Couldn't wheelchair Pike have had a Betazoid assistant

Apparently, "Will You Take My Hand" has a reference to Mirror Tilly and Georgiou conquering Betazed. So I would figure it joined the Federation around the same time.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Betazed

 

The ironic thing about poor Captain Pike is how he avoided the cage on Talos only to be put on 24 hour display by Starfleet in a form of living death. The beautiful element of the Pike saga is how he chooses to free his mind with the mercy of a dying race which selects compassion over the exploitation they originally intended. This is what gives me goosebumps every time Vina takes him by the hand and leads them to bliss -- below the scars of their forms, and the planet's as well. And why Kirk looks on enraptured.

 

Pike, his face melting

 

It is? For some reason I assumed it had something to do with "The Beatles."

Jason

 

BillJ said "Will You Take My Hand" has a reference to that conquest, not that the title itself is a reference. Also, there's apparently no Beatles song with that lyric, though there are other bands that have used it, according to a Google search. You may be thinking of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand."

 

That actually strikes me as something Discovery writers might do.

 

I suspect the Kazon invitation got lost in the mail.

 

It is easier for a money oriented society to hire a Betazoid Nurse for the wheel chaired Pike. Because money can buy everything. Including a 24/7 hours nurse who will dedicated his / her time for a rich man who can pay him/her a lot of money. I'm sure a man like Bill Gates can hire a team of Betazoid to become his personal mouth 24/7

But for a moneyless super socialist country like in Federation, who willing to sacrifice their time 24/7 to nurse and help helpless Pike, and become his dedicated personal mouth? Maybe there are some betazoid in the hospital, and they can nurse the patients with their skill. But they will help the community, not only Pike.

So perhaps, there was no Betazoid expert available in the TOS episodes, are they have a lot of similar patients to handle at that time.

 

Well on that note, it's hard to imagine how anyone in the Federation gets things done. We're told they do it to better themselves.

If Betazoids are enlightened Federation members, tons of them would be willing to help Pike because they are doing it to better themselves in their compassion. If the Betazoids aren't Federation members yet and are greedy like the Ferengi and us 21st century humans, I guess you're right, they couldn't be bothered.

Remember Betazed had a bank in the 23rd century that Harry Mudd was able to rob.

 

So, a race is only enlightened if every member willingly does charity work, and if that's not the case they are greedy like the Ferengi or modern humans?

 

Don't ask me, honestly the Federation economy as described by Picard in First Contact has never made sense to me (along with the fact it contradicts previous references to money in TOS).

The closest theory I made on how it works is here:

Maybe doing intensely charitable work like communicating for Capt. Pike will mine you massive amounts of fitcoins.

Also, remember that Betazed had a bank (presumably with money) in the 23rd century that Harry Mudd could rob.

 

So does Bolius in the 24th century, and this was after the Bolians were established to be Federation members.

Regardless, money in Star Trek is one of the hot button issues which discussion is discouraged, like the other M word or the R word. The point I was trying to make is that not everyone in a supposedly enlightened race needs to be willing to do goodwill work at the drop of a hat. And likewise, just because there are people who might not want to do charity work doesn't mean they are as ethically deplorable as the Ferengi.

 

Once they were developed more in DS9, the Ferengi weren't really that bad as seen with Nog. While Quark did some pretty bad things, most of his reasoning was understandable, even if you didn't agree with him. For example, Quark's attempts to sabotage Nog's Starfleet career and discourage him make a lot of sense if he knew what happened to Captain Pike, for example.

 

It's not a contradiction, it's a societal change from one century to the next. A hundred years ago, American women couldn't vote. Now they can. Our society changed a lot in a century, so why couldn't the Federation?


Besides, there's a difference between a society not needing money and a society not having money. A post-scarcity, replicator-based economy means that there's more than enough material wealth to provide a good standard of living for everyone free of charge, but people can still choose to engage in capitalistic endeavors if they want to. It's not that it doesn't exist or that it's forbidden, it's that it's optional. Making money would be like, ohh, collecting Pokemon or stamps. It's something people do for the challenge, and for the opportunity to trade with like-minded hobbyists, not something they have to do in order to avoid starving to death.

 

Just as an aside, Bolians were never established to be Federation members in any onscreen piece of Trek.

Sure, they were ubiquitous in Starfleet. But there are Klingons and Ferengi there, too. And Trill, even though those were never established to be members, either. And lest the Bolian envoy from "The Forsaken" cloud anybody's judgement here, we should remember the Trill envoy Curzon who also served the UFP in a diplomatic capacity. Species identity and the political affiliation of the culture native to the species are unrelated things.

Are Betazoids members? Onscreen evidence is again basically nonexistent. But at least the fight over their homeworld is an explicit Starfleet responsibility, which is more than can be said about Bolarus...

Timo Saloniemi