"The Wounded", thoughts

[tharpdevenport]

I just got through watching this episode for the first time in probably a decade or so.

Now that we can look back on Trek history with TNG and D.S.9. completed, it seems indeed Captain Maxwell was right and sort of vindicated.

He claimed the Cardassians were arming for war and even said "they live for war".

In the end of the episode Picard tells the Cardassian Gul on his ship, "Maxwell was right. Those ships were not carrying sicentific equipment, were they? A research station within arm's reach of three Federation sectors? Cargo ships running with high-energy subspace fields that jam sensors..."


Despite the treaty, they reamined unconfortable allies and indeed just under seven years later the Dominion War broke out.

Now, I'm unclear as why they were amassing for a potential war with the Federation and then that never happens. Maybe after a long war with at least the Federation before the treaty, it took time to build a new fleet --especially under cover of secrecy. We don't know how much time it takes to build a Cardassian warship and I can't use comparrative data on the Enterprise D, since I can't find exactly how long the contruction of D took, so there's no way of knowing if they simply didn't have the time and resources. And while the Domion re-enforced them, clearly they had to have more behind them them just a few ships.

Maybe the skirmishes with the Marquis put them back. Maybe they had to withdraw from certain activities lest the Marquis find out.


I also thought it would have been an interesting D.S.9. episode if that Cardassian O'Brien was talking to in 10-Forward, came back, now a Gul and with a ship and there was some kind of stand off with O'Brien stranded and the Gul is an unfovorable situation himself. It would give a hcance to show how both have changed over time and how war has changed them. Just an idea.

 

[Nebusj]

I just got through watching this episode for the first time in probably a decade or so.

Now that we can look back on Trek history with TNG and D.S.9. completed, it seems indeed Captain Maxwell was right and sort of vindicated.

He claimed the Cardassians were arming for war and even said "they live for war".

And yet, when he had an audience with Picard, who was ready to listen to his claims, and looking for evidence, he turned over nothing. He'd destroyed an alleged military posts the Cardassians had made. If it was a military installation, then, surely, his ship scanned and identified military hardware to target it. It surely detected equipment that could not possibly be a science post's. It surely found the broken bodies of soldiers and the wreckage of munitions in the debris. One good, clear scan of this from the starship's record would prove the point to Picard soundly.

Maxwell doesn't turn that over. He is asked for his evidence. He refuses to turn any over. The obvious implication: the evidence is not on his side.

This helps us to see a very disturbing pattern. Maxwell turns on and destroys inoffensive Cardassian stations on the grounds that Cardassians can't be trusted, and the madman is stopped only when Cardassia drags the Federation against its will to act according to its treaty obligations. In ``Ensign Ro'' we see high-ranking Star Fleet personnel secretly arming terrorists to attack Cardassians. In ``Chain of Command'' Star Fleet sends in a commando squad to destroy a nonexistent weapons lab well within Cardassian space.

The conclusion is obvious; Star Fleet had no intention of allowing for peaceful coexistence with Cardassia, and did everything in its power to drive the Cardassian Union away from the Federation. This resulted in Cardassia being driven into the arms of the Dominion, to which we can only say: good work, everybody.

 

[Timo]

It can conversely be argued that Cardassia did everything it could to convince Starfleet that it wanted war, even though it had zero resources for fighting one. A campaign of intimidation might have been the Union's only defense against UFP expansion.

Keeping Starfleet on its toes by pretending to ship weapons to the border (when there in fact were none to ship), by creating a WMD program out of whole cloth, and by posturing and bolstering with artificially concentrated military resources, would stop the Feds from establishing more of those vulnerable colonies there, or at least the Cardassians hoped the Feds would see the sense in such.

Starfleet in turn was really "spread thin because of the Borg" as said, and couldn't mount an asymmetric military response, which would have been a gigantic undertaking, the more demanding the less bloody the Feds wanted it to be. So they went for symmetric instead, launching their own campaign of misdirection and random terror.

Whether Maxwell and Kennelly terrorized on their own or under orders from SF Intel, we can't tell... The truth would probably be somewhere in between, with a cabal of Starfleet officers vying for symmetric warfare of terror but playing it as deniably as they could. The Maquis movement might have been launched by such a cabal, too. But it soon turned out that Starfleet and UFP interests would be better served by placating the Cardassians instead - at which point it was really difficult to backpedal.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Trekker4747]

Let's accept for the moment that Maxwell was right and that what the Cardassians were up to in this episode did in one way or another lead up to the events in DS9.

That hardly makes the actions he took leading up to this episode and within this episode justified. He committed acts of war and in fact seemed to be acting on something akin to post-war stress.

He should have taken the evidence he had and presented it to the Starfleet/Federation brass instead of going around blowing up defenseless ships.

 

[tharpdevenport]

Oh, absolutely. I don't think Maxwell had any evidence, I think he probably heard it from someone who heard it from someone and wanted to believe it. I think he got lucky in the end there.

If anything, I think Maxwell was treated too lightly. He killed hundreds of innocent people with a race that had a implied fresh treaty with. Picard should have taken him into custody, not let him command the ship back ut of some appearance sake. And certainly Picard should have showed some more urgency. What's that? The Phoenix increased to warp nine? Well, reply about increasing warp a little faster there, Jean-Luc and why stop at nine? How about 9.1? Or 9.2? Seems a little slow on the draw; had those been his crew's lives in danger of a warship from another race, he might have put the peddle to the metel more quickly. Hell, he should have fired on Maxwell to take out their weapons systems.


After starting this thread I watched "Lower Decks". If a Cardassian has to go through all that just to speak to a race they are now at peace with, it seems the higher ups haven't really changed. Reminds me of the woman from "Drumhead", in a way.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Picard turned down the opportunity to collect any evidence one way or another.

PICARD: One more thing, Macet. Maxwell was right. Those ships were not carrying scientific equipment, were they? A research station within arm's reach of three Federation sectors? Cargo ships running with high energy subspace fields that jam sensors?
MACET: If you believed the transport ship was carrying weapons, Captain, why didn't you board it as Maxwell requested?
PICARD: I was here to protect the peace. A peace that I firmly believe is in the interests of both our peoples. If I had attempted to board that ship I am quite certain that you and I would not be having this pleasant conversation, and that ships on both sides would now be arming for war.

Picard was ordered by Admiral Haden to preserve the peace, and, by refusing to collect evidence, that is exactly what Picard did.

As for why Maxwell didn't give Picard documentation from his informants, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for that besides the premise that there wasn't any. It is that Maxwell didn't want to compromise his (unauthorized) spy network, he didn't trust Picard not to jeopardize his sources directly or inform Starfleet about them, and he didn't trust the Federation bureaucracy not to jeopardize his network if Picard were to tell Starfleet about it. Maxwell had major trust issues with his own organization.

This is one of the better TNG episodes, but there are parts of it that don't hang together perfectly, to say the least. I agree that it would be expected for Maxwell to have gathered some physical evidence at least in the wake of his campaign, but for the story to work with the dialog as written, we have to assume both that the destruction was so total that no conclusive physical evidence remained and that the jamming systems precluded the possibility of there being any useful sensor records.

Allowing Maxwell to return from the Enterprise to his ship after conference in Picard's ready room, when Maxwell should have been placed under immediate arrest, is probably the biggest problem with the whole episode, if not an actual plot hole.

 

[Timo]

I think he probably heard it from someone who heard it from someone and wanted to believe it

Yet the Cardassians were running "hidden" shipments, with all the right telltales (protective fields and whatnot). So either they wanted Maxwell to believe in this stuff, be it real or false, and provoke the exact reaction we got - or then Maxwell had his own ways of spotting the suspicious shipments and confirming they were running with those hiding fields activated. Not really third-party hearsay there.

As for being harder on Maxwell, it's not as if Picard only decides (wrongly?) in the last act that the Cardassians are guilty of what Maxwell accuses them of. He's clearly on Maxwell's side on that from the get-go, and seems to understand the way Maxwell thinks and acts. And probably for the better, as Maxwell's final actions show great restraint: he doesn't fire on the helpless Cardassians and then display the wreckage to Picard as evidence. Sure, Maxwell is up for some severe punishment, but Picard is still right to trust him, more or less, and to leave that punishment for later, and for better authorities.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

Maxwell had major trust issues with his own organization.

Yet he does trust Picard - his final act is to try and present evidence to him.

But he has to break his promise and attack further Cardassians in order to present that evidence. Why would he do that if he has some in his holds or brig or computer to start with? Picard would obviously be more impressed if Maxwell skipped further violence.

Perhaps Maxwell trusted the Cardassians were up to no good, but when he blew up those previous ships, the wreckage revealed no wrongdoing. Which he then interpreted as he must: "That ship was on the return leg, having already delivered the load"; "That outpost had not yet received the weapons"; "Those sneaky Cardassians were too quick on the self-destruct trigger". He'd take the secrecy measures as sufficient proof that the next raid would turn up the necessary evidence.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

"Those sneaky Cardassians were too quick on the self-destruct trigger"

This one had occurred to me, too.

 

[tharpdevenport]

I think he probably heard it from someone who heard it from someone and wanted to believe it

Yet the Cardassians were running "hidden" shipments, with all the right telltales (protective fields and whatnot).

Well, to play Devil's advocate, unless the peace treaty specifies they can't do such a thing, there's nothing particularly suspicious about it. The Romulans probalby do that kind of thing on a regular basis.

So either they wanted Maxwell to believe in this stuff, be it real or false, and provoke the exact reaction we got - or then Maxwell had his own ways of spotting the suspicious shipments and confirming they were running with those hiding fields activated. Not really third-party hearsay there.

Interesting thoughts, but it stirs up some more ideas: why would the Cardassians want to do such a thing? What good could come of that if they made peace with the Federation?

And how would they know Maxwell was after them and tracking them? The episode indicated that while Federation technology could identify Cardassian vessels and that Cardassian Gul was surprised about it, two Cardassian war vessel in close sensor range and a cargo vessel, couldn't detect the Phoenix and it wasn't until Picard sent them the transponder signal that the warship found and moved in on the Phoenix.

And with the scans being jammed, Maxwell didn't really know what was on the vessels. His tone, body language and immediate failure to give straight-forward facts, even the simplistic "I can't violate the trust of my sources", incidates he had nothing; even hearing a rumor from somebody was still nothing. I think he was driven by old hatred.

As for being harder on Maxwell, it's not as if Picard only decides (wrongly?) in the last act that the Cardassians are guilty of what Maxwell accuses them of. He's clearly on Maxwell's side on that from the get-go, and seems to understand the way Maxwell thinks and acts. And probably for the better, as Maxwell's final actions show great restraint: he doesn't fire on the helpless Cardassians and then display the wreckage to Picard as evidence.

To be fair, that's not a badge of honor there. He said why -- he wanted Picard to board the ship and see for himself. Otherwise he would have destroyed it with the other hundreds of Cardassian lives he did with one or two cargo ships and one warship.

Sure, Maxwell is up for some severe punishment, but Picard is still right to trust him, more or less, and to leave that punishment for later, and for better authorities.

Timo Saloniemi

I guess we don't agree. Where has Maxwell shown he's trustworthy? How has he shown trust can be placed in him? Was it when he crossed into Cardassian space without permission? Was it when it destroyed a cargo vessel with provocation or even the Federation and/or Cardassians' approval? Was it when he stayed in the space and continued to hunt down and murder more people? Was it when took out a technologically inferior warship killing more hundreds of Cardassians? Was it when he ignored hails from the Enterprise and dropped out of communication with the Federation? Was it when he lied and changed course away from the Enterprise to hunt down another vessel? Was it when he did all this which could have easily ended the peace treaty and put the Federation back at war with another race? And then to top it off try to have Picard board that ship without authority or even reasonable suspicion? I see the actions of a compeltely untrustworthy individule who's endagering lives on both sides and can't off a shread of evidence. Had that been the Klingons or the Romulans, there'd be war.

 

[Mojochi]

As for why Maxwell didn't give Picard documentation from his informants, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for that besides the premise that there wasn't any. It is that Maxwell didn't want to compromise his (unauthorized) spy network, he didn't trust Picard not to jeopardize his sources directly or inform Starfleet about them, and he didn't trust the Federation bureaucracy not to jeopardize his network if Picard were to tell Starfleet about it.

There is also the possibility of both things being true. Maxwell is essentially off the deep end (Which is supported in the scene with his breakdown) and he's acting on hunches without real evidence, but that by either coincidence or by good instincts, he was also right. It's possible to be both crazy & correct

 

[CorporalCaptain]

As for why Maxwell didn't give Picard documentation from his informants, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for that besides the premise that there wasn't any. It is that Maxwell didn't want to compromise his (unauthorized) spy network, he didn't trust Picard not to jeopardize his sources directly or inform Starfleet about them, and he didn't trust the Federation bureaucracy not to jeopardize his network if Picard were to tell Starfleet about it.

There is also the possibility of both things being true. Maxwell is essentially off the deep end (Which is supported in the scene with his breakdown) and he's acting on hunches without real evidence, but that by either coincidence or by good instincts, he was also right. It's possible to be both crazy & correct

Yeah, the episode doesn't answer the question. I was just pointing out that that the line "Information comes my way" has an interpretation that is not out of the question, in which Maxwell has some form of evidence that he just doesn't want to share. I agree that he cracked, though.

Also, one of the flaws in the episode is that it doesn't answer why his crew would follow his orders. Did they all crack too, did Maxwell convince them with either evidence or false information, or were they just going to keep following orders no matter what? I can't imagine anyone in his bridge crew would have a promising future in Starfleet.

 

[Sidewinder]

First post, but I'll try to tackle this one.

The fact that Maxwell was willing to end 650 Cardassian lives suggests that he was either a mad man out for revenge or that he had sources and evidence that The Cardassians were arming themselves along the DMZ near Federation territory.

Since he ultimately realized that he couldn't win and surrendered to spare his own crew, l think you can throw the mad man angle out.

Also, it's possible all of this military effort was originally intended to take Bajor back, but it ended up being teamed with the Romulans and used to destroy The Founders, albeit unsuccessfully.

Also, I know Mark Alaimo played Macet before he played Dukat, but was Macet the only Cardassian to ever have facial hair on screen? I swear Damar had facial hair at one point.

 

[sonak]

It's possible that the Federation's weak response to the Cardassian build-up here contributed to the Cardassians' show of strength later in "chain of command."

 

[Timo]

Where has Maxwell shown he's trustworthy?

The case seems to be he doesn't need to show such things - they ought to come automatically for a starship captain. And the point there is that they do, as Maxwell no longer pursues his Cardie-slaying hobby even when allowed to make a run for it.

It's not all that unexpected. Kirk and Picard both did things similar to Maxwell, for a good but at first not at all apparent reason. Picard accepted without a pause that fellow skipper Varley would have committed casual acts of war, too, as long as he appealed to a valid reason - and for Picard, fairy tales were valid enough.

Slaying the enemy is no fault in a soldier, and starship skippers are soldiers all; unlike most skippers today, they also get to choose their enemies on occasion. It's just too bad for him that it was Picard who was sent after him, as Picard might believe in exoarchaeological fairy tales, but he isn't into military paranoia. Which may well be why Starfleet chose him, when in all likelihood there would have been other starships available to answer to Gul Macet's challenge.

It's possible to be both crazy & correct

And also possible to be both rational & mistaken, especially if deliberately misled. That's the other way this episode could be configured...

Also, one of the flaws in the episode is that it doesn't answer why his crew would follow his orders.

Picard and Kirk always had faithful followers when they committed deliberate acts of war, gave illegal orders or utterly ignored legal ones. It just goes with the job: starship skippers have the trust of their crews, and if there is any discord, it is neatly channeled into a behind-the-office-door debate between the CO and the XO.

...Perhaps Maxwell just shot his XO? (On stun, of course.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mojochi]

Since he ultimately realized that he couldn't win and surrendered to spare his own crew, l think you can throw the mad man angle out.

I wouldn't be so quick to throw out the psychological breakdown aspect though. Hell bent mad man maybe not, but very likely biased & delusional nonetheless

"Information comes my way"

That line does carry shadowy connotations, but it also comes off as subterfuge. In fact there is a rather clumsy edit right after Picard asks "From whom? Where's your documentation?" that omits a couple lines from the original script where Maxwell elaborates that "You see things. You hear things. You add them up & know damn well what's going on", and jumps straight to the "I know what they're doing" line. It also cut Picard's response that states "In other words... You have no documentation"

It was a directing choice that imho purposefully made Maxwell look more deluded, & Picard look unwilling to press for facts. I kind of wish they'd left it in

"Also, one of the flaws in the episode is that it doesn't answer why his crew would follow his orders. Did they all crack too, did Maxwell convince them with either evidence or false information, or were they just going to keep following orders no matter what? I can't imagine anyone in his bridge crew would have a promising future in Starfleet.

With a crew it tends to be more intimate. How many times does Riker & Picard's crew follow one of Picard's hunches out on a limb that is rather weak? Conspiracy comes to mind. Even Data's Day has everybody but Picard in the dark

They trust the man. Even O'Brien still implicitly trusts him. Until his breakdown, he's behaving in a rational way. The only person who really has authority to question his actions at all, is maybe the XO. Everybody else just has to assume that the 2 top jocks have all the info right, unless Maxwell is actively endangering the ship & crew, & from what it looked like, he never did. Sure, he was wiping out Cardies, but I doubt there was ever a mismatch that jeopardized the Phoenix

So the only real guy who'd have to worry about future career prospects (Apart from Maxwell) might be the XO, for not demanding concrete evidence to act in a warlike manner, in the absence of any. Everybody else were the blind masses, "Just following orders"

 

[CorporalCaptain]

"Information comes my way"

That line does carry shadowy connotations, but it also comes off as subterfuge. In fact there is a rather clumsy edit right after Picard asks "From whom? Where's your documentation?" that omits a couple lines from the original script where Maxwell elaborates that "You see things. You hear things. You add them up & know damn well what's going on", and jumps straight to the "I know what they're doing" line. It also cut Picard's response that states "In other words... You have no documentation"

It was a directing choice that imho purposefully made Maxwell look more deluded, & Picard look unwilling to press for facts. I kind of wish they'd left it in

Thanks for that. I did not know that.

 

[Ghrakh]

Allowing Maxwell to return from the Enterprise to his ship after conference in Picard's ready room, when Maxwell should have been placed under immediate arrest, is probably the biggest problem with the whole episode, if not an actual plot hole.

But then the episode would have ended too early. But if not arrest Maxwell, at least have Riker be on the Phoenix as XO, with full authority to take over if necessary.

 

[Mojochi]

I will say that once The Enterprise was face to face with the Phoenix, it probably started to get sticky for everyone on board Maxwell's ship. You'll notice that Maxwell's final communique is in private chambers. It was probably increasingly difficult to keep everyone in the dark when there's clearly an intervening ship from Starfleet. That's when questions & doubts start flying, & I really figure Maxwell's ultimate decision to back down had a lot to do with knowing how unlikely it would be for him to get his crew to fire on a sister ship for him, or to carry out his orders under fire from the Enterprise

 

[EnriqueH]

I would've liked to have seen Maxwell again.

Bob Gunston did a great job playing a sort of cleaned up Col. Kurtz.