Did Picard make the right decision with the Son'a/Baku

[DWF]

But in the end Picard knew what was right and what was wrong from his point of view and he stood up for people who couldn't stand up for themselves, morally he did the right thing.

Is it your position then that the Federation (through Starfleet) should be consistent and always stand "up for people who couldn't stand up for themselves?" No matter where in the galaxy they find these people?

The Federtion has stood up for the little guy in the past, but this was Picard who personally took up the fight, he took his pips off so he was acting on his own.

 

[Edit_XYZ]

Second:
The baku did not settle unclaimed space.
Why?
Because when this space was claimed by the klingons, they would have searched their new property and evicted these few hundreds of luddites with extreme prejudice, especially considering what a clement/valuable M class world these luddites were on.

Except from the data Soong found in the Klingon database the Klingons were aware of two inhabitable planets in the Briar Patch and they didn't move to take them, probably becuase it would be more trouble than it is worth as they would have to move ships into a difficult to navigate area where you have to travel a considerable distance just to communicate with the rest of the galaxy (so basically its Bumf@#k Idaho in space), and they only thing they would seemingly get from all the effort it would take to move in is some particles which go against their philosophy of dying gloriously in battle.

So no I really don't think the Klingons would bother with a backwater planet of little importance (to them probably) thats hard as hell to get to.

One does not have to inhabit the planets to claim them - much as you don't have to be on your land to claim it as property.
As to the notion that the klingons - or the romulans - won't claim VERY valuable real-estate such as M class worlds in their space as their own - .


MacLeod

Before the klingons, the briar patch belonged to the romulans. T'Girl went into detail about it - short version, same considerations as with the klingons apply.

The baku remain tresspasers; they are very far from being able to invoke adverse possesion. BTW, you don't need to cloak a planet for your possession to be hidden; merely hide (not announcing your presence and, generally, trying to stay under the radar) on a small patch of the planet (as the baku were doing by their own admission).

And, as said, tresspassers are evicted - no compensation required. BTW - tresspassers are also the ones entering your land - not only your house.
Squatting is about occuping an abandoned piece of real-estate; and the briar patch is - and was - claimed as property by various polities.

Must a court of law decide over eviction or eminent domanin? Of course.
And considering the situation (billions vs. 600), guess what would the quite moral decision of any court of law be? The baku are relocated + given access to the immortality drug and the rings are harvested.
But wait: The baku don't agree to hyposprays for immortality - it's against their luddite philosophy! They want it to come 'naturally', on the land they tresspass on. And they don't care that billions will suffer and die for this.
As repeatedly said in this thread, the only reason the writers didn't went this route is because they didn't want to telegraph the entitlement complex of the baku. That doesn't stop you and other posters from using this smokescreen of an argument repeatedly, though - along with moving the goalposts vis-a-vis ~'federation law may be different', etc.

 

[T'Girl]

Morally and Ethically, Picard turned on a Federation that had turned it's back on its own core principals.

But wouldn't it make a certain amount of sense that another of the Federation's core principals would be to look after it's own people?

Remember, the Baku didn't have to be moved to get at the particles, they were being move to protect them from the harvest process.

And nothing says that the Baku would not have equal access to the medical properties of the particles after being move to another world.

They just wouldn't have sole access anymore.

 

[DWF]

Morally and Ethically, Picard turned on a Federation that had turned it's back on its own core principals.

But wouldn't it make a certain amount of sense that another of the Federation's core principals would be to look after it's own people?

Remember, the Baku didn't have to be moved to get at the particles, they were being move to protect them from the harvest process.

And nothing says that the Baku would not have equal access to the medical properties of the particles after being move to another world.

They just wouldn't have sole access anymore.

Do you really believe that the Son'a would've shared the benefits of the process with the Federation or the Baku forthat matter? It was an illegal and immoral operation and they knew it oterhwise there'd be no reason to hide what they were doing.

 

[sonak]

Morally and Ethically, Picard turned on a Federation that had turned it's back on its own core principals.

But wouldn't it make a certain amount of sense that another of the Federation's core principals would be to look after it's own people?

Remember, the Baku didn't have to be moved to get at the particles, they were being move to protect them from the harvest process.

And nothing says that the Baku would not have equal access to the medical properties of the particles after being move to another world.

They just wouldn't have sole access anymore.

Do you really believe that the Son'a would've shared the benefits of the process with the Federation or the Baku forthat matter? It was an illegal and immoral operation and they knew it oterhwise there'd be no reason to hide what they were doing.

another sign of losing the argument-the other side is back to the "but the Son'a were going to betray them in the end!" tactic, for which there is ZERO EVIDENCE.

Once again, the Son'a were very cooperative with the Federation UNTIL Picard began screwing up the whole operation.

if we're not limited by what's on film and can just make stuff up,why not argue that the Baku "peaceful Luddite" thing was a ruse and that they were secretly a guild of assassins?

 

[R. Star]

if we're not limited by what's on film and can just make stuff up,why not argue that the Baku "peaceful Luddite" thing was a ruse and that they were secretly a guild of assassins?

This would explain the plot hole of the Baku being able to exile the Sona and their technology.

 

[horatio83]

In Insurrection, Picard decides to side with the Baku violating orders from his Admiral as well as a part of the Federation Council (section 31 might've been involved also). Picard's decision prevented the Federation from accessing the planet, preventing them from developing various medical breakthroughs.

Did he make the right decision?

Yes. Engaging in kidnapping, theft and the various implications of these deeds is criminal while cooperating with an entirely unreliable ally who stabs you in the back at the first chance he gets is plain dumb and suicidal.
INS features no dilemma, it is a simple morality play. So were all the other Picard vs. the evil Admiral stories from TNG. It works as such (of course any simply morality play is of limited appeal) and it naturally fails if you perceive it as something which it isn't.

 

[DonIago]

I feel sorry for the Federation President who has to explain that they allowed millions of people to suffer pain because the alternative was moving 600 people from a planet that wasn't even their planet of origin.

 

[R. Star]

I feel sorry for the Federation President who has to explain that they allowed millions of people to suffer pain because the alternative was moving 600 people from a planet that wasn't even their planet of origin.

It's not like there was any immediate need for new medical breakthroughs. Only a huge war going on.

 

[DonIago]

The immediate need in this case could be construed as the possibility that if the Federation didn't work with the Son'a the Son'a would likely sneak in and do it on their own. Given there was a huge war going on Starfleet almost certainly wouldn't have the ships to spare to indefinitely protect a single planet, especially a non-Federation planet with, in objective terms, a very small population.

 

[DWF]

if we're not limited by what's on film and can just make stuff up,why not argue that the Baku "peaceful Luddite" thing was a ruse and that they were secretly a guild of assassins?

This would explain the plot hole of the Baku being able to exile the Sona and their technology.

I got the impression that the Son'a left on their own.

 

[horatio83]

SOJEF: A century ago, a group of our young people wanted to follow the ways of the offlanders. They tried to take over the colony and when they failed...
RU'AFO: And when we failed, you exiled us to die slowly.

Of course this doesn't make much sense once you think about it. A bunch of young people have technology (from where?) that enables them to leave the planet but they are unable to take power from their parents who live in a pre-industrial economy? The background is, as usual, not well-flashed out as, hardly a surprise either, the story is focused upon other stuff.

 

[R. Star]

SOJEF: A century ago, a group of our young people wanted to follow the ways of the offlanders. They tried to take over the colony and when they failed...
RU'AFO: And when we failed, you exiled us to die slowly.

Of course this doesn't make much sense once you think about it. A bunch of young people have technology (from where?) that enables them to leave the planet but they are unable to take power from their parents who live in a pre-industrial economy? The background is, as usual, not well-flashed out as, hardly a surprise either, the story is focused upon other stuff.

Yeah, riveting stuff about Troi and Crusher's boobs being firm, Worf going through Klingon puberty and Data and Picard singing. Stuff way more crucial to a successful movie than minor details about your plot making sense!

 

[horatio83]

I agree that they should have thought it through better. Might have something to do with the first story draft being more along the lines of a Heart of Darkness like story and the resulting loss of time and energy for the actual script.
But then again you have the same problem in most Trek stories with background stuff. WWII and the Eugenic Wars that serves as fictional historical background for so many Trek stories, from Kodos and Khan to the pilot of TNG, Bashir and the end of ENT, has always been pretty vague. But OK, in this case vague isn't a problem; there are no contradictions like in INS.
Yet in ST09 the 24th century background story makes no sense, whether you include Countdown or not. Spock wanted to help the Rommies and then Nero blames him? Shouldn't he rather blame his own government instead of the Vulcans who helps and fails? Is it Romulan upbringing (don't question the leaders) plus racism plus the desire to find a scapegoat in a catastrophe? No idea, you have to guess to make sense out of it.
But then again the movie hardly fails because of this, does it (who cares about motivations; Khan didn't really have a reason to be angry about Kirk in TWOK either, he did after all choose his exile)? And I would claim the same in the case of INS, it doesn't fail because the background about the Sona and Baku is unclear.

 

[sonak]

if we're not limited by what's on film and can just make stuff up,why not argue that the Baku "peaceful Luddite" thing was a ruse and that they were secretly a guild of assassins?

This would explain the plot hole of the Baku being able to exile the Sona and their technology.

I got the impression that the Son'a left on their own.

nope, they were exiled when their attempt to take over failed.

which means we have TWO questions:

-how was their attempt to take over "thwarted" by Luddite pacifists

-how do a bunch of Luddite pacifists exile an advanced techology-embracing group?


seriously, NO ONE in the film production spotted this glaring flaw and said, "uh guys, this makes no sense and creates more problems than it solves?"

 

[T'Girl]

Do you really believe that the Son'a would've shared the benefits of the process with the Federation or the Baku forthat matter?

Yes, that's exact what I believe, and this is why.

The Sona must have been the ones to have approached the Federation Council, and not the other way around. The Federation considered the planet to be theirs. If the Sona simply moved the Baku and harvested the particle all by themselves, and the Federation found out about it, the Federation would be pissed about the theft of their natural resources and would have gone to the Sona for satisfaction. The Sona didn't want long range problems.

In other words, the Sona were scared of Starfleet.

Even with everything that happen in the movie, the Sona would have kept whatever they previously negotiated (one percent?), and the rest would have gone to the Federation. Given that the Holoship was of Federation design, and not Sona, when the dust settled the Federation would have had "custody" of the Baku. The Baku would have had the same access to the particles as the rest of the people in the Federation.

I feel sorry for the Federation President who has to explain that they allowed millions of people to suffer pain because the alternative was moving 600 people from a planet that wasn't even their planet of origin.

Which is why I believe that after the "review," the Council was going to reaffirm their original decision to harvest the particles. And if they didn't, then the Council Persons promptly selected to replace them would. Imagine if the US Congress decided to withheld the cures for heart disease, cancer, and hiv/aid. How many minutes do you think they'd last in office?

Inspite of family blood feuds, kidnapping plots, accusations of spying, and the murder of an Admiral, the particle continued to have the same ability to help billions upon billions of people in the Federation.

Nothing that happen in the movie changed that.

And from hundreds of light years away, the health properties of the particles were the only thing that counted in the "big picture" of the Council's decisions.

There are approximately a trillion beings living on the planets of the Federation, and only 0.00000000001% of that number had to be moved.

It's not like there was any immediate need for new medical breakthroughs. Only a huge war going on.

And don't forget a massive civilian population. We saw several episodes with the Enterprise rushing to get some unusual medication, or someone had a affliction that was previously unknown. Every time something was cured, another ailment sprang up. Apparently they never did figure out how to repair the birth defect affecting Geordi's eyes (or Beverly's and Deanna's sagging tits).

So the argument that "they already have medical treatments" doesn't work.

Captain Pike: "Where's Helmsman McKenna?"
Lieutenant Sulu: "He has lungworm, sir."

 

[OneBuckFilms]

Then again, maybe they didn't have good reason. Baybe does not establish anything. Define Good Reason by their society and rules.

Truth is, we don't know enough about that conflict.

There are tons of reasons of to oppose a Luddite philosophy: less needless labor, better standard of living with technology, etc. If I was living in a Ba'ku village and I had to live in some medieval village while other people got travel around the universe in star ships, I might be upset too. I would begin to think Ba'ku society was reactionary and flawed. Why should everyone accept that such a philosophy is good for everyone and not try to oppose it if they think its flawed?

The fact that we know nothing about the rift between the Son'a and the Ba'ku hurts the story. The Ba'ku having the right eject the Son'a from their planet and the Son'a not having that same right looks hypocritical.

How this story supposed to be an effective moral dilemma when the Ba'ku are supposedly perfect and the Son'a are one dimensional cartoonish villains?

What we DO know is that the Baku were being forced out of their homes, that they had lived in peacefully, bothering nobody, for hundreds of years.

It was a society, in and of itself. A colony from elsewhere on inception? Irrelevant morally, if interesting.

Until the Son'a and Federation situations, it was very productive to live there without depending on their technological knowledge.

Being where they are, and hard to reach, unnoticed, made more sense given their origins.

If the Ba'ku were peaceful, how did they force the Son'a off their planet in the first place? It seems like there a lot of holes in this story.

Unknown and untold. How does knowing the specifics affect the core story, or the morality tale presented to us?

I believe Picard's decision was morally and ethically correct in these circumstances.

 

[The Overlord]

Then again, maybe they didn't have good reason. Baybe does not establish anything. Define Good Reason by their society and rules.

Truth is, we don't know enough about that conflict.

There are tons of reasons of to oppose a Luddite philosophy: less needless labor, better standard of living with technology, etc. If I was living in a Ba'ku village and I had to live in some medieval village while other people got travel around the universe in star ships, I might be upset too. I would begin to think Ba'ku society was reactionary and flawed. Why should everyone accept that such a philosophy is good for everyone and not try to oppose it if they think its flawed?

The fact that we know nothing about the rift between the Son'a and the Ba'ku hurts the story. The Ba'ku having the right eject the Son'a from their planet and the Son'a not having that same right looks hypocritical.

How this story supposed to be an effective moral dilemma when the Ba'ku are supposedly perfect and the Son'a are one dimensional cartoonish villains?

What we DO know is that the Baku were being forced out of their homes, that they had lived in peacefully, bothering nobody, for hundreds of years.

It was a society, in and of itself. A colony from elsewhere on inception? Irrelevant morally, if interesting.

Until the Son'a and Federation situations, it was very productive to live there without depending on their technological knowledge.

Being where they are, and hard to reach, unnoticed, made more sense given their origins.

If the Ba'ku were peaceful, how did they force the Son'a off their planet in the first place? It seems like there a lot of holes in this story.

Unknown and untold. How does knowing the specifics affect the core story, or the morality tale presented to us?

I believe Picard's decision was morally and ethically correct in these circumstances.

Knowing the specifics of that rift affects everything. Heck how is the Son'a's claim to that planet less valid then the Ba'ku, if the Son'a were part of the same community that settled that planet?

You can easily make an argument that the Son'a have just as much claim to that planet as the Ba'ku have, so why is the Ba'ku's claim more valid then the Son'a's claim?

It also makes the Ba'ku's claim that they are pacifists seem dubious if they managed to defeat the Son'a, it makes you wonder what else are they hiding.

 

[OneBuckFilms]

Just because part of the population had to leave, does not give ANYONE the right to kick out the rest.

It was an internal rift within the Baku that gave birth to the Son'a, true, one side lost the argument and left.

We don't know how it went down beyond what was established in dialog, so lets base our judgement on that, rather than "what ifs", or "maybes" or anything else we cannot define.

I would say they BOTH, in general, have a right to live on that world, however, everything in the film establishes that the Son'a started a fight, and were kicked out as punishment by that society.

Starfleet clearly had no say in the internal affairs of either society by its own guidelines and traditions, and the Baku were being kicked out by the Son'a, rather than the Son'a fighting to take back their home.

It evolved from a failed uprising, that may not have been as violent as the Son'a ended up being (we don't know either way, so cannot use that in our deliberations), into a forced eviction of the entire population.

If it was just both sides fighting, without Starfleet's involvement, over wornership of the planet, then the Federation's role, if any, would be peacekeeping and diplomacy for both sides.

That was not the case. It was a clear forced eviction, with no apparent attempt at diplomacy on the part of the Son'a, and no chance to gegotiate, or make amends for the Bak'u.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Second:
The baku did not settle unclaimed space.
Why?
Because when this space was claimed by the klingons, they would have searched their new property and evicted these few hundreds of luddites with extreme prejudice, especially considering what a clement/valuable M class world these luddites were on.

Except from the data Soong found in the Klingon database the Klingons were aware of two inhabitable planets in the Briar Patch and they didn't move to take them, probably becuase it would be more trouble than it is worth as they would have to move ships into a difficult to navigate area where you have to travel a considerable distance just to communicate with the rest of the galaxy (so basically its Bumf@#k Idaho in space), and they only thing they would seemingly get from all the effort it would take to move in is some particles which go against their philosophy of dying gloriously in battle.

So no I really don't think the Klingons would bother with a backwater planet of little importance (to them probably) thats hard as hell to get to.

One does not have to inhabit the planets to claim them - much as you don't have to be on your land to claim it as property.
As to the notion that the klingons - or the romulans - won't claim VERY valuable real-estate such as M class worlds in their space as their own

So you are just going to ignore that fact that they seemingly had no interest in the planet and they did not do anything to use this supposedly valuable piece of real-estate or make sure someone else didn't use it behind their backs.

I feel sorry for the Federation President who has to explain that they allowed millions of people to suffer pain because the alternative was moving 600 people from a planet that wasn't even their planet of origin.

I think he would be more worried about how the federation's allies would respond to that fact that according to Dougherty the federation was going to horde this medical advance for themselves.

It's not like there was any immediate need for new medical breakthroughs. Only a huge war going on.

Yes, becuase de-aging people is so useful in a war with mass produced legions of shock troops that will kill the hell out of you within days of being born

This would explain the plot hole of the Baku being able to exile the Sona and their technology.

I got the impression that the Son'a left on their own.

nope, they were exiled when their attempt to take over failed.

which means we have TWO questions:

-how was their attempt to take over "thwarted" by Luddite pacifists

Simple they probably didn't have guns, as just becuase you don't like living in a luddite community and want technology doesn't mean you actually have it in a luddite community. And no seeing as they set out to make a no tech community I doubt they had guns on the ship or the necessary stuff to make them.