Please - O'Brien underwent 30 years in mental prison and nearly killed himself, only to be let back on duty within days following a chat with Bashir.
The Federation treats mental trauma like a hangnail.
General Trek Questions and Observations
- Thread starter The Old Mixer
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Please - O'Brien underwent 30 years in mental prison and nearly killed himself, only to be let back on duty within days following a chat with Bashir.
The Federation treats mental trauma like a hangnail.
I didn't say it was a competition between them. Nor did I imply that all Tom needed was a shower and a fresh uniform to be ready for bridge duty again.
You suggested that it would be 'a hard sell' that Tom would get such a highly coveted position on the Federation flagship after 8 years cut off and out of Starfleet service.
I merely suggested that it's no more of a hard sell than a fifteen year old boy getting such a highly coveted position on the Federation flagship with virtually no Starfleet training whatsoever.
And frankly I still think I'm right on the money.
Plus...it's a TV show, not a documentary on military (or toatallynotmilitaryhonest) procedure and logistics.
If the writers had wanted the character, they would have included the character and found some justification for it.
If the writers had wanted the character, they would have included the character and found some justification for it.
Absolutely - and Picard saying "Lieutenant Riker has requested permission to remain aboard the Enterprise," to the assembled senior staff in the Observation Lounge is all it would have been.
Or having your memory wiped, re-trained, and back on the job in a week.
& that too was literally a hard sell, enough that it still gets criticized. Are you really saying the smart move is to take a page from the Acting Ensign Wesley playbook? My point was that the reason you maybe don't do that is because it's another one of those, which is probably what they were thinking, when they didn't, & I can't understand that.
Shouldn't going to a Kasselian Opera, or even being in possession of one be illegal for Federation citizens? Or is it okay as long as it's a version where the singer doesn't offs herself afterwards? I assume there are versions that are non-lethal for the performer, since otherwise they'd run out of singers pretty quickly.
Or maybe by the tail end of the 24th century they had stopped the tradition?
Or maybe by the tail end of the 24th century they had stopped the tradition?
My assumption is that it's like the Kaelons, ritual suicide that's part of their culture (for singers) and the Federation doesn't interfere. We hear lots of Kasselian opera, but it could be recordings of a few select, famous pieces, and the opera house and showings could be "counterfeit" Kasselian opera, with the singer not truly ending it in such a dramatic fashion. Or maybe "practice" operas for the main event in many years.
In the real world, we had a tradition of castrato, purposefully castrated boys who grew up to be singers in Italy. Long after they banned this barbaric practice, the last one living, Alessandro Moreschi, recorded many solos that can be listened to today. You can listen to a castrato, or a Kasselian, without feeling guilty, as it's (presumably) a relic of the past.
Good point, I didn't consider castrati and that there is some similarity to that situation (though even livelong mutilation is not quite the same an art form built around a singer committing suicide at the end of their only performance)
Well for the 23rd century at least Stamets still talks about the Prima Donnas self-terminating in the present tense. Though by the time of Picard it might have become a thing of the past, yes.
And yeah, I assume as long as the Kasselians aren't applying for Federation membership they can do on their planet(s) whatever they like, but what I was just wondering whether the Federation would consider recordings of such suicide performances the equivalent of "snuff films" and would ban possession/trade of such records, let alone life performances within their jurisdiction.
One of the more frustrating aspects of Star Trek, and TV in general.
It is the anniversary (4th June) of the release of The Wrath of Khan, and 2 different UK TV channels at different stages of a TNG run through showed Symbiosis (guest starring Merritt Butrick), and Darmok (guest starring Paul Winfield) - found it an interesting coincidence.
And don't forget Jean-Luc Picard, who in TNG's "The Inner Light" lived an entire lifetime (probably 50 plus years) on an alien planet - and it was a first-person experience because they expected him to tell others of the civilization and history of their world afterwards; and riker sends him to his quarters shows him a flute: and the next day he's back in the Captain's chair.
But after Picard woke up he had memories of being captain earlier that same day. There's no way Picard could have been off the Enterprise (in his own head) for half a century and still knew all his duties as a captain, he would not even know his way around the ship.
How much would YOU remember about today events, half a century from now? Would you remember your address, passwords, PIN numbers, names of co-workers? Picard knew Riker right off, before any treatments.
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Mental health-look out, we'll do it in six seconds!And don't forget Jean-Luc Picard, who in TNG's "The Inner Light" lived an entire lifetime (probably 50 plus years) on an alien planet - and it was a first-person experience because they expected him to tell others of the civilization and history of their world afterwards; and riker sends him to his quarters shows him a flute: and the next day he's back in the Captain's chair.
That makes absolutely no sense. Just because people tend to forget things over time does not mean people will naturally forget everything. Not all memories are equal, to start with, and most people do remember a whole lot of things even from decades in the past. I still remember the exact layout of the house I grew up in. And the exact layout of my Grandparents' house, despite me having spent probably a month or two there altogether, at most, all decades in the past. I remember the exact layout of my sister's house that I lived in for a couple of months a decade ago and only once ever visited outside of that. I remember names of people from school and even from before school. I remember names of people who I literally only knew for a few weeks at most.
I've certainly forgotten plenty of things, too, but that's the whole point of course: people forget things that are forgettable or unimportant and hold on to things that they still consider important to them. And even when you're dealing with actually physically induced memory loss (dementia, etc), it's still extremely common for people to actually remember lots of things from a long time ago (ie, to remember their children as young not realizing they're already grown, to remember themselves as young and start looking for or asking for people they used to know as a child/young adult, to fall back into speaking their native language instead of the second language they've almost exclusively spoken for decades, etc).
It's hardly unbelievable that Picard might have continually revisited his memories of the day his entire life seemed to be completely and totally altered even long after he had seemingly accepted his fate and hardly strange that he remembers a man who he used to be very close to in his previous life, even if that was decades in the past.
30 years ago I was in college. I remember exactly where my dorm room was and how to get to it. I more or less remember the courses I took. But certainly not the lecture halls the classes were in. I may remember some of the material but not in enough detail to go back in time and take an exam. And I'm sure I've forgotten almost all of the the minutiae of day-to-day existence: acquaintances, inside jokes, passwords, phone numbers, etc.
Going back 30 years would take a huge readjustment. I couldn't just drop back to that time and continue on with my life.
Going back 30 years would take a huge readjustment. I couldn't just drop back to that time and continue on with my life.
Obviously it would be a huge readjustment. But nothing in the episode says otherwise. Picard recognizes Riker and Crusher, two people who used to be hugely important to him, and remembers his own name and rank. Then we see him examining his own quarters (which he might or might not have found on his own, we don't know), not recognizing the sound of a door chime at first and explicitly saying it's hard to remember that this place is actually his home.
Sure, the adjustment period is never mentioned again in other episodes but that's because Star Trek is episodic. There are tons of major things that never get mentioned again after one episode. Uhura had to relearn everything she ever knew from scratch after Nomad killed and resurrected her and she was exactly the same as always in later episodes, too.
There's nothing unbelievable about the way the episode handles this.
The fact that it is episodic doesn't mean it was handled well. The episodic nature of Trek often left things unresolved because that was the end of the episode. Doesn't mean I believe that Picard just transitioned right back in to life.
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