Any information on the costume worn by Matt Frewer's character on a matter of time?
Berlinghoff Rasmussen
- Thread starter Russell Oviatt
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Side note: I wonder if it was ever really a thing, that Rasmussen was to turn up on an episode of ENT. I heard a rumor to that effect awhile back. That's probably all it ever was, just a rumor, but it would have been interesting...apparently Rasmussen and Jonathan Archer were roommates at MIT. 
(I'm just guessing that this would have been a prequel to his TNG appearance, as the 22nd century was Rasmussen's native time period. So this would have been before he steals the "time pod".)
(I'm just guessing that this would have been a prequel to his TNG appearance, as the 22nd century was Rasmussen's native time period. So this would have been before he steals the "time pod".)
Petty theft is a minor offense especially in a so-called non-monetary society so he should get away with a warning but with these barbarous creepy TNG laws, who knows?
Perhaps they left him on a deserted planet to die of inanition.
Perhaps they left him on a deserted planet to die of inanition.
IIRC, Rasmussen appears in the novelverse once. It's a DS9 novel (can't remember which) - he's served his time in prison and takes part in a gambling tournament on the station.
He features a lot in Indistinguishable From Magic, which recounts his time travelling prior to his TNG appearance.
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The Big Game. From what I recall that novel did that trick of hoovering up a lot of one-shot characters and giving them a couple of lines each just so fans could namecheck them.
How delightfully mundane of a cameo
Technically more than just petty theft. The stealing of the crew's belongings was petty theft, but the theft of the time ship is grand theft or perhaps even piracy. He more than likely stranded the original owner somewhere in the past, perhaps even doing violence to them. He also attempted to abduct Data, with the intent to do him harm, by trying to "Figure him out" which would more than likely mean pulling him apart to study him, & in the process possibly destroying him
None of this is backed up by evidence. You can't put someone on trial based on "what ifs", not in a so-called civilized society anyway.
He confessed to Data (who keeps a computer record) the grand theft of the time ship. A verification of his identity would also confirm it could not possibly have been his property, as it hadn't been invented yet, & that stealing it for the purpose of using it for gains, which he also confessed to, could loosely be defined as piracy.
He literally held Data at gun point, aboard the Enterprise, with the confessed intent to abduct & experiment on him. So the only criminal "what if" is what became of the ship's owner, which I imagine could in some way possibly be ascertainable as well (perhaps not, now that the ship is gone)
Edit: This also doesn't even touch on the temporal ramifications of attempting to alter the timeline stuff, which I'm not even sure how they'd prosecute in TNG's time
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His "confession" to Data is at best, hearsay. Plus he wasn't sworn in nor was he read his rights when he said it. In no countries I am familiar with (including the USA) would this hold up in court. Data is not exactly a person so the gunpoint thing is.. meh. Don't forget that not long before some Admiral on a whim decided that Data should be taken apart and studied. One trial doesn't really invalidate that assessment. So it would be an "attempt to steal property" at best which is less than "successfully stealing property". The time ship is gone so it can no longer be used as evidence. At best you can have people testify that they saw it at some point and that it seemed that it was stolen, but you know how hazardous it is to speculate in court. A good lawyer would tear this so-called evidence to shreds. So it would be "You're suspected to have stolen a "time ship" that we don't have from an unknown person"... Again, a lawyer who would hear this would die laughing.
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The scope of the trial in "The Measure of a Man" is surprisingly narrow. It is simply concerned with whether Data has the right to choose whether or not to undergo Maddox's procedure. It doesn't actually rule on whether or not Data is a sentient being, or even whether he remains the property of Starfleet per the Acts of Cumberland. I'm sure if there was a big Federation Supreme Court ruling in subsequent years on whether artificial lifeforms could be ruled to be entitled to all the freedoms and protections of sentient beings that some enterprising young clerk would dig it out, but Louvois didn't really make any grand sweeping judgements on Data's right to personhood at all.
That must have already been covered somewhere along the line, else Data would never have been allowed to join Starfleet in the first place.
Which makes the whole trial rather pointless, actually. Given that Data has been ruled sentient, then logically he can't be property, not of Starfleet or anyone else.
Under normal circumstances, maybe, but Data is also a legit computer log.
Someone bragging in a recording about having committed a crime we know took place will have that presented in trial.
C'mon dude. That baby's been put to bed good & plenty. Data is a legit person, & Starfleet officer. Rasmussen, as well as Fajo, for that matter, will have charges of armed kidnapping/abduction to contend with.
Rasmussen's presence in the 24th century is in itself evidence that he had used a time machine, once his identity is confirmed. Plus the Enterprise sensor logs have a record of that ship & the temporal phenomenon that occurred when it showed up with him.
That guy's got some serious troubles lol
No, actually, it won't.
Bragging is not the same as evidence. There would need to be proof.
If the prosecuting attorney says "But Your Honor, the defendant SAID he stole the time machine", the judge is going to laugh in his face.
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Yeah, the whole episode kind of unravels if you think about it too much; it's one of those slightly awkward things about Data's backstory and long Starfleet career (second only to Picard out of the Enterprise-D senior crew) that doesn't withstand scrutiny in the same way that, say, the same story being done about the EMH would. Would it really be permissible for Maddox as a commander in Starfleet to keep casually referring to a fellow officer as "it", just because he alone refuses to recognise his status as a sentient being? Isn't that, you know, kinda racist? And if Data isn't a sentient being, then who's responsible if, in his capacity as second officer of the most powerful starship Starfleet's ever built, he's in command of the Enterprise and orders the orbital bombardment of a nearby planet, since he's "the property of Starfleet" and all?
& there is, his presence, a 22nd century man in the 24th century, & his arrival aboard said time ship, which by all rights shouldn't be in his possession, all of which was documented by the Enterprise's dash cam footage lol
I didn't say his bragging would be evidence in itself, but in conjunction with all the rest, his confession would at least be heard. Nevertheless, his attempted armed abduction of Data in itself is enough to try him, just as much as his possession of the petty theft stolen items
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