TNG Rewatch: 5x13 - "Conundrum"
- Thread starter Trekker4747
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My theory (and Im sticking to it) is that this was their Manhattan Project, and all out cultural effort to get the UFP to win the war for them...
RAMA
But why should that effort even be necessary?
In the episode it is said the Lysians are over a century behind the UFP in weapons technology. So, why didn't the Satarrans simply buy some 'obsolete' ship on a black market somewhere? It probably still would have been unbeatably superior to anything the Lysians got. Or even simply bribe a group with access to more modern technology and few qualms about such things to do the dirty work for them (Nausicaans, Orion Syndicate, disgruntled commander of Cardassian military, take your pick).
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Indeed. I'd rather believe that the Satarrans and Lysians were fighting a bitter war of mind control, using weapons typical for their culture (and for that reason neglecting to develop weapons typical for the human culture), and only randomly stumbled onto the E-D.
Firing their guns in desperate defense, they found that the enemy was in fact hundreds of years behind them in mind control technology, and succumbed to their first shot. Wondering what to do with this whale of a catch, they ultimately decided "here goes nothing" and put "MacDuff" aboard in a rather halfhearted effort of utilizing a means of warfare alien to them. This attempt predictably failed, and the war went on by more conventional means...
...But the possibility of success might indeed prompt the Satarrans or the Lysians to try purchasing foreign hardware or drafting more mercenaries in the future!
Really, I cannot fathom why advanced mind control tech would be inconsistent with primitive guns - after all, we see that the opposite is eminently true and consistent for our heroes!
Also, "buying foreign" may not have been an option for the two combatants. If even the Federation is only now pondering the possibility of there existing intelligent life at the Satarran home system, obviously none of their allies have heard of the place - and even their enemies might have failed to see any point in going to this backwater.
Timo Saloniemi
Firing their guns in desperate defense, they found that the enemy was in fact hundreds of years behind them in mind control technology, and succumbed to their first shot. Wondering what to do with this whale of a catch, they ultimately decided "here goes nothing" and put "MacDuff" aboard in a rather halfhearted effort of utilizing a means of warfare alien to them. This attempt predictably failed, and the war went on by more conventional means...
...But the possibility of success might indeed prompt the Satarrans or the Lysians to try purchasing foreign hardware or drafting more mercenaries in the future!
Really, I cannot fathom why advanced mind control tech would be inconsistent with primitive guns - after all, we see that the opposite is eminently true and consistent for our heroes!
Also, "buying foreign" may not have been an option for the two combatants. If even the Federation is only now pondering the possibility of there existing intelligent life at the Satarran home system, obviously none of their allies have heard of the place - and even their enemies might have failed to see any point in going to this backwater.
Timo Saloniemi
Just watched the start of this episode. It begins with
Which makes it very possible indeed that the Satarrans weren't looking for the E-D at all and this was (for them) just a chance encounter with an unknown alien race that happened to come through their space.
I wonder how much 'background thought' went through the writer's mind when he wrote this line
Did he just want an introduction? Or did he actually think about optimising the plausibility of the entire scenario ? Not just mind control tech -- they probably are also considerably more advanced in computer technology (or perhaps more generally in 'information control technology'). Though the TNG- era pre-dominion War- Federation never seemed to take computer security too seriously!
More in general, I think it's a very fascinating question, just how differently 'technology profiles' could develop. Would a profile like that of the Satarrans be feasible ? (relatively primitive guns, but incredibly advanced mind and computer control?) I think so, yes. But could a society exist with warp technology but without calculus-level (or higher) mathematics? That would be a whole lot harder to swallow ...
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Well, we have Klingons.
Really, if a culture gained warp by overthrowing their advanced cosmic overlords (explicit for Larry Niven's Kzinti, merely a possibility for Klingons), they might well skip things like calculus altogether. Instead, they'd have such an advanced technology base fall on their laps that it would take care of all of its own repair and maintenance, leaving the new masters at an "operator" position where few skills would be required. Rather than calculate the course from their homeworld to a distant star, they could tell the navigator to do it for them; rather than calculate how to build a new flux capacitor for their warp engine, they could tell the replicator to do it for them.
One also wonders about the Universal Translator. Once a society invents or obtains that piece of tech, what motivation would there exist for learning language - including one's supposed mother tongue? On a meta level, the UT ought to take care of mathematics, too, these being just another language through which to express concepts like "from here to there" or "from heavy elements to warp coils".
Timo Saloniemi
Really, if a culture gained warp by overthrowing their advanced cosmic overlords (explicit for Larry Niven's Kzinti, merely a possibility for Klingons), they might well skip things like calculus altogether. Instead, they'd have such an advanced technology base fall on their laps that it would take care of all of its own repair and maintenance, leaving the new masters at an "operator" position where few skills would be required. Rather than calculate the course from their homeworld to a distant star, they could tell the navigator to do it for them; rather than calculate how to build a new flux capacitor for their warp engine, they could tell the replicator to do it for them.
One also wonders about the Universal Translator. Once a society invents or obtains that piece of tech, what motivation would there exist for learning language - including one's supposed mother tongue? On a meta level, the UT ought to take care of mathematics, too, these being just another language through which to express concepts like "from here to there" or "from heavy elements to warp coils".
Timo Saloniemi
Unfortunately, this ep only works the first time. Once you know how it turns out, it kinda ruins it upon repeat viewings.
When it first aired, everyone I was watching it with and myself kept wondering what we'd missed about McDuff being there. I also thought that the change in dynamics between the characters was fascinating. Especially how easily Picard seemed to be at taking orders from Worf.
When it first aired, everyone I was watching it with and myself kept wondering what we'd missed about McDuff being there. I also thought that the change in dynamics between the characters was fascinating. Especially how easily Picard seemed to be at taking orders from Worf.
I suppose you might be right as far as the suspense goes. But ultimately, I think the plot is just an excuse to get the cast in the situation of having to establish a working routine and re-establish relationships 'on the fly', and do some "exploration" so to speak. And that part still is very watcheable, imho, Even after several viewings, it's still fun to see how Worf almost automatically assumes command, how Ro seduces Riker, etc ...
Well, we have Klingons.
Really, if a culture gained warp by overthrowing their advanced cosmic overlords (explicit for Larry Niven's Kzinti, merely a possibility for Klingons), they might well skip things like calculus altogether. Instead, they'd have such an advanced technology base fall on their laps that it would take care of all of its own repair and maintenance, leaving the new masters at an "operator" position where few skills would be required. Rather than calculate the course from their homeworld to a distant star, they could tell the navigator to do it for them; rather than calculate how to build a new flux capacitor for their warp engine, they could tell the replicator to do it for them.
One also wonders about the Universal Translator. Once a society invents or obtains that piece of tech, what motivation would there exist for learning language - including one's supposed mother tongue? On a meta level, the UT ought to take care of mathematics, too, these being just another language through which to express concepts like "from here to there" or "from heavy elements to warp coils".
Timo Saloniemi
Well yeah, I was implicitly assuming a society that developed warp on its own. But I suppose you're right, a society could just 'inherit' it.
However, I, for one, don't subscribe to the theory that all Klingons are either belching warriors or their servants. I think there's bound to be engineering and scientist klingons, too.
But even if that would not be the case, and there is not a single Klingon scientist who would know about warp theory and such, I still would think that such knowledge has been codified in their databases, if only to let the software recompute e.g. warp geometry or other stuff, whenever the Klingons wish to build a a new type of ship or shuttle or modify a design. So in that sense, the Klingons would "have" the required math, even if no Klingon alive would know how to do the stuff by themselves. However, if even that knowledge is not there, then all the Klingons could hope do do is turn out the same ships for century after century without ever being able to improve upon them (unless they gained some new knowledge by conquest), and gradually getting behind the times.
(Which might be by the way just what we see. If I'm not mistaken, in ENT (at the beginning at least) klingon schips are significantly superior to the NX-01, in TOS they are roughly equivalent to the Enterprise, and in TNG the Galaxy class seems to outmatch any single ship the Klingons can throw at her (if there's no trickery)). Can't cite relevant examples quickly, but it's the general 'feel' I get from the respective series.
Regarding the UT, i agree maths can be seen as a kind of language. It remains to be seen if the UT can cope with it, or put differently, just how universal the UT really would be.
It would've been a good episode if it didn't have so many "what ifs" in it...
I was surprised that Picard destroyed the Lysian ship with a crew onboard, how about just damaging the ship enough to get rid of it.
I was surprised that Picard destroyed the Lysian ship with a crew onboard, how about just damaging the ship enough to get rid of it.
Well, they did have some reason to believe that a ship just like that one had previously almost destroyed them, or at least had managed a pretty nasty mindwipe despite the formidable defenses of the E-D. So relying on offenses instead was a good idea...
Also, they would have known that the things they could see and knock down (disruptors, engines, shields) would not have been the ones that almost cost them their lives in the previous engagement. They couldn't recognize the mindwiper, so better blow up the whole thing.
It was only with the mounting evidence from multiple engagements that the enemy did not wield the mindwipe weapon but instead defended itself with the feeble conventional armaments that the heroes had a good reason to think the Lysians really were helpless.
Timo Saloniemi
Also, they would have known that the things they could see and knock down (disruptors, engines, shields) would not have been the ones that almost cost them their lives in the previous engagement. They couldn't recognize the mindwiper, so better blow up the whole thing.
It was only with the mounting evidence from multiple engagements that the enemy did not wield the mindwipe weapon but instead defended itself with the feeble conventional armaments that the heroes had a good reason to think the Lysians really were helpless.
Timo Saloniemi
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