No sure how it's "lazy". Which is an accusation often thrown around with out merit. I can see that they didn't address an aspect of the story you wished they did, but that's not lazy IMO.
Season 4's Aesop really annoys me
- Thread starter Charles Phipps
- Start date
Perhaps you're right. That's the teacher in me coming out.
Clearly, Book is meant to be an audience surrogate. In that regard, he works very well. However! A huge part of Season 4 relies on the audience buying into the DMA as a galactic threat. By brushing literally everyone else affected by the DMA to the wayside, it dies a disservice to the narrative threat of the DMA. Yes, we know Earth and Vulcan won't be destroyed. But it would be nice if lip service was paid to the idea of it, at least.
And that gets to the heart of what the initial post is about. 10-C is basically absolved with a hand-wave. It would have helped the story, I think, to at least have reference to some kind of official request for reparations. Yes, they're repairing the rifts, but what about the people who lost family members? Who lost homes?
It could have been solved with one throw-away line. The writers chose not to. Whether that's because they didn't see it that way, or it just didn't occur to them, I dunno.
It is what it is. But, until the show says otherwise, I'm going to assume 10-C received a strongly worded diplomatic rebuke from the Federation and other nonaligned worlds.
"Doomsday Machine" called.
See my post about "imbalance of power" above.
Even a well-meaning species probably wouldn't answer to Federation legal actions.
If you assume the US is the good guys (probably shouldn't), there have been many examples where they don't answer to legalities over a huge number of international law violations. Why? They're the big boys on the block.
That doesn't mean the 10C are evil necessarily, it does mean they're not likely to be dictated to or accept judgements.
My internal Canon thinks maybe just maybe they gave the Federation some dilithium or something for reperations, but there's no way to know.
The fact the DMA was a galactic threat from a technology and intelligence above ours is what made it so effective. It conveys the Federation's helplessness, and true scale of evolutionary differences.
You dont need to have them answer to it. We just need someone to be angry about it.
And it's something that's been noticed elsewhere. Like in this Daily Beast article reviewing season 4 before season 5 comes out:
Ooo, dilithium. To quote Quark, "I guess that makes all this worthwhile."
But seriously, we could know...if the writers would bother to mention it.
As with most Trek travesties this one would get swept under the rug. Doomsday Machine, Kevin Uxbridge, Nomad, USS INTREPID, V'Ger, Trek has a long history of unaccounted for mass death.
Agreed. But this one was an order of magnitude larger.
V'Ger wiped out a starbase. The Intrepid was one ship. The Doomsday Machine was only seen chopping up uninhabited planets.
This was more like Alderaan getting blown up, and Leia being more concerned about how bad Luke felt over Obi-Wan's death.
Dude, Uxbridge wiped out an entire species. V'Ger wiped out more. Nomad wiped out whole planets of "biological infestation."
I don't see why the body count somehow makes it worse to be unacknowledged.
I disagree, but I understand the frustration.
You would be right, if the 10C were in any way equal to humans, like corporate humans are equal to indigenous humans and it absolutely is criminal if one gets the others killed.
However it's a SF first contact scenario, where the whole point was to show the 10C that humans have the same basic emotions in the first place.
A better comparison would be someone dumping his garbage into the coast, until Flipper the dolphin shows up and shows him that he's killing his dolphin family.
Yes, he would still be an ass to not have properly checked and dumped the garbage in the first place. However if he stops, that's a win. And Flipper won't be able to get him to court and sue him. Getting him to "know" and acknowledge what he did is as good as it gets. And the 10C did just that.
I was thinking more of what we saw onscreen. But, good point. I think the way out protagonists responded is key, though.
Picard made it clear that while he didn't have the ability to punish Uxbridge, what he did was awful. Nomad likewise was rebuffed, required, eventually destroyed. V'Ger was...neutralized, I guess you could say. And also told it was in the wrong.
But neither made amends or apologized or focused on the victims. They just...moved on.
There has to be a fanfic in the idea of a Damage Control type PR and repair crew that is out there sweeping these incidents under the rug to maintain Starfleet and the Federation's image. Paying off family members of the deceased, rebuilding destroyed colonies, blaming everything on the Klingons and/or Romulans....
I'm not saying that's an ideal reperation, only that they possibly made some low level effort. Remember, they barely even realized we were lifeforms till recently.
What are they supposed to do? They don't have the technology to restore the lives lost or create planets; so just what type o amends can they make.
And as to another's comment (IMO in the same vein) that the Federation Starfleet told them "You didn't do anything wrong..." <--- I didn't get that impression.
The Federation understands they didn't act with any malice (because the 10C didn't realize they were killing other sentient lifeforms; but that not the same as saying: "You didn't do anything wrong..."
Also when the 10C said they would scan areas more thoroughly before deploying their Energy Harvester; Burham said quite forcefully, "That's not enough" - because it was leaving behind some sore of toxic subspace waste; and they were talked into lowering their protection barrier, even though it would leave them ,more vulnerable, they ultimately agreed.
Also, to 'make them pay' the Federation would have to be able to enforce any judgement it decides to impose and as we saw first hand, the technological difference is so great, if the 10C wanted to they could wipe out the Federation easily.
Remember that even in the world today, there are many regimes that commit what we in the Western world would call crimes against persons and whole populations yet the world as a whole lets it continue because 'it's their country and however it cam to pass they hold recognized political power in that region; so the rest of the world laments the situation, but also does nothing to stop it. Countries only intervene when it affects a very important/vested interest they have AND they have the force/political influence to do so.
So yeah, the fact the Federation does nothing further to punish/demand further reoperations makes perfect sense because they know they have no ability to enforce any such punishments or demands in any way - and attempting to do so may make the 10C retaliate in a way that would completely wipe out Federation life and civilization for good. So, the Federation accepts their apology, hopes they keep their word as to no longer 'farming energy' from the Galaxy in a destructive manner and they go home and leave these God-like beings alone.
It didn't act with malice but it absolutely acted with neglect and that is worse in many ways.
Species 10-C is so far above the Federation (and just about everyone else in the galaxy, as far as we know) that the best case scenario for the Federation was what we saw in the season 4 finale.
As others have pointed out, there are examples of a superpower not having anything really done to them simply because the Federation doesn't have the ability. (Kevin Uxbridge is possibly the best example mentioned.)
Species 10-C was acting without malice and didn't realize that what they were doing was destroying and killing so many others. They could have simply told Burnham, "Too bad. You are little ants compared to us. Good luck doing anything about it."
But they didn't.
And given how often the franchise has had extinction level events occur without much conversation afterward, we actually got more followup with that aftermath than almost every other instance in the franchise.
(I don't really count the Husnock from "The Survivors", because they were a completely unknown race to the Federation. We can only go by what Kevin said about them.)
As others have pointed out, there are examples of a superpower not having anything really done to them simply because the Federation doesn't have the ability. (Kevin Uxbridge is possibly the best example mentioned.)
Species 10-C was acting without malice and didn't realize that what they were doing was destroying and killing so many others. They could have simply told Burnham, "Too bad. You are little ants compared to us. Good luck doing anything about it."
But they didn't.
And given how often the franchise has had extinction level events occur without much conversation afterward, we actually got more followup with that aftermath than almost every other instance in the franchise.
(I don't really count the Husnock from "The Survivors", because they were a completely unknown race to the Federation. We can only go by what Kevin said about them.)
I mean, then Books plan becomes justified.
The idea that I’m species dis Aankh wouldn’t know that they are destroying lives or at least possibly destroying lives is absurd
Exactly they’re supposed to be this advanced, but didn’t know they were or at least possibly were destroying lives is absurd. Star Trek has a history of justifying murder or at least ignoring it if you have the right “reasons”.
