The Malcorians

[Anwar]

I've been rewatching the "First Contact" episode and I'm still as impressed now as I was back then with it. A great idea, very well executed, leaves you thinking about it. The twist being that it's told mainly from the Malcorian POV is effective in that it allowed more depth to be put into the alien characters and their culture than most aliens of the week in any Trek series.

I was left a tad curious though by Krola's actions. He was against space travel (with Malcorian Xenophobic/Superiority teachings, he'd likely think there was nothing out there or that whomever they found would be inferior beings anyways) and I understood the reasoning behind that.

But his attitude towards the Feds as soon as Durken mentioned them to him left me wondering. Was he just stunned by the existence of alien beings at least as advanced as the Malcorians (of course they were vastly superior), or was his xenophobic nature so ingrained that he felt ANY aliens they encountered would have to be hostile?

And his words with Riker, he seemed to think that the Feds were there to conquer the Malcorians no matter what and that he had to keep there from being peace between them. Was he hoping that his death/frame-job would have the space program canceled? Because it's more likely that having him killed by an alien would probably accelerate the program and militarize it so they could fight in space rather than isolate themselves to their world.

So which is it, isolation or war?

On a side note, I thought his reaction to Fed observations was over-the-top but when I thought about it I realized his ideas of them subverting the Malcorians from within was exactly the same thing done by the Visitors in V (the old and new series). So it's not THAT unbelievable, especially if there were "Evil aliens from space!" fictions made by the Malcorians in their history.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Krola hoped that Durken would be persuaded by his "murder" that the aliens were not trustworthy and that the Chancellor would henceforth deal with them on that basis. This was Krola's own belief, and he was frustrated by Durken's refusal to "see reason." He considered Mirasta Yale to be entirely too naive and a dangerous, ivory-tower influence on Durken.

 

[Anwar]

I see, was Krola convinced by his native xenophobia than any alien species would have to be hostile or was this provoked (from his POV) by Riker posing as a Malcorian? His line of thinking, that they could've been behind dissenting movements or controversial new philosophies/teachings towards young people could easily be used as an excuse for the conservative Malcorians to pin on anything new they didn't like.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

It's not that complicated or rational. He was in charge of defending his society, very conservative, a traditionalist in a society that had been upended by all kinds of reforms, and now aliens from outer space were infiltrating his planet. This was rather more change than he was comfortable with.

It's really hard to imagine him reacting in any other way.

 

[DonIago]

Really.

If we sudden found an alien posing as a human I'm reasonably sure some people would go for the torches and pitchforks regardless of how peaceful the alien claimed its culture was.

 

[Doug Otte]

It's not that complicated or rational. He was in charge of defending his society, very conservative, a traditionalist in a society that had been upended by all kinds of reforms, and now aliens from outer space were infiltrating his planet. This was rather more change than he was comfortable with.

It's really hard to imagine him reacting in any other way.

This is the core of the episode. It always seemed obvious to me. He represented the majority of their very conservative culture. They didn't want their traditions "polluted" by outside influences.

Doug

 

[Satyrquaze]

From the Malcorians perspective Krola's actions make perfect sense. We, being more familiar with the alien society, knowing that the Malcorians have little to fear from the Federation intentionally doing anything to destablize their culture. We see Krola and see him as short-sighted.

True, official first contact would irrevocably change everything about their culture, just as first contact with the Vulcans changed everything about Earth's culture in 2063.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

This story went through several versions before it even got to the story break meeting, and it was actually in that final pre-scripting meeting that Michael Piller decided that the Malcorians would decline Picard's invitation. There were a number of folks, writers and other people working on the show, who thought that it was a mistake to end the story that way. I think it was really Pilllar's intuition about these kinds of things that had a lot to do with making TNG as memorable as it is.

 

[Anwar]

I can sort of see why, if they had accepted relations with them given how xenophobic we saw other Malcorians to be it might have ended up with a "District 9" situation except the aliens can fight back and can't be dismissed as retarded bugs. Guys like Krola would end up as underground anti-alien terrorists.