"To Thine Own Self"

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Aha! Another episode of TNG I haven’t seen before—and goddamn, it’s one of the episodes that fills me with glee! I flippin’ love it when the Space!People make first contact with some pre-industrial society in TNG, because of instead of the “WE COME IN PEACE SHOOT TO KILL” philosophy of Captain Kirk and whoever they put in charge of The Future in Avatar and the CDF of Old Man’s War*, you get to watch a much more hopeful view of people who really do care about treating people with civility.**

Quite apart from the optimistic idea that maybe at some point we actually learn from past mistakes, it makes for a lot more interesting plotlines and character interactions. Us vs. Them gets kind of old after a while.

It’s why I’ve said that I’d love to just see Avatar be a documentary—I am the sort of person who barely needs a plot if the universe itself is interesting enough. I could spend hours on a pointless virtual tour of Pandora. There are also a million other plot possibilities I can think of that would be more in-depth and engaging, although there would be fewer opportunities for huge explosions. (Off the top of my head: lost wanderer human falls in with Na’vi, humans and Na’vi band together to save Pandora or Earth from some outside threat, humans decide to save Pandora from some outside threat while remaining unknown to the natives, aliens do that for humans,*** Na’vi and humans establish trade, etc., etc..) I’d take any of those as a totally interesting alternative.

Plus, in this one you get to see Data being helpless and stripped of affectation and showing he’s innocent and empirical, and then a mob beats the shit out of him. And there's a crazy medieval Alchemist Lady! What more could you ask for?


Yet Another Universal Translator Discussion Question: In this episode, Data gets Classic Hollywood Amnesia and forgets who he is and what the Federation is, but he remembers Science. So he staggers into some preindustrial society and spouts technobabble at them—but he does it in their language, and they don’t seem to have science words. So is he just making words up? Tossing in English (or Klingon or something) words? Using these people’s words in strange new ways analogous to some weird linguistic algorithm? Or what?


*Still an excellent book, and I’m led to expect that as I read more I’ll find that they question their tendency to shoot all the aliens.

**I know people have just remarked upon Stephen Hawking’s pessimistic predictions about aliens, but he’s been saying it would go badly since at least A Brief History of Time. (Damn, that’s a good book.) But I do hope some aliens would be nicer than that.

***Mostly just because that’s my one real beef with the Prime Directive. It pisses me right the hell off when the Federation starts waffling on about how sad it is that they’ve just found a planet that’s about to get destroyed and they can’t be assed just to knock the asteroid out of the way while not making any contact with the people. Dude, it’s a stroke of luck you came along when you did. Just save the fuckers.

Comments

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

The reason for why the Prime Directive exists is essentially Trek's version of 9/11. "We were doing it one way, but then something bad happened, so we're gonna tie our hands up good and look sad when something happens."

On the one hand, it makes a great morality play. On the other hand, it also makes Starfleet look like doofuses.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

It was a really garbled policy in the original series, too--it basically meant whatever the writers wanted it to mean THAT week in order to force a plot point.

[black-rider.livejournal.com]

I vote for words used in strange new ways analogous to some weird linguistic algorithm.

Also, I would totally watch a documentary on Pandora. I really liked Avatar, but that was basically because I was ignoring the plot, and just looking at the animation.

[broken-moons.livejournal.com]

Oh, I remember that one. I liked seeing Data like that.

Doesn't the Universal Translator work more on the perceived sounds than on the actual words coming out of someone's mouth? So, Data would be speaking English, but the natives would be understanding him in Native, except for the technobabble, which would be English (and then possibly generations thereafter scientists and linguists will be puzzled about the roots of certain scientific idioms). Wait, but the natives don't have a universal translator, so... uh. Yeah, I don't know how to explain it.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I have no idea how the universal translator works. It gets contradicted all the time.

I liked seeing Data in that setting, too. I thought it was a wonderful look at his character. I really liked the scene where he staggers into the village, too, and tries to kick-start his brain again. It was really interesting to see him starting from the ground up.

[zimwifepgk.livejournal.com]

Re. your first asterisk: Without giving spoilers, the answer is that that becomes a HUGE plot point. Also, as I tell everyone who reads "Old Man's War," definitely read "The Ghost Brigades" and "The Last Colony" IF ONLY so you can then read "Zoë's Tale" and have it make good sense. They're all good, but "Zoë's Tale" is written from the POV of a sarcastic teenage girl who is a Strong Female Protagonist without beating the reader over the head with the fact that she is one, and that wins points.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Oh, I will definitely read them. I just need to find TIME ...

[beccastareyes]

*Still an excellent book, and I’m led to expect that as I read more I’ll find that they question their tendency to shoot all the aliens.

Oh, yes.

And I'm sure you could come up with some kind of plot about humans and Na'vi saving Pandora or Earth that had explosions. I learned that lesson from, of all places, Anne McCaffrey, who can turn 'fungus infestation from space' into an excuse to have fire-breathing dragons flying about.

(And at least Data with Hollywood Amnesia could be explained as how his memories are stored.)

And now I kind of want to go back and do science words with my conlang. I once saw a piece on atomic physics written entirely using non-Latin/Greek words, inventing words for the elements, so it's interesting. I'd have to decide if I should just translate the element roots that aren't 'name it after something/someone cool', or if I can come up with other interesting names.

(I have the same thing with get_medieval, which is about aliens who end up in 12th century France -- whether the characters just use the alien-speak words when they eventually have to explain technology to the natives, or if they try to invent words from French and Latin.)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, you could make explosions, but it would take THINKING, and that is HARD.

Yeah, Data seems like someone who could much more probably be subjected to Hollywood Amnesia.

Science words with conlangs are tough, aren't they? I get really blocked with them just because, while they're still pretty naturalistic, they're also a bit more derivative as people revise and update the way they categorize the universe. Plus, the need for precision makes it hard to just tack a new definition onto an extant word, and leads to people trying for a logical naming system ... it's a lot harder to take into account, I think.

(Get Medieval is awesome, but the language question doesn't seem to bother me as much. I do remember Asher trying to explain atomic theory to Jacques--I figured he uses alien words when there's no French equivalent and then explains it. Oh, but my favorite is still the translation of "we don't have gravity"--"the rough translation is 'hang on'!")

[beccastareyes]

At least it's an excuse to learn some history of science.

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

The Prime Directive always pissed me off, too. Why make a culture suffer with illnesses that could be cured, why make them do crushing physical labor and live in misery when their lives could be made better? Give them the choice, for heavens sake.

I have that same issue with anthropologists who insist that certain cultures living in South America be left uncontacted and allowed to live as sort of museums of their culture. Meanwhile, those folks are living in dirt and dying of all sorts of curable shit. Respect the culture, but make it the people's choice whether to accept modern conveniences.

(shoves soapbox back under chair)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Well, in my own stories I've got a similar conflict--there is a policy of non-interference, but there are loopholes.

I think there is something to be said for the Prime Directive in some of these cases--for letting a culture work through issues its way, rather than imposing changes from the outside. I think in the case of the Federation it's a way to let people come to you on their own terms, instead of the "You are as amoebas to us" thing that will mess 'em up good.

Plus, who knows?--the aliens might come up with a REALLY AWESOME way of doing things nobody else has thought of.

However, two big things really piss me off about the Directive. One, as mentioned above, is the tendency just to let planets die when you save them, especially when you could without giving yourself away. The other is the tendency to wipe the memories of individuals who do manage to make contact. It's both a personal violation and also unnecessary--even if the person doesn't swear to keep quiet, you send them back babbling about how they got beamed into space. So maybe, if ANYBODY believes them, you get a cult, but really, you get those anyway. So why go to all the trouble?

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I'd forgotten about that episode. Thanks for reminding me!