Star Trek: Picard

[nx01a]

It's the Romulan Star Empire...not the Romulan Star Planet. They have an empire with numerous worlds and all it takes is the destruction of one and all of a sudden we have a refugee crisis? The loss of one world did all of this? Just one?

I thought this during the first Kelvin movie. Apparently the extended universe portrays the supernova as an obviously unnatural event that created a warp speed subspace shockwave threatening many planets. I just wish they'd mention that on screen.

[Anthony W]

I thought this during the first Kelvin movie. Apparently the extended universe portrays the supernova as an obviously unnatural event that created a warp speed subspace shockwave threatening many planets. I just wish they'd mention that on screen.

And this is another thing that annoys me. I shouldn't have to bother with extended universe stuff to explain what is going on. JJ Abrams and his cohorts are notorious for this.

[Nate Grey]

Everything about this ep was good. Cudos to the musical composer, too.

Had to stop myself from fanfic-ing "Star Trek: Sisko" though.

[Cyke]

It's the Romulan Star Empire...not the Romulan Star Planet. They have an empire with numerous worlds and all it takes is the destruction of one and all of a sudden we have a refugee crisis? The loss of one world did all of this? Just one?

Well, yeah. The Vietnam War is one example -- yes, the country is intact, but destroying just one city was enough to spur diaspora that still has repercussions today, as reflected in the number of Vietnamese people living in the US, Canada, and France. There are obviously still Vietnamese people living in Vietnam, but the influx of refugees after the war really affected the US.

There are good odds of meeting a 2nd or 3rd gen Vietnamese American and finding out that their family immigrated as part of the refugee crisis of the war. A minority fraction of the population is still enough to be considered a refugee crisis.

Katrina as well is a well documented example of the government's mismanagement of relocation and rescue efforts, leading to other states struggling to take in survivors. Even mighty Texas had issues coordinating survivor intake -- it's not called a refugee crisis only because movement was intra-country, but the logistics would be even more nightmarish if they had to move to a foreign country with a completely different bureaucracy and style of government.

Also, note that in Trek, whenever Earth is threatened rarely does the villain say humanity is at stake, just the planet or Federation leadership. If Earth is destroyed, it's a huge blow to humanity, even though they're spread out over half the galaxy. It's not extinction, but it's a catastrophic and supremely eventful loss of life nonetheless. You can bet that humans would have its own refugee crisis if Earth was destroyed. They can always resettle after losing humanity's home, but again resettling is a major undertaking in response to catastrophe. Humans moving en masse could be seen as threatening to a Federation member world, and we've seen the kind of territory mess when the Maquis renounced Federation membership and encroached on Cardassian space -- and Maquis numbers are way smaller than Earth or Romulus blowing up.

And then there's the logistics and admin challenges that come with relocating the capital -- blowing Earth to stifle Federation leadership won't kill the Federation, but it would severely hamper their capacity and ability to mobilize, and that's why Earth needs protection. The Klingons couldn't handle that burden and that's why they needed the Khitomer Accords when Praxis blew up and damaged Qonos in Star Trek VI. DS9 also states that the Cardassians need this support from the three powers at the end of the show, despite being a nation whose planet survives a genocidal assault.

As we see with the ample Romulan population here, there's still plenty of them but they're not the force they used to be. It would take decades, maybe even centuries, to rebuild to those previous levels, and even then that would leave other powers unchallenged and free to advance.

A planet blowing up is one thing, and is already a refugee crisis at smaller populations. A capital and/or a homeworld blowing up isn't just a refugee crisis (which it is, obviously), but it would upset the balance and relationship of power with other nations, and severely hampers the ability to coordinate rescue, relocation, and resettlement efforts. That's a huge crisis, too. If we lost Washington D.C., other states would step in to help, sure, but you better believe that we would readily accept help from Canada, Mexico, the UK, the EU, etc, and the surrounding states would have to try to absorb the survivors and evacuees, when they already have a tough time absorbing much slower trends of new residents. And while US states and allies try to help, less friendly countries would look to take advantage of this low point.

Plus, logically, no member world or conquered world is likely to have a bigger population (at least of Romulans) than the homeworld. If this happened to Earth, by most implications, Earth still likely has the highest concentration of humans despite all the colonies. Moving 7 billion humans (nevermind any other races) into hundreds of colonies where the max population is in the tens of thousands isn't feasible, and it's not like you can just dump them on a Federation member world like Vulcan, Betazed, and Andoria on a whim overnight without violating their position in the Federation. That takes a crap ton of coordination that would likely take years to sort out.

[nx01a]

Very good points.

I think we need to see and hear those points on screen. I hope we'll get into the deeper sociopolitical and personal ramifications of the Romulan system getting destroyed, esp. considering who Picard's housekeepers are... and where some of the Romulan refugees are being housed. We were told in a brief info dump in The Undiscovered Country why the destruction of Praxis and its impact on Qo'nos was a threat to the Federation and the stability of the Klingon Empire; we need the same here.

[Cyke]

Very good points.

I think we need to see and hear those points on screen. I hope we'll get into the deeper sociopolitical and personal ramifications of the Romulan system getting destroyed, esp. considering who Picard's housekeepers are... and where some of the Romulan refugees are being housed. We were told in a brief info dump in The Undiscovered Country why the destruction of Praxis and its impact on Qo'nos was a threat to the Federation and the stability of the Klingon Empire; we need the same here.

And maybe we'll get there (especially as Romulans as a whole seem to be set up to play a bigger role as the series progresses, and the show seems to be a deliberate slow burn), but I really don't think the scope of the crisis needs to be explained that much either, since it's pretty encompassing. Just the extremely high death toll (900 million) should be enough to drive all that home. Hell, in TNG a colony of 5000 is enough to spur the Enterprise into action to prevent a refugee crisis, and that's obviously a fraction of a fraction of that number. The stakes were understood without an exorbitant info dump about the colony's history. The number is so high that the stakes should be obvious, and doubly so for Trekkies.

DS9 handled Cardassia's future state fairly well in the finale. Not much was said other than the implication that what the Cardassians did to the Bajorans is what the Dominion did to them, so now they know and will experience what that's like. No more need of an info dump beyond that to paint their dire staits.

[WebLurker]

I wonder if its just that doctors in Trek are just hard to write for (haven't seen Discovery (yet) so not sure if its true there, too).

Probably not. Dr. McCoy and VOY's holo-doc were given a lot of material. DS9's Dr. Bashir did pretty well for himself (although that was DS9, where even guest and minor recurring characters could get their own episodes). Dr. Phlox on ENT got less, but ENT didn't do much outside the core three. No clue about DSC.

It will be interesting to see how they address Guinan aging more than she should have. Or if they'll address it at all.

Given that we don't know the expected lifespan of Elaurians, who's to say that Guinen wouldn't have aged as much as Whoopi Goldberg has ILR by the time of Picard?

And this is another thing that annoys me. I shouldn't have to bother with extended universe stuff to explain what is going on. JJ Abrams and his cohorts are notorious for this.

Not quite; the "Horbus" supernova is explained onscreen in full (the nova threatens the entire Galaxy, Spock stops it, but not in time to save Romulus, Nero attacks, sending them through the red matter blackhole, kicking off the Kelvin timeline series). It's just that it's such a improbable idea (one star could destroy a whole galaxy?), that the tie-ins tried to make the premise more believable. (Note that the comic and sundry's explanation is not canon.)

[ZeroBG82]

Talk about a deep cut. We went straight to name checking Maddox, a character not seen since early TNG. Mad respect just for the reach, and actually using one that is apropos. I wonder if we'll get to see the man himself? And will they bring back the same actor to do it? I haven't been this excited for a piece of Trek continuity nerdity since Barclay got to appear in First Contact.

Given that we don't know the expected lifespan of Elaurians, who's to say that Guinen wouldn't have aged as much as Whoopi Goldberg has ILR by the time of Picard?

Because what we do know about Elaurians is that they age much more slowly than humans. Guinen is quite possibly centuries old. We know she was fully an adult and looks like Whoopi Goldberg circa late 1990's when she is rescued by the Enterprise B in Generations. She was physically unchanged between the events aboard the E-B involving the Nexus and her time aboard the E-D, a span of decades at least. Soren also showed no signs of aging over the same period, so it isn't something unique to Guinen.

I don't think they need to talk about it, let the audience worry about that and just let the actors play the scene. But it would be at odds with how she had been presented previously.

[beatboks]

It's the Romulan Star Empire...not the Romulan Star Planet. They have an empire with numerous worlds and all it takes is the destruction of one and all of a sudden we have a refugee crisis? The loss of one world did all of this? Just one?

Just because its an empire doesnt mean that great destruction of the planet of the ruling body doesnt drastically effect the race. In the time of the Roman empire very few Romans lived outside Rome. They anexed countries (conquered) and the number of actual romans left to rule those counties were reduced over time. Replaced by people of those they had conqured who had become loyal to Rome (usually for their own oportunistic benifit).

tax collectors and faracies for example in the Jewish na thation collected tax and ruled for Rome because they profitted. Young men from conquered nations were taken from their homes in one country and made to protect Rome in another for the sake of their family back home.

Mass destruction in Rome would have been a massive loss to the Roman people.

If you read the books of the Klingon ship Gorkon, many of the planets they annexed into the Klingon Empire had limited klingon presance. Or for example Cardasia was a part of the dominion Empire for a while with only a single founder even in the Alpha quadrant. Same was true when the Breen were brought into the Dominion. No less than 4 races (Vorta, Jem Hadar, Cardasian, Breen ) presumably with a few billion (except Vorta) each serving the Dominion in the alpha quadrant and only a single member of the race even in tjat sector of space (that we knew)

[ChrisIII]

Talk about a deep cut. We went straight to name checking Maddox, a character not seen since early TNG. Mad respect just for the reach, and actually using one that is apropos. I wonder if we'll get to see the man himself? And will they bring back the same actor to do it? I haven't been this excited for a piece of Trek continuity nerdity since Barclay got to appear in First Contact.



Because what we do know about Elaurians is that they age much more slowly than humans. Guinen is quite possibly centuries old. We know she was fully an adult and looks like Whoopi Goldberg circa late 1990's when she is rescued by the Enterprise B in Generations. She was physically unchanged between the events aboard the E-B involving the Nexus and her time aboard the E-D, a span of decades at least. Soren also showed no signs of aging over the same period, so it isn't something unique to Guinen.

I don't think they need to talk about it, let the audience worry about that and just let the actors play the scene. But it would be at odds with how she had been presented previously.

Don't forget Time's Arrow, where she was in the late 19th century and hung around with Mark Twain.

[Styles]

This was a really good premier; too bad it wasn't longer.

Talk about a deep cut. We went straight to name checking Maddox, a character not seen since early TNG. Mad respect just for the reach, and actually using one that is apropos. I wonder if we'll get to see the man himself? And will they bring back the same actor to do it? I haven't been this excited for a piece of Trek continuity nerdity since Barclay got to appear in First Contact.

I was thinking the same thing too. It'll be cool to see Maddox, I hope he shows up.

[ChrisIII]

So it looks like either Data or Maddox decided to secretly make more "Lals". Curious that she wasn't brought up at all, but she might be mentioned at some point I guess.

[Styles]

At first, I thought Dahj was Lal when it was revealed that she’s an android. But I thought Lal’s name was gonna be name dropped too.

When Picard said that Data always wanted a daughter, that wasn’t true. I just watched the episode when Data created Lal. He allowed Lal to pick its gender and species; he never said that he wanted a daughter but that he wanted to procreate.

[ZeroBG82]

Don't forget Time's Arrow, where she was in the late 19th century and hung around with Mark Twain.

I had indeed forgotten that. And the fact that Data's head is 400 years older than his body.

[ChrisIII]

Her being on the refugee ship in GEN is a bit confusing I think; when we first meet the Borg she says she wasn't there at the invasion, but in Generations she's on one of the Refugee ships. I guess at some point she just left to check on her species and for some reason boarded one of the refugee ships while they were on a run from the Borg?