Thoughts on "Relics"

[infinix]

First of all, one of my favorite TNG episodes. Now that I am getting older, as I look back at the episode, I find myself able to identify with Scotty. I thought the acting was superb and loved the scene where two old men trade stories of the past on the holodeck.

I will say that if I were Picard, I would've given Scotty the Captain's Yacht instead. After all, Scotty had a rank of captain as well and I'm sure Starfleet wouldn't mind. That shuttle craft was dingy in comparison and it would have given us a glimpse of what the captain's yacht looked like.

 

[Cpt. Chris Pike]

To be honest I never liked how they made Scotty out to be a bumbling fool just getting in everyone's way.

From the original series and the movies, Scotty would not have acted the way they made him on that episode.

Also, in the new movie he's the inventor of warp transporting.

In fact, I am betting his achievements would have been required reading at the academy.

 

[Yeoman Randi]

I love this episode, but it makes me want to punch Geordi in the head. I swear, could he be any ruder?

 

[infinix]

To be honest I never liked how they made Scotty out to be a bumbling fool just getting in everyone's way.

From the original series and the movies, Scotty would not have acted the way they made him on that episode.

Also, in the new movie he's the inventor of warp transporting.

In fact, I am betting his achievements would have been required reading at the academy.

I thought Scotty's engine modifications were required reading at the academy?

About Scotty getting in people's way, I guess it was unavoidable. If we plucked Touring from his time and dropped him in today's computer lab, he would just get in the way of everyone, too.

 

[Trekker4747]

To be honest I never liked how they made Scotty out to be a bumbling fool just getting in everyone's way.

He was in everybody's way!

You're at your job one day doing your thing, leading your team, the top man in the place. All of the sudden in walks a man who has been in a coma for 70 years but had your job when he was last awake. (Ummm, he didn't age a day while in that coma, cryogenics or something.)

The information he's going to have is decades behind what is relevant. Is a man who last worked with computers in 1940 going to be of any use to someone today if he's without the knowledge of the intervening time? His technology was based on tubes, wires, and machines that filled up entire rooms. Stuff that would've occupied an entire building is now contained within that box on your desk.

So you're doing your job, you're working on a big project with a deadline due inside of an hour, and this guy is now yammering about nonsense and telling stores. He's being loud, he's getting in the way of people, and then walks up to one of the terminals and starts dicking around with it exclaiming something on it isn't working right.

Something that IS working right.

He then walks over to another machine, pulls a panel off and tells you that the machine isn't running right. It is. It's running exactly as it's supposed to be doing.

You tell him this, and go about your job.

So the guy now walks up to you and tells you what he thinks about how you're doing your job and telling you you should be great-full for his decades out of date knowledge. He then criticizes your work and storms out of the room.

Now, tell me. Who was the asshole here?

Scotty was barging around the ship pretty much getting in peoples way when a huge discovery was just made and people are working on studying it. As a man who once did these things you'd think he'd understand. When Geordi first meets Scotty on the Jenolan, talks with him in the corridor and later in sickbay he seems willing to talk with Scotty when he has the time. "We're pretty busy down [in engineering.]"

Picard seems willing to talk with Scotty, when he has the time. He's on duty, has a ship to run, and it just made an enormous (both literally and figuratively) discovery.

Scotty was a man pushing 80 on a ship with more than enough amenities to entertain him and plenty of things he can do to "catch up" on the seventy-five years of technological growth he has missed. But, no, he instead pesters the fuck out of Geordi and drinks all of the bartender's true whiskey.

Hell, to show how much people wanted to be with him Picard seeks the man out when he gets off duty! Showing that people weren't just getting Soctty out of their way, they just had shit to do. But, instead, Scotty acted like a bored-out-of-his-skull child on "Take your kid to work day."

Scotty was the bigger ass in this episode.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

Scotty was an old man out of place. And it hurt. He was once very useful and finds himself gravely behind the times. People around him try to be patient but find it very difficult to do so when the man is talking about stuff he doesn't understand anymore. It'll take him a while to come up to speed again, but right at this moment, he's being a pain.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

First of all, one of my favorite TNG episodes. Now that I am getting older, as I look back at the episode, I find myself able to identify with Scotty. I thought the acting was superb and loved the scene where two old men trade stories of the past on the holodeck.

I will say that if I were Picard, I would've given Scotty the Captain's Yacht instead. After all, Scotty had a rank of captain as well and I'm sure Starfleet wouldn't mind. That shuttle craft was dingy in comparison and it would have given us a glimpse of what the captain's yacht looked like.

I agree 110%. Easily one of the top five TNG episodes. It was doubly cool that the B-plot involved one of the foremost speculative engineering marvels, the Dyson Sphere.

The captain's yacht is a great idea. Maybe the Special Remastered Director's Cut Edition Redux in H3D can have that.

 

[GhostofRonPaul]

I was just glad to see Scotty was given the chance to be useful by the end of the episode. A better ship would have been cool.

 

[Vanyel]

To be honest I never liked how they made Scotty out to be a bumbling fool just getting in everyone's way.

He was in everybody's way!

You're at your job one day doing your thing, leading your team, the top man in the place. All of the sudden in walks a man who has been in a coma for 70 years but had your job when he was last awake. (Ummm, he didn't age a day while in that coma, cryogenics or something.)

The information he's going to have is decades behind what is relevant. Is a man who last worked with computers in 1940 going to be of any use to someone today if he's without the knowledge of the intervening time? His technology was based on tubes, wires, and machines that filled up entire rooms. Stuff that would've occupied an entire building is now contained within that box on your desk.

So you're doing your job, you're working on a big project with a deadline due inside of an hour, and this guy is now yammering about nonsense and telling stores. He's being loud, he's getting in the way of people, and then walks up to one of the terminals and starts dicking around with it exclaiming something on it isn't working right.

Something that IS working right.

He then walks over to another machine, pulls a panel off and tells you that the machine isn't running right. It is. It's running exactly as it's supposed to be doing.

You tell him this, and go about your job.

So the guy now walks up to you and tells you what he thinks about how you're doing your job and telling you you should be great-full for his decades out of date knowledge. He then criticizes your work and storms out of the room.

Now, tell me. Who was the asshole here?

Scotty was barging around the ship pretty much getting in peoples way when a huge discovery was just made and people are working on studying it. As a man who once did these things you'd think he'd understand. When Geordi first meets Scotty on the Jenolan, talks with him in the corridor and later in sickbay he seems willing to talk with Scotty when he has the time. "We're pretty busy down [in engineering.]"

Picard seems willing to talk with Scotty, when he has the time. He's on duty, has a ship to run, and it just made an enormous (both literally and figuratively) discovery.

Scotty was a man pushing 80 on a ship with more than enough amenities to entertain him and plenty of things he can do to "catch up" on the seventy-five years of technological growth he has missed. But, no, he instead pesters the fuck out of Geordi and drinks all of the bartender's true whiskey.

Hell, to show how much people wanted to be with him Picard seeks the man out when he gets off duty! Showing that people weren't just getting Soctty out of their way, they just had shit to do. But, instead, Scotty acted like a bored-out-of-his-skull child on "Take your kid to work day."

Scotty was the bigger ass in this episode.

You are 100% correct.

However, the Enterprise had a 3 shift rotation at the time, surely someone from Engineering could have been spared and may have gladly chaperoned him around the ship.

 

[MikeS]

I'd just like to add my name to the list of people who think Trekker 4747 has it bang on.

Also, in the new movie he's the inventor of warp transporting.

This episode takes place in a different timeline and we don't know that he invented that in both timelines. In-fact we have evidence to the contrary. In The Schizoid Man, the Enterprise has to approach the planet, drop out of warp and beam the away-team to the surface before warping away again. It is implied that this is dangerous and irregular. If they had that fancy "warp-transporting technology" they could have just beamed them there from outside of the planetary system.

 

[Trevacious]

I'd just like to add my name to the list of people who think Trekker 4747 has it bang on.

Also, in the new movie he's the inventor of warp transporting.

This episode takes place in a different timeline and we don't know that he invented that in both timelines. In-fact we have evidence to the contrary. In The Schizoid Man, the Enterprise has to approach the planet, drop out of warp and beam the away-team to the surface before warping away again. It is implied that this is dangerous and irregular. If they had that fancy "warp-transporting technology" they could have just beamed them there from outside of the planetary system.

Yeah, I think Spock Prime introduced a technology there that was well-beyond beyond even TNG's capabilities. No telling what the long-term impact of that could be. Scotty probably didn't invent it originally until sometime after his arrival in the 24th century in Relics.

The new 24th and 25th centuries may turn out to be barely recognizable.

 

[Trekker4747]

However, the Enterprise had a 3 shift rotation at the time, surely someone from Engineering could have been spared and may have gladly chaperoned him around the ship.

Scotty is an 80-year old adult man in a time when people live to the very extent of the human lifespan and beyond, he doesn't need a babysitter, nor is the Enterprise a cruise ship that needs an entertainment director/staff to chaperone around guests. Scotty is also a distinguished, decorated, officer who deserves to be escorted around the ship by a bridge officer not some grunt one-pip.

You're telling me Scotty couldn't manage on his own devices for eight freaking hours (assuming he found at the beginning of the senior staff's eight-hour shift) to wait for the senior staff to get off duty and meet with him? Have a dinner in the Captain's mess and give him the treatment he deserves?

The only thing I'll say that we should have seen is Scotty getting a visit from Troi (and this happens in the novelization of the book but he spurns her psychobabble-nonsense.)

Picard, Geordi and Crusher are all very kind and gracious to Scotty when they meet him and are in sickbay. It's just that right now, they all have stuff to do. Scotty, you've been stuck in a transporter for 80 years. You're on the finest, most advanced, most luxurious ship Starfleet has ever made. Pull up to the replicator and order-up a nice plate of haggis, read the database on technological advances, there's shit to do on the ship. You don't need to barge into restricted areas and proclaim to be of any kind of help when you're three-fourths of a century behind on the technology.

In few hours, people will seek you out and gladly talk with you about things, catch you up, and show you all of the cool new stuff we have now! You're a grown man, for crying out loud. Hell you DID this job? How would you have liked if Trip Tucker came into your engine room drawling on about bullshit he did with his solid-state electronics and wanting to help you out on your fine lass of a machine?

 

[FalTorPan]

"Relics" was one of TNG's finest hours, and it was certainly James Doohan's finest hour in Trek.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Trekker4747, you're forgetting the moral to the story, and why Scotty deserves the captain's yacht.

If Scotty had been a good boy, and not been such a pain in the ass, then Picard might well not have sent him and Geordi over to the Jenolan, before bumbling the Enterprise into the hatch mechanism. Then, Scotty would have been stuck inside the Sphere with everybody else, and they all would have been in much deeper shit. They barely got out before lethal exposure to radiation as is, thanks to Scotty's ability to repair the Jenolan and use it as a giant doorstop.

Recall that the away mission to the Jenolan was mainly intended to make Scotty feel useful. Scotty being such a squeaky wheel brought his feelings to Picard's attention really only just in time before the blunder at the hatch. Scotty may have been annoying, but he sure turned out to be indispensable. I don't think Picard minded. In fact, I wonder if Picard was quick to appreciate Scott's feelings, and to feel motivated to tend to them, due, shall we say, to his own seniority.

 

[Vanyel]

However, the Enterprise had a 3 shift rotation at the time, surely someone from Engineering could have been spared and may have gladly chaperoned him around the ship.

Scotty is an 80-year old adult man in a time when people live to the very extent of the human lifespan and beyond, he doesn't need a babysitter, nor is the Enterprise a cruise ship that needs an entertainment director/staff to chaperone around guests. Scotty is also a distinguished, decorated, officer who deserves to be escorted around the ship by a bridge officer not some grunt one-pip.

You're telling me Scotty couldn't manage on his own devices for eight freaking hours (assuming he found at the beginning of the senior staff's eight-hour shift) to wait for the senior staff to get off duty and meet with him? Have a dinner in the Captain's mess and give him the treatment he deserves?

The only thing I'll say that we should have seen is Scotty getting a visit from Troi (and this happens in the novelization of the book but he spurns her psychobabble-nonsense.)

Picard, Geordi and Crusher are all very kind and gracious to Scotty when they meet him and are in sickbay. It's just that right now, they all have stuff to do. Scotty, you've been stuck in a transporter for 80 years. You're on the finest, most advanced, most luxurious ship Starfleet has ever made. Pull up to the replicator and order-up a nice plate of haggis, read the database on technological advances, there's shit to do on the ship. You don't need to barge into restricted areas and proclaim to be of any kind of help when you're three-fourths of a century behind on the technology.

In few hours, people will seek you out and gladly talk with you about things, catch you up, and show you all of the cool new stuff we have now! You're a grown man, for crying out loud. Hell you DID this job? How would you have liked if Trip Tucker came into your engine room drawling on about bullshit he did with his solid-state electronics and wanting to help you out on your fine lass of a machine?

It didn't have to be a poor old Ensign Nobody giving him a tour, Data had enough time to visit with him in 10 Forward. Also Data doesn't need sleep. He could have shown Scotty around the ship, explained to him in detail about ship operation advancements made, new technologies, anything that might have been based on upgrades he made to the 1701 and so on an still be able to work 2 shifts.

 

[Cpt. Chris Pike]

To be honest I never liked how they made Scotty out to be a bumbling fool just getting in everyone's way.

All of the sudden in walks a man who has been in a coma for 70 years but had your job when he was last awake.

Actually, he didn't have any job.

If you remember he was on his way to a retirement community when he hit the sphere. Nothing from the movies or TOS episodes would leave me to believe he would have acted like that.

 

[Trekker4747]

To be honest I never liked how they made Scotty out to be a bumbling fool just getting in everyone's way.

All of the sudden in walks a man who has been in a coma for 70 years but had your job when he was last awake.

Actually, he didn't have any job.

If you remember he was on his way to a retirement community when he hit the sphere. Nothing from the movies or TOS episodes would leave me to believe he would have acted like that.

:face palm:

Captain Pedant is pedantic.

Fine,

"All of the sudden in walks a man who had your job 70-some years ago before retiring and then falling into a coma on his way to a retirement community."

Is that better?

Does it really matter when Scotty last operated as a Chief Engineer? The point is that Scotty's knowledge is three-quarters of a century out of date and would be useless for any "help" he could offer Geordi on studying the Dyson Sphere or in doing anything to look over Geordi's work?

I mean, Geordi is the Chief Engineer on the Federation flagship, Scotty. Do you really think he doesn't know at what percentage-rate something needs to operate at or that his dilithium crystals are near fracture?

 

[Skellington]

Scotty was a man pushing 80 on a ship with more than enough amenities to entertain him and plenty of things he can do to "catch up" on the seventy-five years of technological growth he has missed. But, no, he instead pesters the fuck out of Geordi and drinks all of the bartender's true whiskey.

Hell, to show how much people wanted to be with him Picard seeks the man out when he gets off duty! Showing that people weren't just getting Soctty out of their way, they just had shit to do. But, instead, Scotty acted like a bored-out-of-his-skull child on "Take your kid to work day."

A fair assessment.

I'd just like to add my name to the list of people who think Trekker 4747 has it bang on.

Also, in the new movie he's the inventor of warp transporting.

This episode takes place in a different timeline and we don't know that he invented that in both timelines. In-fact we have evidence to the contrary. In The Schizoid Man, the Enterprise has to approach the planet, drop out of warp and beam the away-team to the surface before warping away again. It is implied that this is dangerous and irregular. If they had that fancy "warp-transporting technology" they could have just beamed them there from outside of the planetary system.

If memory serves, warp transport technology of a kind is implied near the end of Star Trek VI, when they're approaching Earth and Kirk wants to know if they're in transport range yet. As for the date of the publication of the theory in the original timeline, I don't think that the older Spock in Star Trek '09 had the opportunity to research it - so when he says that Scotty first postulated the theory of transwarp beaming, he's probably working from memory. As an aside, when programming the transporter Spock tells Scotty that it's his (Scotty's) equation for achieving transport beaming. NuScotty is surprised and impressed by the equation.

 

[Cpt. Chris Pike]

All of the sudden in walks a man who has been in a coma for 70 years but had your job when he was last awake.

Actually, he didn't have any job.

If you remember he was on his way to a retirement community when he hit the sphere. Nothing from the movies or TOS episodes would leave me to believe he would have acted like that.

:face palm:

Captain Pedant is pedantic.

Fine,

"All of the sudden in walks a man who had your job 70-some years ago before retiring and then falling into a coma on his way to a retirement community."

Is that better?

Does it really matter when Scotty last operated as a Chief Engineer? The point is that Scotty's knowledge is three-quarters of a century out of date and would be useless for any "help" he could offer Geordi on studying the Dyson Sphere or in doing anything to look over Geordi's work?

I mean, Geordi is the Chief Engineer on the Federation flagship, Scotty. Do you really think he doesn't know at what percentage-rate something needs to operate at or that his dilithium crystals are near fracture?

What I am saying is Scotty would have never acted that way. I think the writers of the show took liberty's to make the episode more interesting.

There are many discrepancies, such as Scotty exclaiming:

"I bet Jim Kirk himself dragged the ship out of moth balls to come find me"

Doesn't Scotty realize that Kirk died in the energy ribbon? After all, he was there when it happened.

75 years or 75 minutes. I think Scotty could assess the situation and come to terms with how technology has advanced in a short amount of time. He certainly wouldn't act like a bumbling fool.

This episode takes place in a different timeline and we don't know that he invented that in both timelines.

But of course we do. Old Spock is from the original time line. He is the one that tells Scotty it was his idea, his formula. Therefore, we can assume it was Scotty's idea in both time lines. Old Spock just showed Scotty his formula prematurely in order for them to get back on the Enterprise.

He would have invented the formula given time, but circumstances sped up the need for it in the new movie.

 

[Skellington]

Doesn't Scotty realize that Kirk died in the energy ribbon? After all, he was there when it happened.

Generations retcons Relics, actually, not the other way around. It's an early example of Ron Moore contradicting himself as a writer.