Well, it's not in the best interest of the crew of the enterprise (especially Picard) to have a trial on this matter at any rate. Because it could then be discovered that by negligence or incompetence, they let a time-ship go back to the 22nd century unmanned, where it could be commandeered by someone else who could then do who knows what damage to the time-line. You have to admit that it was a pretty dumb move on their part. At the very least they could have tried to send the ship to a future century where it would not do as much harm.
Berlinghoff Rasmussen
- Thread starter Russell Oviatt
- Start date
Well, it's not in the best interest of the crew of the enterprise (especially Picard) to have a trial on this matter at any rate. Because it could then be discovered that by negligence or incompetence, they let a time-ship go back to the 22nd century unmanned, where it could be commandeered by someone else who could then do who knows what damage to the time-line. You have to admit that it was a pretty dumb move on their part. At the very least they could have tried to send the ship to a future century where it would not do as much harm.
The proper course of action:
1. Data secures Rasmussen and takes control of the timeship.
2. Data pilots the time ship back to the 22nd century with Rasmussen.
3. Data boots out Rasmussen.
4. Data finds and retrieves the rightful pilot of the time ship, if he is still alive.
5. Data (or the pilot) takes the time ship to the 24th century.
6. If the pilot is alive, Data leaves the time ship, allowing its pilot to fly it home.
6a. If the pilot is dead or impossible to locate, Data sets the time ship's autopilot to return to its century of origin and base of operations. Once this is done, he leaves.
1. Data secures Rasmussen and takes control of the timeship.
2. Data pilots the time ship back to the 22nd century with Rasmussen.
3. Data boots out Rasmussen.
4. Data finds and retrieves the rightful pilot of the time ship, if he is still alive.
5. Data (or the pilot) takes the time ship to the 24th century.
6. If the pilot is alive, Data leaves the time ship, allowing its pilot to fly it home.
6a. If the pilot is dead or impossible to locate, Data sets the time ship's autopilot to return to its century of origin and base of operations. Once this is done, he leaves.
Both of these assume it's possible for the enterprise crew to find out in time (or even find out at all) how to control the pod, which is not necessarily true. There are theories that not even 'Rasmussen' knew how to control the pod, could read the travel itinerary but not alter it, as set by the original pilot.
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This is a time machine. If the pilot dies at some point then go back in time before that death took place, prevent the death from happening, and voila, Bob's your uncle...
V
Vale
Guest
But if you stop the pilot's death then the time machine might never be stolen in the first place so how do you travel back in time to prevent his death in a machine that was never stolen? So then you can't prevent his death and that means he died after all and the time machine did get stolen...
Who's to say that he wasn't supposed to be saved? The same way Edith was supposed to die...
You know, to prevent 22nd-century hitler from taking over and turning Picard into a dishwasher or something worse... like a sci. fi. writer or something... then the Borg have no Picard to turn into Locutus and they take Barcley instead... everything goes to pot and the Federation edicts that only white landowners can own a starship... Plus they make bribes tax deductible... The horror...
V
Vale
Guest
Oh man... We had to know this thread was going to end up giving us all a headache lol
The real problem with how they handled Rasmussen was that they completely ignored how much of a hurry he seemed to be in. They really needed to get on top of halting that ship's departure. Having it end up unattended where ever in New Jersey that it was headed is almost as bad as having let him get away in it altogether.
That he didn't just ask to have access enough to stop it, or tell someone how to do it for him, before it stranded him, leads me to believe he really didn't have much control over it
True, pretty dumb. So that's a fair point, but never let it be said that Picard wouldn't roll everyone the bus for his sense of right. In all likelihood, that stunt he pulled to expose the Pegasus scandal was a pretty raw way too handle that too, which gives a black eye to the whole damn fleet. Bad form be damned. He'll blow that whistle regardless, so it would seem.
The real problem with how they handled Rasmussen was that they completely ignored how much of a hurry he seemed to be in. They really needed to get on top of halting that ship's departure. Having it end up unattended where ever in New Jersey that it was headed is almost as bad as having let him get away in it altogether.
That he didn't just ask to have access enough to stop it, or tell someone how to do it for him, before it stranded him, leads me to believe he really didn't have much control over it
Exactly what I've always thought
It is nice that I can trust our regular posters here. It allow me to avoid temporal mechanical cranial disturbances.
Another thing that's always bugged me about this episode, apart from them not even trying to take any action to seize the time ship (Even though it's possible there was no way for them to) They could've at least talked about it or tried or something, once they started fully suspecting him
But what else bugs me is that Picard is the one who is the real dupe here. Everyone else buys into this fraud because he does. "I've examined his credentials"? What exactly could those entail that would be verifiable by any measure, if he's from another time?
In order for me to credibly believe you were from the future... you'd probably have to, in some substantive way, show me... ME! older looking me.
Picard got conned good here... hook, line & sinker. None of the others seemed nearly as gullibly taken in by this guy.
But what else bugs me is that Picard is the one who is the real dupe here. Everyone else buys into this fraud because he does. "I've examined his credentials"? What exactly could those entail that would be verifiable by any measure, if he's from another time?
In order for me to credibly believe you were from the future... you'd probably have to, in some substantive way, show me... ME! older looking me.
Picard got conned good here... hook, line & sinker. None of the others seemed nearly as gullibly taken in by this guy.
What I find funny is Picard begging Rassmussen to give him a hint about what he ought to do. Seriously, there are only two possibilities, what kind of hint could he have given him, aside from telling him exactly what to do? (assuming Rass was legit) The whole conversation was ridiculous, you either respect the timeline (which Picard purported to do) or you don't. If you respect the timeline then you don't ask any questions, period. But laying a guilt trip on Rass a la Picard is just absurd! This kind of stuff really makes me dislike the character. That and his use of the prime directive to be a callous asshole or when he made Riker swear that he would not use his powers to help people and then congratulated him for letting a little girl die! Boy, was he an ass in that episode!
The other thing they overlook with that Picard/Rassmusen exchange, is that even if he did know the outcome, if that outcome weren't favorable, there's no guaranteeing that doing something else, or the opposite, or nothing at all would be any more favorable, & a would-be future man wouldn't know anything about those outcomes, even if he were willing to alter his own time line for the sake of those lives
So the whole point of asking is moot, if you don't know definitively what worked. So don't be a puss. A gamble is a gamble is a gamble
So the whole point of asking is moot, if you don't know definitively what worked. So don't be a puss. A gamble is a gamble is a gamble
True, Picard in that episode is just plain weird.
Say this situation were real. The real ship owner had come to Picard's time to observe this event (Which is likely what he was planning to do, because I doubt the guy we got knows enough about the ship to have planned out that trip on his own. It was probably already programmed)
So Picard grills the real time traveler in the same way, about wanting to know the outcome of his decision. What that guy should've told him is "Look Picard. I could only ever tell you what you did, as I know it, & if that outcome is unfavorable to you, you won't do it. Now setting aside what the consequences of that would do to me & countless others in my time line, perhaps eliminating us all, the other issue is that whatever you DO decide to do instead, could be just as unfavorable, & I know absolutely nothing about those outcomes. So you're just taking a different gamble. Ultimately all you're really doing, by getting me to tell you what I know, is trying to shirk the responsibility for what you're about to do onto me. You don't seem as cowardly as that, & shouldn't the gamble you take be the one you believe in & not the one I believe might work? Man up, sir."
So Picard grills the real time traveler in the same way, about wanting to know the outcome of his decision. What that guy should've told him is "Look Picard. I could only ever tell you what you did, as I know it, & if that outcome is unfavorable to you, you won't do it. Now setting aside what the consequences of that would do to me & countless others in my time line, perhaps eliminating us all, the other issue is that whatever you DO decide to do instead, could be just as unfavorable, & I know absolutely nothing about those outcomes. So you're just taking a different gamble. Ultimately all you're really doing, by getting me to tell you what I know, is trying to shirk the responsibility for what you're about to do onto me. You don't seem as cowardly as that, & shouldn't the gamble you take be the one you believe in & not the one I believe might work? Man up, sir."
all I can say is that you put a great deal more thought into it than the writer(s) ever did.
Not very likely. After all, "Measure" makes it clear that there is no working definition of "sentient", and the resident experts in cybernetics, law, medicine and philosophy struggle to come up with one. It could hardly be one of the entry criteria for Starfleet, then!
No organization today requires sentience from its employees, chiefly for the above reason: coming up with a definition would not only be difficult, it would be counterproductive, since it would always end up excluding some folks the employers want included and vice versa.
...It appeared close enough to be observed by the heroes. If it was to be a stealthy mission of observing the Enterprise, it was set to fail (even a cloak wouldn't help because the time transit itself already triggered the alarms of the hero ship). If the original operator was interested in pulling a scam like the one we saw, though, this sort of programming makes at least some sense.
More probably, the original owner indeed had no idea the Enterprise would be there, and was planning on observing/looting the planet while it was undergoing its big disaster moment. "Rasmussen" would simply read the registry of the ship off her hull and wing it from there. Funnily enough, he doesn't use the name of the ship when first arriving, just the bigger-font registry number. Fuck, he doesn't know Picard's name until deep into the episode!
And Picard would just respond with "You fail basic logic, buster. Me knowing that one choice leads to a bad outcome is already an improvement in absolute terms. You telling me how things fail when I choose that way will help me further. Now it's your time to choose: is it gonna be truth serum or telepathic probing? I might also do old-fashioned torture just for fun."
Timo Saloniemi
The real time traveler, aware of the Butterfly Effect, would never have let Picard know he was there.
...Any real time traveler would know through experience that there is no butterfly effect. Time in Trek is robust enough to take the occasional death or disappearing continent or whatever. And if it for some reason fails to be robust on occasion, it's always possible to fix it with a bit of further travel till it is.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
In Trek, probably true. Just look at 2061, when every one of Cochrane's associates (and their descendants) got wiped from history, except for Lily who interacted with multiple beings from the future. Nothing changed.
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