Picard could have started over in Rascals if he wanted, and kept his rank in star fleet too! But he would rather be old and much closer to death, to each his own...
Was Picard being forced to live out an entire lifetime...
- Thread starter The Rock
- Start date
Too bad for the probe people they didn't find a Vulcan. They could have melded it around to everyone.
This episode is both what I find good about TNG and also what I disliked the most about TNG.
It was good because I found it engaging at the time and it was an interesting concept.
It was bad because it was basically a cheat, something that didn't really happen, like so many of those Holodeck episodes or Q episodes or any other things where they hit that gigantic reset button at the end.
This episode is both what I find good about TNG and also what I disliked the most about TNG.
It was good because I found it engaging at the time and it was an interesting concept.
It was bad because it was basically a cheat, something that didn't really happen, like so many of those Holodeck episodes or Q episodes or any other things where they hit that gigantic reset button at the end.
They sure didn't choose the most practical way to insure that their culture will be remembered, still, it beats turning Enterprise into a pile of rocks, snakes, swamps and whatnot, doesn't it?
It was the best of TNG, it was the worst of TNG...
Hijacking his brain for less than an hour seems a trivial violation to get stuck on when it allowed him deep understanding of an alien culture and also make a first contact of sorts - the entire reason for Starfleet being out there. It seemed to be their only means to communicate past their extinction. Plus the chance to have a family which he never got to do in real life. In any case Picard doesn't seem to hold a grudge about it. And along the way he picked up an instrument to impress the ladies with.
So it makes difference if you're raped by an attacker who is a good lover?
It's starting to make more sense that Picard only experienced the "highlight" of the recorded life. Especially if the artificial memories were going to largely fade so he could continue with his own life after waking up.
What purpose would there be in experiencing thousands on visited to the toilet over the course of a life?
Instead there would be the birth of the pretend children, sex with the fake wife, stuff like that.
You remember sitting with friends after a meal in the candle light drinking wine, but there would be no memory of the meal itself, because that never was inserted into Picard's mind. The meal wasn't the point.
I kind of think the rape comparisons are overboard. It gets used with lots of TNG events... Borg assimilation rape, Picard Inner light mind rape, Troi mind rape. I think there should be a distinction between saying something's rape and implanting memories / borg implants in my opinion. I could be wrong I mean I get the parallels but when someone says rape I don't think memory implantation or thought control. And assimilation is way different as well.
I think rape is an accurate term here. Someone is physically forcing you to take part in something without your consent.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rape
3.
an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation:
What happens to Picard in "The Inner Light" is a violation of his free will. Violent seizure probably also applies.
What would we think if Starfleet went around forcibly implanting memories into races they encountered just to make them understand who we are?
That's the same logic behind Stockholm Syndrome and brain-washing.
At the very least of it, the most intrusive part is that there was no consent whatsoever. Regardless of the outcome, it was still something done by force. I've no doubt behind the people's intentions behind it, but good intentions can also be forced upon.
I'd like to take the referenced examples up there: two of the three are always referred as negative, as actual forms of violence: Borg assimilation and Troi mind rape. Nothing good comes from it, and they've been shown to be quite traumatic. They're rape in every sense of the word. To try to downplay that is to try to downplay the impact of actual rape itself.
Which is why I find myself thinking of the probe as rape, too. The lack of consent is there. Forcible intrusion into the deeply personal is there And most of all, rape is about control, dominance, and power; the probe very much tried to control Picard by inserting him into the program, with no option to get out by his own free will.
Rape doesn't have to be sexual to be rape, since it's about dominance rather than sex. Additionally, whatever positives that Picard took from it doesn't remove the fact that it's rape, either -- people who have been sexually raped can achieve orgasm, but that still comes from the fact that it wasn't wanted or welcomed in the first place, that they were violated and so often leads to mental trauma.
Yeah fair enough, it does fit the definition but it seems off to me to use it like that. For instance (and I'm trying to resist a slippery slope) by the same comparison, then Data was raped in The Most Toys, Q is constantly raping people by using his powers on them, Picard raped the entire crew by non consentual memory wipe in Clues. That just doesn't seem accurate, or maybe it's accurate but it sounds wrong.
If you claim that bad thing X = rape, then this opens the gate for all sorts of half-assed replies on the vein of "you can't say it was only mildly bad, because all rape is the end of the world".
Which is bullshit from start to finish. Mildly bad things can and do exist. Pickpocketing or taxation or conscription doesn't become categorically contemptible and worthy of the death penalty even if you inanely start calling it "rape". Forcing comes in all sorts of varieties, and you lose all credibility if you condemn them all on the basis that "classic", sexual raping is Bad with a capital B.
Picard was forced to have a dream. Uh huh. Starfleet forces him daily to stand by to sacrifice his life in defense of ideals he has some personal difficulty believing in, ideals his crew questions and his audience behind the fourth wall widely condemns. Picard doesn't complain about that. Why should he start complaining about this "rape" thing that made him have a (good!) dream? Just suck it up, Captain, and live on! (Which he incidentally does - he isn't halfway the sissy the audience apparently would want him to be.)
Timo Saloniemi
Which is bullshit from start to finish. Mildly bad things can and do exist. Pickpocketing or taxation or conscription doesn't become categorically contemptible and worthy of the death penalty even if you inanely start calling it "rape". Forcing comes in all sorts of varieties, and you lose all credibility if you condemn them all on the basis that "classic", sexual raping is Bad with a capital B.
Picard was forced to have a dream. Uh huh. Starfleet forces him daily to stand by to sacrifice his life in defense of ideals he has some personal difficulty believing in, ideals his crew questions and his audience behind the fourth wall widely condemns. Picard doesn't complain about that. Why should he start complaining about this "rape" thing that made him have a (good!) dream? Just suck it up, Captain, and live on! (Which he incidentally does - he isn't halfway the sissy the audience apparently would want him to be.)
Timo Saloniemi
I'm sticking by my earlier suggestion, that part of the probe's method was to include a way to 'ease' Picard out of the simulation as it neared its end. Remember that scene I spoke of, as "Kamin" was observing the launch of the probe - characters from earlier in the simulation were showing up, much younger, and addressing him out-of-character. I am sure this was intentional, a way to clue Picard in, that he was about to wake up and getting him ready for it. The way I see it is, any culture which could create a simulation of decades of life, must be able to also include a way to end it 'peacefully' and not shock the person.
And I agree that the constant overuse of the word 'rape' should stop. This was not a violent assault on Picard's mind or body - true, he didn't consent to it, but as has been pointed out, it was just a dream. We don't cry rape every time we have a dream, do we? Not even if it's a nightmare. Rape is a horrible crime - and the use of the word where it may not apply, trivializes such a crime when it really occurs.
And I agree that the constant overuse of the word 'rape' should stop. This was not a violent assault on Picard's mind or body - true, he didn't consent to it, but as has been pointed out, it was just a dream. We don't cry rape every time we have a dream, do we? Not even if it's a nightmare. Rape is a horrible crime - and the use of the word where it may not apply, trivializes such a crime when it really occurs.
I wonder what would have happened if Riker had gone worf and blown the probe out of the sky...
What do you people think?
I think these people weren't malevolent, so maybe Picard would just have awakened with no further consequences.
What do you people think?
I think these people weren't malevolent, so maybe Picard would just have awakened with no further consequences.
well, he didn't because script. Probably Picard would have died, I rememeber they managed to shut down the satellite's transmissions for some moments and he convulsed.
OR, if the uploading of Kamin's memories was serial, he would never know how his life ended.
Anyway the little flute was inside the satellite and would have been blown up too.
OR, if the uploading of Kamin's memories was serial, he would never know how his life ended.
Anyway the little flute was inside the satellite and would have been blown up too.
I'm sure it would be possible and plausible for a benign probe to fake the symptoms of something horrible happening if this were attempted (as we saw when Crusher tried out some treatments) - but to do nothing bad if the attempt actually succeeded. The Kataan folks didn't want to be mean, but they did want to get heard, so they created these false "risks" to cutting the connection. IMHO, blowing up the probe would just leave Picard with a mild headache from an improperly terminated simulation.
That the probe's machinery "self-terminates" after serving just one user need not be a desired function; it's equally possible that the probe simply malfunctioned badly and for that reason failed to bless further E-D personnel with the experience.
Although actually, when Riker speaks of "self-terminating", he's referring to the program itself - so probably he's simply saying the program voluntarily lets the "victim" go at the programmed end, rather than clinging to him or her indefinitely. That the probe also has gone silent is a separate issue, either a malfunction or then a sad reminder that the resources of its senders were limited and perhaps incapable of creating a system that could adapt multiple times to multiple users.
Timo Saloniemi
That the probe's machinery "self-terminates" after serving just one user need not be a desired function; it's equally possible that the probe simply malfunctioned badly and for that reason failed to bless further E-D personnel with the experience.
Although actually, when Riker speaks of "self-terminating", he's referring to the program itself - so probably he's simply saying the program voluntarily lets the "victim" go at the programmed end, rather than clinging to him or her indefinitely. That the probe also has gone silent is a separate issue, either a malfunction or then a sad reminder that the resources of its senders were limited and perhaps incapable of creating a system that could adapt multiple times to multiple users.
Timo Saloniemi
It seems to me that they chose a very inefficient not to mention technologically onerous way of spreading the news about them. "Tell people about us! " well ok but there is only so much that Picard can tell or write in a book, assuming he'll even write one about the experience. I think they should have recorded a holodeck simulation with maybe the highlights of Picard's life. ( though maybe not him having sex with his wife
) but the part about the community, how he interacted with them and what the hell is an iron weaver, anyway???Well, there's definitely a missed opportunity here!
Same thing happened to Tuvok.
The false memories, when they felt the Vulcan endangered by the death of their host felt a compulsion to letch onto a new juicy amygdala... Maybe Picard is carrying the same dealio?
Is he contagious?
The false memories, when they felt the Vulcan endangered by the death of their host felt a compulsion to letch onto a new juicy amygdala... Maybe Picard is carrying the same dealio?
Is he contagious?
Picard should've just relived someone's real-life memories from another planet, via touching the wrong controls, or something like with the Iconian planet, when Data got blinded. Unfortunately, with Sci-Fi, more than any other type of fiction, it has that "alien" card to let anything fly, when the show needs it to. Picard got zapped and all that happened to him for absolutely no reason, other than it was in the script. It would never play out in any century, in any part of the galaxy, by any alien species - particularly such a Human one.
There's absolutely no logic in it and it basically amounts to a violation, of sorts, the way it's presented in the episode itself. When Picard grabs a hold of that flute, at the very end and clutches it to himself, it looks like Stockholm Syndrome, to me. And maybe that was intentional, though I seriously doubt it. It just seemed an excuse to relieve the monotony for Sir Patrick Stewart. Had "they" arrived at Picard's living another life, some other way than an arbitrary probe zapping - because, hey, they're aliens - this episode could've been great. But the simple village and quiet life he had wasn't all that entertaining, really, was it? It only worked, because he remembered his Picard Life. Without that crucial element, this episode simply wouldn't hold up.
There's absolutely no logic in it and it basically amounts to a violation, of sorts, the way it's presented in the episode itself. When Picard grabs a hold of that flute, at the very end and clutches it to himself, it looks like Stockholm Syndrome, to me. And maybe that was intentional, though I seriously doubt it. It just seemed an excuse to relieve the monotony for Sir Patrick Stewart. Had "they" arrived at Picard's living another life, some other way than an arbitrary probe zapping - because, hey, they're aliens - this episode could've been great. But the simple village and quiet life he had wasn't all that entertaining, really, was it? It only worked, because he remembered his Picard Life. Without that crucial element, this episode simply wouldn't hold up.
Remember Stargate when O'Niel was compelled by the archive of the ancients to build the technology to send himself to another galaxy... At some point, maybe Picard is going to be compelled to build one of those Probes that zapped him?
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