Yes, this is my second "Threshold" related thread this week. I have salamanders on the brain. Don't ask why. Instead, what I want you to ask is, how would different captains in the "Star Trek" saga have responded to the situation, at the end of the infamous Season 2 "Voyager" episode?
For example, let's suppose that Picard and Lwaxanna Troi had ended up evolving into amphibians and producing offspring before Beverly was able to change Picard and Lwaxanna back. I feel Lwaxanna would insist on taking the lizards home, while Worf complains of the security threat that they risk. Picard would ponder the situation quietly in his office, until Q appears and reveals that this was all a test. Then Q snaps his fingers, conventiently undoing all the events of the episode.
Sisko wouldn't get a deus ex machina though. He'd give an impassioned speech outlining the conflict, while pacing back and forth:
"That Dominion technology caused Major Kira and me to evolve into amphibious lifeforms, and we procreated! Now I'm a human again, and she's a Bajoran. But our children are salamanders. I can't! Just abandon! My own children in a swamp in the Gamma Quadrant. Those are Jake's half-siblings! My father's grandchildren! Grandchildren, of the Prophets! But is it right to take them from their home in the swamp?"
The episode would end on a tragic note, with Quark getting possessed by Pah Wraiths, and rendering the Children of the Emissary down into a lizard-flavored mix drink, that O'Brien unwittingly drinks, and nearly dies painfully from.
Kirk, I feel, would be far less phased by any of this. I think Spock would make the same call Chakotay did, and leave Kirk and Chekov's offspring on their home planet. The episode would end with everyone but Bones laughing jovially at the situation, before blasting off to forget it ever happened.
Dr. Phlox would be smiling and quipping giddily at Trip's grizzly transformation. After Porthos gets lizard-Trip pregnant with three scaly, gilled beagles, Phlox would insist on leaving the three hybrids on an asteroid to die, because it's what evolution intended. Archer would reluctantly agree, as he decontaminates with his subordinates, and claims, "It's the breast we can do."
"Discovery" would redesign the lizards to look like elaborate Hollywood dragons, and reveal that after being abandoned by their parents Tilly and Stamets, their cries of despair caused a temporal explosion that destroyed the Kelvin timeline. Despite learning this, Tilly still uncomfortably declines the option of reuniting with her lizard kids, and Stamets expresses his open disgust for the entire situation.
Thoughts?
For example, let's suppose that Picard and Lwaxanna Troi had ended up evolving into amphibians and producing offspring before Beverly was able to change Picard and Lwaxanna back. I feel Lwaxanna would insist on taking the lizards home, while Worf complains of the security threat that they risk. Picard would ponder the situation quietly in his office, until Q appears and reveals that this was all a test. Then Q snaps his fingers, conventiently undoing all the events of the episode.
Sisko wouldn't get a deus ex machina though. He'd give an impassioned speech outlining the conflict, while pacing back and forth:
"That Dominion technology caused Major Kira and me to evolve into amphibious lifeforms, and we procreated! Now I'm a human again, and she's a Bajoran. But our children are salamanders. I can't! Just abandon! My own children in a swamp in the Gamma Quadrant. Those are Jake's half-siblings! My father's grandchildren! Grandchildren, of the Prophets! But is it right to take them from their home in the swamp?"
The episode would end on a tragic note, with Quark getting possessed by Pah Wraiths, and rendering the Children of the Emissary down into a lizard-flavored mix drink, that O'Brien unwittingly drinks, and nearly dies painfully from.
Kirk, I feel, would be far less phased by any of this. I think Spock would make the same call Chakotay did, and leave Kirk and Chekov's offspring on their home planet. The episode would end with everyone but Bones laughing jovially at the situation, before blasting off to forget it ever happened.
Dr. Phlox would be smiling and quipping giddily at Trip's grizzly transformation. After Porthos gets lizard-Trip pregnant with three scaly, gilled beagles, Phlox would insist on leaving the three hybrids on an asteroid to die, because it's what evolution intended. Archer would reluctantly agree, as he decontaminates with his subordinates, and claims, "It's the breast we can do."
"Discovery" would redesign the lizards to look like elaborate Hollywood dragons, and reveal that after being abandoned by their parents Tilly and Stamets, their cries of despair caused a temporal explosion that destroyed the Kelvin timeline. Despite learning this, Tilly still uncomfortably declines the option of reuniting with her lizard kids, and Stamets expresses his open disgust for the entire situation.
Thoughts?
I suppose instead of Riker taking Picard, he could come and take Admiral Necheyev, who's overseeing the warp 10 experiment. Picard has to wrestle with his conscience over whether he should interfere, as the evolved Riker and Necheyev now have offspring on a non-Federation world, so a conference room meeting ensues debating as to whether the Prime Directive applies 
In the end, Data and Geordi are able to reconfigure the deflector array to revert Riker and Necheyev back to their previous forms, and awkwardness ensues.
