Spoilers New Picard TV Series and Litverse Continuity (may contain TV show spoilers)

[Stevil2001]

For me the problems with Picard-as-father are:

• I remain unconvinced by the Crusher marriage to begin with. I prefer them as friends with a long history, and it's uncreative that deep male/female friendships always seem to eventually turn to romance.
• It's stifling that success always equals reproductive success. I like the idea of Picard as a man who never had kids, maybe never even married, and this doesn't bother him.
  
• It feels repetitive when you read TNG and Titan novels in quick succession; we have two series about captains married to their subordinates who have an obligatory scene every novel where they worry about toddlers. I prefer the series to forge their own identity, Riker/Titan is the better fit for fatherhood/family issues, in my opinion.
  
• Toddlers aren't very interesting to read about in an action/adventure series.

 

[Kilana2]

• Toddlers aren't very interesting to read about in an action/adventure series.

Neither are they interesting on screen. Therefore they invented the Soap Opera Rapid Ageing Syndrome.....

 

[Damian]

I never felt the family side of Picard's life was overly intrusive in the novels.

One thing is were they to retain Rene in the nu-TNG show, he would be what, in his late teens by that point. So you wouldn't have to worry about a toddler following Picard around or anything like that on the show. I think there is some potential with Picard having a teenage son he has to deal with....as long as they avoid making him some Wesley clone and avoid making the show some 90210 style show.

I think as far as not having a family not bothering him, well I think that ship sailed with Generations. He may have come to the realization he wanted a family late in life, but I've seen it happen to people in real life. People that hated kids when they were younger realizing they did want kids after all and actually in some cases becoming excellent parents.

It's sort of the same argument I have about Kira being a Vedek in the DS9 novels. I was surprised at the outset yes, but when I went back and thought about it, it made perfect sense to me.

Sometimes I think we want our characters to be just as they were portrayed in the various series and don't realize people change in real life. I'm guilty of that myself sometimes. Picard is not the same man he was in Encounter at Farpoint. In his case I think you can argue a gradual progression first with his gradual acceptance of Wesley Crusher, and his experiences way back in the first season episode "When the Bough Breaks" when he emphatically states they will not leave the kidnapped children behind. "Disaster" was another step where he appeared to become more accepting of children, "The Inner Light" showed him what having a family was actually like and then he got to experience life as a child in "Rascals". When his brother and nephew were killed I think that was a crucial moment for him. He was the last Picard now. But I think his wanting a family was more then just carrying on the family name as we learned in the Nexus.

In a way, for me, him not having a family at some point would almost be contradictory to his development. Now I think Crusher being his chosen bride can stand some scrutiny. Perhaps that was a bit convenient to the story. But it is what it is and as the years have gone by I've come to accept it.

And in the novels I haven't seen that his family has taken anything away from Picard. At his core, he is the same Picard I remember, devoted to duty and the Federation, wanting to explore, and seeing strength in people that others have given up on, like Captain Ro and Lt. Chen (just 2 of many examples).

 

[flandry84]

“Remember when we were explorers?”
...So what was he then?
A diplomat ..or a guy on a recruitment mission during the height of the Dominion war?
Forget it.

 

[USS Firefly]

Toddlers aren't very interesting to read about in an action/adventure series.

Especially when those childeren are more intelligent then normal childeren their age, it's such a cliché

 

[marlboro]

I agree with Damian about not finding the Picard family stuff overly intrusive, however, I don't think it added much either. Ultimately, I'd have to agree with flandry84, it just doesn't quite work for me.

I'm a fan of the old western series Gunsmoke. On that show, you always knew that the marshal and the local madam/saloon owner had something going on, but it was never official. I kind of think of Picard and Crusher's relationship the same way. Just without the prostitution and pistol whippings.

I will mention the baffling decision to write off Vaughan,IMO the most interesting of the reboot characters.

Yes!. A thousand times yes. Why would you kill off your Jack Ryan character just as you're introducing your cold war analog Typhon Pact storyline?

This is pure speculation on my part, but I think that Vaughn had filled some of Sisko's niche pre-Unity. Father figure, interacting with the Prophets, leading the missions into the GQ etc. When Ben came back he may have made him superfluous in that regard.

Still wish it hadn't happened though. He and Taran'atar were my two favorite DS9 Relaunch characters.


Picard as warrior:

I wonder sometimes how the relaunch would have turned out if TNG and Titan had swapped missions. TNG gets some more diverse crewmembers post Nemesis and focuses on deep space exploration, while Riker and crew get involved in the political/war stories closer to home.

 

[Damian]

I wonder sometimes how the relaunch would have turned out if TNG and Titan had swapped missions. TNG gets some more diverse crewmembers post Nemesis and focuses on deep space exploration, while Riker and crew get involved in the political/war stories closer to home.

In a sense that has now happened, at least from the mission standpoint. Picard is now on an exploration mission while the Titan has become the problem solver ship since Riker was promoted. I do like the dynamic now that Riker outranks Picard. I also like how Picard handles it, that it's no big deal that his former number 1 is now his superior. The consummate professional.

 

[Christopher]

I remain unconvinced by the Crusher marriage to begin with. I prefer them as friends with a long history, and it's uncreative that deep male/female friendships always seem to eventually turn to romance.

In general, I agree with that last statement, but not in this case. Picard and Crusher were set up from the start as a romance waiting to happen, but the post-season 1 producers failed to follow through, just spending years and years occasionally toying with "Jean-Luc, there's something I've been meaning to say" and all that. So it felt like it was a romance that should happen but was being artificially held in abeyance. There are cases where a relationship is clearly set up as a friendship so that turning it into a romance is utterly wrong -- Pete and Myka on Warehouse 13 being the supreme example -- but I don't feel that this is one of those cases. It was the constant quashing of the potential romance that felt wrong to me with Picard and Crusher.

It's stifling that success always equals reproductive success. I like the idea of Picard as a man who never had kids, maybe never even married, and this doesn't bother him.

Generations established otherwise. It did bother him. Previous seasons had established that he valued his family legacy greatly, and with his brother gone, he felt the obligation now fell on him. Fanfic writers may be free to cherrypick the parts of a character's personality that they like and agree with, but we tie-in authors have to be consistent with the whole package. In the wake of "The Inner Light" and Generations, it is absolutely logical that Picard would finally be ready and willing to pursue fatherhood.

“Remember when we were explorers?”
...So what was he then?

First off, that line proves my point -- that being an explorer was the norm for him and he saw his current state of affairs during the Dominion War as an exception. Second, he was not waging war at the time he said it -- the makers of Insurrection wanted to keep the nods to the Dominion War to a minimum for the benefit of moviegoers who didn't watch DS9, so the Enterprise was in the midst of a series of urgent diplomatic missions -- admitting a new UFP member, mediating a territorial dispute, putting out brush fires. Implicitly, the Enterprise was being used primarily for non-combat diplomatic and troubleshooting missions rather than combat missions -- which makes sense precisely because Picard is far more experienced as a diplomat than a soldier. (It also explains why the E-E never showed up in the battle scenes on DS9.)

 

[Damian]

In general, I agree with that last statement, but not in this case. Picard and Crusher were set up from the start as a romance waiting to happen, but the post-season 1 producers failed to follow through, just spending years and years occasionally toying with "Jean-Luc, there's something I've been meaning to say" and all that. So it felt like it was a romance that should happen but was being artificially held in abeyance

Yeah, I have to admit I sometimes forget about that. But thinking back it's a big plot hole that never gets resolved on screen. It's like they wanted to do something with it but kept putting it off and ran out of episodes.

which makes sense precisely because Picard is far more experienced as a diplomat than a soldier. (It also explains why the E-E never showed up in the battle scenes on DS9.)

I still would have loved to have seen the Enterprise-E pitted in at least one battle against a Jem'Hadar warship. I wonder how a Sovereign-class starship would have matched up in the war.

 

[marlboro]

I still would have loved to have seen the Enterprise-E pitted in at least one battle against a Jem'Hadar warship. I wonder how a Sovereign-class starship would have matched up in the war.

There are a handful of TNG Dominion War books out there. I recently read John Vornholt's DW books and enjoyed them both. The Dominion ships seemed to be a little underpowered compared to what we saw onscreen, imo.

I also enjoyed The Battle of Betazed and Tales of the Dominion War.


PS: As much as I love my Kindle, this is one of the shittiest keyboards/spell checkers I have ever used. Chiseling a message into stone while blindfolded would be less laborious.

 

[Christopher]

I still would have loved to have seen the Enterprise-E pitted in at least one battle against a Jem'Hadar warship. I wonder how a Sovereign-class starship would have matched up in the war.

I find such questions to be academic, because which ship wins a fight is always going to be dictated by the needs of the plot, and any weapon is always going to do as much or as little damage as the story requires -- which is why sometimes a photon torpedo is more powerful than any nuclear bomb and sometimes it's little more than a shiny cannonball.

 

[Damian]

There are a handful of TNG Dominion War books out there. I recently read John Vornholt's DW books and enjoyed them both. The Dominion ships seemed to be a little underpowered compared to what we saw onscreen, imo.

Yeah, I read the novels.

I find such questions to be academic, because which ship wins a fight is always going to be dictated by the needs of the plot, and any weapon is always going to do as much or as little damage as the story requires -- which is why sometimes a photon torpedo is more powerful than any nuclear bomb and sometimes it's little more than a shiny cannonball.

Of course, but it would have been fun to see on screen. I read the novels, and it makes sense since the Enterprise-E is one of the post powerful ships of the fleet it would have seen at least some fighting during the Dominion War. It just would have been nice to see something on screen at some point.

That's not to say I want Star Trek to be all about war and destruction...in fact even on Discovery I'd like to see them get back to exploration and that sort of thing. It's just while the war was going on I would have liked to have seen the Enterprise pitted against a Jem'Hadar warship.

 

[Stevil2001]

Generations established otherwise. It did bother him. Previous seasons had established that he valued his family legacy greatly, and with his brother gone, he felt the obligation now fell on him. Fanfic writers may be free to cherrypick the parts of a character's personality that they like and agree with, but we tie-in authors have to be consistent with the whole package. In the wake of "The Inner Light" and Generations, it is absolutely logical that Picard would finally be ready and willing to pursue fatherhood.

Surely the point of Generations is that it kind of bothered him, but didn't really bother him. Both Kirk and Picard experience attractive illusions of the domestic life they never had-- and then reject that illusion in favor of a life of continuing adventure. The death of Rene and Robert makes his wonder if he did the right thing; at the end of the film, he decides he did do the right thing.

Also I think your second and third sentences are oversimplifying the creative process. Sure, you can argue Picard-as-father is logical and consistent with what we saw on screen, but if Greater than the Sum hadn't included that in its proposal/outline, I doubt CBS would have rejected it as inconsistent.

 

[Christopher]

Surely the point of Generations is that it kind of bothered him, but didn't really bother him.

If that were true, then his Nexus vision of an ideal, joyous life wouldn't have been all about family.

Both Kirk and Picard experience attractive illusions of the domestic life they never had-- and then reject that illusion in favor of a life of continuing adventure.

Jim Kirk rejected the prospect of saving Edith Keeler -- does that mean it was just a casual dalliance? Of course not! He loved her with every fiber of his being, but he had to give her up because there were countless other lives at stake. And the Nexus was the same exact thing. It gave people their ideal fantasy lives, like being immersed in total joy, as Guinan put it. It was an irresistible siren song for most people, and what made Kirk and Picard the exceptions to that is that they don't care only about themselves, they care about the good of other people and their responsibility for protecting it. They gave up the Nexus because they were heroic enough to sacrifice their deepest desires for the greater good.

The death of Rene and Robert makes his wonder if he did the right thing; at the end of the film, he decides he did do the right thing.

Well, obviously, because he gave up an unreal fantasy to save billions of lives. That doesn't say a damn thing about his willingness to pursue a genuine marriage and family life in the future, because it was just an illusion.

Also I think your second and third sentences are oversimplifying the creative process. Sure, you can argue Picard-as-father is logical and consistent with what we saw on screen, but if Greater than the Sum hadn't included that in its proposal/outline, I doubt CBS would have rejected it as inconsistent.

The fact that there is more than one possible option does not mean that the option I employed was wrong or out of character. The fact that it is logical and consistent is the whole point, so if you concede that, what more is there to say?

 

[Stevil2001]

The fact that there is more than one possible option does not mean that the option I employed was wrong or out of character. The fact that it is logical and consistent is the whole point, so if you concede that, what more is there to say?

The point is that it's an interpretation of Picard's character that I don't agree with, even if I understand the justification for it, and that you overstated the case by arguing the novels had to marry Picard off in order to be consistent with Generations.

I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish with "what more is there to say?" This is a discussion board; I thought we were having a discussion.

 

[Damian]

I'm with Christopher on this one. To me it would have almost pointless if Picard did not have a family. I think it's obvious by Generations he wanted a family of his own. He discovered what he had in the Nexus was not really real, and he remembered all the lives that were at stake. And one thing about Picard, and Kirk for that matter, one trait they shared among their numerous differences, is the 'real' was very important to them. Both at the end of the day would rather the real then the fantasy.

But that didn't in any way negate Picard's wish for a family by that point in his life. I believe his desire in Generations was genuine. Perhaps the only thing holding him back was his starship command. But I think he realized he wouldn't have to give that up.

Picard is a character that grew throughout the series, and the movies. He wasn't the same man he started as.

You know what surprised me? Not that he decided to finally have a family, but that it took so long.

 

[Damian]

I guess what it comes down to is whether you find the character more or less interesting with a family. It may be natural or logical for him to get married and have a kid, but is it as entertaining? It would be perfectly logical and reasonable for Bruce Wayne to decide he can do more good as a politician than running around in a cape, but is that what the reader wants?

And, yes, my first post in this thread was bashing the OP for referencing a comic book movie. In my defense I can only say that I was bitten by a radioactive hypocrite as a teenager.

That's probably true in any storyline. In the novels him being married to Crusher and having a son made the character fuller to me. However, I have found it has neither added or detracted from the overall stories of the novels since he started his family.

Now if that element is retained for the nu-TNG show then it will all depend on how the writers handle it. I can see it helping his character if done right, but if done wrong it can go the other way. I noted before what I wouldn't want to see is a Wesley clone, or a teenage angst story. It should be less predictable then that.

 

[Christopher]

The point is that it's an interpretation of Picard's character that I don't agree with, even if I understand the justification for it, and that you overstated the case by arguing the novels had to marry Picard off in order to be consistent with Generations.

That is not what I said. I said "In the wake of 'The Inner Light' and Generations, it is absolutely logical that Picard would finally be ready and willing to pursue fatherhood." That means it's consistent, not that it's mandatory.

 

[Stevil2001]

That is not what I said. I said "In the wake of 'The Inner Light' and Generations, it is absolutely logical that Picard would finally be ready and willing to pursue fatherhood." That means it's consistent, not that it's mandatory.

Well, I think any discussion has degenerated beyond use at the point when the participants begin litigating about what each other meant, so I am out.

Thanks for the insight.

 

[Christopher]

Well, I think any discussion has degenerated beyond use at the point when the participants begin litigating about what each other meant, so I am out.

Huh? All I did was to clarify what I meant in the first place. In fact, all I did was to quote verbatim what I wrote in the first place, which you could easily have checked for yourself by re-reading my earlier post.