What's up with Geordi in this episode? He's usually not that bad with people. He comes of pretty badly in this one. Well I guess he was pretty mean to Barclay as well. It's like Picard has to give him a direct order to become friends with every slightly annoying person. Maybe Geordi is extremely overworked and stressed out more than I realized.
What's up with Geordi in this episode? He's usually not that bad with people. He comes of pretty badly in this one. Well I guess he was pretty mean to Barclay as well. It's like Picard has to give him a direct order to become friends with every slightly annoying person. Maybe Geordi is extremely overworked and stressed out more than I realized.
Not to mention that Scotty was kind of a legend among starfleet people at that point. One would think that that would have earned him some respect from this young punk.
Keep in mind Scotty is a legend to *us* to Geordi, Scotty is just another one among millions of Starfleet officers. Yeah, he served on a notable ship under a notable captain, but there are thousands of ships serving at any one time so chances are there's lots of notable captains out there. All Starfleet engineers are likely published in some manner or another and all have likely had their input used when coming up with specifications and procedures.
Scotty, to Geordi, is pretty much just another officer and otherwise not exceptionable.
Geordi very often gets a bad rep in this episode for the way he behaves and maybe not entirely without cause, but at the same time I've always been willing to say that I don't think Geordi's behavior is entirely out of line.
Again, it's important to remember that from Geordi's point of view Scotty is just another officer some 80 years out of his time.
So:
Let us first consider that the ship had just made a *huge* discovery. Not just in terms of the size of the Dyson Sphere but in terms of significance of the find. So from that alone the ship's staff is overwhelmed with what it has to do to get some basic info on the sphere before Starfleet likely sends a far more dedicated research and exploration team.
When Scotty first comes aboard everyone seems very willing to talk with him and find out what he knows. Picard makes an effort to come greet Scotty before going back to work and Geordi expresses interest in talking with Scotty about things but at that moment he's busy and Scotty needs some rest to recover from his injuries and time in the transporter buffer. In Sickbay no one blows him off, everyone is pretty welcoming and shows interest in talking with Scotty. Right now? They're busy and Scotty needs to take time to recover.
Scotty talks the ear off of some poor low-ranking officer who escorted Scotty to his room. Sorry, the guy wasn't rude, he has a job to do and that job doesn't include standing there listening to Scotty ramble on about his old stories.
Scotty is on a massive ship, a ship full of shit to do. Holodecks, gymnasiums, the arboretum and other flora/fauna centers, Ten Forward and a massive computer database Scotty and can go through to learn about everything he's missed in the intervening time. He, instead, opts to do this:
So, imagine you're at your job one day doing your work and in walks someone who had your same job
eighty years ago. He's been a coma or something during the intervening time and has just came out of it and is interested in helping you do your job because he was the best at what he (and you) do.
Right now, you're overwhelmed with work. You've got a report to turn in to your boss, your regular stuff to do, and a lot more. Sure, this guy had your same job back when he was last around but so much has changed. Right now your equipment is built on microprocessors, chips, a high-capacity data line, and essentially everything you do is done on a computer as oppsoed to by hand.
This guy? When he did this job his computers were the size of a room, based on tapes and vacuum tubes and were essentially fancy calculators. Most of their work they did by hand and on paper. It's the same but *so much* has changed.
But, fine, you'll indulge him as much as you can and try and get your work done. So you're going along, indulging his stories and questions, when he goes over to a piece of equipment and starts messing with it. He sets off an alarm after he changes a setting. He proclaims that you're not doing your job right and that something is wrong.
What? It's right where it's supposed to be! It's running perfectly! Oh. but back in his time this setting is off. You let him know and move on. He shrugs and says the change makes sense now. He goes about his rambling and goes over to another piece of equipment and opens it up.
He exclaims that this piece of equipment is broken. Again, suggesting you're not doing your job right, you go over and, again, everything is fine. You tell him the machine is able to repair itself when it sees the need you don't have to mess with it.
You go back to your work.
He comes over to you and offers some advice.
Advice you didn't ask for.
He, basically, tells you you should lie to your boss in order to make yourself look better.
What?!
So, since this guy came in the room he's taken two chances to fool with equipment and, predictably given the 80-year difference between your time and his, things have changed; tell you you suck at your job. Now he's here telling you you should lie to your boss in order to make yourself look better?
If you, ask me Geordi showed remarkable patience with Scotty in the Engineering scenes. Scotty's behavior was out of line, Scotty in this situation has very little help to offer Geordi given the technological differences between their time periods and Geordi is running on a time crunch.
Geordi had expressed interest in going through things with Scotty. When he had the time.
Picard *sought Scotty out* to have a talk with him. This isn't the behavior of a man trying to give Scotty the brush-off and we all know Picard values his free-time and doesn't spend it socializing easily. But Scotty basically behaves like a child.
All love in the world to Scotty, but in much of this episode he was on the wrong side of the encounters he had with Geordi in Engineering.
