“Transfigurations”
Written by René Echevarria
Directed by Tom Benko
Season 3, Episode 25
Original air date: June 4, 1990
Star date: 43957.2
Mission summary
Worf encourages La Forge to hit on a woman in Ten Forward, in the only way a Klingon can, but the awkward engineer crashes and burns. And he’s not the only one: In the course of a routine charting assignment, Enterprise has detected a crashed vessel on a planet. They investigate and discover a lone survivor in the wreckage of an escape pod. He’s in pretty bad shape, too unstable to transport, so Dr. Crusher whips out a thingey that links La Forge’s nervous system to help regulate the patient’s heart. The interface delivers a weird little shock to La Forge, but he seems fine, and it works. They bring the injured man aboard.
Dr. Crusher hooks up the patient, who she names John Doe, to every bizarre machine at her disposal. With generous application of cutting-edge technobabble, the man recovers. Or it may have nothing to do with her ministrations, because apparently his cells are mutating and rapidly healing his body all on its own.
La Forge is also feeling pretty good, which is fortunate because he and Data have a puzzle to work on: a capsule from Doe’s ship that is incompatible with their technology. They know his pod escaped from a larger vessel, which was destroyed, but they need to decode the data in the component in order to figure out where he came from. But all that can wait, because La Forge is suddenly feeling confident enough to ask out Christy Henshaw.
After a month, John Doe is practically able to walk again, thanks to his merrily mutating cells, which have a couple of odd side effects. 1) He suffers occasional bursts of pain. No big. 2) He can heal people, which he demonstrates when he fixes O’Brien’s dislocated shoulder, a kayaking injury. That’s handy.
Doe is also winning friends and influencing people, including his good doctor. Even Wesley notices his mom’s unprofessional infatuation with her patient. While she ponders the biochemistry of her feelings for their guest, La Forge has a breakthrough idea with Doe’s capsule. Realizing it may be biochemical in nature, storing data as patterns of nucleic acids, he and Data are finally able to decode it and trace Doe’s path back to his originating planet. Only he’s less than enthusiastic about returning there, since he’s beginning to remember that he and a few others were trying to escape. The energy pulses in his body are also getting bigger.
DOE: Yesterday, for one terrifying moment, there was clarity.
CRUSHER: You mean the energy pulse?
DOE: Yes. For that moment my purpose seemed clear, and then it was gone.
CRUSHER: The pain, the energy pulse, must be linked to the cell mutation in the body. I wish I could help you find the truth.
DOE: Beverly, you’ve done so much for me. I only wish there was some way I could repay you.
CRUSHER: But you have. The friendship we’ve developed has made me very happy.
DOE: The rapport that exists between us also means a great deal to me. But I am on some kind of journey. Whatever brought me here, whatever is happening to my body, is all part of that journey. And I must complete it before any other consideration.
He’s so focused on that journey, that when he experiences his next surge of power, he attempts to steal a shuttle and leave the ship. Worf tries to intervene and accidentally falls and breaks his neck, but then Doe heals him, so that’s all right. Picard’s graciousness is starting to wear thin, but his problem may soon be taken off his hands when a new ship arrives. Its commander, Sunad, claims their guest as a dangerous escaped criminal.
Picard hedges on Doe’s behalf though, but Sunad attacks everyone on Enterprise with Vader’s Force Choke, except for Doe and Data. Doe heals Beverly and a random crewman in the halls, then spreads the love by touching the ship and making it glow until everyone can breathe again. He arrives on the Bridge to deliver some exposition he has just remembered. As an added bonus, he teleports Sunad aboard with an idle gesture to hear it all firsthand.
DOE: Captain, my species is on the verge of a wondrous evolutionary change. A transmutation beyond our physical being. I am the first of my kind to approach this metamorphosis. They tried to convince us it was a sickness we would never survive, that the pain and energy pulses would kill us. They claimed we were dangerous so they destroyed anyone who exhibited the signs of the transfiguration.
SUNAD: We were protecting our society.
DOE: By murdering us? You saw the mutations as a threat to your authority. You were terrified of something you couldn’t understand. Some suspected that what was happening to them was not evil. Four of us decided to flee Zalkon and let the metamorphosis take its course. You hunted us down, killed the others, but I survived with the help of a kind and generous people.
Doe completes his transformation into an energy being, sends Sunad back to his ship, and bids a tender farewell to Dr. Crusher.
JOHN: Beverly, you gave me life and more. I do not have the words for my gratitude nor my sorrow at leaving you.
Analysis
Appropriately enough, I didn’t remember much about this episode going back into it. That isn’t too surprising, because on the whole, it’s rather bland. There are a lot of story elements at play that never quite gel together: Dr. Crusher’s relationship with John Doe, the mystery of his identity, his manifesting powers, even Geordi’s newfound confidence with women. Having a lot of things happen is no substitute for a compelling plot, and for the most part, the crew is sidelined by John Doe and relegated to mere observers in the drama surrounding him. Even their efforts to save his life are marginalized by his own burgeoning regenerative abilities.
The conflict over the Prime Directive is a token one at best, and once again their lofty principles are brushed under the rug when their feelings make it inconvenient. In a rare moment of relevance, Troi says, “The Zalkonians truly don’t understand our indecision about returning John. In their eyes, we shouldn’t even be involved.” Well, yeah. But not only does the episode fail to engage with this conflict in any meaningful way, their decision is rendered moot when Sunad strikes and Doe saves the day.
There are three big things crippling this episode:
1) Wince-inducing dialogue, particularly whenever Dr. Crusher and John Doe have to discuss their feelings.
2) A heavy dependence on technobabble and futuristic gadgets that don’t make much sense. Let’s hook up two people’s nervous systems because… what?
3) The convenience of super powerful beings who can Force Choke and heal broken necks, coupled with amnesia that conveniently maintains suspense then just as conveniently disappears without explanation.
Finally, I’m slightly troubled by Geordi in this episode. If John Doe’s power affected his brain and gave him the confidence to approach Christy, does that imply that his shyness was a mental “problem” that Doe managed to heal? Moreover, if this is a lasting change, this should have profoundly altered Geordi’s character from here on — it’s more than just about him getting some action in one episode. Also, Christy seems to have had a big change of heart since “Booby Trap.”
Look, this is just a weird episode, from the month-plus long duration to John Doe being treated like a regular character that everyone likes to its overall lack of focus. At the very least, it commits the sin of being rather boring.
Eugene’s Rating: Warp 2 (on a scale of 1-6)
Thread Alert: Unitards!!! Why?! I suppose Dr. Crusher picked this revealing outfit for John Doe, abusing her privilege as his doctor, but it still isn’t very flattering. It looks vaguely Starfleet, maybe especially with the turtleneck, but it also reminds me of Quantum Leap.
Best Line: PICARD: It is our mission to seek out life in all forms. We are privileged to have been present at the emergence of a new species.
Trivia/Other Notes: This is the first episode in which O’Brien dislocates his shoulder while kayaking, which becomes a running gag on DS9.
Previous episode: Season 3, Episode 24 – “Ménage à Troi.”
Next episode: Season 3, Episode 26 – “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1.”
Yeah, pretty typical blah TNG. Interesting idea (evolution of a new form of life) badly handled. I like the concept a lot but the execution was just disappointing all around.
In hindsight, though, it is kind of a neat link to Patrick Stewart’s future role in X-Men.
I have a special distaste for this sort of story and its weird notion that “evolution” means the sudden ability to transform into pure energy or some such rubbish. I know similar ideas have broad currency (cf. Teilhard de Chardin’s “Omega Point” and Vernor Vinge’s Rapture for Atheists) and it’s unfortunately consonant with post-TOS Trek’s strange notion of “evolution” as being some sort of pathway directed by fate either to inevitable extinction (which should never be prevented, of course–isn’t that right, Dr. Phlox?) or its ultimate ascension into join the all-powerful awe-inspiring metaphysical hootenanny. What’s the biological mechanism for this purportedly “evolutionary” process? I guess that a single mutation in some as-yet-unknown “transfiguration gene” is enough to do the trick. Then there must have been an asymptomatic carrier who passed it down to his offspring, and it ended up spreading widely through the population, until some other fortuitous event enabled the transfiguration gene to express itself in many persons all at the same time, or…er…oh, I give up.
Otherwise there’s not much worth talking about in this episode. The X-Man mutant is entirely good and nice, the guy chasing him is entirely evil and fearful, and that’s the end of it. It would have been more interesting to give Sunad’s fears some justification. Maybe this “transfiguration” could really have been dangerous to some degree. And it’s not as though turning glowy and joining the mystical transhuman whatsit is necessary a wonderful and glorious thing. I’m reminded of how repellent a similar “transfiguration” came across in Arthur Clarke’s Childhood’s End (although I’m not sure Clarke actually meant it to look bad.)
A minor point: I know that the constraints of filming for television limit what you can do to make your aliens look alien, hence the parade of Bumpy Forehead People and Bumpy Nose People. But the Zalkonian makeup looks particularly lazy to me even by that standard.
Dr. Crusher falls in love is never, ever, ever a successful plot point. It isn’t Gates McFadden’s acting; she does reasonably well in this department whenever they play with the Crusher-Picard sexual tension. It’s mostly that the writing never rises above mediocre and only rarely above execrable. That and all the viewers expect Crusher and Picard to get over their emotional dumbfuckery eventually and realize they would make a good couple.
The biggest plot problem here is why is this guy on the ship for so long? I would think they would drop him off at the nearest Starbase and stop wasting ship resources on him. The guy isn’t even a Federation citizen. (Though I don’t think the Prime Directive applies here. This is a warp capable civilization, after all.)
@3 (DemetriosX): The biggest plot problem here is why is this guy on the ship for so long? I would think they would drop him off at the nearest Starbase and stop wasting ship resources on him.
Indeed. There’s a…how do I put it…a fanfic-ish quality about John Doe. He’s an entirely new character introduced out of nowhere and everyone likes him immediately and pals around with him. He’s got convenient amnesia, too, so he gets to be both ordinary (a literal “John Doe”) but also gets to find out the wonderful secret that he’s the Chosen One. Well, a Chosen One, at any rate.
Aww, Space Jesus is totally the best wingman.
Did anybody else notice that he totally even seems to have violet eyes? Or at least some kind of shiny contacts?
Any romance episode with Crusher or Troi is always soooo lame. And what is it about Crushers falling in love with light beings (reference Wes’ love affair with the Wookie/Light Being), which makes this even less creative.
So many plot holes that drive me nuts:
-One minute, the guy is bursting with light and a danger to the ship, but after he heals Warf, he’s suddenly under control.
-Why does the Enterprise always allow totally foreign, unknown alien beings to just hang out on the ship? Despite the already numerous take overs of the ship, there is never any caution or thought about the potential dangers.
-Why does Beverly work so hard to save some people, like Tasha or this dude, but other dead crew members/aliens are just dead–no fancy machines, just a scan.
I am also troubled by Geordi’s sudden change–his personality was suddenly healed? Another women’s issues angle for this would be that Christy is suddenly taken with him when he is take charge and confident. Once again reinforcing the stereotype that women want a “manly man” and that an intelligent, albeit more reserved or shy man is not attractive. If she didn’t like him, she just didn’t like him, it shouldn’t matter whether he’s a smooth operator or not. These scripts are written with an eye to a stereotypical pre-adolescent boy.
I have a bone to pick with Bev’s treatment of medical privacy on the show. Whenever she needs someone’s fluids, genes, brain stability, etc., she basically just takes it. “I need a volunteer” and before you know it, your brain is connected to a totally alien life form. I need some ribosomes to save a Romulan, and she tests the whole ship and then bullies Warf repeatedly for not giving in. Good on Warf for being strong enough to stand up to her (I differ from others on this forum in thinking his decision was not right or wrong, but totally understandable as a war trauma victim).
@RSM #6
Another women’s issues angle for this would be that Christy is suddenly taken with him when he is take charge and confident. Once again reinforcing the stereotype that women want a “manly man” and that an intelligent, albeit more reserved or shy man is not attractive.
The episode teaser does show her liking him, though. She smiles at him invitingly, walks over and makes several attempts at initiating conversation with him, and touches his arm before leaving. Then, when Geordi does approach her later, she says something to the effect of “Oh, I thought you weren’t interested” — all of this showing that she’s at least open to the idea of being involved with him before Space Jesus stepped in. The “healing” isn’t turning him into a manly man so she’ll like him; it’s just fixing his nerves and awkwardness enough that he can have a functional conversation–catch the ball she’s already throwing him and toss it back.
@6 RSM
This problem goes all the way back to TOS. Kahn, the space hippies, the list goes on and on. Somewhere between the rewatches and the comments, the idea even developed that there was a “How to Take Over the Enterprise” pamphlet that was issued to all visitors as soon as they stepped off the transporter pad.
@ 7 DeepThought
Yeah, I guess the whole thing doesn’t make sense. As Eugene said, she had no interest in him during “Booby Trap” when he was being forward. Or is this a different girl? I’m confused. The whole thing is lame.
@ 8 DemetriosX
Yeah, despite this being standard Star Trek plot device, it never ceases to drive me crazy. Maybe the Star Trekiverse justifies it by saying that since humans have eliminated all bad feelings/behavior and the Federation just wants to explore, they don’t want to do anything “aggressive” like quarantine or take precautionary measures. That would be assuming the universe isn’t always kind and that’s not what humanoids are about in the 24 Century. Nevermind the Romulans, the Borg, the Ferengi, the crazy big brained aliens in the TOS pilot.
@ 6 RSM
Good point, although I’d argue the problem is more with Starbases numbered into the hundreds and subspace radio working in realtime like a cellphone. If ship really were way out on the frontier, remote and isolated, it would be less weird for them to have passengers for extended transit to study. By the time of the Abrams film, space is about as remote and unfamiliar as the bathroom in your home.
W/o wanting to defend this episode, I’ll defend at least its premise of “seeking out new life and new life forms,” which really gets underplayed, especially in future years as putty nose aliens become ever more common and ordinary. A mystery of existence is explored, and for once the entity is not scary or deadly or hostile or deus ex machina, but benign and [supposed to be, doesn’t work] inspiring. It’s the prejudices against John’s existence that are [supposed to be, doesn’t work] disturbing. I give it a few crumbs of credit for actually trying to explore the series premise. For once.
Late to the party but echoing all the previous sentiments. Space Jesus heals the sick and is also the Wizard of Oz bestowing courage on the cowardly lion! Bleeech. Though extra points to monoceros for “all-powerful awe-inspiring metaphysical hootenanny,” which is a concept I also have distaste for. I love that episode of Futurama when Amy goes on a date with a being of pure energy, and he tells her, “One day you will evolve beyond your physical body and on that day, I hope you will pick up the phone.” That… basically sums up how ridiculous that concept is. Like when the transformed BEING OF PURE ENERGY shows his love for Dr. Crusher by TOUCHING HER WITH A GLOW HAND. Arrrrrrgghhhhh.
I think what bothered me most was the meeting with the senior staff on whether to turn over John. Troi says that they don’t understand why the Enterprise would be interfering at all, and it’s painted as this really difficult decision to not turn him over. How is that remotely a difficult decision? This man–whoever he is–isn’t even allowed to learn of the charges against him, or defend them, which sets of one set of red flags. When Picard finally harasses the baddies into divulging the dark secret, it turns out the threat is…religious blasphemy?!? So what the hell kind of Federation is this that sends a man to die for blasphemy? Can we say “political prisoner” and “asylum”? This should be a no-brainer asylum case!
Okay no, this was worse: Dr. Crusher explaining her attraction to the dude to her son. Because that would EVER happen.
Warp 1, only because it’s still better than when Crusher has ghost sex with an incubus.
Torie just made me realize that when John turns into a being of pure energy the radiation alarms should have gone off all over the ship and everybody who was nearby should be extremely dead. It’s simple conservation of mass and energy.
The infinitely elastic Prime Directive.
You might sort of imagine this anti-meddling policy could be a useful rubric for dealing with non-space-faring races… and it was KINDA implied in (the later) First Contact that warp technology was the determining threshold, beyond which meddling might apply. But, nope, it gets applied to any societies within their spheres. But, nope, then it gets expanded and applied to any non-Federation society anywhere no matter where in space they happen to wander. Except, y’know, Romulans and stuff.
As Torie notes, it is absolutely ridiculous the PD is even introduced as a possibility here. Why don’t they also discuss the Treaty of Versailles as it pertains to the Crimean conflict?
How I would love, just once, to see the PD invoked as a means to make some situation or decision EASIER as you’d sort of, y’know, expect would be the purpose of having an actual policy.
I can see the Federation Council sitting around wondering, “Gee, now how can we gum this up this PD clusterf@#$ even more? We’ve got captains to court-martial!”
I hate the concept of the PD. It is the thing I hate most about Star Trek (which I love). It is impossible. Any contact that you have with a society, with a person, with a part of space (doesn’t high warp speed damage space) has an effect. There is no way that you can interact with or even observe something and not have an impact. This ridiculous notion that something has to develop as it “was meant to”–I think Polaski’s words in the “Pen Pal”–is almost completely counter to the idea of logic and science. Nothing is meant to develop. That is a fatalistic, religious concept. Things develop and evolve in response to their environments and the assumption that early interaction with a society that is “not ready” would damage that society is paternalistic and arrogant. The Federation is so sophisticated that now they get to decide when a society is “ready” instead of letting that society decide. It goes against the concepts of self determination, and it inherently shows disdain and a lack of respect for what they consider primitive or less sophisticated societies. The Federation is elitist. Luckily, its captains aren’t always willing to comply.
And why is the PD even relevant here, anyway. This society is clearly advanced enough to use Sith death chokes, I think they can handle some intervention (not to mention they were already involved by rescuing the guy–why bother rescuing people, you might violate the PD). I wasn’t surprised that they were considering handing the guy over, they were going to let the little girl die in Pen Pal.
So much astute commentary on the Prime Directive has been given here since the TNG rewatches started that it’s probably impossible for me to add anything new. I’m trying to think of any episode of any Trek series in which the Prime Directive was invoked in a halfway sensible manner. The only one that immediately comes to mind is, of all things, the infamous TOS episode “The Omega Glory”, which actually isn’t a bad episode at first. Capt. Tracey takes one side in a civil war and shoots down thousands of people, a clear example of the kind of situation that suggests the need for some kind of non-interference directive.
I think that many TNG episodes threw in some mention of the Prime Directive merely as a crude device to fake up some tension, attempting to spice up an otherwise unpalatable teleplay. It’s an artificial obstruction thrown up to prevent the heroes from doing what needs to be done for at least a few minutes of screen time. The PD is to Picard’s Enterprise what kryptonite is to Superman.
@RSM
I have to say I disagree with your assessment of the Prime Directive pretty strongly. Yes, in a butterfly effect sort of way, any exploration or observation by the Federation has some kind of impact on the worlds they visit, but the word ‘impact’ isn’t found in the PD. The word they use is interference; that’s not simply semantics. Between traveling the stars, setting up observation outposts, sending incognito scouts to civilizations on the brink of warp, or even inaction itself, it’s clear that the Federation is cognizant of and willing to have an impact on alien societies. The difference, however, is whether that impact is indirect or direct. It’s one thing to observe a civilization or to let a civil war play out, but it’s quite another to make a conscious choice to manipulate outcomes for them.
Compare that with liaise-faire economic philosophy. When one argues for no government interference in the economy (note: I’m neither trying to make the case for or against it here), they aren’t suggesting that the government should have no economic impact. In order for a government to do anything at all (even ‘small government’) it has to spend money and must necessarily choose with whom to spend it, so some impact is inevitable. Whether it’s buying guns or paper plates, someone is the direct beneficiary of government spending. The difference comes when things like banks and automobile manufacturers are on the brink of collapse and the government intervenes to bail them out, or directly subsidizes farmers or energy producers, or prescribes a minimum wage. These are all circumstances that would reach some conclusion on their own without government intervention and therefore, at least according to the liaise-faire, should be allowed to reach that conclusion, however distasteful. This is the same space in which the Prime Directive operates.
That doesn’t mean that the concept is without it’s flaws. Lord knows, we don’t leave the economy to its own devices and nearly any time the PD is brought up in this or any other Star Trek series, it’s because the crew is deciding to break it. The things that strike me as flawed about it, though, are more along the lines the inconsistency with which it is applied and, because it is a regulation self-imposed by the Federation, there really isn’t any mechanism that prevents non-Federation actors from engaging in this behavior. I would think a race like the Ferengi would make their stock and trade in exploiting the resources of less technologically advanced civilizations in the same way that the Western world did during the age of colonialism (and in many ways today, as well).
As far as being interpreted in a way that is fatalistic and at odds with science, my question to you is so what? Not everyone in the Federation is Spock or Data. Whether or not Gene Roddenberry envisioned religion or spiritualism as part of his perfect human future, it’s clear that throughout the Trek universe, there’s room for supernatural beliefs. It acts as Worf’s touchstone to his racial heritage. It is the only institution left over from the Cardassian occupation of Bajor and is a major influence on Sisco, even though he’s presumably not a disciple. It was the entire point of Star Trek V. The fact that Pulaski’s interpretation is fatalistic doesn’t strike me at all is inherently incongruous with human nature in our world or theirs. That doesn’t even take into consideration the issue of time travel, which they touch on occasionally and which often explores the questions of causality and inevitability in the context of science.
Finally, the Prime Directive is anything but paternalistic and arrogant. Arrogance is when the Federation (or anyone else for that matter) decides that it knows best for a group of people and implements that plan regardless without their consent. The PD is an acknowledgement that the Federation doesn’t know best. Their point of direct intervention with alien cultures (the advent of warp technology for those peoples) isn’t based on some belief in their own superiority. It’s simply common sense. The time at which interstellar travel becomes possible is going to be the last possible moment before the illusion of being alone in the universe is broken (if it hasn’t been already). Having a plan for first contact and not preempting it unnecessarily is simple prudence. It’s not a judgement on the ability of that society to cope with that revelation (although when we do see the results of it in the show, it tends to go quite poorly); it’s a way to avoid having to make that judgement. There’s nothing elitist about it.
The only real problem that I have with the Prime Directive is that any time it’s invoked, it’s handled poorly. I think the ‘Pen Pals’ episode would have been far more dramatic and interesting if the crew had let that world die and was then faced with the moral consequences of their choice (perhaps focusing on Data trying to gauge and understand his crew mates’ emotional reactions and, I don’t know, giving Troi something useful to do, for once). Instead, as the review pointed out, we saw them break the rules over and over again and then go about their lives without consequence. They hardly wrestled with the choice at all. Here, as you pointed out, it’s not even applicable if the precondition is truly interstellar flight, and elsewhere it gets ignored or overruled any time it becomes inconvenient. The closest I remember TNG actually dealing with it was in ‘Symbiosis’, but, anviliciousness aside, even there it was handled unevenly (they make contact with warpless people and they’re willing to help them until they realize it’s a drug deal, so they won’t) and comes off more like a cop out. In short, it’s poor writing, not a poor concept, that makes the Prime Directive seem worthless.
@ konkeyDong
The issue of impact vs. intervention seems to me to be a matter of degree. Intervention has a more direct, purposeful or aggressive connotation, but to me, they are the same.
I don’t believe that you can observe a situation, have the power to influence the situation, refuse to act, and then consider yourself uninvolved. The decision not to directly intervene, the decision not to act, is an action in and of itself. The key is whether one has the ability to affect the situation. With the power to influence the situation, comes some degree of responsibility–not absolute responsibility, but some.
Watching a planet die, being able to do something about it, and deciding not to is a form of negative intervention. In your analogy, the Government could choose not to save the “too big to fail” companies and that would be non-intervention. But, the Government is also responsible to some degree, for its people. So, if AIG failed and the U.S. suddenly had 40% unemployment, it would be ridiculous for the Government to then say that it “didn’t intervene” and has no responsibility. Intervening would have set up a different course of events, maybe worse, maybe better, but the Government had the ability to influence that course of events and chose not to. It bears some responsibility for that decision.
The PD is a weak attempt to absolve the Federation of any responsibility. One part of Catholic just war doctrine, for example, touches on the responsibility certain entities have to act in defense of others. It states that it is not ethical or justifiable to refuse to act in defense of vulnerable innocents if one is able to. So, maybe the PD isn’t arrogant or elitist, but I do believe it is unethical. Letting a planet die, turning over a persecuted man (persecuted because of his evolved mutation) for execution–these are unethical acts and reprehensible for an organization that purports to seek out new life and believes in peace and tolerance.
As for fatalism in Star Trek– There are cultures in Star Trek that have supernatural beliefs, but TNG makes a big point of repeatedly suggesting that there is no such thing as God and that more primitive cultures still cling to those notions. The Federation is all about science. Worf and the Klingons are frequently talked about as holding some more “primitive” notions. And isn’t the Star Trek V entity not a God? The point is that a strictly scientific viewpoint does not believe in fate or a plan–that’s more intelligent design. Science looks at each life form as a result of chance, chaos and its environment–evolution. There is no way things were “meant” to be.
Anyway, ultimately, I agree with monoceros4. The PD is a plot device. Think about it too much and you’ll go drive yourself crazy.
@RSM
Thanks for responding to this. I’ve only started reading through the rewatches for TOS, the movies and TNG in the past few months, so I’ve missed the opportunity to weigh in on these conversations in a meaningful way. I appreciate the opportunity.
I don’t disagree that non-intervention is making a choice in favor of one set of possible outcomes over another. So yes, when a planet dies or an economy fails and you could have done something about it but didn’t, you certainly bear responsibility for those outcomes. But I don’t think the people in the show really argue otherwise. They’re simply making the same case as liaise-faire economists: that direct or active intervention has it’s own set of moral hazards and consequences and, therefore, it’s better to let things play themselves out than to try and fix it. I understand making the case against that kind of thinking, but I don’t think it’s simply a way of washing one’s hands to accept it, either. We could list out any number of hypotheticals where activity or passivity might be the better option, but that gets us nowhere. The point I’m trying to make isn’t that the Prime Direct is the perfect solution, or even necessarily a good solution to the problem of applying one’s values to a situtation. I simply suggesting that it is a valid solution, which I don’t think you’re allowing for. Yes, for the most part it is merely a plot device (and an overused and overwrought one at that), and yes, if they really followed it it would frequently put them at odds with our morals. Helping people in need is certainly an American value, a Judeo-Christian value, even a human value. But it’s a 21st century human value and that doesn’t preclude the possibility that the unfolding of events between now and then might cause 24th century man to see it differently and with just cause. While it would be difficult to argue that allowing a planet to die because of a natural disaster isn’t harsh, there are two sides to even that coin.
What I find it far more disappointing, however, is that Star Trek is usually unwilling to make those kinds of tough choices. We get too much easy morality and the case for the value of the PD isn’t ever made forcefully except for when it’s morally convenient (such as in ‘Symbiosis’). Show them doing something according to the letter of the PD and then feeling guilty about the consequences and having to really cope rather than soliloquy platitudes about right, wrong, and their own moral superiority. And it’s not as if jurisprudence isn’t alive and well in the future. If this is a law that they are bound to and that, at least in theory, would have consequences were it broken, why isn’t there a legal counsel on staff to advise them or provide context? They never allow for even their own history to inform their decisions. It always comes down to what feels good, even when it kinda doesn’t but really we know it does.
Back on the question of fatalism: again, I agree that supernaturalism is more often than not subverted in the Trek universe, but the Federation’s atheism (or the shows for that matter) is a principal of the organization, not necessarily each and every one of its members. Although the being they find in Trek V isn’t God, when given the opportunity to prove His existence, we see the Enterprise crew throw out the rule book in His pursuit, so the zeal is certainly there. And it’s not as if every American loves hot dogs or the 2nd amendment or capitalism even though they live in a society that generally prides itself on these things. Is there no room for individualism here? Theoretically the Star Trek universe favors religious tolerance, even though in reality characters often smugly mock the religious beliefs of other cultures while patting themselves on the back for their own values. Again, it’s not so much that I agree with a fatalistic/Calvanistic world view, but I’m not shocked that anyone would see things that way in this or any other century.
Likewise, I don’t think that the whole body of science is necessarily set against the notion of fate. Our theories of time are still nascent. We don’t have a mechanism for testing something like fate. We can’t both save and neglect to save the dying planet and watch the results of those choices play out, so I find difficulty in accepting the notion that there isn’t a way things are ‘meant’ to be is scientifically true. If timelines converged at certain points, that would certainly imply some element of fate (Doctor Who explores this frequently). We even see elements of this in the Captain’s Holiday episode where the future aliens lament Picard’s destroying the Tox Uthat despite their interventions. In ‘A Brief History of Time’ Hawkings discusses the notion that one explanation for the ultimate cause of the universe is that if we weren’t here to observe it, it wouldn’t exist. To me, that fits the rubric of being both scientific and fatalistic. I have my own theories about time travel and causality too, but I’ll save them for a more appropriate episode.
Anyway, thanks again for the thoughtful discussion.
@ konkeyDong
I completely agree that Star Trek would have been so much better and more engaging if the PD was actually followed, and the characters had to face/wrestle with the consequences. A rare moment where this was done on a micro scale was when Worf was allowed to deny his ribosomes to the Romulan officer, and it made an excellent episode.
A modern Star Trek spin off might be more willing to go that way. Nowadays, shows have longer story arcs and almost seem like mini-dramas. I think shows in the past were focused on stand alone stories that were quickly wrapped up by the end of the hour. TNG has a few moments where they extend the storyline across the series–such as after Picard’s Borg abduction or Worf’s discommendation (however you spell), but it’s not as common or in depth as shows do things today.
I liked your comments on science and fate. It’s true that physics and the study of space really leave us with more questions than answers about the nature of the universe. Really fascinating.