Event alluded to by Bryan Fuller.

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

She had to be rebuilt, put back together again and they had no experience with humans. It wasn't just that they didn't know what one was supposed to look like; they could have known that from reading her mind and it still wouldn't have provided a more than marginally useful guide in doing the actual operations. I know what the Mona Lisa is supposed to look like, but that doesn't mean I would have the experience/training/ability to repaint it after it had been defaced.

 

[jamestyler]

Why do people expect the Talosians have the ability to rebuild a perfect human when humans can't even follow Ikea instructions? :/

 

[mos6507]

when dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating. You even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit, living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought record.

It's monologues like this that make The Cage more relevant 50+ years later than ever.

 

[Kevin Wolff]

I always thought a more plausible excuse could have been that they simply didn't know how to do anything physical anymore except basic motor functions like walking. And they gave it their best shot. When they saw the result they were like, oh well. She'll look ok in her mind at least.
When Miles Davis stopped playing for years in the 70's, he couldn't play well again till he practiced and got it back. And for rock fans, Nick Mason from Pink Floyd basically got drum lessons from Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge) before he was able to play again with the band in '86 after only a few short years of not playing.
The Talosians had been using mostly their minds for a long time.

 

[mos6507]

I always thought a more plausible excuse could have been that they simply didn't know how to do anything physical anymore except basic motor functions like walking. And they gave it their best shot. When they saw the result they were like, oh well. She'll look ok in her mind at least.
When Miles Davis stopped playing for years in the 70's, he couldn't play well again till he practiced and got it back. And for rock fans, Nick Mason from Pink Floyd basically got drum lessons from Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge) before he was able to play again with the band in '86 after only a few short years of not playing.
The Talosians had been using mostly their minds for a long time.

Interesting. That kind of sets up a sequel idea for Talosians, gives them a bit more hope to regain what they lost.

 

[Kevin Wolff]

Interesting. That kind of sets up a sequel idea for Talosians, gives them a bit more hope to regain what they lost.

Or realize they can't regain it and need to start collecting again not just for the zoo but for maintenance. You'll think you're drinking 50-year single malt and eating caviar when you're really scrubbing plasma conduits

 

[locutus101]

The point is, even if they could just "have woken her up" and read her mind, that wouldn't give them what they'd need to do a better job than they did. And the fact that they weren't familiar with the complex details and nuances of human anatomy—which there's no reason to think Vina would be either—was a significant additional disadvantage that a human surgeon wouldn't face, so it's quite a miracle that they could even get "everything work[ing]" let alone make her pretty!

If someone is severely mangled and burned, a perfect photograph of what they looked like before that is not going magically make it physically possible to reconstruct that appearance from what's left, nor guide an untrained set of hands in how to achieve the best possible result. What detailed knowledge of humans might have helped with is things like how to properly align and set bones, reconnect muscles and tendons and nerves for optimum functionality, how to prevent abscesses and minimize scarring, a whole slew of things that a specialist in reconstructive surgery and post-operative care would know much better than you or I. Vina was not suggested to be any kind of medic or doctor, let alone such a specialist, so there is no reason to think that anything in her mind would have helped with any of that. For all we know they did read it, and what little help that provided is the only reason things turned out as well as they did!

Be that as it may, it's not the excuse given for her Appearance.

 

[Ovation]

Or realize they can't regain it and need to start collecting again not just for the zoo but for maintenance. You'll think you're drinking 50-year single malt and eating caviar when you're really scrubbing plasma conduits

So Talos IV is the Matrix?

 

[locutus101]

So Talos IV is the Matrix?

Well, sort of.

 

[Kevin Wolff]

So Talos IV is the Matrix?

Worse. In the matrix you just hang out and relax

 

[AndorianAle]

Quite so.
Incidentally, if we're looking for flaws in the concept, the idea that they thought one breeding pair could give rise to a whole viable "society" might be a point of weakness. Of course, they did also have the other two women, but that's still a mighty small gene pool. Why not grab a few more, and some more men too, while they were at it? Heck, why not take the whole crew? Vina said that "with illusion they can make your crew work the wrong controls or push any button it takes to destroy your ship" so they ought to have been able to manage tricking at least some of them into beaming down and surrendering themselves just as readily. They picked Pike because he was "a prime specimen" but he actually turned out to be a harder sell than others aboard might have been, and beggars can't be choosers. It is all a bit of a silly premise, though it's still one of my favorite Star Trek stories nonetheless.

Picard should have returned in the 24th Century.

 

[locutus101]

Picard should have returned in the 24th Century.

That will teach them!

 

[Kevin Wolff]

Picard should have returned in the 24th Century.

This is brilliant! Also, two of my favorite episodes. I hated "Up the Long Ladder" when it first aired, and Riker is a total letch and Picard is yet to be refined, but O'Dell just cracks me up ("It has no bite."). I think I like that this is most like a TOS episode. With the writer's strike of S2, it might be a Phase 2 script repurposed, but I'm not sure.

 

[Tim Thomason]

This is brilliant! Also, two of my favorite episodes. I hated "Up the Long Ladder" when it first aired, and Riker is a total letch and Picard is yet to be refined, but O'Dell just cracks me up ("It has no bite."). I think I like that this is most like a TOS episode. With the writer's strike of S2, it might be a Phase 2 script repurposed, but I'm not sure.

No, it was an original idea from Melinda Snodgrass (her second script as an official writer, after Pen Pals and her unsolicited The Measure of a Man that got her the job). Snodgrass, of course, was also a TOS novel writer and only contributed to the second and third seasons, so she likely was more influenced by the classic aesthetic than the other writers.

The original plan also didn't involve Irish immigrants. That was an addition from Maurice Hurley that Snodgrass had to abide by.

 

[Kevin Wolff]

No, it was an original idea from Melinda Snodgrass (her second script as an official writer, after Pen Pals and her unsolicited The Measure of a Man that got her the job). Snodgrass, of course, was also a TOS novel writer and only contributed to the second and third seasons, so she likely was more influenced by the classic aesthetic than the other writers.

The original plan also didn't involve Irish immigrants. That was an addition from Maurice Hurley that Snodgrass had to abide by.

Yeah, it seems like they were tacked on. Hurley was a force of nature on Trek too. I can't wait to read the 50-year mission vol 2 regarding TNG production in the early days. "Send in the clooones."

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Be that as it may, it's not the excuse given for her Appearance.

The "excuse" given for her appearance is that she was severely injured and disfigured in a spaceship crash, and the Talosians lacked sufficient knowledge of and familiarity with humans to do any better job at fixing her than they did. You're being incredibly over-simplistic in your reading of "they had never seen a human; they had no guide for putting me back together." By fixating purely on the superficial visual aspect, you're ignoring all the other blatantly obvious implications. If they had never even seen a human before, that also means they had no practice at physically working with human anatomy, nor training in the most effective surgical procedures for repairing it.

How would knowing that humans shouldn't have a hump be of practical use in preventing her from having one, if her bones were shattered and dislocated, her muscles and tendons a mangled mass? They did the best they could, given what they had to work with. That doesn't mean they thought that's what a human was supposed to look like. You're acting as if they intended her to look exactly as she did after they worked on her, deliberately arriving at that specific aesthetic result without any missteps or intervening complications, despite having zero experience in reconstructive surgery on a human, because they'd never encountered one before.

Reading Vina's mind would not give them that experience, nor the materials to put it to effective use. Let's say I wrap my car around a tree in your front yard, wrecking it all to hell, and I ask you to fix it for me right there in your garage. How much will my handing you a photograph of what it looked like the day I drove it off the lot help you in actually getting it to look like that again? Not much. It's certainly not going to give you a sufficiently useful "guide for putting it back together" piece by piece. Knowing it's supposed to be symmetrical is not going to facilitate it being made symmetrical if all the structural components on one side are twisted and deformed. Knowing the wheels and headlights are supposed to be straight is not going to teach you how to properly align them.

She suffered extensive injuries in the crash, and mind-reading or no mind-reading, they didn't know how to get her straight again. If bones aren't set precisely, they won't knit in the proper configuration, they won't be the same length or shape. You will be crooked. You may have a limp, and yes, even a hump. (It's called post-traumatic kyphosis. I Googled it.) If there is nerve damage, your facial features may droop, your movements may be uncoordinated. If things are not stitched up neatly and cared for meticulously afterward there will be extensive scar tissue. Fluids may collect, abscesses may form. If a careful regiment of physical therapy and other post-operative care is not followed, there can be any number of complications in the recovery, including loss of muscle tone and mobility, and further deformities. Avoiding all of this requires a lot more than a mere picture of what someone looked like before the accident.

 

[locutus101]

The "excuse" given for her appearance is that she was severely injured and disfigured in a spaceship crash, and the Talosians lacked sufficient knowledge of and familiarity with humans to do any better job at fixing her than they did. You're being incredibly over-simplistic in your reading of "they had never seen a human; they had no guide for putting me back together." By fixating purely on the superficial visual aspect, you're ignoring all the other blatantly obvious implications. If they had never even seen a human before, that also means they had no practice at physically working with human anatomy, nor training in the most effective surgical procedures for repairing it.

How would knowing that humans shouldn't have a hump be of practical use in preventing her from having one, if her bones were shattered and dislocated, her muscles and tendons a mangled mass? They did the best they could, given what they had to work with. That doesn't mean they thought that's what a human was supposed to look like. You're acting as if they intended her to look exactly as she did after they worked on her, deliberately arriving at that specific aesthetic result without any missteps or intervening complications, despite having zero experience in reconstructive surgery on a human, because they'd never encountered one before.

Reading Vina's mind would not give them that experience, nor the materials to put it to effective use. Let's say I wrap my car around a tree in your front yard, wrecking it all to hell, and I ask you to fix it for me right there in your garage. How much will my handing you a photograph of what it looked like the day I drove it off the lot help you in actually getting it to look like that again? Not much. It's certainly not going to give you a sufficiently useful "guide for putting it back together" piece by piece. Knowing it's supposed to be symmetrical is not going to facilitate it being made symmetrical if all the structural components on one side are twisted and deformed. Knowing the wheels and headlights are supposed to be straight is not going to teach you how to properly align them.

She suffered extensive injuries in the crash, and mind-reading or no mind-reading, they didn't know how to get her straight again. If bones aren't set precisely, they won't knit in the proper configuration, they won't be the same length or shape. You will be crooked. You may have a limp, and yes, even a hump. (It's called post-traumatic kyphosis. I Googled it.) If there is nerve damage, your facial features may droop, your movements may be uncoordinated. If things are not stitched up neatly and cared for meticulously afterward there will be extensive scar tissue. Fluids may collect, abscesses may form. If a careful regiment of physical therapy and other post-operative care is not followed, there can be any number of complications in the recovery, including loss of muscle tone and mobility, and further deformities. Avoiding all of this requires a lot more than a mere picture of what someone looked like before the accident.

These details are all interesting but at no point have this been even suggested. What was said is that they had never seen a human being. Yet they were able to give a perfect simulation of a dozen of them. That means not only what they look like but also how they move. Anybody involved in three-D simulations know that you have to know something about the musculature of someone in order to do a simulation like that, that will fool a human being from up close for so long. Those were holograms, not simply two or three-D moving pictures. In spite of OUR knowledge of human anatomy we're far from being able to do that.

My initial point stands.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Picard should have returned in the 24th Century.

With Susan Oliver looking like she was all put together with the right parts where they should be, and that hot Irish red-headed lass, it seems as if Talos would be a nice place to visit.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

What was said is that they had never seen a human being.

...which means they would be as utterly unfamiliar with a human being's proper internal configuration (and the procedures necessary to operate thereupon without error or complication) as they would be with one's proper external appearance. They could potentially glean the latter from Vina's mind, were it in any condition to be read, before beginning their work on her, but not the former. And the former would be at least as crucial in doing a more adept job of repairing Vina's physical injuries and restoring her physique, and in all likelihood more so.

Yet they were able to give a perfect simulation of a dozen of them. That means not only what they look like but also how they move.

Those illusions were derived from the imaginations of the Enterprise crew, just as the illusion of beauty they gave Vina was no doubt derived from hers. A mental picture is all the Talosians required to generate such an illusion, but it would not remotely approach being enough to enable their physical re-creation of it through improvised surgery on a patient who was little more than "a lump of flesh."

BOYCE: It was a perfect illusion. They had us seeing just what we wanted to see, human beings who'd survived with dignity and bravery, everything entirely logical, right down to the building of the camp, the tattered clothing, everything. Now, let's be sure we understand the danger of this. The inhabitants of this planet can read our minds. They can create illusions out of a person's own thoughts, memories, and experiences, even out of a person's own desires. Illusions just as real and solid as this tabletop, and just as impossible to ignore.

In spite of OUR knowledge of human anatomy we're far from being able to do that.

Indeed we are. The Talosians' power to create illusory imitations of reality was far beyond ours. Their skill at ad hoc reconstructive surgery on humans was quite evidently not.

 

[Philip Guyott]

Picard should have returned in the 24th Century.

They should have also beamed down a box of Data's Chinese finger traps