a regular end-title credit and thus presumably compensates for the placement. And yes, we knew Seven would be in the series, but we didn’t know she’d be in this episode, so it still would’ve been a nice surprise if the titles hadn’t spoiled it.
@18 – Don’t forget that they’re also being pressured by foreign sleeper cells from within the organization! That’s likely what’s driving Federation policy to look more like classical Romulan policy. Given that Commodore Oh is so high ranking though, the Federation brass has definitely welcomed the Zhat Vash to some degree, probably because the brass has calculated that their intelligence regarding the coming crisis is so critical to their combined survival – the Synth revolt brought brass on board with the idea. Picard was forced out because his idealism is incompatible with their authoritative vision of the future… Their best laid plans will be upset! Looking forward to that.
Though it’s hard to measure the impact of the Dominion War when as far as I can tell it hasn’t even been mentioned. We’re getting TNG, VOY, and Abrams movie references, but has anything from DS9 been referenced even obliquely?
@19/Transceiver: I considered mentioning that, but I’m hoping it isn’t really a major factor, since there’s too much conspiracy-based writing in Trek these days as it is.
@krad: As CLB previously noted in another episode thread, while Picard is coming off as quite the douchenozzle to those he has “abandoned” and other previous commitments, it is quite common for those experiencing depression to withdraw from friends and family. Picard was obviously in some major funk for 14 years from which he is now finally emerging. Not making a judgment on whether or not Picard’s behavior is justified, but merely expressing why it had been so.
I enjoyed the episode and it seems the intrigue seems to continue to slowly ramp up, there is obviously still a ton of exposition. I get the feeling not all of this arc is going to be wrapped up this season. No wonder the second season was announced before the first had ever premiered! But perhaps that was always the plan – a multi-season arc for this one overriding story.
The antique Bird of Prey was fun. Loving all of the different EMH’s and their differing personalities and traits. Elnor seems like an interesting character and there is an obvious father-son dynamic going on between him and Picard. Can’t wait to get into the meat of Seven’s return next episode.
I also gotta state what a masterful job that Patrick Stewart is doing with his character. It would be jarring to go from TNG to this series with Jean-Luc Picard and be shocked that this is the same character, the one that was action-figure Picard from ST: First Contact, But so many years have transpired and so many events and tragedies have unfolded so of course he is going to be a changed man in varying ways. And it’s all very believable. So no wonder Stewart was excited to come back to the role to play this new version of Picard.
Sort of on a related tangent, I had a nightmare I awoke from yesterday morning in which my elderly father, who turns 82 this year, literally died before my eyes after imparting on me some sage wisdom. I woke up with tears in my eyes. Then it almost immediately dawned on me that my father appeared in my dream looking like the “frail” Picard from this series and who looks nothing like my father. But that’s what I get for watching Picard right before I went to bed!
I wanted to ask about something in the preview for next week’s episode, but don’t want to spoil it for anybody who intentionally skips previews, so spoilers for the trailer…
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Looking at the outlandish costumes our heroes are donning for their visit to Freecloud… does anybody else think that maybe this is a casino planet founded by the gangsters from TOS’s “A Piece of the Action”? A coworker who’s only seen a few Trek episodes was chatting with me about the new series the other day, and asked if they’d ever done any followup on that silly episode, one of the only ones he’s ever seen.
Maybe Freecloud has some high-stakes fizzbin tables?
@20/mschiffe:”has anything from DS9 been referenced even obliquely?”
Very little, but yes. In the first episode, there’s a billboard for Kasidy Yates Interstellar Freights in an establishing shot of Greater Boston (where Dahj lived). There’s also apparently a Bajoran award in Picard’s quantum archive. A borderline case is this episode’s mention of Klingon opera, which was first mentioned in TNG: “Unification” but more frequently brought up in DS9.
@10 “The Federation is complicit in genocide-by-negligence” strikes me as going way too far. The Federation failed its own ideals, and it’s understandable that people would be angry about being given hope that proved to be false. But it seems more than harsh to judge the one power that’s known to have provided assistance and saved people as more culpable than everyone else in the quadrant.
At least we’ve heard nothing of the Cardassian rescue fleet, or the attempt by the Klingons to pick up where the Federation left off, or the effort by Gorn Sans Frontieres.
It’s not uncommon to blame people who involve themselves in a problem (but less than they could have) more than those who do nothing. (It’s been called “The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics”.) But that seems kind of hard to really justify. The Federation and Picard may legitimately do some soul searching because they failed in a duty they assumed. But who else has standing to be angrier at them than at anyone else?
The Romulan senator seemed to sort of recognize that his anger came in part out of what the whole thing said about Romulan failure, though he tried to convince himself and/or Picard that Federation interference stopped them from doing what they otherwise might have. (And of course suggesting that well-intentioned but poorly executed interference resulted in a catastrophe is hitting Starfleet generally and Picard in particular where they live.)
One other point re the decapitation: we’ve long known that the Vulcans made a particular study of neck-breaking, Tal-shaya. (Notably when Spock helpfully pointed out that while he couldn’t be sure Sarek was guilty of a particular murder, Sarek did have motive, opportunity, and extensive knowledge of Tal-shaya. Thanks, son!) Vulcans’ unique nonlethal attack is also focused on the neck. And it’s frequently been presumed that that cultural memory of Tal-shaya informed the name of the Tal Shiar among Romulans.
While Tal-shaya was an empty-hand technique, it’s not implausible that it might influence the development of other martial arts, like those of the Qowat Milat.
As I said on Keith’s thread, there have always been dissonant elements in the Federation and given issues with the Romulans over time it doesn’t surprise me that in the immediate aftermath of the Mars Attack, these groups would use the opportunity to scuttle the mission and even gain power for while. And the way bureaucracies work, once the situation is no longer critical (either through resolution or its too late to do anything), they tend to fade from focus. So I’ll buy that anything the Federation may have decided to do later is too little too late.
And honestly, I could see Picard growing frustrated and stepping away for a bit (Steven’s comments above nailed it in my view. I don’t think Elnor sees the mission as the Lost Cause, I think he sees PICARD as the Lost Cause).
But 14 years of Picard basically crawling into a hole and disregarding his friends, his former shipmates, his assistants, everyone? Completely? I am having a bigger issue with that on a character level than I am on the federation level because of that.
I am beginning to suspect that this may be one of those ideas that sounded great when planning season one, but may not work out as well in production (like dropping a super-advanced ship and a family member we never heard of into pre-canon history) and may need a bit of season 2 retcon (like shoving said ship into the future and having it officially never existed and I am assuming the crew declared dead or something in a horrible accident). It wouldn’t surprise me if S2 had some flashbacks to the past 14 years to smooth out some bumps.
As far as Rios, etc.. Season 1 characters are almost always iffy until the writers get their handle on the actors and the interactions..
@23 I had the same thought, though I think it’s a longshot. But IIRC, what became DS9’s “Trials and Tribbleations” was at one point planned to be a visit by the DS9 crew to Sigma Iotia. Which had moved on from gangsters… to cosplaying 23rd century Starfleet.
While I loved T&T, I still wish we’d gotten that story too.
mschiffe @@@@@ 25
“Gorn Sans Frontieres”
I like the way you think.
@25 & 29 That would sound great if sung as a refrain by Kate Bush in a Peter Gabriel song.
I could see maybe Earth and a few other worlds become isolationist after the Dominion War, like those that suffered directly from attacks or occupation, like Betazed, but I have a hard time believing the entire Federation would go along with it. There’s over 100 worlds in the alliance. It would make sense for some members to threaten secession because they wanted to help the Romulans, or at least disobey government orders. What, the Vulcans had no interest in helping their cousins? I mean beyond that lone Vulcan in his little ship with the red matter?
Apart from that, it’s a bit tiresome to see them go to this well again. We just saw a morally sketchy Federation in Discovery.
“the Enterprise offered to aid the First Federation ship when they appeared to be in distress even though that ship had been nothing but hostile.”
Ler’s not forget that the Enterprise destroyed the First Federation marker buoy and then invaded their space. I’d say that the Fesarius had a right to be hostile.
“Your vessel, obviously the product of a primitive and savage civilisation, having ignored a warning buoy and having then destroyed it, has demonstrated your intention is not peaceful.” – Balok
And as to ” Odo offering to return to the Great Link and cure the Founders of the disease that was ravaging them.”, let’s not forget that it was the Federation, via Section 31, that infected the founders and Odo in the first place. And as we’ve learned more about Section 31, the Federation’s plausible deniability was shredded a long time ago. Sec 31 seems to be similar to the IMF of Mission: Impossible, there to do the dirty jobs and be denied by the secretary if they’re caught.
Picard keeps saying he’s sorry but this episode shows that he really isn’t learning anything. When he’s minutes away from getting off the planet, he makes a big show of stripping the sign from the restaurant, stepping on it and then demanding service. His own arrogance led directly to the death of the Romulan senator. And how does he react? By saying “That was bad. You’ll only do what I tell you to do” to Elnor.
One thing that I noticed, how did they know to beam up Picard AND Elnor? Picard never told them that he had company coming with him. And how would Raffi know which Romulan to beam up when she did? It was Picard surrounded by Romulans. How did she know which one was Elnor?
I’m hoping that once we get to the meat of the story, Jurati will become more interesting. I got a Tilly vibe from her last episode and that’s not a good thing. And to simply start chattering at someone who’s trying to read is pretty much the dictionary defintion of rude and self centred. Maybe they’re making her unlikeable because they’re planning on revealing that she’s a sleeper agent for Commodore Oh and we’ll all hate her so she has to undergo some sort of redemption arc.
Or maybe she’s just annoying.
@31/JFWheeler: The whole Federation doesn’t have to agree with it — just enough to shift the balance of power in the Federation Council and the Presidency. And a lot of people who went along with it wouldn’t have done so because they agreed with it, but because they recognized that losing 14 member worlds would be a devastating blow to the Federation and thus were essentially extorted into going along with the isolationist vote.
It’s a little-known fact that before the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln supported a proposed Constitutional amendment that would have protected slavery from ever being outlawed or abolished. Despite his personal distaste for slavery, he was willing to see it enshrined as an irrevocable law of the land rather than see the South secede from the Union. If the South hadn’t pre-emptively launched the war before it could be ratified, they might have succeeded in forcing the US to give them what they wanted. Probably the same thing happened here with those 14 worlds threatening secession, but in this case their strategy worked.
@33
Eh, I guess. But we’ve seen enough high-minded people in the Federation, not just in Starfleet, that it strains credibility there wouldn’t have been some renegade Starfleet or civilian effort to help the Romulans. With over 100 worlds of various cultures and philosophies, not just locked into roughly one culture like in the American Civil War, there had to be some contrarians who would say no to the Federation Council’s moral retreat and lack of empathy.
So the Romulans and Vulcans were created as allegories for North Koreans and South Koreans, right? Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese would be even closer, but in that case the exiles were the good guys.
What about the Klingons in all this? Are they Federation members now? Or are they still independent? Seems like their relationship with the Romulans would have been greatly improved after the Dominion War, if fighting and dying alongside them was seen as honorable. Didn’t Martok become chancellor at the end of DS9? I can’t see him or even Worf turning their backs on them after that.
@33 said: And a lot of people who went along with it wouldn’t have done so because they agreed with it, but because they recognized that losing 14 member worlds would be a devastating blow to the Federation and thus were essentially extorted into going along with the isolationist vote.
it could be more significant than just 14 worlds going. Clancy actually says 14 species, which could potentially mean losing 2 or 3 (or more) times that number of planets if colony worlds are counted amongst the 150 systems.
So Picard is now a full on Don Quixote, complete with lost cause, sense of nobility and entitlement, onset of dementia and seeming lack of awareness about his actions. Why does he start the cafe confrontation when he’s minutes away from departure? The “Romulans only” sign triggered him, but it may have had unfortunate echoes to the segregation era in the US.
Elrond Elnor takes Legolas’ place in the Fellowship. Saw a theory that he may be Spock’s son, from the underground unification era.
The Bene Gesserit order of warrior nuns was somewhat disappointing, since we don’t actually see them do anything. Everything we know about them is mostly told not shown.
The Fenris Rangers echo the Rangers from Babylon 5. The name also ties in with the Romulan references to Ragnarok. We’ll find out more next episode once Picard talks to Seven, although the crew going to Space Vegas made me shudder a bit. Hopefully no Vic Fontaine hologram cameo.
Saw several mentions elsewhere about Picard’s linen suit and Panama hat in the flashback, which they took as a colonialist inference. Not sure why he wasn’t in uniform if he was representing the Federation at the time.
Speaking of the Feds, I’m still not sure why the Romulans blame Starfleet so much. From Nero’s rage in ST:09 to the Romulans here, why don’t they hold their own government to account more? They were a frickin’ star empire with many resources, including fleets of ships for evacuation purposes. Maybe all that happened and the Federation was only responsible for the millions that fell thru the cracks, which makes the blame game a bit overwrought. Starfleet was plugging a hole, not managing the whole flood.
Picard neglecting to check in with Elnor, just as he ignored Raffi for 14 years, is hard to forgive. Elnor has good reason to blame him, but Picard asserts himself immediately after they are back on ship. Not sure I like that characterization. Since this episode was written by Chabon, I’m giving it some leeway. Maybe they need this to set up some kind of redemption later.
The Lannister couple continue their flirtation, but there’s no forward movement in that plot. It feels like stalling at this point. The “Borg ritual” scene was close to ridiculous. I suppose all couples are ridiculous in the minutiae of how they fell in love. It’s largely meaningless and outright silly to an outsider, but the music score especially seemed to make too much of it, as if it was some kind of grand romantic thing we were watching.
The show seems to be slowwalking the space elements so far. Liked seeing an old style warbird show up. Critics and commenters elsewhere referred to it as a Bird of Prey, which is a Klingon designation. The T’Liss Warbird has a birdlike design, although don’t think this one had the decal on the belly. I’m currently flying a D’deridex Battlecruiser retrofit in STO. I’d be excited to see at least one of those show up. Btw, STO has a storyline where of the Tal Shiar is harvesting tech from the Borg.
Sideline: the Borg are the toughest enemies I’ve encountered in the game. Just reached Vice Admiral rank and got a Galaxy class ship and it was like hitting a roadblock; the fight against a Borg cube seemed unwinnable. So I ditched that ship and refitted the D’deridex with my best gear then went back. Still got destroyed a few times, but ultimately won the fight. The Galaxy and the Romulan battlecruiser were supposed to be about equal in firepower during the TNG era, yet the Romulan ship is far superior in a fight.
@34/JFWheeler: “But we’ve seen enough high-minded people in the Federation, not just in Starfleet, that it strains credibility there wouldn’t have been some renegade Starfleet or civilian effort to help the Romulans.”
There was. Spock’s Red Matter gambit.
@35/garethwilson: “So the Romulans and Vulcans were created as allegories for North Koreans and South Koreans, right?”
No, the Romulans were introduced in “Balance of Terror,” which was one big homage to the film The Enemy Below. So they were based on the Germans in WWII to an extent. Mostly, though, they were Space Romans, as you’d expect from the name.
“Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese would be even closer, but in that case the exiles were the good guys.”
Not really. As I recall from my Chinese History course, the Nationalists were pretty nasty when they were in power, which was part of the reason there was a populist revolution against them. History is full of conflicts where both sides were the bad guys.
@38
Bird of prey was originally a Romulan designation. That changed after they switched from Romulans to Klingons in Search for Spock without changing the ship.
@38/Sunspear: “Critics and commenters elsewhere referred to it as a Bird of Prey, which is a Klingon designation.”
What JF said. “Bird of Prey” was the designation used for this class of Romulan ship in “Balance of Terror.” At the time The Search for Spock came out, we found it pretty weird that suddenly Klingons were using cloaked ships called Birds of Prey, though we probably figured it was a result of their alliance with the Romulans established in The Making of Star Trek.
@39
One guy in a little ship, huh? Not exactly the Dunkirk spirit.
@42/JFWheeler: Spock had the whole Vulcan Science Academy behind him; they’re the ones who built the ship and supplied the Red Matter. Only one ship was needed; if he’d stopped the supernova, there’d be no further need for evacuations.
And of course it doesn’t preclude the existence of other rescue operations. They could’ve existed, but none would’ve been as large or effective as what Starfleet could have brought to bear, and they would’ve been late getting started because everyone would’ve expected Starfleet to handle it. And the supernova came sooner than expected, don’t forget.
Yeah well, it all goes back to that terribly sloppy script for the 2009 movie, and I’m beginning to wish Picard had just moved beyond it to some other issue rather than trying to make sense of it.
@44 JFWheeler
The narrative really doesn’t depend on much from that film. I’m enjoying the world building and the continuity. Visually speaking, it does resemble that more colorful, populated, and flashy film universe, but I can live with that.
Forgot to add: Jurati’s scene with Rios is replete with bad “facts.” You’d think knowledge of our galaxy would be even more precise 400 years from now, but we get her saying that the galaxy has 3 billion stars. She’s only off by about 97 billion. Then again, she’s an expert in cybernetics, not astrophysics. The information is not challenged by Rios.
I like Chabon as a writer, but a quick wiki search would’ve fixed that error. Both this show and Discovery would benefit from having an in-house science adviser, even though accurate science is not the point of a Trek show.
@46/Sunspear: You’re lowballing it. She might be off by more like 397 billion.
And both shows do have science advisors, I believe, but the thing about advisors is that they can only advise. There’s a long history of writers and producers ignoring their science consultants’ recommendations.
@45
I think much depends on the aftermath of that film. To some degree I admire their taking the challenge of addressing the fallout, but I’m not crazy about this particular worldbuilding. Just seems like an obvious surface-level dark place to take the world and the character of Picard before, presumably, coming to the rescue and making a grand speech that rejuvenates the Federation.
I hope the speech is a good one at least. As Q once said, that may be the only reason I keep coming back to visit Jean-Luc.
@38, personally I love Sir Patrick in a suit and hat. I would guess that in story he felt civies would be less offensive to Romulans than Starfleet uniform.
My partner and I have both been enjoying this series and this is easily my favorite episode so far. Also, I’ve never cared much about the Romulans but this series is making them far more interesting. I didn’t notice Jerry Ryan’s name in the credits so I was surprised she showed up here. Actually, I actively avoid reading the names in the credits for this very reason. And while the trailers for the series were filled with returning characters meant to lure fans back into the fold I’ve been delighted that Picard (the series) stands on it’s own while respecting the past; feeling like another Star Trek series rather than TNG Part II. I liked TNG but we have 178 episodes of that series + 4 films. I like that we’re getting something different here.
Also, I don’t mind that we’ve been here before with the Klingons with The Undiscovered Country and I think the reason why is that story was so limited – which makes this take very different; the whole conflict in Undiscovered Country takes place in that single film and then it’s done – and we jump ahead to TNG and move on. But here they’re taking similar issues and giving them the attention that they deserve. For me, Undiscovered Country is a poorly told story where characters behave out of character in a random episode…but in Picard we’re seeing Starfleet behaving in a different way than we expect and it’s fleshed out enough that it feels more legitimate to me; it’s not a happy story but I can believe it. It’s why I loved DS9 more than TNG. In TNG they generally arrive at a planet, experience a problem, fix it and then fly away – seldom if ever following up on what they’ve wrought. On DS9 they often followed the same pattern, surely, but they were on a space station and so they were also more prone to being forced to face the consequences of their actions. Both storytelling formats work for me, but I appreciated DS9’s more. And I think the serialized format of DISCO and Picard lend themselves to similar consequences that other Treks often avoided. I can understand people appreciating different Treks because they are in fact different…but I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy all of them to some degree, and I look forward to all the new Treks coming down the pipeline.
I do wonder if by the end of the season I’ll connect more with the visuals in the opening credits, which are beautiful and have lovely music…but some of the imagery confuses me. But maybe I’m overthinking it…or I’m just not getting it. lol
@CLB: “You’re lowballing it.”
google search gave me this: “Astronomers estimate there are about 100 thousand million stars in the Milky Way alone.” But of course, that’s an estimate subject to revision. Don’t remember the number she gave for planets, but that seemed wrong also, if she said anything below 100 billion.
@51/Sunspear: As I said, 100 billion stars is the low end of the estimate range; it’s somewhere between 100 and 400 billion by current estimates, and it might be even more. The reference you found was probably simplifying or misinterpreting the idea that the estimate is on the order of 100 billion stars.
@CLB: yeah, it said something about the difficulty of estimating low mass stars, hence the hedge upwards by 300 billion.
In any case, I couldn’t find the other reference I thought I read that said current Trek is operating without a science advisor. Maybe I confused that with Andre Bormanis no longer working on Trek. Think he’s consulting for The Orville.
I assumed whoever was advising the writers estimated there are 3 billion planets with life – a reasonable estimate for the Star Trek galaxy. I don’t think we should sweat these things, the in-universe explanation is the same as the real life one – someone misremembered something. A show is more, not less, realistic if these things happen.
Loving just about every aspect of the series so far. Picard and the Federation are flawed. They always were. Our civilisation itself faced obliteration at the hands of the Dominion. It would be astonishing if there weren’t some happy, for selfish reasons, to see an empire crumble that represented the last local existential threat. Plus how many worlds, how many billions of beings, were freed from that empire’s yolk? How many current Federation worlds suffered at their hands before they joined that organisation There would have been all sorts of rationalisations some could have used to justify a manifest wrong.
@5. Transceiver: “The Zhat Vash (likely a future version of the Tal Shiar)”
Not sure that squares with what we’ve been told so far about the Zhat Vash being around and fighting artificial life for “thousands” of years. Although that itself doesn’t make much sense: when was the advent of such AI in the galaxy?
If this becomes another convoluted time travel plot, perhaps related to Control and whatever Discovery is doing in the future, I think there’s going to be some grumbling.
@55/Sunspear: “Although that itself doesn’t make much sense: when was the advent of such AI in the galaxy?”
Meaningless question. There have been countless civilizations in the galaxy over the course of its history, some immensely older than others. The Old Ones of Exo III, for instance, invented androids many centuries ago. The Mudd’s Planet androids also date from sometime in the distant past. AI has no doubt been invented many times over the ages by many separate civilizations.
Vulcan obviously had to be an advanced, starflight-capable civilization at the time of the Romulan migration, before its final war caused a technological regression that it took more than a millennium to recover from. So it certainly could have been advanced enough at the time to create AI.
@CLB: “AI has no doubt been invented many times over the ages by many separate civilizations.”
That there’re older civilizations across the galaxy is a given. Didn’t think that needed to be stated. But what’s the specific connection to a secret Romulan service existing for thousands of years as their reason for being? The numbers don’t seem to add up. They are too recent of a civilization, relatively speaking. Is this a religiously inflected War Against the Machines like the Butlerian Jihad? More Dune influence.
There are two things standing out to me, so far…not necessarily with this episode, but with the plot of the show, and of the Kelvin-universe films, as a whole:
1. Having had a less-passionate explanation of what really happened to the Romulan homeworld, Nero’s rage/insanity in the 2009 movie really make more sense now. All we really got from 2009 was “Spock tried, and failed.” Well, now we know there was a LOT more to it than just that. We now know that the Federation was poised to help, and then basically chickened out. That certainly is motivation for Nero’s feelings in the Kelvin movie. If we infer that Spock’s efforts were basically cobbled together at the last second, once he realized the Federation really wasn’t going to do anything about it, it makes sense that Nero blames Spock for basically being “too little, too late.”
2. Given how traumatized Picard clearly was by the Federation chickening out, wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to have been working WITH Spock on the red matter project? Granted, they may well still address this in the series at some point, but unless Spock was moving so quickly and/or secretively that Picard didn’t know he was up to something, given everything we know about Jean-Luc Picard, especially his bond with Spock after the mind melds Picard shared with Spock and Sarek, the thought of Picard doing anything other than reacting to Spock’s rescue attempt by saying “Hold my tea, Earl Grey, hot” and charging off to Spock’s side is a bit hard to believe.
@57/Sunspear: We know from Enterprise that “those who march beneath the raptor’s wing” were active around the time of the nuclear wars in Surak’s life, shortly before they chose to leave Vulcan (or were exiled). Maybe there was some kind of Colossus or Skynet-type AI involved in those wars, and so the proto-Romulans decided that AI was too dangerous to exist, and they took that idea with them when they left Vulcan for Romulus. That’s only 2000 years before Picard’s time, but that’s still “thousands” (and maybe Romulan years are shorter).
I agree entirely with the comments made by Christopher Bennett on why the Federation seems to have backtracked on many of its ideals and left the Romulans to their own devices and it would be interesting to hear from the article author as to why he ‘can’t buy it’ why that wouldn’t happen. The Dominion War would have left the alpha and beta quadrants very scarred and even though the conclusion of DS9 allowed Odo to restore the health of the Founders which could be seen as typical of the idealistic approach of the Federation it was also a calculated gamble on the part of leaders such as Ross and Sisko to try and bring the debilitating conflict to a quicker end. After that conflict I am certain it would be consistent with Star Trek canon to see many of the powers within the Federation being more cautious and less confident in taking ‘idealisitc’ actions. The events of Nemesis portray a coup in the Romulan empire and a further grave threat to the Federation including the possible annihilation of earth (again) by Thaleron radiation until Shinzon was stopped by Picard and the sacrifice of Data. Although at the end of Nemesis we are told that the Romulans ‘want to talk’ nevertheless it would be highly likely that by the time of the supernova that relations between the Federation and the Romulan empire would be be very strained. Given all this background (and others have relayed the contents of the novel Star Trek Picard the Last Best Hope) and even given in the Star Trek universe the utopian approach of nearly 400 years of human development it does not seem incredible that utopian and idealisitic attitudes are under severe strain. Add to that the conspiracies that have abounded in the Star Trek universe and this time involving Romulan intelligence and some Starfleet officers (and no doubt some Federation politicians) I don’t think it stretches credulity at all to imagine the Federation taking a more isolationist course. So in this case I think the script writers have prepared a credible scenario of the state of the galaxy in which Picard can re-emerge. Of course, the fact that the fictional state of the galaxy in 2399 may parallel what may be happening in our world in 2020 is just good drama commenting on our current condition.
Is the Federation of Star Trek Picard even acting that differently than the Federation of the TNG/DS9 era? After all that earlier, supposedly more utopian and idealistic Federation still:
– Came very close to allowing the extinction of a sentient species from an easily preventable natural disaster. (STTNG: Pen Pals)
– Allowed the extinction of a different sentient species from a natural disaster. (STTNG: Homeworld)
-Ordered its officers to carry out genocide on a hostile species if given the opportunity. (STTNG: Descent, Part 1)
-Declined to give the cure to a genocidal disease to another species even though it was Federation operatives who had deliberately infected that species in the first place. (DS9: The Dogs of War)
-Allowed an entire sentient species to go through horrific drug withdrawls when it had the technology to help them avoid that suffering. (STTNG: Symbiosis)
-Attempted to forcibly relocate an entire species from their world because the Federation wanted that world’s resources. (STTNG: Insurrection)
-Surrendered thousands (millions?) of its own citizens to the sovereignty of a hostile foreign power. (STTNG: Journey’s End)
-Deliberately poisoned the atmosphere of an entire planet, forcing the relocation of all the people living there. (DS9: For the Uniform)
-Ordered a man to turn his child over to the state solely for the benefit of the state. (STTNG: The Offspring)
-Refused to help the Bajorans resist the occupation of their planet for 50 years and despite the Federation actually being at war with the occupying power for much of that time. (STTNG: Ensign Ro, The Wounded)
-Allied with the Klingon Empire despite it continuing to occupy the home worlds of other sentient species. (STTNG: The Mind’s Eye)
-Tricked the Romulans into entering the Dominion War through a false flag operation. (DS9: In the Pale Moonlight)
These weren’t the actions of renegade Admirals or Section 31. Every item on this list was either ordered by the Federation Council/Starfleet Command or was done by the main characters of TNG and DS9, so even the earlier Federation was hardly some shining city on the hill. It was frequently just as callous and ruthless in the TNG/DS9 years as it is being portrayed as in Star Trek Picard. (And indeed it could be argued that the Federation was worse in the TNG/DS9 years as at least the STP era Federation tried to help the Romulans which is a lot more than the TNG/DS9 era Federation did for the Boraalans.)
@61/bguy: There’s a big difference between choosing not to force your help on someone who didn’t ask for it and denying help to someone who did ask for it. The Prime Directive is about respecting others’ right to solve their own problems, because trying to push your own solutions onto them can do them more harm than good. It’s a safeguard against well-intentioned cultural imperialism and condescension. Leaving others to deal with their own problems can seem callous, but the alternative is often worse. Although of course TNG took it way too far with the whole insane “let them die rather than risk harming them” policy. But basically it’s a matter of consent. No matter how benevolent your intentions toward someone else, you don’t have the right to take actions affecting them without their informed consent — without them having the freedom to turn you down, something it’s hard for them to do if you’re far more powerful and knowledgeable than they are.
But this is a case where the Romulans had requested help, the Federation had promised to give it, and now it reneged on that promise. It was a fully consensual, mutual interaction in which the Federation went back on its word, severing the agreement without the consent of the Romulans. More, it wasn’t an isolated action of a small rogue group like many of the examples you cite, or the order given by a single admiral who then reconsidered when reminded what they stood for. It was the final, lasting decision of the UFP’s government. So yes, it is quite different.
The whole concept of the maquis is that the federation abandon the settlers after the treaty with the cardasians (ok I think they tried to relocate them but never put much effort was shown on the subject). by the way I love that you krad are final rewachting voyager
@62: How exactly were the Boraalans and Sarjenka’s people supposed to ask for help? Neither race even knew there was anyone out there to help them. Plus with the Boraalans, they lacked the technology to ask for help or to even know they were in danger in the first place.
As for the Bajorans why would the Prime Directive apply to their situations? The occupation wasn’t an internal matter. They were conquered by an outside power. (And it seems very unlikely that the Bajorans would have turned down Federation aid if it was offered to them given that they were willing to accept arms from a psychopath like Hagath.)
Anyway, even if you disregard the Prime Directive related examples, that still leaves the TNG-DS9 era Federation willing to commit genocide (twice), willing to force people from their worlds, willing to ally with an imperialistic power, willing to commit war crimes (in deliberately targeting the environment of a planet), willing to abduct a child from her parent, and willing to trick another nation into war, so the point still stands that the Federation of Picard’s heyday was still hardly all sugar and spice. It has always had a dark side to it even without taking into account Section 31.
@63/lucas: “The whole concept of the maquis is that the federation abandon the settlers after the treaty with the cardasians”
No. As we saw in “Journey’s End,” the DMZ colonists chose to accept living under Cardassian rule rather than give up their homes. You could say the Federation mishandled the way it negotiated the treaty in the first place, but it did subsequently offer the colonists relocation options that they refused. The colonists chose to trust in the Cardassian government accepting them as citizens, which the Cardassian government promptly failed to do. And then the Maquis reacted to that abuse with terrorism and rejected the Federation’s attempts to negotiate a peaceful settlement. It’s grotesquely twisting the facts to pretend the Federation is exclusively to blame in that situation.
@64/bguy: I’m not here to nitpick individual cases. I don’t want to get dragged into an argument for the sake of arguing. I’m just saying that despite some misfires in the way occasional TNG episodes approached it, the essential idea behind the Prime Directive is not cruel and malicious, but is based in the recognition that it’s more important to respect others’ consent and freedom of choice than it is to impose your help on them. So it’s not the same thing at all as the Federation actually breaking a promise and reneging on a consensual partnership with the Romulans.
And I never said the Bajoran situation was about the Prime Directive. I said it was impractical to intervene because it would’ve made things worse for the Bajorans rather than better. Dragging the planet into the larger interstellar conflict between the UFP and Cardassia would ultimately have gone as badly for the Bajorans as getting dragged into the Cold War went for Southeast Asia and other Third World countries. The the Bajorans would’ve just become pawns in the larger chess match between the superpowers, which wouldn’t have benefitted them in the slightest. It’s politically and historically naive to think that it would be easy for the Federation to just swoop in and save the day. It would’ve been a quagmire.
“that still leaves the TNG-DS9 era Federation willing to commit genocide (twice)”
No, that was a Starfleet admiral in the former case and a criminal conspiracy within Starfleet in the latter case. Despite the tendency of many fans and some writers to confuse them, Starfleet is not the Federation. It is the defense organization that works for the Federation. You cannot assume that the orders of a single Starfleet admiral (let alone a criminal cabal whose entire purpose is to act in defiance of laws and regulations) are necessarily congruent with the policy of the Federation government. Sometimes military personnel take actions that their governments deem wrong and penalize them for.
“so the point still stands that the Federation of Picard’s heyday was still hardly all sugar and spice.”
Of course not, because there wouldn’t be stories if it were. But the difference is that those were portrayed as exceptions to the norm, and the people behind them were either held accountable for their misdeeds or convinced to change their minds. But the abandonment of the Romulans was the official policy of the entire Federation government. What was a rare exception is now the new normal, and that absolutely is a major difference.
During the first scenes introducing Vashti, I had an intense reminder of “Firefly”. It was everything from the music, the setting, the camera moves on the settlement. For a moment, I might have thought to having accidentally switched channels… :-D
Would love to learn, if this was intentional, though…
@65 / CLB:
And then the Maquis reacted to that abuse with terrorism and rejected the Federation’s attempts to negotiate a peaceful settlement. It’s grotesquely twisting the facts to pretend the Federation is exclusively to blame in that situation.
Yeah, I remember these same arguments from the DS9 Rewatch comments and I agree with them.
Re-watching DS9 as an adult, that was definitely the point where the Maquis lose any sympathy with me. Yes, the Feds botched the DMZ negotiations (and I’ve always wondered if that was influenced by the UFP’s own post-Wolf 359 trauma and trying to avoid any conflicts again after the Borg’s wake-up call).
But everybody always overlooks that point from “The Maquis, Part 2” about how Cal Hudson and the other Maquis leaders were hellbent on sticking it to the UFP even after Sisko and Dukat exposed the Central Command’s treaty violations. One could argue that Hudson’s zealotry and ego, perhaps even more so than Eddington’s, ultimately got the Maquis slaughtered by the Jem’Hadar three years later.
Just spitballing:
The Romulans were behind the attack on Mars (as Raffi believed) bc they saw synths gaining in prominence. Their plan worked: Federation banned synths, but backfired when Federation pulled out of rescue efforts.
Years later, they go to Starfleet and present evidence that a synth will destroy … something (per Romulan mythology). Starfleet believes their intelligence and that’s why Maddox disappears. Starfleet agreed to work with Romulans to prevent the doomsday scenario. So it’s not some “evil conspiracy” but rather a secret agreement that is trying to save lives.
@59. CLB: Interesting. I hope they continue to do more worldbuilding with the Romulans’ history, giving us some links between the past and the current covert war against AI.
Otherwise I’ll have to go with my fallback theory: there came a day when that pesky inventor E’lon M’usk from Southwest Province lost control of his S’elf D’riving S’huttles, leading to mass deaths in a single day.
Btw, this is my current wet dream desire in STO, a Valkis-class Temporal Heavy Dreadnought Warbird:
It’s a massive carrier ship from the 26th century, roughly equivalent to the Enterprise-J. There’s also a Klingon equivalent which looks pretty cool, although I don’t normally like Klingon ship design. I would jump up and make strange noises if the Valkis popped up on screen. Not remotely likely, of course, even though there’s plentiful cooperation between the game and owners of the IP. The most current episodes feature Seven and Burnham.
Picard is taking a more retro approach so far to what we see in space, even maintaining the original Bird of Prey designation for the Light Warbird (I expected a Klingon ship to pop up on screen). Not sure they can avoid a space battle on screen once the Cube wakes up.
@65: The idea behind the Prime Directive may not be cruel and malicious but how it was applied in the TNG-DS9 era certainly was. Whether you are willing to help save a species from a natural disaster should not depend on if they have the technological level to ask for help. Boraalan lives should matter just as much as Romulan lives.
As for the Bajorans, they were already pawns in the chess match between the superpowers given that they had been outright conquered by one of those powers. And the Bajorans had already chosen to fight their occupiers (and to seek outside help in their fight.) If the Bajorans ask for help in fighting their oppressors, then how is the Federation refusing to help them any better than the Federation refusing to help the Romulans? Both situations involve the Federation refusing to help people that are suffering.
(I’m also skeptical that it would have been a quagmire given how much the Federation was shown to militarily outclass the Cardassians at that time. Nor would the Federation have had to stay on Bajor after expelling the Cardassians because it would not be trying to impose a government on the Bajorans. It would be more a Desert Storm than a Vietnam or Afghanistan.)
As for the Federation’s genocide incidents:
Is there any indication in any Star Trek story that Admiral Nechayev’s order concerning the Borg was counter-manded or that Nechayev herself was punished for it? She continued to serve as a Starfleet admiral long after that episode, so clearly Starfleet didn’t have a problem with her order, and Picard himself never disputed the validity of the order (something we know he is absolutely willing to do when he thinks an order is illegal), so he seemed to accept it as a legal order as well.
As for the attempted genocide of the Founders, I wasn’t talking about the decision to create the virus (I agree that was done by a rogue cabal), I was talking about the decision of the Federation Council to not give the cure to the Founders once it was obtained by Dr. Bashir.
From the episode “The Dogs of War”
SISKO: The Federation Council considered giving the Founders the cure, then they decided against it.
Thus that was absolutely the Federation civilian government that decided not to help the Founders. And nothing in canon says the Federation Council ever rescinded that order. (The decision to cure the Founders was a unilateral act from Odo and was not done pursuant to orders from the Federation Council or Starfleet.)
@71 / bguy:
The idea behind the Prime Directive may not be cruel and malicious but how it was applied in the TNG-DS9 era certainly was. Whether you are willing to help save a species from a natural disaster should not depend on if they have the technological level to ask for help. Boraalan lives should matter just as much as Romulan lives.
Yeah, it’s interesting with…CLB’s Rise of the Federation novels have showed the mindset and politics that went into the establishment of the Directive and it’s interesting to see just how much the 24th Century application of the Directive has drifted away from the original intention after 200 years.
I’d love for someone to acknowledge this on-screen.
@71/bguy: I’m the last person to defend “Homeward,” but it’s dishonest cherrypicking to cite a few isolated examples as “proof” that the Federation was always evil. Stories like the ones you cite, as I’ve already pointed out, were intended to be exceptions, not the rule.
@55 Sunspear
Oh but it does square – the dialogue between the commandos in the first episode suggests they were targeting a span of time. The assimilated Romulan lady said she knows Soji from tomorrow. From Ganmadan! I’ve been saying this since day one! It’s Terminator baby, and Soji is John Connor, Sarah Connor, and a Terminator all rolled into one, while the Zhat Vash are the resistance fighters, who, as an inversion of Terminator, are traveling back in time to kill the machines. Why wouldn’t the Zhat Vash be able to use reclaimed Borg time travel tech to travel 1000s of years into the past, as well as into Picard’s time? Also, I think a time loop might be involved – that’s why Picard kept snapping back to reality in his home in the first episode – his illness is a red herring.
@71
Even if the Federation has always been the corrupt government you’re trying to depict, it’s all the more reason for Picard to try something different. The bureaucratic, morally bankrupt government is such a tired trope. That’s almost every movie and TV series now, from Star Trek to Star Wars to superheroes to James Bond. Those in power can’t possibly do the right thing, so it’s up to the plucky band of heroes to trek out and solve everything for us.
I know, I know, social commentary, but there are subtler ways of going about it.
@Transceiver: the “future Tal Shiar” as you call them aren’t ruled out, but I’m not sure enough groundwork has been laid to justify a time travel plot. Doesn’t mean they aren’t going there, but it would be more shenanigans a la Discovery: set up a bunch of complications, in this case on the cusp of the 25th century, then shunt the answer into the future war.
It could go badly wrong.
…I wish Raffi had gone with Picard to the surface. Raffi constantly bitching at Picard and then doing what he asks anyway will get old, fast; but, Raffi reminding Picard that much has changed in the past 14 years, that the Romulans on Vashti wouldn’t “greet him has a liberator”, and then beaming down with Picard, to ground Picard in reality and not let him get too full of his idealism would have made more sense. Please, Picard writers, don’t make Musiker a tired, grating cliche; I mean, we already kind of have that with…Rios (that’s the name, right?). That said, I really enjoyed the further expansion of the Romulan people, hell, just to be able to say Romulan and not internally yawn and subconsciously think, “plot-convenient bad guys”, is amazing, as the Romulans until now have been interesting, but overall, kinda boring. Picard has finally changed that.
@73: I never said the Federation was “always evil.” Even a good nation can sometimes do very bad things (the United States helped save the world from Nazi Germany while interning thousands of its own citizens and still practicing racial segregation after all) and besides several of the items on my list I consider justified (tricking the Romulans into the war, being allied with the Klingons) or at least agree that we don’t know enough about the situation to fairly judge the Federation’s actions (not helping the Bajorans, ceding Federation worlds to the Cardassians). The point is not the morality of the Federation’s past actions; the point is that the decision to abandon the Romulans was not some radical departure by the Federation. It is consistent with how the Federation has acted in the past.
Coming to aid Balok’s ship in “The Corbomite Maneuver” always seemed more of an act of decency on Kirk’s part than an expression of official Starfleet or Federation policy (and in fact these organizations didn’t yet exist in the Star Trek format at the time “Corbomite” was written). And while the Dominion War may have ended with an act of mercy, earlier episodes detailed Starfleet’s willingness to resort to genocide rather than lose that conflict, just as they had done on TNG wrt the Borg.
In any case, societies and their priorities change, and not always for the better, as we’re coming to observe to our sorrow. The anarchist utopia depicted in Ursula Le Guin’s “The Dispossessed” is more idealistic and internally cohesive than Trek’s United Federation of Planets could ever hope to be, yet just 120 years in the society its founder had envisioned as an ongoing revolution had grown ossified, conformist and vaguely corrupt. Kurtzman has stated that the Federation and Starfleet depicted in “Picard” aren’t evil, but that they have indeed lost their way. Presumably it will fall to our heroes to help them regain it. Personally, I think it goes without saying that this speaks very directly to our own time, and as a fan of very long standing who was weaned on TOS’ and TNG’s sense of optimism I really have no problem with it so long as it’s done well.
@78/bguy: Again, it’s not consistent, because what we saw before were exceptions or renegade actions, and most importantly, because those were cases where the heroes succeeded in preventing bad things from happening, stopping the renegades, or convincing the authorities to change their minds. What we saw were imperfections in a system that mostly worked. Now we’re seeing a case where the bad things were not prevented, where the bad attitudes have become the rule rather than the exception, and where the imperfections have spread to the point that the entire system is compromised.
@79/Michael Hall: “Coming to aid Balok’s ship in “The Corbomite Maneuver” always seemed more of an act of decency on Kirk’s part than an expression of official Starfleet or Federation policy”
I think it was clearly portrayed as both. “What’s the mission of this vessel, Doctor? To seek out and contact alien life — and an opportunity to demonstrate what our high-sounding words mean.” By his own words, Kirk was acting in accordance with the defined mission of his ship and the stated values of his civilization. He wasn’t defying the standards of his system, he was reminding his crew what those standards meant.
“And while the Dominion War may have ended with an act of mercy, earlier episodes detailed Starfleet’s willingness to resort to genocide rather than lose that conflict, just as they had done on TNG wrt the Borg.”
But the whole point was that the only reason Starfleet was willing to contemplate such extremes was because the Borg and the Dominion (and the Klingons late in the war on Discovery) were existential threats beyond anything they normally faced. It’s utterly missing the point to think that this was supposed to be standard Starfleet thinking — the whole thing that made it so shocking was that it was an exception, not a rule. As is proven by the fact that Starfleet never actually went through with it in any of those three cases. It was a temptation they almost succumbed to but were saved from by those officers who refused to compromise Starfleet’s normal values under which genocide would never be contemplated.
At the time of the supernova, the Romulans were not an existential threat to the Federation. They were barely even an enemy anymore, given the good relations that apparently existed from the late Dominion War onward. The Starfleet that was terrified and desperate enough to make the mistake of contemplating genocide against the Borg or the Founders would not have contemplated crossing that line with the Romulans, because they weren’t on the verge of annihilating the whole Federation. So yes, it absolutely is a massive change that the Federation of the 2380s had degraded so much in its values that it would adopt a “Let them die” position toward the Romulans for no particular reason.
@@@@@ Christopher Bennett: “I think Picard’s fatal flaw that we’re learning of here is that he’s too inexperienced with failure.”
Totally agree with this, and think it’s what those who complain about the depiction of the character not being consistent with what they remember are not recognizing.
@@@@@ Christopher Bennett 80. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one. For my money, the fact that Starfleet has a standing order that would allow the destruction of an entire planetary population — even used as a bluff! — to rescue a half-dozen hostages is at least as disturbing as as its failure to rescue the Romulans in “Picard.” (I at least always appreciated the fact that the episode allowed Anan-7 to call Kirk out on his hypocrisy.) And the political machinations in “Journey to Babel” depict a Federation that is anything but always harmonious. In any case, though, I never stated that the Starfleet and Federation depicted in “Picard” hadn’t changed for the worse. Clearly, they have. But when the admiral claims during her dressing-down of Picard that fourteen member worlds had threatened to leave if Starfleet had offered the Romulans assistance, that failure of nerve or loss of idealism or realpolitik or whatever doesn’t exactly amount to “for no particular reason.”
From DS9, Past Tense, Part I:
Picard is making us revisit these discussions, which is why it’s succeeding as Star Trek in a way that Discovery didn’t.
@82/Michael Hall: I think it’s fundamentally dishonest to cherrypick a few problematical episodes like “A Taste of Armageddon” or “Homeward” and claim they represent the norm for Star Trek rather than just being isolated bad writing decisions. Just because some writers made mistakes in their interpretation of how Starfleet did things doesn’t mean you should fixate exclusively on the mistakes and ignore the preponderance of evidence in the rest of the series.
“And the political machinations in “Journey to Babel” depict a Federation that is anything but always harmonious.”
Which is a healthy sign, not a negative one. Show me a society that has no debate or disagreement expressed by its members and I’ll show you an oppressive regime where dissent is forbidden. A free, democratic society is always going to be rowdy and contentious, because it enshrines the right to disagree.
“But when the admiral claims during her dressing-down of Picard that fourteen member worlds had threatened to leave if Starfleet had offered the Romulans assistance, that failure of nerve or loss of idealism or realpolitik or whatever doesn’t exactly amount to “for no particular reason.””
What I meant was they had no reason to perceive the Romulans as an imminent existential threat to the Federation the way the Borg and the Dominion had been, or even as much of a threat at all, given the apparent state of detente at the time.
@83/lerris: “Picard is making us revisit these discussions, which is why it’s succeeding as Star Trek in a way that Discovery didn’t.”
Discovery‘s first season was very, very much about asking those same questions. It was basically trying to tell the same story as DS9’s later seasons: The Federation is faced with a war that threatens its very existence; its leaders’ fear causes them to compromise their morals and almost commit an atrocity; the heroes stand by Starfleet values, avert the atrocity, and achieve peace by negotiation with the enemy leader.
So both shows have revisited those same questions about the Federation’s ability to live up to its morals. The difference is that PIC shows what happened when that failure of morals wasn’t prevented in time, so it can be explored as something that did happen rather than just something that might happen.
It is distressing to think that the Federation Council and Starfleet Command simply gave in to the demands of the fourteen member worlds and left the Romulans to their fate, yes, for no particular reason. The Romulans had not been a threat to the Federation for some time, and had asked for, and been promised, help by Starfleet and the Federation. What is the Federation if it abandons its principles when they become inconvenient? And no, a few examples here and there do not prove that this is somehow normal for the Federation; if anything, those few examples prove that it’s not the norm. So yes, the isolationist elements that were likely the fringe of the Federation sadly became the norm.
@84 – “The Federation is faced with a war that threatens its very existence; its leaders’ fear causes them to compromise their morals and almost commit an atrocity; the heroes stand by Starfleet values, avert the atrocity, and achieve peace by negotiation with the enemy leader.”
And yet, those that came up with the plan to pull what is essentially a General Order 24 on the Klingons don’t pay a price for attempted genocide. Admiral Cornwell is still in power right up until the movement she’s killed. And Sarek goes on to a successful career as one of the Federation’s most honoured diplomats. He’s even allowed to be a complete hypocrite towards the Klingons a couple of decades later.
Klingon Ambassador : We deny nothing. We have the right to preserve our race.
Ambassador Sarek : You have the right to commit murder?
Remember, the Federation had tried to wipe out all live on Q’onoS at least once before. Once word got out about Genesis, it’s understandable what their reaction would be. Not only could the Federation kill all the Klingons living there, the planet would be fresh and clean and ready for the Federation to set up shop.
Sure, The Voyage Home was written long before Will You Take My Hand? but the writeres were obviously aware of this. They chose to make Sarek part of the plot to destroy Q’onoS. And there was no action taken against him, at least not anything that would indicate any sort of punishment for attempting genocide against a sentient species that was only thwarted by dumb luck.
Kirk attempts genocide against Eminiar VII to save the lives of Spock, Fox and himself. If he had been captured, killed or just a few minutes later arriving at the council chambers, Eminiar VII would be a lifeless cinder.
Kirk basically turned Iotia into a one man dictatorship with full Federation backing, all because of a choice the Iotians made of their own free will, long after the Horizon had left the planet.
He invaded First Federation space, ignoring and destroying their warning buoy and then refusing to submit to First Federation justice. Does the Federation simply allow other species or governments to destroy their sensor or defence outposts? The Romulans did much the same thing in Balance of Terror, destroying the outposts and then not starting a war but simply attempting to return home. Kirk was willing to disregard direct orders not to enter the zone for any reason.
KIRK: What you do not know and must be told is that my command orders on this subject are precise and inviolable. No act, no provocation will be considered sufficient reason to violate the zone. We may defend ourselves, but if necessary to avoid interspace war, both these outposts and this vessel will be considered expendable.
The Melkot wanted to be left alone. Kirk ignored their wishes.
The people on Gamma Trianguli Six were perfectly happy with their lives and never asked for help but Kirk couldn’t help but decide that since he didn’t agree with their lifestyle, he had to totally change it.
@85. Dante: “the isolationist elements that were likely the fringe of the Federation sadly became the norm.”
You could say the Fed was worried about Space Brexit.
@87
This isolationist shift wasn’t made in a void – political movements begin with people who believe they are doing the right thing, regardless of how misinformed their reasons may be, or how poorly their plans play out in the real world. The question is why would they make this particular calculated move, why pull out and reconsolidate forces and boundaries? There is an as yet unseen threat that inspired these choices, and brass believes they are being pragmatic by sacrificing lives for a greater good. Picard is not privy to these details by design because he is uncompromising in his idealism. There’s a pervasive message that this is all bigger than one man and we’ll see that perspective flip in the end.
@85
Exactly, and it doesn’t quite make sense why there is such open hatred for the Romulans, as we saw with the interviewer in the first episode. Like in Undiscovered Country and the Klingons, it’s as if there was a recent incident or war with them that they’re not telling us about. Sure, there was the synth attack, but I can’t see why the Romulans should get the blame for that.
@80: None of the items on my list were done by renegades. I specifically made point of keeping the actions of renegade Admirals and Captains and of Section 31 off the list. Every item on the original list was either done by our protagonists or was authorized either by the Federation Council or Starfleet Admirals in good standing.
And in very few of the examples I listed did the authorities change their mind. The only examples I can think of are Picard changing his mind and deciding to save Sarenjka’s people, and the Federation Council deciding to put the Baku situation “under review.” In every other item on the list, the Feds either continued with the troubling action, the issue was rendered moot by outside events (Lal dying), or it was ameliorated by characters taking rogue action (Odo giving the cure to the Founders on his own initiative).
Also I don’t understand your logic in calling the (rather lengthy) list of troubling incidents I described as just isolated examples or cherry picking but then you cite the single incident of the Federation abandoning the Romulans as showing that the “the bad attitudes have become the rule rather than the exception” and that “the entire system is compromised.” You can’t have it both ways. If a single failure to help a threatened sentient species is proof that the Federation has been corrupted then the Federation was corrupt when it refused to help the Boraalans, and if a single instance of failure to help doesn’t prove the Federation is corrupt then you can’t cite the Federation refusing to help the Romulans as proof the Federation is corrupt, because morally there is absolutely no difference between the Federation not helping the Boraalans and them not helping the Romulans. (Save for the fact that the Feds at least tried to help the Romulans, and the Romulans weren’t actually rendered extinct by their calamity.)
I also really do not appreciate you insinuating that I am being dishonest. My original list cited 12 separate morally questionable decisions by the Federation/Starfleet each of which occurred in a different episode, so I hardly just picked one or two obscure episodes. (If I’ve focused on Homeward more than any other episode in my subsequent arguments, that’s because: 1) I consider it the most immoral decision on the list and 2) the Boraalan situation is the one that most closely parallels the Romulan situation in STP). But anyway, if you disagree that the 12 decisions I listed are comparable in nature to the Federation not helping the Romulans that’s fine. If you feel that the episodes I listed should be disregarded that’s fine too, reasonable minds can disagree but there’s no justification for you suggesting I’m being dishonest.
@89/JFWheeler: One possibility occurs to me: What if the Romulans discovered the truth about “In the Pale Moonlight”? They’d probably have been outraged that they were tricked into joining the Dominion War through the assassination of one of their senators, and it might have scuttled whatever peace process was underway after Nemesis.
But I’m not sure it’s even really about the Romulans. I assume the trauma of the Dominion War left a lot of people in the Federation afraid of outsiders in general, especially those on worlds that were hit hardest in the war. The synth attack on one of the Federation’s heartworlds would have inflamed those fears even further. Note that the Federation was helping the Romulans until the attack, so clearly the attack shifted sentiments further toward isolation and xenophobia than before.
@91: CLB, incidentally, you brought up something I’ve wondered for years.
Okay, we know from “Moonlight” that the Tal Shiar investigated Vreenak’s death and found Garak’s the fabricated Data Rod. Their findings directly led to the Senate declaring war on the Dominion.
But…we also later learned during “Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges” that Koval had been passing on intel to the Feds since around the time of the Star Empire’s entry into the War.
So…did Koval figure out the Dominion didn’t kill Vreenak? And did he keep shtum to ensure that the Star Empire would enter the War and he could further his own motives?
It’s something I’ve always wondered.
@92/Mr. Magic: As you say, Koval was passing intel to the Federation. That doesn’t mean they passed it back indiscriminately. And this particular intel is not something the UFP would be eager to share with any Romulan, even one working with them.
@93, Right, right. I didn’t meant to imply that the Feds told Koval “Hey, K? Yeah, we uh, sorta, might’ve killed a Senator. So, uh, we cool?”
No, I was speculating whether Koval had his own suspicions about what really happened with Vreenak and kept them to himself rather than briefing Neral or the Continuing Committee.
I’m unsure. Ross never gave an explanation for Koval’s motives and why he was passing on intel. And of course Garak tailored the assassination to play into Romulan psychology and their obsession with secrecy leading them to the (understandable) conclusion that the Dominion was responsible.
Then again, Koval was clever enough to misdirect the Praetor, the Continuing Committee, and even his own agency. If he could do that, he might put 2 and 2 together about the bombing.
Again, it’s just something I’ve wondered about over the years.
@91
Hmm, that’s not bad. I like that you’re tying it back into DS9, which this series could do more. Has the Dominion War even been mentioned or eluded to at all? I’m not saying they need to devote a lengthy discussion to it, but a mention would be nice.
As for the prejudice, I would think it would be limited to all synthetic life after the synth attack. Seems a bit of a stretch to me to see any outsider as a threat after that. I mean, if a bunch of robots at General Motors went crazy and killed a bunch of human workers, would the US cut off all foreign aid? —Uh, you know what, no need to answer. Our paranoid and obnoxious government would probably do exactly that.
You mentioned having difficulty with the plot point of the Federation abandoning the Romulans and that’s not their thing. I think that’s the whole point. That’s why Picard quit. He flat out said in that interview that “it was no longer Starfleet!” The Federation we all know doesn’t pull back and abandon agreements to lick their wounds. I wonder if perhaps we’ll eventually see more fallout from the Dominion War as a possible cause too and not just possible high Romulan infiltration?
Apologies if someone said this already, I was too lazy to read all the comments before posting. Lol
@96/leandar: It was said in comment #7 and answered in comment #11.
I should’ve known. Lol
@95/JFWheeler: But as I said, the synth attack would’ve amplified the defensive, fearful attitudes that lingered after the trauma of the Dominion War. I assume that in the years after the War, some factions within the Federation started pushing for more isolationism and defensiveness, saying “We have to focus on rebuilding our own worlds and shoring up our own defenses rather than wasting resources helping outsiders,” and over the ensuing years that attitude jockeyed for acceptance with more traditional Federation values in the court of public opinion. And then the synth attack happened and the isolationist elements seized on it as “proof” that they had been right all along, that the Federation was still too vulnerable and too trusting. It would’ve strengthened their case and caused more people who’d been on the fence or resistant to come over to their way of thinking. So they would’ve used it to shift the Overton window further in their direction, gaining enough support that they were finally strong enough to pressure the Federation Council into bending to their will through the threat of secession, and maybe even managed to get more of their partisans elected to the Council and shift the balance of power in their favor.
Brilliant review, as always. Just a nit to pick: the actress’ name is Isa Briones (as in short for Isabel). Keep up the good work.
Carlos: Eeep! Good catch. ‘Tis fixed. Yay, edit function!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@99 / CLB:
So they would’ve used it to shift the Overton window further in their direction, gaining enough support that they were finally strong enough to pressure the Federation Council into bending to their will through the threat of secession, and maybe even managed to get more of their partisans elected to the Council and shift the balance of power in their favor.
Yeah, that would definitely open up an avenue for exploring the generation of Starfleet officers and Federation citizens who came of age either during the Dominion War or in the aftermath. It would allow Picard to explore the same contemporary issues of American and international citizens who went through the same experience in the aftermath and decades since 9/11.
I really enjoyed the episode. Not really interested in stuff like Romulan Warrior Nuns (TM), but I do enjoy seeing universe building stuff, things outside Starfleet ship life, and I particularly appreciate getting some actual Romulan cultural background. I definitely could have done without the sock skating scene.
Best part for me was the space battle (too bad they had to destroy the vintage Bird Of Prey), and listening to Ríos and Emmett talk in thick, deep Chilean Spanish slang and accent. If you’re used to Spanish from Spain or Mexico, it probably sounded alien to you. A month ago, my son and I were in Animal Kingdom at Disney World in Florida, talking to each other in Spanish. A couple who, turns out, were from Florida, asked us what language we were speaking… and our Uruguayan lexicon and accent are not as cryptic as Chilean slang.
@9 – Chris: “I think Picard’s fatal flaw that we’re learning of here is that he’s too inexperienced with failure. For most of his life, he always managed to find a way to triumph, and this time he made grand promises and suffered the greatest failure of his career, and it broke him. He didn’t know how to pick himself up from it, so he withdrew into solitude and depression, considering himself unworthy to help anyone.”
That’s exactly it.
@10 – Steven: The outfit, you got it, they’re trying to project colonialism.
@23 – Aerik: I don’t think so, but it’d be funny.
@38 – Sunspear: Picard was in civvies probably because he was there on a personal matter, not in his official capacity. At least in his visit to the Qowat Milat, not the overall planet.
@94 – Mr. Magic: “Garak tailored…” I see what you did there.
I’m loving the work on the Romulan culture here and especially the look of Vashti and the colonists. Not sure if it’s a deliberate choice, but a lot of it (especially civilian costuming) looks like what Cryptic did when they built the Virinat colony and Romulan social zones for Star Trek Online. Might just be a coinkydink, but a part of me hopes that it isn’t convergent evolution as much as a deliberate nod. Hell, the Countdown comic had an Odyssey class starship (as the Enterprise F will be in 10 years time, according to the game) and Jolan Tru is the standard greeting used by Rihanssu in the game. Of course that and things like the “Swords of S’harien” may have been a thing STO picked up from the books, I can’t remember hearing about them in the TV shows, but I also haven’t read many of the tie-in fictions, so can’t say for sure where things like this actually came from.
I’m still not getting the incest thing. Not what people are talking about here, but the actual thing they are trying to depict. Something about it strikes me as not supposed to be genuine sexual attraction, but an uncomfortable and awkward attempt at power play. It also seems to me that Narek is only ever really responding to Narissa’s predatory behaviour, rather than initiating it; he often turns away from her too. She certainly seems to be the one in charge and the sexual charge could be part of her attempt to maintain and reinforce a fragile dominance. I may be reading it all wrong, but that’s how I think it’s supposed to be coming across. I strongly suspect that Narek is going to switch sides at some point, either defecting to Sohji’s side or or violently taking the lead from his sister, and probably killing her in the process.
@75. I’m not convinced they will win the day. They may end up forcing the Federation’s hand one way, but then find the consequences are more uncomfortable.
“14 member races threatening to withdraw” sounds like it could be a prophecy for the end of the show.
@105/Berthulf: Jolan tru was established as a Romulan greeting in TNG: “Unification.”
@105. Berthulf: “a part of me hopes that it isn’t convergent evolution as much as a deliberate nod.”
STO isn’t perfect and showing it’s age. Some of the mechanics are clunky or bugged. The scaling is terrible at times. Your ship goes into an instance and gets surrounded by a fleet of 8-12 other ships that keep respawning. Sometimes a battle is interrupted by the script, other times it seems to run forever. And some of the storytelling is tedious. But when it’s good, it’s really good. So I would have no problem with any filmed Trek incorporating elements from the game. I’m finding it to be surprisingly rich after coming back to it. And it has a helluva lot more Romulan culture than any of the TV series.
Some random examples: Just finished the post Dominion War story for which most of the DS9 cast came back to voice their characters. It was bittersweet to hear so much dialogue from Odo and Nog knowing the actors have passed on. Found a memorial kiosk on the Promenade to all the performers and production people we’ve lost. There must have been a lot of dust in the room, because my eyes got watery.
My favorite mission/episode of the “save the Dominion” story was the Ocean’s Eleven style heist called “Quark’s Lucky Seven,” where DS9’s most prominent Ferengis plot to steal the original Sword of Kahless off an Iconian ship: Grand Nagus Rom, Captain Nog, Leeta (also in hologram form at the D’abo tables), Leck and Brunt. It was a joy to play as Leck for part of the mission, eliminating obstacles. The glee he took in taking down bigger targets was infectious. And he had mini-torpedoes in reserve. If the knife throwing doesn’t work, blow them up.
“what Cryptic did when they built the Virinat colony and Romulan social zones”
Are you talking about New Romulus and the Romulan Republic zone?
@94 / MaGnUs
“Mr. Magic: ‘Garak tailored…’ I see what you did there.”
Believe it or not, I genuinely didn’t realize I’d punned there until you just pointed it out, LOL.
@81 — I abandoned all speculation that the writers and directors had forgotten what Picard was really like when they showed his first trip to Vashti. That was Picard in his TNG finest, and they nailed it. So I can only see his current behavior as an evolution absolutely intended by the writers.
This series is big on doing flashbacks, which I enjoy because it fills in a lot of gaps between the “present” and everything post-“Nemesis”. So I’m really hoping that the next episode with Seven gives us a tantalizing flashback with some of her history post-“Endgame” which was woefully disappointing as it just ended the series upon Voyager’s return to Earth and you see no satisfying resolution to the characters’ various arcs on how that return affects them. You wonder in particular with Seven how she adapts to integrating into society upon presumably leaving the ship for good.
Not much to add, except that I’m very excited to learn more about Romulan culture. The Romulans have always been my favourite race in Star Trek, probably because I was always fascinated by the history of the Roman republic and empire on earth.
There is one issue, however, I would like to comment about: I find the idea of a supernova destroying the Romulan Star Empire and leaving the Romulans dependent on Federation help completely unrealistic. A scientifically highly advanced civilization like the Romulans would certainly monitor the state of their sun constantly and detect signs of an impending supernova early enough to plan and carry through an evacuation. And although we may assume that the Romulan Empire is much more centralized than the Federation, there should be enough colonies in safe distance from the developing supernova to where all the people (and animals) from Romulus and Remus and valuable technical installations could be moved, not to speak of the Romulan fleet. I have found an estimate of about 30 light years as a distance beyond which a supernova would not affect life on a planet – certainly the Romulan Star Empire is bigger than that. And even if all the colonies of the empire would be located within this diameter around the central system, there would be plenty of time for a warp capable civilization to find new colonies because the radiation caused by the supernova travels with the speed of light. In conclusion, I could accept that such an event would effect the Romulan civilization in a severe way by destroying their homeworld and forcing it’s population to relocate to colonies. But I don’t see any way in which this event would result in the deaths of millions of people on Romulus or why Federation ships would be needed to carry through the evacuation. (Can’t remember if these issues were addressed in the 2009 film.)
@112 The only way the crisis makes sense is if the supernova was either partially or wholly artificially induced resulting in relatively little warning. Furthermore, there’d have to FTL propagation of the blast wave which could also extend the range. If ST ever gets around to explaining it I expect it there to be a lot of mumbling about neutrinos and tachyons and something about subspace.
@112/ThomasE: “A scientifically highly advanced civilization like the Romulans would certainly monitor the state of their sun constantly and detect signs of an impending supernova early enough to plan and carry through an evacuation.”
That’s exactly what is the case here. When the 2009 movie established the supernova, it implied that the Romulans had only a few weeks’ or months’ warning, but Picard has clarified that they had years of advance warning. The behind-the-scenes backstory established in the tie-in novel The Last Best Hope and the SDCC “Picard Museum” display last year is that the Federation learned of the impending supernova in 2381, six years before it happened (with the implication that the Romulans had already discovered it and covered it up), and that Picard left the Enterprise at that point to lead an evacuation fleet. The novel clarifies that the Romulans took responsibility for evacuating their own core systems and only accepted Federation help for evacuating some less prominent worlds on the periphery of the blast zone. Although the book also shows that the Romulans were pretty half-assed about the evacuation and probably cared more about protecting their leaders and elites than the rank and file of the populace, which is probably why Nero’s working-class family was left to die.
The novel also establishes that the Romulans covered up just how bad the supernova would be, so that the evacuation was on a smaller scale than it should have been.
@112, I agree. It is a Stat Empire after all! One possibility is that the surviving colonies have refused to accept refugees from the mother world who’ve been ‘contanimated’ by Federation contact.
@114/ChristopherLBennett: Thanks for providing the backstory , I have to admit that I have never read any of the tie-in novels. I am willing to believe that in the beginning Romulan leaders tried to cover up the impending supernova, this happens all the time with authoritarian governments (see Tchernobyl). But it’s hard to believe that they would care so little about their own people to leave billions on Romulus to die. It has been shown many times in the Federation’s encounters with the Romulans that they are not without conscience. And apart from that, leaders still need people to lead, workers to do the work and soldiers to fight, so it would be in their own best interest to save as many people as possible to keep the empire strong. Also, being a very proud people and generally considering other races as inferior, it’s hard to believe that Romulans would accept help by the Federation. I would rather expect them to make it a matter of pride to get this done by themselves. Well, maybe there are some good reasons for all that given in the novel.
@116 I saw thing in reference to the recent RWA meltdown that says people in leadership positions of organizations often act first to preserve their own power rather than the organization. Making certain assumptions about the nature of Romulan politics, saving everyone could easily have become a matter of cutthroat politics. By a certain kind of logic, it makes sense to make sure that your supporters are evacuated while your rivals’ people are left behind. From there it’s not that difficult to get to the point where the evacuation effort doesn’t do what anyone wants.
@114 That makes Senator Soon-to-be-headless’ rant at Picard sound more than a little dishonest.
I kinda hope they don’t explain the Romulan nova, just work around it the way Picard has been doing. It’s kind of like the Klingons’ bumpy foreheads. From 1979-1996, it was just there with no explanation, and then “Trials and Tribble-ations” forced them to acknowledge it, and they did so by brushing it hilariously under the rug, which worked fine until 2005 when Enterprise gave us the only semi-satisfying “Aflliction” and “Divergence” to explain it. I think it worked better as a mystery.
We’re stuck with the nova, and all its attendant scientific illiteracy (from the impossibility of a nova catching anyone off guard to the entire notion of “red matter”), and I think the best bet from a story perspective is to just focus on its effects on people and not worry overmuch about the details of how and why it happened.
EDITED TO ADD: Cross posted with Christopher’s post — didn’t realize that Una covered that in Last Best Hope, and I should’ve known better. But then, explaining weird-ass stuff they do onscreen is part of the fun of writing tie-in novels……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@116/ThomasE: “But it’s hard to believe that they would care so little about their own people to leave billions on Romulus to die.”
Not as an official policy, no, but in any autocracy, there are bound to be officials who are corrupt, incompetent, power-hungry, etc., those who cut corners and pocket emergency funds, those who favor their cronies over their constituents, etc. Absolute power doesn’t actually corrupt absolutely (studies suggest instead that how people use power is consistent with their pre-existing moral leanings), but it does give absolute license and protection to those who are already corrupt or incapable.
And the Romulan bureaucracy, built around rigid control and secrecy and compartmentalization, would itself be an impediment to getting things done, I’m sure. It would just be too hard for many officials to change their habitual patterns of obstruction and deception and control in order to actually get things done.
@116/ThomasE: “Also, being a very proud people and generally considering other races as inferior, it’s hard to believe that Romulans would accept help by the Federation.”
In the novel, they only do so grudgingly and to a limited extent. As I said, they insist on evacuating their core worlds themselves. Basically, the fact that they bend enough to accept Federation aid is evidence of how desperate the situation is, and even then, there’s resistance every step of the way.
@114 / CLB:
The novel also establishes that the Romulans covered up just how bad the supernova would be, so that the evacuation was on a smaller scale than it should have been.
I just finished Una McCormack’s novel last night and that particular plot thread ended up affecting me more than I expected.
Yeah, the Feds made mistakes on their end of the relief effort, but it was a really tragic gut punch that the Romulans’ ingrained paranoia, secrecy, and pride did just as much (if not more) damage on their end.
And yeah, Nero’s motivations definitely make more sense now.
@109 – Mr. Magic: Hehehehe.
@111 – GarretH: Personally, I’d love a flashback about Hugh, but we’re not getting those. This is PICARD, and they’re not even main cast, just supporting characters. We’ll probably only get flashbacks involving Jean-Luc himself, and if we’re lucky, with other characters along with him… which wouldn’t include Seven or (most likely, Hugh).
@118/krad: “We’re stuck with the nova, and all its attendant scientific illiteracy (from the impossibility of a nova catching anyone off guard to the entire notion of “red matter”), and I think the best bet from a story perspective is to just focus on its effects on people and not worry overmuch about the details of how and why it happened.”
True, that’s how I see it myself. But sometimes it’s frustrating that science-fiction is written by scientifically illiterate people (I’m referring to the writers behind the 2009 movie, not to the authors of tie-in novels who try to make sense of unexpected novas and ‘red matter’).
@122/ThomasE: But that’s the beautiful thing. Picard has reinterpreted the movie’s nonsensical supernova story in a way that almost makes perfect sense. Okay, it’s implausible that an inhabited planet’s primary star would be capable of going supernova, but that precedent was set way back in TOS with Minara, the Fabrini star, and Sarpeidon, so it’s an established conceit of the universe. And aside from that, it all feels much more believable, and they’ve gotten some good storylines out of it.
@123/ChristopherLBennett: “and they’ve gotten some good storylines out of it”
On this we agree. Can’t wait for the next episode.
@121/Magnus: SPOILER for the newest episode below…
We got one flashback for Seven! Although it was relatively brief and more so in the recent “past” than immediately post-Voyager. But still, nice to get one for a non-main character!
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing when I saw it. :)
GarretH: the flashback in question was 14 years previous. Voyager returned from the DQ 22 years previous. So the flashback was closer to “Endgame” than it was to the present-day of Picard.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
The quickest way to destroy optimism is a collective lurch backwards.
When Obama was elected, I told my students that I never thought I would see this day. I grew up in the last dying embers of Jim Crow. Though that had all been overturned, it was still de facto the rule. I never had a nonwhite classmate until I was a freshman in college. I was teaching at an HBCU at the time, and I told my students that this country can always surprise you. I was optimistic that we had finally turned a corner.
Then came Trump and all that optimism was destroyed. I’m back to thinking that I actually will die before the day, if ever, that we finally turn that corner and never go back.
So yeah. I can see the Federation going along a groove for years until something happens that just goes a bridge too far, and they descend into cynicism and hopelessness. That’s where I am right now.
No one ever went broke overestimating the venality, bigotry, parochialism and smallness of people. It always comes out in the end.
@128/pjcamp: That’s probably what the writers were thinking of.
But the Federation is much bigger and more diverse than the US. It would be like the whole world descending into cynicism and hopelessness. That hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t think it’s going to happen (unless the ecological damage gets much worse, something that has no analogue in the multi-planet Federation).
@129/Jana: But the whole Federation hasn’t descended into cynicism. It made one big mistake, yes, reneging on the Romulan evacuation fleet. And the show is exploring the impact of that mistake on the specific people and groups who were hurt by it. But that doesn’t mean the Federation is fundamentally changed, just that it’s imperfect. Michael Chabon has said as much in his online comments.
http://blog.trekcore.com/2020/03/michael-chabon-star-trek-picard-fan-questions/
So it’s not a fundamental change in the Federation, just a change in emphasis. Imagine if 20 years ago we’d seen a show from the perspective of the Maquis. To them, the Federation would’ve looked far less utopian than it did to everyone else. Even a generally benevolent and enlightened society is going to let some people down, and it won’t look so great from those people’s point of view.
(Indeed, I’ve often said that Firefly was what a Trek show from the Maquis’s perspective would look like. People tend to interpret FF’s Alliance as an evil empire, but Joss Whedon never meant it to be that simple; in his view, the Alliance was no different from the United States, a society that was generally benevolent and fair to those who bought into its conventions and rules, but left out some groups on the fringes and occasionally fell prey to corruption within its government. Whedon doesn’t believe in pure good or pure evil, only in entities that have both good and evil inside them and often do great harm because they screw up while trying to do good.)
@130/Christopher: Whedon’s Alliance experimented on humans. As far as I am concerned, that puts them into the evil category.
@131/Jana: Again, the point is that nothing is purely good or evil. The same entity can do both good and evil. Especially something as large and complex as a government, which is not a single person or group but dozens of groups and thousands of people with distinct agendas and goals, some benevolent and others corrupt. Even the best nation makes mistakes or has corrupt factions within it, and sometimes those more harmful elements gain a more prominent role than at other times, like what’s happening in the US today. But that doesn’t mean it’s irredeemable or can’t fix its mistakes, or that there aren’t still good people within it striving to shift the balance of power back toward the light.
It’s like I said in the “Phage” thread — it’s scary how unforgiving our culture has become, this kneejerk attitude that any entity that does anything wrong has to be be utterly condemned and hated with no quarter given for redemption or forgiveness. You can’t really be a good person unless you recognize your own capacity to do wrong and make hurtful mistakes, your own need to be eternally vigilant and self-questioning. And if you have the humility to doubt your own perfection, then you have the wisdom to forgive others’ imperfections and not damn them as utterly evil the moment they transgress. We’re all fallible, and that means we’re all redeemable too.
@132/Christopher: I would agree with you, but experimenting on humans? That rings all my post-war German alarm bells. Basically, it’s Space Nazi stuff, and I’m not willing to view that as something us fallible humans do.
Except those Post-War Germany Alarm Bells are responding to the actions of fallivle, scared human beings doing what they genuinely thought was right.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and it’s easy to pass judgement using it. That’s not to say that gives anyone a pass in this instance.
As for the human experimentation in FF, remember this was a secret operation and immediately covered up. That is a conspiracy and not something that the whole Alliance government can be held accountable for.
@134/Berthulf: “That is a conspiracy and not something that the whole Alliance government can be held accountable for.”
Didn’t it involve a whole planet, though? How can the government possibly not know that? (I’m talking from memory here. I watched Serenity when it was new, and never since.)
@133/Jana: America experimented on humans. America’s government has done many evil things and many good things. So have many other governments. That is the point. Whedon doesn’t write about cartoonish good and evil, he writes about flawed people and institutions that can do evil things and make terrible mistakes yet still be redeemable and strive to do better. If Firefly had gone on longer, we would’ve seen more of that ambiguity.
And the Federation is the same. For all its idealism, it’s still capable of making terrible mistakes that harm a lot of people, as we saw with the Maquis, and with Section 31, and with the abandonment of the Romulans. And if you tell a story from the perspective of those people the Federation failed to do right by, then the Federation would look much worse than it usually does in Star Trek. That’s what we’re getting in Picard. It’s not saying that the Federation has fallen or become evil, just that it made a mistake and we’re seeing the perspective of the people hurt by that mistake.
@136/Christopher: I don’t want the Federation to be perfect, but these days it looks worse than some present-day countries I know. I thought the whole point of Star Trek was that things can get better. If the point is that all governments do evil things and good things… well, let’s just say it’s a very different point.
Absolute candor strikes me as a good way to make yourself very unpopular, unless combined with ‘If you can’t say anything nice, say nothing at all’.
@137/Jana: Like I said, it’s just a difference in perspective. Previously, we always saw the Federation from the perspective of Starfleet, the people who embodied its best nature. But we got glimpses of its imperfections when we looked at it from the perspective of the Bajorans or the Maquis, people that it failed to help or that it let down. Now, we have a whole series from that perspective.
“I thought the whole point of Star Trek was that things can get better.”
Yes, but that doesn’t mean it happens automatically. It means you have to work at it. Getting better is not something you do by assuming you’re perfect. It’s something you do by recognizing your own flaws and weaknesses and failings and doing the work to overcome them.
Picard is a show about its title character trying to fix a mistake — both his own and the Federation’s. That is trying to get better. I’ve said before, don’t assume the story is pessimistic just because it isn’t finished yet.
@139/Christopher: Sounds nice, but the problem is that they “overcome” the same flaws over and over again throughout the centuries. That’s not getting better, that’s moving in circles.
In other words, no matter how the story ends, it’s pessimistic because it starts where it starts.
What I thought made Star Trek unique was the post-Great Struggle aspect. Humanity had already worked through the terrible wars and overall negativity and made something positive of it, and whatever central Earth drama we saw was about preserving the accomplishments from all that hard work. It was coming from a perspective of future history, giving us a sense of a timeline and progression, simultaneously looking back and looking forward. Now it’s mostly about looking back — to now. Right now, with vaping and misery and Brexit and the eyeball ripping obvious.
It’s a new perspective for Star Trek. Unfortunately it’s the same perspective as nearly everything else on TV.
@140/Jana: It’s a matter of degree. The goal is to take bad things that are the usual rule and create a world where they’re a rare exception to the rule. For instance, going from a world where slavery is legal to a world where there are still racists but they’re a marginalized fringe who no longer get their way. It’s about shifting the bell curve so that attitudes that were once the majority view are relegated to the extreme, most regressive tail end of the curve.
The Federation in Picard is still a good system. It’s just a system that’s been damaged by events like the Dominion War and the synth attack and the supernova’s aftereffects, and that’s caused a few setbacks it needs to work through. Which is entirely plausible and understandable. We saw in DS9 how much the Dominion War traumatized the Federation and made some within it question their ideals and make unethical choices out of fear. That trauma wouldn’t just magically evaporate; it would shape events for decades to come, much as 9/11 has shaped US politics and culture in mostly negative ways. Suffering the impact of trauma is not a moral failing to condemn. It’s a psychological injury that needs to be understood. The Federation was badly victimized by the events of the past couple of decades, and it’s horribly insensitive and self-righteous to damn it for not magically going back to perfection overnight. Give it time to work through its issues and heal. It needs to do that as much as Picard does.
#139 – “Picard is a show about its title character trying to fix a mistake — both his own and the Federation’s. “
Nonsense. Picard isn’t doing anything to help the Romulans. He’s doing what he’s doing out of guilt from the fact that Data sacrificed himself for Picard. He sat in his chateau until Dajh showed up on his doorstep.
It’s about Picard doing something for himself, not for others. And his guilt is not because of anything he did himself. It’s because of a decision Data made.
Picard shows up at Raffi’s looking for help. Ignores her drug use and the fact that the only reason she calls him back when he’s leaving is because he’s brought alcohol.
He ignores her addictions and APPLAUDS when she sacrifices a friendship in order to get Picard what he wants. And the Neutral Zone is still in effect and still an act of war if crossed without permission, which he was prepared to do in order to get the information he needs.
It’s about Picard being selfish.
Am I the only one who sees a fundamental difference between the Federation leaving people to die and the Federation building a massive fleet to save billions only to have it destroyed along with all of their efforts? Also, after they’ve lost a member (Mars?) and presumably have refugees of their own?
@144/C.T Phipps: Certainly that was a major setback, but it’s one the Federation could’ve endured and come back from. Other nations in history have suffered much worse setbacks and still kept striving. Britain didn’t surrender to the Nazis after the Blitz. The Federation didn’t surrender to the Klingons or the Dominion after having multiple worlds conquered. So it’s disingenuous to say it was okay for them to give up completely after a single attack on Mars. The only difference is that here they were fighting for other people’s survival instead of their own — but that shouldn’t make a difference, not if the UFP were really being true to its principles.