Regeneration - non ENT viewer questions

[Hermiod]

^They only thought that because they'd never met Janeway at that point.

Borg children make their parents check that Janeway isn't under their beds when they go to sleep.

 

[Nebusj]

Thing is, first, the 22nd Century gets yet another encounter with an inexplicable hostile species --- for which they don't even get a name, incidentally --- and then after this hears nothing for two centuries and thousands of contacts with thousands of other species. You'd need a bit of a stroke of luck to find the connection in the first place, or to prove there was one, and, really, what 24th Century Trek established that There Was No Connection?

If we're thinking of the same race with large ears, they didn't simply drop off the map until TNG. There was just little direct information available to the Federation and rare, if any, actual contacts. But Picard mentions them by name in "Encounter at Farpoint."

Yeah, and Picard had encountered them ten years before season 1 and they refused to identify themselves.

Um ... no, I was talking about the Borg. We were on ``Regeneration''.

The Ferengi are a different problem, since there is no good reason after Archer has captured the Ferengi and their ship to hold them --- they are pirates, after all, even if they're incompetent ones --- at minimum until as much information about their polity and operations as possible can be learned. Picard fighting an unidentified starship to, apparently, a draw is fine for not learning anything substantial about them; Archer sitting on Ferengi-Neelix's head until he begs for mercy is different.

 

[Sci]

Re: FC. One interesting notion to consider is that the Borg travelled back in time as a random twist to test the Federation's ability to respond to a temporal threat.

 

[BillJ]

One of the ones I watched was regeneration - a few questions

1) Why are Star Fleet in the dark about the borg in the future ? Yes it's two centuries later but we often saw Starfleet officers get information about the 20th century, so what would the problem be?

I would think that Starfleet Intelligence buried the information on this encounter deep. If it were to get out to the general masses that cybernetic "vampires" were roaming local space it could kill the fledgling exploration program.

At least that's how I rationalize it.

 

[Sci]

One of the ones I watched was regeneration - a few questions

1) Why are Star Fleet in the dark about the borg in the future ? Yes it's two centuries later but we often saw Starfleet officers get information about the 20th century, so what would the problem be?

I would think that Starfleet Intelligence buried the information on this encounter deep. If it were to get out to the general masses that cybernetic "vampires" were roaming local space it could kill the fledgling exploration program.

At least that's how I rationalize it.

I don't think there's any need for any such subterfuge. I mean, yeah, they encountered some scary guys, but the NX-01 encountered a LOT of scary guys, especially after the Xindi and then the start of the Earth-Romulan War. Between that, the possibility that some records were lost as a result of the war, and the simple fact that data gets forgotten even when it's well-preserved -- there's a reason you see news stories about people digging through national archives and finding new information -- simply as a result of there being too much data to sort, I don't see any reason to think it unreasonable that a single encounter with cybernetic organisms in the 22nd Century might be forgotten at some point.

 

[Nebusj]

I would think that Starfleet Intelligence buried the information on this encounter deep. If it were to get out to the general masses that cybernetic "vampires" were roaming local space it could kill the fledgling exploration program.

At least that's how I rationalize it.

As opposed to the Klingons, Suliban, Xindi, Romulans, Orions, the ``Silent Enemy'' folks, Andorians, Ferengi, and Nausicans?

By coincidence, strategic threat estimate planning for the United States the past century has (in a cynical, glib half sentence) consisted of thinking of the scariest enemy currently out there, the biggest number one can think of, and the scariest weapon currently plausible, and announcing that enemy has that many of that weapon. The Republic carries on pretty well despite the occasional hysteric fit.

 

[BillJ]

I would think that Starfleet Intelligence buried the information on this encounter deep. If it were to get out to the general masses that cybernetic "vampires" were roaming local space it could kill the fledgling exploration program.

At least that's how I rationalize it.

As opposed to the Klingons, Suliban, Xindi, Romulans, Orions, the ``Silent Enemy'' folks, Andorians, Ferengi, and Nausicans?

By coincidence, strategic threat estimate planning for the United States the past century has (in a cynical, glib half sentence) consisted of thinking of the scariest enemy currently out there, the biggest number one can think of, and the scariest weapon currently plausible, and announcing that enemy has that many of that weapon. The Republic carries on pretty well despite the occasional hysteric fit.

No offense... but if a Klingon or any other the other races you mention touches you, you don't turn into a mindless zombie. The races you mention above don't automatically adapt to every tactic and weapon you have. Or the fact that they took a warp two shuttle and within a few hours had taken over another vessel and were out-running the finest that your fleet had to offer (handing out an ass-stomping to boot). They (Klingons and others) may eventually adapt to you and your tactics after years of study and research and development.

Of course, Archer probably left most of this out of his report to Starfleet Command... figured it wasn't very important.

Turn that type of information loose on the general populace and watch the reaction. "War of the Worlds" anyone?

 

[Nebusj]

As opposed to the Klingons, Suliban, Xindi, Romulans, Orions, the ``Silent Enemy'' folks, Andorians, Ferengi, and Nausicans?

By coincidence, strategic threat estimate planning for the United States the past century has (in a cynical, glib half sentence) consisted of thinking of the scariest enemy currently out there, the biggest number one can think of, and the scariest weapon currently plausible, and announcing that enemy has that many of that weapon. The Republic carries on pretty well despite the occasional hysteric fit.

No offense... but if a Klingon or any other the other races you mention touches you, you don't turn into a mindless zombie. The races you mention above don't automatically adapt to every tactic and weapon you have. Or the fact that they took a warp two shuttle and within a few hours had taken over another vessel and were out-running the finest that your fleet had to offer (handing out an ass-stomping to boot). They (Klingons and others) may eventually adapt to you and your tactics after years of study and research and development.

Of course, Archer probably left most of this out of his report to Starfleet Command... figured it wasn't very important.

Yeah, the Klingons, Andorians, et cetera, just bomb you right away, killing or maiming you and your loved ones, destroying your homes, and pursuing the survivors to kill them. Oh, and they know where Earth is. And they live four days away. As opposed to this menace that might get a message about us two hundred years from now, and which might respond someday to the ships of our children's children's children's children's children's children's ships, when the lone starship Earth can put on the table now was ... ah ... actually, able to handle things pretty swiftly and without the Earth being at obvious risk.

Yeah, tell me again which is going to be the danger people are actually going to consider immediate and tangible enough to worry about?

Turn that type of information loose on the general populace and watch the reaction. "War of the Worlds" anyone?

All right; I'm going to do something a touch unusual here and assign homework. On the 28th of September, 1918, Philadelphia held a Liberty Loan drive, a huge parade and festivities to attract subscriptions to the latest financing effort for the World War. Two weeks later, Philadelphia was dying.

The Spanish influenza had reached the city just before the parade and against the pleading of medical authorities, the parade went ahead. Two hundred thousand people were given the chance to get infected by a mysterious disease whose transmission scheme was barely understood but which promised an exceptionally high death rate for exactly the people who ordinarily survived influenza.

There was no stopping it. There was no slowing it. There was no alleviating it. Hospitals couldn't come close to keeping up. Mortuaries couldn't keep up. Children ended up alone in houses filled with dead relatives. If there were any reason in the past century to expect the imminent end of the world this was maybe the best there was.

Your project: document the extend, depth, and breadth of the panic which your premise --- that people will be uniquely horrified by a plague-like meance, the way the Borg did --- spread in southeastern Pennsylvania that horrible month of October 1918.

And incidentally compare that to the documentable examples of panic in October 1938 when people had evidence of ... ah ... alien spaceships shooting people with heat beams, the way Klingons might attack Earth.

``We must cover this up lest the world panic'' is the excuse lazy scriptwriters dig up to explain why events which logically and reasonably should be publicized will remain secret instead. It has little application to realistic events.

 

[WeAreTheBorg]

The fact that they didnt know about the Borg is what made the episode probably the best borg episode since Scorpion, and the scariest since BOBW. We were learning about the borg anew through the characters eyes and it made them totally terrifying, something that was totally lost on Voyager after Scorpion.

So why didnt they know? Because it was in the past and they hadnt encountered the Borg yet. Duh. Yeah they could have found out from the future but that would be a plot device, and those usually are used to enhance the episode, not wreck it.

 

[arch101]

OK - I'm not an enterprise viewer - I watched the first two seasons and thought it's sucked donkey's balls.

Yeah, I gave up after S2 also. But, I finally saw S3 & 4 last year and it was almost a whole different show. MUCH improved. I had no idea while it was on. You should take a look.