I want to like 'Conundrum', but....

'Conundrum' is a nice episode if you just watch it without thinking too much. But we as Trekkies analyze every episode, so....

This episode raises so many questions while watching it. Why didn't "Kieran" just make himself the captain? Why didn't he just replace the entire bridge crew with his own crew, he was on a one man mission? If Satarrans were able to just take control of the Enterprise with that mindwipe thing then program the ship to take care of the mission? Or were Starfleet officers absolutely necessary? "Kieran" was able to control the crew's memories, why not give them new instructions on some level how to attack the Lysians? And so on, the power one little ship had over the Enterprise was odd. I want to like this episode but.... hard to avoid asking these questions while watching it.

 

They techgnology was fairly low level - they were advanced in some area hence being able to "wipe" the minds of the crew but not enough to actually know how to operate the ship or gain access to the necessary command codes.

 

Some of it might be due to frame the Federation? But then why change crew dossiers around? It was a dippy plan but Kieran's peeps thought that that was the best way to do it, I guess.

Yeah, leaving the brain at the coat check and just enjoy the proceedings as those sell the episode well enough.

 

It's a good episode but there are just a lot of questions when it comes to the story that it all starts to fall apart. With a single beam they can block everyone's memories, including Data's!, alter/restrict the ship's computers and also put in place the information they need to discover for the plan to work but they have limited weapons technology/ability to get to enemy territory to do this to them?

It's a lot o have to just accept for the sake of the story but, fortunately, it's a good story so it's (fairly) easy for me to overlook the problems in it.

 

When you watch it more than once the flaws really come out. I can enjoy the episode but it does have a lot of really weak points

 

Too bad they couldn't get hold of that mindwipe and computer scramble beam. With some improvements it might have been an awesome weapon in the Dominion War.

This was one of the very first episodes I ever saw, before I knew who was supposed to be a main crewmember and who wasn't, so I didn't know Kieran wasn't supposed to be there. The episode works a lot better that way in terms of suspense (even if the logic still doesn't hold up).

Great closing scene though, with Ro walking away after she and Troi have obviously discussed Riker, Riker saying that he's a bit confused, and Troi replying, just a bit tartly : "if you're still confused tomorrow, you know where my office is"

 

It's fairly intuitive to assume that the Satarrans just didn't know how to fly the ship (they didn't know how to build photon torpedoes, after all), and would have crashed her if trying to fly her alone, or fumbled and blown their cover if trying to directly command her and her crew of Starfleeters. Better follow from the sidelines, from a secure position where "MacDuff" could simply parrot Picard's expertise-requiring orders yet could also whisper strategic things in his ear.

There's little evidence that the Satarrans could "control" anything. They couldn't directly make our heroes do anything: they could just make them forget what they had been doing, and then, with plain spoken word, try and suggest to them what to do instead. And they couldn't make the ship do much beyond accepting the presence of "MacDuff" in the records.

Only to take them away from them. Suggesting to Picard that he should be the skipper was easy; suggesting to Worf that he should not was a bit more difficult; suggesting that LaForge keep the ship running was trivial, but suggesting that he blow her up would not have worked at all. The suggestions had to sound sensible, and that took quite some doing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Then how did they get MacDuff's service record into the ship's computer? How did they insert detailed records regarding the Federation being at war with the Lysians? If they could do that, they could just make MacDuff an Admiral and the job is done. Making him an underling makes no sense.

"One photon torpedo would have ended the war." ...and yet they don't just steal a bunch of them.

 

I think we could make up reasons to help the episode make more sense, but yeah, I've always wondered how they had the technology to change records in a foreign computer system, yet wouldn't be able to create more sophisticated and powerful ships and weapons. The mind wipe on the crew (sans Data) can make some sense, but Data and the computer being tampered with doesn't.

 

It's such an entertaining episode...I never really noticed any issues. I casually wondered how they could have such advanced tech in one realm, and not another (and...BTW...that DOES happen. Technology doesn't develop in parallel.).

But, for the most part, I don't care about the flaws in this one, because it's pretty damn enjoyable otherwise.

 

I enjoy the episode as well, so it's never ruined it for me. And yeah, I agree that technology can develop in different ways. It just seems a little too convenient that their mind "wipe" technology also can work for Data, and they can change records in the computer so easily.

 

Wonder if they made a copy of various technical plans to reverse engineer if their plan for the D failed?

 

And if the Lysians are so primitive how did they kill that relative of the God from "Justice" or was it already dead when they encountered it and they just set up in shop in it's corpse.

 

Maybe the Satarrans brain raping tech was stolen from another race. Maybe they found something like the Kataan probe from 'The Inner Light' and reverse engineered their own version. Then they hear word of something called the Federation knocking about a couple of sectors over. They ambush a Federation shuttle, take that back to Satarran Area 51 and get Satarran Jeff Goldbum to work out how to use it. They get themselves a working prototype of the brain manipulator/computer violator device and are going to go all out on mass production except Satarran Randy Quaid steals it and uses it on the Enterprise.

 

My impression is that weapon tech wasn't their strong point. They apparently focused all their lab time on extremely advanced memory engram research and on building sturdy portable disguise holograms.
Even if they managed to bogart a torpedo, they might not know how to operate one. Their priorities were a bit odd for a species engaged in a war.

 

I think you can maybe look at the Satarran as a lone wolf terrorist. He alone doesn't have the skills to pull off a attack nor does anyone in his terrorist cell so you need that Starfleet expertise to get the job done. Plus if the attack is carried off by a Federation ship then it's maybe easier to make peace with the enemy when it comes to closing out the war or getting the civilians behind it because maybe Satarran civilians would not be cool with those tactics.


Jason

 

Coming up with a photon torpedo is not trivial in Trek: mankind, the most bloodlusty of the known cultures there, never developed one until the Klingons apparently gave them the inspiration in "Sleeping Dogs", and while the Pakleds managed to steal all sorts of high tech from Klingons, photon torpedoes were the one thing they needed Starfleet assistance for.

For all we know, the Satarrans and their enemies were relatively just as advanced in weapons tech as Germany was in WWII - but that leading nation in technology and development did not work out the secret of the A-bomb, and never developed a long range bomber that could have deployed it. Yet Germany had jet engines and well-working torpedoes, while the US saw little point in the former and neglected procuring the latter despite seeing the point. The memory weapon is the Satarrans' jet engine, is all.

(In more ways than one: having a jet bomber would have helped Germany deploy the A-bomb in defiance of Allied air superiority, but Germany would have had to capture the bomb first from somebody who could make them!)

The one weakness in the setup is indeed Data. Certain other stories had already dealt with this issue elegantly enough: "Survivors" had the Douwd negate Troi's mind powers so that the adventure could unfold, say, and the heroes had trouble figuring out what if anything was amiss there. Perhaps Spiner could have survived spending this one on the benches, with Data being "kidnapped" or "deactivated" by the baddies and then reunited with the heroes at the very end?

Then again, Data has often been treated as if he could have "human" weaknesses. He can shrug off a hail of bullets all right, but perhaps a stun phaser or a memory wipe beam does stand a chance against his positronics?

Timo Saloniemi

 

I feel like I’m stealing this idea from some other story, but maybe it would have been better to make the Satarrans “pacifists” who won’t fight their enemy on principal but they have no problem manipulating others to do it for them, thus keeping their hands clean.

That way there’s no problem with them having advanced mind and computer control devices yet can’t rig up a basic photon torpedo.

 

The episode mentions that they had been at it for decades. Had they been using proxies all this time, surely all surrounding races would have known about it and be ware around them.

I don't buy inventing a photon torpedo is particularly hard. Yes, humans didn't have them in 2151, but they were barely warp 5 capable back then. Warp capable at all for less than a century, even. They probably would have stumbled across the idea sooner or later, seeing as they have such a penchant for weapons. It's also unlikely the Satarrans were generally advanced in weapons tech. Had they been, all they'd have to do is steal the concept of a photon torpedo and start manufacturing themselves. As the general technology has been around for centuries and shared by several races, the details could hardly be a highly classified military secret. Getting their own, or even simply buying them would have been far more effective and less risky in that case.It seems to me they really wanted the ship to make that devastating blow - it probably was not just about those photon torpedoes, but also about superior shields, and superior tactical defense systems, etcetera.

 

...Which is what it means that it's difficult to invent a photon torpedo. And it's "later" if they don't go exploring and bothering Sleeping Dogs. Which they apparently don't do as a rule.

What penchant? They had little in the way of weapons. They just fought a lot, which generally goes with not having weapons, or else the fighting would lead into a result.

What we might be seeing here is a general Satarran inability to invent and/or manufacture weapons, possibly a result of all the fighting.

That, too. Which in this case means they were below the Photon Torpedo Level by quite a bit and had no way of gathering XP fast.

Which is probably what they were doing here. Except they'd skip the manufacturing part because they could win the war without it already, with much less effort.

Not only does it appear that it's difficult to invent a photon torpedo, it's also hellishly difficult to make one. The Maquis were credibly framed for the theft of empty photon warheads in "Tribunal", even though they had replicators and demonstrably could steal other things from Starfleet, things that might attract less attention. Presumably mere knowhow doesn't get you far in your quest for photon torpedoes, then.

We see some arms trading in DS9, but the deals go south more often than north, even with seemingly streetwise folks such as the Maquis at it. There doesn't seem to be anything simple about buying that sort of stuff, as opposed to buying, say, random infantry weapons or used spacecraft.

In short, one of those if-you-douse-him-in-gasoline-he's-warm-for-the-rest-of-his-life deals: no point in actually acquiring the weapons when merely using them once gets you there.

Although we might also suspect they wanted the Federation to destroy the Lysians, for deniability. As in, merely destroying the Lysian command center would not win the war, even if it turned the fighting into a guerrilla action rather than a series of pitched battles between fleets - but making the Lysians hate the Feds would stop the fighting, when it was in connection with the Lysians being dealt a weakening blow.

Timo Saloniemi