June 1st, 1992, "The Inner Light"
Fiver by me
I'm skipping the fiver coverage, given that I already made a
dicer thread on it. Here's
a link to the actual fiver, feel free to gush about it. My ego can never get enough stroking.
The Episode
Captain's log, stardate 45944.1. Following a magnetic wave survey of the Parvenium Sector, we've detected an object which we cannot immediately identify.
Only mention of the Parvenium Sector. Kataan is actually in the neighboring Silarian Sector, which isn't mentioned elsewhere either. Which is weird given the episode's popularity.
DATA: The probe is composed of paricium and talgonite, a ceramic alloy.
Only mention of either of these, although a ship made out of "crystalline ceramic" appears in "How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth." I'm dubious as to whether you could make a spaceship out of ceramic materials. Does Kataan even have titanium?
WORF: Sir, I am detecting a low-level nucleonic beam coming from the probe.
Nucleonic beams reappear in "The Cloud." I'm not sure if these could be the same thing.
DATA: The beam is scanning the shield's perimeter. The probe is emitting an unusual particle stream.
WORF: Sir, the beam is penetrating our shields.
How? Penetrating shields shouldn't be this easy. Then again, we're told that blocking telepathic transmissions are impossible.
PICARD: Computer, freeze programme. Computer, end programme.
Why would "end program" work when "freeze program" doesn't?
BATAI: Thank you. This sapling is planted as an affirmation of life in defiance of the drought and with expectations of long life. Whatever comes, we will keep it alive as a symbol of our survival.
I get the symbolism of this, and it makes a nice recurring tableau. Whether these people should be wasting water on this instead of their crops is another question...
BATAI: Eline should've put you in the hospital, but she insisted on caring for you herself.
PICARD: Eline?
BATAI: Your wife. If you don't remember that, maybe it's safer not to go home.
Always a funny line.
PICARD: Kataan. Not a Federation planet.
Various sources say that the Federation has about fifty planets during the TOS era and 150 planets during the TNG era. I'm not sure that even Kirk could memorize 50 planets. Maybe Picard keeps track of all planets around where he is for a particular mission, but this is still silly.
PICARD: Are there other planets in this star system? Do you visit other systems? All right.
Poor Eline, Kamin must be sounding like adults in Peanuts cartoons right now.
PICARD: Do you have a communication system here? How do you send messages to other communities, to other places?
ELINE: The usual way, by voice-transit conductor.
This sounds more like telephone than radio. How can these guys launch interplanetary probes again?
PICARD: And what do I do here in Ressik?
ELINE: You're the best iron weaver in the community. At least I think so.
What's an iron weaver? Does he braid wires into cables? Can these guys make wire so narrow that you can make cloth out of it? Why would you want to wear chainmail on a planet in the middle of a drought?
ELINE: You prefer playing the flute, of course.
PICARD: The flute?
ELINE: Yes.
(she fetches him a penny whistle decorated with a tassel)
Penny whistles, more formally known as tin whistles, were only able to be invented in the 19th century when reliable thin metal sheets became possible. They descend from older "fipple flutes", which are the ancestors of what we now call recorders. Technically a "flute" is played by blowing air across it rather than into it. Flutes will give you twice as many notes as a whistle.
PICARD: And when did I learn to play it?
ELINE: I'm afraid you never did, dear, but you keep trying.
Now that's a wife line. Hehe.
(as she leans forward he sees a pendant on a necklace - it is the same design as probe that the Enterprise encountered)
PICARD: Where did you get this?
ELINE: Kamin, this is the first gift you ever gave me.
So is this just an Easter Egg to remind us of what's really going on, or is this double-finned design a Kataan trademark and the pendant and probe both derive from the same source?
CRUSHER: Pulse and blood pressure are normal I'm getting hyperactive fibrogenic activity. This is odd.
Fibrogenic just means "making fibers". In medicine it usually refers to disorders of the liver or kidneys. I'm sure this is just medicalbabble in this context.
RIKER: Agreed. Stand down phasers, Mister Worf. In the meantime, take us out of range. Ensign. Thrusters only, one hundred kph nice and easy
100 kph? Workbees go 10.8 million kph! Quarter impulse is 67 million kph! Do the thrusters even have a gear for a speed that slow?
ELINE: Was your life there so much better than this? So much more gratifying, so much more fulfilling, that you cling to it with such stubbornness?
I get that Eline doesn't have the right context for this judgement, but this is still troublesome.
ELINE: It must have been extraordinary. But never in all of the stories you've told me have you mentioned anyone who loved you as I do.
There's a whole discussion about how deep into romance Picard has let himself get into, especially after Jack's death, but I'm not interested in writing that particular screed.
ADMINISTRATOR: There you are, Batai. Perhaps you can explain to me, when crops are dying all over, how this tree is flourishing?
Has this guy never come around in the last five years?
BATAI: You've been brooding behind that flute all evening.
PICARD: I'm not brooding. I'm immersed in my music.
BATAI: Music.
PICARD: I find that it helps me think, but the real surprise is I enjoy it so much.
BATAI: No, the real surprise is that you may actually be improving.
I'm reminded of SF Debris' lament that bit characters in the TNG era were never given the same opportunities as TOS bit characters to show personality. There are exceptions like the cast in this episode.
ELINE: Batai?
BATAI: Yes, ma'am.
ELINE: Go home.
BATAI: Yes, ma'am.
Hehe.
CRUSHER: Two cc's delactovine.
Only mention of delactovine. I would've liked a namedrop of cordrazine here.
MERIBOR: Analysing soil samples. There isn't any anaerobic bacteria. The soil is dead.
I learned the difference between aerobic and anaerobic years ago. Aerobic bacteria need air (like we do when we engage in "aerobics"), anaerobic bacteria don't.
As a matter of fact, "anaerobic exercise" does exist. They're motions that make your body break down glucose that's already in your body instead of using new oxygen like aerobics.
PICARD: Seize the time, Meribor. Live now. Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.
Always a classic.
LAFORGE: We've charted the alien probe's radiation trail for over one light year.
RIKER: Any way to extrapolate am origin?
LAFORGE: Looks like a star system in the Silarian sector. Kataan.
Let's say that the distance traveled is three light years, if the Enterprise had to extrapolate. A thousand years means 2700 km/s, or a little slower than a workbee.
PICARD: You shouldn't be outside so long. It's damaging, you know that.
MERIBOR: I'm wearing plenty of your skin protector.
Picard knows how to make advanced sunscreen? Does Ressik have manufacturing capability?
ELINE: The rest of us have been gone for a thousand years. If you remember what we were, and how we lived, then we'll have found life again.
(Riker hands him a box and leaves. Inside it is a penny whistle with a tassel. Picard clutches it to his chest for a moment, then plays his Skye Boat song variation on it)
I already made
a post of Inner Light covers, I don't need to repeat it.
Memory Alpha
* Originally Picard's experience would start before courting Eline. I agree that it would've taken valuable time away from more important things.
*
"The Inner Light" is the name of
an obscure Beatles song. It was an injoke by the screenwriter and Beatles fan Morgan Gendel. Upon hearing it I can understand why it's an obscure Beatles song.
* A sequel called "The Outer Light" was written but never filmed. It was eventually
turned into a webcomic.
* I remember a Strange New Worlds story where Picard finds a wormhole that leads back to Kataan at a time right after they launch the probe in the first place. He's able to send a message back to the people telling them that their plan worked.
Nitpicker's Guide
* Phil is incredulous that this society could create a spaceworthy probe, much less memory-imprinting technology. The fans say that a society can be advanced in some areas but not others. Phil doesn't buy it. At best he thinks that the Kataanians deliberately created a pastoral, nostalgia-bait version of their culture for the probe.
* How do they know the planet is named Kataan?
* Picard's porch light would render his telescope unusable.
* This time Phil does the stardate conversion. "Time's Arrow" is five days after this episode, how did Picard recover so fast?
* Only twenty minutes have elapsed, and somehow Beverly was able to leave the bridge and change her hair. Oops.