The curse(?) of small universe syndrome

[Christopher]

Talking about more than power source. In fact I wasn't talking about that at all.

Which is why I offered a countering perspective. Yes, it is self-evident how Trelane and Q are related as characters in a work of fiction, but from an in-universe standpoint, they have so little in common that it's not even remotely "natural" to suggest a relationship.

 

[korblborp]

as i recall, unless it's a different novel than the one i am thinking of, trelane was NOT presented as a Q, but part of a "bad crowd" of similar beings that Q (De Lancie) fell in win when he was a "teenager", which included "god" and the thing the Galactic Barrier was made to keep out.

 

[Forbin]

as i recall, unless it's a different novel than the one i am thinking of, trelane was NOT presented as a Q, but part of a "bad crowd" of similar beings that Q (De Lancie) fell in win when he was a "teenager", which included "god" and the thing the Galactic Barrier was made to keep out.

I think he's referring to Q-Squared.

 

[Christopher]

as i recall, unless it's a different novel than the one i am thinking of, trelane was NOT presented as a Q, but part of a "bad crowd" of similar beings that Q (De Lancie) fell in win when he was a "teenager", which included "god" and the thing the Galactic Barrier was made to keep out.

You're thinking of Greg Cox's The Q Continuum trilogy, which featured the Sha Ka Ree "God," the "Day of the Dove" evil pinwheel thingy (called "(*)" in the text), and Gorgan the Friendly Angel.

Peter David's Q-Squared definitely did present Trelane as an immature Q, which was a conceit I never found plausible, though the novel itself is probably my favorite of Peter's novels in spite of that.

 

[Starflight]

Even if Trelane were biologically godlike instead of getting his power from a special mirror (lol), I don't see why he'd necessarily be tied to Q. There's other species like the Daud or even, to an extent, Apollo's race who have similar abilities.

Their ideologies don't even seem to be the same - Trelane is a dick but never hurts anyone (and arguably doesn't intend to, even when hunting Kirk), and his parents are furious at him for messing with other lifeforms. Meanwhile Q throws the Enterprise into Borg space and watches as 18 people get dragged away and assimilated, then makes Picard beg for mercy, which feels a little bit different from Trelane's mischief, to put it mildly.

SNW's decision to make him a Q did inordinately annoy me not because I care that much about Trelane, but rather because it speaks to a certain mindset. TOS' approach is "space is operatic and mythic, anything can happen, there's all kinds of unknowable weirdness out there" while SNW's ethos feels more like "the galaxy consists chiefly of things James Kirk saw, many of which are connected to each other", and the former approach to the setting seems so much more interesting to me.

 

[Christopher]

Even if Trelane were biologically godlike instead of getting his power from a special mirror (lol), I don't see why he'd necessarily be tied to Q. There's other species like the Daud or even, to an extent, Apollo's race who have similar abilities.

Exactly. The galaxy is over 13 billion years old, and humans are newcomers. Logically, species immensely more ancient and advanced than humans should greatly outnumber species at a comparable level to humans. So there's no reason to assume any given two super-advanced species are related; statistically, it's vanishingly unlikely. And it makes especially little sense with Trelane's species and the Q, when every specific detail about the respective species' nature and abilities is different and the only similarity is one of personality between a single individual of each species.

SNW's decision to make him a Q did inordinately annoy me not because I care that much about Trelane, but rather because it speaks to a certain mindset. TOS' approach is "space is operatic and mythic, anything can happen, there's all kinds of unknowable weirdness out there" while SNW's ethos feels more like "the galaxy consists chiefly of things James Kirk saw, many of which are connected to each other", and the former approach to the setting seems so much more interesting to me.

I agree that "Wedding Bell Blues" was a terrible idea, but to be fair, it never explicitly said that the "Wedding Planner" was Trelane or that the parent voiced by John deLancie was Q; it just implied it strongly. So we don't have to take it as fact if we don't want to. The Planner could've been a different member of Trelane's species, and a voice is just a voice. James Doohan voiced Sargon, but that doesn't mean Sargon was actually Scotty.

 

[Dukhat]

SNW made Trelane a Q for the same reason that they had a holodeck episode. Because they want to make SNW into the next TNG despite the conceit of it being a prequel to TOS. It's not much different than ENT in that regard. Of course, none of that is going to matter a year from now.

 

[Christopher]

SNW made Trelane a Q for the same reason that they had a holodeck episode. Because they want to make SNW into the next TNG despite the conceit of it being a prequel to TOS.

I agree that the episode's problem was being over-referential, but it's because of their (or more likely Akiva Goldsman's) desire to remake TOS, not TNG. "Blues" failed as an episode because its climax was just a rehash of "The Squire of Gothos"'s climax, which wasn't a good ending even in the original episode because it was a deus ex machina where Kirk did nothing to bring about the outcome, beyond avoiding getting killed by Trelane long enough for the situation to resolve itself. It's not bad to revisit old continuity if you do something that adds to it or reveals it in a new light, but this was just pure nostalgia, rehashing a story we'd already seen, and it carried little meaning for viewers unfamiliar with the reference. Note how the only things we discuss about the episode are its TOS references, rather than its own story or character beats. The referentiality was the point of the story, so the story was empty in its own right.

I really don't see what SNW has supposedly done to make it "the next TNG." It hasn't done a Borg episode or a Ferengi episode. It hasn't shown first contact with the Betazoids or Bolians. Aside from doing a holodeck episode and casting John deLancie to deliver a couple of lines as a familiar-sounding but anonymous character, its references have mostly been to TOS-era stuff -- Vulcans, Gorn, Klingons, Robert April, Sybok, Rigel VII, and of course Kirk and the Farragut. "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" implicitly referenced ENT's Temporal Cold War and brought in the Department of Temporal Investigations from DS9, but was mostly referencing Khan and the Romulans. "Those Old Scientists" crossed over with Lower Decks. The Illyrians are partly an ENT reference and partly a TOS/TAS reference, since D.C. Fontana's novel Vulcan's Glory established Number One as an Ilyrian, one L, which may have been meant to be the same species to whom Harry Mudd sold Starfleet Academy according to TAS: "Mudd's Passion." And of course it's also followed up on the Klingon War from DSC. So it's referenced other series a lot more than it's referenced TNG.

 

[Dukhat]

You seriously don't see the analogy between the SNW Gorn and the Borg?

They don't have to literally use the same aliens. It's the concept that's the point here.

 

[Christopher]

You seriously don't see the analogy between the SNW Gorn and the Borg?

Not at all. They owe a lot more to Alien Xenomorphs, and just horror movie monsters and predators in general. (And Enemy Mine in "Terrarium.")

They don't have to literally use the same aliens. It's the concept that's the point here.

The concept isn't the same at all, beyond "big bad." They aren't cyborgs, they aren't a hive mind, they don't turn humans into more of themselves, and they aren't far more technologically advanced than the Federation. The Borg are cold and unfeeling and technologically sterile, the SNW Gorn are pure snarling animals that it's hard to believe can even operate starships, let alone build them (except in "Terrarium"). They're pretty much opposites. The Kaylon in The Orville are far more like the Borg than SNW's Gorn are.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I think I'd describe it as feeling organic vs forced. Honestly, I didn't have a problem with Sam Kirk in "Immunity Syndrome."

How do you feel about him in "Operation – Annihilate!", though?

 

[Dukhat]

Not at all. They owe a lot more to Alien Xenomorphs, and just horror movie monsters and predators in general. (And Enemy Mine in "Terrarium.")




The concept isn't the same at all, beyond "big bad." They aren't cyborgs, they aren't a hive mind, they don't turn humans into more of themselves, and they aren't far more technologically advanced than the Federation. The Borg are cold and unfeeling and technologically sterile, the SNW Gorn are pure snarling animals that it's hard to believe can even operate starships, let alone build them (except in "Terrarium"). They're pretty much opposites. The Kaylon in The Orville are far more like the Borg than SNW's Gorn are.

As I said, the fact that the Borg are cyborgs and the Gorn are lizards is irrelevant. Let’s look at the similarities, shall we?

1. The Gorn have huge ships which descend upon a planet they want to harvest = the Borg have huge ships which descend upon a planet they wish to assimilate.

2. The Gorn use humanoids as a way to procreate by making them incubators for their young, who die when the young are born = the Borg use humanoids as a way to procreate by turning them into more Borg, and whoever they were before essentially dies.

3. The individual Gorn have little to no individuality or personality and just come off as drones = the Borg have no individuality and are mindless drones.

4. The Gorn were ultimately put into hibernation = the Borg attacking Earth in BoBW were put to sleep by Data.

So yeah, it’s all about the concept, not the specifics. The Gorn are indeed xenomorph ripoffs, but with the idea that SNW is far more like TNG than it is like TOS, the Gorn are being used in that capacity as an analogue to the Borg.

 

[Starflight]

I'd chalk most of those up as just very common sci-fi tropes, rather than a specific attempt to replicate the Borg. The Gorn are chestbursters for the same reason that zombies show up in season three, or the Ancient Objectively-Evil Glowing Red Race live in an abandoned booby-trapped temple - the SNW writers tend to just go for recognisable, broad cliches.

The Gorn mothership didn't really make me think of the Borg, it was just done for the visual of having a big scary ship show up in the stratosphere, cast an impressive shadow, and scoop people up. You can find analogues in countless sci-fi films, books, and games . Even in fantasy, like Nautiloids or Neogi ships from Forgotten Realms.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

What makes such creatures frightening?

* Otherness/hideous appearance
* Overwhelming power/strength/tech
* Representing "there but for the grace of God go we" or "more like us than we'd care to admit"
* Gruesome practices
* Inability to reason with them

It's not too long a list.

 

[Christopher]

As I said, the fact that the Borg are cyborgs and the Gorn are lizards is irrelevant. Let’s look at the similarities, shall we?

1. The Gorn have huge ships which descend upon a planet they want to harvest = the Borg have huge ships which descend upon a planet they wish to assimilate.

And the Vogons from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy have huge ships which descend upon a planet they want to destroy to make way for a hyperspace bypass. The Visitors from V have huge ships that descend upon a planet whose water they want to steal and whose people they want to eat. The Overlords from Childhood's End (which V was probably referencing) have huge ships that descend upon a planet and hover ominously over us for years while shepherding us through our next evolutionary stage. The aliens from Independence Day (which may have been referencing V) have huge ships that descend upon a planet to blow up its major landmarks.

2. The Gorn use humanoids as a way to procreate by making them incubators for their young, who die when the young are born = the Borg use humanoids as a way to procreate by turning them into more Borg, and whoever they were before essentially dies.

Again, the similarity to Xenomorphs is far stronger -- and to various other movie monsters that gestate inside humans. Are the SNW Gorn highly derivative? Hell, yes. Are they derivative of the Borg specifically? You're barking up the wrong franchise.

And seriously, "whoever they were before essentially dies?" Rubbish. Tell that to Picard or Seven or Icheb or Mezoti or the Exbees. Your analogy is absurdly forced. The Borg are an allegory for the loss of individuality and freedom. The SNW Gorn aren't an allegory for anything, they're just straightforwardly trying to eat us.

3. The individual Gorn have little to no individuality or personality and just come off as drones = the Borg have no individuality and are mindless drones.

"Terrarium" and "Arena" both prove that the Gorn are individuals, despite how they may generally be written in SNW. Yes, they generally come off as an undifferentiated horde, but you can say the same about any enemy army in fiction, e.g. the Jem'Hadar in the Dominion War or the Swarm in Star Trek Beyond, or for that matter the Stormtroopers in Star Wars or the Germans or Japanese in a WWII movie or the Native Americans in an old Western. The Borg actually are a hive consciousness.

4. The Gorn were ultimately put into hibernation = the Borg attacking Earth in BoBW were put to sleep by Data.

One SNW episode used the same trope as one TNG episode. That proves nothing about the larger show. As I already illustrated, SNW has made far more references to TOS and other shows than to TNG.

So yeah, it’s all about the concept, not the specifics. The Gorn are indeed xenomorph ripoffs, but with the idea that SNW is far more like TNG than it is like TOS, the Gorn are being used in that capacity as an analogue to the Borg.

The bolded part is exactly the problem. You're starting with your desired conclusion and are cherrypicking and twisting the facts to try to force them to fit that preconceived assumption. That is the logical fallacy of begging the question.

 

[FormerLurker]

I think he's referring to Q-Squared.

I am. I couldn't remember the title when I posted.