Question about Where no one has gone before

[at Quark's]

Just rewatched this episode, and I still like it! But ...

This Traveler (supposedly far more advanced than us humans) is fouling up twice in a row ? The first time he brings them to the far side of the galaxy M33, and the 2nd time he brings them to that place where thoughts become visible.

Which brings me to the question: was he really fouling up, or was this all part of a charade and a plan all along ? (e.g. after having detected Wesley). (I'm also wondering this because he seemed critically ill, and then is shown to be fine in later episodes, )

 

[jackoverfull]

I think it was part of the plan.

Still, the music was great, some parts were very unsettling but all considered the episode was a mess.

 

[Timo]

Seems logical to assume the Traveler was pulling a fast one on Starfleet there. (Or a slow one, as he had to do all that groundwork on the other ships at first, to be able to access the one with Wes aboard.)

Did he fall ill from all the travel? Or was that the exact thing he was hoping for, a means of returning home or reaching the next level or whatever, Asimov's "Does a Bee Care?" style? Perhaps Wesley was just fuel for him, too. "Remember Me" could still happen, with the Traveler now less interested in exploiting everybody and choosing to enjoy them another way for a change.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[jackoverfull]

Seems logical to assume the Traveler was pulling a fast one on Starfleet there. (Or a slow one, as he had to do all that groundwork on the other ships at first, to be able to access the one with Wes aboard

perhaps he knew that someone like Wesley was likely to exist but didn’t know where he would find him, so he moved from starship to starship searching for him.

 

[Finn]

Yeah. He was BSing. I watched it a few weeks ago and noticed how he seemed to recover a bit to talk with Picard alone.

 

[Christopher]

The episode was very loosely based on Diane Duane's TOS novel The Wounded Sky -- according to Duane, the writing staff rewrote her and Michael Reaves's script so heavily that almost nothing from it remained -- and in that book, the jumps across the universe were indeed accidental, the result of a new, untested drive system. So I guess I always took it as a given that it was an accident here as well, that the Traveler was attempting something that didn't quite work the way he intended. But I guess that's just what I assumed, and I suppose it's possible it was intentional.

The thing is, Trek tends to fall into the lazy habit of assuming all superhuman intelligences are equally godlike. Whatever limitations they may have in their original appearances, in their return appearances they're all pretty much written as interchangeably all-powerful, and sometimes that means their initial portrayals are hard to reconcile with what we initially saw (for instance, "Encounter at Farpoint" assumed that Q needed his force field bubble "ship" to pursue the Enterprise, and implied that the Q only occupied the specific territory that Starfleet was starting to expand into, which was why they didn't test us before then). The way the Traveler was portrayed in "Remember Me" and "Journey's End" does make it hard to believe he could've simply made a mistake in "Where No One...," but maybe the original intent was different -- that his species was powerful, but maybe not as powerful as later portrayed.

 

[dupersuper]

The episode was very loosely based on Diane Duane's TOS novel The Wounded Sky -- according to Duane, the writing staff rewrote her and Michael Reaves's script so heavily that almost nothing from it remained -- and in that book, the jumps across the universe were indeed accidental, the result of a new, untested drive system. So I guess I always took it as a given that it was an accident here as well, that the Traveler was attempting something that didn't quite work the way he intended. But I guess that's just what I assumed, and I suppose it's possible it was intentional.

The thing is, Trek tends to fall into the lazy habit of assuming all superhuman intelligences are equally godlike. Whatever limitations they may have in their original appearances, in their return appearances they're all pretty much written as interchangeably all-powerful, and sometimes that means their initial portrayals are hard to reconcile with what we initially saw (for instance, "Encounter at Farpoint" assumed that Q needed his force field bubble "ship" to pursue the Enterprise, and implied that the Q only occupied the specific territory that Starfleet was starting to expand into, which was why they didn't test us before then). The way the Traveler was portrayed in "Remember Me" and "Journey's End" does make it hard to believe he could've simply made a mistake in "Where No One...," but maybe the original intent was different -- that his species was powerful, but maybe not as powerful as later portrayed.

Or he's just well rested in the latter two...besides, he doesn't really do anything comparable to zapping a ship the size of a small city outside of conventional spacetime in those...

 

[publiusr]

Agreed. I loved The Traveller.

 

[Mojochi]

perhaps he knew that someone like Wesley was likely to exist but didn’t know where he would find him, so he moved from starship to starship searching for him.

I like this idea. Him & Kozinski had been to other ships, & upgraded their propulsion efficiency/capabilities, but none had this happy little accident, until they came aboard a ship with someone "Special" enough to merit it. Wesley even contributed in some technical way, at the onset. It's reasonable to suggest the Traveler decided then to let it play out when he saw that. Wesley might have corrected the propulsion dynamics in such a way as to even allow for that outcome in itself, & all the Traveler did was act as the necessary conduit to carry it out. Point being, Wesley's involvement in the dynamics of the test might have been more significant than we're led to believe. He might have even been somewhat directly responsible. It kind of fits his character to have genius enough to be at the ignition point of unusual events

 

[Timo]

...Or, alternately, the Traveler pulled the wool over the eyes of those who provided him with a free ride (and possible other things the heroes don't even realize) by making up shit about the cosmic significance of a random crew member.

It's not as if Wesley actually does much there. He notices the Traveler shifting in and out, but this doesn't take superpowers on Wesley's part. The "Shouldn't this be connected - here, and here?" insight just shows that he's as clever as Kosinski, not that he would be Special or in particular touch with the cosmos... And "this being connected" supposedly played no role in what transpired, and indeed nothing of Kosinski's work did.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ThankQ]

Don't the thoughts of the crew have influence over his abilities? Maybe some LJG in Turbolift Control mucked it all up.

 

[Vger23]

You can tell the Traveler is surprised in the initial leap by his reaction, just as Kosinski yells "What are you doing?!"

 

[Christopher]

Him & Kozinski had been to other ships, & upgraded their propulsion efficiency/capabilities, but none had this happy little accident, until they came aboard a ship with someone "Special" enough to merit it.

I don't think any of those other ships had been Galaxy-class, though. The G-class was supposed to be the most advanced ships in the fleet, and Riker specifically said the E was different from the other ships Kosinski had visited because "Our engines are new, sir. Top condition." So I think that was supposed to be the reason it didn't happen with the other ships -- their engines just weren't advanced enough to be triggered that way by the Traveler's abilities.

 

[Mojochi]

I don't think any of those other ships had been Galaxy-class, though. The G-class was supposed to be the most advanced ships in the fleet, and Riker specifically said the E was different from the other ships Kosinski had visited because "Our engines are new, sir. Top condition." So I think that was supposed to be the reason it didn't happen with the other ships -- their engines just weren't advanced enough to be triggered that way by the Traveler's abilities.

I kind of see it the other way around. Riker is probably right all together. Those other ships got "Improved" in so much as they needed improvements to bring them up the Galaxy standard, & what Kozinski was doing wouldn't have done anything at all maybe, or maybe the Traveler would've conjured a little something to justify their being there, but the astounding thing that happened? That seemed to fall in place once the Traveler had encountered Wes.

The reason I think this is because it wasn't specifically the advancement of the ENT-D that was the catalyst for this. The Traveler was. It stands to reason that if they could improve those other models to be as modernized as the Galaxy, then they could use them in the same way they did with the D. They didn't, because there wasn't a specific call to do so, having encountered someone with aptitude in it.

Point being, it just doesn't seem as much like the accident they made it out to be. A certain amount of opening that door deliberately had to be in play imho

 

[Christopher]

The reason I think this is because it wasn't specifically the advancement of the ENT-D that was the catalyst for this. The Traveler was.

It was both. That's what I meant -- that whatever it was the Traveler did to juice the engines had a more pronounced effect with the E-D's more powerful engines than it had with the more ordinary engines of the previous ships. You're trying to invent a revisionist explanation that says it was because of Wesley being a proto-Traveler, but I'm talking about the probable intention of the writers of the episode back in 1987, when Wesley was just intended to be a child prodigy. Nobody at the time this episode was written had any idea that their successors nearly seven years later would turn Wes into a Traveler.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

...Or, alternately, the Traveler pulled the wool over the eyes of those who provided him with a free ride (and possible other things the heroes don't even realize) by making up shit about the cosmic significance of a random crew member.

It's not as if Wesley actually does much there. He notices the Traveler shifting in and out, but this doesn't take superpowers on Wesley's part. The "Shouldn't this be connected - here, and here?" insight just shows that he's as clever as Kosinski, not that he would be Special or in particular touch with the cosmos... And "this being connected" supposedly played no role in what transpired, and indeed nothing of Kosinski's work did.

Timo Saloniemi

It could be that the phasing in and out was an effect visualized for the audience that only Wesley saw - the fact that no one ever really comments on the effect itself makes me wonder if this is something that exists more for the viewer to indicate that SOMETHING is happening, rather than something that should be taken as a 100% accurate representation of events on screen.

If that’s the case, it also better explains why the Traveler sees the potential in Wesley, that he could perceive this happening when no one else did.

 

[Christopher]

It could be that the phasing in and out was an effect visualized for the audience that only Wesley saw - the fact that no one ever really comments on the effect itself makes me wonder if this is something that exists more for the viewer to indicate that SOMETHING is happening, rather than something that should be taken as a 100% accurate representation of events on screen.

No need to overthink it. The script specifies that the others just weren't looking.

EMPHASIZING WESLEY (OPTICAL)

as he sees a strange phasing occur to the Alien. Riker
and the others are intent on the main screen and will
miss this.

Wes and the Traveler were over at the console in the alcove next to the warp core, while the others were huddled around the "pool table" concentrating on its displays. So they just didn't notice the Traveler phasing out. And the script also specified that the "Assistant" (as he was mostly called) had a tendency to blend into the background, so nobody paid him much attention anyway. The intent was that Wesley was the only one who took an interest in him.

Looking over the script again, I'm reminded that it was actually Wesley who worked with the Traveler to make some changes to the warp equation before the experiment, and that's what caused the ship to travel so far.

 

[Mojochi]

Looking over the script again, I'm reminded that it was actually Wesley who worked with the Traveler to make some changes to the warp equation before the experiment, and that's what caused the ship to travel so far.

Which is basically what I was saying. I'm not really trying to revise anything. He calls him a prodigy of space/time, & he involves him in the workings of the warp equations beforehand, & whether fully intentionally or not, something outstanding takes place, which hadn't in all their other experiments. While the ship being a newer model might have had some benefit to it, that level of event seems really out of bounds for even that.

Kozinski is mostly a fraud, who at his most "Sensed" something about what the Traveler was doing, but what took place was the influence of the Traveler, & in this specific case, more than likely because of Wesley's involvement also, at whatever level or for whatever reason. Surely they hadn't intended to set up the character evolution of his space/time manipulation as of yet, but a groundwork of something truly special was being laid, & implying he had something to do with the event doesn't seem too off base imho

 

[Timo]

Whatever the script intends to say, the episode itself ends up saying that Wesley's modifications to the warp work are inconsequential. The Traveler merely grants that they would make Kosinski's tinkering work more like the fool though it should, but doesn't go as far as admitting that Kosinski's nonsense would really transform to tangible benefits thanks to Wes. The Traveler is guiding Wes through a series of changes to Kosinski's work either as a form of test or then simply because he enjoys playing with children; he is never intending to make use of that work in his actual travels. (And while this episode doesn't explicate it yet, apparently reproducing this work is impossible when the Traveler departs; the warp field manipulations alone achieve nothing at all that would ever again warrant a mention.)

Also, trying to pretend that the other people just happen to be looking in the other direction when the Traveler phases is futile, with so many characters milling about, and with the human corner-of-the-eye such a wonderfully sensitive, well, sense. Either the phasing indeed is something only Wes out of all people watching can see (but he seems to be able to guide Riker to see it, too, later on) - or then the Traveler has the ability to actively divert the attention of people away from himself, and either chooses not to exert that on Wes, or then is genuinely taken by surprise that it doesn't work on Wes.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

Which is basically what I was saying.

I don't believe it is. As I understand it, what you're saying is that the Traveler was actively searching for someone "special" and then consciously caused the "accident" to happen when he found Wesley. I do not agree that that was the intent of the episode's writers. According to the script, the "Assistant" (aka the Traveler) was sharing his propulsion insights (while letting Kosinski take the credit) in exchange for just getting to wander and explore. When he happened across Wesley by chance, he noticed that the boy was a genius and encouraged him to tweak the warp equation, which had the unintended effect of making the improvements work even better than expected. You're reading premeditation and deceit into it, and I don't believe that was the scripted intent at all.

While the ship being a newer model might have had some benefit to it, that level of event seems really out of bounds for even that.

Again, I'm going from the script. It pointed out that the ship had a newer, better-tuned engine, and it showed Wesley and the Traveler modifying the equations. There's no need to choose between them; the episode explicitly established them both to be the case. It was mainly Wes and the Traveler, yes, but since the episode made a point of establishing what was distinct about the ship's engines, it stands to reason that that was also intended as one of the causative factors.