Disbelief

I've just started watching more ST:TNG, 'Thine Own Self'. Data loses his memory and wanders around with a box marked 'radioactive' without knowing what 'radioactive' means. But he is talking, with words, in language. How can the story justify that he has language, words, understands words, can read the word 'radioactive', and yet cannot remember that a box marked up in red with 'radioactive' on it is dangerous? Because the whole plot turns on that one implausibility, and it has lost me from the get go. Saying he has words but no personal memory is more workable for an artificial life form. Saying he has words but forgot this and only this word is ridiculous.

It isn't a case of applying SF standards of suspension of disbelief, it isn't about tweaking physics or biology to new rules, it's about saying something is both true and not true at once, he both does and does not know the word.

Fail.


... hang on, I just thought of a loophole. Data is not wearing his comm badge. He is communicating with a local in a language not specificed. He initially echoes the words and then discovers how to express himself. What if he's only talking their language? If he has lost English but has accessed the local language then he would lack the words for concepts they have not discovered. It still doesn't explain how he can read English, but plenty of words can be sounded out without being understood. So he's not using his usual language chip, just a local one.

Right, now I can watch the rest of the episode without having to fast forward through that story.

*watches five more minutes*

... nooooo, he just demonstrated advanced scientific knowledge, including words like organic and chemical that the teacher doesn't know. So that doesn't work either.

He knows too much and too little at once. It's just screwed.

ST:TNG Genesis & Masks and season 7

I just watched Genesis.
I... what? I mean, what?
... somebody decided to film that. On purpose.

I know they do all sorts of terrible things to science. I'm well aware of this. But there's terrible, and there's terrible-and-pointless. I mean, really, what was the point of all that? 'Worf turns into a giant exoskeleton thingy!!!' That's like a bunny, not an actual plot. It reveals nothing about characters. Not the transformations, and not the resolution. Nobody had to act in character even once in the whole episode. It's so depressing.


Season 7 is on something. Possibly the newbie-fanfic something. There's a lot of weird dream stuff going on, including entire deeply depressing episodes where almost all of it was just a dream, a lot of being possessed, including Data being handed multiple personalities right after he did the amnesia thing, and now this turning into whole other species. It just seems like they ran out of steam so they kept turning them into something else entire.

The only one I can remember this season that was worth watching was Lower Decks, and that wasn't even about the usual main characters. Oh, and I skipped watching Parallels again-again-again, but that was okay as I recall; and once again, not about the existing setup. The Pegasus is the closest it got to proper ordinary story, and that was quite good, except I feel weirdly dislocated watching it because of having watched the Enterprise ep that weaves in with it.

I've only watched the first 19. Three out of 19 isn't encouraging though.

On the other hand, it makes me not sad the series ended.
On the gripping hand, it makes me sad I'm not sad the series ended.

ST:TNG Journey's End

Hi Wil *waves*
... I can sort of see why he grew the beard. I'm just saying.

So, this was an interesting choice for how to leave the character. Instead of starfleet like he'd always been aimed at, his has a vision of his dad being all 'stop following me' and quits. Okay then. Not like we'd been cheering Wes on since the beginning. No problem.

... actually I can remember really relating to that little revelation. I saw this first time around, though there's large chunks of this season I did not see. I suspect that means it was turbulent times. But when I was a teenager I was stuck doing what I was told, and I had to start over with my studies after I got a chance to choose the topic myself, so, Wesley doing the vision quest thing? Excellent relatable.

It's just a little odd to have your character go off to ascend to another level of existence. I mean, that doesn't usually happen.

What is cool though is the writer did it to show that not everyone wants to be in uniform and go serve on a fighting ship in starfleet. That's a past time for it sort of a demonstration right there.

Not so much cool, what about his mum? Is none of his lifelong motivation about the actual surviving parent? What happened to the relation between mother and son? Is there no story there? *sigh*

So what I wanted to post about was: North American Indians? What, they don't have a name any more? Cause I thought there were lots of different names and different peoples doing their thing, with languages and specific traditions and all. But maybe they got all joined up and went off on this 200 year planet quest and that's the best name they could decide on. Still... their story meeting Wesley's story like this is... I can see what the writer connection is, it's all about following your fathers, trying to be same, trying to be different, trying to be a good father and a good son. It's good stuff. It's just, they're writing about some culture that isn't white and standard for the setting, and they're writing them solely to provide inspiration for the white kid. I feel I've seen this before. A few times. Or, you know, a lot.

The bit with the pointing out that actually moving them on again again is Not Cool is an interesting starting point, but the other part of what bugged me was there were white people in charge at Starfleet, there's an Indian representative they can listen to and ignore, and it's like they're saying the power structure is, racially, much like it is in the USA right now. Power is white and petitions are native and going to be ignored. Where's the Admiral with a relevant ancestry? Where's the dissent within Starfleet from the equally powerful? We spread out to the stars and the power balance stays the same? How screwed is that?

Also: everyone talking to the Captain is a bloke? Great... one minority per ticky box is it?

The Wesley story worked, basically, but the other story bugged me.


PS Have in fact done all the reading I brought home with me from college already, hence the Trek. Next time shall bring two books and be optimistic so I'll have more to read when I'm done.