Real Life in Star Trek, The Vengeance Factor
John Colagioia
Disclaimer
In these posts, we discuss a non-âFree as in Freedomâ popular culture franchise property, including occasional references to part of that franchise behind a paywall. My discussion and conclusions carry a Free Culture license, but nothing about the discussion or conclusions should imply any attack on the ownership of the properties. All the big names are trademarks of the owners, and so forth, and everything here relies on sitting squarely within the bounds of Fair Use, as criticism that uses tiny parts of each show to extrapolate the world that the characters live in.
PreviouslyâŚ
I initially outlined the project in this post, for those falling into this from somewhere else. In short, we attempt to use the details presented in Star Trek to assemble a view of what life looks like in the Federation. This âphaseâ of the project changes from previous posts, however. The Next Generation takes place long after the original series, so we shouldnât expect similar politics and socialization. Maybe more importantly, I enjoy the series less.
Put simply, you shouldnât read this expecting a recap or review of an episode. Many people have done both to death over nearly sixty years. You will find a catalog of information that we learn from each episode, though, so expect everything to be a potential âspoiler,â if you happen to have that irrational fear.
Rather than list every post in the series here, you can quickly find them all on the startrek tag page.
The Vengeance Factor
This episode dives deep into its plot, so donât expect too much from it.
PICARD: Despite your progress, you are a divided society, and so it will remain until the Gatherers return to Acamar.
As a reminder, a little over a year ago, Picard staged a bloody coup at Starfleet Headquarters. But sure, lecture them on progress and peaceâŚ
RIKER: Donât be modest. You canât tell me you havenât come up with a few culinary delights.
This got remarkably creepy much faster than I expectedâŚ
DATA: Captain, I am detecting life readings from the planet surface, as well as several small areas of thermal radiation and carbon dioxide emissions, indicative of combustion.
WESLEY: Campfires, Data.
DATA: Is that not what I said?
Not only should he know that he said something different, this time he should stand by that difference. He has probably identified small fires, but (a) heat and carbon dioxide could also come from an animal, and (b) incidental fires do occasionally happen.
DATA: Two thousand, three hundred, fourteen degrees. Of course, noranium carbideâ
RIKER: Thank you, Data!
We have our usual cycle of unprofessionalism. Data has no reason to share the extra information, and can see that it both doesnât apply in context and takes up valuable time while they have people attacking them. However, Riker still hasnât found a better reaction to this regular occurrence than angrily cutting Data off.
As a side note, ânoraniumâ seems original to this episode. A âcarbideâ either means a salt consisting of a metal and one or two carbon atoms, or means a metal alloy doped with carbon, steel serving as the most common example.
TROI: Brullâs ready to negotiate. He just wants privacy so that he wonât appear weak in front of the other Gatherers.
MaybeâŚdonât say it so loud in earshot of everyone, then?
PICARD: Brull, in twenty days, I hope to be very far away from here.
He cares about peace, but definitely not three weeks worth of care, not for aliensâŚ
MAROUK: The obsession with vengeance would be passed from generation to generation. And with each act of retribution, the violence would escalate.
PICARD: Itâs not unlike much the history of my own planet.
They somehow refuse to use the word feud, here. Feuds have, in fact, shown up frequently (along with duels) around the world, and still do, usually when the culture sees governmental peace-making as lacking. The plan usually starts out as an attempt at retributive justice, but since the two sides have no means of mediating what that means, you end up with a spiral of escalating violence.
This might give some impression of the state of inter-governmental affairs, given how the crew frequently treats the Ferengi and Romulans in a tit-for-tat manner, looking for reasons to punish and dominate these other groups.
WESLEY: This is the locally Euclidean metricization of a k-fold contravariant Riemannian tensor field.
That mass of buzzwords does, in fact, (almost) have meaning. But unless he only has a bunch of tedious exercises, then he has a local model of gravity, like the sort of thing that one would need to work with tractor beams. I point this out, because it shows that Wesley either doesnât care about his workâthey frequently show as having an interest in tractor beams, so this seems like it should interest himâor has deliberately overcomplicated his work to make Brull feel inferior.
WESLEY: Youâre a thief.
âŚ
WESLEY: You have children?
Wesley does like his obnoxiously judgmental insults, doesnât heâŚ?
RIKER: No, I prefer the company of equals.
Does he, though�
Based on his past attempts at seduction and how this plays out, it seems much more like he might have more of a fetish for lower-class women seeing him as the one person who treats them like equals.
RIKER: Youâre scowling, Doctor.
CRUSHER: Iâm thinking.
Everything about this scene comes off like âyouâd look pretty if you smiled more.â I assume that we all know never to do that? Good.
RIKER: Good. Notify Doctor Crusher when Acamarâs medical database is online. Riker out. Come in.
Riker rates a scowl, and it seems unfair to take out whatever imaginary frustration he has out on Data, who came to him with good news.
RIKER: Was I that obvious?
Extremely, uncomfortably obvious, yes.
YUTA: I do not feel pleasure, or passion. I havenât been able to for a long time.
Oh, this seems like a perfect opportunity to model good behavior and introduce Yuta to Troi, so that they can talk out her harmful feelings andâŚno? Weâve already moved on from that? Gotcha.
PICARD: Chorgan, if I had wanted you destroyed, you would not be talking to me now. Obviously, I wanted something else.
Even here, Picard needs to show how much power he has.
PICARD: For these negotiations to succeed I must be a mediator, not an enforcer. You have the Bridge, Number One. Brull.
And Starfeet apparently starts mediation processes by threatening one participant and pointing out how the mediator could atomize them.
RIKER: Fifty three years ago, and she hasnât aged a day.
Do you think that his anger comes from the murderous feud, or because he tried to seduce someone at least in her seventies? I feel like that line-reading could go either wayâŚ
CHORGAN: A Federation trap!
Again, the Federation seems to have a terrible reputation beyond its borders.
RIKER: Yuta, donât do this.
I feel like they could have beamed her out, or at least restrained her, before blasting her apart. Like I said, I donât have much confidence that Rikerâs anger has nothing to do with Yutaâs age.
PICARD: Oh, yes, thank you. New orders from Starfleet. The rendezvous. Nothing, thank you. The rendezvous with the Goddard has been postponed.
âŚ
PICARD: Starbase three-four-three. Weâre to take on medical supplies for the Alpha Leonis system.
They probably named the ship after the creator of the first liquid-fueled rocket Robert Goddard. And you more likely know the star as Regulus, which got mentions in The Menagerie and The Trouble with Tribbles.
Conclusions
As I mentioned before, we donât get much out of this episode.
The Bad
A lot of the episode highlights the Federationâs hypocrisy, lecturing cultures on their internal divisions despite their own, lecturing about the value of peace but not having any interest in investing time in it, turning around and threatening to wipe out the participants in the peace process. We also see, once again, that the Federation has a terrible reputation beyond its borders.
Riker sexually harasses a service worker, trying to position himself as the only person who believes in her as an equal.
Data continues his campaign of wasting everyoneâs time, whether overcomplicating issues without adding any precision or nuance, or trying to provide worthless information in time-limited situations. Wesley seems to have adapted some of these ideas to insult people, on top of throwing around actual insults. Similarly unprofessional, Troi nearly scuttles the peace talks by gossiping about the participants.
We also see the shaming of a woman who doesnât constantly wear an approachable smile, and attacks on Data both warranted-but-preventable and completely unwarranted.
The crew completely ignores a guest who talks rather openly about a deep depression. And when she turns out to present a threat, they kill her instead of attempting to restrain her.
Next
Coming up in a week, a familiar face plays on the Federationâs paranoia and makes everyone look foolish, in The Defector.
Credits: The header image is The Hatfield Clan of the Hatfield-McCoy-feud, long in the public domain.
No webmentions were found.
By commenting, you agree to follow the blog's Code of Conduct and that your comment is released under the same license as the rest of the blog. Or do you not like comments sections? Continue the conversation in the #entropy-arbitrage chatroom on Matrix…
Tags: scifi startrek closereading