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If a Crystalline Entity was threatening your planet, what would you do?

What would you do if the Crystalline Entity was coming for your home on your planet?


  • Total voters
    26
That the beast really could communicate is optimistic speculation by our heroes. When they scratch it enough, its growling changes a bit in pitch. Is it about to break out in dialogue? To gulp down the starship? To roll over? To flee? No telling.

"Datalore" would suggest the opposite. Lore, believing himself to have quite the rapport with the entity, spells out a simple plan that would provide food for the creature. The entity apparently comprehends nothing, completely failing to follow the plan.

Timo Saloniemi
From what you describe, the CE has about as much sentience as your pet dog.
 
I choose neither. This "question" reminds me of the quandary facing Kirk in the TOS episode "Devil in the Dark". If Kirk managed to come to terms with the antagonist, others can come to terms with the CE. Clearly, an effort by Starfleet was made to deal with a colony of such entities by the year 2381.
 
"Silicon Avatar" was really stretching things as it continued along. It couldn't afford to be two-sided, though at least it keeps true to how Picard doesn't give a bleep no matter how many fellow beings get murdered to be the crystal's buffet. (Season 5 is often loaded with one-sided hole-ridden glossy fluff...)

Lore was real chummy with the Entity, proving communication was more than possible. SA rightly shows that Picard had no means to communicate so they had to figure the thing out - a daunting task, to say the least. Even dating is easier in some ways... But if this is the same crystal that was in Datalore, then it knew enough English as Lore spoke to it clearly in that language. If it's another -- and thankfully LD smartly renders it definitive that more are out there -- then they might have to learn from scratch, like going to school and such:

Crystal-Entities-Learn-Language.jpg


...oh dear...

But, and take this with a grain of alum and other powders that can form crystals that your mommy will remove from under your bed cuz you know you tried growing your own crystals as kid and long before TNG aired as well, if they all learned how to communicate and be nice... there wouldn't be any more sequels and that's a bore that won't add to lore or be used by Lore and they're not tasty as a s'more, either... so yeah, you know most people would shatter the things by bringing out the loudspeakers and getting the opera out to sing the high note...
 
The Crystalline Entity likes eating humans. Sorry. That thing's got to go! **** its status as an unique life form. It's clearly a doomsday machine in pretty clothing.

Now, I might feel the opposite way if I discover the CE is an automated transporter system used for planetary evacuations created by a clearly advanced benevolent race bent on preserving life throughout supernova hot zones.

As it stands so far in Trek lore, take a hammer to it.
 
Odo : "Another glorious chapter of Klingon history. Tell me, do they still sing songs of the Great Tribble Hunt?"
Even Kirk declares that they are a dangerous species.

Here's a thought about Crystalline Entities... turn them into rock candy. Hunting them isn't immoral if you eat what you kill.
 
The Crystalline Entity likes eating humans. Sorry. That thing's got to go! **** its status as an unique life form. It's clearly a doomsday machine in pretty clothing.

Now, I might feel the opposite way if I discover the CE is an automated transporter system used for planetary evacuations created by a clearly advanced benevolent race bent on preserving life throughout supernova hot zones.

As it stands so far in Trek lore, take a hammer to it.

^ Kind of how human beings wiped out entire species of animals, after a) going into THEIR hunting grounds, and, b) get mad that those same predators decides, "YUM! New food source!" (see: Australia).

The CE didn't do anything wrong or malevolent, and it didn't intentionally eat human beings, since these things eat any biological life on a planet. And clearly, Starfleet was aware enough to communicate and establish protocols with these things, in order to prevent a misunderstanding from taking place. Rational approach to a simple solution.
 
I'd kill it with fire in a heartbeat.

Or at least, the anti-crystalline entity destroying equivalent of fire.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.
 
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