Questions About Two Episodes...

[Lt. LaForge]

The first is Conundrum: Why didn't MacDuff just place himself as Captain of the vessel. That way, he wouldn't have had to worry whether Captain Picard would have ordered the strike or not.

The second is The Masterpiece Society: What do you guys think happened to the group and culture left behind? Did the "dissenters" assimilate well?

I'm curious to learn each and everyone's thoughts on the two matters stated above.

 

[SonicRanger]

Perhaps MacDuff realised that, as we saw, Picard would naturally emerge as the leader and that somehow these people would know something was wrong because, deep down, they were still themselves.

 

[BillJ]

MacDuff should've blown Picard, Riker and Worf out the airlock before going to take on the Edo god.

 

[Trekker4747]

I always felt the tension of the episode was muted somewhat by the new guy being around because we, the audience, obviously knows the guy is up to no good.

 

[Tina Lawton]

The first is Conundrum: Why didn't MacDuff just place himself as Captain of the vessel. That way, he wouldn't have had to worry whether Captain Picard would have ordered the strike or not.

The second is The Masterpiece Society: What do you guys think happened to the group and culture left behind? Did the "dissenters" assimilate well?

I'm curious to learn each and everyone's thoughts on the two matters stated above.

"Conundrum" was an OK episode I kind of liked, but was largely a vehicle to get Riker and Rho in bed together. But to answer the question, since Duff Man could only block short term memory and could not implant new ones, the notion that the crew would eventually find themselves is valid. He had to place himself in a position the primary crew would more easily accept.

"The Masterpiece Society" sucked. They were all a bunch of eletist snobs and as a viewer I didn't care what happened to them. Add to this that Troi falls in love again and adds another notch to her lipstick case, and it was simply another perfectly forgettable episode featuring perfectly forgettable one-time characters.

 

[Trekker4747]

The plan in "Conundrum" didn't make much sense either. The alien was so easily able to capture the Enterprise and effect memory but they couldn't defeat their enemies on their own?

 

[Start Wreck]

I always felt the tension of the episode was muted somewhat by the new guy being around because we, the audience, obviously knows the guy is up to no good.

By a bizarre coincidence, this was one of the first episodes I ever saw, and as such, I never realised he wasn't supposed to be there.

 

[Timo]

A big plot point was that McDuff's folks didn't know how to build weapons like those aboard the Enterprise. So it might have been a capital mistake for McDuff to pretend to be the skipper of the starship when he didn't know the first thing about how the ship worked. By pretending to be the XO, he would have some authority to make the heroes believe they had a mission, but he wouldn't have to get too entangled with actually conducting that mission.

(Actually, the XO would probably have more difficulty hiding his incompetence than the CO, as the executive-wannabe would have to micromanage the advanced alien technologies to some extent. But perhaps he was aware of how Starfleet handled things? Unlike most real navies, Starfleet has the CO micromanage maneuvers and weapon operations and the like, while the XO mainly just repeats the CO's highly specific commands.)

As for the inability of the Satarrans to build photon torpedoes when they could build memory wipe weapons... Actually, that's more realistic than the rest of Star Trek where alien species have the exact same weapons capabilities as our heroes. Different paths of weapon evolution in different cultures are only to be expected, unless those cultures are at constant contact with each other. Of course, the Lysians were in contact with the Satarrans, and thus would have devised countermeasures to the memory weapon.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lt. LaForge]

Some very good answers here. I now see why MacDuff made himself second-in-command. It was driving me crazy. Thanks guys.

 

[Start Wreck]

Any reason would just be a McGuffin to serve the plot (or should that be a McDuffin?), but consider that it could have been outside of the aliens' technical ability to replace the computer records in such a way as to make McDuff a captain. The database entries might have different levels of encryption/security depending on the rank, so the highest position he could forge (without anyone discovering the tampered records) was XO.

 

[Timo]

We probably have to assume that the records created by the Satarrans were unconvincing in detail, and that the heroes would only believe in them when the memory weapon was still having its full confusing effect on their judgement. Perhaps there would be safety protocols protecting the actual information, but the Satarrans might manage to hide it behind a layer of make-believe, much like some computer viruses hide the real user interface behind a facade to make the user insert the wrong commands.

Since it was inevitable that the plot eventually be revealed, placing McDuff as the XO might have been an attempt to dodge the most obvious line of inquiry. If the heroes began to doubt what was being told to them, they would probably very quickly start doubting each other - but the obvious prime suspect would be the CO (or perhaps the ugly alien with the sash), while somebody seemingly in the sidelines would avoid scrutiny a bit longer.

On top of all this, we always have the fallback position of simply stating that the Satarrans were weird and alien.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tiberius]

Of course, if all the aliens needed was a few torpedoes, then McD should have just faked a rendezvous with a freighter to deliver some to his own people...

 

[Alrik]

^

Sure. But they would still need to know how to target and arm the torpedoes, as well as have a propper delivery system.

 

[zephramc]

I agree that Conundrum doesn't stand up well to scrutiny.

If you are a space faring race who is at war with another race and has the ability to control memories yet are lacking in the weapons technology area, do you:

A) Attempt to hijack a single Federation Starship to destroy your enemies, knowing full well that eventually someone will see through your ruse.

This would be particularly troublesome, considering the Satarrans wouldn't be able to put up much of a defense against the Federation after the fact. Christ, a single Runabout could probably smack the shit out of their entire military.

B) Use your mind control powers to get special deals from weapon traders like Quark's cousin Gaela (spelling?). You could also locate weapon manufacturers like we saw in The Arsenal of Freedom (Minos can't be the only planet doing that).

 

[Timo]

Well, using a hijacked starship would take less time than setting up an indigenous attack with stolen weapons - and when your memory weapon effect is of a type that wears off, time should be of essence!

The Satarrans needed a single surgical strike, after which they could drop everything and grovel: Lysians would be no more, and there would be no further need for hostilities with the party that had involunteered the starship. And the Feds would be the forgiving type...

However, the impression I got was that the Lysians and Satarrans were isolated from the greater interstellar community and thus wouldn't have known much about the UFP. That would have complicated choosing a "harmless" vessel to hijack - but it would also have made it difficult to purchase "interstellar-standard" weapons from other sources. Perhaps the Satarrans thus struck out at random, taking the first starship they could, and getting extremely lucky?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tiberius]

Well, using a hijacked starship would take less time than setting up an indigenous attack with stolen weapons - and when your memory weapon effect is of a type that wears off, time should be of essence!

Why wpould they need that memory thing at all? A few well placed phone calls, and then, "Hi Gaila, we're the Sataarans, and we need some weapons to kill our enemies. This is how much money we have, what can we get?"

 

[Cyke101]

A big plot point was that McDuff's folks didn't know how to build weapons like those aboard the Enterprise. So it might have been a capital mistake for McDuff to pretend to be the skipper of the starship when he didn't know the first thing about how the ship worked. By pretending to be the XO, he would have some authority to make the heroes believe they had a mission, but he wouldn't have to get too entangled with actually conducting that mission.

Timo Saloniemi

To me this makes a lot of sense, and gives more incentive to keeping Riker around as he had the actual knowledge of being an XO (maybe in Starfleet, could you pass off XO commands to the second officer, the way McDuff was Riker's superior?).

That's only guess work on my part, but I wish the episode had included your rationale. Of course, writing it into the episode without making it seem clunky would be tricky, but that's a minor thing.

 

[Trekker4747]

It still strikes me as odd that they were so easily able to "reprogram" the crew of the ship, consider that the Enterprise has on it over 1000 individuals over varying races and one of those individuals is an android using some of the rarest technology in the Trek Universe.

With a single wipe of their beam the aliens were able to completely block the memories of all of those individuals but to a specific enough degree that they didn't lose basic skills and technological knowledge. They also reprogram a completely alien and advanced computer system and they almost got away with it!

That's just a bit of a stretch on things.

It seems to me it would have been far easier to just go to some space-port and simply steal an advanced ship and technology. We know the Pakleds are capable of doing this and we know Starfleet maintains salvage yards in the Federation where occasionally pieces of ships or entire ships can go missing without anyone noticing it. (See: Unification.)

I think stealing a ship or technology would be enormously easier to do than to try and to try and to manipulate 1000 different people -again including a unique android- into doing what you want.

 

[Lt. LaForge]

I think Timo has explained what a lot of people think well enough. I agree with most of you, it does leave a lot of questions for the curious among us.

 

[Cyke101]

I think Timo has explained what a lot of people think well enough. I agree with most of you, it does leave a lot of questions for the curious among us.

I think the problem is that Timo explained (or others can with their own explanations too), but the episode itself didn't. Even if it gave a crappy reason, at least it would still be a reason and thus not a plot oversight.