View Single Post
  #178  
Old 02-19-2021, 12:51 AM
Nate the Great's Avatar
Nate the Great Nate the Great is offline
You just activated his Trek card
Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Posts: 4,859
Default

April 23rd, 1990, "Tin Man"

Let's get this out of the way up front. I hate Tam Elbrun. He gives a bad name to the mentally abnormal everywhere. If this guy has proven over and over that dealing with humanoids stresses him out and yields unpredictable and undesirable results, don't make him deal with humanoids!

Transcript
Memory Alpha
Fiver (by Marc)

The Episode

Captain's log, Stardate 43779.3. The Enterprise is preparing detailed exospheric charts of the Hayashi system. Although tedious, this endeavour is the first step toward planet colonisation.

The exosphere is the boundary between atmosphere and interplanetary space. I'm not sure how you "chart" them, or what they have to do with colonization. Furthermore, this does not seem like work the Enterprise should be doing. A science vessel (or even a series of probes) can handle this sort of thing. You'd think a seismographic analysis would be more up the Enterprise's alley, and it would still be a precolonization step.

DESOTO [on viewscreen]: Sorry to sneak up on you like that, Jean Luc
PICARD: Robert, why didn't you inform us?
DESOTO [on viewscreen]: Out here, you never know who's listening. Keeps you on your toes, anyway. Hey, Will. Will, you getting soft on that luxury liner?
PICARD: So, old friend. How are you?
DESOTO [on viewscreen]: Well, you know, they send you Galaxy Class boys out here to the far reaches. Me, I'm just hauling my butt back and forth between starbases.
PICARD: But not today.
DESOTO [on viewscreen]: No, not today.

I like exchanges like this. It makes the show feel more real when it shows that the crew knows others in the fleet that aren't old love interests.

PICARD: If time is so important, why didn't they transmit the orders by subspace?
DESOTO [on viewscreen]: They're worried about Romulan eavesdropping on this one.


The idea that Romulans can detect intership communications several sectors away from the Neutral Zone is disturbing. Furthermore, how would you keep subspace signals confined to a volume smaller than a star system? Are shorter distances easier to encrypt?

DATA: I am Data. An android.
TAM: Incredible, an android. I can't read you at all. It's like you're not there.


It's stated outright that Tam is a stronger telepath than usual. When Data has emotions Troi can read him. There's a whole discussion to be had here about how the emotion chip alters the frequency or whatever of Data's natural thoughts. My point is that Tam should get SOMETHING from Data, even if it's static instead of the music of emotions.

TAM: To communicate with it by subspace. Of course. Linguacode, universal translation, all that. It won't work. Tin Man is too different.

I suddenly wonder if the whale probe could talk to Tin Man. Or the Galaxy's Child species (the Gekli, FYI). Or a Horta, for that matter. Or a Sheliak, or a Tholian, or a Medusan, or...

PICARD: They claim that sector of space where Beta Stromgren is located.
WORF: The Romulans claim all that is in their field of vision.

I'm not sure about how accurate this is. The Romulans want to conquer, sure, but Worf's remark seems like it would be more applicable to the Dominion or the other zealot races.

DATA: That is correct. Starbase one two three has detected two D'daridex class cruisers on an intercept course.

You know, I'd expect Chakoteya to know how to spell D'deridex. While it's nice to know the ship's classes of other races, this episode doesn't seem like the place to do it.

Meaningless aside, The Romulans aren't really a part of this episode in any meaningful context beyond "bad guys", we don't need to know more about their culture. It could've just as easily been the Ferengi or the Breen for their role in this episode.

WESLEY: But Commander, if it is a Romulan ship, with their cloaking device we shouldn't pick them up at all.
LAFORGE: Unless they're pulling so much power for something else that they can't fully cloak.


I like this touch, too bad it wasn't used more often.

TAM: Lonely? I can hear everything that everyone on this ship thinks. No one besides you seems to be missing my charming
TROI: You want them to dislike you. Why?
TAM: Because I'm not a nice man. Okay, okay. Because they scare me. They're too many minds. I can't shut them out. I never could learn. All their loves, their hates, their fears, their needs. It's like a tide that never ebbs. I could drown.

A nice touch. But you can be lonely even when surrounded by people. I know that I've felt it from time to time.


__________________
mudshark: Nate's just being...Nate.
Zeke: It comes nateurally to him.

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

Sa'ar Chasm on the 5M.net forum: Sit back, relax, and revel in the insanity.

Adam Savage: I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

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