Destiny Why did they not... BEWARE Spoilers

[PhotoM]

First awesome books! This is just a what if you were them. Not a question to the author.

When Picard was given permission to do anything to stop the borg why didn't he go back in time. Since assuming they could ask voyager what hole they came out of. I would have gone back a year before destroyed that cube that got Janaway and then blew up the tunnel that the borg later came threw. Also come on Geordi! It's a weapon "tech" no different than authorizing the use of a cloaking devise. I would of court marshalled him. When your facing 7000 borg and ordered by the President to do anything and everything then you do anything.

 

[casey]

I guess the same reason they never did that in all of the episodes. You would end up with a little pamphlet instead of an epic trilogy.

I'd rather have an epic trilogy .


But you are right. It's one of those things I always think of like "why don't they just beam an explosive onto the enemy ship and be done with it?" The easy way out is rarely the most dramatic or interesting, so we kind of have to suspend belief and enjoy it.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

Riker actually suggested going back in time, but it was dismissed as being too dangerous.

 

[nx1701g]

When Picard was given permission to do anything to stop the borg why didn't he go back in time. Since assuming they could ask voyager what hole they came out of. I would have gone back a year before destroyed that cube that got Janaway and then blew up the tunnel that the borg later came threw.

Because they didn't want Captain Braxton of the Federation Timeship Relativity or Aeon to show up. That guy was a bigger party pooper than the Borg.

 

[casey]

Riker actually suggested going back in time, but it was dismissed as being too dangerous.

I forgot about that.

I think I really need to go back and read these again.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

I forgot about it too until you mentioned it. Destiny was pretty dense, easy to let stuff slip by

 

[Allyn Gibson]

When Picard was given permission to do anything to stop the borg why didn't he go back in time.

Because you can't predict the butterfly effects.

A friend of mine, Jim McCain, sent me an e-mail over the weekend. Given the revelations of the Borg origins in Lost Souls, why didn't someone travel back in time and either 1) phaser the first two Borg drones into non-existence, or 2) swoop in and tractor the Columbia away from Erigol. Nice ideas, but I pointed out the problem with them in a reply. Number 1, what happened has happened, and who has the right to play god with time? And number 2, let's suppose, for a moment, that you wipe out the Borg at their moment of origin. But what will take their place? Destroy a known evil, and you risk unleashing an even greater evil.

No one, not even Jean-Luc Picard, can play god.

We saw what happened when Kathryn Janeway played god. In "Endgame," her future self rewrote sixteen years of history for no good reason at all, and she was assimilated by the Borg for it. We saw in "Endgame" that the Borg still existed in that future time that, ultimately, no longer came to be. The act of getting her ship home before it should have ultimately unleashed the Borg's genocidal campaign against the Federation. It's terribly ironic that Janeway lost her life twice to the Borg; she paid for her act of hubris.

Also come on Geordi! It's a weapon "tech" no different than authorizing the use of a cloaking devise. I would of court marshalled him.

As Geordi points out, thalaron weapons are illegal in the Federation, thus Picard's order to build a thalaron weapon was itself an illegal act. If Picard has to compromise his own beliefs and the laws of the Federation for the Federation to survive, then it's questionable whether or not the Federation deserves to survive. Geordi was right to tell Picard to stuff it and risk the court-martial.

 

[Silversmok3]

When Picard was given permission to do anything to stop the borg why didn't he go back in time.

Because you can't predict the butterfly effects.

A friend of mine, Jim McCain, sent me an e-mail over the weekend. Given the revelations of the Borg origins in Lost Souls, why didn't someone travel back in time and either 1) phaser the first two Borg drones into non-existence, or 2) swoop in and tractor the Columbia away from Erigol. Nice ideas, but I pointed out the problem with them in a reply. Number 1, what happened has happened, and who has the right to play god with time? And number 2, let's suppose, for a moment, that you wipe out the Borg at their moment of origin. But what will take their place? Destroy a known evil, and you risk unleashing an even greater evil.

No one, not even Jean-Luc Picard, can play god.

We saw what happened when Kathryn Janeway played god. In "Endgame," her future self rewrote sixteen years of history for no good reason at all, and she was assimilated by the Borg for it. We saw in "Endgame" that the Borg still existed in that future time that, ultimately, no longer came to be. The act of getting her ship home before it should have ultimately unleashed the Borg's genocidal campaign against the Federation. It's terribly ironic that Janeway lost her life twice to the Borg; she paid for her act of hubris.

Also come on Geordi! It's a weapon "tech" no different than authorizing the use of a cloaking devise. I would of court marshalled him.

As Geordi points out, thalaron weapons are illegal in the Federation, thus Picard's order to build a thalaron weapon was itself an illegal act. If Picard has to compromise his own beliefs and the laws of the Federation for the Federation to survive, then it's questionable whether or not the Federation deserves to survive. Geordi was right to tell Picard to stuff it and risk the court-martial.

While you make great points above,Picard was given pardon to do whatever it took to stop the Borg;and honestly (and coldly) I'd rather have an interstellar arms race than a Borg Collective calling the shots.

As far as time travel,that's sooo not the easy way.For one,going back to Mantillis 4000 BC is gonna be hard.Misplace a decimal,break a warp nacelle or lose a component 4000 years in the past and you're in deep shorts.


Second,how would you go back in time to stop all this?Going to Erigol to save Columbia wouldn't work,as the advanced civilization that caused its own existence via supernova might know that you're accidntly gonna stop its grandfather paradox from happening.

So,let's go to Mantillis.But wait!
There's indigenous people there,so rescuing the MACO's and leaving the dying Caeliar behind wouldn't change matters either,except perhaps a different name than 'Borg'.

Setting aside that condemning the Caeliar to death is pretty reprehensible,you'd have three options to prevent the Borg's creation;

Vaporize the entire planets population
Kill the humans stranded on the planet
Pump some quantum torpedos into the Caeliar wreck and hope for the best.

All three ideas are murder(the first one also genocide)
All three ideas fail to 100% stop the Borg.Options 2 and 3 could make things worse by allowing the degraded Sedin even more time to destabilize to something VERY evil,and allowing such base entity acess to alien physiology to posess-and beget a far worse Borg than the first edition.

So no go for time travel,not that time.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

I think having the Thalaron weapon as a backup would have been the smart thing to do. It was completely in character for Geordi to reject it though. His feelings about Data came into it, also he has always been against taking extreme measures against the Borg since the Hugh incident.

 

[PhotoM]

Well maybe I went too far when saying he should go back a year and stop the Janaway cube. A lot has happened to individual lives since then. But when faced with the turning point on the collapses of a civilization in a few hours in the future. I don't see you changing history by going back a hour or 2 to stop that future threat. Your not changing history but in fact protecting the here and now.

wow I hope that made since Ok put it this way Picard is staring at all the tunnels scratching his head then Q pops in the bridge and says "I saw the future I know where it is heading and it sucks" and then he points at the tunnel and says "that one." Is that changing the future?

or Picard goes back and does not destroy the tunnel but hails his past self and tells him where the tunnel is and his past self then destroys the tunnel and the future Picard destroys himself and his future ship. Is history or the future changed?
Time travel does give you a migrain.

 

[Sci]

As Geordi points out, thalaron weapons are illegal in the Federation, thus Picard's order to build a thalaron weapon was itself an illegal act. If Picard has to compromise his own beliefs and the laws of the Federation for the Federation to survive, then it's questionable whether or not the Federation deserves to survive. Geordi was right to tell Picard to stuff it and risk the court-martial.

I think that's a little extreme. I don't think it's reasonable to question whether or not a society facing imminent extermination from a vastly superior force has a right to survive because it chooses to develop a weapon of mass destruction in response to genocidal aggression.

It's a far more reasonable argument to say that developing a thalaron weapon would have been a disaster in the long run -- the equivalent of dropping the bomb on Japan. Once you do that, even if it saves the Federation from extermination, it opens Pandora's Box for everyone else to develop those weapons, thus destabilizing even further what was already guaranteed to be an unstable astropolitical landscape assuming the Borg threat was defeated.

 

[Dayton3]

As Geordi points out, thalaron weapons are illegal in the Federation, thus Picard's order to build a thalaron weapon was itself an illegal act. If Picard has to compromise his own beliefs and the laws of the Federation for the Federation to survive, then it's questionable whether or not the Federation deserves to survive. Geordi was right to tell Picard to stuff it and risk the court-martial.

I think that's a little extreme. I don't think it's reasonable to question whether or not a society facing imminent extermination from a vastly superior force has a right to survive because it chooses to develop a weapon of mass destruction in response to genocidal aggression.

It's a far more reasonable argument to say that developing a thalaron weapon would have been a disaster in the long run -- the equivalent of dropping the bomb on Japan. Once you do that, even if it saves the Federation from extermination, it opens Pandora's Box for everyone else to develop those weapons, thus destabilizing even further what was already guaranteed to be an unstable astropolitical landscape assuming the Borg threat was defeated.

Dropping atomic bombs on Japan hasn't turned into a disaster though.

Far from it in fact.

 

[wew]

Correct, after all no race by countries to acquire their own atomic bombs and nuclear weapons have occured. In fact I believe the world sits around singing kumbai ya and making wreaths from flowers.

Dayton3 I know you teach history, you should know better than this, unless you support the rights of any country to develop their own nuclear weapons, then you basis falls apart and if you do support Iran's and North Korea's right to have their own nuclear weapons, then I apologize.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

It's a far more reasonable argument to say that developing a thalaron weapon would have been a disaster in the long run -- the equivalent of dropping the bomb on Japan.

That's a false analogy; the use of atomic weapons was not illegal prior to Hiroshima, while the use of thalaron weapons is illegal within the Alpha Quadrant. The political dimension to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs that has been argued is historical revisionism, pure and simple. If anything made atomic weapons a political issue, it was Truman's decision during the Korean War to sack MacArthur when the general wanted to expand the Korean War by dropping atomic bombs on North Korea's supply lines in Manchuria. But at the time, in the summer of 1945, atomic bombs were not seen as a disaster, and they prevented the larger human disaster that would have been Operation Olympic, with millions dead as the United States and the Allies forced beachheads on Kyushu and Honshu.

A better analogy would be this: Picard's order to build thalaran weapons was the equivalent of the Bush Administration's approval and use of torture; the use of thalaron weapons violates interstellar law, and the use of torture violates international law. Even with the pardon-in-advance that Necheyev offered Picard, had the thalaron weapon been built, Picard and his could have been tried by the Klingons, Romulans, or other powers for crimes against the galaxy, just as Bush and his administration can be tried by other countries for committing crimes against humanity.

 

[LightningStorm]

A better analogy would be this: Picard's order to build thalaran weapons was the equivalent of the Bush Administration's approval and use of torture; the use of thalaron weapons violates interstellar law, and the use of torture violates international law. Even with the pardon-in-advance that Necheyev offered Picard, had the thalaron weapon been built, Picard and his could have been tried by the Klingons, Romulans, or other powers for crimes against the galaxy, just as Bush and his administration can be tried by other countries for committing crimes against humanity.

I agree, in general, with this. One could also argue that Necheyev's order to do "whatever" was also illegal. Since "literally anything" encompasses illegal acts too.

 

[BillJ]

It's a far more reasonable argument to say that developing a thalaron weapon would have been a disaster in the long run -- the equivalent of dropping the bomb on Japan.

That's a false analogy; the use of atomic weapons was not illegal prior to Hiroshima, while the use of thalaron weapons is illegal within the Alpha Quadrant. The political dimension to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs that has been argued is historical revisionism, pure and simple. If anything made atomic weapons a political issue, it was Truman's decision during the Korean War to sack MacArthur when the general wanted to expand the Korean War by dropping atomic bombs on North Korea's supply lines in Manchuria. But at the time, in the summer of 1945, atomic bombs were not seen as a disaster, and they prevented the larger human disaster that would have been Operation Olympic, with millions dead as the United States and the Allies forced beachheads on Kyushu and Honshu.

A better analogy would be this: Picard's order to build thalaran weapons was the equivalent of the Bush Administration's approval and use of torture; the use of thalaron weapons violates interstellar law, and the use of torture violates international law. Even with the pardon-in-advance that Necheyev offered Picard, had the thalaron weapon been built, Picard and his could have been tried by the Klingons, Romulans, or other powers for crimes against the galaxy, just as Bush and his administration can be tried by other countries for committing crimes against humanity.

Wow... you're talking about being destroyed. Completely and totally. No offense, but you really aren't thinking about this clearly. There will be no law enforcement to prosecute your actions, no historians left to debate it.

Hell... to me Picard's hands are just as bloody as the Borg (63,000,000,000 dead). He had a chance (no guarantee that it would work) to deal them a crippling blow in I, Borg and didn't take it. Again he had a shot (although small) with using a thalaron weapon and didn't take it. Was talked out of it both times. If I was the Klingons, Romulans or any other number of species, I would want him to stand trial for treason or as an accomplice to genocide. How would Kadohata felt if she knew that Picard wouldn't do what it takes to protect her children?

The writers have really lost me in regards to this character. Sometimes great men are defined by having to make tough decisions. Picard doesn't seem to have the balls to make those decisions.

Oh yeah... my reaction to Geordi would've been somewhere along the line of: "Geordi, if the next words out of your mouth aren't 'Yes, sir. I'll be in engineering prepping the weapon.', I'll have you thrown out an airlock."

 

[Lonemagpie]

Year Of Hell pretty much covered how and why you can't just go back and change things on a whim - there are too many unpredictable ripples that will *always* fuck things up worse.

 

[Christopher]

The political dimension to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs that has been argued is historical revisionism, pure and simple. If anything made atomic weapons a political issue, it was Truman's decision during the Korean War to sack MacArthur when the general wanted to expand the Korean War by dropping atomic bombs on North Korea's supply lines in Manchuria. But at the time, in the summer of 1945, atomic bombs were not seen as a disaster, and they prevented the larger human disaster that would have been Operation Olympic, with millions dead as the United States and the Allies forced beachheads on Kyushu and Honshu.

Well, I don't want to endorse or debate the idea that dropping the bombs was better than the alternative. But it is worth pointing out that the bombs really weren't as great a quantum leap in destruction as we imagine they were. The conventional firebombings of cities like Dresden and Tokyo caused devastation on a scale comparable to the immediate toll of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; to the leaders and generals at the time, atomic bombs were essentially a more efficient way of doing the same thing they were doing already. They didn't anticipate the long-term problems such as radiation sickness and nuclear proliferation. So you're right that the Allied leaders at the time didn't see them as a disaster (although there's no question that the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did, and rightly so), but that's only because they were naive about the true danger they'd unleashed. Fortunately Picard exercised better judgment here, with help from Geordi.

 

[BillJ]

Fortunately Picard exercised better judgment here, with help from Geordi.

I'm still trying to figure out how having your race wiped out is somehow better judgement. Guess I'm just one of the simple masses.

 

[DimesDan]

The conventional firebombings of cities like Dresden and Tokyo

And Coventry as well as numerous other cities all across Europe and Asia should be included on that list as it was practically razed to the ground in 1940 by the Luftwaffe!