30th Anniversary TNG Episode Discussion Marathon

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by NAHTMMM

I'm sure this is a reference . . . ?

I think Marc was going for a little dramatic irony. With those particular shapes, the Argolis Cluster was screaming "upcoming Borg" as loud as it was able.

[Nate the Great]

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.

[Nate the Great]

So I've read most of "The Outer Light" webcomic, and I have to say that I'm not impressed. I refrain from additional criticism, I'll just say that even the Internet Archive hasn't kept all of the pages of the comic, so you won't even get a complete story.

[Zeke]

Oh man, I could really have done without ever knowing that existed. A sequel with that name -- hell, a sequel at all -- is the kind of nonsense I would throw into a TJI.

[Nate the Great]

If you want a better sequel I recommend the Strange New Worlds story that I mentioned in the main post. It works a lot better. I don't own all of the volumes of SNW, but maybe later I'll check to see if I have that one.

[Nate the Great]

I looked through my collection of Strange New Worlds volumes, and I think I made a mistake. Picard doesn't send a message back in time to Kataan, he sends it back to the Progenitors from "The Chase".

[Nate the Great]

June 15th, 1992, "Time's Arrow Part One"

Fiver by Zeke

This episode wasn't discussed in the "Shoulda Been A Two Parter" thread, and it should've. The aliens should've had more development, and the only way they could've is if they ditched the Mark Twain subplot. Which would've been a shame, converting others to the Federation philosophy is always interesting given the different approaches used.

The Episode

SCIENTIST: Here, look inside the watch.
(an engraving - To S.L.C., with love. 30 November, 1889).

I don't know if this was a gift from his wife Olivia, but it's possible. Their anniversary is in February, so I don't know what November 30th could represent. Maybe it's from an old family friend, who knows.

PICARD: Triolic waves?
DATA: The by-product of an energy source employed by very few species because of its deleterious effect on living tissue.

You mean "humanoid lifeforms", right Data? Something tells me that Tholians or the Crystalline Entity or Gomtuu wouldn't be bothered by this stuff.

SCIENTIST: We've confirmed that no one has been in or out of this cavern in centuries.

How?

DATA: Interesting. There is a twelve percent decomposition of the bitanium in the neural pathway links.

Only mention of bitanium. One does wonder if this is completely natural and Data could replace it at intervals, or if this is a byproduct of being turned off for five hundred years and Data could avoid it.

PICARD: Could it be Lore?
DATA: No, sir. My brother's positronic brain has a type L phase discriminating amplifier. Mine is a type R.

Soong pretty clearly said that the only differences between Data and Lore were in their programming. Then again, Data said that his ears can't be removed and when they found Lore his ears weren't attached, but whatever...

DATA: There is no way anyone can prevent it, sir. At some future date, I will be transported back to nineteenth century Earth, where I will die. It has occurred. It will occur.

Why isn't anyone curious about where Data's body is? Surely they could've scanned the entire planet by now!

LAFORGE: Well, I can't tell you exactly who the aliens were, but I have found out a few things. The triolicised rock face tells us we're probably dealing with a species with microcentrum cell membranes. Triolic waves wouldn't harm them. It also might mean they're shape shifters of some kind.
RIKER: So they could have appeared on Earth as humans.

This seems like a bit of a leap. For that matter, why aren't they impersonating wild animals instead of using the plague as a cover?

LAFORGE: Data, this has got to bother you a little.
DATA: On the contrary. I find it rather comforting.
LAFORGE: Comforting?
DATA: I have often wondered about my own mortality as I have seen others around me age. Until now it has been theoretically possible that I would live an unlimited period of time. And although some might find this attractive, to me it only reinforces the fact that I am artificial.

I would argue that "comforting" is an emotion in this context, but moving on. I do like when Data's "emotions" run so counter to that of humans. He may want to emulate humans, but he's a culture of one, a culture that still trying to create a unique identity. And as the Vulcans say, infinite diversity in infinite combinations is a good thing. Surak himself was pleased to see that people are different.

LAFORGE: I never knew how tough this must be for you.
DATA: Tough? As in difficult?
LAFORGE: Knowing that you would outlive all your friends.
DATA: I expected to make new friends.
LAFORGE: True.

This does raise a valid point, what about Data's crewmates before the E-D? He never mentions them. For that matter, all we know of his life between the Academy and the E-D is his service on the Trieste.

GUINAN: That sounded like a very intense discussion.
LAFORGE: Yeah. They found Data's head a mile beneath San Francisco. Been down there about five centuries.

As SF Debris said, this is a bombshell that wasn't given the gravitas that it deserved.

TROI: Have you ever heard Data define friendship?
RIKER: No.
TROI: How did he put it? "As I experience certain sensory input patterns, my mental pathways become accustomed to them. The inputs eventually are anticipated and even missed when absent."
RIKER: So what's the point?
TROI: He's used to us, and we're used to him. It's like finding out someone you love has a terminal illness and--

I like this exchange.

DATA: I am perceiving an apparent change in the way others behave toward me. For example, people abruptly end conversations when I appear, just as you did when the turbolift doors opened. Is that an accurate observation?
RIKER: Not at all.
TROI: (same time) Yes.
RIKER: Yes.
TROI: You're right, Data. And it's not a very nice thing to do.

Why can't the later Trek shows have moments like this?

DATA: Sir, it is standard procedure that the second officer accompany the away team.

I don't like how vague this is. I don't think that any given combination of officers should be "standard procedure", it should be mission-specific.

This also butts against something that's irked me for decades. Why is Data called the operations officer when he acts like a science officer most of the time? Having a science officer in the standard away team seems much more logical than referring to a position in the chain of command.

Does Data just not look good in blue, or is the yellow uniform supposed to complement his makeup in making him look more alien?

DATA: Captain, there is no rational justification for this course.
PICARD: Then I'll be irrational.

Great moment. Whoever said the human race was logical?

DATA: I appreciate your concern, Captain, but, to employ an aphorism, one cannot cheat fate.
PICARD: Cheat fate? Perhaps we can't, Mister Data. But at least we can give it a try.

"It does not matter that we will never reach our ultimate goal. The effort yields its own rewards."

LAFORGE: Well, whatever or whoever is there, we're out of phase with it, but we're only talking by a fraction of a second.
WORF: A fraction of a second would make them invisible?
LAFORGE: A millisecond, a year, it wouldn't make any difference. If what we're reading is true, then we're occupying the same space but in a different time.

This is one bit of technobabble that never made sense. Usage of a hyperspace dimension would be more logical. If these guys normally exist in the higher dimensions they would be able to choose how they're perceived in the lower ones. Their form of shapeshifting would be more complicated than that of Changelings or salt vampires or Garth of Izar or whatever.

DATA: My voice will be transmitted on a delay correlated to the phase adjustment. That should allow me to maintain verbal contact.

Yeah, this is nonsense.

DATA: Another lifeform. An ophidian. It seems to be restricted by a forcefield.

Ophidia is the common ancestor of all modern snakes. I think the screenwriter just wanted to sound fancy.

(Data finds a discarded copy of the San Francisco Register, Sunday August 13, 1893, proclaiming a cholera outbreak)

SF Debris thinks that cholera was a late change from the original tuberculosis.

BEGGAR: I'll take a dime.

Why am I so obsessed with doing inflation calculations? Ten cents in 1893 is three bucks today.

DATA: Sir, I need temporary lodging.
BELLBOY: Looks like the missus booted you out in the middle of the night.
DATA: I understand the source of your misperception.

I get the common joke that these guys are running around in pajamas, I just don't find it particularly funny.

DATA: I am a Frenchman.

Why French? I get that the creators wouldn't want to resort to Yellow Peril-style prejudices, but there has to be another nationality that Data resembles more than French.

GAMBLER: Ah. Mes parents sont originaires de Bourgonais. Je suis ne a la New Orleans.
DATA: Alors, nous sommes presque frères. Je suis heureux de vous connaitre.

"Ah. My parents are from Bourgon. I was born in New Orleans."
"So we are almost brothers. I am happy to meet you."

Bourgon is in northwest France, nowhere near where Picard grew up.

GAMBLER: Family heirloom?
DATA: In a manner of speaking. It is a crystalline composite of silicon, beryllium, Carbon seventy, and
SEAMAN: Gold.
DATA: Gold.
GAMBLER: I'll give you three bucks for it.
DATA: I accept.

Carbon-70 is a fullerine, a spherical molecule similar to a buckyball (Carbon-60). C70 was discovered in 1985. If you put alkali metals in the holes of the larger rings you get a conductor, which I assume is the purpose of including it in a commbadge.

Three dollars in 1893 is a hundred bucks today. At today's gold prices that's two grams of gold. So yeah, Dukat here is totally ripping Data off.