Which is the result of a genetic defect, I fail to see how reversing age and regenerating optic nerves means the particles can flat out rewrite DNA. No to mention that the federation would consider that illegal, what with the whole ban on genetic engineering. assuming that this isn't also the result of a genetic defect. We don't really know what causes Bendii Syndrome, so its a bit presumptuous to claim what might be able to cure it. And yet there is no evidence in any Star Trek production that the particles are being used by the federation, no looks any younger and people still die from stuff they're allegedly supposed to prevent death from. Most importantly Picard and his crew haven't been court martialed and are still on the Enterprise except Worf who got an ambassadorial job to a major federation ally, in fact later Riker was getting his own command. The other reason I doubt it is that the guys writing it who made Dougherty and the Son'a the bad guys WERE STILL RUNNING THE FRANCHISE. So they are going to go back on what they wrote why exactly? Because given past history fans complaining on the internet doesn't do crap.
So people can make such a fuss about it 16 years after the movie was released of course. Not even Matrix had such an impact on viewers.
I'm curious. Was it ever shown that the effects of the "particles" was permanent, or did a person need to remain in proximity to the planet's rings to enjoy the benefits? Was Geordi's restored eyesight permanent? I remember that he mentioned that even if it wasn't he'd still seen a sunrise/sunset, something he'd never seen before. Was the slowed or reversed aging effect permanent, or did Deanna and Beverly's boobs start to sag again after leaving the planet? Did Worf continue to go through Klingon puberty, or did he revert to his actual chronological age after the "insurrection"? I don't recall anyone stating that there were experiments performed in a controlled environment that would prove the benefits of collecting the "particles" and destroying the planet. It seems to me that this was little more than the promise of a "fountain of youth" propagated and perpetrated by Ruafo and his posse. Dougherty might have had good intentions, but I don't think he did. The Federation Council might have issued the order to proceed, but if they did they were swayed by Dougherty's input. Also, it occurs to me that 300 years of "squatting" is plenty of evidence that the Baku have a legitimate claim to this planet. Not like they just landed there last week and decided to stay a while. Like it or not, this was their home. If the Sona did not want to live a few miles away, or even use another part of the planet as a home base to return to and maintain the planet's effects, is their own short-sightedness. The Baku were not intentionally withholding a "cure for cancer." I remember no stated evidence, other than what the Sona told the Feds, that any of the plan would work. What if they moved the Baku, collected the "particles", and it didn't work? Major fail, and a planet destroyed for no reason. Ruafo and company, with the help of Starfleet, would have committed planicide (if that wasn't a word before, it is now). This is not what the Federation does. This is Revenge 101, plain and simple.
The movie is pretty short on details from all angles. The Federation does pretty much whatever it wants when it wants to. That's been a staple of the shows from the beginning. From Kirk destroying planetary societies ran by computers to Picard defying Edo law to save Wesley Crusher to Sisko poisoning a planetary biosphere to catch a bad guy.
Maybe not a literal hovel but from a place where I had eternal youth and could live without the horror of the machine destroying my joy of the washing up (gasp) to one where I aged and died. So equivalent to a figurative change from a palace to a hovel.
It never occurred to me until I read your post, but would this ring-radiation be in the same league as the original series' Venus drug in Mudd's Women? Kirk did say about that "Oh, it exists...illegally.".
People with diabetes should have to leave their homes, families and lives in order to move next to the facility that produces insulin?
If it means more affordable health care, I'd certainly consider it for myself. I could live off my writing income and still provide for my family if we didn't have to worry about health benefit costs.
this post is another in the line of "not accepting the premise of what is told on screen." If you're not going to accept the movie's own premise that the particles WILL HELP, that's your choice, but then it's kind of pointless to debate the pros and cons of removing the Baku for a benefit that you simply decide to pretend doesn't exist.
I think it's done because there aren't too many people who would actually support denying medical benefits to billions so six-hundred people can have a whole planet to themselves. They have to tear at every corner of the movie to make their position sound anything less than ludicrous.
Or some people just don't see how important a macguffin that the trek writers will ignore, forget about, and/or reveal is utterly useless in some fashion becuase it breaks status quo is. And if you don't think that they would totally toss it then you should remember what happened to the Genesis Project.
But that isn't what we've been debating here. It seems every discussion regarding Insurrection comes down to whether someone would move the Ba'ku or not? I'd move them in a heartbeat but wouldn't handle it in the sloppy way Dougherty and Company did. I'd offer them options. Either they could chose to live on already settled planets or they could continue to keep their Amish lifestyle by colonizing an uninhabited world. Someone saying that the particles wouldn't work is missing the very basic point of the debate. The particles are a natural resource. No one group of people should control any given resource whether they landed on it first or not.
And yet according to the Star Trek universe people can and do in fact do that, and the Federation has no problem with it.
Yes, I think this is it exactly. It's a way of distracting from the fundamental debate: is it right or wrong to move a small non-indigenous community for the particles that will provide medical benefits that will go to billions? Distracting responses: "well, the particles wouldn't really work..." " the particles don't provide any new benefits the Federation can't get elsewhere..." etc.
I strongly suspect diabetes will be cured by the 24th century. They've got a cure for cancer by then. You think that diabetes is beyond 3 centuries of medial science? But Ill admit there will be uncurable diseases then but I don't think too many. At least not from what I saw in TNG and VOY. Come and live in my country then. But you may have to give up your gun. Oil, gold are natural resources. So are you saying that if you say Canada is entitle to the USA's gold reserves if they want them? After all most North Americans are not indigenous.
No. Because there are gold and oil sources throughout the planet. How would you feel if all the oil dried up except in one place and the people there said "fuck you, its ours"?
That would be their right. But you would probably in favor of invading and stealing. If you win the lottery, millions and millions of dollars, do homeless people have the right to just take it from you if you don't want to donate it?
There is a Hell of a big difference there and I think you know it. You're not hogging every bit of a single known resource on the planet.