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Old 06-03-2021, 07:14 PM
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October 8th, 1990, "Brothers"

Fiver by Derek

The Episode

RIKER: Are you aware of the infectious nature of the parasites which inhabit cove palm?

If the parasites are that dangerous, than the plant shouldn't be publicly accessible. Period. This is a stupid scenario.

RIKER: Think about it, Mister Potts. And while you're at it, think about what may have happened had we not been this close to a starbase medical facility.

Furthermore, this doesn't seem like a "only a starbase would have the required medical facilities" scenario. This whole thing is just stupid. Furthermore the brothers parallel falls apart at the slightest scrutiny.

LAFORGE [OC]: Captain, we've completed our dilithium vector calibrations.

Dilithium vector calibrations? I assume they mean altering the matter and antimatter stream trajectories to properly interact with this particular chunk of dilithium, but it just seems like pointless technobabble.

LAFORGE: If we're going to maintain our realignment progressions we shouldn't be pushing warp eight for at least an hour.

You just said that you were done! The technobabble throughout this episode is just stupid and I'll try to keep my kvetching to a minimum, but there are times when it's unavoidable.

COMPUTER: Evacuate Bridge. Deck one life support failure in thirty seconds.
RIKER: Turbolifts two, three, four, everyone.
PICARD: Transfer helm to Engineering, Geordi.

Turbolifts two, three, and four? There are only three turbolifts on the Bridge, the rear turbolift, the one by the ready room and the dedicated Battle Bridge one. Futhermore, using Engineering instead of the Battle Bridge seems weird since they used the Battle Bridge set a couple episodes ago! Did they dismantle the thing already?

PICARD: Number One, take a security team up to deck two. Try and break through from below.

Isn't there an emergency hatch from the Bridge to Deck Two between the viewscreen and the helm? Why not use that? You don't need to "break through"!

PICARD: Mister La Forge, prepare for saucer separation.
WESLEY: Sir, we're at Warp nine three.

So? You were going way faster than that in "Encounter at Farpoint"!

PICARD: The saucer module should fall out of warp in two minutes.

Really? The saucer has no warp engines, it could coast to a stop in way less than two minutes! Another meaningless Treknobabble plot hole!

DATA: (doing a perfect imitation) Computer, recognise Picard, Jean-Luc. Alpha Two clearance.
COMPUTER: Priority clearance recognition, Alpha Two.

Shouldn't the computer require a secondary ID method for this sort of thing? A handprint on a console, a retinal scan, a scan of the unique EM aura of the person, something!

CRUSHER: He's alright. But he's not going to stay alright. Sir, we have to get this ship to a starbase medical facility.

I hate this ticking clock thing. Are they implying that if this boy wasn't dying that our heroes wouldn't try as hard to retake the ship? That's just stupid.

CRUSHER: Oh, Come on, I can't believe that. Everybody's played a practical joke on somebody at one time or another.
WILLIE: Not me.

I get the need for distraction, but discussing practical joke with the little boy that might die because of a practical joke might be a bad idea, Bev!

DATA: Show me the shortest route to Transporter room one.

I'd think Data would have the entire ship's blueprints memorized already, wouldn't you?

WORF: He has blocked every subspace channel, sir. We cannot even call for help.

You can't do a manual launch of a probe? They have certainly implied that manual torpedo launch is possible in the past. Heck, toss a probe out an airlock!

PICARD: See if the computer would be good enough to give you the precise stun setting to disable Mister Data.

I'd think Worf would have that memorized already!

PICARD: Computer, estimate the time from this location to Starbase four one six at warp nine.
COMPUTER: Inquiries regarding command functions are no longer accepted from your present location.

That's not an inquiry regarding command functions!

DATA: You do bear a resemblance to Doctor Noonian Soong, the cyberneticist who constructed me. But, Doctor Soong was killed shortly afterward by the Crystalline Entity.

I thought that "Crystalline Entity" was a name coined by the Enterprise crew. Why would Soong know it?

SOONG: I've never felt too comfortable living anywhere without a prearranged route of escape.

There's a novel about how Soong even had an escape route from this planet, having an android body available on standby to transfer his mind into in case he died.

WESLEY: When he transferred force field control to the Bridge, he must have only specified fields he was planning to initiate. The quarantine field was already operating.
LAFORGE: Under normal circumstances, we could divert that field energy and use it to cancel the force field protecting the Bridge, but we have to retain the medical quarantine.
PICARD: Determine the absolute minimum field energy Doctor Crusher needs and use the rest to get me onto my Bridge.

This is utter nonsense, of course. The idea that there's only a certain amount of "field energy" available for all of the force fields onboard is just ridiculous.

WORF: A small vessel, entering orbit. I detect no lifeforms aboard, sir.

Ugh. I get that Soong-type androids don't emit typical life signs, but Starfleet has had time to calibrate their sensors to locate Data's EM emissions in lieu of traditional life signs. Furthermore, this line is just here to prolong the reveal of Lore's presence. I hate this type of plot hole.

(Data is rubbing his stomach while patting his head)
SOONG: Good. Good, good, good. Keep it up. Keep it up. Old Tom Handy swore you'd never master that.

This would've been a great time to namedrop Ira Graves, but whatever.

DATA: Why did you create me?
SOONG: Why does a painter paint? Why does a boxer box? You know what Michelangelo used to say? That the sculptures he made were already there before he started, hidden in the marble. All he needed to do was remove the unneeded bits. It wasn't quite that easy with you, Data. But the need to do it, my need to do it, was no different than Michelangelo's need. Now let me ask you a question. Why are humans so fascinated by old things?
DATA: Old things?
SOONG: Old buildings, churches, walls, ancient things, antique things, tables, clocks, knick knacks. Why? Why, why?
DATA: There are many possible explanations.
SOONG: If you brought a Noophian to Earth, he'd probably look around and say, tear that old village down, it's hanging in rags. Build me something new, something efficient. But to a human, that old house, that ancient wall, it's a shrine, something to be cherished. Again, I ask you, why?
DATA: Perhaps, for humans, old things represent a tie to the past.
SOONG: What's so important about the past? People got sick, they needed money. Why tie yourself to that?
DATA: Humans are mortal. They seem to need a sense of continuity.
SOONG: Ah hah!! Why?
DATA: To give their lives meaning. A sense of purpose.
SOONG: And this continuity, does it only run one way, backwards, to the past?
DATA: I suppose it is a factor in the human desire to procreate.
SOONG: So you believe that having children gives humans a sense of immortality, do you?
DATA: It is a reasonable explanation to your query, sir.
SOONG: And to yours as well, Data.

Good scene.

LORE: No thanks to you. But thanks to you, dear brother, I spent nearly two years drifting in space. If it hadn't been for a fortunate encounter with a Pakled trade ship, I'd still be out there.

The expanded universe (see Memory Beta before) changes this.

LORE: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What do you mean, you're dying? You look fine. You're not that old.

In canon we don't know how old Soong is, but the expanded universe has set his birth year as 2279, thus he's 88 here. I know that McCoy's 147 years are an outlier, but you'd at least think that 100 wouldn't be out of the ordinary in the 24th century. Chalk it up to decades of living in hiding without access to proper medical facilities.

LAFORGE: We'd have to access the transport controller, reset it to a testing mode, convince it that it's back in school accepting simulated inputs. That's not going to be easy without the main computer. But I suppose we could network a few tricorders together.

Yeah, no. Can't they use a shuttlecraft computer for this?

SOONG: The last thing you should think of yourself as, Data, is less perfect. The two of you are virtually identical, except for a bit of programming.

Actually they're not. For one thing, Lore's ears are removable and Data's aren't. Plus Lore has a type L phase discriminating amplifier and Data has a type R.

LORE: (sings) 'The sons of the prophet were valiant and bold, And quite unaccustomed to fear. But of all the most reckless, Or so I am told, Was Abdul Abulbul Amir.'

This is a music hall song written in 1877. Don't ask me what in the world it's doing here.

SOONG: Everybody dies, Data. Well, almost everybody.

Not Soong. At least, not now. I'll come back to this.
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Zeke: It comes nateurally to him.

mudshark: I don't expect Nate to make sense, really -- it's just a bad idea.

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Crow T. Robot: Oh, stop pretending there's a plot. Don't cheapen yourself further.
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