Worst Character Assassination Episodes

[Pumpkin Bread]

Another question... if past Odo had not intervened the way he did, would the Prophets have done so? As they say, "the Sisko is necessary". He could not have fulfilled his destiny (stopping the path wraiths) if he died over a century before he was born.

 

[Swedish Borg]

Another question... if past Odo had not intervened the way he did, would the Prophets have done so? As they say, "the Sisko is necessary". He could not have fulfilled his destiny (stopping the path wraiths) if he died over a century before he was born.

The prophet didn't stop Sisko from being stuck in whatever that was in "The Visitor", so maybe they wouldn't have done anything. The prophets are hardly consistent throughout the series.

 

[Watersluis]

The 8000 people actually existed, they were not prospective people... You can't be held responsible for something that MIGHT happen in the future, that's just delusional and a little bit insane.

That distinction is certainly a bit vaguer if time travel be involved.
The planet simply existed in the future.
Suppose a method to send information back to the past exist, and an observer thereby be allowed to gain information of his own descendants, and thus elects not to have children by influence of that information sent back in time, is that murder?
What if the information channel be full duplex, and the observer be allowed to converse with his own descendants, and based on that decides to not have children?

The way I see it, visiting the planet that exists in the future from one's own frame of reference is nothing more than such a full duplex information channel.

Of course, the hypothetical existence of such channels offers more problems, which is probably why they don't exist outside of fiction.

 

[Swedish Borg]

That distinction is certainly a bit vaguer if time travel be involved.
The planet simply existed in the future.
Suppose a method to send information back to the past exist, and an observer thereby be allowed to gain information of his own descendants, and thus elects not to have children by influence of that information sent back in time, is that murder?
What if the information channel be full duplex, and the observer be allowed to converse with his own descendants, and based on that decides to not have children?

The way I see it, visiting the planet that exists in the future from one's own frame of reference is nothing more than such a full duplex information channel.

Of course, the hypothetical existence of such channels offers more problems, which is probably why they don't exist outside of fiction.

Outside of fiction none of this exists, the butterfly effect would get in the way of any foreknowledge. Think of the millions of spermatozoa fighting each other to get to the ovum, if a different one gets there, you get a different person, just as two heterozygote brothers are different from each other.... And that's even assuming that you have sex at the exact same moment!!! A microscopic change in the way you move and someone different will be born.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Outside of fiction none of this exists, the butterfly effect would get in the way of any foreknowledge. Think of the millions of spermatozoa fighting each other to get to the ovum, if a different one gets there, you get a different person, just as two heterozygote brothers are different from each other.... And that's even assuming that you have sex at the exact same moment!!! A microscopic change in the way you move and someone different will be born.

Shhhhhh! You're ruining all of science fiction!

 

[Pumpkin Bread]

Outside of fiction none of this exists, the butterfly effect would get in the way of any foreknowledge. Think of the millions of spermatozoa fighting each other to get to the ovum, if a different one gets there, you get a different person, just as two heterozygote brothers are different from each other.... And that's even assuming that you have sex at the exact same moment!!! A microscopic change in the way you move and someone different will be born.

Yes. And look at the beginning of "Sliding Doors". A small shift in pedestrian traffic patterns, and a life goes off in two very different directions.

Just ignore the BS ending, which effectively undercuts the whole message of the movie by declaring that it's really all about Fate.

Shhhhhh! You're ruining all of science fiction!

Just traditional time travel stories. But also potentially laying the groundwork for something new.

 

[DonIago]

If not recreating an accident that led to the creation of a few thousand people is mass murder, then why is recreating the accident at the likely expense of thousands of other people not also mass murder? Because we "know" the accidental people exist but we don't know what will happen in the other timeline?

Or, to use a more specific example, what if Sisko et al. had a way to know that if they didn't leave the planet then the Federation would lose the war?

What about the poor soul who has knowledge of both timelines and knows that regardless of which choice they make thousands of people will die, but without knowing precise numbers so they can choose the path with fewer fatalities? Are they to be condemned as a mass murderer when they had no option that didn't cause thousands of deaths?

Or is the term "mass murderer" being applied purely as a factual rather than a judgmental descriptor?

 

[GhoulEddie74]

Has anyone yet said that killing Sim in "Similitude(ENT)" was an assassination of Archer's character? Because he started the series an idealist with little to no deep space experience but was also a bigot against Vulcans. By the time Enterprise NX-01 was inside the Delphic Expanse trying to find and stop the Xindi weapon he had already shown he was willing to push the boundaries of acceptable and ethical behavior to save both his own crew and humanity as a whole. When he growls at Sim and tells him in no uncertain terms that yes, he'd kill him to save Trip and continue the mission to save humanity he's Season 3 Archer, for better or worse. But it wasn't out of character nor character assassination to see him behave that way.

The sacrifice of Sim began as something in which Trip's clone had no say but by episode's end he reasoned that Archer was correct in the wider scheme of things even if he knew it would cost him his short but vibrant life. Stopping the Xindi weapon from destroying Earth was the primary concern and Sim's sacrifice was one of the many prices the NX-01 crew paid in the Expanse. 27 other people died during that mission so Sim wasn't the only tragedy aboard ship.

And none of those events assassinated Archer as a character. If his character "died" at any point it would have happened when he was young and his dad died, his engine stalled because of Vulcan interference in Earth's deep space warp experiments.

 

[DonIago]

I don't recall any episode that I felt assassinated Archer's character, though I recall an instance in at least one episode that I felt made him sound too stupid to be a captain.

ENT is about the young and idealistic (if bigoted) captain getting a harsh dose of reality and what that does to him.

I kind of wish there had been a follow-up in S4 regarding his stranding the aliens in S3.

 

[Swedish Borg]

Has anyone yet said that killing Sim in "Similitude(ENT)" was an assassination of Archer's character? Because he started the series an idealist with little to no deep space experience but was also a bigot against Vulcans. By the time Enterprise NX-01 was inside the Delphic Expanse trying to find and stop the Xindi weapon he had already shown he was willing to push the boundaries of acceptable and ethical behavior to save both his own crew and humanity as a whole. When he growls at Sim and tells him in no uncertain terms that yes, he'd kill him to save Trip and continue the mission to save humanity he's Season 3 Archer, for better or worse. But it wasn't out of character nor character assassination to see him behave that way.

The sacrifice of Sim began as something in which Trip's clone had no say but by episode's end he reasoned that Archer was correct in the wider scheme of things even if he knew it would cost him his short but vibrant life. Stopping the Xindi weapon from destroying Earth was the primary concern and Sim's sacrifice was one of the many prices the NX-01 crew paid in the Expanse. 27 other people died during that mission so Sim wasn't the only tragedy aboard ship.

And none of those events assassinated Archer as a character. If his character "died" at any point it would have happened when he was young and his dad died, his engine stalled because of Vulcan interference in Earth's deep space warp experiments.

Each Enterprise episode is a character assassination of Archer. It's the only character I know that gets murdered 98 times!

 

[Swedish Borg]

Yes. And look at the beginning of "Sliding Doors". A small shift in pedestrian traffic patterns, and a life goes off in two very different directions.
...

There's a Frasier episode called sliding Frasiers that is based on that movie (I know that now), only in a funny way.
Frasier makes two choices and for each choice, a series of events follow but like for this movie (that I didn't see) the conclusion is that in both cases the ending is very similar Frasier and Niles find themselves in similar situations with very minor differences, even though in the middle of events things seem very different. The episode is funny but I don't buy that for a second.

 

[Pumpkin Bread]

If "Similitude" was character assassination for Archer, then "Damage" was arguably worse. But, arguably, both could be about an essentially decent person in an impossible situation, throwing the few under the bus to save the many.

 

[Swedish Borg]

If "Similitude" was character assassination for Archer, then "Damage" was arguably worse. But, arguably, both could be about an essentially decent person in an impossible situation, throwing the few under the bus to save the many.

The problem with Archer is that he keeps making these remarks that make him sound like an idiot. Like in "Rogue Planet", he says" She wasn't a hallucination, she knew my name."

To which I answer: "Of course she'd know your name if she was a hallucination, you idiot!".

 

[JaxsBrokenHeart]

I'd argue Damage is a much better episode for Archer than much of the first two season specifically because the episode doesn't attempt to make his actions seem morally right and his character actually feels explored in how deeply shaken he is by having to make such a dubious decision. There's no self righteous speech or angry deflection of what he's done; just a somewhat broken man admitting he has no choice and wondering if he'll have to do it again.

Compare that to the guy throwing a tantrum about a situation he helped bring about in Night in Sickbay or railing against the Vulcans having the audacity to being upset about him revealing security secrets to the Andorians in Shadows of P'Jem, and its night and day. Archer's once again making a questionable decision, but is allowed to actually be reflective about what it says about him and affected by its deeper implications.

 

[Swedish Borg]

I'd argue Damage is a much better episode for Archer than much of the first two season specifically because the episode doesn't attempt to make his actions seem morally right and his character actually feels explored in how deeply shaken he is by having to make such a dubious decision. There's no self righteous speech or angry deflection of what he's done; just a somewhat broken man admitting he has no choice and wondering if he'll have to do it again.

Compare that to the guy throwing a tantrum about a situation he helped bring about in Night in Sickbay or railing against the Vulcans having the audacity to being upset about him revealing security secrets to the Andorians in Shadows of P'Jem, and its night and day. Archer's once again making a questionable decision, but is allowed to actually be reflective about what it says about him and affected by its deeper implications.

Although, after the Xindy crisis was over Archer's first mission should have been to find that ship and offer them assistance.

 

[Kor]

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, for making the Genesis planet's instabilities the result of David Marcus cheating by using protomatter in the matrix, thus turning him into an unethical scientist out of the blue.

The device was designed to be deployed on a dead moon or similar body, not in the middle of a nebula with no planetoid to begin with. That in itself should have been the explanation for the instabilites, rapid growth/evolution of the microbes, and all the other weirdness.

Kor

 

[Swedish Borg]

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, for making the Genesis planet's instabilities the result of David Marcus cheating by using protomatter in the matrix, thus turning him into an unethical scientist out of the blue.

The device was designed to be deployed on a dead moon or similar body, not in the middle of a nebula with no planetoid to begin with. That in itself should have been the explanation for the instabilites, rapid growth/evolution of the microbes, and all the other weirdness.

Kor

True, Saavik was out of line when she "asked" him: "How many lives have been lost because of your impatience?"

How many? Zero, bitch!

How can she make the people killed by the Klingons, David's fault???

 

[Pumpkin Bread]

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, for making the Genesis planet's instabilities the result of David Marcus cheating by using protomatter in the matrix, thus turning him into an unethical scientist out of the blue.

The device was designed to be deployed on a dead moon or similar body, not in the middle of a nebula with no planetoid to begin with. That in itself should have been the explanation for the instabilites, rapid growth/evolution of the microbes, and all the other weirdness.

Kor

His character wasn't around long enough to be assassinated, sadly. But that would have been a legitimate explanation.

Wonder if they ever tried again? I guess they must have, given that terraforming is a thing in the 24th century.

 

[DonIago]

True, Saavik was out of line when she "asked" him: "How many lives have been lost because of your impatience?"

How many? Zero, bitch!

How can she make the people killed by the Klingons, David's fault???

Since you asked...
If David doesn't use protomatter, Genesis is delayed or canceled. If Genesis is delayed/canceled, Khan doesn't steal it. If Khan doesn't steal it, Khan doesn't detonate it. If Khan doesn't detonate it, no Genesis planet for Grissom to explore only to be attacked and destroyed by the BoP.

While it is rather heartless and unfair to blame David solely for this chain of events, it does seem he bears some degree of indirect responsibility.

 

[Swedish Borg]

Since you asked...
If David doesn't use protomatter, Genesis is delayed or canceled. If Genesis is delayed/canceled, Khan doesn't steal it. If Khan doesn't steal it, Khan doesn't detonate it. If Khan doesn't detonate it, no Genesis planet for Grissom to explore only to be attacked and destroyed by the BoP.

While it is rather heartless and unfair to blame David solely for this chain of events, it does seem he bears some degree of indirect responsibility.

I disagree David had nothing to do with this. The people to blame are.

1) Kirk: Who never checked on Kahn to see how he was doing.

2) Starfleet science who are so incompetent that they don't notice that a planet has exploded.

3)Starfleet again for beaming down two high-ranking officers on a hellish planet and give Kahn the hostages he needed to take over the ship.


Saying that any of this is David's fault is completely unjustified.

David didn't kill anyone, actually, his planet brought back Spock so if you're asking how many people died because of him, it's minus one!!!