By Chris Booton on Monday, April 19, 1999 - 02:55 pm:

I believe this is the first episode to mention the breen, when dieanna questions the idiots I mean pakleds methods he says "they certainly arn't romulin or breen" (or was it horoda?)
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By Murray Leeder on Monday, April 19, 1999 - 03:08 pm:

I thought it was the Jarada. They were also mentioned elsewhere in this episode, as Geordi notes their technology on the Pakled ship.
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By Keith Alan Morgan on Saturday, April 24, 1999 - 08:11 am:

It is stated that the Pakled ship is capable of Sublight travel only (Of course, these are the same sensors that missed the weapons and other little goodies on the Pakled ship) and yet the vessel is floating in interstellar space and it has parts from the Klingons, Romulans and the Jarada. Just how long has this ship been flying through space or are we supposed to believe that Pakled space is situated somewhere near Jaradan, Klingon and Romulan space? Later we see Pakleds on Deep Space Nine and in Firstborn the Duras sisters are stealing minerals from a world in Pakled domain. Not bad for a dumb, prewarp society. (Also in Brothers, Lore is traveling in a Pakled ship. So was Lore just conveniently flying by his 'Father's' new planet, or do the Pakleds have Faster Than Light travel?)

In First Contact, it is stated that the Federation only makes contact with worlds on the verge of developing Warp travel. So isn't helping the Pakleds a violation of the Prime Directive? (Of course, Sublight would include speeds up to 186,281 miles per second, so maybe that was 'close enough?')

If the Pakled's homeworld is near Romulan and Klingon space then how come the Pakleds were never conquered?

Why would the Romulans even bother to help a drifting ship? They never struck me as being a friendly race.

Either the Pakled are not as dumb as they seem, or the Jarada consider "Uh-huh" to be the highest of compliments and protocol compels them to help out.

The alternative is that some of the parts were found, bought or traded (Probably them Ferengi again) or La Forge was mistaken when he identified them. Geordi was probably too shaken up from being zapped with the phaser to make an accurate identification.

Picard was right when he said Wesley should study more history. When Picard is telling about his first posting Wesley asks, "Was this before the Klingons joined the Federation?" The Klingons never 'joined' the Federation, they signed peace treaties with them. Worf was the only Klingon who was 'in' the Federation. (Well, maybe B'Elanna Torres of Voyager was another?)

What setting was Geordi's phaser on anyway? The Pakled pulls it out of Geordi's holster and shoots him and energy runs all over his body and he is hurled backwards into the bulkhead. I thought the Stun setting just knocked someone out and they fell to the floor where they stood, or was this a special Slam Them Into The Wall To Knock Them Out setting?

This nit could go in many different episodes. Do the people at the back of the Bridge do anything besides wait for someone to leave their post? We've seen it in many episodes, someone at Conn or Ops gets up and someone from the back of the Bridge runs down to keep their seat warm and when the original person returns the fill-in person gets up, goes to the back of the Bridge and pretends to work. What are they supposed to be doing back there? It can't be very important, because they stop doing whatever it is at a moments notice to keep the seats warm and we never see anyone fill in for them at their stations at the back of the Bridge. Are they doing crossword puzzles back there? (On a side note, have you ever noticed that in some episodes it seems like the 'seat warmers' have started down the ramp before the person at Conn or Ops has started to get up?) Also these people are never spoken to or even signaled to come on down and fill the seat. Are they telepathic?
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By ScottN on Sunday, April 25, 1999 - 01:21 am:

It's the special Geordi, Olympic Gymnast ONT setting!

ONT = Official Nitpicker Term
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By KAM on Sunday, April 25, 1999 - 06:48 am:

Actually, Kirk used the same setting against a Klingon in Star Trek III. Boy that Starfleet Phaser Development Team sure has a wacky sense of humor. I wonder if we're ever again going to see the Put 'Em In Slow Motion Setting, that we saw in The Man Trap?

Grebnedlog- the pakled captain.
Interesting name, spell it backwards!

OK, it's Goldenberg. And that is whom, exactly?

It's no wonder the doctor is screwing up the operation; he might want to turn the lights up higher so he can see what he's doing! The area around Picard is shrouded in multiple shadows, and even worse, when the doctor sends an assistant away for a specialist, the bright lighting in the hallway casts a glare on everything inside the operating room when the doors open! Are we to believe that the hallway is better lit than the operating theater?

We search for things to make us go

Maybe the Doctor's race doesn't use the visible light spectrum? Perhaps he sees better with ultra-violet or infra-red?

And the there's those crazy threads they're wearing. I kept thinking Michael Palin is going to jump out from a curtain and shout,
"NOBODY expects the spanish Inquisition!"

We are looking for The Sisko to make us go.

NOBODY expects the Palked Inquisition!

Just a little note on the actor portraying Grebnedlog, the Pakled Captain. His name is Chris Latta, though he is often credited as Chris Collins. He appeared in two other Treks, as the Klingon Captain in TNG's "A Matter Of Honor," and the Albino's Aide in DS9's "Blood Oath." He is most famous for his voiceover work though. He did the voice of "Starscream" on the Transformers, as well as the character of Sgt. Knox in the cool yet forgotten Japanese cartoon "Star Blazers."

Star Blazers should never be forgotten.

I've heard of Star Blazers. But I've never seen it. What's it about?

It's a Japanese anime cartoon. Basically, the Earth is polluted by an enemy alien force and the only hope is to head for another planet, Iscandar, which has the technology to help fix Earth. Essentially, it's an errand of mercy mission and follows the epic journey along the way. That's the basics without giving away any later plot twists.

It was originally produced in Japan in 1974, under the title "Space Cruiser Yamato." Over ten years, they produced three television series. Each series ran 26 episodes, and it was a serial. The first series was called "The Quest For Iscandar," the second was called "The Comet Empire," and the third was called "The Bolar Wars." Five feature films were also made, two of which were retellings of the first two seasons.

The first two series were brought to America in 1979, and were redubbed in English. Off-Broadway actors were hired to do the voices, and since it was a non-union job, they never received credit for their work. For 20 years, we the fans had no idea who the voice actors were. It wasn't until fan web sites started popping up that the actors finally turned themselves in. A web site I highly recommend is http://www.primenet.com/~kosh/YAMATO/yamato.htm

I know long explanation. But hey, I think the series deserves its own board here.

There. I've bookmarked the site and I'll go back later. Thank you Brian and Chris. It sounds like a cool show.:)

Chris Latta also provided the voice of one of my favorite animated characters, Cobra Commander.

Cobraaaaaaaaaa!

He also, for one season, played Moe on "The Simpsons" before leaving the show. I believe he is deceased now.

I don't think that's true. Hank Azaria has always done Moe's voice.

According to the Internet Movie Database and several Simpsons sites, Collins played Moe for one episode--"Some Enchanted Evening". He also did Mr. Burns for one episode--"Homer's Odyssey".

Yes, that is true. But for one episode, not one season as your post stated. And I didn't realise Latta and Collins was the same person. (Didn't read that post up there.) I humbly stand corrected.

Not only Moe, but he also did the voice of Charles Montgomery Burns in one episode. Excellent!

In all his various Trek incarnations, he's been an alien, and no one ever knew what the guy looked like, cause he had alien makeup on. However, he does appear as himself in the movie (and it pains me that I know this), "Stop, Or My My Mom Will Shoot." He's the bald hood that Estelle Getty buys the gun from. Listen to his voice, it has a little hint of Cobra Commander in it.

Before depature Wesley hails the bridge and says "Shuttle 2 ready for departure" (or something like that), yet the shuttle is clearly marked 01. Is the shuttles marked in binary or what?

Originally Wesley should take the shuttle alone. Does this seem right? Can he just grab a shuttle even though he isn't in Starfleet and is only 16 years of age? How many teenage fieldpromoted officers onboard aircraft carriers borrows a fighter or helicopter when they need to go somewhere?

Why do Picard and Wesley need to take a sub-light shuttle to get to Starbase 515? If the shuttle travels at full impulse in 6 hours to get there, then the Enterprise could have made the trip in a few minutes at warp 5.

::Before depature Wesley hails the bridge and says "Shuttle 2 ready for departure" (or something like that), yet the shuttle is clearly marked 01. Is
the shuttles marked in binary or what?::

01 in binary is still 1. 2 in binary is 10.

Dyslexic binary?

D'OH, how could I make that mistake. That just proves that 4 am really isn't the best time to write messages.

Anyhoo the nit still stand.

WHY WHY WHY does the STARBASE have a GLASS DOOR?
What happened to the automatic "swish" doors?

DELETED FUNNY LINE:

Pakled "We search for things to make us go"
Riker "Take Ex-Lax"

WHY WHY WHY didn't Riker heed Troi's warning?

Deleted line: Troi: "I told ya so!"

The Picard-Crusher storyline may as well be entitled: "The way to a man's heart is through his [insert answer here]" considering Picard's anecdote and the denoument of the sub-plot with our favourite cardiac surgeon who shall be missed by one fan at least...

Oh, by the way, by "Crusher" I meant Wesley, not the OTHER doctor whose presence was missed in season 2...

"The way to a man's heart is through his [insert answer here]"

I've always upheld: "If you think the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, you're aiming too high."

The way to a man's heart is through the gap between his fourth and fifth ribs.

On or just lateral to the left midclavicular line.

I don't think it makes much of a difference when you use a ship's phaser.

OTHER DELETED FUNNY LINES:

Pakled: "We search for things to make us go"
Riker: "Beam over some hamsters & some of those wheels that they run on."

Pakled: "We want to be strong."
LaForge: (waving hand in front of nose)"You already are. Take a shower, will ya?"

GREAT LINE: "The rumors about my close brush with death are greatly exagerrated" (or something like that) Picard

It's great because Mark Twain something very similar to that.

I can't help but wonder if Picard found out about Riker's screw-up of the Pakled incident.

GARGANTUAN NIT: The shuttle is moving...so...how come the stars in the window ain't?

Actually at impulse speed it would be a nit if the stars in the window did move.

I calculated that if the nearest star straight outside the window were 1 light year away (really close in space terms) and the shuttle were moving at 1/4 the speed of light then it would take over 25 days for the star to move by 1 degree. More distant stars would move more slowly.

The only way we should ever see a starfield moving at impulse is if the ship is turning.

Well, we can use some info.

We know that using a 186 Million mile baseline (Earth's orbit), an object at 3.26 light years has a parallax of one second of arc. Travelling at 0.25c, that's 4000 seconds. For convenience, let's call that one hour of travel time.

Therefore, to get one degree of arc, we need 3600 hours, or 150 days. That's for 3.26 light years. (This next part is iffy, but I'm too lazy to draw the diagram and check the math). For 1 light year, divide that time by three, and you get 50 days.

Nice reasoning, ScottN. I used basic trigonometry, and never thought of using parsecs.

However (sorry), according to my dictionary, the baseline for a parsec is the radius of the Earth's orbit. You're using the diameter of the Earth's orbit, which is why we differ by a factor of 2.

It's kind of hard to measure the baseline using the RADIUS of the earth's orbit... That would mean using measurements that are 1 radian apart. IIRC, parallax is measured 6 months apart for the maximum baseline. 6 months is full diameter.

AH HA! Just looked up this!!! The parallax is HALF the angle using the full diameter of the earth's orbit as a baseline. You're right and I'm wrong.

I bow to your superior knowledge. You're right, it's 25 days.

GARGANTUAN NIT: The shuttle is moving...so...how come the stars in the window ain't?
Actually, if you look at them closely you'll see that they do indeed move, albeit verrrry slowly.

Why would Picard read a book in the pilot's chair with such bad lighting and why'd it take him so long to wise up and sit in the back with better lighting?

Why did Geordi take a phaser with him to the Pakleds' ship, anyway?

How would the Pakled captain know just how to use it, this being the first time his race has met the Federation?

In the conference room Worf said that Geordi's been hit multiple times with phaser fire. Actually, he's only shown being shot twice. However, about 4 or 5 Pakleds pointed phasers at him at the same time without firing.

Just how fast was Geordi able to make those extra phasers, and when did he get the time to program the Pakled replicator to do so?

The actor playing the doctor is Daniel Benzali, who's on CBS' The Agency now. His voice is a lot gruffer in it. Years of smoking, perhaps, or just affectation?

In the conference room Worf said that Geordi's been hit multiple times with phaser fire. Actually, he's only shown being shot twice.
Luigi Novi: Twice is "multiple times." The word "multiple" means "more than once."

To me multiple implies more than twice, as in numerous. That's where I was coming from.

It actually means more than once. Once is singular. More than once is multiple. I looked it up.

I must add that Riker also ignored Worf's warning. In my opinion, both Worf, Troi should've contacted Pulaski about what happened and then confront Riker together.And if Riker couldn't come up with a suitable explanation for sending Geordi over alone, they should've relieved him of command.

Why did they send Geordi alone anyway? Don't they usually send an Away Team when responding to distress calls?

There are a few questions that were asked in this discussion to which I think I can come up with an answer. First, on the question of how the Pakleds acquired advanced technology from races that are likely to have attacked them, perhaps they suckered a species that had dealings with the Romulans, Klingons or Jarada. Those people could have given them some of the equipment they had gotten from those species instead of their own. Also, they could have bought them from an intermediary like the Ferengi. Second, on the question of how they had contact with such far-flung races without warp drives, who said the Pakleds had no warp drive? Perhaps this particular ship has none, to foster the image of being unthreatening primitives so they can pull off this con. After all, they seemed interested in getting weapons, not a warp drive, when they grabbed La Forge. Their claim that "We look for things that make us go" could have been a lie like their engine trouble.

I must say I am amazed to find out that the Pakled captain, as well as the Klingon captain from A Matter of Honor was Chris Latta. Thinking back, it now seems so obvious, and I feel weird for having not recognized the voice.

During the shuttle trip, Picard comments that thier trip is like a late 22nd century interplanetary trip. This comment is made in response to Wesley saying "This isn't exactly warp speed" or something like that. Humans already had warp 5 by the mid 22nd century. Though I suppose that longer interplanetary trips may have taken a while even at warp 5.

Only Starfleet had warp five (and even then only the Enterprise). Civilian ships were restricted to warp 2, or was it warp 3? He probably just means that cheap interplanetary flights were still using sublight drive even in the 2190s.

Maybe during and after the Romulan War warp drive was reserved only for military ships and civilian interplanetary ships had to make do with impulse.

Thande: Only Starfleet had warp five.
Luigi Novi: That's not true.

The Vulcans and Andorians had much faster ships than Starfleet (Shadows of P'Jem(ENT) seemed to indicate that Warp 6.5 was the top speed Vulcans had, and Proving Ground(ENT) indicated that Andorians technology was more sophisticated than humans' in several areas).

The Coridans' ships are faster than those of humans, and may possibly go up to Warp 7, as Archer (perhaps somewhat jokingly) stated in Shadows of P'Jem(ENT).

Fallen Hero(ENT) established that the Mazarites' ships are faster than Enterprise.

Other races seemed to have technology commensurate with Starfleet's, and therefore may have likely had warp speed equal to or greater than the Enterprise's, like the Klingons, the Axanar and the Triglobulin Suckers in Fight or Flight, the Malurians in Civilization, the Wisps in The Crossing, the Vissians in Cogenitor, etc.

Well, yes, Luigi, but given that Wesley is human, Picard is human and all the people who operate on him are human, I'm assuming they were referring to a human interplanetary flight (i.e. in the Solar System).

Although I have a theory that the Vulcan, Andorian etc. fleets will be wrecked in the Romulan War, leaving the Earth fleet on top (as that's the only reason I can think of why 'primitive' Earth ship designs and human-dominated crews seem to prevail in the later Federation Starfleet).

Okay, I see what you mean. And incidentally, Fortunate Son indicated that Warp 3 was available, though the Fortunate's maximum speed was Warp 1.8.

Tsi Ma (Physiologist) recently played the bomb expert the General in "The Ladykillers" with Tom Hanks.

Daniel Benzali (Surgeon) has lended his bald and stern presence to many shows, including currently "The Agency" as Robert Quinn. He was the cagey defense attorney on the short-lived "Murder One." Bond fans may remember him from "A View to Kill," when he is shot by Christopher Walken in his office.

Why didn't Worf ask Riker if someone from Security should accompany Geordi?

Because it wasn't in the script.

So instead of going through this big huge complicated plot of giving these ninnies LIVE WEAPONS and then taking them away *just* in time.... why not just SAY you are going to give them weapons and instead dismantle the shields? does anyone really think that they would know the difference? these are after all the same people that fall for the old crimson force field routine.

I also found the drama of them having photon torpedoes to be less then suspenseful. Suspending our disbelief that Gordie can make photon torpedoes by pressing a few buttons on a ship built but by a crew with the collective IQ of cottage cheese, Gordie makes it sound like the Enterprise would have been in real trouble had the Pakleds fired on them. I fail to see how, after all just because he whipped up a photon torpedo doesnt mean they have any sort of delivery system. I can see it now: Gordie gives them photons, Enterprise rescues him, the Pakleds fire....and the shout of the Captain saying "Fire!" is the last thing the Pakleds ever hear as the torpedo sitting in their engine room detonates and takes the ship with it.

Maybe they had contact with the Packleds as contrary to what Star Trek has shown you don't go from planet bound to warp you would colonise a lot of your solar system first, maybe even make it to a nearby star system if it was near enough. If we can make a spaceship do half the speed of light then Alpha Centauri is within reach. So they could easily be in space and bump into the Enterprise, plus if other species met them first I assume the prime directive is voided "ok crew these guys have met the romulans ferengi and klingons but we're going to pretend we don't exist understood"

I know this crew is stupid but just how undeveloped were these people meant to be? Comment implied the entire race was like it, are they 15th century people who were given advanced technology and don't fully grasp it. But even in the 15th century we could manage better linguistics than these guys. Also Troi's comments about the packleds being stupid were a bit unPC try sayong that about a race now and see what happens.

In his book, Phil wonders if the Pakleds did this stunt with the Klingons or Romulans? Good question. Surely if the Pakleds acted this way with the Klingons or the Romulans, they'd be blasted from space, along with the hostage they took (both races would consider the hostage to have disgraced himself by being captured by such an inferior race, and thus would regain honour in death).

No, I don't see this working with those two races. They would not negotiate for the return of the hostage, they'd just open fire and be done with it.

I just wanted to say one thing about this episode, and it isn't negative. Pulaski got a lot of verbal abuse for being too gruff, standoffish, and at times a "McCoy-wannabe", but I still think she should be remembered for saving Picard's life.

And Riker's too, before she disappeared for good.

That's all I wanted to say.

About the slow shuttle trip...
On one of the establishing shots of the shuttle exterior, we actually see that it is turning! So they're not going slow enough for Wesley, he wants to delay them even more by not going in a straight line!