Oy. So small-universe. I hate everything being connected like that. YMMV.
those damn hippies
- Thread starter hifijohn
- Start date
Well paradise has more connotations than simply being beautiful like being one with their God, who was Sevrin, for instance and being a mystical and mythical entry into heaven which turns out to be hell in this case. Same story as Trek V IMO plus much more and a little less. In Trek V finding out that God is the devil is not as devastating as finding out that the devil is God.
Small universe because of the connection to the Romulan War? That's quite a broad interpretation of the label IMO.
Now, if Kirk had once been there as a midshipman or McCoy's daughter had been among the space-hippies, I could understand it.
That set certainly didn't live up to the name Eden, but I assume the writer intended the place to be remarkably beautiful. The Remastered version tried to improve it.
Small universe because everything is connected in implausible ways. A lot of fans always want there to be "reasons" for things instead of just accepting that X just happens to be that way.
But there is a connection already, because evidence of the planet Eden exists in the Enterprise data banks.
If they'd just stumbled on the planet during the course of normal exploration, then an explanation for its existence would be far less neccessary. But as it stands, the planet was found and named by someone in the past already
It could be a location that many explorers, civilian ship captains, etc, often brag about visiting when they haven't at all, with the tales growing more unbelievable and embellished with every telling. The dangers of urban legends and braggart claims.
^ For the win.
Maybe not, but that's what he got, ain't so?
That's the same problem they had in GENERATIONS. This rubbish supposed to be someone's ultimate planet/fantasy. This is the place that someone would kill hundreds/billions for?
To me a picture of Fiji would be more like Eden than the limited budget set they had,
Yea, but Ceti Alpha five was in the Hades binary system, so..
Tahiti? Fiji? HAH! Give me Iceland or the Highlands of Scotland Or even the harsh cold winters of the 70s and 80s in the UK!
JB
Ah, I see your point now - thanks for taking the time to spell that out for me.
TBH I'm still not entirely convinced that the Romulan connection is that much of a stretch, since the planet is inside Romulan space (or at least it is by the time of the 2260s). However, at the end of the day this is just a theory without any onscreen evidence so I'm happy to trade it in for a better one
Ah, I see your point now - thanks for taking the time to spell that out for me.
TBH I'm still not entirely convinced that the Romulan connection is that much of a stretch, since the planet is inside Romulan space (or at least it is by the time of the 2260s). However, at the end of the day this is just a theory without any onscreen evidence so I'm happy to trade it in for a better one
If you want a better idea I think I can come up with one. Wait a minute. I'll be right back.
I found my last paragraph in my previous post number 59:
Let us suppose that one shore party once landed on the beautiful planet later called Eden, and perhaps only one person in it noticed the acidic plants. Then they were recalled to their ship because a Romulan ship was on the way. The Romulans pursued their fleeing ship and damaged it and maybe killed some of those who were in the landing party.
And nobody every returned to that region of space due to the long and bloody war and the establishment of the Romulan neutral zone.
And the person who knew about the acid and deadly nature of vegetation on the beautiful planet had his own ideas of what paradise was. For him paradise was living in a beautiful climate controlled palace in a beautiful high tech city and being waited on hand in and foot by hordes of robot servants and being totally idle and spending his time watching or reading his favorite stories. He wouldn't have wanted to work as hard as even south sea islanders did picking fruit and catching fish. And he couldn't stand the heat on a tropical island.
So whenever he heard someone wish to live in a tropical island paradise he snorted with amusement, knowing that person's idea of paradise was closer to his idea of hell.
And then he went to a reunion with his old crew, those who had survived the Romulan War. And someone who had been in the landing party and seen the beauty of the planet, but not suffered from the acidic plants, was talking about how beautiful it was and how it would have been like paradise to live in, and he almost told him that the pain would have been more like hell, but didn't get around to it.
And later he had an idea, and went to the leaders of the political movement to restart the war with the Romulans, who believed that the Romulans had not been punished enough, and wanted to resume fighting and kill more Romulans.
And they started a publicity campaign describing the beauty and the balmy climate of the lost planet, which they named Eden, hoping to stir up a desire to conquer that region of space from the Romulans and find Eden.
"Those dirty stinking Romulans, they stole Eden, the most perfect planet in all the galaxy, from us."
And the man who knew the truth about the deadly poisonous plant life on Eden felt it wasn't wrong to trick a bunch of fools into fighting another war with the Romulans over that false paradise, because he felt that anyone misguided enough to want to live in a primitive tropical paradise deserved anything bad that happened to him.
That pro war movement never succeeded and eventually fizzled out, but the legend of the paradise planet Eden remained a part of space lore for generations.
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There's got to be some reason besides the lush greenery of the planet that warrants the name "Eden" since that alone is fairly common in Trek.
Perhaps it exists between a certain conflux of stars in a specific constellation, benefitting from an excess of spiritual woo?
If that were the case then it's entirely possible that no-one has ever actually set foot on the planet to experience it's scary (albeit naturally occurring) ecosystem
It would also explain them using star charts to locate the planet, as opposed to exploration records
Perhaps it exists between a certain conflux of stars in a specific constellation, benefitting from an excess of spiritual woo?
If that were the case then it's entirely possible that no-one has ever actually set foot on the planet to experience it's scary (albeit naturally occurring) ecosystem
It would also explain them using star charts to locate the planet, as opposed to exploration records
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Since there is little evidence to assume the Romulans did poison the planet to stop it becoming a beacon to the depressed minions of the Federation, I'd say it was just the typical result of finding what you want but it not being exactly how you wanted it when you got there! A bit like the saying of grass is always greener on the other side!
JB
JB
Yeah, I've decided that the biggest flaw is, once again, the pitifully easy seizure of the Enterprise. Even the hippies (who, I recognize, had military and scientific backgrounds) could do it.
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