How does "Nexus addiction" work?

[Xerxes1979]

I guess I don't understand how you maintain a behavior disorder for 80 years based on addiction that cannot be reinforced. Either the Nexus was a very pleasant dream or VR phenomena or it caused something akin to the utlimate chemical high.

In either case addiction can only be sustained by ability to repeat an addictive behavior repeatly. People's ability to easily drink coffee, smoke or gamble are what maintain and reinforce a pattern of behavior.

How do you repeat the Nexus experience? It was a one shot deal with no analogue or substitute in the regular universe. Is there a Nexus receptor somewhere in the brain? We don't need to wait for the 24th century to know where the pleasure center of the brain is, we have that knowledge now. Soran should have borrowed Wesley's videogame visor or stuck an electrode into his brain instead of imbarking on the inplausble blow up stars strategy.

Would this receptor still be alive in humans or El Auriens after years or decades of abstinence?


So based on what you saw in Generations what explains the behavior of those effected by the Nexus?

(A) Soran was a nut for a long long time and most likely suffered criminal pychotic behavior most of his life with or without the energy ribbon.

(B) El Auriens are especially vulnerable to the Nexsus owing to their temporal/intution mental abilities. Was Guinan recieving realtime mental telepathy from herself at a party in the Nexus and that was making her sad?

(C) Humans are more or less immune. The Nexus was not so great a vacation that Picard forgot how to do his job in the subsequent three films.

 

[Christopher]

I don't think it's accurate to see it as an addiction. Soran was a man who, in reality, had lost his wife and family, his entire world. Reality offered him nothing but grief, despair and loneliness. The Nexus offered him the chance to be reunited with his loved ones and stay with them for eternity. I don't think it's that hard to understand why he was obsessed with returning. Some people learn to move on from tragedy and make the most of the life they have, but others cling to their pain and neuroses to an obsessive degree.

So it's not just that Soran was seeking joy in the abstract. He was pursuing something deeper than pleasure; he was pursuing love. Just putting a wire in his pleasure center wouldn't have been what he wanted, because what he wanted was his wife and family and world back.

Picard was able to shake off the Nexus experience because he's got more to live for in the real world. At the time, he was tempted, because he was in grief for his brother and nephew and despairing that the Picard line might come to an end with him. So the fantasy of having a large family was a fulfillment of one of his greatest desires. But ultimately, Picard is an explorer and a man of discipline and duty. I can only see him pursuing family if he could fit it into that life. So, like Kirk, he was the kind of man who would ultimately choose to turn his back on wish fulfillment and return to his ship and his duty.

 

[Timo]

To add to the above, Soran as a long-lived El-Aurian would probably have been thinking in terms of decades or centuries when pondering his life - not in terms of months or years like us short-lived humans. For him to care about his lost family for eight decades might not be any less normal and understandable than for a human to remain in anguish for eight years. Obsession? Perhaps. Unrealistic? Probably not, given the leeway of him being an alien species.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anticitizen]

It's been years since I saw the movie, but wasn't there something to the effect that due to the beam-out that 'saved' him in the beginning of the movie, he (and guinan) were 'ripped' out of the nexus, leaving something behind, and therefore creating the intense desire to return?

 

[Timo]

There was, but we don't know how much of a factor that really was. Guinan certainly got over her "addiction", and although her Nexus half claims to Picard that it wasn't easy, I don't know if we should trust any Nexus halves... Let alone ones of the known pathological liar Guinan.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Gary Sebben]

Questions about this movie are fruitless. The entire film falls apart when you realize that you actually CAN fly a ship into the Nexus and enter it. Kirk was blown up in the B's deflector room and survived. The people in the two transports were entering the nexus when they were beamed away.

And if this really isn't a viable option surely you can drift in front of it in a space suit and wait for it to eat you up. Generations should just be forgotten.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Questions about this movie are fruitless. The entire film falls apart when you realize that you actually CAN fly a ship into the Nexus and enter it. Kirk was blown up in the B's deflector room and survived. The people in the two transports were entering the nexus when they were beamed away.

And if this really isn't a viable option surely you can drift in front of it in a space suit and wait for it to eat you up. Generations should just be forgotten.

Who's to say that a man in a suit could survive the violent gravimetric fluxes?

 

[Timo]

And what possible reason would Soran have for trying a risky approach when a safe one presents itself? He'd be an idiot to try a starship a second time. After all, he had obviously tried something once, 40 years ago, and it had obviously failed him. Of course he would be playing safe now, lest he be killed or worse still, be forced to wait yet another 40 years!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lieut. Arex]

And if this really isn't a viable option surely you can drift in front of it in a space suit and wait for it to eat you up. Generations should just be forgotten.

Who's to say that a man in a suit could survive the violent gravimetric fluxes?

And a man standing exposed on a tower can?

The entire logic of Soren's actions goes to hell when we're shown he and Kirk get into the Nexus via ship and then we're told it's impossible. Moore and Braga themselves admit they don't know how the Nexus works and it shows glaringly with this inconsistency.

 

[Ronald Held]

I have little understanding how some methods for entering the Nexus(intact) will work, and some will not.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

And if this really isn't a viable option surely you can drift in front of it in a space suit and wait for it to eat you up. Generations should just be forgotten.

Who's to say that a man in a suit could survive the violent gravimetric fluxes?

And a man standing exposed on a tower can?

The entire logic of Soren's actions goes to hell when we're shown he and Kirk get into the Nexus via ship and then we're told it's impossible. Moore and Braga themselves admit they don't know how the Nexus works and it shows glaringly with this inconsistency.

If he were in a suit, it might get blasted by those energy discharges and if that didn't kill him, it'd fry any controls for the thing - if you have the option of manipulating the ribbon and safely waiting for it to come to you on an exposed platform on a planet instead of a ship that could be destroyed at the wrong moment in space, which do you go for?

 

[Lieut. Arex]

So don't use a suit. Use a spaceship like before. It's a hell of a lot less trouble than making a trilithium bomb and blowing up a bunch of stars. Besides, I'd rather be in a suit or ship rather than have one of those energy ribbons hit a totally unprotected me.

The only experience Soren has with entry into the Nexus is his own, from a spaceship. He can't interview anyone else about their attempts to enter because they're either (a) dead or, and more likely, (b) in the Nexus. And yet from that experience he concludes he can't enter the Nexus the way he originally did. It's as if I made a sandwich, enjoyed it, wanted another, but decided I had to come up with a completely contrary way to make the second because my earlier effort was impossible.

No sane person would do that. They would make the sandwich as before. Likewise, were I Soren, I would attempt to replicate my initial entry into the Nexus as closely as possible, even down to using the same type of ship. Now, if that meant hijacking one full of innocent people including, say Picard's nephew and brother who's reluctantly making his first space trip, so be it. They'll be happier in the Nexus too.

 

[RoJoHen]

I like to pretend that the reason someone can't necessarily enter the Nexus via is because the ship could be destroyed before he actually gets there.

 

[Anticitizen]

You could beam yourself into space right in the path of the Nexus if you timed it right. Yes, unprotected. You won't explode, either. If the timing is right, you'll be alive by the time the Nexus grabs you, and at that point, what does it matter if you've received injuries? You're in fantasyland.

You can buy an extra margin of error if you spend some time in a decompression tank beforehand.

 

[RyuRoots]

I like to pretend that the reason someone can't necessarily enter the Nexus via is because the ship could be destroyed before he actually gets there.

Makes sense to me. I mean, I don't think it's hard to believe that some of the people on the Lakul went down with the ship even if most of them ended up in the Nexus and some on the Ent-B.

 

[Timo]

So don't use a suit. Use a spaceship like before. It's a hell of a lot less trouble than making a trilithium bomb and blowing up a bunch of stars.

But it's also a lot riskier. And Soran has no reason to take risks. Blowing up two stars would have been free of UFP interference if the Romulans hadn't turned up looking for their trilithium. The timing was bad for Soran, but he was almost able to adapt anyway. Under his original plan, his person would never have been in a location of violence, unlike the case of actually hijacking a ride for himself.

Besides, I'd rather be in a suit or ship rather than have one of those energy ribbons hit a totally unprotected me.

But for all Soran knows, the ribbon hitting him is the very thing he desires. If he cannot survive that, all is lost anyway.

The only experience Soren has with entry into the Nexus is his own, from a spaceship.

Probably. And it failed miserably, twice. First in the prologue of the movie, then a second time around the 2330s when the Nexus next came to the neighborhood. Or at least it would be odd to the extreme if Soran didn't make use of that second opportunity...

Likewise, were I Soren, I would attempt to replicate my initial entry into the Nexus as closely as possible, even down to using the same type of ship.

Which is probably what he did in 2330. And we know that if he tried it, it failed, again.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Gary Sebben]

But it's also a lot riskier. And Soran has no reason to take risks. Blowing up two stars would have been free of UFP interference if the Romulans hadn't turned up looking for their trilithium.

Are you serious? Destroying two stars, running around with the Durases, handling high explosives, and hoping the Nexus gets you before the last star's nova hits you is LESS RISKY?

 

[Timo]

Of course - for you. Destroying the stars carries no personal risk: the rate at which the shock wave proceeds is a known quantity, and you can outpace it with a brisk (warp) walk. No authorities can be expected to get you, because the two detonations will happen basically back-to-back. The Durases do your dirty work for you, taking all the risks and getting generous payment.

If you hijacked a ship, you'd personally be facing dangers that in the original plan were dealt with by proxies. Or you'd have to hire mercenaries to do the hijacking, thus being no better off than with the Twisted Sisters. Plus, obviously ships do blow up when the Nexus hits them, while planetary surfaces or atmospheres suffer no ill effects.

Or is that latter observation just a fluke? Perhaps planets are preferable not because they are less likely to get hit, but because they will weather the hits better before they lose life support. Or because you can receive the Nexus without wearing risky layers of armor around you - risky because they might deflect the Nexus blessings from you.

Timo Saloniemi