30th Anniversary TNG Episode Discussion Marathon

[Nate the Great]

January 17th, 1994, "Homeward"

No fiver

The Episode

Captain's log, stardate 47423.9. We have arrived at Boraal Two in response to an emergency distress call from Lieutenant Worf's foster brother, Nikolai Rozhenko. He has been stationed on the planet as a cultural observer.

Is Nikolai stationed alone? It sounds strange. It's not like he couldn't hide his evacuation plans from the others.

PICARD: Very well. But regardless of this planet's immediate situation, we must observe the Prime Directive. I want to minimise the risk of contact with the inhabitants. You will go alone, Mister Worf, and I want to have you surgically altered so that you could pass as a Boraalan.

I don't think that this situation justifies a single man away team. Frankly Data shouldn't have been alone back in "Thine Own Image" either.

CRUSHER: Are the two of you close?
WORF: We are brothers.

Yikes is that a loaded answer. I couldn't describe my relationship with my own brother any more easily.

NIKOLAI: When I sent the distress call I knew the Enterprise was in this sector...

How? Couldn't they have at least have given Nikolai a shuttlecraft that was damaged in the storms? Something that allowed him to scan ships in orbit?

PICARD: Doctor, you were fully aware that the atmospheric dissipation could not be stopped. What did you hope to accomplish by assisting these people?
NIKOLAI: I was trying to give them a future. What I propose is we create an atmospheric shield on the planet. We can camouflage the equipment just as was done with my observation post. No one will ever know it's there.

A big problem with this idea is that it would require a Federation presence on the planet for centuries to come. And these people are clearly thousands of years away from warp.

And then of course the second big problem is inbreeding. This village must rely on intermingling with other villages for marriage partners. Now they're gone. They will wonder why only their village survived, and why they can't find anyone else. New planet or not, this culture is doomed unless the Federation directly intervenes and starts controlling everything. Nikolai seems content to just shove consequences onto someone else. Who cares if his great-grandchildren have six toes?

NIKOLAI: Captain, the Boraalans have a rich and beautiful culture, a deep spiritual life. They deserve the chance to survive.

And? The Federation must've let dozens of primitive cultures just like this die by now.

NIKOLAI: And isn't that what the Prime Directive was truly intended to do, to allow cultures to survive and grow naturally?
TROI: Not entirely. The Prime Directive was designed to ensure non-interference.

I'll refer you to the SF Debris review. Nikolai is talking about the long-term goal of the Prime Directive, Troi is talking about what the Federation does to ensure that.

CRUSHER: But aren't we interfering either way? If we take no action, it's a conscious decision to let the Boraalans die.

Say what you will about the Prime Directive, but at least it's not biased. No warp drive, you're not saved. Period. It doesn't matter if you're peaceful or warlike, if you're destroying the planet or living in harmony with nature, the PD applies to you equally.

We already covered this in "First Contact". Any interference, no matter how well-intentioned, will inevitably cause disaster.

NIKOLAI: Some of my log recorders are still in my observation post. They contain most of my research. Since it appears that the only way I'm going to preserve Boraalan culture is in a museum, I request permission to return to the surface and retrieve them.

If there can't be a ship to support Nikolai, there should've at least have been a subspace satellite in orbit to pass along his files to Memory Alpha.

NIKOLAI: I knew if I could get access to your ship's computer, I could generate a replica of the caves. The hard part was transporting the Boraalans into the holodeck without anybody on the Enterprise noticing.

No, the hard part is transporting them without everyone asking why they all saw blue sparkles for a few seconds at the same time. Did Nikolai knock them all out at night so they wouldn't notice the transport?

NIKOLAI: Captain, I can't prepare for every contingency, but I assure you I'm accustomed to thinking on my feet. I'll deal with the situation as it evolves.

I'm reminded of that speech from Trek '09 about Kirk thinking that he'll never have to face consequences.

(Now that the Kelvinverse trilogy is free on YouTube I intend to watch them as part of my retrospective on the movies. But that will be next summer at minimum, when I finish TNG I'll have to go straight into Voyager).

PICARD: I'm not enthusiastic about this plan, but I don't see that we have another option.

Well, you could flood the holodeck with anesthizine gas and then euthanize them. Or you could ask Starfleet for further orders. While we've seen starship captains change the destinies of entire cultures in TOS, I thought we had more oversight now.

LAFORGE: We've got a problem, sir. I don't think it's going to be possible to keep this holodeck simulation stable.
PICARD: Why not?
LAFORGE: The plasmonic energy surges from the planet are affecting the ship's systems. We're having problems with the EPS systems and the power distribution matrix.
NIKOLAI: And as a result, the holodeck imaging processor has been severely destabilised.

Why are we still in orbit of the planet? It's uninhabitable!

LAFORGE: It's not a question of whether the simulation will break down, it's a question of when.
PICARD: There's no way round it?
LAFORGE: Not while it's running. In order to fix it, I'd have to shut down all of the holodecks and re-initialise the entire system.

You can't reset the holodecks individually? That seems like an obvious design flaw. This seems like the time to stun all of them and put them in stasis until the holodecks can be reset somewhere aware from the storms.

WORF: As we said, it is far from here. It will not be like the home you knew. Even the stars may be different.
VORIN: Why would they be different?

A good point. I'll bet you anything Nicolai gave no thought to this one, or the sun looking different, or the plants and animals looking different, or...

WORF: You have not changed. You still expect people to solve the problems you create.
NIKOLAI: I'm not here to work out the issues of our childhood. I'm here to save a people who I care about.

How is this guy supposed to be brilliant again? Brilliant people don't expect others to solve their problems for them.

DATA: These are the two planets which best match our search criteria. Draygo Four features an unusually large temperate zone. However, it is within three light years of Cardassian space.
CRUSHER: There are constant border disputes in that sector.

Why did Data even present it as an option then?

CRUSHER: There are so many questions we don't have answers to. What if the climate is so different that it affects them in a way that we can't anticipate? How do we even know they'll be able to survive? And if they do, how will their society evolve and what impact will it have on the Vaccan system?

"For that matter, we don't know how they'll react to the diseases unique to this planet!"

VORIN: Then how do you teach your children their history, who their ancestors were, where they come from?
WORF: We tell each other stories, make up songs.
VORIN: Stories change with each person who tells them. This, this will always be the same.

A good point. I think people today don't appreciate how big of a deal the printing press was.