TNG relaunch wesley question

[Dayton Ward]

^ That's been my play all along. I just ignore everything, except for "And the Children Shall Lead," "Genesis," "Move Along Home," "Threshold" and "Storm Front (well, only the second part)."

Oh, and that old book Trek or Treat.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

^ That's been my play all along. I just ignore everything, except for "And the Children Shall Lead," "Genesis," "Move Along Home," "Threshold" and "Storm Front (well, only the second part)."

Alien Nazis play hopscotch while chanting nursery rhymes; this causes them to devolve into spiders and/or evolve into salamanders depending on personal preference.

I like your vision, Mr. Ward.

 

[elaithin]

Eh.. I'd read it. I'm easy.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Wow did I ever make a blunder!!! Thanks for correcting me. I could have sworn that it was Christine that Wes had a relationship with...indeed his Traveler powers seem to have been more widespread than we were lead to believe!!! It appears as if I rewrote that book without meaning too. Colleen Cabot yes. I remember now.

 

[T'Ressa Dax]

Well thier neems do both begin with the letter 'c' and end in the same sound... lol

 

[Trent Roman]

I was disappointed--but not particularly surprised, given the standard opinions about the character--that Pocket opted not to follow the spirit of Crusher's Nemesis apperance. And with all apologies to KRAD, the kind of uninspired, legalistic 'explanation' for his appearance made no sense.

Wes: "Hi, I've traveled through time and space to attend this wedding, but wouldn't you know it, I totally forgot I wasn't supposed to be naked for this one."

Picard/Farnsworth: "No problem. It just so happens that we have a single spare uniform aboard this massive starship of hundreds of officers; but it has lieutenant's pips, which might confuse the audience--of the wedding, that is--into thinking you're somehow back in Starfleet."

Wes: "Why don't I just take them off?"

Picard/Farnsworth: "No, dammit! I don't want to have to clip those back on after!"

Wes: "For that matter, why would I even wear somebody else's uniform? I'll just replicate something that actually fits me..."

Picard/Farnsworth: "Repli-wha? What do you think this is, the future? Just put on the uniform and stop exposing the tenuousness of this scenario!"

Would Crusher aboard Titan have reversed one episode's plot? Yes. But at least the character would have finally gotten some screen time, and that is far more interesting that the complete non-presence he's been since shuffled off the series, except for the one time Nemesis actually forced people to acknowledge he existed. Call me contrarian, but I feel that something = interesting, and nothing = not interesting, and that it is rather disingenous to claim that the character is somehow better served by languishing in oblivion.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Thrawn]

^ I actually do think it wouldn't have made sense for him to come back, so I don't agree with your overall point, but at the dialogue.

 

[KRAD]

Would Crusher aboard Titan have reversed one episode's plot?

No, it would have reversed the character's entire arc going back to "Where No One Has Gone Before" through to "Journey's End," not "one episode's plot."

I'm not disagreeing with what you say generally, up to and including the weakness of my attempt to explain the wedding scene without violating the character's entire story arc, but sticking Wes back in a Starfleet uniform reverses a helluva lot more than one episode's plot....

 

[Trent Roman]

The issue is not with Crusher's abilities; I have no desire to change those, and I would expect any hypothetical Wesley Crusher serving aboard Titan to retain, in large part, some of those exceptional qualities. The problem with "Journey's End" was the suggestion that having those abilities somehow conflicted with an active role (in this context, most likely in Starfleet), which was certainly not part of Crusher's arc previously; he used those abilities to good, practical effect in episodes like the one where his mother gets caught in that warp bubble.

Crusher's arc in "Journey's End" reminded me--in no small part thanks to the new-agey bullshit--of the holy man who, having attained a 'higher spiritual level', then cuts himself off from the fallen, material world into a hermitage of his own making. Crusher, having achieved a higher mental control, decides he no longer gives a shit about the petty mortals he once called friends and family. That scene where he walks away, smiling, from the fighting and the endangered lives behind him was downright contemptible. A saint that cuts himself off from humanity is useless; likewise, a traveller who merely observes, Uatu-like, is useless. An active role is traded for selfish navel-gazing. One can legitimately ask of Crusher: where were you when the Federation burned and your loved ones were suffering? What is the point of all your elevated knowledge and transcendental abilities if they are not directed so as to do good and to help others?

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[BrotherBenny]

^As in Stargate, there are probably rules to interacting with the mortal realm.

Look at all the trouble Q got into for messing with humanity.

 

[vegaslover62]

I, too, was never in the Wesley Sucks camp. I remember frequenting a website a few years ago that was dedicated to pointing out errors in movies, and upon looking at Nemesis, found out that somebody who hates Wesley in every way said that Wesley's inclusion in the wedding scene was a goof, citing that it was impossible for Wesley to come back. I know that some detractors' wishful thinking would make it hopefully impossible, but to actually go to a website and submit it as a goof?

Besides, how would they know Wesley's return was completely impossible? The Travelers are superior beings. They can do anything they want.

 

[KRAD]

Well, I'd argue what Trent said, but I made my thoughts clear in Wesley's scene with the Traveler in the episode of A Time for War, a Time for Peace, and I'd rather just let the text speak for me.

 

[Trent Roman]

*checks book* Ah, so you did. I didn't recollect that scene at all. Good to see that it was addressed, although it doesn't change the way I feel: it's still basically Crusher doing the Uatu thing, passively observing. Without a goal, it remains indulgence.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Technobuilder]

I haven't read the scene in years, but I seem to recall that Wesley becoming a Traveler was all about him learning to help within his limits. Wasn't he supposed to do what he did in order to pass?

I'll see if I can find the book and look back over that section.