Spoilers Vadic and their smoking.

[Ronin'sCreamyCandle]

I think Vadic smokes for these possible reasons.

1: Vadic in episode 7 is shown to be 3 different things/people. 1a: Sadistic section 31 scientist, 1b: A changeling that was tortured by the scientist, and 1c: Some kind of evil being that has control over Vadic.

2: If you consider Vadic as above like I do, I feel both the section 31 scientist and the tortured changeling are being controlled and tortured by the floating evil head boss creature. The "boss" absusing the tortured changeling by changing it's shape and form looked painful and distressing to Vadic. In fact, after her orders and when Vadic sat down she shed a small tear from her eye and looked scared very badly. I think that tear came from the human scientist trying to fight the changeling. Same contrast as Data and Lore fighting each other for the body.

3: How this fits into the smoking? I think the smoking is the human scientist who had that bad habit before she was merged with the changeling. I don't think the changeling "copied" her. They are both in there. But the scientist is overpowered by the changeling, but in an effort to kill herself the scientist somehow makes Vadic smoke like a chimney as a way of fighting back or like I said - to try to hasten the death of the changeling.

 

[Tosk]

I would think if an imprisoned personality were trying to kill "themselves", a smoking habit might be the absolute slowest way possible. Not to mention unreliable. (As in, it doesn't just automatically kill any person who does it, and we don't even know if a nuChangeling is even capable of being killed in that manner.)

 

[Mike Doyle]

Maybe they smoke because they like smoking.

 

[DEWLine]

Theory: Vadic figures that they're already dying because of Project Proteus?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

She might be smoking Andorian Gold hybrid, to numb the pain she's probably in at all times.

 

[Caeruleus]

nuTrek is well known of promoting smoking as something cool.

Roddenberry Trek and 90's Trek was far more realistic when we talk about smoking. In a world of teleporters, replicators and FTL propulsion (22nd 23rd 24th 25th etc century) smoking shoud be unhealty archaic habit that died centuries ago.

 

[fireproof78]

nuTrek is well known of promoting smoking as something cool.

Really? What has been cool about it?

 

[Caeruleus]

Really? What has been cool about it?

Absolutely nothing in my opinion and approach of nuTrek to smoking disgusts me. That's why a lot of old fans don't like Raffi bcs she's incarnation of human being that should be obsolete.

 

[fireproof78]

Absolutely nothing in my opinion and approach of nuTrek to smoking disgusts me. That's why a lot of old fans don't like Raffi bcs she's incarnation of human being that should be obsolete.

There is nothing coded in the presentation as cool.

And it's nice to know the evolved sensibility means obsoleted humans.

 

[Tuskin38]

nuTrek is well known of promoting smoking as something cool.

It has never done that.

 

[Caeruleus]

It has never done that.

Characters on Star Trek Picard smoke, but wasn't the future smokefree in Star Trek?

https://www.quora.com/Characters-on...e-but-wasnt-the-future-smokefree-in-Star-Trek

 

[Tuskin38]

Characters on Star Trek Picard smoke, but wasn't the future smokefree in Star Trek?

https://www.quora.com/Characters-on...e-but-wasnt-the-future-smokefree-in-Star-Trek

I'm not clicking that link.

The show does not make smoking look cool.

 

[IMC Headquarters]

If Vadic could blow a smoke ring that looked like Badgey, I would be duly impressed.

 

[fireproof78]

Characters on Star Trek Picard smoke, but wasn't the future smokefree in Star Trek?

https://www.quora.com/Characters-on...e-but-wasnt-the-future-smokefree-in-Star-Trek

Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan has a "No Smoking on the Bridge" sign.

Kirk smokes in The Undiscovered Country while on Rure Penthe.

"Smoke free" may have been TNG's efforts, but addictions were still present and never left. Human beings have these behaviors for a reason. Trying to obsolete humans is a poor way of presenting the future.

 

[SJGardner]

1. We've only seen broken or villainous people (Raffi, Rios and now Vadic) smoke on screen. Nowhere was it suggested that tobacco is commonly smoked throughout the Federation.
2. The Federation is not a monolith. Earth has been portrayed as a post-scarcity utopia, but the rest of the Federation has always been all over the place. From major urban hubs of civilization like Vulcan or garden utopias like Betazed or Risa, to the lawless frontier where the only Federation presence is a single Starbase sectors away or the occasional visit from the Enterprise. And those were shown as basically everything between idealized portrayals of the colonization of the American frontier and flat-out ruined gangland dystopias like Turkana IV and unstable warzones like the formerly Federation-affiliated worlds inhabited by the Maquis. And then we have the truly lawless places controlled by the criminal underworld like Freecloud or M'Talas Prime, which were never ever said to be Federation member worlds, no matter how often some people point them as evidence for nuTrek not understanding Star Trek's utopia.

 

[Vger23]

Absolutely nothing in my opinion and approach of nuTrek to smoking disgusts me. That's why a lot of old fans don't like Raffi bcs she's incarnation of human being that should be obsolete.

The idea that humans will be perfect and viceless in the future is not only inane, unrealistic, and naive, it is actually frightening and horrific. Any future society that would exist that wipes human beings of the flaws and frailties that make us "HUMAN" would have to be one that has bleached any individuality or self-deternination in the name of "the common and collective good," and history has shown how well that typically works out.

Star Trek has never EVER portrayed flawed humans or humans with vices, etc. as being "extinct" or "obsolete" in the future.

See also:

Dr. Tristian Adams (power-hungery, psycho who abuses his power)
Captain Ron Tracy (mass-murderer and greedy narcissist)
Captain Ben Maxwell (prejudiced)
Harry Mudd (con man, misogynist, drug dealer)
Anton Karidian / Kodos the Executioner (mass murderer)
Lt. Commander Ben Finney (vengeful and petty)
Montgomery Scott (heavy drinker)
St. John Talbot (smoker)
Lt. Syles (racist)
Miles O'Brien (prejudiced / racist)
Countless Admirals who violated moral and ethical obligations for political or personal gain
Tasha Yar comes from a failed human colony so awful that "rape gangs" exist and hunt young people down.
Main characters frequently engage in meaningless or relationshipless sex

These are just off the top of my head. So, let's stop with the rhetoric that "Star Trek always portrays shining examples of humans and that humans with flaws or vices would / should be obsolete." If anything, TOS in particular taught us that the price to pay for perceived "paradise" is always too high, and that we should embrace humanity, warts and all, and that our struggle against those imperfections is what defines us...not the elimination of them. It never preached bleaching everyone of anything that would make us flawed but unique people. It taught that we can achieve great things despite those flaws and vices, not that we'd eliminate them.

 

[fireproof78]

It taught that we can achieve great things despite those flaws and vices, not that we'd eliminate them.

*applauding intensifies*

 

[SJGardner]

It taught that we can achieve great things despite those flaws and vices, not that we'd eliminate them.

"We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't kill today." - James T. Kirk, A Taste of Armageddon

Star Trek has never EVER portrayed flawed humans or humans with vices, etc. as being "extinct" or "obsolete" in the future.

Don't forget Picard being blinded by his desire for revenge against the Borg after having claimed humanity has evolved past such negative emotions, which Lily even actually calls him out on.

 

[Gepard]

This season has made a big deal out of the new changelings having internal organs. Diegetically, Vadic smokes because she has lungs to do it with; nondiegetically, it's a signal to the audience that she's not a typical changeling.

 

[fireproof78]

"We're human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes. Knowing that we won't kill today." - James T. Kirk, A Taste of Armageddon

That's my favorite line in all of Star Trek. Giving humans of today choice.