Just Watched TNG Blu-Ray Episode The Survivors

[Victory Is Life]

Wow, the Husnock... were the real Husnock as powerful as the Kevin Uxbridge projections? If so, good thing that the Douwd destroyed them, their ships had shielding that 'absorbed all incoming matter and energy'. That is absolutely unprecedented in Trek, they could give the Borg and Species 8472 a run for their money, and they were a 'species of hideous intelligence', surely they would have run right over the Federation. Do the feds owe Kevin Uxbridge a debt of gratitude, despite his genocide?

Another question, did the Douwd obliterate every trace of their existence? If not, their Invincible dreadnoughts are somewhere ripe for the taking...To me an inexcusable waste of an expanded storyline...

 

[Victory Is Life]

No one wants to weigh in?

 

[Alrik]

Its late, so I don't have time to quote the script, but from what I remember, and to paraphrase.

Kevin: "...looking at her broken body, in a fit of rage, I eliminated the Husnock. Not just one ship. All Husnock, everywhere. Now do you understand the scope of my crime?"

Understanding the power of Kevin, and probably understanding the threat that the Husnock presented, Picard told Kevin that he wasn't qualified to judge him.

To answer your question, I'm pretty sure the Husnock, and all traces of them were erased from time..

Edit: If not from time, from that point forward.

 

[Victory Is Life]

Its late, so I don't have time to quote the script, but from what I remember, and to paraphrase.

Kevin: "...looking at her broken body, in a fit of rage, I eliminated the Husnock. Not just one ship. All Husnock, everywhere. Now do you understand the scope of my crime?"

Understanding the power of Kevin, and probably understanding the threat that the Husnock presented, Picard told Kevin that he wasn't qualified to judge him.

To answer your question, I'm pretty sure the Husnock, and all traces of them were erased from time..

Edit: If not from time, from that point forward.

Makes sense, but something truly unique was extinguished. Too bad. Still unanswered questions about their capabilities, their history. I found it truly fascinating.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Genocide is bad, mmmkay.

You would really endorse mass murder as a pre-emptive measure? Holy crap, section 31 much? There are stronger cultures around Federation space than the Hushnak. The Shelliak, the Transfigurations race. Why not genocide them too? Genocide for everyone. YOU get annihilated! YOU get annihilated! Human galactic hegemony shall not be challenged!

Picard's statement had nothing to do with 'Owing Uxbridge a debt', he simply felt it he was not in the moral position to be the one to decide his punishment.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

I really liked Picard's "We're not qualified to be you judges." line. It just gave a nice perspective to humanity's place in the scheme of things. It did make me wonder, though, at just what point do they become qualified? Is it based at all on the idea that one would have to have the capability to detain/de-power a being in order to qualify as its' judge?

 

[drt]

I wasn't left with the impression the Husnock were particularly powerful, and that the engagement with that supership was fabricated by Oxbridge to try and chase Enterprise off.

 

[Vanyel]

Assuming, of course, the ship Kevin created was a Husnock ship. Then the Federation was spared a huge war; and if the ship accurately recreated a Husnock ship's capabilities the Federation would indeed have been in greater trouble than ever before. They would have lost, IMO.

What Kevin said is:

I saw her broken body... I went insane. My hatred exploded. And in an instant of grief... I destroyed the Husnock!'

Picard says something to try to comfort Kevin.

No, no, no, no, you don't understand the scope of my crime. I didn't kill just one Husnock, or a hundred, or a thousand. I killed them all. All Husnock, everywhere.

He ends with:

Are eleven thousand people worth fifty billion? Is the love of a woman worth the destruction of an entire species?

Three separate times in his final talk with Picard he only mentions destroying them, not obliterating all traces of them, or words to that effect. Technically he says he only destroyed, only a small difference in words meaning, but that difference in what he may or may not have done is light years long. That would mean planets and ships and bases should be floating around space like a crime scene in some horror movie. One second every Husnock is there at his post, at home, in bed, the next they are gone. But the crime scene remains.

A friend of mine once brought up a comparison to Beta Ray Bill and Thor's Hammer. Odin's enchantment wasn't fool proof.

 

[Timo]

Objectively speaking, it doesn't take much to destroy a colony or slag a planet. Any old rust bucket with a pair of phase cannon could do it, as the colonists supposedly would have nothing with which to shoot back. Therefore, there is no story requirement for the Husnock to be a powerful adversary.

In terms of the episode, it would make sense for the initial illusion of the attacking ship to be the one closest to the real Husnock vessel. Kevin at that point would win nothing by showing an enemy that is weaker than the real deal, as such an opponent would not attract Picard's attention long enough, and OTOH Picard had such an easy time dealing with the initial illusion that allowing it to be, say, ten times stronger would still not deter Picard from chasing after the illusion and thus leaving Kevin alone.

As the chase started, though, Kevin would probably make the Husnock ship faster than she really was, to get Picard as far away as possible. He just misjudged psychologically and made it too obvious that the illusory ship could never be caught.

The second illusion would be unrealistically upgunned, for a second and different attempt at making Picard leave. When an invincible enemy didn't deter him, either, Kevin had the illusion proceed to the third stage and "destroy the house", then let itself be blown up; neither of these elements in the illusion need represent real Husnock capabilities at all, either.

So, IMHO, the Husnock were not a powerful enemy at all. But they were pretty aggressive, to destroy a helpless colony like that, and in that sense Kevin Uxbridge did help out the UFP by eliminating the species and its culture. It's just that I don't see the UFP really needing that sort of help.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[GalaxyX]

I wasn't left with the impression the Husnock were particularly powerful, and that the engagement with that supership was fabricated by Oxbridge to try and chase Enterprise off.

Same here. We don't really know the power of the Husnock. All we know is that Kevin is amping up a version of them in hopes of scaring the Enterprise away. He was powerful enough to make his projection virtually invincible to the Enterprise's weapons, and could have destroyed the Enterprise with his mere thought, let alone create his projection to fire insanely powerful energy bursts that would have destroyed the Enterprise in a single shot if he wanted to.

I always understood Picard's statement about being able to judge Kevin more as a "how the hell do we judge a demigod? Can we even enforce any punishment on him?"

 

[RAMA]

The Husnock were probably a plot contrivance power-wise in order for the genocide to seem a more impressive/tragic feat. LOVE the episode, but I'm afraid in the scheme of things they weren't really that important a race.

RAMA