Did Picard make the right decision with the Son'a/Baku

Discussion in 'Star Trek Movies I-X' started by Godless Raven, Apr 11, 2013.

  1. DWF

    DWF Admiral Admiral

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    :)

    Ru'afo claimed the Federation was old and weak since it was always fending off attacks from the likes of the Klingons, Borg and now the Dominion. Plus he killed Dougherty and ordered an attack on the Enterprise, I don't think they had any great fear of Starfleet.
     
  2. R. Star

    R. Star Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yeah... things like spontaneous organ regeneration when Geordi's eyes grew back wouldn't be useful in a war at all. No one's going to lose an organ or anything else in combat. :rolleyes:
     
  3. Hartzilla2007

    Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I was unaware that the optic nerve (which is what got fixed, not him growing new eyes) qualified as an organ. :rolleyes:
     
  4. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Admiral

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    Does make you wonder what happened to the spores from Omicron Ceti III in This Side of Paradise? I wonder if they ever pursued or were able to adapt them for treating folks with various afflictions? We know Elias Sandoval regrew his appendix while he was there.
     
  5. Hartzilla2007

    Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Well if what we hear in Star Trek IV is accurate then about 20 years later they have a pill that can cause a person to grown a new fully functional kidney, so they might ha e followed up on it.
     
  6. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    ok, so they didn't have guns at the time. They're still fighting PACIFISTS. How do you lose to pacifists?:lol:

    And even if they didn't have guns at the time, what stopped them from coming back two generations later WITH GUNS?

    It still doesn't make sense.
     
  7. T'Girl

    T'Girl Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Alright DWF, then why did the Sona form a partnership with the Federation?

    The Sona knew the location of the planet.
    The Sona knew of the medical properties of the particles
    The Sona had the technology to do the harvest.

    In term of just physically acquiring the particles, the Federation brings nothing to the game. So why did the Sona want them in it? My read is that the Sona were worried about long range retribution from the Federation, so they approached the Federation Council and made them partners.

    However, if the Sona had no real fear of the Federation, why include them at all?


    :)
     
  8. DWF

    DWF Admiral Admiral

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    The real question is why did the Federation become partners with the Son'a? The planet is in Federation space but according to Daugherty the Son'a had the technology to make it work and of course in the end the Federation had little knowledge of what was really going on. And in the end the plan was illegal and immoral, hence the reason to hide what they were doing and when push came to shove we learned what the Son'a would do to protect the plan and that meant killing a Federtion admiral and going after the Enterprise.
     
  9. CaptainStoner

    CaptainStoner Knuckle-dragging TNZ Denizen Admiral

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    Yes, the Sona were out of control and had to be stopped, not to mention reported to starfleet, which was in the dark.
    Yes, the movie has plot holes. They all do.

    Insurrection threads make my boobs firm up.
     
  10. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    in what way were the Son'a "out of control?":confused: The first part of the movie showed them calmly and completely cooperating with Starfleet on the "duck blind" mission, a mission that required a lot of patience. Again, the Son'a ONLY retaliated in response to Picard's sabotage of the plan, they had been nothing but cooperative up to that point.

    And Starfleet wasn't in the dark, Dougerty was an admiral who was acting on orders from the Federation Council itself.
     
  11. Jerikka Dawn

    Jerikka Dawn Captain Captain

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    I come back to this thread and I see people still think "Geographical boundaries recognized by treaty, influence and/or presence" and "Planets subject to Federation law" are the same thing. Geography and politics aren't the same things. Hell, they aren't even depicted on the same type of map.

    But please, go on thinking the United Federation of Planets is a conquering force that subjects everyone within a defined radius around Earth to their laws regardless of whether those people have been on that planet before Earth even knew what a warp coil was.

    Please proceed to throw out everything we know about how planets join the Federation too.

    Edit to add: It's the United Federation of Planets.

    I don't want to know what alternate version of the movie you people are watching .. I want to know what franchise you people have been watching.
     
  12. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    that's nice. So it's not a Federation planet. So the Son'a are free to come in and remove the Baku then, right?

    (insert sound of spluttering, ready the moving of goalposts to show that NOW, the Federation actually has a DUTY to defend the Baku, common sense and the PD be disregarded)
     
  13. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Admiral

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    I'm all for allowing the Ba'ku and S'ona to work things out on their own. Regardless of how badly it ends up for the Ba'ku this time around. :techman:
     
  14. R. Star

    R. Star Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    For the first freaking hour of the movie the most villainous thing Ruafo did was bleed on Picard's carpet. It wasn't until Picard took off his pips and started openly screwing with them did he retaliate. Even then we was working with Dougherty by including him in the plans and asking his consent.
     
  15. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'd pay for tickets to watch THAT.:lol:
     
  16. Jerikka Dawn

    Jerikka Dawn Captain Captain

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    Actually, yes. At least they're free to try. And the Baku are free to try to stop them. This is a textbook internal affair. It has nothing to do with the Federation and they shouldn't be involved in the Baku/Sona internal issue. If the Sona come in and nuke the planet, oh well.

    Don't make assumptions. I'm consistent and you have absolutely no reason to assume I will move goal posts, unless you can provide evidence that I've done so in the past. The Federation has no right to interfere with the Baku's sovereignty on that planet, and the Federation likewise has no right to interfere if the Sona mess with them either.
     
  17. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    fair enough, so you're consistent. There are still a couple of issues:

    1. if NO ONE considered it a Federation planet, why was the outpost there at all? Why didn't the Council just say to the Son'a "do whatever you want, it's not our planet anyway" when Ru'afo approached them with the deal? Obviously, the UFP and Son'a BOTH thought it was a Federation planet.

    2. My argument just shows that the entire movie is based around a stupid premise. The Baku, as a small village of Luddite pacifists, was basically doomed either way if common sense was prevailing. Either the Federation would legally relocate them, or if they gave up any claim to the planet, then ANY power could just come in and kill them or remove them. The ONLY scenario in which the Baku are okay is one in which the Federation takes on a more or less PERMANENT role as guardians of the Baku and their stupid, selfish lifestyle while they give nothing back to the Federation.
     
  18. Hartzilla2007

    Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Asking his consent to kill federation citizens for complaining to their government hence why Picard pointed out the Dougherty had probably stepped in it since their isn't any damned way to justify an unprovoked attack and yeas it was unprovoked becuase while Picard was playing insurgent Riker was leaving as per the orders from Admiral Dougherty.

    Becuase the federation observes pre-warp cultures all the time. Seriously there were episodes that covered this did you miss them or something.
     
  19. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    um, no. Clearly you didn't understand my point-the outpost was about observing the village in order to carry out the relocation plan with the Son'a. If it wasn't a Federation planet, they wouldn't need to do that-the Son'a would have come in and just beamed them all up whenever they felt like it, or just came down there with guns and rounded them up.
     
  20. horatio83

    horatio83 Commodore Commodore

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    Baku is a planet in Federation space but it is not a member of the Federation. This is probably fairly common, after all the Feds don't force anybody to join their club.

    I think the main point of the posters who think that Picard made an error is that there is a resource of enormous value which should be shared with everybody. I agree, it is not okay than only a few hundred people should gain from a "fountain of youth". But it is neither okay to just steal it from them as the Sona and Federation tried to.

    And it is certainly not OK to judge the way of life of any of those numerous lifeforms out there. That's just Prime Directive 101. The Klingons are bloodthirsty predators and we certainly defend ourselves against them but we don't force our ethics down their throat. Biological fundamentals matter, it is very unlikely that such a predator creature would ever join the UFP. Thankfully even the Klingons have a hunch about the Prime Directive, the understand that there aren't just noble warriors like themselves but also coward weaklings out there and while they claim that today is a good day to die they are not that eager to do total war.

    Same applies for a bunch of hippies. Not our job to judge them and they definitely don't harm us. But making an alliance with a bunch of "petty thugs" that stab you in the back at the first chance they get just in order to gain an ally in the Dominion War? That's just suicidally idiotic.

    I don't mind criticism of the movie, its script is certainly not perfect. But denying what happened on the screen and pretending that fair is foul and foul is fair, that the hippies are wicked resource stealers who don't wanna share (ehm, nobody asked them) whereas the Sona are decent folks is simply factually wrong.

    The movie as it stands is a simple morality tale and as FKnight has pointed out there are no options anyway, the Feds have to obey the Prime Directive. And before a big discussion about the Prime Directive starts, I like to watch and talk about Trek. The real Trek, not a hypothetical Mirror Universe Trek where the Sona are our lovely new allies and the Prime Directive doesn't exist.