INS - Does the Son'a subterfuge work against them?

[DonIago]

As everyone who's seen INS will likely recall, Picard & Co. assist the Baku in preventing the Son'a attempts to beam them off the planet. It is later revealed that the Baku and Son'a are (or at least were) one race...the Son'a were exiled from the planet (how this was done by a race that appears to have abandoned technology is left as an exercise for the reader) after attempting to take control of the settlement. In the meantime the Son'a have developed medical issues which would require ten years of normal exposure to the Baku planet's rings to begin to reverse their condition, or far less time if they received a concentrated burst.

As everyone who's seen INS may not recall, there's an episode of TNG, "The Hunted", where a portion of a planet's population have been modified to serve as soldiers, and once the need for them was exhausted, they were imprisoned on a moon. When they eventually escape and the planet's leadership calls on Picard & Co. for aid...he demurs, citing the situation as an internal matter.

Of course, there's also the Klingon Civil War, where Picard refuses to get involved short of preventing the Romulans from interfering with events.

I'm thinking that Our Heroes may not be behaving consistently here.

Ironically, in INS it's Picard who first cites PD concerns about intervening between the Baku and the Son'a, and Admiral Dougherty who notes that, as the Baku are not indigenous to their planet, the PD doesn't apply. One wonders how Dougherty might have handled this if he'd realized the Son'a's relationship to the Baku.

Given the situation in "The Hunted" and Picard's general reticence toward violating the PD though, one wonders how he would have handled the situation if the Son'a had come to him at the beginning of the film and said, "We've returned to a planet from which we were exiled. We want to set up a colony on the far side of the planet, we won't cause any trouble for the Baku (from whom we're originally descended in any case), and even if we were going to cause trouble for them, we are descended from them, so this is an internal matter and we would kindly ask that you bugger off, since we know how you hate to get involved in such things."

 

[Therin of Andor]

Well, the Son'a were more interested in punishing the Ba'ku - forcing them to be removed from the rings that gave them eternal youth - than merely settling down on the far side of the planet.

I remember being stupid enough to read a bootlegged version of the "Insurrection" script many months before the movie came out. The reveal that the Son'a were wizened-up Ba'ku was such a revelation on paper, which I totally ruined for myself long before opening night. But I did like that the Son'a had made themselves into an instantly bigger power by enslaving the Tarlac and Ellora races.

 

[DonIago]

The thing of it is, if it is an internal matter...and I think the two(?) races being related is a pretty valid claim that it is...then I'm not sure the Son'a motives actually matter. It's not as though Starfleet used "We trust Party Gowron more than Party Duras" as a motive for getting involved in that dispute...at least officially. I also feel that the point that the Baku aren't indigenous to the planet is a valid one, as it can then be legitimately argued that they have no more claim to the planet than anyone else. Though I suppose the Federation may have laws determining how long a group has to be on a planet before they can claim legal jurisdiction over it.

Hell, the Feds deciding they favored one government over another and would act in its interests sounds a bit like certain contemporary political actions that have ultimately had undesirable results.

All that being said...how would the Feds know whether or not the Son'a were being honest in any case? Were they going to leave behind a Starfleet force to keep an eye on things? As is I feel they were left with no choice, because now that the planet's properties are an open secret, why wouldn't someone try to pick up where Ru'afo left off?

I'm not sure the Son'a motives are so clear-cut. At least some of them seem to have reservations about outright slaughtering the Baku, and if the plan as presented to Picard had continued, they would have been (forcibly?) relocated, not killed, which wouldn't so much be a death sentence as "now you're not luckier than everyone else anymore". We don't even know how long the Son'a were away from the planet before their illness began to manifest. But again, that may be beside the point. Actually, to some degree I wonder whether it was Picard's own intransigence with regards to the plan that pushed Ru'afo to say "Screw it, let's just kill them all and get on with this."

Yeah, knowing the Son'a's dirty little secret is a pretty big spoiler, because as evidenced it significantly changes the scope of the argument.

I almost wish we could have seen this situation handled as a courtroom drama instead.

 

[Timo]

I rather doubt the Ba'ku were ever going to survive the Son'a plan. After all, the whole concept of relocating them in a holographically camouflaged ship hinged on them being primitive ignorami, and that was a dirty Son'a lie.

If holographic relocating really were attempted, the technologically savvy Ba'ku would realize it soon enough, and Starfleet would go to utter panic, both because the Ba'ku had made the realization and because this proved the Son'a were lying to the Feds.

The likely way for the scenario to play out would be for the Ba'ku to be beamed into the transport, and then an "accident" occurring in which all of them would die, preferably maximally horribly, and definitely before they had a chance to make it known they were advanced starfarers themselves.

On the other hand, the very fact that the Son'a bothered to ask the UFP pretty please for the right to enter the Briar Patch (with all the necessary associated lies) suggests they were afraid of UFP response and would ultimately wish to create the illusion that nothing evil had taken place. We don't know how much witness elimination this would have required and how realistic the plan would have been.

Could Data and Dougherty have remained ignorant of the fact that the duck blind mission was utter sham and the Ba'ku in fact an advanced bunch? An isolated village of a few hundred folks could not maintain iron age existence without artificial aids, and certainly couldn't be a natural feature of the planet. On the other hand, a "stranded colonists devolved" interpretation could still be maintained, the devolved colonists having become so ignorant of their interstellar roots that they would now warrant the full PD "protection" awarded to primitives (noninterference, meaning absolutely no communication and thus no say on their own fates).

The by far best thing about ST:INS for me is the nested lies - the different stories told to the different players. Picard launches an insurrection out of moral outrage because he has been told a different story from the one the Federation Council or Admiral Dougherty or Data were told. The whole situation exists because of lies. And it would never be happily resolved without those lies!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tenacity]

and because this proved the Son'a were lying to the Feds.

The only thing he Son'a were lying about (withholding information on) was that the Son'a and the Ba'ku were a single species, the Federation knew that the Ba'ku were technological migrants to the planet.

It was only Picard and the scooby gang who thought the Ba'ku were primitive locals, and that only lasted a day.

I'm thinking that Our Heroes may not be behaving consistently here.

Gee ... you think?

 

[Timo]

The only thing he Son'a were lying about (withholding information on) was that the Son'a and the Ba'ku were a single species, the Federation knew that the Ba'ku were technological migrants to the planet.

We don't know who knew what. Dougherty no doubt was in on the Ba'ku being from Elsewere, and indeed this would be obvious to anybody who had a good look at the place. But what was the story given to the UFP Council? They wouldn't have agreed on a holotransportation scheme if they knew the locals would at the very least fully realize what an altered night sky meant.

What else were the Son'a lying about? The thing is, they were motivated to lie about a lot, and in a position never to get caught. Was their technological superiority really necessary for collecting the youth particles? Would mere natural exposure really have been insufficient for curing them all? Since the goal of the operation appeared to be to wreak vengeance on the Ba'ku, we're left in doubt on whether the collector would even have worked at all, except in the sense of destroying the Ba'ku planet.

It was only Picard and the scooby gang who thought the Ba'ku were primitive locals, and that only lasted a day.Gee ... you think?

They weren't told anything, and weren't expected to meddle. But they were expected to loan that dog of theirs. Dougherty must have known Data was not a simpleton, and that he'd only be gullible to a point; the plot needs yet another set of customized lies to keep Data cooperative when he sees an interstellar colony but does not and must not know of the evacuation plan or the fountain of youth.

Really, the holosurvey angle is the most difficult one to rationalize here. The survey should reveal the lack of need for the survey to anybody conducting the survey. Yet at least one person involved in the survey, Data, was not aware of the whole plot (the Starfleet/UFP Council - customized version of the truth on it) initially (or was he told right away yet went mad only after mulling over the issue for a few weeks?). Furthermore, who'd sponsor the survey without receiving the damning results? Or after receiving such results?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DonIago]

Without checking MA, do we have any idea why Data was assigned to this mission in the first place? It feels like an out-of-universe plot tweak to get Our Heroes involved, which would be unfortunate.

Otherwise we almost have to assume that Data had some sort of unique skill set necessary to this mission which made Dougerty feel it was worth the risk of bringing in an outside party.

 

[DonIago]

Most of this seems secondary to the question of whether the situation should, all parties being honest, have been considered an internal matter or not, but what the hell...

Is there a deleted post in here? You quoted a line involving the "Scooby gang", but I don't see anything along those lines elsewhere...

The Son'a may have figured that even with the Baku's technical knowledge, by the time they realized what was going on it would be too late anyway. Why bother killing them if the rings have already been harvested? Heck, since the Son'a already know the Baku are technologically advanced, why would they go along with the holoship plan if they knew the Baku would, pardon the expression, see through it in any case? Sure, the Son'a could sabotage the process to kill the Baku, but I wouldn't want to bet against Federation forensics figuring out what had happened, and sabotage can always fail in any case.

I'm still left thinking Plan A was for the Baku to be relocated via the holoship. Perhaps the Son'a would quietly eliminate them later on...after the rings had been harvested. Maybe Ru'afo and some other Son'a would prefer Plan A being "kill the Baku and take the rings", but they needed Federation support, and there was clearly at least some division amongst the Son'a regarding killing the Baku.

I think the duck blind mission was only a sham in that while it was a covert survey, it was a covert survey with the intention of building the holoship innards. I'm sure Data was told "Oh, we're just checking out this indigenous primitive society to see what's the what", or something along those lines. As we see, Data figures out that's not the case, and thus we have a movie.

The "stranded colonists devolved" line of thought doesn't seem to work because Dougherty already knows they're not indigenous, and expressly tells Picard that the PD doesn't apply because of that fact. He must know they're warp (or at least sublight) capable, but either doesn't know their full capabilities or doesn't care, since as noted above the Baku might only figure the situation out after it's too late for them to do anything about it. Really, the only major information Dougherty doesn't seem privy to is that the Son'a and Baku are related.

I wonder whether the plan involved dropping the Baku on their own version of Ceti Alpha V...sure they might know how to build ships, but without the resources to do so, they're not going anywhere within any sort of relevant timeframe.

I'm still amused by the irony that the Son'a were only motivated to lie because they hid their origins to begin with, and that they might have been able to claim "they're us, we're them, internal matter, go away".

The movie doesn't state that natural exposure would have been insufficient, only that it would have taken a minimum of ten years. For an immortal ten years shouldn't be an issue, but Ru'afo at least is shown to be impatient to a fault. Things might have turned out differently if the Son'a had a Weyoun equivalent instead.

Now that I'm thinking about it, it seems a significant plot contrivance that the Baku never encounter the Son'a until matters have escalated in any case...it would have been telling whether the Baku called out their relationship to the Son'a, or kept it swept under the rug themselves.

 

[Tenacity]

There are many things in the movie are are unspoken, not that that is automatically a bad thing.

One thing is, it's unclear exactly who would have "custody" of the Baku after they were transferred to the holoship. If the Starfleet personnel on the planet were to be the ones operating the holoship (also a starship?), the Baku would likely have been taken to a Federation planet and settled there.

If the Sona were to operate the holoship, the destination could have been one of the two planets the Sona held. My impression is that the Sona didn't want to simply kill the Baku.

 

[UssGlenn]

I also feel that the point that the Baku aren't indigenous to the planet is a valid one, as it can then be legitimately argued that they have no more claim to the planet than anyone else. Though I suppose the Federation may have laws determining how long a group has to be on a planet before they can claim legal jurisdiction over it.

Since the Baku settled on the planet before the Federation even existed, then I would have to say that the Baku's claim is much stronger than the Federations.

 

[DonIago]

The information we're given in the film would seem to suggest that, from the Federation's perspective, if the inhabitants of a planet didn't originate there, then they have no claim to it.

Though Dougherty could have been lying when he claimed that the Council had approved the relocation of the Baku, or this planet may have been considered an exception to a more general rule.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

it's unclear exactly who would have "custody" of the Baku after they were transferred to the holoship. If the Starfleet personnel on the planet were to be the ones operating the holoship (also a starship?), the Baku would likely have been taken to a Federation planet and settled there.

If the Sona were to operate the holoship, the destination could have been one of the two planets the Sona held. My impression is that the Sona didn't want to simply kill the Baku.

The holoship was a Federation ship, so I can only assume it would be crewed by Starfleet officers at all times. Although they and the Son'a probably worked out ahead of time, what was to be done with the Ba'ku "passengers".

 

[Timo]

Without checking MA, do we have any idea why Data was assigned to this mission in the first place? It feels like an out-of-universe plot tweak to get Our Heroes involved, which would be unfortunate.

Otherwise we almost have to assume that Data had some sort of unique skill set necessary to this mission which made Dougerty feel it was worth the risk of bringing in an outside party.

No other explanation was ever given besides the "Data can survive in the dangerous environment better than you ordinary folks, and please do not stop to think that I'm an ordinary folkster, too" excuse that probably wasn't supposed to be for real.

It's a bit difficult to imagine Dougherty thinking that Data could be easily programmed to do things live humanoid goons couldn't do. After all, not only is Data's service record notorious, Dougherty also had no shortage of live goons!

Most of this seems secondary to the question of whether the situation should, all parties being honest, have been considered an internal matter or not, but what the hell...

It's sort of relevant because the lies were told. Apparently, they were told exactly because the outcome would have been different otherwise, and since we have an inkling of the outcome with the lies (Starfleet agrees to let the Son'a play with a UFP planet as long as it's not a Son'a/Ba'ku internal matter), the other outcome can be postulated (Starfleet has a problem with the Son'a delivering comeuppance to the Ba'ku, even if the UFP receives longevity as payment).

Is there a deleted post in here? You quoted a line involving the "Scooby gang", but I don't see anything along those lines elsewhere...

Hmh? Should there be something specific there? (I thought the comparison apt, as the heroes uncover the mystery chiefly by stumbling and running.)

The Son'a may have figured that even with the Baku's technical knowledge, by the time they realized what was going on it would be too late anyway. Why bother killing them if the rings have already been harvested?

Because they would still be better off than the Son'a - without the scars, without the history of exile. And losing the nice planet would be no consolation because it would be lost to the Son'a as well. No matter how bloody or tempered each Son'a individual wanted his steak of vengeance, nobody would be satisfied with that.

Heck, since the Son'a already know the Baku are technologically advanced, why would they go along with the holoship plan if they knew the Baku would, pardon the expression, see through it in any case? Sure, the Son'a could sabotage the process to kill the Baku, but I wouldn't want to bet against Federation forensics figuring out what had happened, and sabotage can always fail in any case.

The Son'a would appear to care about both longevity and vengeance. If they harvested the planet, they would have all of the former and a little bit of the latter - but if they didn't fear Starfleet, they could now proceed to have all of the latter as well. Starfleet might meddle with the collecting process even if its best starships are no match to Son'a ones, but afterwards the Feds could be defeated. This would just require fooling the Feds with niceties for a brief while, hence the holoproject.

If the UFP were a formidable enemy to the Son'a in general terms, then the vengeance part of the plan would have to be subtle no matter what.

I'm still left thinking Plan A was for the Baku to be relocated via the holoship. Perhaps the Son'a would quietly eliminate them later on...after the rings had been harvested. Maybe Ru'afo and some other Son'a would prefer Plan A being "kill the Baku and take the rings", but they needed Federation support, and there was clearly at least some division amongst the Son'a regarding killing the Baku.

And I have nothing against yet another round of nested lies.

I think the duck blind mission was only a sham in that while it was a covert survey, it was a covert survey with the intention of building the holoship innards. I'm sure Data was told "Oh, we're just checking out this indigenous primitive society to see what's the what", or something along those lines. As we see, Data figures out that's not the case, and thus we have a movie.

Agreed, it's the easiest and most likely solution.

I'm still amused by the irony that the Son'a were only motivated to lie because they hid their origins to begin with, and that they might have been able to claim "they're us, we're them, internal matter, go away".

But if Dougherty and the UFP Council already knew the Ba'ku were colonists, then the lies would only be motivated by the fact that the UFP won't let the Son'a whup their relatives internally.

Now that I'm thinking about it, it seems a significant plot contrivance that the Baku never encounter the Son'a until matters have escalated in any case...it would have been telling whether the Baku called out their relationship to the Son'a, or kept it swept under the rug themselves.

This would be something for the Son'a to decide, now wouldn't it? The Ba'ku are in the hiding (supposedly from the home culture, but evidently from somebody and desperately so or they wouldn't be in the Briar Patch), the Son'a are a mighty empire, and supposedly neither of these things postdates the Son'a turning into grey monsters much.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tenacity]

Since the Baku settled on the planet before the Federation even existed, then I would have to say that the Baku's claim is much stronger than the Federations.

And the Sona's claim to the planet would be equal to the Baku's.

Though Dougherty could have been lying when he claimed that the Council had approved the relocation of the Baku

The Baku could have been lying about how long they've been on the planet.

 

[DonIago]

^Good points. I don't think this claim is ever brought to the Son'a, but if it is, it's never contradicted either.

Regarding Timo's post:

1. We seem to agree that Data being on the mission appears to be out-of-universe hand-waving rather than anything that makes sense in-universe. Unfortunate.
2. I think it's the particulars of the lies that get the Son'a in trouble, not the dishonesty itself. As I said initially, if they'd simply said they wanted to settle on the far side of the planet, been able to genetically prove their relationship to the Baku, and either didn't plan to commit genocide, or hid it really well (and I don't think it's clear that for all of the Son'a genocide was always part of the plan), then I don't see why the Feds wouldn't say "Hey, you're all the same people, so this really isn't any of our business unless you start attacking our ships or such." Like I said in my first post, this seems to just be a more morally challenging version of "The Hunted" or the Klingon Civil War.
3. If the rings were harvested after the Baku were relocated, how would the Baku be better off than the Son'a? The Son'a get cured and still have their tech and ships, and the Baku are suddenly faced with mortality for the first time in several hundred years
4. The Son'a must have some fear of the Federation/Starfleet, or they would have snuck in and relocated or killed the Baku without bothering to play the diplomacy game first. And if they'd tried to sneak into Federation space and been caught, that surely would have been a plot point.
5. I really don't understand why the Son'a lied about their relationship to the Baku at this point. It's quite possible they assumed the Feds would jump in one direction when they wouldn't have. Maybe they figured if they were honest then conversations with the Baku would ensue that would tilt the Feds toward the Baku perspective (i.e. that the Son'a kind of deserved to be exiled)...but honestly, given how the Son'a have fared since, I think they've paid the price for their coup. Too bad the Baku never even offered to let them have the far side of the planet. Even if they were shot down (figuratively), it would have been a gesture.
6. I never assumed the Baku were in hiding. If they were in hiding, the people they'd most likely hide from would be the Son'a...who already know where they live. Rather I figured the Baku were wandering in search of a new home, and found the Fountain of Youth. Why would anyone leave at that point?
7. Which makes me wonder...we never do learn the reasons the Son'a broke from the Baku and tried to take control, do we?

 

[Timo]

Everybody seems to agree that nobody would want to live in the Briar Patch. That the Ba'ku went there in the first place tells of deep desperation: if they just wanted a home, they could have landed on Vulcan or Bolarus and talked to a few people and gotten customized homes for everybody (and not this one lousy planet they had to share with each other).

And if the going definition of "evil Ba'ku" = "Son'a", then the refugees really had a reason to fear their government, for its malevolence and for its ability to reach them from across hell and high water.

Was the place really bad for your health? The Fountain of Youth prevents us from knowing for sure: without it, people in there might really be flirting with horrible mutations rather than with visiting skippers. If so, sending Data would make sense overall (even if regular humanoids would survive brief forays outside the shielded base in the disingenuous "no Fountain of Youth here, nossir!" circumstances).

Why the Son'a would wish to leave a planet where everybody lives forever sounds obvious: kids want to grow up, not old. The place must be sheer hell for those new to it by birth, even if it's attractive to those new to it by arrival.

Why the "it's an internal matter" approach wouldn't work appears clear: the mighty Son'a are confronted by the fact that the Feds own the planet. Quite regardless of the presence of people there, quite regardless of whether they are natives or squatters, the Feds own the place. And if they ever thought of giving it up, they sure as hell won't when they learn of the Fountain of Youth. So the Son'a really have just two ways of achieving renewed youth: telling lies about pretty much everything but revealing the existence of the cure for aging (the way they choose) or telling lies about why they so desperately want to go to this hellhole of a place for no obvious reason. Trusting the Feds with the latter doesn't sound like a good bet at all (not to mention it does preempt the vengeance scheme that at least some of the Son'a harbor).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DonIago]

I'm now amusing myself with thoughts that the planet was outside the Briar Patch at the time the Baku found it, so it wasn't actually hard to get to at all at that point...

...or the Baku created the Briar Patch! Because of course they don't want their Fountain of Youth to be discovered!

As far as the detrimental effects of leaving the planet, perhaps it's simply an issue for those who've already lived past their species' natural lifetimes. Our Heroes leave without suffering any apparent harm, but the Son'a were on the planet for a much longer time before their failed coup. Or otherwise, it's only an issue for those who are on the planet for a prolonged time in general.

The Son'a didn't want to leave the planet; they wanted to run the place. The Baku kicked them out, though the methodology of such is unclear, and IMO, based on what we see, somewhat inexplicable.

Why should it matter whether the Feds claim the planet or not? If they don't claim the planet then what the Son'a do shouldn't really matter because it's not a Federation planet. If they do claim the planet, then it seems inconsistent with Federation policy for Starfleet to involve itself in the dispute, especially when nobody's actually requesting their assistance.

 

[Timo]

Why would the Feds not get involved if they already have taken the step of claiming ownership? What the Feds own, they rule with an iron fist - Kirk can deport entire planetfuls of people on a whim. That is, unless they control a key resource, in which case it's soft touch all the way.

The movie makes the effort to establish nuances to UFP ownership and ruling at the very start, with the "protectorate" thing. But we already saw the Feds claim the Tellun system "under Federation control" in "Elaan of Troyius", even though both inhabited planets appeared non-members; Kirk is on a mission of appeasement interference there, actively trying to please the locals for strategic gain.

It's not all that difficult to accept that the UFP could have pretty strict policies in action here, not inconsistent with precedent at all because there's no overruling, oversimplified consistency to start with.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DonIago]

In other words, we've seen the Feds jump both ways so can't draw any conclusions.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Son'a didn't want to leave the planet; they wanted to run the place. The Baku kicked them out, though the methodology of such is unclear, and IMO, based on what we see, somewhat inexplicable.

The Ba'ku still had technological capability - remember one of them said they tried to repair Data. They just didn't normally use it in their day to day lives. But they were still capable of it when provoked.