I just watched that one the other day it's not a great episode is it?
Spoilers S2, Ep. 15 - "Pen Pals" - ending was sad
- Thread starter spinagogue
- Start date
I wouldn't say it's sad. Scared little doomed girl begs for help & gets it, & isn't scared or doomed anymore. It might be unfortunate that she's made ignorant of how, but meh... All told? It's definitely a good day. Better than similar circumstances have been known to play out
In both those cases it could be as easy as those species having brains that are naturally resistant against memory erasure (Crusher says in WWTW that it might not work on the Mintakan iirc) . Korn was a Klingon, and their brains are most likely known reasonably well to the Federation, and Pulaski might have just lucked out with the alien child.
Yes it was. This episode was a guilty pleasure of mine. I am a Data fan.
A little girl charmed alien strangers into saving her world from apocalypse. What's sad is that what it took for them to do it.
S'ukal could relate to this episode
Little things irked me. The Dremans appeared to have force field and/or 24th-century-like hologram technology. Something is keeping them from developing warp drive quickly. What if there's a civilization that devevlops replicators, holodecks, transporters and all of that incredibly technology beyond lot of the Federation technology, without devleloping warp drive. Are they really pre-warp?
No moon in their sky? No Mars-like planet in their system to inspire the citizens of Drema?
No moon in their sky? No Mars-like planet in their system to inspire the citizens of Drema?
That in a big way.
I guess it really boils down to whether they're traversing off into the interstellar community (Which is brimming in Star Trek) & going to start having extraplanetary encounters.
I guess "pre-warp" is just a common catchphrase, because usually, for some reason, the vast swath of the interstellar community are humanoids who developed interstellar space travel via warp or the like. If they're not extraplanetary, then they are kind of a protected species. I mean, there's plenty of lifeforms out there where warp factor is irrelevant, the Cytherians, The Calamarain. Even the Iconians are extraplanetary but might never have even stepped foot on a space vessel, nor have the need of faster than light speed travel technology
It also stands to reason that a civilization might be pre-warp, but their planet could be in a densely populated region, & just looking into their sky or going to their moons could expose them to the greater interstellar community. So there's any number of reasons why a species might not develop interstellar travel, or expose themselves to the galactic realm
This is why I don't balk to heavily at the Aliens in Conundrum, who have advanced technology in memory wiping humanoids, androids, & 24th century Starfleet computer systems, but seemingly can't solve their war without someone else's more advanced weaponry tech. The universe is a big place & all manner of variation could be out there
Why can't a race have advanced technology and yet never bothered to invent warp drive or space travel beyond their own planet? Would you have to still avoid them to satisfy the Prime Directive, if they asked for help?
Perhaps all species aren't interested in leaving their home planet.
I have never travelled abroad, apart from a ship that stopped for a while in Swedish harbor when I was a teen. It's just not my thing. Maybe some races don't want to travel to the stars. If I was given the opportunity to travel to space or even other planets, I wouldn't leave.
The prime directive doesn't only apply to pre-warp civilizations. They invoke it when tiptoeing around the Klingon Civil War too
We're kind of convoluting it with 1st contact procedure (Which is rather vague) I think contact protocol revolves more around whether a species is aware of the greater interstellar community or not, regardless of their tech advancement, but it just so happens that most civilizations that aren't light speed capable are planet-locked, & as such don't know about other worlds yet
For example, I think Sarjenka's people have some advanced tech, but her transmission was just on general radio frequency, & wasn't intended to be received by extraplanetary recipients. They seemingly don't know about extraplanetary life yet, & that's what deems them especially deserving of protection from not only interference, but any contact at all, because that contact in itself would be a type of society altering event that could be construed as having interfered with the natural course of their development. For all intents & purposes, despite being more advanced, they still fall in with species like Mintakans.
Whereas, if they'd already known about extraplanetary intelligence, regardless of whether they travel to it or not, it wouldn't be as disruptive to make contact with them. At least that's my interpretation
I don't think it was a 20th Century-type radio, as Data picked up her signals well before the Enteprise entered her star system...
Yeah, perhaps not, but I still don't think the intention was to communicate to outworlders. Besides, can't even some of our tv/radio signals be picked up in space?
I don't believe the transmissions can be clearly received and understood within a light year, as clearly as one would listening to a radio in New York City.
And in theory, the heroes might have been within the near-realtime comms range required by the plot, even at lightspeed.
The planets in the 'hood kept blowing up for inexplicable reasons. The heroes then found out this was related to them having lots of dilithium in them. Perhaps each and every one had a civilization develop warp drive, and the first test rig caused a chain reaction at the push of the red button...? Perhaps not always a world-shattering one, but a civilization-terminating one at any rate.
Only atypical societies, which held back on warp drives and star travel dreams, would stand a chance of living long and prospering, and eventually there emerged one!
Timo Saloniemi
The planets in the 'hood kept blowing up for inexplicable reasons. The heroes then found out this was related to them having lots of dilithium in them. Perhaps each and every one had a civilization develop warp drive, and the first test rig caused a chain reaction at the push of the red button...? Perhaps not always a world-shattering one, but a civilization-terminating one at any rate.
Only atypical societies, which held back on warp drives and star travel dreams, would stand a chance of living long and prospering, and eventually there emerged one!
Timo Saloniemi
