November 8th, 1993, "Attached"
Fiver by Marc
The Episode
Captain's log, stardate 47304.2. The Enterprise has arrived at Kesprytt Three in order to evaluate an unusual request on the part of the Kes for associate membership in the Federation.
Given that they were working on Voyager by now, I wonder why they recycled the name "Kes."
CRUSHER: Are you worried about this mission with the Kes?
PICARD: Not worried exactly. This notion of admitting half of their planet to the Federation while leaving the other half out.
CRUSHER: First of all, the Kes are not half the planet, they're nearly three quarters of it. And the Prytt are not being left out. They themselves simply don't want to have contact with anyone from the outside. not the Federation or anyone else.
PICARD: Every member of the Federation entered as a unified world, and that unity said something about them. That they had resolved certain social and political differences and they were now ready to become part of a larger community.
SF Debris raised some good questions about this issue. While I can see the idea of requiring united world governments, I don't think that it should be an ironclad requirement. I do wonder why the Federation can't move the Kes to another planet.
CRUSHER: Well, think about Earth. What if one of the old nation states, say Australia, had decided not to join the World Government in twenty one fifty? Would that have disqualified us as a Federation member?
The interesting thing about this whole thing is that the World Government didn't exist until well after first contact, and the Vulcans obviously don't have this hangup about unified governments.
CRUSHER: The last thing I remember we were beginning to transport.
PICARD: I would assume we must be on Kesprytt. We're in some kind of prison cell.
I'm a bit confused about how either the Kes or the Prytt learned enough about Federation transporter systems to reroute the signal.
CRUSHER: It looks like an implant. It seems to be connected directly to the brainstem.
How does she know this? She doesn't have her tricorder right now!
LORIN: You are being held under the authority of the Prytt Security Ministry. The charges are conspiring with the enemy.
I don't see how the term "conspiring" applies. The Prytt don't want to interact with aliens, but that doesn't give them the right to stop the Kes from doing so.
WORF: Commander. The Transporter sensor log shows an unusual concentration of antigraviton particles in the emitter coil.
DATA: A concentration of antigraviton particles suggests a tractor beam. It might have deflected the transporter beam to a different set of coordinates.
Yeah, that's nonsense.
PICARD: There may be a structural flaw that would allow us to escape.
CRUSHER: Right.
If you can't see the flaw with your eyes, there's no chance that it's large enough to allow for the bars to be bent. Picard is just staying busy.
PICARD: There is a way out of every box, there is a solution to every puzzle. It's just a matter of finding it.
I could've sworn this quote was from "Allegiance", but I guess not.
PICARD: Do you mind thinking of something else. You're making me hungry.
CRUSHER: What do you want me to think about?
PICARD: Something other than a large bowl of vegetable soup.
CRUSHER: My grandmother used to make it, with peas, carrots and
PICARD: Beverly!
CRUSHER: I'm sorry.
I missed this additional reference to Felicia Howard.
PICARD: You're right. We can't react to every random thought that crosses the other person's mind. Isn't astonishing, though, how much clutter there is in a consciousness. Odd memories coming to the surface. Bits of half-remembered songs.
CRUSHER: Stray day dreams, scattered minutiae. I wonder how true telepaths sift through it all. How can they really get to what someone's thinking if the minds keeps churning all this flotsam to the surface?
Oh yeah, do I get this. My thoughts can wander quite far if given the chance.
CRUSHER: I mean, you're acting like you know exactly which way to go, but you're only guessing. Do you do this all the time?
PICARD: No, but there are times when it is necessary for a captain to give the appearance of confidence.
Ha ha. I bet Kirk did this way more often than Picard ever did.
PICARD: I'm beginning to realise that you seem to always have some acerbic remark on the tip of your tongue.
CRUSHER: Well at least I've trained myself not to say it anymore.
Acerbic means sharp or forthright. Brusquely honest. This doesn't seem to fit with Beverly's personality, it sounds more like a Torres thing.
MAURIC: Of course not. How could you know if your Captain and Doctor were meeting secretly with the Prytt? Meeting in order to set up a military alliance with the Federation.
I'm having trouble believing this. The Prytt don't just hate the Kes, they're isolationist to a fault. They don't want to talk to aliens. Furthermore, why would the Federation want to make an alliance with the minority faction instead of the majority one?
MAURIC: It was a clever scheme. First, you pretend to lose your officers during transport, then you ask us for help and get us to expose several of our undercover operatives in the process.
Hey, you offered the help of Kes security! I'm reminded of "The Voyager Conspiracy" here...