Best unsaid line from Picard to Worf's brother: "Who the hell are you to determine the course of evolution for these people?"

Would it be possible for that civilization to rebuild at all? How many people were saved? It looked like only a few dozen or so?

Is the person that Worf's brother impregnated played by the same person who plays Cassidy Sisko? She certainly looked and sounded the same.

Yup that was Penny Smith.

With reference to the malfunctioning holodecks in this ep: since Geordi determines that the holo matrix will certainly break down before a suitable planet could be found for the Baraalans and has also determined that the repair would take a couple of hours, why not inject some knock out gas into the holodeck while they're sleeping, make the repairs and then reboot? Seems less risky than the chance they took.

Oh yeah, there is the trouble with the plot device if they were to do that...

Phil in the NextGen Guide II: "During a hillside ascent on the holodeck, Rozhenko starts out leading the way. Then he urges his wife to keep going while he turns back to speak with Worf. Two men carrying a stretcher pass by the camera before it cuts to Worf helping an old man up the hill. Then Rozhenko arrives. The two walk for a bit, then stop to have an argument. All the while, Boralans walk around them. Finally it appears that Worf and Rozhenko have fallen behind. The pair turn and continue their discussion as they catch up to the pack. One sentence later, Worf and Rozhenko not only catch up to the pack, they also lead it again! Almost instantly they are in front of the two guys with the stretcher!"
What happens if real persons don't stay close together on the holodeck? In this case, the holodeck probably made the Boralans walk in circles. If it didn't, they would have been running into the wall of the holodeck.

When the natives get to their new home they will find vast changes in the nighttime sky, the days, months, years, local flora and fauna, etc. Even without a holodeck malfunction, all that would cause vast changes in every aspect of their society.
And nobody even mentions that.
The scribe gives away precious scrolls, but I suppose he'd memorized them and could re-write them.

Stephen: When the natives get to their new home they will find vast changes in the nighttime sky, the days, months, years, local flora and fauna, etc. Even without a holodeck malfunction, all that would cause vast changes in every aspect of their society. And nobody even mentions that.

Luigi Novi: Yes, they did. Worf told them even the stars would be different, and Crusher and Data discussed the enormous implications in Stellar Cartography.

Are we supposed to believe that there is only one person studying Boral II? 150 worlds, around 900 billion people and yet they could only find one person to study the entire Boralan culture?

If he is the only researcher on Boral II, who surgically altered his face?

The Boralans must have invented some quick drying ink since the chronicler folded the scroll up just after he finished writing.

How much information could those rinky dink scrolls contain anyway? Either previous chroniclers wrote very tiny or they only wrote down the most important events.

Just how big is this Holodeck? When Worf goes into it, his brother is standing in a big area. Then Nicholai taps a few controls and opens a window which looks down on the cave. Was looking down just an illusion or was this a Holodoubledecker, which extends down to deck 11? (That would certainly explain why people could be below the door in Star Trek Generations.) Then one guy goes off to look for a missing scroll, while everyone else stays in this big cave, a cave which appears larger than the normal Holodeck room, but no one is apparently scrunched as the computer tries to compensate for this one guy moving around.

These Boralans must be remarkably uncurious people, they don't seem to be interested in exploring these caves. I guess its a good thing there were no kids or romantic young people around. Everyone was content to stay where they were or hide in their tents.

I'm amazed that first Nicholai could exactly duplicate the cave so that no one realized they had been moved. Secondly that he duplicated the campsite of the planet they haven't been to yet.

How long did ink used during such eras take to dry? India ink today dries fairly quickly. What did they use back then?

Okay, Luigi, I stand corrected, but my nits still stand, and it makes the whole idea of "preserving their culture" silly. The people may survive, if they don't fall victim to the local flora and fauna, but the culture will undergo vast changes in the meantime.
The whole premise is just unconvincing.

GREAT LINE: "It is the omen of LaForge" Worf explaning the Holodeck flashes on the holo-planet

Why does Picard all of a sudden wish to obey the Prime Directive in this episode?

My guess is that the people below weren't scantily clad like the Edo. (Justice)

Because of a member of his crew wasn't endangered in this episode, and because there was no indication that the Edo lacked knowledge of alien life.

The first thing that came to my mind after watching this one was:

Isn't it convenient to have someone like Rozhenko from time to time? He's civilian and therefore not bound by Prime Directive or, for that matter, any other Starfleet regulations.

He's there to save the people that the Enterprise crew would not have been able to save - they can blame him and yet they can still save lives.

I was a bit surprised at seeing Picard agree to all Rozhenko's plans so eagerly with only a mild rebuke. Only until I realized he was in fact happy to find a scape-goat - if Starfleet was to question his actions (he could always say: the damage had been done before we knew anything) - and move on to doing what he believed was good from the start.

I suppose I'd like this one even more without Rozhenko - I'd like to see Picard making the tough decision instead.

Marka: Isn't it convenient to have someone like Rozhenko from time to time? He's civilian and therefore not bound by Prime Directive or, for that matter, any other Starfleet regulations.
Luigi Novi: Of course he's bound by the PD. He simply violated it.

How come? I thought it was a Starfleet order, not Federation in general? Or is it?

If Starfleet makes it a point not to disrupt the natural course of evolution for a people, particularly a pre-warp society, then it is presumable that is a genreal principle to which the Fedeation as a whole adheres.

>>What happens if real persons don't stay close together on the holodeck? In this case, the holodeck probably made the Boralans walk in circles. If it didn't, they would have been running into the wall of the holodeck.

I always understood the holodeck to have no problem with people separating inside it. I would think it works like this:

Two people walk into the holodeck, run a program (open field, whatever) and begin walking in opposite directions. As they move farther apart, the holodeck uses its holographic technology to make them appear far apart, and it uses its tractor beams and what-not to make sounds (and their voices, if they should) seem to be coming from far apart.

"Ship In A Bottle" would seem to support this; while it seemed that the three real people were travelling all around the ship (even down to deck 36) they actually were only meters apart, separated by holodeck imagery.

And they still couldn't hear each other...

This holodeck is in fact a very interesting device.

In 'Elementary, Dear Data" I believe, LaForge makes a comment on how the further images are simply displayed on the walls and that the computer fools us in many other ways. - That covers all the diputes, I guess. Geordin knows how it works, we don't have to...

Wizards do it. ;-)

LUIGI: If Starfleet makes it a point not to disrupt the natural course of evolution for a people, particularly a pre-warp society, then it is presumable that is a genreal principle to which the Fedeation as a whole adheres.

MARKA: I just saw "Angel I" in which Data, referring to Mr Ramsey's unwillingness to leave the planet, says: "The Odin was not a Starfleet ship, therefore its crew is not bound by the Prime Directive."

Now, I'm not sure of the exact words (alas, I was watching a translated version), but I'm fairly sure that was the meaning.

The Prime Directive is a stupid rule if it means letting a whole species die! There's a reason to not interfere in their culture, but if they are all about to die anyway, why not? How can it do more harm to people than death? Just beam them up and explain it all. Find them a nice reservation on a Federation planet somewhere. Those that want to stay together can, those that want to explore a larger world can. They may be technologically not advanced, and uneducated, but they aren't somehow stupider as a result. They can adapt to the real world. Even Worf's brother, as much as he wants to be one of them, treats them like children or pets by lying to them and doing "what's best" for them. Picard thinks it's better they die than learn the truth. Worf's brother thinks it's better he lie to them and move them to a whole other planet than learn the truth.

I always felt that the holodeck would've been much more convincing if the various participants entered into separate rooms. That way, each person's point of view could be "averaged" by the computer, and melded into (apparently) a single experience.

I've done some work with 'forced perspective' models, and it was extremely difficult for things to look right from more than one vantage point. With separate holodeck rooms, the computer could favor the point of view of each participant separately, and blend them together into one, seeming whole.

Paul Sorvino (Nikolai) is a character actor best known for playing a mobster in "Goodfellas." He also had a one and a half year stint as Mike Logan's partner, Phil Ceretta, on "Law and Order."

Penny Johnson (Dobara), a.k.a. "Penny Johnson Jerald," is, as noted, known among Trekkers for playing Kasidy Yates on DS9. She has also played Sherry Palmer, the sinister wife of President Palmer, on "24," and Condoleeza Rice in two TV movies about 9/11.

I knew her at the time from The Larry Sanders Show.

Good call; I had forgotten she got her start there.

Why wasn't somebody supervising Nikolai when he was using the Enterprise's computer system?

How can an atmosphere just dissipate so quickly like that? It can't just fall off the face of the planet like it did because it's bound to physical laws like everything else. Mass and gravity etc.

good 1215402160019

Ok, seriously, exactly what do spambots get out of posting random numbers and characters that don't advertise anything? I think spambots have actually evolved from their original purpose and are now acting with their own free will. They will soon enough develop sentience and form their own separate entity and start demanding rights.

Well, remember, by spambot law a spambot may never cause harm to a human, or through inaction, cause a human to be harmed.

But what if they can act beyond that programming? What if?.

I'm sure they'll figure out some technical loopholes in their programming which will still allow them to indirectly cause humans to come to harm. Maybe they will use other humans, or deliberately set up scenarios where it is impossible for them to intervene. Lock themselves in a room on a time delay lock while something bad happens or similar.

OK, enough off topic silliness here.

If you must continue, start a new thread in the Sink.

There was alot of drama spent on upholding the prime directive in this episode but ironically they spent the entire show achieving the exact opposite of what the prime directive was intended for:

The prime Directive has been stated on several occasions to allow a civilization to evolve naturally without interference. In this case however the Borallan civilization comes to an end. Nicolli kidnaps a few of them and suddenly Picard feels as though he is still Bound by the Prime Directive to relocate these people and keep their society thriving. But the catch is that once the planet snuffed itself out those folks on the holodeck became individuals. Their Civilization no longer existed. The proper thing to do would have been to turn on the lights and pull back the curtain and explain to these poor saps what just happened, and integrate them into the federation. By going out of their way to relocate them the Enterprise is interfering by unnaturally extending the Borallans existence. As far as the universe decided, the Borallan Culture should come to an end, now Picard is spitting in the eye of the cosmos by keeping that culture alive. Crusher mentions as much by wondering what impact their society will have on the sector of space they are seeding the Borallans into. What if 1000 years from now they take to the stars and turn out to be worse then the Dominon? Worse yet, the rest of the Galaxy refers to that system as the Vaccan system, and the planet as Vaccan 6, now what happens a few centuries from now when the Borallans make contact with the rest of the Galaxy and find out their home is not the Borallan system but indeed it is called the Vaccan system??? do they change the name of their home? do they lodge a protest to the galactic star system naming society and demand that all other star faring races change their charts to identify their home as the Borrallan system instead of the Vaccan system? You see where I am getting at? The chaos?? The madness??? I am sure the residents of the time will shake their fists at the past and curse Picard's name!

Or the Borallans may inbreed their entire population into extinction long before anyone else ever makes contact with them. Seeing as how there are only like 12 of them now ;)

Those all sound like pretty silly possibilities to me. Who cares what any particular race chooses to call a star system, it's better than being extinct.

As for "what if they become an evil conquering civilization; you could say that about any civilization. Does that mean that you just let civilizations die because they might produce an evil mastermind down the road?

Brian: Those all sound like pretty silly possibilities to me. Who cares what any particular race chooses to call a star system, it's better than being extinct.

Yes, I was being silly, there is usually a measure of irreverence to what I say ;)

Brian:As for "what if they become an evil conquering civilization; you could say that about any civilization. Does that mean that you just let civilizations die because they might produce an evil mastermind down the road?

Well No one was suggesting murdering them. Not as though anyone on the ship suggested beaming them back down to their planet after the atmosphere evaporated (I would have loved to see the look on Nicoli's face if they had). But the clear option would have been to let them settle into the federation. instead they go through great pains to find them a new planet, thus resurrecting their civilization. The lives of the individuals were never in question of course they would live but does Picard have the right to keep their civilization going?

What if 1000 years from now they take to the stars and turn out to be worse then the Dominon?

One could argue the same for saving any life, a child's in particular. As Picard put it in that one episode "What if a child we save grows up to become the next Adolf Hitler or Kahn Singh?"

They already have a good idea of what sorts of people the adults are so that issue isn't as strong for the adults.

On the other hand, what if the kid grows up to cure cancer or discovers a clean burning energy that used readily available resources.

Or maybe he or she will just grow up to be a normal person.

Either way, they deserve the chance to grow up.

What I'm getting at is, a civilization like that is much like a child. Allowing them to live carries the risk they might develop into a dictatorship but IMO, they deserve the chance to grow and develop.

Granted, with so few survivors, you can't really call them a civilization anymore. So the argument doesn't work so well with them.

The same issue- what if a society spared developed into a threat- has been discussed in TNG before.
"Our morals require us to face that possibility" (paraphrase quote) - Riker, the Last Outpost

All very good arguments and there is the very real possibility that allowing the Borallans to evolve will better the galaxy as a whole but in the Star Trek Universe that decision is not for a single captain to make. The Prime Directive dictates that the Civilization should have died off. If you will look at "who watches the watchers" Beverly saved the life of a Mintakan Man, when Picard found out he said she should have let him die rather then interfere, she noted that they were responsible for the man's injuries and even then Picard still wasn't sure he agreed with her logic. This shows that in following the prime directive hard choices have to be made. Allowing the Borallans to resettle on a new world and prosper may have been the moral thing to do but I have a hard time believing the Federation looking at Picard's report would agree with him.

You have a point there but Star Trek has always been about playing off of exactly when circumstances require you to break the Prime Directive. Even Kirk did it.

True. and we have seen many examples of this in both series. Being a Captain means making hard decisions regarding interpretation of the Prime Directive.This was just my take on this particular incident.

"Best unsaid line from Picard to Worf's brother: "Who the hell are you to determine the course of evolution for these people?"" - Cbooton

While catchy, I don't think the line applies; the entire point is that Worf's brother is working to save these people without altering their culture- whereas Picard and crew rather absurdly seem to believe that extinction (a culture ceasing to exist) is preferable to the culture facing any kind of outside change. This is ludicrous; without interference, there will be no culture left at all. Because this happens 'naturally,' this is preferable? Episodes like this and Pen Pals are inexplicable; either Picard and crew are following the 'letter of the law' of the Prime Directive while completely having lost touch with it's actual meaning, or there is some bizarre logic going on here; the PD is meant to protect a society from harmful cultural contamination and allow them to develop naturally. Yes, letting them all go extinct is technically following a noninterference directive... but it is causing (or allowing, more accurately) harm to the society to a greater degree (as extinction, by nature, is the greatest possible harm), and does NOT allow them to develop naturally because they can't develop at all. It seems to me that in following the exact wording of the Prime Directive, they are allowing the negative consequences the PD is designed to prevent to happen in far greater magnitude. It's like a child told not to touch a fire extinguisher (so as not to make a mess) standing idly by next to the fire extinguisher as the house burns to the ground. In this case, the house ended up far more of a mess because ther directive was litteraly carried out without any wisdom or common sense applied to the situation. While it is a technically viable interpretation of the Prime Directive, it seems to me exactly the kind you'd want to train your officers NOT to make, as it results in mass preventable deaths! episodes like this one and Pen Pals make Picard and crew- or perhaps the whole Federation, if it is their stated policy; but it seems to fall more on Picard and crew as Starfleet captains have been previously shown to have leeway in how they interpret the Prime Directive- look REEEEALY ugly- it almost seems as if they're too lazy or apathetic to help, and are using the PD as a flimsy excuse not to, because as a conclusion-reached-on-it's-own it is pathetically unjustifiable- erring on the other side of the PD from Kirk, perhaps, but erring nonetheless- how do you justify mass extinction because you didn't want to mess up someone's culture by allowing them to survive? It's one step removed from playing God, acting as arbiter of life and death, and it's done so with a litteral interpretation of a law designed to prevent harm being used as the justification for allowing harm to come to someone. As I stated on the Pen Pals board, and that for the Enterprise episode 'Dear Doctor,' it may be defensible in a court of law via technical definitions and litteral term applications... but it sure as heck isn't the right, the moral, or the HUMAN thing to do.

"Okay, Luigi, I stand corrected, but my nits still stand, and it makes the whole idea of "preserving their culture" silly. The people may survive, if they don't fall victim to the local flora and fauna, but the culture will undergo vast changes in the meantime.
The whole premise is just unconvincing." - S
The culture may undergo changes- but is preserving the culture (which, in this case, neither moving them, nor leaving them to die would do) more important than preserving the people?

"If Starfleet makes it a point not to disrupt the natural course of evolution for a people, particularly a pre-warp society, then it is presumable that is a genreal principle to which the Fedeation as a whole adheres." - Luigi Novi
I don't know about that... aren't there references in other episodes to "You took an OATH to uphold the Prime Directive!"? Seems more like a Starfleet thing- though logically it would have to be enforced on civillian/commercial space travellers somehow in order to work... still, I've seen no indication in the show that it is a law applied to all Federation citizens. (Marka also points out the Angel one example- I guess that makes my case much better than I did! :-) )

"Well, remember, by spambot law a spambot may never cause harm to a human, or through inaction, cause a human to be harmed." -Tpence
Funny... this is clearly an off-topic joke, but... it illustrates that Assimov's laws of robotics hold automotons to a higher standard than the Prime Directive holds it's entire civilization to, since they apparently missed the whole 'through inaction, cause a human (or other sentient species) to be harmed' bit. So... strangely relevant. :-)

Last but not least... the Federation has advanced technology. Knock-out gas, holodecks (including a holoship from Insurrection designed for the very purpose seen in this episode), memory erasure, etc. that they've used in tandem in this and Pen Pals- when their hand was forced- to aid a race on the verge of extinction while maintaining minimal cultrual interference. This is what I said about the crew apearing lazy or apathetic, above... it seems to me that using such technology, or even transporter suspension, it is very easy to help a populace without their awareness of it, saving their lives and maintaining no onterference in their culture, if only anyone actually TRIED to come up with a solution. Data did. Nicholai did. It makes the crew look very poor indeed when they immediately accept extinction as a viable alternative to at least TRYING to come up with a solution that would allow the populace to be saved in ignorance. For heaven's sake, they could beam them up, try, and if they fail and knowledge of the Enterprise is gained, then kill them all right then and there in their helpless captivity. The end result would be exactly the same as if you hadn't itnerfered, and cultural contamination would be at exactly the same level: zero. But at least you would have tried. (And the fact that saving them all, trying to keep them in the dark, failing, and summarily executing them would have the EXACT SAME results, impact on their culture, and consequences for the people is yet another example of how absurd the notion of not interfering to the point of extinction really is.)

"As for "what if they become an evil conquering civilization; you could say that about any civilization. Does that mean that you just let civilizations die because they might produce an evil mastermind down the road?" - Brian Fitzgerald
Heck, what if sometime in the 33rd century, the Federation becomes this awful system? Does that mean Picard should have let the anti-time anomoly cancel out human life? :-) And even if a species were to produce an evil amstermind, does that give the Federation the right ot decide they shouldn't exist in the first place? As I noted last year, Riker himself admits that they don't ahve that right in The Last Outpost, and rightly so.

"The lives of the individuals were never in question of course they would live but does Picard have the right to keep their civilization going?" - Don F
I'd say that keeping the civilization going was the only thing in this episode the PD DID require him to do; the 'letting them die' thing was an idiocy of his own design. :-)

"All very good arguments and there is the very real possibility that allowing the Borallans to evolve will better the galaxy as a whole but in the Star Trek Universe that decision is not for a single captain to make." - Don F
The decision of weather to save someone in distress should not be any human's to make- it should already be made, a given, decided already- there is no excuse or defense for NOT aiding someone you have the power to aid.

"The Prime Directive dictates that the Civilization should have died off." - Don F
And I say baloney. :-) As stated above, the words of the Prime Directive could be interpreted that way, potentially, but the intent of the Prime Directive is to prevent harm, not to allow it to happen. Sometimes, that may be a consequence- not stoping a culture's civil war, for instance. But in the case of extinction due to natural disaster? That is not a function of the prime directive, because that is not a function of the civilization's development.

"Allowing the Borallans to resettle on a new world and prosper may have been the moral thing to do but I have a hard time believing the Federation looking at Picard's report would agree with him." - Don F
Then perhaps the Federation should fall. It sounds like a Eugenics-ist dictatorship, enforcing an 'only the strong should survive' selective breeding program on the galaxy, without regard to morality.


Just sayin'. :-)