Birthright

As others have noted, DS9 was brand new at the time and this was a quick way to get some eyes on it. If the other characters appeared, that would also be extra money thrown in, not to mention availability of actors filming at the same time.

Regarding going to Bajor... keep in mind that DS9 is at the mouth of the wormhole. It's a three hour trip to Bajor, and three hours back. Short of the Enterprise going directly to Bajor, that wasn't going to happen. And this was a work situation that only happened to have the ability of a few officers to visit the station while docked.



I actually think it made the most sense for Worf to keep quiet about that planet. If anyone found out those older Klingons were prisoners from Khitomer, their entire families would get dishonored. As Worf explained to those kids, they made the sacrifice to stay so their families back home would keep their honor, so it was necessary to maintain the silence.

And Picard seemed to think something more was up, but I think he read between Worf's lines and didn't push because he trusted Worf was doing what he felt was the honorable thing.



I also liked this two-parter a lot, and thought it gets more hate than it deserved.
Promoting a lie to avoid dishonor is more deeply dishonorable than the original offense. It offends both Federation and Klington standards of honorable behavior.
 
Promoting a lie to avoid dishonor is more deeply dishonorable than the original offense. It offends both Federation and Klington standards of honorable behavior.
How about when Kirk says to Spock at the end of "THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE" that his log will note he died in the line of duty? It kept, Decker, an otherwise honorable person who made an error in judgment, from having his final acts as an officer be looked at like a bad person. Decker ended up sacrificing his life to try to destroy the Doomsday Machine, with his big motivator being guilt at getting his crew killed. Is that really a dishonorable thing to do, make his last act be a heroic one than one of someone than be of a broken man?

I don't see how continuing the preservation of those older Klingon families honor to be a dishonorable thing.
 
Decker was fighting the Doomsday Machine in the most effective way he could think of. While what he tried with the shuttlecraft didn't work, he tried it knowing it would kill him and hoping it would kill the Machine.
And he did give Kirk the idea to use the Constellation in the same way. He deserves the "died in the line of duty" note in the log.

I don't agree with being taken prisoner dishonoring a solder and descendents for three generations, but that's the Klingon system. Maybe if they are faced with a large group of prisoners who were taken while unconscious, they might revise their rules of honor. But lying about it, would prevent social change. I'm also pessimistic about secrets known by that many people remaining secret.
 
Decker was fighting the Doomsday Machine in the most effective way he could think of. While what he tried with the shuttlecraft didn't work, he tried it knowing it would kill him and hoping it would kill the Machine.
And he did give Kirk the idea to use the Constellation in the same way. He deserves the "died in the line of duty" note in the log.

I don't agree with being taken prisoner dishonoring a solder and descendents for three generations, but that's the Klingon system. Maybe if they are faced with a large group of prisoners who were taken while unconscious, they might revise their rules of honor. But lying about it, would prevent social change. I'm also pessimistic about secrets known by that many people remaining secret.

I read it as Decker believed that ramming something down the machine's throat would kill it, based on zero percent scientific reasoning but one hundred percent utter insanity/depression/suicidal ideation brought about by the deaths of his pleading crew combined with feeling powerless and overwrought. He's wanting to kill himself. Nothing more. Indeed, it's only after when he plows his teensy tiny craft into the thing does anything get picked up on Enterprise's sensors and that Sulu he was paying attention because nobody else was. Witness:


[Constellation Auxiliary Control]
KIRK: Kirk to Enterprise. Why are you launching a shuttlecraft?​
[Bridge]
SPOCK: Whoever it is, Captain, has no authorisation. Lieutenant, raise the shuttlecraft.
PALMER: Enterprise to shuttlecraft. Come in, shuttlecraft.​
[Shuttlecraft]
PALMER [OC]: Enterprise to shuttlecraft. Come in, shuttlecraft. Come in, shuttlecraft.
DECKER: Shuttlecraft to Enterprise. Decker here.​
[Bridge]
SPOCK: Commodore, I must insist that you return to the ship.​
[Shuttlecraft]
DECKER: You said it yourself, Spock. There is no way to blast through the hull of that machine, so I'm going to take this thing right down its throat.​
[Constellation Auxiliary Control]
KIRK: This is Kirk. Matt, you'll be killed.​
[Shuttlecraft]
DECKER: I've been prepared for death ever since I, ever since I killed my crew.​
[Constellation Auxiliary Control]
KIRK: No one expects you to die for an error in judgment.​
[Shuttlecraft]
DECKER: The commander is responsible for the lives of his crew, and for their deaths. Well, I should have died with mine.​
[Bridge]
SPOCK: You cannot succeed, Commodore. Your only logical alternative is to return to the ship.​
[Constellation Auxiliary Control]
KIRK: Matt. Matt, listen to me. You can't throw your life away like this. Matt, you're a starship commander. That makes you a valuable commodity.​
[Shuttlecraft]
KIRK [OC]: We need you, your experience, your judgment. Matt! (Decker turns off the intercom)​
[Constellation Auxiliary Control]
KIRK: We're stronger with you than without you!
(The shuttlecraft enters the planet killer, and Decker dies in agony from the radiation.)
[Bridge]
SPOCK: He's gone. Constellation, come in, please.​
[Constellation Auxiliary Control]
SPOCK [OC]: Captain Kirk, come in please.
KIRK: Kirk here.​
[Bridge]
SPOCK: Sir, may I offer my condolences on the death of your friend. It is most regrettable.​
[Constellation Auxiliary Control]
KIRK: It's regrettable that he died for nothing.​
[Bridge]
SULU: Mister Spock, sensors indicate a minute drop in the machine's power emanations. Do you think the shuttlecraft explosion might have done some damage?​


Kirk's pleading, which is spot on, is all for nought... and you know that if Kirk had belched out "Come back, let's just send it in on autopilot to justify this magical reasoning you've yet to tell us and note we still think you're not acting rationally" wouldn't have gone anywhere.

But it doesn't help that (a) it's not Spock who points it out in the first place as it'd otherwise be as much his station, if not more than at Helm, to notice the energy output drop, with immediately making a neat assumption in the way he otherwise rarely does... and - more importantly - (b) Sulu asking if the correlation is the likely cause is surely obvious due to the lack of qualifying surrounding circumstances. Or Sulu was just being rhetorical and nice so Spock could have all that glory (so it's two character assassinations for the price of one, woohoo! Two birds in the hand making a big goopy mess and all...)

A big thing whose maw is wider than a dozen starships and is capable of destroying planets whenever it gets the munchies. In turn, one tiny, warp-capable shuttlecraft results in a minute drop in power yet large enough to make a guess with (which the story does recognize). It's ultimately pure luckoneum that blowing up a starship within it, at the right spot, not too much farther in compared to the teensy shuttle as well, destroyed it.


But those are nitpicks - my previous rating still stands, the story IS more than the sum of its parts and by a wide margin, one that could fit two dozen starships through! :D :luvlove:.
 
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Worf's whole attitude is a bit off putting throughout the episode.

^^this

I've not seen the episode since the blu-ray came out, but I remember two things:
1. an inconsistency as to what the writers were really wanting regarding this culmination of Romulans and Klingons (gloried prison vs genuinely working together)
2. Worf was an insufferable meddler

Pt 1 also seemed odd, shoehorning biological doctor Bashir with Data, who's in sickbay and not engineering and studying a treknobabble gizmo...

(The written transcripts available also reveal that no diagnostic was done between scenes -- they just go from Sickbay (of all places) where "let's do a diagnostic first to figure it out" to Engineering so they can plug it in and power it up to see what makes it go blinky blink. "20 megajoules directly from the plasma plugin that wasn't here last week that's right here on the warp injector here will turn it on, since I'm too tired to rub up against it.". How quaint. Given the power requirement indicated, that's one hell of a medical gizmo, but they're clearly nonchalant and noncommittal about any protocols, much less thoughts that it might be a powerful weapon, engine, or some other hefty device.)

Also amazed that the ship's security doesn't allow doors to open up automatically based on comm signal or voice recognition*, but... naah... lets get 'em to just inanely plug the thing directly into the warp core rather than in an isolated, independent power source capable of putting out that much power and hope there's no short cir-- wait a mo', what happened to the circuit trace diagnostic that would also give them hints on what it does as well as how much juice it needs to start whirring?! Given the big power requirement and they still don't know what it does despite this "diagnostic" (not) happening offscreen so they still don't know, never mind this isn't a 9-volt battery they're hooking up to a LED requiring 1.5v at 1/10th the relative amperage, as if they know and they still really don't... at least acknowledge something of some substance to the audience instead of going into some of the dumbest minutiae ever, which I'll get back to in a sec... The scene just presents things via one dumb assumption after another after another. At least we get to (here it comes) all that exposition on the incredible levels of pedantry of Dr Soong to simulate "hair" growth and a phony pulse (since all the fun stuff was covered in season 1, but I'll concede the air exchange system acting like a glorified CPU heatsink with active air cooling is sorta cute...) No worries, the clip ends just before it emits a powerful pulse of energy that causes Data to "dream". :brickwall:


* of which Bashir probably does because of the loose association that he's a doc and he's in the doc area in any old place in starfleet, and Data has ship-wide clearance and why wouldn't Bashir go through any proper channels to begin wi-- oh, whatever... season 6 of TNG was already scraping some barrel bottoms.
 
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I read it as Decker believed that ramming something down the machine's throat would kill it, based on zero percent scientific reasoning but one hundred percent utter insanity/depression/suicidal ideation brought about by the deaths of his pleading crew combined with feeling powerless and overwrought. He's wanting to kill himself. Nothing more. Indeed, it's only after when he plows his teensy tiny craft into the thing does anything get picked up on Enterprise's sensors and that Sulu he was paying attention because nobody else was. Witness:

[Constellation Auxiliary Control]
KIRK: Kirk to Enterprise. Why are you launching a shuttlecraft?​
[Bridge]
SPOCK: Whoever it is, Captain, has no authorisation. Lieutenant, raise the shuttlecraft.​
PALMER: Enterprise to shuttlecraft. Come in, shuttlecraft.​
[Shuttlecraft]
PALMER [OC]: Enterprise to shuttlecraft. Come in, shuttlecraft. Come in, shuttlecraft.​
DECKER: Shuttlecraft to Enterprise. Decker here.​
[Bridge]
SPOCK: Commodore, I must insist that you return to the ship.​
[Shuttlecraft]
DECKER: You said it yourself, Spock. There is no way to blast through the hull of that machine, so I'm going to take this thing right down its throat.​
[Constellation Auxiliary Control]
KIRK: This is Kirk. Matt, you'll be killed.​
[Shuttlecraft]
DECKER: I've been prepared for death ever since I, ever since I killed my crew.​
[Constellation Auxiliary Control]
KIRK: No one expects you to die for an error in judgment.​
[Shuttlecraft]
DECKER: The commander is responsible for the lives of his crew, and for their deaths. Well, I should have died with mine.​
[Bridge]
SPOCK: You cannot succeed, Commodore. Your only logical alternative is to return to the ship.​
[Constellation Auxiliary Control]
KIRK: Matt. Matt, listen to me. You can't throw your life away like this. Matt, you're a starship commander. That makes you a valuable commodity.​
[Shuttlecraft]
KIRK [OC]: We need you, your experience, your judgment. Matt! (Decker turns off the intercom)​
[Constellation Auxiliary Control]
KIRK: We're stronger with you than without you!​
(The shuttlecraft enters the planet killer, and Decker dies in agony from the radiation.)
[Bridge]
SPOCK: He's gone. Constellation, come in, please.​
[Constellation Auxiliary Control]
SPOCK [OC]: Captain Kirk, come in please.​
KIRK: Kirk here.​
[Bridge]
SPOCK: Sir, may I offer my condolences on the death of your friend. It is most regrettable.​
[Constellation Auxiliary Control]
KIRK: It's regrettable that he died for nothing.​
[Bridge]
SULU: Mister Spock, sensors indicate a minute drop in the machine's power emanations. Do you think the shuttlecraft explosion might have done some damage?​


Kirk's pleading, which is spot on, is all for nought... and you know that if Kirk had belched out "Come back, let's just send it in on autopilot to justify this magical reasoning you've yet to tell us and note we still think you're not acting rationally" wouldn't have gone anywhere.

But it doesn't help that (a) it's not Spock who points it out in the first place as it'd otherwise be as much his station, if not more than at Helm, to notice the energy output drop, with immediately making a neat assumption in the way he otherwise rarely does... and - more importantly - (b) Sulu asking if the correlation is the likely cause is surely obvious due to the lack of qualifying surrounding circumstances. Or Sulu was just being rhetorical and nice so Spock could have all that glory (so it's two character assassinations for the price of one, woohoo! Two birds in the hand making a big goopy mess and all...)

A big thing whose maw is wider than a dozen starships and is capable of destroying planets whenever it gets the munchies. In turn, one tiny, warp-capable shuttlecraft results in a minute drop in power yet large enough to make a guess with (which the story does recognize). It's ultimately pure luckoneum that blowing up a starship within it, at the right spot, not too much farther in compared to the teensy shuttle as well, destroyed it.


But those are nitpicks - my previous rating still stands, the story IS more than the sum of its parts and by a wide margin, one that could fit two dozen starships through! :D :luvlove:.

Just a couple of thoughts - Shuttlecraft autopilot safeties might have prevented it from entering the Machine and they needed a live pilot. And if it had been purely suicide, I'm sure Decker could have figured out a way to die which wouldn't lose a shuttlecraft.
 
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