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The One Thing You Could Change, TNG Edition...

To each their own. Putting alcohol to the side, it nice to have someone to talk to who isn't a family member, co-worker or close friend, it's easier. Basically someone to dump your problems on who's heard it all and is willing to listen.

Separate, if a person has a difficulty with alcohol, that's a different matter.
 
It seems to me like this is a matter of healthy social drinking vs. alcoholism, not whether having drinking buddies or a close friendship with your bartender is bad.
 
Also, the way the prime directive is depicted in Homeward is absurd.
It is.

I would change TNG's interpretation of the Prime Directive closer to what I think was the original intent: to prevent cultural interference. We don't land on a planetary surface and pass ourselves off as gods (as Picard fought to prevent on MIntaka), we don't take over the government to make it something more "efficient" (looking at you, John Gill), we don't leave around artifacts that could, say, turn an entire planet into a pastiche of 1920s Chicago.

But we don't use the PD as a reason to let people die from natural disasters, especially if we can help them without their knowledge. The debate in "Pen Pals" veered into the absurd. Our rational heroes invoking "fate" and "destiny" as a reason to let an entire planet of people die? It's ridiculous, and it's cold-blooded. As someone -- Pulaski, I think? -- pointed out, as long as we're talking about destiny, we could just as easily conclude we were destined to save them.
 
That episode definitely cemented Pulaski's respect for Data. Her defending his opinion, especially compared to how she viewed him at the beginning of the season, was the most clear example of how she changed her mind about him.
 
I think it would be smarter to not land on places that have intelligent life but they haven't developed a way to travel outside their world. Harder to break the Prime Directive if you just stay in orbit. I would wait for a culture to get into space first, then contact them or wait for them to contact you. That might not make an interesting story though.
 
Using space flight / warp flight as the bench mark has always seemed strange to me.
Warp flight makes sense to me since once an alien culture starts gallivanting around past their star system they will inevitably run into other races. Woe to them if they run into the Romulans or the Ferengi unprepared. Better to contact them and give them a heads up on the diversity of life forms in the galaxy.
 
How would they be different than verses a year or decade before?

Using space flight / warp flight as the bench mark has always seemed strange to me.

Like @amp said above, when a civilization is able to travel beyond their home world, that might be the best time for first contact. Can someone think of a better one?
 
But we don't use the PD as a reason to let people die from natural disasters, especially if we can help them without their knowledge. The debate in "Pen Pals" veered into the absurd. Our rational heroes invoking "fate" and "destiny" as a reason to let an entire planet of people die? It's ridiculous, and it's cold-blooded. As someone -- Pulaski, I think? -- pointed out, as long as we're talking about destiny, we could just as easily conclude we were destined to save them.

I think "Homeward" aside, if even that, at least one of the main issues with saving a society is that you probably can't do so without their knowledge. Another aspect of "Homeward" and "Pen Pals", which maybe could have been more developed, is saving a relatively pretty small handful of people (like with "Homeward" a village out of a planet), when you can't (and you can't) save them all, can be thought of as or develop into being pretty corrupt, if someone else is doing it it can seem sinister.
 
It seems to me like this is a matter of healthy social drinking vs. alcoholism, not whether having drinking buddies or a close friendship with your bartender is bad.
Yep. Boyce clearly knows what's on Pike's mind, which is why he shows up with cocktail kit.

And that scene was pure Matt Dillon at the Long Branch Saloon with Doc from Gunsmoke. It was Roddenberry's meagre attempt to deliver that space western he promised NBC.
 
The circumstance and method of Picard's parent's deaths are unknown.
Thay may be so but it was clear his parents were alive when he went off to Starfleet. Riker, Worf, Beverly and Deanna all lost a parent or two when they were quite young.
 
And Wesley. And Tasha Yar. And Data was separated from his.

That left Geordi as the only main cast member with a normal relationship with two living parents. And "Interface" took care of that.
 
Thay may be so but it was clear his parents were alive when he went off to Starfleet. Riker, Worf, Beverly and Deanna all lost a parent or two when they were quite young.

Who did Beverly lose?

And Wesley. And Tasha Yar. And Data was separated from his.

That left Geordi as the only main cast member with a normal relationship with two living parents. And "Interface" took care of that.

I will never understand why every one except Geordi, including his father and sister, were so ready to accept that his mom was dead. This is Star Trek: with the number of times presumed dead people have shown up, and missing ships have been found (sometimes decades later going through a wormhole or temporal rift or getting frozen in some form of stasis...), it truly baffled me.
 
^ both of her parents. She went to live with her grandmother...
 
I will never understand why every one except Geordi, including his father and sister, were so ready to accept that his mom was dead. This is Star Trek: with the number of times presumed dead people have shown up, and missing ships have been found (sometimes decades later going through a wormhole or temporal rift or getting frozen in some form of stasis...), it truly baffled me.

Remember that plenty of ships were destroyed as well (like the Yamato). And that, tragically, was far more common.
 
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