What was Memorial about?

[Praetorian]

Hi there!

From what I know, this Season 6 episode is quite revered.
I had read somethings about it before seeing it recently, and was expecting a "War is Hell!" show. Though it did show that, our Heroes weren't the ones who actually did it, and that takes away some if not most of the impact in my opinion.
But then, in the final scene it got to me. This episode wasn't really about "War is Hell!" but instead "You should not forget the past, even it hurts you to remember it, so that it may never happen again!"
My only regret is that the final scene is somewhat short and there's not much of a debate.

But it does raises this interesting question. Having to learn and remember past atrocities might seem unpleasant, but it does reduces the likelyhood of such atrocities happening again.
However, the device actually appeared to make people feel guilty and really bad for something they hadn't done and should not be blamed for.
So I'm not sure about the ethics of it...

Anyway, interesting episode, just wished the final discussion was bigger and more profound!

 

[exodus]

I thought it was only making people feel that way because it was malfunctioning?

I think the real intention of was as you said, to make you remember the past so it wouldn't be repeated. I think Neelix, being a victim of war himself brought that point to light.

The ethical debate is, should something that would give you such memories unwillingly be repaired and kept running?

However, Janeway left a warning bouy so nobody that didn't want the experance could avoid it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The original markers/buoys were broken or destroyed. If the "warning/danger" signs were still there, then no one would be confused about what was happening, but the memory implantation device did exactly what it was supposed to do, though maybe not so completely indiscriminately and arbitrary.

I remember being outraged at Janeway fixing the device so that it could be around for another ten thousand years because her buoys might just get frakked and another crew would get frakked by the machine some day down the line, but my rage is not clear at the moment

Although, isn't this why they couldn't leave a time bomb behind them if they used Caretakers array to get home? You need a human eye to watch over events because they don't want to answer the door to Mr. Cockup?

 

[kimc]

Unfortunately leaving behind a memorial is no guarantee it won't happen again. After all, there are memorials at the sites of the World War II concentration camps yet not only does attempted genocide still go on but there are those who despite the evidence deny that those events even happened.

Still, that doesn't mean it isn't worth trying. I thought repairing the memorial was the right decision.

 

[Guy Gardener]

History is written by the victors... How can Janeway be sure that even this "damning history" via mind washing is an honest account of the events that transpired and not propaganda to one effect or another either from one side trying to hide the worst of what they did or the other exaggerating what was done to them?

There had to be a reason that this technology was abandoned?

And really how difficult would it be to reverse engineer a weapon out of this tech, that they could force mass suicide or control loyalty? Clearly a devious person could take over a couple worlds with a weaponized version of this memorial.

 

[jgdst]

^ I'd agree with that.

This was a standout episode of season 6 for me in that it got me thinking and actually got me emotionally involved. Garret Wang really did a superb job at selling the distress.

Praetorian's comments do raise an interesting question though - how much more impact would it have been if the Voyager crew were somehow responsible or a part of the atrocities, rather than them living out someone else's memories? It doesn't really fit with Voyager's typical fare, but then, we did get emotional episodes like Course: Oblivion every now and then...

 

[exodus]

There had to be a reason that this technology was abandoned?

It's a forgotten memorial just like the thousands within the US. The ones anybody ever really remembers are the ones in D.C. More than half the memorials in different States a majority of the people don't even know what they represent or who the statue is of.

If they used the tech as a weapon, then it goes against the whole point of the message within it.

 

[teya]

Unfortunately leaving behind a memorial is no guarantee it won't happen again. After all, there are memorials at the sites of the World War II concentration camps yet not only does attempted genocide still go on but there are those who despite the evidence deny that those events even happened.

But something interactive might actually work.

This reminded me vaguely of the "whisper tunnel" at the Holocaust museum in LA. It's a long corridor that you walk down and coming over the speakers around you are whispered racial, religious, ethnic, and sexual epithets, as if they're being addressed to you.

The idea is to show what minorities go through every day at the hands of bigots. If someone can empathize, they can get something out of it. It's been used as mandatory punishment for teens convicted of hate crimes (skinheads, gang members). Some of them have actually gone on to change their ways and become docents for the museum.

 

[exodus]

Unfortunately leaving behind a memorial is no guarantee it won't happen again. After all, there are memorials at the sites of the World War II concentration camps yet not only does attempted genocide still go on but there are those who despite the evidence deny that those events even happened.

But something interactive might actually work.

This reminded me vaguely of the "whisper tunnel" at the Holocaust museum in LA. It's a long corridor that you walk down and coming over the speakers around you are whispered racial, religious, ethnic, and sexual epithets, as if they're being addressed to you.

The idea is to show what minorities go through every day at the hands of bigots. If someone can empathize, they can get something out of it. It's been used as mandatory punishment for teens convicted of hate crimes (skinheads, gang members). Some of them have actually gone on to change their ways and become docents for the museum.

I remember you mentioned this before.

I think it's a wonderful & creative idea.

 

[joyofvgr]

The idea is to show what minorities go through every day at the hands of bigots. If someone can empathize, they can get something out of it. It's been used as mandatory punishment for teens convicted of hate crimes (skinheads, gang members). Some of them have actually gone on to change their ways and become docents for the museum.

I used to audit a not for profit organization in NY that had a similar program, but it wasn't a museum. It was a seminar that they put on around the country. It had to do with shapes and colors. Essentially, people would be divided into groups and given a shape, such as a square or a circle and a color, such as green or red. Then they would start to say things about everyone who was green or everyone who was a square, etc. So of course to be a green square was the worse thing you could be, but being a red square isn't so bad, etc. It was to show people, how hurtful and harmful labels could be and was considered a very successful program.

 

[Guy Gardener]

But it's got an amusement park component to it, like Disney World or Mount Splashmore... I wouldn't trust Disney Worlds "rides" for a couple minutes after all it's support and maintenance staff wandered off for an extended simultaneous tea brake, god forbid trying to get the place up and running after a couple years.

By "abandoned" Exodus, I was really asking about how often ships travel through this area of space that it "continued" to be abandoned for many centuries? Even if if the makers had died off, that region can still intersect with still other aliens going form A to B, because every ship that does go within range of the device for the last couple hundred years would be effected and either figure out what was happening to them or be fooled... And how little would that have to happen for no one to figure it out there's a hazard to navigation?

 

[exodus]

But it's got an amusement park component to it, like Disney World or Mount Splashmore... I wouldn't trust Disney Worlds "rides" for a couple minutes after all it's support and maintenance staff wandered off for an extended simultaneous tea brake, god forbid trying to get the place up and running after a couple years.

By "abandoned" Exodus, I was really asking about how often ships travel through this area of space that it "continued" to be abandoned for many centuries? Even if if the makers had died off, that region can still intersect with still other aliens going form A to B, because every ship that does go within range of the device for the last couple hundred years would be effected and either figure out what was happening to them or be fooled... And how little would that have to happen for no one to figure it out there's a hazard to navigation?

Ok, my bad.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Unfortunately leaving behind a memorial is no guarantee it won't happen again. After all, there are memorials at the sites of the World War II concentration camps yet not only does attempted genocide still go on but there are those who despite the evidence deny that those events even happened.

But something interactive might actually work.

This reminded me vaguely of the "whisper tunnel" at the Holocaust museum in LA. It's a long corridor that you walk down and coming over the speakers around you are whispered racial, religious, ethnic, and sexual epithets, as if they're being addressed to you.

The idea is to show what minorities go through every day at the hands of bigots. If someone can empathize, they can get something out of it. It's been used as mandatory punishment for teens convicted of hate crimes (skinheads, gang members). Some of them have actually gone on to change their ways and become docents for the museum.

The problem is consent. No ones going to tolerate having their memories rewritten to feel some compassion about being idiotically warlike and being victimized by the idiotically warlike unless they are already compassionate about such things.

Broken, out of control surprise raping and forcing people how to think works but it's like "wrong". Asking tolerant nonhomicidally nonwarlike people if they want to be more tolerant nonhomicidally nonwarlike people and reinforce why they had to make sure they were tolerant nonhomicidally nonwarlike people in the first place is autobackpatting masturbation.

Then of course, taking it back to the amusement park metaphor, obviously there is no consent issue if the family is on a road trip and they want to make sure they're raising their kids right by showing them the difference between right and wrong... Which is just a nasty way to instill an upbringing.

If that was the case, why go to such lengths when it's easier to control your kids emotions with a pill after meals in the morning and night time?

 

[kimc]

Unfortunately leaving behind a memorial is no guarantee it won't happen again. After all, there are memorials at the sites of the World War II concentration camps yet not only does attempted genocide still go on but there are those who despite the evidence deny that those events even happened.

But something interactive might actually work.

This reminded me vaguely of the "whisper tunnel" at the Holocaust museum in LA. It's a long corridor that you walk down and coming over the speakers around you are whispered racial, religious, ethnic, and sexual epithets, as if they're being addressed to you.

The idea is to show what minorities go through every day at the hands of bigots. If someone can empathize, they can get something out of it. It's been used as mandatory punishment for teens convicted of hate crimes (skinheads, gang members). Some of them have actually gone on to change their ways and become docents for the museum.

I agree an interactive memorial would definately have an impact. I visited the memorial at Dachau and I don't know if it was the rain, wind or the horrifying photos of prisoners being experimented on but when I was walking through the crematoriam I could sense the evil that was just seeping from the place - and I'm not a huge believer in esp, etc.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Enterprise ripped this episode off.

Season Three. Extinction.

A virus which rebuilds the thoughts and bodies of people breathing near enough, get turned into a died out species thinking they're the last of their kind. The locals manning the blockade call it an insidious plague and blast any one who might be infected very very dead. By stories end when every one is cured and back in their right minds and bodies, Archer decides not to destroy the last sample of the virus since it would be genocide while drawing no comparisons what so ever with his deathlock on the Xindi at the time.

Voyager did it better, and Memorial was even written by Brannon. It looks like he still had a little steam left in his kettle at this late date after all.

 

[Mirror_Barclay]

Terrible writing, terrible episode. Good acting couldn't save it.

Forcing false memories into someone's head is truly horrible - and Janeway decided to do unto (random) others what was done to her and her crew. And her crew went along with it.

Replacing a safeguard that had already failed once doesn't do much to mitigate what they did.

"Memorial" is the sort of episode that many times almost made me give up on Voyager, and Janeway, no matter how good they were in other episodes.

 

[exodus]

Terrible writing, terrible episode. Good acting couldn't save it.

Forcing false memories into someone's head is truly horrible - and Janeway decided to do unto (random) others what was done to her and her crew. And her crew went along with it.

Replacing a safeguard that had already failed once doesn't do much to mitigate what they did.

"Memorial" is the sort of episode that many times almost made me give up on Voyager, and Janeway, no matter how good they were in other episodes.

Really?

It was eps. like this that made me love Voyager more because it asks the question: what would you do in their position. Due to that, it allows us to still talk about those topics of eps. similar to this years later.

 

[Jeri]

Memorial was a great, emotional episode, IMO. I enjoy watching it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Janeway said: "I learnt a lot from being surprise mindraped, I think others would equally benefit from being surprise mindraped, I will insure that the surprise mind raping continues! Horay for surprise mindrape!"

Like I said before, if there was a support staff and system of application and consent, Janeway wouldn't have been so bold as to leave a ticking timb bomb which was just waiting to inflict a good frakking on passers by after the safteys go bung again.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Janeway said: "I learnt a lot from being surprise mindraped, I think others would equally benefit from being surprise mindraped, I will insure that the surprise mind raping continues! Horay for surprise mindrape!"

There's a warning buoy in orbit. There's no more surprise.