This always struck me as an excessive policy. What exactly was so bad or dangerous about Talos IV that the Federation would impose the death penalty simply for visiting?
Why the death penalty for going to Talos IV?
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The idea, as I always understood it, was that if someone learned to duplicate the Talosians' mental powers, it would make them a formidable threat. Not that that really makes a lot of sense, though, since there were never similar interdictions applied to other powerful telepathic races.
There aren't any other telepathic species that destroyed their race by becoming hopelessly addicted to fantasy. The Talosians themselves assert that thats' what'd happen to us if we traded with them.
Turns out we lived okay with the holodeck, though (aside from the odd Barclay), so maybe that crisis would not have happened.
It is just a way of making going to the planet very serious, amping up the drama.
In reality of course it is highly unlikely a civilisation would try to rehabilitate people who rape and murder children but execute people who go somewhere they aren't supposed to, the fact it is "the only death penalty left on the books" is even more daft.
That said it is just a TV show, and Menagerie is a great episode.
In reality of course it is highly unlikely a civilisation would try to rehabilitate people who rape and murder children but execute people who go somewhere they aren't supposed to, the fact it is "the only death penalty left on the books" is even more daft.
That said it is just a TV show, and Menagerie is a great episode.
USS KG5 is right - it was just a contrivance to ratchet up the tension in "The Menagerie." The plot of that episode doesn't hold together at all.
^
Yes but, Trekkies. We love to rationalise things.
"The Menagerie" is good right up until the point it becomes a clip show, at which point it looses all momentum. We get TOS's first and only two-parter and it's a glorified rifftrax.
Yes but, Trekkies. We love to rationalise things.
"The Menagerie" is good right up until the point it becomes a clip show, at which point it looses all momentum. We get TOS's first and only two-parter and it's a glorified rifftrax.
Yeah, it can be argued it's a "clip show", but personally, I define that as presenting clips of footage that has been aired in previous broadcast episodes. "Menagerie" deviated from that trope since the footage from "The Cage" had not been presented in an "aired" episode prior to that. As far as general viewers were concerned, it was all new.
As far as the narrative losing pace once Spock started to present his "evidence", I'll concede that is a legitimate point of discussion.
"A glorified rifftrax..." *Snort!* *Giggle!* I never heard the episode described in that manner, so I must tip my hat to you, good sir! Now I have this zany mental image of the red alert klaxon blaring throughout the ship as Kirk and company run down the corridors shouting, "We've got 'movie sign'!!!"
Sincerely,
Bill
As far as the narrative losing pace once Spock started to present his "evidence", I'll concede that is a legitimate point of discussion.
"A glorified rifftrax..." *Snort!* *Giggle!* I never heard the episode described in that manner, so I must tip my hat to you, good sir! Now I have this zany mental image of the red alert klaxon blaring throughout the ship as Kirk and company run down the corridors shouting, "We've got 'movie sign'!!!"
Sincerely,
Bill
I always assumed it was because the Talosians powers were so great that it presented a major threat to the entire galaxy. Especially if they could get off-planet.
One thing I've thought about, especially after reading the Burning Dreams novel, even if you escaped from the Talosians, could you ever be free in your own mind? I mean, wouldn't there always be a part of you wondering if what you experience for the rest of your life is just some illusion.
One thing I've thought about, especially after reading the Burning Dreams novel, even if you escaped from the Talosians, could you ever be free in your own mind? I mean, wouldn't there always be a part of you wondering if what you experience for the rest of your life is just some illusion.
"The Menagerie" is the only good clip show in history. Pike's story is the only excuse for the thing.
And this Trekkie has realized that rationalizing this shit is a waste of life.
And this Trekkie has realized that rationalizing this shit is a waste of life.
Never really thought about it being a clip show, but I guess you're right.
(in a sense, I don't really need someone to come on here with a five paragraph paper on why The Menagerie isn't a clip show)
(in a sense, I don't really need someone to come on here with a five paragraph paper on why The Menagerie isn't a clip show)
It can't be a "clip show" if the footage came from a single, unaired episode.
There, Starbreaker, just one sentence.
There, Starbreaker, just one sentence.
That's right. It's not a clip show, it's a repurposing of an unaired pilot. Lots of shows have had pilots that didn't get broadcast and have found ways to incorporate their footage. Lost in Space spread its pilot footage out among the first five episodes. Gilligan's Island cut its premiere episode together from bits of the pilot and two other episodes, then went back and used most of the leftover pilot footage in a Christmas-themed flashback episode where they reminisced about their first day on the island.
The problem with using the "Cage" footage was that everything was so different from the series proper. It was actually quite clever to treat it as something that happened years in the past. That was the only way they could've incorporated the footage.
I'm surprised by the "clip show" comment, and it made me realize something. I guess people today are so used to seeing "The Cage" presented as a separate entity that "The Menagerie" does seem repetitive. But keep in mind that the general public never saw the uncut version of the pilot (except for the occasional convention showing, perhaps) until its home video release in 1986. For 20 years, "The Menagerie" was the only version of the story we knew, so there was no sense of it being a "clip show." It was a unique and fascinating glimpse into an otherwise unseen era of the show's history. And had "The Menagerie" not been made, then Captain Pike's sole onscreen mission would've been lost for two decades.
(Only three paragraphs. So there.
)
The problem with using the "Cage" footage was that everything was so different from the series proper. It was actually quite clever to treat it as something that happened years in the past. That was the only way they could've incorporated the footage.
I'm surprised by the "clip show" comment, and it made me realize something. I guess people today are so used to seeing "The Cage" presented as a separate entity that "The Menagerie" does seem repetitive. But keep in mind that the general public never saw the uncut version of the pilot (except for the occasional convention showing, perhaps) until its home video release in 1986. For 20 years, "The Menagerie" was the only version of the story we knew, so there was no sense of it being a "clip show." It was a unique and fascinating glimpse into an otherwise unseen era of the show's history. And had "The Menagerie" not been made, then Captain Pike's sole onscreen mission would've been lost for two decades.
(Only three paragraphs. So there.
)
It's a show with clips in it, and it's a pretty glib description of the bulk of the two-parter: People sit around, watch the clips, comment on them. That's essentially almost the entire episode, and that's also precisely why we need the whole 'Spock may die' plot, so it wouldn't seem as inconsequential as it really feels. I thought that was pretty obvious from the context of the post, but I guess not.
Because if they didn't - there would have been less tension during Spock's court martial. Effectively - Spock was on trial for his LIFE; and because it was Kirk's ship, so was the Captain.
It's a clip show.
And a dessert topping.
Ok, here's my theory. There's some flaws in my theory, and I'll address that at the end.
Using precedent from the US, legislator typically only makes new laws. They rarely get rid of old ones. Old laws are (typically) only removed when challenged in court (oftentimes cited as "unconstitutional"). A law that no one ever breaks will never be put before court, and therefor will never be removed.
So, no one ever goes to Talos IV, and the law is never challenged in court. People still murder, etc, so those death-penalty laws are removed as being illegal laws.
Now to the flaws:
The law, accompanied with the death penalty, wasn't enacted that long ago. It was enacted after Christopher Pike visited the planet.
The death penalty law sound like it might've been across the board.
Just some ideas.
Using precedent from the US, legislator typically only makes new laws. They rarely get rid of old ones. Old laws are (typically) only removed when challenged in court (oftentimes cited as "unconstitutional"). A law that no one ever breaks will never be put before court, and therefor will never be removed.
So, no one ever goes to Talos IV, and the law is never challenged in court. People still murder, etc, so those death-penalty laws are removed as being illegal laws.
Now to the flaws:
The law, accompanied with the death penalty, wasn't enacted that long ago. It was enacted after Christopher Pike visited the planet.
The death penalty law sound like it might've been across the board.
Just some ideas.
Yes, let's remember the lifespan of this death penalty rule. Captain Pike proposed it in 2254 or so, and it existed until 2268 or so when it was first challenged and found both inefficient and unnecessary. For that time, it was Starfleet's General Order 7 (or more accurately, GO7 included the ban and penalty on Talos visits, perhaps among other things). Yet a few years later, in "Turnabout Intruder", the only death penalty in the books was General Order 4 (or something mentioned in GO4) instead.
It only seems natural to me that Starfleet would encounter truly mortal threats to the Federation, its citizens and its way of life in the course of its deep space explorations. There would be an initial reaction to such threat, naturally maximized in potency to match the graveness of the threat - and then a gradual increasing understanding of the threat, which would also lead to gradual easing of the countermeasures. New threats would constantly keep emerging, though, so it might be standard for Starfleet to constantly have one or two death penalties in the books, but never for more than a few decades.
Certainly the Talosian threat was a grave one: had these little telepaths been intent on galactic domination, they would easily have achieved that goal, as long as somebody provided them with an interstellar spacecraft. Death penalty, or threat of some other sort of extreme punishment such as torture of loved ones, would sound like a good deterrent, since alternatives would be lacking. Starfleet couldn't blockade the planet because the Talosians would capture the blockading ships and take over the galaxy. Starfleet couldn't issue comprehensive warnings to the general public, either, because many would see the Talosians as a useful tool in their own plans of galactic domination or other evildoing.
The risk of complacency at the acquisition of Talosian self-satisfaction techniques was never a serious one, and probably played no role in Starfleet's decision to isolate the planet. And the risk of galactic conquest was exposed as minimal in "The Menagerie", where it was shown both that all of Starfleet's efforts at stopping people from visiting Talos were futile, and that the failure of those efforts did not in fact lead to a Talosian takeover of the universe.
Generally speaking, the Star Trek galaxy could be expected to present a great many threats that would lead to the quick extinction of mankind unless mankind responded with draconian measures. That the TV shows and movies show relatively few such threats is an argument against those draconian measures - but it's not an argument the heroes themselves could use. They can't know that the galaxy is in fact an unrealistically safe place where nothing only rated for adult audiences can ever happen.
Timo Saloniemi
It only seems natural to me that Starfleet would encounter truly mortal threats to the Federation, its citizens and its way of life in the course of its deep space explorations. There would be an initial reaction to such threat, naturally maximized in potency to match the graveness of the threat - and then a gradual increasing understanding of the threat, which would also lead to gradual easing of the countermeasures. New threats would constantly keep emerging, though, so it might be standard for Starfleet to constantly have one or two death penalties in the books, but never for more than a few decades.
Certainly the Talosian threat was a grave one: had these little telepaths been intent on galactic domination, they would easily have achieved that goal, as long as somebody provided them with an interstellar spacecraft. Death penalty, or threat of some other sort of extreme punishment such as torture of loved ones, would sound like a good deterrent, since alternatives would be lacking. Starfleet couldn't blockade the planet because the Talosians would capture the blockading ships and take over the galaxy. Starfleet couldn't issue comprehensive warnings to the general public, either, because many would see the Talosians as a useful tool in their own plans of galactic domination or other evildoing.
The risk of complacency at the acquisition of Talosian self-satisfaction techniques was never a serious one, and probably played no role in Starfleet's decision to isolate the planet. And the risk of galactic conquest was exposed as minimal in "The Menagerie", where it was shown both that all of Starfleet's efforts at stopping people from visiting Talos were futile, and that the failure of those efforts did not in fact lead to a Talosian takeover of the universe.
Generally speaking, the Star Trek galaxy could be expected to present a great many threats that would lead to the quick extinction of mankind unless mankind responded with draconian measures. That the TV shows and movies show relatively few such threats is an argument against those draconian measures - but it's not an argument the heroes themselves could use. They can't know that the galaxy is in fact an unrealistically safe place where nothing only rated for adult audiences can ever happen.
Timo Saloniemi
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