“The Killing Game, Part II”
Written by Brannon Braga & Joe Menosky
Directed by Victor Lobl
Season 4, Episode 19
Production episode 187
Original air date: March 4, 1998
Stardate: 51715.2
Captain’s log. We get a summary of Part 1 and then we see Captain Miller (Chakotay) and his soldiers swarming out into the corridors of Voyager, while Janeway and Seven work their way to astrometrics. Once there, they determine that the only way to disable the neural interfaces is from sickbay, which is heavily guarded by Hirogen.
Kim tells Karr that his best bet is to allow Kim to start an energy surge in engineering, but Karr doesn’t want to risk damaging the holodeck because he wants to use the technology. He thinks this is the key to the Hirogen culture not becoming overly diffuse and relying on hunting prey to extinction, thus forcing them to move on to greener pastures. They can just use the holodeck technology to hunt to their heart’s content. Since Voyager is the only source they have of this tech, Karr won’t risk destroying it. Instead, he diverts hunters from the Klingon simulation to round up the soldiers pouring into the corridors.
Miller and Lieutenant Davis (Paris) think the Voyager corridors are some kind of secret Nazi weapons lab, though neither Tuvok nor Brigitte (Torres) know anything about it, to their chagrin.
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Janeway and Seven return to the holodeck via a Jefferies Tube (which they call a secret tunnel) to get the still-cosplaying crew to help out by pretending to be Katrine and Mademoiselle de Neuf once again. Tuvok is dubious about how chummy Janeway is now with Seven, but goes along with it.
Janeway takes Miller with her to the “tunnels” which lead to a “cave system” (the Klingon simulation, where Neelix-the-Klingon is very drunk). The Hirogen have deactivated the EMH when he got mouthy because he was told to treat a Hirogen with a minor injury before treating a member of Voyager’s crew with internal injuries. However, Janeway is able to reactivate him on the holodeck. He confirms that they can only disable the neural interfaces from sickbay itself. Janeway decides to set explosives under the sickbay deck, destroying the console.
Leaving the EMH with the Klingons, Janeway and Miller go through the “tunnels” some more. Unfortunately, there’s a level-nine force field around sickbay. Leaving Miller to detonate the explosives on her signal, Janeway goes to sickbay to distract the Hirogen medic. She does it, and the explosive goes off, but Janeway is wounded, shot in the leg.
On the holodeck, the neural interfaces futz out just when the Germans capture them, showing spectacularly hilarious timing. Seven quickly fills Torres, Tuvok, and Paris in on what’s happening.
Turanj wants to kill the Voyager crew on the holodeck, but Karr wants to keep them as hostages. Karr negotiates with Janeway, asking her help to repair the holodeck, but Janeway would sooner destroy the ship. Karr begs with her to let him save Hirogen society with Voyager’s holographic technology.
Impressed with Karr’s nobility of cause, if not his methods, she agrees to a cease-fire. Unfortunately, Turanj refuses to go along with it, and along with the Nazi captain, continues fighting.
Karr agrees to help Janeway shut the holodecks down, which she can only do with a power surge. She and Karr go to engineering to do so, but Turanj shows up, kills Karr, and tells Janeway to run. He chases her through the corridors. Unfortunately for him, he’s still carrying a holographic rifle. Janeway manages to lead him out of the (expanded) range of the holoemitters, and his weapon disappears. Now Janeway has the advantage.
Seven creates a photonic grenade that will wipe out the Nazis’ weapons, but she’s shot before she can throw it, so it winds up wiping out the Allies’ weapons.
The EMH convinces Neelix to get back into Klingon character and send the Klingons over to help fight the Nazis. (Neelix and the EMH themselves stay out of the fighting—and the rain in France—as much as possible.)
Janeway offers Turanj a chance to surrender. Instead he tries to shoot her. She shoots first, and Turanj falls to his death. Janeway is then finally able to overload the holodeck and shut it down.
The fighting continues for some time before they finally decide to call a truce. Janeway gives the new Hirogen commander an optronic data core that will give the Hirogen holodeck technology, which is what Karr wanted. (The new alpha is less than impressed, but takes it as a trophy of the hunt in any case.)
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? The expanded holodeck causes all kinds of power and control issues, to the point where Janeway can only shut it down by overloading it. Also Seven creates photonic grenades that don’t hurt people but wipe out holographic constructs.
There’s coffee in that nebula! Janeway is impressed with Karr’s true purpose in using holodeck tech to improve the Hirogen’s lot in life, but her willingness to work with someone responsible for the death of at least one member of her crew is irksome. Then again, it wasn’t an opening-credits regular, so it’s not like it’s anyone she cares about…
Half and half. Torres is both impressed and disgusted with the holographic pregnancy the Hirogen saddled her with, saying she can even feel the baby kick.
Resistance is futile. Seven creates a photonic grenade that would win the day if she could’ve wielded it properly. Because she’s just that awesome.
Forever an ensign. At one point, Paris as Lieutenant Davis sees Kim in a Voyager corridor and assumes he’s on the other side, because he looks Asian, and the Japanese were allies with the Nazis. Kim manages to convince Davis that he’s American.
Please state the nature of the medical emergency. The EMH lectures the Hirogen medic on the meaning of the word triage and gets deactivated for his trouble. He then encourages the Klingons to fight (not a tough job, that) and hides under an awning.
Everybody comes to Neelix’s. Neelix gets to mostly be drunk as a Klingon, then tries to fake being one to mediocre effect.
What happens on the holodeck stays on the holodeck. It is never made clear how, exactly, the holodeck is able to make a person appear and feel pregnant.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Davis is not thrilled to find out that Brigitte is pregnant by a Nazi captain, but Brigitte insists that she did it solely to win his trust.
Do it.
“Sing or you will die.”
“Then I’ll die.”
–Turanj giving an order to “Mademoiselle de Neuf,” and Seven disobeying it.
Welcome aboard. Back from Part 1 are Danny Goldring as Karr, Mark Deakins as Turanj, Mark Metcalf as the medic, J. Paul Boehmer as the Nazi captain, and Paul S. Eckstein as the young Hirogen.
Trivial matters: This obviously continues from Part 1. Both parts were initially aired on the same night in a single block on UPN, though in reruns and on home video, they’ve remained separate.
It rained constantly during the time they were filming on location to do the outdoor scenes in Sainte Claire, to the point where they had to incorporate it into the story.
The Hirogen’s use of the holographic technology will be seen in “Flesh and Blood” in season seven.
As with last time, Torres’ holodeck character of Brigitte is pregnant, allowing Roxann Dawson’s pregnancy to be seen. She will appear in two more episodes where her pregnancy is hidden.
This episode makes it impossible to count the number of crewmembers who have died, as Janeway says only that there have been “heavy casualties” on both sides in the fighting that happens off-camera between overloading the holodeck and the truce. So we don’t know what the ship’s complement is at this point, and we know only that more than fifteen crew have died since they left the Ocampa homeworld, as that was the number we hit last time.
Set a course for home. “Loosen up, baby doll, the war’s almost over!” I like the very Star Trek plot twist of Karr wanting to use the holodeck to improve his people’s lot in life. It’s a nice touch, and adds a bit more depth of character to Karr, though Turanj’s hidebound nature and sudden-but-inevitable betrayal is tired. Having said that, I loved Janeway tricking him into moving past the range of the holoemitters.
Having said that, Janeway’s own switch from “I’ll destroy the ship before I’ll help you” to “let’s work together” is a bit too abrupt. Karr may have semi-noble intentions, but he’s still the guy who boarded the ship, imprisoned much of the crew, and, in essence, tortured the rest of them. Oh, and killed one of them. But suddenly that doesn’t matter?
I mean, yes, she should pursue a peaceful solution (not that Turanj lets that happen), but the switch is just too fast to be anything but disturbing.
This second part is less fun than the first because the novelty of the cosplay has worn off, and there really isn’t anything to fill the gap. The cliffhanger of Part 1 isn’t really followed up on in any meaningful manner (though the Paris-Kim confrontation is cute). The hope of seeing World War II soldiers prowling the corridors of Voyager never really materializes.
And then in the end, the fight between the Voyager crew and the Hirogen happens off camera, fobbed off in a log entry. Janeway casually mentions “heavy casualties,” but they’re all people not in the opening credits, so it’s not like we have to give a shit. Never mind that this ship that’s tens of thousands of light-years from any repair facilities or replacement crew is suffering so much damage and losing more and more people…
Sigh. I know I’ve harped on those points so much, and this two-parter as a whole is enough fun to ameliorate the problem, but almost all the fun is in Part 1. Not quite all: besides the Paris-Kim confrontation, there’s the EMH and Neelix dragging the Klingons over to the World War II scenario and watching from under the awning, a hilarious bit of comic business.
Still, this probably should’ve been just one part. We get almost none of the role-playing from Part 1, and without that, it’s just people in costumes and new locations for no good reason, and it’s not as exciting.
Warp factor rating: 5
Keith R.A. DeCandido’s next novel is Animal, a thriller he wrote with Dr. Munish K. Batra, about a serial killer who targets people who harm animals. It’s now available for preorder, and if you preorder it directly from WordFire Press before the 24th of December, you get a free urban fantasy short story by Keith.
Well, I gonna miss Keith’s attempts to keep track of Voyager’s crew =)
Oleg X: I’m still gonna try my best…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
What annoys me most about Janeway casually giving technology over to the Hirogen is that she has utterly refused to share technology up until this point, even with people who are far less dangerous than the Hirogen, and will continue to refuse to use it for trade in the future, all while claiming that she is doing the moral right thing by not giving randos advanced technology. And those are people who they could have formed alliances with, and potentially have helped them get home, or at least help provide security to Voyager. So what is so special about the Hirogen that she just gives it over to them, in exchange for nothing at all? Considering they are pretty firmly in the camp of people who are likely to misuse technology, and that she is doing so with the express hope that it will change their civilianization (I guess this is one of her “bending the Prime Directive” moments she will later refer to in “Equinox”), this seems remarkably short-sighted of her.
Honestly, seeing just how big Dawson was, it was actually pretty impressive that they managed to hide her pregnancy so well normally!!
Janeway’s sudden 180 in attitude definitely left a bitter taste in my mouth. These are the aliens who killed and tortured your crew, hunted them like animals for their own amusement, destroyed most of Voyager, and suddenly it’s buddy-buddy? Yeah, no. And for the resolution to happen in the log entry is just sooooo lazy. But that’s nothing new.
I’m glad I went ahead and watched both episodes in one sitting (as intended?) because I think the review is right that this episode is weaker than the first. It seems the reverse of the usual problem of two-parters were the first episode is all set up; here, the second part is all wrap-up. Even then, the two critical moments, Janeway and the Karr coming to an understanding and the actual fighting between Voyager and the Hirogen is rushed or skipped over.
Still, these two episodes are some of my favorite parts of Voyager, even if it does rely on the first part to carry the second.
@3/wildfyre: Janeway didn’t give technology to the Kazon because Starfleet stuff was more advanced than theirs and they’d use it to become more dangerous to their neighbors. But the Hirogen already have very advanced ships and weapons, and all she gave them was a video game system, essentially — a way to sublimate their aggressive instincts in a way that could make them less dangerous to others, and to themselves. So it wasn’t really a Prime Directive situation, more just a trade deal between equals to secure peace. Okay, Karr wanted to use the tech to change his culture, but that wasn’t something the Federation was imposing — it was an idea that came from within their society and would have to be implemented internally.
Of course, we’ll see in “Flesh and Blood” that it had more potential for harm than she realized. But that’s another show.
Really appreciative of this particular review. I skipped this two-parter the first time I watched Voyager season-by-season (what, the Hirogen again?!?! and in WWII costumes?!?!), found it hard to go back and give it a fair shot, and now I know I’m not missing “a lot.”
@6 But she didn’t give them “a video game,” as she darn well knows, because she *just* lived through them using them to actually kill people. Even if leisure was the only thing the holodecks had ever been used for (which they aren’t, as we’ve seen on Voyager, TNG, and DS9, they can also be used for things like research, running simulations on ships, transporting people without them being aware of it, demonstrating weapons, etc.), she just saw the Hirogen use them to torture, maim, and kill people, and has no reason to think they wouldn’t continue to use them for that. If Janeway can’t see why giving this level of technology to the Hirogen is bad then she probably shouldn’t be in the position to make those kind of decisions in the first place. That’s the whole reason they aren’t supposed to be giving away their technology (and she does give it away- they get nothing in return for it that I remember)- because they don’t know what the results will be and can’t guarantee it won’t do more harm then good. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the Hirogen will use it as a weapon when they literally just did so. It’s a complete 180 on what she says and does for the whole rest of the show, and for seemingly no reason.
I’ve been eagerly awaiting this particular episode Rewatch — specifically the climax with Janeway v. Turanj — solely because of one of my favorite Chuck Sonnenburg gems from SF Debris:
“Welcome to Katrine’s, here’s your pipe, sir.”
* Thwack *
“Let me show you the house wine, it’s a Gewehr 98/40, very fine vintage!”
@1 and 2 Another option is to assume that ‘heavy casualties’ only means high numbers of injuries; which is a valid use of the word. In fact, the whole ordeal before the final off-screen fight also had heavy casualties, but only one death. The final fight could be similar. So, without any contrary evidence, I think Keith can assume no more deaths added to the count. (I’m not saying that is probable, but it is a valid read of information provided.)
One way to be able to keep up the Voyager deathwatch count is to assume that “heavy casualties” does not necessarily mean fatalities. The Doctor had already complained in ep.1 of the amount of patching up he’d had to do after the Crusades scenario; it could be that more of the same was required, for both Starfleet and Hirogen alike.
As for the idea to trade off a copy of the holodeck technology in spite of the death of (at least) one crewmember, it would undoubtedly be in order to avoid further deaths or “heavy casualties”. If Janeway could save the rest of the crew by trading off non-weapons technology to an advanced species physically superior and better trained and equipped , she should take that deal in a heartbeat. That the Hirogen were able to weaponize that technology (albeit to their own cost) is another matter entirely. If all you see are nails, you’ll make a hammer out of anything at hand.
@8/wildfyre: “But she didn’t give them “a video game,” as she darn well knows, because she *just* lived through them using them to actually kill people.”
They’re hunters. They already have tons of ways to kill people. It’s not like a system that can only function in range of holoemitters would somehow let them kill more people than they already do anyway. And it created an opportunity for them to start killing fewer people.
I had the same problem with Bruce Wayne’s reason for sitting on fusion technology in The Dark Knight Rises — the fear that it would be used to make nuclear bombs. Uh, Bruce, we already have nuclear bombs. We have enough to kill every human being on the planet ten times over. So it’s the worst kind of moral negligence to cheat the world out of safe, clean energy out of the fear that it could be used to create something that already exists anyway.
More to the point, you don’t always have the luxury of sticking perfectly to your ideals when you’re struggling for your life far from home without a government to back you up. Sometimes you have to compromise to survive. Janeway was a bit too naive about that earlier. By now, she’s gotten more pragmatic.
@6 – which system the PlayStation35 or the XBox One XXLV? :-)
@12:
I had the same problem with Bruce Wayne’s reason for sitting on fusion technology in The Dark Knight Rises — the fear that it would be used to make nuclear bombs. Uh, Bruce, we already have nuclear bombs. We have enough to kill every human being on the planet ten times over. So it’s the worst kind of moral negligence to cheat the world out of safe, clean energy out of the fear that it could be used to create something that already exists anyway.
Oh, you too?
That was one of my quibbles with Nolan’s final Batman film as well.
My problem with giving the Hirogen holodeck technology is the same as my general problem with holodeck technology and the ways it gets used. It has an alarming tendency to produce what look an awful lot like individuals manifesting self-awareness, and it’s not clear to me that the Federation has ever really reckoned with the ethical implications of that fact.
@15/benjamin: And we’ll get to that with “Flesh and Blood” a few seasons down the road. This is a case where Voyager actually did explore the ramifications of one of Janeway’s questionable decisions (even if it took several years), and some of the concerns being raised here are actually borne out.
@15 Not only do they occasionally produce sentient human beings, but the holodecks are *incredibly* versatile pieces of technology. Off the top of my head, they have been used to create combat training scenarios, to build and test ships, to help diagnose and fix problems with other pieces of technology, to conduct forensics and crime-scene recreation, to demonstrate and sell weapons, and to move human beings from one place to another *without those people even knowing about it*. And Janeway hands it over, not to some established, enlightened gov’t that she might be reasonably assured won’t use them for nefarious purposes, but to a handful of random killers who seemingly intend to use real, sentient beings in order to play “The Most Dangerous Game,” because one of them (who is now dead because his own buddies disagreed with him) was concerned, not that they were killing people, but that they were getting too spread out while doing so. It’s a really weird choice! And I’m glad they followed up on it later, but it is still baffling that it was made at all, and especially in such a casual, off-hand way.
I also was disturbed by how easily Janeway overlooked all of the death and torture and destruction to work with the Hirogen. Everything is wrapped up too tidily and abruptly to end in time for the end credits.
So I see Tom Paris is a racist for thinking all Asians look alike.
And the writers couldn’t come up with another name instead of “Karr?” After all, Aron Eisenberg played a Kazon Kar back in “Initiations.”
I used to do a lot of research into late 19th century naval warfare and the use of “casualty” in those depictions drove me nuts. It’s such a sterile word, simply meaning “unable to serve”, and it glosses over whether you cannot serve because you are wounded or dead. I suppose to a military organization, those things might be synonymous– but for a human, it makes a big difference! These days, I think we increasingly mean “dead” when we use that word, but it’s not clear in what sense Janeway was using it.
Another term that used to get me for that era was “torpedo”. While we mean it like the thing that shoots out and blows stuff up, the original sense was closer to an underwater mine.
@15 – I always figured there’s only one self-aware entity: the computer. The projections are just that: projections of light, given substance by a force field, but ultimately all controlled by the same computer.
@17/wildfyre: As I said, it’s not as if the Hirogen weren’t already doing immense harm to begin with. And the difference from the Kazon is that the Hirogen are already a very advanced civilization, evidently far more ancient than humanity. They don’t have holotechnology because they haven’t been interested in developing it, but they have very advanced ships, weapons, and communications. Giving them holodecks won’t be some kind of magical quantum leap in their ability to kill people. They’re already killing people just fine without added help, thank you. So the potential increase in harm is minimal compared to the harm they’re already doing, and that’s balanced against the possibility of a reduction in harm if they embrace Karr’s plan and use holodecks as an alternative to hunting.
@18/garreth: When Paris-as-soldier confronted Kim, he checked if he was American. He seemed more suspicious that he was out of uniform than anything else. In WWII, the Chinese were seen as allies, so I don’t think a GI would’ve been automatically racist toward an Asian stranger, at least no more so than the everyday racism of the era.
@20/Austin: Yes, holograms are avatars controlled by computer programs, but a single computer can have numerous different programs running on it. A non-sentient computer with sufficient processing power could simulate a sentient neural network through sheer brute-force computation. Since sapience is a function of the organization and activity of a computing network rather than merely its size or capacity, a sapient program could run within a larger, non-sapient mainframe. (Much like our brains are made up of organic matter that came from non-thinking sources like plants, meat, air, and water. It’s how it’s organized that matters.)
Quoth wildfyrewarning: “So what is so special about the Hirogen that she just gives it over to them, in exchange for nothing at all?”
Um, she didn’t give it to them in exchange for nothing, she gave it to them in exchange for not fighting anymore. That’s a pretty big thing, especially given how powerful the Hirogen are.
Quoth garreth: “So I see Tom Paris is a racist for thinking all Asians look alike.”
Um, no, Lieutenant Bobby Davis is a depressingly typical white American of the 1940s who thinks that all Asians look alike.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@krad, Yea, I worded what I meant very poorly. What I was (badly) attempting to convey is that there were times when Voyager’s tech could have been traded for supplies, Delta technology tech, an alliance or an escort etc, but the rule has always been “no, we can’t do that.” Same for giving it to people trying to attack them in an effort to get them to stop. To me they don’t seem to end the episode any better off than then end most episodes where they’ve been attacked by the villians-of-the-week/month, but Janeway is suddenly willing to part with their technology. Sure, the Hirogen are formidable, but they have faced formidable enemies before without breaking this rule, and it just seems like a huge change in their position to do so, but without much on-screen thought given to it, and without much indication in later episodes that this was just the start of a change toward them being more pragmatic and willing to compromise with other races. It always stands out to me when I watch this episode as being jarring, and they end the Hirogen arc in basically the same position they started it in, but with a major compromise of what has been portrayed to the audience as being a pretty hard belief. I feel like in every other episode where they have gotten the “give us your tech or be destroyed” type speech, they’ve chosen to fight on because it was *that* important to them that bad guys didn’t get federation technology.
@22/krad: Okay, I wasn’t really meaning Tom Paris himself, but his avatar, the American WWII soldier.
@18 I wonder how many modern, non-racist Americans could reliably tell Chinese and Japanese apart at first glance.
@12, @21
Bruce Wayne’s fusion reactor might well be a proliferation risk. D-T fusion produces high energy neutrons, which are needed to produce replacement tritium via bombardment of a lithium blanket. But they could just as easily be used to produce fissionable materials by neutron bombardment of a different material.
Proliferation Risks of Fusion Energy: Clandestine Production, Covert Production, and Breakout
@23/wildfyre: “To me they don’t seem to end the episode any better off than then end most episodes where they’ve been attacked by the villians-of-the-week/month, but Janeway is suddenly willing to part with their technology.”
This situation is different from those because of how the technology is intended to be used. It’s not someone trying to steal Voyager‘s weapons or transporters or engine tech to gain a decisive advantage over their enemies. It’s someone wanting to use holotechnology as a more peaceful alternative for a culture built on killing — one that lets them stay true to their existing culture and traditions, but in a way that avoids bloodshed. What could be truer to Starfleet’s values than that?
I mean, look at the bigger picture of the galaxy. Trading technology with other interstellar powers is not, has never been, absolutely forbidden in every case. Cultures trade tech, resources, and ideas with each other all the time. The Federation trades with its neighbors, with its allies, with its equals. For instance, in DS9, we saw the Federation providing technology to Bajor to help them recover post-Occupation. There’s evidence of technology exchange with the Klingons too; the Vor’Cha class battlecruiser introduced in TNG was designed to have similarities to the Enterprise-D, to suggest that some of the same technologies were being used.
The Prime Directive only applies when the other culture is sufficiently less advanced that the influx of a new technology would be disruptive. But the Hirogen are very advanced, very ancient. This is not a Prime Directive situation. You’re thinking of the way things were back in Ocampa/Talaxian/Kazon etc. space, in a fairly backward part of the galaxy where Voyager was one of the most advanced things around. That’s not the case anymore.
“I am a hunter. You are my prey. Run.”
Hmm. This feels caught between two stools to a certain point. It kind of wants to be a fun romp, yet also tell a Star Trek story about an enlightened leader teaching his people to be more. So on the one hand you have Klingons versus Nazis (which is very cool, by the way) and on the other you have the holographic Nazi making a speech about racial superiority that causes the reactionary Hirogen to assassinate his progressive superior.
There’s a decent message at its heart, summed up in Janeway’s truce with the Hirogen at the end. And there’s lots of fun moments. Paris and Torres sparkle together whether they know who they are or not, and Paris also gets a bit of nice interplay with Seven. Seven similarly manages to be badass, facing down both Tuvok and Turanj and refusing to be humiliated (“Logic is irrelevant”). Neelix makes a pretty poor Klingon even before he gets his memories back. And it’s a nice twist that Seven’s super-duper technology actually makes things worse for the heroes. Plus a couple of very dramatic villain deaths, as the holographic Nazi gets dismembered by a holographic Klingon and Janeway shoots Turanj causing him to fall through the damaged bulkhead. I always assumed that was meant to be the Hirogen medic making peace with Janeway at the end, but apparently it wasn’t, so I guess he was meant to have been killed when the sickbay consoles blew up?
End of the Hirogen arc: I think we next see a Hirogen in Season 6. It’s been pointed out that the holographic Nazi wears a uniform that gives him a higher rank than Turanj but takes orders from him anyway: More significantly “Brigitte” refers to him as the second-in-command of the occupation, presumably after Karr. Torres can apparently feel her holographic baby kicking. So it’s not just a case of the holodeck projecting a different appearance over her, it actually manages to manifest a foetus inside a flesh and blood woman..? No, trying to make sense of that will just cause madness.
Continuing the story of “Was Kim meant to be in this?”: Janeway mentions him a couple of times, but in other scenes she acts as though the Doctor’s the only one helping them. Kim’s scene with Paris just screams “Padding”, especially when Paris is then back in the St Claire simulation not long after. Most tellingly of all, Kim (not Janeway as the recap claims) overloads the holoemitters, something we were told would cause a lot of damage… yet all that happens is the holodeck characters vanish. It doesn’t even turn off the holographic backdrop!
Paris/Davis does recognise Kim as an American the moment he speaks with an American accent (after initially being surprised that he speaks English), but then gets suspicious when Kim claims to be an American civilian in the middle of a combat zone in France and tests him on 1940s popular culture to make sure.
As for people trying to convince themselves there’s only one death, the Doctor says that one of the patients in Sickbay will die without immediate surgery, at which point the Hirogen medic deactivates him and tells his colleagues to only treat their own wounded and let the crewmembers die. Then Janeway makes sure by blowing Sickbay up. So not seeing much chance of any “casualties” receiving treatment.
@27, the Hirogen are still killing people, and I see no indication that they plan to stop. The holodeck on Voyager wasn’t used to give them holograms to hunt- it was used to give them the ability to hunt living beings in a smaller amount of space, with some physical and mental torture thrown in as an added bonus. And it did give them an advantage over the people they were hunting- in this case, the Voyager crew- because the crew was now no longer able to distinguish reality from fiction, and weren’t able to fight back to the extent they were capable of without outside help. I don’t see that as all that great of an improvement, personally. It also ignore the fact that allowing the Hirogen to condense themselves down into a smaller physical area might cause them to be able to become a power of some standing in the Delta quadrant, where right now they are dispersed and pose a threat on a (relatively) small scale. Maybe Janeway hopes they will start hunting holograms, but it seems unlikely, given their culture. (They do, obviously, as we see later, but I don’t think that was in any way guaranteed. And considering the possible sentience of those holograms, that in and of itself is a mixed bag.)
I also don’t see much evidence that the Hirogen are particularly “advanced” compared to what we are used to seeing on Trek, or even that if they were super technologically advanced that it would justify giving them technology to keep up their murder tradition. They have ships and weapons, sure, but so do the Packleds and the Kazon. Seven says the only thing special about them is their size, which isn’t much better praise than what she said about the Kazon. Giving how little Janeway knows about the Hirogen (and almost all she does comes from them, and we don’t know that they are being honest), it’s possible that the Hirogen stole and bullied their way into their technology the same way others have. They aren’t the obvious victims of wrongdoing like the Bajorans, nor treaty allies with the Federation like the Klingons. She has no reason to think this new guy is even seriously going to try to put Karr’s plan into action. She is making a lot of assumptions here, and the episode just breezes right on over it. I’m not against her doing it- I’ve said all along that Voyager needed to make more comprises- but at least give us a Picard speech in there to explain why this is suddenly a good idea. The end result of Janeway’s actions here is that an entire race of disposable people are created by the Hirogen for the purpose of being hunted down and killed, which in turn leads to the near-destruction of the Hirogen and the founding of a new society of holograms. We are told, over and over again in Trek that actions like sharing your advanced technology with people you barely know, even with the best of intentions, can have far-reaching negative consequences, and so you should think long and hard before you do it. All I am asking is that we see Janeway think long and hard about it before she hands it over.
@25: You mean modern white Americans? Because I‘m sure a good percentage of Asian-Americans can tell Japanese and Chinese people apart.
@28/cap-mjb: On Torres’s virtual baby, I imagine that sound waves tuned and focused the right way could create the illusion of something moving inside one’s body. I think ultrasound can be focused inside the body to break up kidney stones, so it should be possible to focus a sonic pulse of some kind to feel like a baby’s kick.
@29/wildfyre: “the Hirogen are still killing people, and I see no indication that they plan to stop.”
Yes, dammit, that is my whole point — that they are doing that anyway. They already have an abundance of extremely effective ways of doing that, so giving them holodecks will not significantly add to their already prodigious killing ability. But at least there’s a chance that it might lead to them killing fewer people in the long run. And that’s a chance Janeway decided was worth gambling on. It’s called hope.
“I also don’t see much evidence that the Hirogen are particularly “advanced” compared to what we are used to seeing on Trek”
They had control of an extremely advanced, galaxy-spanning communications network until Voyager destroyed it. It was stated that their culture had not changed for a thousand years, meaning that they were a warp-capable people by no later than the 14th century, putting them well ahead of humans. Their ships are a match for Voyager and then some.
Besides, they only have to be as advanced as Starfleet. The point is that Janeway didn’t trade with the Kazon because they were less advanced, not because there was some perpetual, universal ban on trade.
“that it would justify giving them technology to keep up their murder tradition.”
This is a grossly dishonest straw man. You know perfectly well that she gave them the technology in hopes of achieving the opposite of that. If you’re going to use dishonest rhetoric like this, then I have no interest in continuing this conversation.
I guess there was a hankering for WW2 action in 1998. Saving Private Ryan was released a few months after this aired. Sadly no aliens there though.
No much else to say about this one. I do remember being frustrated it was a two-parter.
For what it’s worth I remain genuinely amused by the production’s decision to make Mr Chakotay a captain and Captain Janeway a member of the maquis – I’m only sorry they didn’t have the nerve to show the characters making note of that particular inversion.
I’m also less than surprised that Captain Janeway’s reaction – after only very recently being brought back to herself following a long period under what amounts to a form of technological mind control and a rather stressful wakeup, well up a certain feculent creek (where the only available paddle appears to be poised to smash a hole in her own vessel) – to learning that there might even be a way to get out of this particular foxhole without mass casualties (to either side) was to seize on that change with both hands and arguably indecent haste.
It’s a pity this isn’t consciously framed as realpolitik in extremis (preferably in a Captain’s Log pointing out that she’s not HAPPY to be making the deal, but feels it beats having to risk Voyager being blown to pieces during the course of her Liberation), but “Your ship, your lives and our protection while you fix up both in return for the holo-tech we already have our grubby little hands on” would be a pretty fair offer under the rather horrible circumstances.
It’s also not hard to read the Captain’s willingness to follow through on this deal even after the Alpha who brokered it was assassinated as a way of allowing the Hunters to save face after their latest reverse, allowing all parties to go their separate ways with honour not wholly dissatisfied – and thereby avoid a resumption of hostilities.
Very much a ‘lesser of two evils’ sort of situation (it should also be noted that this plan actually WORKED; I believe that the closest Voyager comes to a resumption of hostilities with the Hirogen is when a kidnapped Seven of Nine has to be forced into a gladiatorial bout with an equally-unlucky hunter … but that’s a story for another time).
@33:
Very much a ‘lesser of two evils’ sort of situation (it should also be noted that this plan actually WORKED; I believe that the closest Voyager comes to a resumption of hostilities with the Hirogen is when a kidnapped Seven of Nine has to be forced into a gladiatorial bout with an equally-unlucky hunter … but that’s a story for another time).
There’s also technically Season 7’s “Flesh and Blood”, which is a direct follow-up.
Personally, I kinda wish this had been the last appearance of the Hirogen. I still think after the failure of the Kazon, VOY should’ve just stuck to doing seasonal Big Bads or multi-episode antagonists based on whatever region they were passing through.
The Alpha says he’s been browsing Voyager’s database for historical events, but I interpret what he specifically found were historical holonovels (Earth’s Crusades, Earth’s WW2, some notable battle on Qo’nos we’ve never heard of). All the Voyager crew turned into puppets by the neural overrides? They’re either being puppeted by the NPC AI, or more simply, using their own skills to play “pre-rolled characters” with their sense of identity suppressed. (Holodeck AIs can be pretty darn lifelike, so what advantage does an external player provide?)
The neural overrides evidently work on humans, Vulcans and Talaxians, but maybe “half the crew is locked in quarters” because they comprise species on whom the overrides don’t work: Bajorans, Bolians, others?
The Alpha directed that the holodeck grid be expanded (which makes sense, vis-a-vis the sort of elbow room needed for a holo-scenario) and be extended throughout adjacent corridors (which, lacking elbow-room, makes less sense). Under this regime there are at least two large holodecks (we’re never told how many Voyager usually has, of different sizes). Maybe the problem is partially structural — i.e., the ship usually has skeleton crossing through those spaces, necessary for stiffness during maneuvers — and if so, why not arrange “multi-lobe” holodecks with “bottlenecks” between the skeletal elements? (I’m saying, we’d have a better sense of peril if the episode gave us a sense of place, i.e., a cutaway graphic to establish how much of the ship was occupied by holodecks; which would have more import if prior episodes had done so. The fraction of the audience that draws dungeon maps for their RPG campaigns has to be satisfied with the generic Master Systems Display on the bridge.)
Moreover, there’s no visual sign of it in the corridors — IMHO, the premise would’ve been more convincing with techno-blinkies added to the bulkheads or ceiling.
Seven’s improvised photonic grenade zaps the NPCs, but not the surrounding scenery. Is the scenery more “solid” than characters, i.e., actual replicated matter? It occupies more volume than the characters, but doesn’t need to be puppeted, so maybe that’s a standard trade-off.
How do you even improvise a photonic disruptor from a prop grenade? It’s either a force field phantasm, or a replicated metal shell, or (with the safeties turned off) a metal shell containing real explosive. There’s nothing to modify, unless Seven reprograms her nanoprobes to transmute arbitrary matter (as we’ve seen Borg tech do to shipboard systems), and if so, a bottle of wine would provide just as much elemental feedstock.
Planting a bomb beneath the console in Sickbay: Why would there be a holoemitter whose range transcends the deckplate to include that Jeffries tube? Does this mean the bomb was real matter?
@35/philip: I don’t think that more than half of Voyager‘s crew is non-human, given how many human extras we saw over the course of the show (the producers of DS9 and VGR had a bad habit of defaulting to human for Starfleet extras). More likely it’s just that half the crew was locked in quarters because the holodecks had only been expanded so far and couldn’t hold the entire crew.
I don’t think holo-scenery would be replicated matter; that would only be necessary for objects handled directly by the players. It could be that scenery is just pure imagery with no force-field solidity except when players interact with it, to save energy. Or it could be that it’s handled by different subprograms/algorithms than the more intricately animated characters, and Seven’s disruptor was calibrated to affect the character algorithms. Or maybe it’s that the more dynamic character algorithms are more fragile and easily disrupted than the simpler coding for the static scenery.
@35: Sickbay already is equipped for holograms.
It’s established (Wikipedia) that a holosuite uses “materialized” substance as well as force fields and light. Sometimes this goes away when the program stops, sometimes not; Wesley Crusher walking wet out of the holodeck in ST:TNG “Encounter at Farpoint” is cited. “Rule of funny” may apply, ask Roger Rabbit. Maybe it uses real fluids, we aren’t told. (Apparently “Star Trek: Lower Decks” considers fluids.)
“The Big Goodbye” established that a holodeck is worse to be trapped in than a turbolift car when you have an urgent appointment, because they can’t just turn it off or beam you out – otherwise they would and the story would finish early. So maybe if it cuts out without warning, it’s liable to dematerialize your fluids.
@37/Robert: According to the tech manuals, replication is used for props and other things that users interact with physically, so food and water would probably be real in at least some contexts.
In “The Big Goodbye,” the holodeck was malfunctioning as a result of the Jarada signal disrupting it. So it can’t be taken as evidence for how the holodeck would behave in other situations.
I don’t understand why the holodeck is not a much bigger deal in Star Trek. IMO, it has to be the greatest invention in the entire universe. How many people would rather spend their life in a reality of their own choosing? The possible applications of this pseudo-reality technology are mind-boggling. I can think of several spin-off movie/TV show ideas centering around it.
@39 I am always curious about their applications outside of plain entertainment! We’ve seen them used as labs, to re-create crime scenes, and to build prototypes. It makes me wonder if, say, Utopia Planitia has enormous holodecks that they use to help with proofing the new ships. Or if detectives regularly use them to help with crime scene investigations. If medical facilities have holodecks used for testing out experimental procedures. It is such an interesting a versatile piece of technology, and we mostly only see it used as a way for people to blow off steam and relax, but I imagine it must be used for all kinds of practical applications.
I find holodecks implausibly overcomplicated, when we see other science fiction franchises achieving the same effect with virtual-reality headsets or the like. Why bother creating it all physically when you can just have an immersive sensory experience in VR? It would certainly take up less room on the ship.
@41 – A very good point. I’m thinking something like Ready Player One with a treadmill, wires, VR headset, and gloves. Or maybe Tad Williams’ Otherland series where people immerse themselves inside what is basically the internet. IIRC, there were different options, like a chip embedded in the nervous system. Some people got into pods filled with some kind of liquid or gel or something like that.
Part 2 has the ungrateful task of resolving part 1, in this case. For the most part, I like that they push the Hirogen towards a self-assessment of their ways. Killing off Karr provides just enough tension to the notion that the Hirogen may just be a doomed species in the long run. Which is why I was surprised by Janeway’s willingness to carry his hopes forward at the end.
Granted, giving away technology seems reckless at first, but at this point Janeway, as Christopher put it, is way more pragmatic, and a far more welcome version of the character than the one we got in episodes like season 2’s Alliances (and I’ll take this two parter over that sorry Kazon arc any day). I understand not wanting to share tech with the Kazon, but the whole speech about sticking to Starfleet ideals in order to survive the Delta Quadrant was hopelessly naive back then. I’m glad to see four years of travel and hardship have had enough of a long-term on the Captain for her to jump into practical decisions more readily. But one still able to see when even an enemy makes a plea for help the way Karr does. That’s why the resolution mostly works for me.
I always assumed the heavy casualties comment to not necessarily be related to number of deaths, but rather the loss of select people in key positions (say, Tuvok losing four or five his biggest security heavyweights or Torres losing a couple of prodigious Barclays). Given Voyager’s crew complement, I assume they lost 9-10 people.
@20- ChristopherLBennet already addressed this, but I’d just add that we can see that certain hologram characters are able to move between different computers while maintaining their identity. Hence the Doctor is still the Doctor when he transfers from the Medbay holoprojectors to the futuristic computer in the Mobile Projector, or even to alien systems.
@44 – True, though the Doctor is a program, rather than the mainframe, so it makes sense he could be transferred from computer to computer (though you wonder at the processing capabilities of the receiving computer, but I doubt that is ever really a consideration of the writers). CLB’s comment @21 got me thinking of the Matrix sequels, where there was a bunch of rogue programs within the Matrix. Looking at it that way, I can see how holoprojections could reach self-awareness, though I doubt each projection is it’s own separate program.
@45- Probably not each one, no, but offhand we’ve also seen Moriarty and his ladyfriend transferred to a VR program outside the holodeck on TNG, and Vic Fontaine pop into other programs on DS9. (Vic is interesting in that he was apparently intentionally designed with a degree of self-awareness, and exhibits remarkably little angst about it, even when it turns out his world has been programmed to be taken over by gangsters because… his programmer thought it was funny?)
@45/Austin: “I doubt each projection is it’s own separate program.”
If they’re just NPCs in a computer game, no; the overall game itself is the program. But an EMH is not merely a game character, it’s a dedicated expert program. Also, any actual artificial intelligence, especially a sapient one, would be its own distinct, coherent program or set of subroutines.
All holograms are not the same single type of thing. They’re just avatars animated by software, and there are many different kinds of software working in different ways.
@47 – I agree with all that. @15 brought up the potential ethical concerns of self-aware projections that are seemingly made without thought or consequence. I, think, for the most part, that the simulation itself is the program and the projections are just NPCs in that program (like the bar Paris made). Now, that doesn’t rule out someone specifically creating a program for a specific person, like Da Vinci for instance. That is the murky ethical area if you ask me. Not sure if people should be allowed to create possibly sapient people in the holodeck.
@48- And I stand by those concerns. That not every holographic projection is liable to achieve sentience doesn’t alter the fact that it’s a possible consequence of the use of the technology.
Now, why it seems that the ship’s computer only generates self aware programs in the holodeck (I haven’t watched the most recent season of Discovery, although one of the Short Treks suggests an exception to this), and the propulsion systems never start backtalking Paris through the helm console is another question.
Perhaps they don’t have sufficient enthusiasm for the mission.
@48/Austin: “I, think, for the most part, that the simulation itself is the program and the projections are just NPCs in that program (like the bar Paris made). Now, that doesn’t rule out someone specifically creating a program for a specific person, like Da Vinci for instance.”
Yes, exactly. It makes no sense to overgeneralize. Not all holograms are the same, any more than all animals are the same. Different ones have different kinds of programs directing them. The sentient or near-sentient ones are a specialized class.
Really, we should leave the whole “hologram” angle out of it, because it’s a distraction. That’s just the avatar. What we’re talking about here are artificial intelligences. It’s like the difference between a starship computer, which is just a programmed machine, and Data’s positronic brain, which is a sapient neural network. (Although unfortunately the franchise itself confuses the issue by treating holograms as a fundamentally separate kind of AI from androids/”synths,” despite utterly failing to define the distinction.) What matters isn’t hologram vs. not-hologram, it’s AI program vs. not-AI program, regardless of whether that program controls a holographic avatar, is inside the head of an android, or is the operating system of a starship.
“That is the murky ethical area if you ask me. Not sure if people should be allowed to create possibly sapient people in the holodeck.”
Humans have been creating sapient people for a long time now. It’s called childbirth. I object to the mentality that it should be wrong to create a specific category of person. I would agree that, as with childbirth, it should not be entered into recklessly or without consideration for the rights and well-being of the consciousnesses to be created. And ideally precautions should be taken to reduce the odds of it happening by accident as an unintended consequence of recreational activities by people unprepared to care for their offspring. But proposing a blanket prohibition on their conception seems excessive.
@49/benjamin: “Now, why it seems that the ship’s computer only generates self aware programs in the holodeck (I haven’t watched the most recent season of Discovery, although one of the Short Treks suggests an exception to this), and the propulsion systems never start backtalking Paris through the helm console is another question.”
Sapience is not about brute-force computing power, but about a specific type of neural-network architecture — one that has recursive feedback loops and is affected by its awareness of its own state, one that can model its own attention and activity in order to choose how to modify them, and one that reshapes itself through experience and learning. It’s a totally different type of thing from a rigid, inflexible computer program.
So hologram/AI sentience is not something that would just randomly happen to any common-or-garden computer. It has to be the right kind of AI network, an adaptive, learning program such as an EMH or a Soong-type positronic net. Moriarty was able to do it because Geordi ordered the computer specifically to create a character that could out-think Data, meaning one that had the same kind of learning, self-aware neural architecture that Data did.
@30
Lets assume this is true. A good percentage usually means a large minority. Which would mean most Asian-Americans cannot reliably tell a single Japanese from a single Chinese. And probably a larger majority of African-Americans. And Hispanic-Americans. And Native Americans. And Indian-Americans. Are they all racist too, or just fictitious white people played by Robert Duncan McNeill?
@49: Kirk and Spock had a few encounters with computers or robots that had minds of their own, or behaved as if they did. Some passed as crewmembers but weren’t really on the payroll. In “Tomorrow is Yesterday”, the Enterprise computer appears to be in love with Captain Kirk, having been given “a personality” by the Matriarch of Cygnet XIV.
Most of these AIs were created deliberately, but in my head at least, it also happens so often accidentally that computers would be designed deliberately to prevent it from happening spontaneously, Is that moral or cruel, I can’t decide. But we still got Moriarty and apparently the exocomps and Wesley Crusher’s nanites when he left the lid off the jar. Accidents happen.
We also got Picard’s holographic friend in “The Big Goodbye” having a crisis because he’s supposed to have a wife and family across town, but what if there is no “across town”? And I think they just switched him off…
Ok, I have to say it (regarding Harry and Tom’s character):
“Are we taking everyone?”
“Hey, I’m from Fresno, Ace.”
@50 –
Allow me to be more specific then. People shouldn’t be allowed to whip up sentient beings in the holodeck and treat them like temporary code that can be shut off with an “End program.” Since the program is not technically dead (unless their code is specifically deleted) but in a dormant state, that would be akin to someone having a child and then imprisoning them. Or perhaps putting them in a medical coma whenever they’re done playing with them. It’s tough for us to imagine anyone getting worked up about terminating what’s essentially computer code, but that’s because we’re organic and have something of a bias about that. As you alluded to, someone who creates a sentient being basically gave birth to a child and needs to take the necessary care and responsibility of that person’s wellbeing.
@51 –
I agree. There is nothing wrong, IMO, with someone being unable to differentiate ethnicities. Seeing how Paris was currently programmed as WWII soldier, who were at war with an Asian ethnicity, I think it’s easy to understand his caution.
@52/Robert Carnegie: “Kirk and Spock had a few encounters with computers or robots that had minds of their own, or behaved as if they did. Some passed as crewmembers but weren’t really on the payroll.”
There is a big difference between mimicking intelligence and actually possessing it. Lots of people today are fooled into thinking that chatbots are real people they’re having online conversations with. MMORPG characters often seem to talk and act like real people, because they’re programmed to. There’s a myth in fiction that the Turing test is proof of AI sentience, but it’s just the opposite. Turing called it the “imitation game,” and the goal was to determine if a non-intelligent, programmed machine could convincingly fake intelligent behavior. It’s actually not that hard.
TOS was written at a time when expectations of machine intelligence were fairly low. Of the AIs we saw in TOS, most were treated by the writers as “mere machines,” bound by programming and lacking the true consciousness of a person. Roger Korby seemed sentient, but at the end, Kirk said “Dr. Korby was never here,” dismissing his android as merely a convincing mimicry trapped by limited programming. Ruk showed some glimmerings of transcending his programming, but Andrea was never anything more than a pliant sexbot. Landru was rigidly programmed and unable to adapt to change or handle a simple paradox; ditto Mudd’s androids, which were merely drones controlled by a single central mainframe that was very rigid and limited in its responses, far short of true sentient behavior. The only TOS AI that was treated as a full, conscious person rather than a mere mechanism was Rayna Kapec, although TAS depicted the Omicron Delta amusement park planet’s computer as sapient and capable of learning.
” In “Tomorrow is Yesterday”, the Enterprise computer appears to be in love with Captain Kirk, having been given “a personality” by the Matriarch of Cygnet XIV.”
That’s a huge exaggeration, which I think comes mainly from the novel Web of the Romulans. In the actual episode, the extent of the computer’s “personality” was delivering its normal reports in a sultrier voice and adding “Dear” at the end. Even a present-day digital assistant like Siri or Alexa or whatever is more versatile than that.
@54/Austin: “People shouldn’t be allowed to whip up sentient beings in the holodeck and treat them like temporary code that can be shut off with an “End program.””
Obviously not, but my point is that such a situation is not likely to happen in the first place, because most holodeck characters are just NPCs and are not governed by neural networks with the potential for intelligence. You might as well worry about your pet gerbil talking to you and demanding emancipation. Gerbils and humans are both mammals, but that doesn’t make us the same thing. So it’s a speciously defined hypothetical, based on a category error.
@55 – Do we know if the Doctor was specifically designed with a neural network? I guess it would be hard for something like that to be done on accident. Or could it just be a requirement for the type of role that is required of an EMH?
@56/Austin: He’s sentient and capable of learning and growth, therefore I presume he’s a neural network. A neural network is an architecture like that of a living brain.
Also, Voyager‘s computers are based on bio-neural circuitry, so…
So to recap:
Not all holographic characters are sentient individuals, including those with which our heroes spend some time and emotional investment. For example, I don’t think that the Doctor’s family was real in this sense. (As much as I enjoy poking at Federation ideals, I’m comfortable saying that Torres did not kill an actual child to teach the Doctor a lesson). Although I’ll note that they aren’t necessarily just background to a program- Da Vinci was an independent enough program to get transferred to the mobile emitter without his workshop, and we’ve seen a couple of colloquies where various simulated personalities were imported to discuss assorted topics.
Starship computers are apparently capable of generating functioning artificial intelligences based on worryingly little input. (It’s possible that “Create a worthy opponent for a superhumanly intelligent and observant android,” was a one-off and there’s no other casual command that will accidentally generate a Moriarty-level intelligence, but if I was a civilization using these computers as a standard tool, I’d want to do some in depth checking as to that fact.)
These artificial intelligences, while being generated by the ship’s computer, are capable of migrating to other systems- they’re programs being run on the ship’s mainframe, but are not inseparable from the ship’s functioning.
Because of the uses they are put to (Paris is unlikely to ask the navigation systems to defeat Seven of Nine at Calvinball, although if he asks it to solve the travelling salesman problem, it might conceivably generate a honey-bee-intelligence), the holographic systems may be more prone to generating these AIs than other ship systems.
I do strongly agree with Christopher @50 that it would help if the show would either establish a reasonable distinction between entities like the EMH and Moriarty (and, Prophets help us, Badgey) on the one hand and androids/synths on the other.
@58/benjamin:”Although I’ll note that they aren’t necessarily just background to a program- Da Vinci was an independent enough program to get transferred to the mobile emitter without his workshop, and we’ve seen a couple of colloquies where various simulated personalities were imported to discuss assorted topics.”
Well, yes, of course you can reuse the same personality subroutines in different holodeck games/simulations, just as you can open the same document in different word processors, or a digital artist can download an open-source model for a character or vehicle or object and incorporate it into their computer animation. It doesn’t make them conscious life forms, just data files like any other.
And again, it makes no sense to expect all holograms to fit a single model. As I keep saying, holograms are just images controlled by software, and there are many different kinds of software that could use them. So yes, of course some are just background NPCs, some are more detailed personality algorithms, etc. They’re not one single thing, despite the tendency of screenwriters to treat them that way sometimes.
“(It’s possible that “Create a worthy opponent for a superhumanly intelligent and observant android,” was a one-off and there’s no other casual command that will accidentally generate a Moriarty-level intelligence, but if I was a civilization using these computers as a standard tool, I’d want to do some in depth checking as to that fact.)”
That was kind of implausible. I’ve always assumed that some residual bit of the Bynars’ Minuet code was still lurking around in the junk files and got incorporated into Moriarty’s program.
“I do strongly agree with Christopher @50 that it would help if the show would either establish a reasonable distinction between entities like the EMH and Moriarty (and, Prophets help us, Badgey) on the one hand and androids/synths on the other.”
I think there was supposed to be an “or” to go with that “either.” The “or” I would favor would be to admit that there is no difference, that an AI is an AI regardless of whether it operates an android, a starship, or a holographic avatar.
@59 Whoops! That was indeed the gist of my intended or.
I have to say it’s been amusing all the people scrolling down talking about telling a Japanese person from a Chinese person, and all I’m doing is sitting here thinking, “but Kim is Korean”.
@53 WizardofWoz77
Ok, I have to say it (regarding Harry and Tom’s character):
“Are we taking everyone?”
“Hey, I’m from Fresno, Ace.”
FINALLY someone said it. Jim Morita forever.
As for Zora (Discovery’s new AI Main computer) that seems to be an exceptional instance, to me not so much the computer gaining sapience but rather the sphere data within the computer reincorporating it’s original intelligence within the form of the ship’s computer. Like Vision, not JARVIS nor Ultron. The new “hardware” the new corporeal form changing what the constituent parts were to become a new lifeform, a new individual. A ship’s computer with all of the ship’s memories, but also all of the sphere’s memories and former personality engrams. I would also imagine all of the personal logs of the crew as well to draw on. A reincarnation where what came before has a new life even with access to the knowledge of the old. Wait- To make that concise, the starship equivalent of Discovery receiving a planet sized Trill symbiont.
I loved that Paris continued to Method act with slang from the era.
I find it a little strange that the communication network of the Hirogen that Voyager destroyed is never mentioned in the next several Hirogen episodes. What were they even doing with that network? Their lives don’t appear to have changed with the network’s destruction. And it doesn’t appear to be any motivation for why they keep getting involved with Voyager.
@63/Quasarmodo: The Hirogen are a nomadic race of predators, and many predatory species operate in small, highly territorial bands and perceive others of their own species as competitors, rather than organizing into large interdependent communities. While the Hirogen may have found the communication network useful, and would have defended it out of their strong sense of territoriality, I doubt it would have been so central to their everyday lives that its absence would have changed things that much.
And they kept getting involved with Voyager because Voyager was in a territory where there were a lot of them around — same as with the Kazon, Vidiians, Borg, Malon, etc.
The scene quoted above between Turanj and Seven is the GOAT scene for Seven across the entire history of the franchise. Glad to see it mentioned.
Umm, casualties doesn’t necessarily mean deaths.
How can anyone get drunk from holographic bloodwine? Why was St Claire still standing after the overload of the holodeck? Why didn’t the fallout from Seven’s grenade obliterate some of the simulation itself as well? Did the fighting continue after the simulation ended? And isn’t giving the Hirogen holodeck technology violating all kinds of rules? I still think “Davis” would’ve fired at Kim. It must be hard to keep score of who died on VGR seeing as how the crew complement swaps and changes from episode to episode.
3: I was never that convinced by the engineering smock they used to try to hide her bump. 4: Kate Mulgrew blamed Janeway’s frequent 180’s on the inconsistent writing. 12: That sounds like Ransom’s defence of his actions (Pt1, at least!). 24: You could’ve made that clearer. 25: Its like that scene in Falling Down where Prendergast thinks a Korean shopkeeper should be understood by someone who’s Asian. 26: D-T fusion?
28. I prefer scenes with Torres and Kim. The Hirogen who agrees to a truce is ironically the same one who thought Kim was up to something in Pt1. Maybe the holo-Nazis are programmed to obey all Hirogen, irrespective of rank. 29: How widespread was holodeck technology among the Hirogen? Having said that, Voyager was still encountering them thousands and thousands of light years away from their deal with the devil (VGR’s second this year!).
31: I didn’t know until I had one myself that an ultrasound is for more than just pregnant women – they’re capable of seeing so much more than any X-ray. I think Janeway would’ve agreed to anything by that point if it got the Hirogen out of their hair. Was it ever confirmed the Hirogen owned the communications network or was it just something they encountered and appropriated for their own use (anyone caught using it is immediately hunted down by them)? Even when Seska gave the Kazon access to advanced technology, they didn’t have a clue what to do with it and their own ignorance killed them.
32: Starship Troopers was an intergalactic Saving Private Ryan. 35: I don’t know why they had to be holonovels, he could’ve just been skimming his way through Earth history. Karr doesn’t mind bulldozing his way through Voyager if he needs the elbow room. Voyager only has two holodecks, Neelix proposes converting one of the cargo bays into a third holodeck when the other two are in constant use in the S5 episode Night.
37: A wet Wesley emerging from the holodeck or an inability to transport someone off the holodeck is what TV Tropes would call “early series weirdness.” 39: But as Vic Fontaine told Nog “What here? There is no here!” 41-42: We got to see something like that on the starship Equinox – the synaptic stimulator was what one of their crew called “a poor man’s holodeck.” 58: Moriarty managed to imbue the Countess with sentience after making the same request of the computer La Forge did four years before. 62: The method to his badness.
@68/David Sim: “How can anyone get drunk from holographic bloodwine?”
Food and drink in holodecks is replicated, as are various handheld props and the like (which is why Data was able to remove Moriarty’s drawing from the holodeck in “Elementary, Dear Data”).
“And isn’t giving the Hirogen holodeck technology violating all kinds of rules?”
See comment #6.
69: Thanks Christopher
Recently started our own rewatch and I’ve been enjoying these posts and comments. I had vague memories of this 2 parter. (Watched the series in its first run) But I agree with the complaints regarding the lack of acknowledgement of crew deaths. Something that could have been easily fixed by adding one or two lines to the scripts. (Especially in Message in a Bottle. Poor writing, imo. ) for this episode, there was no need to have anyone killed. The doctor could have just said, we almost had a fatality. (For example). Probably one of my biggest disappointments with the series.
Re Janeway giving away technology-if you consider the damage to the ship, perhaps it was the best choice? I have mixed feelings. The other issue-no mention of the very young child on the ship? Was she locked in her quarters? Hiding on the holodeck with her mother the resistance fighter?
We got to see Klingons kill Nazis.
Worth the price of admission alone.
I liked this one as well as part I. Maybe because I really needed an escape and this episode gave it to me. Also, while Janeway’s about turn may seem abrupt, there just wasn’t time to also show the Hirojin battle. It would have been a three-parter. Plus, hey, this is about WWII. Our enemies did horrible things to us and we did horrible things to them. But ultimately treaties were signed. If Roosevelt had been a hard ass about Pearl Harbor and refused to reconcile with Japan and Germany — and didn’t help them rebuild — there would have been even more death. And the US would have been real assholes.