Picard tells the tribal council that the decision to evacuate the colony "was made at the very highest levels of Starfleet." Starfleet? When did the Federation became a military dictatorship? I would think the decision would be made by the Federation council and simply given to Starfleet to carry out.

Dr. Crusher says that Wesley is a fourth year Starfleet cadet, but earlier when he was in his room in uniform he wears three bars, the sign of a third year cadet. It's true he was left back a year, but I don't believe that was what Beverly meant.

Hmm, maybe 3 bars does equal 4th year...:

0 bars - 1st year
1 bar - 2nd
2 bars - 3rd
3 bars - 4th

Kind of dumb, but it works.

I don't see why that's kind of Dumb. 1 bar could equal one year compleated. So during your year 4 you would only have 3 bars because you only compleated 3 years.

Phil, from his NextGen Guide, vol II; PO#3: When Anthwara brings up the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, Troi brings Picard up to speed on that historical event. Does anyone else find it extremely odd that (1)the colonists would actually have records dating back to the 1600s, and (2) Troi--Troi, mind you—would know about the Pueblo Revolt of 1680?
1. ---There is nothing to preclude the colonists from keeping such records. Are you implying the the colonists are a bunch of primitive country bumpkins who don’t know how to keep stored knowledge to teach themselves and their young? They travelled through interstellar space to this planet at the edge of Federation territory, didn’t they? You don’t think there could be any encyclopedias or computer databases lying around in the colony?
2. ---As for Troi’s knowledge of the Pueblo Revolt, Why do you put so much emphasis on the notion of it being her who does this as being so odd ("Troi—Troi, mind you…"), as if she is some type of cretin? Are you implying that because of previous lack of technical knowledge (I say "previous" because of her passing the bridge officer’s test in Thine Own Self), that she must therefore be ignorant in ANY and ALL areas, Phil? You’re obviously using predjudicial reasoning in this nit. You also must have forgotten that she told Worf in A Fistful of Datas that her father told her stories of the Ancient West, so we know that subject is of interest to her.
He’s planning on fattening her up so the Indians can have THEIR turkey and revenge for the first Thanksgiving
Am I the only one who thinks that Picard prepared an abnormally LARGE amount of food for only himself and Admiral Nechayev in the beginning of Act 1?
What’s that, principal? I’m still in my third year? Here, try on this Ktarrian mind game I found a few years ago…
After the incident in Engineering, Beverly berates Wesley, pointing out that he is a fourth-year Academy cadet. Let’s assume, that with his arrival on the Enterprise in this episode, he has just completed the session for this season’s school year. Wesley began attending the Academy shortly after Final Mission, stardate 44307.3, or April 23, 2367, during the fourth season. This episode is dated stardate 47751.2. or October 1, 2370, during the seventh season. That would normally have been three completed years, meaning he would have been about to enter his fourth year, but Wesley’s credits for the year were erased at the end of the fifth season episode The First Duty, which means he’s in actuality, about to enter his third year. (Or has he been taking summer classes after his freshman and sophomore years to catch up? If so, some words to that effect would’ve been appropriate.)
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but that schmuck in the graphics department!
Under nits for Family, I pointed out how when a Act fades to black before going to commercial, and the Star Trek The Next Generation logo appears in a sort of "We’ll be right back" function, that the starfield always appeared first for the first three season, and that the "R" in Star and the "T" in Trek began appearing first with Family. This has remained the case for the rest of the series’ run, except for the end of one Act this episode. When Act 1 fades to black, and the logo appears, the starfield appears first.?

My question is...why didn't they think about peaceful co-existence in the first place?

Phil: Does anyone else find it extremely odd that... Troi - Troi, mind you - would know about the Pueblo Revolt of 1680?

Luigi: As for Troi’s knowledge of the Pueblo Revolt, Why do you put so much emphasis on the notion of it being her who does this as being so odd... as if she is some type of cretin? Are you implying that because of previous lack of technical knowledge ... that she must therefore be ignorant in ANY and ALL areas, Phil?

A thought on this matter: before one goes on a mission to see a group you've never met before, it would probably be foolish to go without knowing something about who you're going to see. So perhaps Troi did a bit of reading about the situation on Dorvan V and the people who reside there, including their own background - similarly to what Troi and Data did in "Darmok" after Picard was taken from the ship - whereas someome like Picard obviously hadn't, or had forgotten. After all, that's what diplomatic aides are there for. So, in answer to Phil's rhetorical question, the answer is probably going to be no.

Of course, this could all be one of Trek's cabbagehead moments.

Thanks, Butch.

You're welcome!

OK...the Native American leader says that one of Picard's ancestors...a Spaniard...was in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. I thought Picard was French.

And that would preclude him from being of mixed ancestry? Personally, John, my ancestry is German, Irish, English, Cherokee and French. There's no reason Jean Luc could not have had a Spanish forefather, is there?

No I guess not.

However, Picard is a French name. Why would his Spanish ancestor have a French name?

If his Spanish ancestor was a woman who married a Picard, she'd have a French last name. Does the ep specify gender or what role Jean Luc's ancestor had in the Pueblo Revolt? Rare though it was, women sometimes did play a role in such situations. Moreover, John A. Lang said Picard's ancestor "was in the Pueblo Revolt". That's not very specific. It leaves open, to me anyway, the possibility that the reference is to a woman.

Perhaps Picard's ancestor was a young man off to see the world who got caught up in the situation.

"Wesley’s credits for the year were erased at the end of the fifth season episode The First Duty, which means he’s in actuality, about to enter his third year. "

Luigi, at the University of Georgia, you are now called a fourth year student as long as you have been attending for four years, and does not matter if you are a senior or not. It is a foolish system, but maybe Beverly went through such a system and it causes her to speak like that.

Or if Picards ancestor was a spanisch man, whose child or grandchild was a girl who married a french picard.

In the book, Phil wonders why the indians would know details about the pueblo revolt. I find nothing unusual about that; a people doesn't need writing to have an accurate account of its history, and the pueblo revolt was important enough for the indians to remember everything about it.

Phil also found it odd that Troi knew about it, which isn't really odd either, since A Fistful of Datas established that her father used to tell her about the Ancient West.

You know, it's not like Spain and France are on opposite sides of the planet... they're neighboring countries!!!

One of Picard's ancestors could have conceiveably settled in or moved into Spanish territory from France and then one of his descendants relocated back to France.

Picard is worried about kicking the Indians off this planet because their ancestors were kicked off their land. Picard isn't much of a historian. North American Indians were not the first people to be kicked off their land and they sure haven't been the last. It's probably safe to say that every single human on the planet had at least one ancestor who was forced off his, or her, land. The main difference between the rest of the world and American Indians is that they have done a much better job of milking the guilt.

Why do they refer to the Dorvan colonists as Indians instead of the tribe or tribes they came from? They seem to be some kind of pueblo type people and they used some words which are probably specific to one tribe or at least one language group. If this planet had been colonized by the Basque people would Picard refer to them as Europeans?

The reason for Wesley's bad attitude never felt right. If he had been a little testy okay, but they had him walking around this episode with a galaxy size chip on his shoulder. Maybe they should of had Worf take him behind the Warp core for an "attitude adjustment"? After all, when Worf was in a bad mood in The Icarus Factor Wesley had the Holodeck zap him with pain sticks.

The chief Indian tells Picard that his family has a stain of blood which it has borne for 23 generations, but only the right action here and now will clear it up. Why is it only the bad things that stay with families? All the good things that Picard and his other ancestors may have done mean nothing, but this one alleged ancestor's supposed actions somehow canceled out all the good that the Picard family has done? Does this Indian believe that the son should pay for the father's crime?

Picard's Ready Room is off to the right of the Bridge, on the same side that usually faces the planet when they orbit, but through the window the stars move from left to right and you can't see the planet.

In Wesley's vision quest Jack Crusher tells him not to follow him, but in Family Jack Crusher thought Wesley would probably become a Doctor like his mother. He hoped that Wesley would follow in his footsteps, but Wesley learned this after he had tried several times to enter Starfleet Academy and had been made an Ensign. So why did Wesley need to be told not to follow in his father's footsteps?

After coming out of the Hoback, Worf refers to Wesley as "Mr. Crusher," but Wesley just calls him "Worf" not Mr. Worf. I realize Wesley is a little dazed, but after years at the Academy wouldn't Wesley know that when a superior officer refers to you as Mister, the least you should do is call him Mister back?

Wesley tells his mother, a Doctor, that he has just seen and talked to his dead father. Why didn't Dr. Crusher pull out a tricorder and start examining him for a head trauma, or a mind altering substance?

Did Wesley have to renounce his Federation citizenship to stay on Dorvan V?

On page 61 of the NextGen Guide II, Phil wondered how Dr. Crusher knew what the Traveler told Picard. Maybe she learned this when Picard & Beverly were telepathically linked in Attached?

Also on page 61 he said that Crusher says the Traveler is from Tau Ceti. Well, that may be what she meant to say, but she pronounces it "Tau C Eti." Either Gates MacFadden didn't know the correct way to say it, or she tried to cover her mispronunciation. I wonder how she pronounced it in the other takes?

Luigi Novi: Phil also found it odd that Troi knew about it, which isn't really odd either, since A Fistful of Datas established that her father used to tell her about the Ancient West.

Maybe. In that episode, "ancient west" seemed to be applied to the 19th-century period of western American history (i.e., small towns, saloons, gunfights, etc.). It's completely plausible that future generations would consider "the ancient west" to include more history that the term "old west" does today. But if the creators were using "ancient" to correspond to "old west" (as I suspect they were), Troi's knowledge of "ancient western history" should not have included a Native American revolt from the 17th century.

Of course, it's also possible that the Pueblo Revolt will be a more commonly known subject in the future. Part of the problem is that, in some areas, unfavorable history is not taught in schools (or is glossed over). Such an unwillingness to examine areas of history in which humans (as a culture, nation, or planet) acted with poor judgement or caused harm to their fellow humans is a failing of 21st century humans and continues to contribute to our problems today. Perhaps by the 24th century, human history will be more frank than it tends to be taught today, and incidents like the Pueblo Revolt will be more widely known.

I think what Phil was trying to say was that Troi is not the most likely candidate to have known this information. For starters, she's only half-human, and while we cannot say what it would be like to grow up only half human, we can speculate that her education would be split between human and Betazed history. Second, her human father was apparently not of American descent, so it seems more likely that her knowledge of human history and customs would be more in line with her human ethnicity. Third, she has never been shown to be a student of history.

A better choice may have been Picard (a student of history), Riker (American), or Data (for obvious reasons). In particular, it wouldn't have been such a big deal if it wasn't far more likely that Picard would have been familiar with the event.

KAM: Picard is worried about kicking the Indians off this planet because their ancestors were kicked off their land. Picard isn't much of a historian. North American Indians were not the first people to be kicked off their land and they sure haven't been the last. It's probably safe to say that every single human on the planet had at least one ancestor who was forced off his, or her, land. The main difference between the rest of the world and American Indians is that they have done a much better job of milking the guilt.

I think this statement is a little unfair. It's true that more cultures than just native North Americans have been forcibly removed from their lands. However, that does not minimize the injustice to one particular group because others have suffered the same. For instance, the wholesale genocide of the Chinese by the Japanese during WWII should not be minimized because Jews also died during the same war.

That said, I believe that Picard's reticence to evacuate Dorvan V is well founded. Note that Picard states that the colonists on Dorvan V chose to leave Earth rather than lose their culutural identity. It wasn't just that the Dorvans' ancestors had once been displaced, it was that this displacement forced the Dorvans' ancestors to leave Earth and settle thousands of light-years away just to keep their traditions alive, and now they were being asked to move yet again, and their traditions and way of life was once again threatened.

I found this episode to be one of the best Trek episodes ever, and not because of the Traveler and Wesley. Personally, I feel that Star Trek has turned humanity into the same homogenous, two-dimension race that every other alien race (Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, Ferengi) is. Humans are secular, rational, beings. We never see, for instance, a church or syngagogue on Earth. We've never seen a single Enterprise crew member attend church services, wear a religious symbol, or even pray. I liked the fact that the Dorvan Indians were interested in preserving their heritage--including spiritual--alive.

>>Did Wesley have to renounce his Federation citizenship to stay on Dorvan V?

Unlikely. American citizens can live for months or years abroad, as long as the host country allows it.

It's been years since i saw this ep, but IIRC the Dorvan colonists had to renounce their Federation citizenship to stay on this planet. Since Wesley is staying on this planet...

Maybe if there had been a comment that the Cardassians would allow some Feds to visit for short periods of time that could have answered any question about Wesley's status.

Why is this ep called Journey's End? The Enterprise's journey continues. The Traveller's comment indicates that he & Wesley would be journeying to other planes of existance. The colonists of the planet stopped journeying years ago when they came to this planet. Who's Journey ended?

Wesley's as the most annoying TNG character?

No, seriously. I thought it was a reference to Wesley's journey in search for his destination, his place in life. His father tells him to stop following in his footsteps and move on with his own life.

Oh, and perhaps the Indians' too?
You're right, KAM, they had stopped journeying 20 years ago, but only now it has been confirmed that they won't have to continue...

I cannot help but wonder if Chakotay came from this planet.

I would think Chakotay would have been an adult and in StarFleet - or in the Maquee (sp) at this point,
When did Voyager start in comparison to this ep?

While the Cardies may have left these people alone, I wonder if the Dominion did.

The question is whether Wesley was still on the planet during the dominion wars... If he was, then the Dominion left them alone as he was at Riker's wedding.

Good point. I think 1) he stayed and helped prevent the Dominion from doing anything or 2) he left, in either case using his own abilities or with the Traveler's help.

Seeing that Wesley's behavior is erratic, why didn't they confine him to his quarters?

I found it odd that Admiral Nechayev didn't mention Picard's bungling of the Borg crisis in "Descent"

Why didn't Picard ORDER Wesley to see Counselor Troi for a session or send her over to see if Wesley was willing to discuss the situation?

In my opinion, the "Let's not interfere" lecture by Picard is rubbish. If I were having problems like Wesley, I would appreciate some help...it would show that SOMEONE cared!

"I think what Phil was trying to say was that Troi is not the most likely candidate to have known this information. For starters, she's only half-human, and while we cannot say what it would be like to grow up only half human, we can speculate that her education would be split between human and Betazed history. Second, her human father was apparently not of American descent, so it seems more likely that her knowledge of human history and customs would be more in line with her human ethnicity. Third, she has never been shown to be a student of history." -Jesse

Well said!


"I found this episode to be one of the best Trek episodes ever, and not because of the Traveler and Wesley. Personally, I feel that Star Trek has turned humanity into the same homogenous, two-dimension race that every other alien race (Klingon, Romulan, Cardassian, Ferengi) is. Humans are secular, rational, beings. We never see, for instance, a church or syngagogue on Earth. We've never seen a single Enterprise crew member attend church services, wear a religious symbol, or even pray. I liked the fact that the Dorvan Indians were interested in preserving their heritage--including spiritual--alive." -Jesse

EXTREMELY well said, and a fantastic point- races in star Trek tend to be like planets in star Wars- you see one example, you've seen the whole thing- it's a shame for that to happen to the humans, too.


"Picard is worried about kicking the Indians off this planet because their ancestors were kicked off their land. Picard isn't much of a historian. North American Indians were not the first people to be kicked off their land and they sure haven't been the last. It's probably safe to say that every single human on the planet had at least one ancestor who was forced off his, or her, land. The main difference between the rest of the world and American Indians is that they have done a much better job of milking the guilt." -KAM

Well said... and also gutsy for pointing it out! :-)


Yeah, okay... so I have nothing new to contribute... but some of the points made on this board are good enough to bear repeating anyhow! :-)

So after all those years of pushing to get Wesley into the Academy, after going through that drama of him covering up the accident at the academy, Wesley , in his final year....gives it all up. I wonder if Dr. Crusher had to mislead Picard to give Wes. a shot at getting off the ship:

Picard: he what??? do you know how many strings I had to pull to get him in there??? and how he is throwing it all away because he tried some Dovanian Opium??? like heck he is!!!! Where is he???
Crusher: Um... transporter room......4.
**Moments later in transporter room 16**
Crusher: ok Wes. no long goodbyes, you better get going, Jean Luc wont be fooled for long and he had a phaser riffle with him last I saw. get going and remember to dress warmly on those other planes of Resistance....and watch your back, I cant promise Jean Luc wont be back.

In the tea & scones scene, was Picard trying to blackmail Nechayev into forgetting that he disobeyed a direct order in "Descent Part 1"?

And it was all for nothing, the peace this new treaty brought in lasted a mere three years. After which, the worst war in Federation history began.

Of course, at this point, no one saw the Dominion coming.