The mystery of the Mintakans

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

You can't take "atheism" a bit too far.. it's a response to a claim that there is a god, not necessarily a claim on its own that there is no god (though it can be).

But the atheistic tendencies of this episode make it interesting. Some might call it's attack on religion too simplistic. But one could also say that despite everything else and all the bells and whistles, religion itself is a pretty simplistic view.

 

[at Quark's]

I don't think he had anything to do with DS9's inception.

It seems you're right. Rick Berman is quoted as saying:

"I really never had the opportunity to discuss any ideas (about ds 9) with Gene [Roddenberry]. This was very close to the end of Gene’s life, and he was quite ill at the time. But he knew that we were working on something, and I definitely had his blessing to develop it."

Still -- would he have blocked it had he known ?

 

[Orphalesion]

This is splitting hairs, but one can take an anti-religious stance too far to the point that it becomes intolerance, which bites with the, supposedly universally tolerant society of the Federation.
In my eyes saying that church and state should be firmly separated and religion should not be granted any legal power to enforce its views = very, very good.
Dismissing any form of spirituality as backwards, harmful and dangerous = less good.

The funny part is in other episodes Picard seems not to be completely without any spiritual strand himself, in "Where Silence has Lease" he seems to express the belief that the universe has a sort of meaning at its core.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

To me the mystery of the Mitakans was their Vulcanic appearance. Are they yet another offshoot of some Vulcan diaspora? Or is it just a case of another unrelated race that looks Vulcan, just as so many ST races looked like garden-variety H Sap?

The Mintakans are probably a branch of the Vulcans who left and eventually became the Romulans. (Not all of them actually made it to Romulus, I would imagine.)

 

[Amaris]

It is an interesting thought experiment. But I think I'm not even sure everybody would agree what a "completely rational" society would be. Like to me that would mean a society that has even abandoned stuff like philosophy.

That's a good point, too. When I was Christian, I remembered thinking it would have been great for everyone to be Christian, and our government be a Christian government, but as I grew older, I realized that even the Christian governments didn't behave as Jesus commanded, so what we see in personal life and what we see as a consequence of the state are two totally different things.

Though I think the closest we could get with a rational society are Vulcans, but even they have spiritualism and mysticism, so as you say there's really no set example of either.

And yes that's the way I see it too, religion/spirituality is a tool just like everything else its on each person how to use it. In the past organized faith has both helped and harmed humanity's advancement.

Exactly. I hold no grudge against anyone who believes, or professes that belief. I just get concerned when someone decides that my right to not believe, or believe differently, is a threat to their own beliefs and they take steps to curb or remove my rights. The enemy of human advancement is not faith, it's extremism, and that comes in many flavors.

 

[marlboro]

 

[BillJ]

I'm not religious at all, but for a show that is all about tolerance there seemed to be an exception when it came to religion. Well, sometimes. It was a bit schizophrenic on that point.

AFAIK, "Who watches the watchers" was made when Roddenberry still had a quite strong influence on the show. I also know that he was involved in DS9's inception, but sometimes I wonder how he would have felt about the way it eventually turned out, especially in how it portrays religion and spirituality.

I don't think he had anything to do with DS9's inception.

I'm pretty sure Roddenberry never had a real strong influence on TNG, beyond the early setup. Just a feeling that much like Melakon and John Gill ("Patterns of Force"), Roddenberry's lawyer was pulling many of the strings in his name.

Roddenberry had nothing to do with Deep Space Nine.

 

[Orphalesion]

It is an interesting thought experiment. But I think I'm not even sure everybody would agree what a "completely rational" society would be. Like to me that would mean a society that has even abandoned stuff like philosophy.

That's a good point, too. When I was Christian, I remembered thinking it would have been great for everyone to be Christian, and our government be a Christian government, but as I grew older, I realized that even the Christian governments didn't behave as Jesus commanded, so what we see in personal life and what we see as a consequence of the state are two totally different things.

Though I think the closest we could get with a rational society are Vulcans, but even they have spiritualism and mysticism, so as you say there's really no set example of either.

Oh please don't confuse that with my opinion on what an ideal society would be. I am a spiritual person, I love philosophy etc. Just when Picard said that the Mintakans had abandoned all sorts of mysticism that was what came to my mind, in addition to possibly not having any art and I actually flt sorry for them. As you correctly point out even the Vulcans have a sort of philosophy and mysticism.

Still there is a wide variety on interesting thought on that subject. For instance Tolkien, a devout Catholic, created Middle Earth to be a completely secular society, explaining in one of his essays that the Elves and their allies, being closer to "perfection" than modern man had no need for things like religion to communicate with God. So in his mind religion, any form of it was in its very concept a "tainted" version of...well...spirituality.

 

[Amaris]

Oh please don't confuse that with my opinion on what an ideal society would be. I am a spiritual person, I love philosophy etc. Just when Picard said that the Mintakans had abandoned all sorts of mysticism that was what came to my mind, in addition to possibly not having any art and I actually flt sorry for them. As you correctly point out even the Vulcans have a sort of philosophy and mysticism.

That may be one of the moments where Picard's statement irked me (I love the episode, overall). Vulcan Mysticism is well known in Starfleet circles, yet Picard has no problems running roughshod right over the Mintakans' history of mysticism as if it's utterly distasteful. Yet one of the people he admires most strongly, Sarek, was an avid practitioner of that very same Mysticism.

Still there is a wide variety on interesting thought on that subject. For instance Tolkien, a devout Catholic, created Middle Earth to be a completely secular society, explaining in one of his essays that the Elves and their allies, being closer to "perfection" than modern man had no need for things like religion to communicate with God. So in his mind religion, any form of it was in its very concept a "tainted" version of...well...spirituality.

In all fairness to Tolkien, establishing a framework of religion around spirituality does tend to cause damage to the original belief. Christianity, to continue using the example, started out as a very spiritual faith, but once a religion was established on top of it, that mystic spirituality was slowly replaced by edicts, laws, by-laws, ordinances, and so on, until it become a rather large, unwieldy, and inflexible belief system.

I'm not trying to bring offense, so if I have here, I do apologize.

 

[Orphalesion]

In all fairness to Tolkien, establishing a framework of religion around spirituality does tend to cause damage to the original belief. Christianity, to continue using the example, started out as a very spiritual faith, but once a religion was established on top of it, that mystic spirituality was slowly replaced by edicts, laws, by-laws, ordinances, and so on, until it become a rather large, unwieldy, and inflexible belief system.

I'm not trying to bring offense, so if I have here, I do apologize.

No, no, that was exactly my point. I agree with Tolkien on that.

 

[Amaris]

In all fairness to Tolkien, establishing a framework of religion around spirituality does tend to cause damage to the original belief. Christianity, to continue using the example, started out as a very spiritual faith, but once a religion was established on top of it, that mystic spirituality was slowly replaced by edicts, laws, by-laws, ordinances, and so on, until it become a rather large, unwieldy, and inflexible belief system.

I'm not trying to bring offense, so if I have here, I do apologize.

No, no, that was exactly my point. I agree with Tolkien on that.

Ah, I figured as much. I just didn't want to assume.

 

[USS Triumphant]

You can't take "atheism" a bit too far.

One can definitely take pushing atheism too far. Insisting that religion be left out of consideration in making public policy, and insisting that empirically collected scientific be acknowledged - those are reasonable. Telling people that they are inferior or stupid for believing in something that the atheists themselves, by definition of the way faith works, cannot disprove, is beyond the pale. Atheists who do that, ironically, have a religion - a belief in that which they cannot prove to others.

 

[Amaris]

You can't take "atheism" a bit too far.

One can definitely take pushing atheism too far. Insisting that religion be left out of consideration in making public policy, and insisting that empirically collected scientific be acknowledged - those are reasonable. Telling people that they are inferior or stupid for believing in something that the atheists themselves, by definition of the way faith works, cannot disprove, is beyond the pale. Atheists who do that, ironically, have a religion - a belief in that which they cannot prove to others.

I'm not entirely sold on the last sentence, but I agree with you about the rest. An atheist is just someone that doesn't believe a god or gods exist. Beyond that, it's entirely up to one's personality. For example, I believe in live and let live, and subscribe to secular humanism.

As for the last sentence, as I said, I don't entirely agree, but I can see how an atheist who constantly pushes against people of faith can be seen in the same way as any religious zealot.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I concur with J. Allen.. the minimum definition that qualifies someone as an atheist is that they don't believe in a god. Everything else is up to that individual. Atheism has no dogma or tenants.

Who Watches the Watchers is one of my favorite episodes, partly because it has the balls to make some kind of declaration on religion that seems to be (I think) in line with Roddenberry's secular humanistic beliefs.. even if a fan doesn't agree with the position this episode has, as a fan of good writing they should respect this episode.

Every time I watch this episode, two things stick out. The first is Picard's sincere confidence that they people will reach the stars. Second is Troi's line: "That's the problem with believing in a supreme being; trying to figure out what it wants."

I guess I wish more people would discuss that point about our religions.

 

[Avro Arrow]

To me the mystery of the Mitakans was their Vulcanic appearance. Are they yet another offshoot of some Vulcan diaspora? Or is it just a case of another unrelated race that looks Vulcan, just as so many ST races looked like garden-variety H Sap?

The Mintakans are probably a branch of the Vulcans who left and eventually became the Romulans. (Not all of them actually made it to Romulus, I would imagine.)

I would agree with your last sentence, as this could explain the Debrune, for example. However... Mintaka itself is over 900 ly away from Earth. Now, we don't know exactly how far Romulus is, but I always got the sense it was a lot closer than that. So that'd be a fairly large detour for the diaspora.

I personally would tend to agree with this:

Or is it just a case of another unrelated race that looks Vulcan, just as so many ST races looked like garden-variety H Sap?

We know there are humanoids all over the place in the Trek universe, so why not Vulcanoids as well?

That being said... according to "Return to Tomorrow" there is the possibility that Vulcans themselves aren't native to Vulcan, so if that were so, I could see the Mintakans being some offshoot of the Vulcan forebears.

 

[Timo]

I'm wondering about them still being at a bronze age technology level after all those rational and hence supposedly peaceful millennia.

Umm, our bronze age lasted for millennia. And this despite there being constant strife that supposedly ought to have stimulated weapons development and metallurgy!

The hurdle facing bronze age peoples wanting to transit to the next level of metallurgy is twofold: finding iron, and melting iron. It might be both are even more difficult to achieve on Mintaka than on Earth. At least here we have had alternate sources for iron such as deposits in lakebeds; Mintaka might have been almost as arid as Vulcan. And where to get the fuel for the high-temperature smelters?

Another silly part was that the scientist was 100% certain that a small community of aliens seeing a human would result in a new religion.

Was there more to Mintaka III than this small community? As said, Vulcans on Vulcan are supposedly transplants of some sort. Despite some adaptations, they would find it hard to spread across their hostile "homeworld", being mere humanoids in a sea of sand. Mintaka might have been seeded "millennia" ago, but the sort of great migrations that gave Earth its extensive H. sapiens infestation (within a timespan of tens of millennia) might have been much more difficult if not impossible. And what about the lifespans? Vulcans living long might translate to Vulcanoids having long generations - much less population pressure for expansion and migration!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Maurice]

As to the idea that the Mintakans are "stagnant", belief systems or lack of them do not necessarily influence technological progression. Technologies build on one another. To step from the bronze age to the iron age requires more than just iron ore, after all.

 

[FormerLurker]

The mystery that always bothered me about the Mintakans was that recurve upper, compound lower bow. That makes no sense to me technologically.

 

[Timo]

What was it made of? The locals supposedly wouldn't have the means to produce carbon-fiber structures or the like, so the material looking like that is likely to be a natural product that already comes in that particular shape - say, the antlers of a local tastybeest.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[FormerLurker]

Yes, but as our ancestors discovered, it would be far easier, and far easier to control, to take two of the upper structures and join them together to make a single recurve bow, than come up with that awkward half-strung semi-compound just to keep the original structure complete. It makes no sense technologically, even by today's standards.