Picard thought that the Indians needed to be forcefully moved for the same reason that he thought the Ba'ku needed to be left alone. So what stance he would have taken depends on whether he would have found someone f***able there.
Worf sucks in Birthright.
- Thread starter gakelly
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Picard thought that the Indians needed to be forcefully moved for the same reason that he thought the Ba'ku needed to be left alone. So what stance he would have taken depends on whether he would have found someone f***able there.
I kinda look at it like that episode changed him, he felt guilty about what happened there and it got under his skin so when we roll around to Insurrection he finally wants to take a stand on relocating someone
I think Data would also take issue with the community in this episode and would have dropped an info dump on them, he did that a couple times with communities that were behind the times
I just have to say I feel for Worf a lot. He has struggled his whole life living with a human family. He then has a career and adult life with humans. At this point any way. He then has a child with a 1/2 human Klingon. The human factor is just always there for him. He, I think is upset by the fact his dad may have lived and had to live "without honor" and the other his dad may be alive and he had to grow up without him. Plus I think Worf was starting to question a lot of things like his personal beliefs in Klingon religion and also "what the heck does it mean to be a good Klingon?" He also couldn't relate to his son very well and again, where does his "Klingoness" fit in to his world? Anyway, I feel for Wolf 
For one thing, Worf seems to like intense pain. He seeks it. The same can't be said of O'Brien.
Actually he initially and in the middle was reluctantly willing to do so, then he came to be so against doing so that he prevented it from happening.
I disagree. The Cardassians agreed to accept (reluctantly) the Indians and we really don't know for how long they kept their word of leaving them alone. Picard just told the Indians that from then on, the Federation wouldn't give a crap about what happens to them!!!
Best. Plot. Point. Evah!
I just rewatched the "Birthright" two-parter, and I have to say Worf acted in the best manner possible given the circumstances.
People always seem to forget that Klingon culture IS different, so when one of them says or does things that seem wrong to us, we attack him. I saw nothing wrong with Worf teaching those kids what it meant to BE a Klingon... the stories of Kahless, how to hunt, the martial arts. All of that is part of their history, culture, and being, and I thought Worf doing that instead of just trying to kill the Romulans showed growth from his early TNG days. One of the few times on TNG where he really DID grow from the beginning of the series. And that cultivated into his final step of admitting some Romulans acted with honor in STAR TREK NEMESIS, which for the long list of faults that movie had, it did at least do that.
Now, Worf can be quite stubborn and a troublemaker, which shows even more on DS9 (a series he got the most growth), and has got some other big flaws and I'll be the first to admit it, but in this episode I feel he let his better angels guide him. So I will defend Worf here.
People always seem to forget that Klingon culture IS different, so when one of them says or does things that seem wrong to us, we attack him. I saw nothing wrong with Worf teaching those kids what it meant to BE a Klingon... the stories of Kahless, how to hunt, the martial arts. All of that is part of their history, culture, and being, and I thought Worf doing that instead of just trying to kill the Romulans showed growth from his early TNG days. One of the few times on TNG where he really DID grow from the beginning of the series. And that cultivated into his final step of admitting some Romulans acted with honor in STAR TREK NEMESIS, which for the long list of faults that movie had, it did at least do that.
Now, Worf can be quite stubborn and a troublemaker, which shows even more on DS9 (a series he got the most growth), and has got some other big flaws and I'll be the first to admit it, but in this episode I feel he let his better angels guide him. So I will defend Worf here.
I think Birthright is a great social commentary episode that is overlooking. There is a lot to unpack from it that speaks to history and current wrongs towards in Indigenous Peoples in Country such as the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The work of communities in those nations to decolonize. What Worf did was let those Young People know what it means to be Klingon.
Worf, making the sure the 24th century still has racial prejudice! We should thank him for his noble endeavors. Living in peace you say! Fools, you should all be at each other's throats!
Pretty much my thoughts.
I feel like this is one of the episodes that depends greatly on what you're associating its values with. A lot of people say that Worf is being terrible for disrupting a peaceful community of Romulans and Klingons but I think that the power dynamics of the whole thing as well as real-life counterparts to these things are so morally indefensible that Worf has no moral ambiguity. He's absolutely in the right.
Plenty of Native peoples have been forcibly removed from their culture and heritage before being raised in "civilized" circumstances. Its a war crime and considered a form of genocide. It's an internment camp and while the parents chose not to return to their homeland, its still an internment camp and Stockholm Syndrome is not a legal defense that should hold up.
I think Worf takes Klingon culture too literally partly because he was raised in the UFP, often following historical practices that people don't take as seriously in the modern galaxy.
When Riker goes to that Klingon ship on an exchange program, Riker expresses concern that one of the second officer's duties is to kill him if he becomes weak. Dr. Pulaski reassures him that they talk about that, but nowadays generally what kills us kills them.
We see this same thing Klingon politics. It's a lot of dirty politics wrapped in an honorable flag. Jadzia tells Worf this flatly.
My point is I think Klingons' tendency to kill one another at any time for some slight disrespect is overstated.
This is pretty much canon by Redemption part 1 and 2 where Worf is clearly the odd man out among "normal" Klingons. His brother repeatedly calls him out as a major killjoy and Guinan says that his stoic humorless understanding of his race is factually inaccurate. Worf, for example, doesn't understand why they're drinking with Duras' men.
I repeatedly use Game of Thrones to explain how Klingon society works to my wife as we watch TNG. It surprisingly works to say Worf is the Ned Stark of their world while the Duras are the Lannisters. Honor is a thing in their society but most Klingons are surprised at how seriously Worf takes all of it.
In this episode, Worf sort of nails that the kids are being denied any sort of life living in the converted internment camp. They don't have any choices because they don't realize it but the fact they don't realize it is, itself, a form of abuse. It's sort of like that Cardassian kid raised by Bajorans.
"We love you even though you come from a race of monsters [and were kidnapped]."
Or that Human kid raised by Talarians, who they let go back to them in the end of that one, because that's what he wanted. The point there being, it's not for anyone to decide who is a victim, except the would-be victim.
I'm pretty sure that is horrible advice when involving children.
i've been on a DS9 rewatch with my husband and we're a few episodes into season 4 and i realized worf sucks in these episodes too. i know the writers didn't want him to just slot in with the cast and be their good buddy right from the get go, but he's so obnoxious in his interactions with odo, quark ("hippocratic oath"), and random engineering guys ("starship down"), it gives him a pretty steep hill to climb back to likability.
In these examples, the Klingon's were adults, even the young ones were fairly well adults, & Jono, the human among Talarians, was just shy of adulthood himself, around 15ish. I'm really just playing Devil's advocate here, but at what age do the people of the 24th century recognize a person's agency over themselves? Wesley was given acting ensign privileges at not much a different age, and should what someone considers abuse be used to strip that agency, retroactively?
In that case, even Worf himself was taken to Earth as a boy, & raised outside his cultural ways, which was a developmental concern that has caused him difficulty his entire life, and to an objective eye is probably the most prominent reason for why he is intervening here... which potentially makes his motives somewhat personal. Note how his concern isn't about abuse or captivity, but about how they don't know much about their culture, which kind of hits close to home for a formerly Earthbound Klingon kid.
Just a lot of stuff to take into consideration, is all I'm saying. Not black & white here
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