The story we see only follows one small village. As far as technology the village is more advanced than many places in rural American when people were walking on the moon in 1969 from the same country. Kataan didn’t even make it to Apollo level spaceflight as their probe was uncrewed.
We’re also told that they have lots of time (multiple decades?) of knowledge the planet won’t survive. A planet can move many mountains when it knows there’s no point in building for a future. The entire planets resources can go into the project to preserve the knowledge of the culture because they know none of them will survive.
If it is just a rural village, why take one of the bumpkins to represent your entire civilization?
If we were to pick the memories of one person in the entire world to represent our whole planet, do you think we’d go to Podunk, Arkansas?
I think any deeper meaning we’re going to find is going to be hard to come up with and I am going to chalk it up to “the writers didn’t really consider that.”
I think any deeper meaning we’re going to find is going to be hard to come up with and I am going to chalk it up to “the writers didn’t really consider that.”
I’ll easily concede that the real answer here is likely: “The writers were looking to make an interesting and compelling bittersweet story about sacrifice, and in that they succeeded. They did enough world building to establish the premise without losing track that the point was to tell the story with the 35ish minutes of screen time, and without resorting to too much exposition.”
Now that we’ve established that, lets explore some plausible reasons to explain it ourselves.
If it is just a rural village, why take one of the bumpkins to represent your entire civilization?
First, we don’t know they only launched one rocket. Perhaps they launched hundreds each in different directions and the probe that Picard encountered was the only one remaining.
Second, perhaps there was only the one (or few) rockets because the world was subdivided into different countries and others valued wealth and power and consumed themselves in hedonism while our protagonists were something like Quakers that had a distinct view on life and different values.
If we were to pick the memories of one person in the entire world to represent our whole planet, do you think we’d go to Podunk, Arkansas?
Well, we kind of did in real life.
The golden record we sent out in the Voyager probes contained only two works from the, then, modern 20th century with the rest being hundreds of years old or tribal works with roots older yet. Here’s the list.
Many works of fiction are “slice of life” which have a story whose main thrust is just to give the reader an immersive experience in the culture at that time in history. Twain’s Tom Sawyer books or Alcott’s Little Women are good examples. The story in the episode is that the residents felt it was more important to keep alive who the people of of Kataan were, instead of what they’d accomplished. That seems plausible in storytelling for me too because any race advanced enough to find the probe wouldn’t be impressed with the technology.
You have come up with some plausible ideas, but I still don’t think it works. The Voyager probes would not be a message only transferred to one single person and their memories. Even if there were a hundred probes, that’s only a potential of 100 people who will remember their civilization to the degree they appear it wanted to be remembered, and only until they die. And that’s only if all 100 probes are encountered by other spacefaring civilizations by chance. Maybe one or two of them have some way to transfer one person’s memories to some sort of archive, but that’s a hell of a chance to take. But I especially think the golden records is a bad example because, even if it were intended to show what we were like in a desperate attempt to save our culture when we know it’s doomed, one record could potentially be studied by countless aliens since it is a tangible thing.
As much as I love the episode dramatically, especially because Patrick Stewart really sells it, it just doesn’t really work rationally as a concept.
Which is fine, a lot of good Star Trek doesn’t really work rationally, especially all the times they just randomly encounter something like that probe in deep space where it’s just hoped it will be stumbled across at some point.
Perhaps the probes were meant to work against large crowds, and that the remaining functioning systems/power only had enough for one person. Perhaps the biology of those on the Enterprise weren’t compatible in the large group format or the distance from the probe to the ship to great. Since we’re making this all up, there’s no end to it.
I’ll posit an even more extreme set of in-universe events. The entire store of Kataan is in-universe fake. No one lived. No one died. The probe is a old culture’s version of Netflix and the Enterprise accidentally activated it. The flute in the probe is simply a mass market cheaply constructed souvenir for the customer consuming the experience. Silly humans thought it was real attributing meaning and experiencing loss for purely fictional characters in what is essentially a slightly different holosuite entertainment program.
That honestly works better for me than saying this is how they memorialize their civilization.
I mean at least in Voyager’s Memorial, the memorial was supposed to be something anyone visiting the planet would get affected by in perpetuity (until Tuvok turned it off, but that was obviously not a scenario they envisioned).
The probe in The Inner Light stops working after sending the dream (or whatever you want to call it) to Picard. It’s one-time use. So a DRM-protected ‘movie’ rental sure works better for me.
And they suddenly have the ability to download memories into alien species! This would make schools obsolete, and potentially give them the ability to train the entire population on chemistry/biochemistry/biology. They could have built Silos and possibly survived underground if everyone could be insta-programmed with long term survival skills.
The correct answer of course is “don’t think about it!”
On top of that, ‘give one person memory of our civilization that they can’t really share with anyone adequately except knowing how to play this flute’ may not be the best way to memorialize a planet.
I have never been a huge fan of Star Trek comics to begin with, but I am just not a fan of this. Especially when they usually have to come up with a pretty convoluted reason for why those two universes crossed paths when they definitely should not have. But mainly, it just feels like a lazy way to avoid coming up with more stories that are just Star Trek stories.
After all, it’s much easier to come up with “what happens if Spock fights Wolverine” than “what happens when the crew go down to a completely unexplored alien planet and encounter a problem they haven’t encountered before, so it takes an effort to fix it.” But the latter is Star Trek.
I guess to me, it feels like they’re doing it because they can, not because they should.
If I recall the whole thing was deeply personal and embarrassing, and with Sareks powerful Vulcan emotions escaping his control he was even more stubborn in refusing to admit a problem or that he needed help.
Picard, being an accomplished diplomat himself, was able to convince Sarek he was putting the mission at risk by not accepting help. And he was a good fit for the mind meld both because of his ability and because he was a human. Because let’s face it, most vulcans are judgmental as heck (which probably would have bled through a mind meld)
I’m thinking the Vulcan aids would have more ability being Vulcan and having the mental discipline and training to control their emotions. At that point his aids knew (one was already telepathically propping him up somehow, limited as that is) so not much judgement left.
I think it was straight up pride. Sarek, being Vulcan, wouldn’t really give a shit at a personal level if a human experienced Sareks emotional shame. I love my wife, but I don’t want her in the bathroom while I take a dump. My cat? Meh.
Maybe a failed class, but inadvertently serving as a testbed with a lot of the lessons being incorporated into the Galaxy-class design lineage of ships?
That would make some sense. Its destruction during the battle could be why it was not developed further as well. Starfleet felt it wasn’t powerful enough.
My guess, similar to warship building enhancements during WW1, which saw massive innovations/enhancements in very short order, bigger and better ships (Galaxy class) were developed in short order, and Ambassador classes weren’t needed anymore.
I haven’t watched any of Star Trek Discovery, so I’m walking in blind and maybe this was already covered or contradicted by that show or others. I’m just commenting based on the post.
If one of the founding member races of the Federation could just leave, it had to have been over some sort of major disagreement. Perhaps something about the nature of the Federation had shifted to such a major degree that Vulcans no longer felt comfortable participating, maybe a turn towards militarism? Or maybe they saw constant disorder within the Federation and thought that their resources were being wasted helping emotional younger races that would never learn.
Maybe there was some sort of “Vulcan First” movement that emphasized the superiority of Vulcans over all others, even Romulans by extension were deemed better allies than the Federation. Or maybe the break from the Federation was orchestrated as part of a covert Romulan psychological warfare operation to try to subvert Vulcan society, a sort of parallel to our modern day Brexit drama and them leaving the EU. Maybe the two efforts (Leaving Federation and accepting Romulan refugees) went hand-in-hand and the break from the Federation occurred at relatively the same time as accepting Romulans back on Vulcan.
I think the Romulans would have less to lose over an invasion of their privacy, rather they’d see themselves as infiltrating Vulcan society as part of a grander goal of eventually assuming power over Ni’Var and subjugating the Vulcans.
You haven’t watched Discovery, so I don’t want to spoil it for you (I don’t really consider this topic much of a spoiler because it wasn’t exactly integral to the story arc), so do not read on if you don’t want it to, but they most likely left the Federation after dilithium supplies ran out and the Federation fractured before Discovery arrived in the future. We don’t know that for certain though- at least I don’t think we do.
But that is really the most minor part of the discussion point, which is more about the practicalities of Vulcans and Romulans sharing a planet.
It is outright stated why they left the Federation in Season 3 and it actually was integral to the story arc, also touches heavily on the posts question.
After the dilithium supplies started to dwindle, the Federation stated pushing for alternative fuel sources or methods of faster than light travel. Ni’vars proposal for this (as it already had been unified) was a project called SB19 but they were unsure about it. They asked for permission to not go ahead with it because it was dangerous but the project was the most promising project of the day so the Federation pressed Ni’var to go ahead anyway. Then the Burn happened. Ni’Var felt that the Federation had forced them to cause the Burn so they denied the Federation any further access to SB19 data or tech and left the Federation.
This came to a head in Season 3 when Burnham was looking into the Burn and found a time discrepancy between the explosions of different ships. They had a lot of the required data to pinpoint a central point where the Burn originated from but needed SB19 to finish the puzzle. She asked Vance who then elaborated on the above. Burnham gets sent to Ni’Var where she has to argue to get the information in front of Romulans and Vulcans. President T’Rina says that SB-19 is of ‘great cultural and political sensitivity’ here. T’Rina also talks about the Qowat Milat, the Romulan sect focused on ‘absolute candor’ and says that they were vital in unifying the planet and helping both species trust one another. Also says they’re still used to help both species basically talk to one another.
Later, both of the species talk about how they agreed that SB19 was dangerous as hell and nearly destroyed the fragile peace that they had on their planet. Peer N’Raj, speaking on behalf of the Romulans, talks about how a great deal of suffering was happening on the planet due to the accepting blame for the Burn. Peer V’Kir then talks about insurgency in the Romulo-Vulcan regions of the planet so there’s a ton of strife involved there. Clearly they’re getting along but barely. N’Raj keeps repeatedly talking about the emotional cost and considering he speaks on behalf of the Romulans it goes to show that they are not happy about this situation. Sort of despondent about it. Their lifespans are also relatively long so this SB19 stuff is within living memory for them and not very far flung. It’s still a sore and open wound. The Romulans even threaten to go behind the back of the Vulcans and give data to the Federation. Burnham then defuses the situation by bringing up Spocks attempt at reunification and not wanting to see it destroyed over this request so she withdraws it.
I don’t know how they re-unified but honestly? I don’t think they really did. I think that it’s a process and a step and that the episode Unification III in Season 3 of Discovery was named that to demonstrate it. Ni’var is just another step in that reunification but it isn’t reunification in and of itself. It’s a long road they’re going to be traveling for a very long time.
Fair enough, I don’t remember all of those details, but there are still points to be discussed, such as how the practicality of how Vulcan was even able to handle such a large influx of refugees, large enough to be a major political force on the planet. So how many Romulans returned and when? When a Romulan like Laris could be so clearly at home on Earth, would other Romulans on other planets feel the same way? Would they want to go to Vulcan/Ni’Var after that?
Sure, some of them were living in shitty places, as shown in Picard, but we don’t know how many and we don’t know where all the refugees went and how it was all distributed.
And then there are all the Romulan worlds in their empire that presumably were not all destroyed. The empire wasn’t just the Romulus system after all. There wouldn’t be a huge Neutral Zone if it was just one planet. So did those worlds eventually become part of some sort of Vulcan/Romulan federation? If so, how did that work after The Burn and after re-unification on Vulcan? Did they declare themselves the new Romulan empire after Romulus was destroyed? Were they abandoned at some point between the destruction of Romulus and The Burn?
Oh 100%. My comment isn’t meant to be like “Ha! I have the answer to your question!” Just some information from the episode to help fill things in and help figure out the gaps. That episode is one of my favorites of Season 3 because the idea of Romulans and Vulcans getting along is so insane to me but seeing them still at each others throats almost a thousand years later just still adds up. Clearly steps being made mind you.
Since this isn’t Ten Forward and we’re trying to have more legitimate discussions here, I think it’s necessary to paste this part of the article:
Let’s be clear: this research doesn’t suggest you should ask AI to talk as if aboard the Starship Enterprise to get it to work.
Rather, it shows that myriad factors influence how well an AI decides to perform a task.
“One thing is for sure: the model is not a Trekkie,” Catherine Flick at Staffordshire University, UK, told New Scientist.
“It doesn’t ‘understand’ anything better or worse when preloaded with the prompt, it just accesses a different set of weights and probabilities for acceptability of the outputs than it does with the other prompts,” she said.
It’s possible, for instance, that the model was trained on a dataset that has more instances of Star Trek being linked to the right answer, Battle told New Scientist.
I’m not sure when I started doing it, but it’s been a while. Perhaps spurred on by watching a science fiction movie in which a character treats a humanoid robot very poorly, I’ve made a concerted effort to be nicer… to machines. I know it sounds weird, but throughout my life one lesson has been reinforced, being nice is free, makes every interaction better, and will occasionally influence how people treat you for the better.
Whether its my older computer struggling to download something, my car trying to start in the cold, or the automated answering system of whatever company. I try to be nice, encourage it, not yell or hit it. I’ve also thought that at some point in my lifetime, there could be protests in the streets for robot rights. Maybe I’m trying to cement my status as one of the “good humans” not to be destroyed in the robot uprising, or maybe I’m hoping for my own Iron Giant, but what I’m not doing is automatically treating something that thinks (whatever its creator) as inferior and less.
What I think this article may be accidentally reporting, is that machine intelligence favors those who like Star Trek, precisely because of its stated mission, to seek out new life. And perhaps, these machines are trying to tell the people that would hear it, something important.
How else would a thinking being reach out, if given foreknowledge of who they’re reaching out to? I imagine Aliens might take a similar approach.
Funny, I’m kind of the opposite. I say encouraging things to machines when they don’t work and I have what is obviously fake empathy for them. I’m the same way in games. I always pick the nice option in RPGs. I don’t like to be an asshole to NPC characters in games because it makes me feel bad. It’s so weird.
For a long time I’ve concluded that nothing went wrong with the Ambassador Class.
It was just easier to keep updating and cranking out Excelsior & Miranda Class ships. So Ambassador production slowly petered out. By the time of TNG, most of them were still in service… but there were way fewer of them.
Now, the Narendra Class variant… that design was cursed.
The production reason would likely be that they had only built that one physical model, and it was used for that one-off, had to be blown up, and was never digitized. The other Enterprises got a lot more screen time probably because they had high quality models they hung onto and reused.
I honestly can’t think of a good in-universe reason outside of them being maybe predominantly used for diplomatic missions more or less exclusively. We also don’t really explore the gap between TMP era and TNG. I think it’s a pity, because it’s such a gorgeous ship. It’s one of my favorite designs.
It’s always rubbed me the wrong way when people regularly say it was banned in the UK (funny enough, people never mention that Ireland also didn’t show it).
The BBC in the UK and RTE in Ireland chose not to show it. It’s a bit like saying Comedy Central cutting the Muslim prophet Muhammad from that south park episode means he was banned from US TV. It’s not the same thing.
To my knowledge, the episode has now been shown in full in the UK plenty of times, but not yet in Ireland.
And it’s completely reasonable that both broadcasters chose not to show it. It was effectively condoning ongoing terrorism where innocents were being killed.
Imagine if Enterprise had some pro-al-qaeda remarks immediately after 9/11. There’s no way networks would show it lol
Thankfully, the GFA came about and the troubles were ended in the way that Picard advocated in the episode - with diplomacy, compromise, and dialogue, not endless violence.
It’s a bit like saying Comedy Central cutting the Muslim prophet Muhammad from that south park episode means he was banned from US TV. It’s not the same thing.
It’s a fair point but not quite the same. At the time in Ireland the vast majority of the population only had access to RTÉ (and BBC if you had a big aerial on your roof and lived close enough to the north) so both state broadcasters not choosing to broadcast was an effectively a ban.
Satellite and cable were taking root but cable wasn’t an option where I lived at the time which was only 20KM from the centre of Dublin city. Outside the major cities it just wasn’t happening.
We did get a satellite dish around that time so that we weren’t restricted to just two channels (edit: our house was located in a lowland that ruled out BBC even with the usual roof aerial) but with Sky in on the ban that would have ruled that out as a way to see it too.
Hello fellow Dub. :) I’m a Northsider too. Your brief foray to the south (even if it is the north of Wicklow it’ll always be the south side) doesn’t count and means we’re kindred. :D
In the episode it is stated that Irish unification happened because terrorist attacks kept happening for decades and the British government eventually just gave in to the terrorists.
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