If a Crystalline Entity was threatening your planet, what would you do?

[Kamen Rider Blade]

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If a Crystalline Entity was coming to your planet and threatening to harvest all organic life on it because it was hungry (it wants breakfast) and you had the capability to destroy it to save your people/colony/town/city/country, or let your planet, your friends homes, your people/colony/town/city/country get destroyed, what would you do?

We know that the Crystalline Entity is a threat to a planets organic eco system, just like a Tribble would be.

Let's assume that the knowledge to easily defeat/destroy the Crystalline Entity is well known thanks to Dr. Kila Marr's hatred of the Crystalline Entity and what it did to her son and her friends on Omicron Theta colony continued to dwell and she spread her knowledge freely to everybody in the Alpha/Beta quadrant to the point that every major power knows how to easily defeat the Crystalline entity.

What would you do if the Crystalline Entity was coming for your home?

 

[Timo]

There never seemed to be any trick to destroying a CE: Picard could have done it in a heartbeat in "Datalore" already, whilst the CE would have been powerless to hurt the starship in any way.

Apparently, all you need is combat shields and a phaser beam. But few colonies or freighters have either, let alone both, and so they die if Starfleet doesn't arrive in time.

So the choice would be between a somewhat different pair of options:

1) Destroy the CE with your starship, so it never eats anybody again
2) Drive away the CE with your starship, so it goes eat somebody else

You planet is safe in either case. The CE has the ability to do some basic learning in "Datalore", and would avoid places guarded by these ferocious dogs that fire phaser beams at it. But it also has a speed advantage over Starfleet's finest, so both 1) and 2) mean a lost chance to observe the creature and to learn more of its habits. And such learning would appear vital at the time of "Silicon Avatar" still: Marr did nothing to remove the danger when merely killing a single individual from a potential species of millions or quintillions.

If Starfleet has learned all it needs to know about the feeding habits of the CE species, though, then there might be additional options:

2b) Deploy starships in advance to drive the CE away from every planet it attempts to eat, thanks to you now knowing its migrating patterns and tastes
2c) Equip all your assets with the means to tell the CE that eating said asset will result in retribution, thanks to you now knowing how to speak CE'ian

or then

1b) Exterminate the whole species, as you now know enough about how to reach all the individuals

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

If someone tries to kill you, you kill them right back.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

If the Crystalline Entity is roaming around and it's species have existed for a very long time (millions or billions of years old potentially), then it's probably the reason we encounter as few Sapient & Sentient Aliens as StarFleet does compared to the # of Planets in existence =D

It eats up a planet that could've spawned new life before it has a chance to evolve.

 

[XCV330]

If someone tries to kill you, you kill them right back.

I think it's a rare case where even hunting down the entire species and wiping it out is justified.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I'd blow it out of the fucking sky.

What difference does it make if it's a "natural creature"? This thing threatens my planet, it's space dust. End of story.

I don't care if it's "just trying to survive". SO AM I!

 

[Jedi_Master]

Not sure what the moral quandary is here, if a predator was trying to eat my child, I kill it.
Same if it was trying to eat... well... anybody.
If the predator was an endangered species, well it's not MY fault it's endangered, I kill it anyway.

 

[Tim Thomason]

I'd have to consult the Cosmic Plan, as to what options are available to me.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Send Johnny to get the Ultimate Nullifier.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Give it a snickers.

The Crystaline Entity isn't itself when it's hungry.

 

[Vger23]

Kiss my sweet ass goodbye

 

[Timo]

Give it a snickers.

The Crystaline Entity isn't itself when it's hungry.

We still don't quite know what the culinary preferences of the CE are. After it ate the people of Omicron Ceti, it apparently wanted a salad, since the vegetation only died after the Tripoli had done its brief and uninformative visit. But does it have salad often (and the biosphere then grows back, like after a forest fire, only without most animals but vegetation-only worlds are so common that nobody wonders)? Does it get its appetite sated with a mere shipful or settlementful of people (so it eating those does not result in such massive numbers of missing ships that anybody would notice) and the salad is collateral?

Keeping the beast well fed ought to be utterly trivial if all it wants is the biomass of a hundred or so people, every ten years or so. Or even if that's its daily intake. Keeping a quintillion beasts fed that way would be nontrivial - and would feeding platforms attract hordes of the beasts, and/or promote massive procreation?

And does it eat flesh? Or does it feast on minds, like such creatures typically do? Could its belly be kept safely full with replicated minds? Marr and Data seem to agree it "absorbs living matter", and the Kallisko is sucked dry of anything organic. But Marr thinks the CE would also eat Data unless the android were in cahoots with the beast, so perhaps chewing up the matter is just a step in a process that aims at something else altogether, and a mind would seem to be the only thing Data has to offer.

Feeding of polar bears isn't a particularly popular means of protecting the endangered species or of keeping it from raiding human habitats, but feeding is part of the trick where excess bears are sedated and whisked away to where they won't do harm. Starfleet could probably start relocating CEs by activating a blinking box that projects souls for them to eat, luring them into a trap of some sort, and flying them to a distance. Or then having the blinkie-box fly to a distance, with the CE following. But is there wilderness where Starfeet would let the creatures roam?

Ultimately, the CE is not a threat - compared to its apparent galactic record, pet guinea pigs kill more children. But if this is due to there only ever existing a single CE individual, the issue of choosing between the kids and the beast does arise. Yet how many sharks have you killed to protect your offspring?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tim Thomason]

Ignoring the OP and answering the thread question directly, I am completely unqualified, as a grocery store worker, to stop a Crystalline Entity from doing whatever it wants, and would just hope NASA and the Space Force and Elon Musk can figure something out.

I'll just be over here engaging in some end-of-the-world looting. Maybe see if a bunker or isolation might protect my scent from its death rays.

 

[The Wormhole]

I am completely unqualified, as a grocery store worker, to stop a Crystalline Entity from doing whatever it wants

Clearly, you don't work at the right grocery store.

 

[fireproof78]

Common household items can be dangerous.

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[Deks]

There never seemed to be any trick to destroying a CE: Picard could have done it in a heartbeat in "Datalore" already, whilst the CE would have been powerless to hurt the starship in any way.

Apparently, all you need is combat shields and a phaser beam. But few colonies or freighters have either, let alone both, and so they die if Starfleet doesn't arrive in time.

So the choice would be between a somewhat different pair of options:

1) Destroy the CE with your starship, so it never eats anybody again
2) Drive away the CE with your starship, so it goes eat somebody else

You planet is safe in either case. The CE has the ability to do some basic learning in "Datalore", and would avoid places guarded by these ferocious dogs that fire phaser beams at it. But it also has a speed advantage over Starfleet's finest, so both 1) and 2) mean a lost chance to observe the creature and to learn more of its habits. And such learning would appear vital at the time of "Silicon Avatar" still: Marr did nothing to remove the danger when merely killing a single individual from a potential species of millions or quintillions.

If Starfleet has learned all it needs to know about the feeding habits of the CE species, though, then there might be additional options:

2b) Deploy starships in advance to drive the CE away from every planet it attempts to eat, thanks to you now knowing its migrating patterns and tastes
2c) Equip all your assets with the means to tell the CE that eating said asset will result in retribution, thanks to you now knowing how to speak CE'ian

or then

1b) Exterminate the whole species, as you now know enough about how to reach all the individuals

Timo Saloniemi

Given that it was established in TNG that Crystaline Entities DO have the ability for communication (and the Ent-D was able to establish initial contact - before that civilian decided to kill it instead for killing her son), it would stand to reason that Starfleet would have deployed a starship (or several) on a mission to find and establish dialogue with CE's in an attempt to help them recognize if a planet has intelligent life (so it doesn't eat on it), and find another place of interest, such as solar systems which have uninhabited planets that would be good for crystaline entities in terms of nourishment and even potentially have Starfleet devising an alternative source of food which would meet all their needs and then Starfleet ships staying in contact with CE's would deliver this to them and keep them away from populated solar systems.

It would actually be interesting to bring this relationship to a new level by seeing SF and CE's working together on missions - if communications allowed for that -my guess is that it would be possible to one degree or another.

Its a shame we don't see any episodes with SF ships interacting with space faring life forms in a cooperative manner... especially when those creatures were deemed sentient and capable of communication.

 

[shapeshifter]

Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop snorting crystalline entity.

 

[Orphalesion]

I wonder if the Crystalline Entities could be weaponized against the Borg...

 

[publiusr]

My answer is C.)

Call the Tholians…they might be related to TNG’s version of IOD the Shining Hunter

 

[Timo]

That the beast really could communicate is optimistic speculation by our heroes. When they scratch it enough, its growling changes a bit in pitch. Is it about to break out in dialogue? To gulp down the starship? To roll over? To flee? No telling.

"Datalore" would suggest the opposite. Lore, believing himself to have quite the rapport with the entity, spells out a simple plan that would provide food for the creature. The entity apparently comprehends nothing, completely failing to follow the plan.

Timo Saloniemi