Star Trek The Next Generation Ruminations S1E10: Hide And Q

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[@jeffreymiller9438]

The Shakespeare discussion between Picard and Q, quoting Macbeth and Hamlet, was a redeeming scene.

[@JayTohab]

I love how the first ten episodes are on the lamentations chopping block.

[@sharkdentures3247]

My responses; 1) I agree. Never stab a Klingon. You'll only make them mad. 2) You think maybe Wesley became so annoying that the crew let him die? "no . . . Wesley . . . come back. . . . look out . . . . oh no . . . he's dead . . . Well, nothing we could have done to prevent that! Anyone in the mood for pancakes? " While I don't entirely agree with your 'power corrupts' argument (though I partially do). Still, your extended rants were very entertaining! Happy New Year.

[@ChocolatierRob]

Yeah, like the boy who cried wolf. _"You all saw that. The 'wolf' got him"_

[@thegoodkarateka1424]

I don't think power itself corrupts, but it brings out the corruption in the wielder, makes it easier to be evil. Kinda like the saying "locked doors keep honest folk honest", "limited power makes it harder to get away with evil".

[@MidnightSt]

" 1) I agree. Never stab a Klingon. You'll only make them mad" unless in response to a challenge, in which case you'll make them respect and appreciate you =D

[@MidnightSt]

I don't think Data wants to be human. He wants to be Data developing due to his want to be human. Which is also part of reason why he refused Borg Queen in First Contact. Also, I think this episode is when he realizes the difference. Being you that's striving to be something is wholly different from being that something.

[@shurue8628]

On that Picard and Yar scene, whoever wrote that did not understand the concept of writing's 101: Show Don't Tell. Suddenly shouting "I feel so frustrated!" doesn't convey frustration. It just makes me laugh in a scene where I'm supposed to be sympathetic.

[@ShamrockParticle]

This was season 1, where something like 25% of the stories were aimed at children. They might not see it as heavy-handed exposition? (You're not wrong, but a show for the whole family requires one heck of a balance... then comes the episode "Justice"...)

[@mb2000]

I always took “Turbolift Control” to be some subsection of Engineering or something, where it’s not any one persons job to look after the turbolifts, but probably just a console that, during any given shift, has someone keeping an eye on it. I highly doubt there’s someone in a little room somewhere with nothing else to do but watch a diagram of turbolifts moving around all the time. Although Voyager had a room on Deck 15 for just such pointless work (“Good Shepherd”) so maybe that’s exactly how it is... And I for one enjoyed Picard and Yar’s awkward penalty box tennis match on the bridge...

[@wcoleman99]

Well I could see someone spending an entire shift doing nothing but make the turbolifts run smoothly. I base that on the fact that O'Brien stated in an episode of DS9 that he hated being in the turbolift all day with nothing to do. I wouldn't be surprised if the turbolifts had the same situation.

[@goldflyknows]

Was there a response? IDK. Probably he's addressing an AI that controls the lifts.

[@KertaDrake]

I like to interpret the Riker Q-powers motion as him cheekily saying "I'm going pull the solution outta my ass"

[@grumpyotter]

You are absolutely right about power--it doesn't necessarily corrupt; it REVEALS. If you were a good person before, you will be with power, same if you started evil. It might seem that way because I think the people who seek power for power's sake tend to be nasty bastards to start with--but the power itself is neutral. I just read an article about the very thing -- Adam Grant wrote it -- "Power doesn't corrupt. It just exposes who leaders really are." Another aspect of tis is that this kid of moral stance just reeks of privilege. Someone with a secure home who lives in a world without poverty can afford to give it up--most of us couldn't. EDIT: Is my comment showing with strikethroughs? That's not intentional . . . and i can't see what is causing it.

[@resurrectedstarships]

My first job on a starship was turbolift control! Its better than waste reclamation control! I made sure all the turbolifts were working and listened to these videos while monitoring all the turbolifts.

[@MidnightSt]

i don't remember exactly how the "humans are special" is in this episode, but in TNG/ENT in general, it usually was "humans are special because they're kind of an amalgamation of every other race, which makes them unusually difficult to parse and predict". And I like that. Partially because it's lampshading the whole principle of how it wrote alien races by taking a single human trait and blowing it up into a race-wide modus operandi trait, and partially because it kinda ...works with how complex and complicated beings we are. Humanity being "superior" then I just interpreted as a synonym to humanity being a superset of other races, which is also why they have the most potential.

[@EnvisionerWill]

One other argument about this episode occurs to me now, because I just started watching TOS again, and the first 8 episodes of TOS contain at least 2 episodes about people gaining Personal Power and going completely off the deep end because of it (the episodes in question are "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "Charlie X"; you could also point at "The Naked Time" as an illustration of the same underlying concept, that human beings have a dark side which must never be unleashed, whether it's by adding power or by subtracting self-control). This has been a classic Trek thing since almost day 1, and we're only 10 episodes into TNG, so the show hasn't started to evolve away from those roots.

[@quasimodojdls]

"Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible." ~~ Frank Herbert Lore, sums up just about everything wrong with this episode. The fact that it honestly has Picard arguing in favor of letting people die when you could save them is so disgusting that I don't even know how to voice that disgust. But, then, this isn't the last time Star Trek, and TNG specifically, will make that argument. Still, it is buoyed up somewhat by John de Lancie who, even when he's overacting, brings an irresistible charisma to the screen. He was, after all, just about the only thing that worked over on DS9: "Q-Less". It also doesn't hurt that it's got that wonderful screen of Wesley getting speared through the chest. Seriously, that always brings a smile to my face. LOL. 3/10

[@Ragitsu]

Not a fan of "right to die" laws?

[@Kaefer1973]

@@Ragitsu He's a fan of the concept of "people being so bored out of their mind that every moment they exist is pure torture for them from which there's no escape" since he's a sadist. I can get that, I'd curse people with immortality too if I hated them.

[@AlucardNoir]

Happy new year... as for the "as well you should" give the man a break, he was channeling his inner Janeway.

[@scottwolozanski8988]

I agree with you about the issue of giving Riker powers. I think of it in terms of Superheroes. When Superman starts developing his powers, do we tell him to hide them? "No Superman, don't save people." No, we see him develop his ideas of morals and responsibilities and to use his powers in the correct way. Same with Spiderman. "With great power comes great responsibility." Come on. This episode could have had a great phylisophical discussion of using power responsibly and the effects on someone's life having these powers. But, they just kill the idea all together. I agree, power doesn't corrupt.

[@Kaefer1973]

I both agree and disagree. I agree that power doesn't corrupt, but I think there are many reasons unrelated to that not to give a human godlike powers. It would be a different matter entirely turning humans into non-humans with godlike powers, I just don't think the human brain capable of foreseeing and processing all the consequences the use of such a degree of powers could have. To make giving a human godlike powers a good thing they also have to be enabled to be able to know what they are doing. And since I don't consider a being with superhuman powers, wisdom and intellect to still be human, I'd call it uplifting a human to a greater being instead, which is not the same as giving a human godlike powers.

[@MidnightSt]

great video as always. because the quality of your opinion is not dependent on whether i agree with it or not. thank you.

[@cjc363636]

I think this is one of the most "Roddenberry" takes on the Prime Directive type drama, to the point when I hear Lore in this review growl "PICARD" I just pencil in Roddenberry in my head. It makes more sense actually.

[@gingeroverseer9302]

I love getting home from work and putting on some ruminations. TNG are my favorite ones so far!

[@robertmartinu8803]

The best argument for not using Q powers: we have no idea what the actual costs are. Think of Planescape Torment. You are immortal, how convenient! Dying as a convenient shortcut, or a parlor trick. Let's hope regret doesn't catch up with you...

[@ecurps1]

"good actors over-acting" Dennis Hopper immediately came to mind. XD

[@HHHTheGame01]

Great example haha. John Noble in fringe came to mind for me. Great actor who totally overacts a lot but in nearly every case it absolutely freaking works some how. There a precious few who can actually pull that off.

[@fredrikcarlstedt393]

It is not the Continuum that wants new blood, but just Q himself, and that is one of the reasons he is punished by his overlords .

[@Mikanojo]

It is interesting for me, seeking to perceive and understand your perspectives without necessarily sharing them, but i have reoccurring issues with your prejudices regarding actors, directors and writers. i confess it seems to me more than once that you have developed your opinions on characters, how they "should" act, based on later episodes where you have become more comfortable with them, instead of integrating other facets of the characters on display in these earlier episodes. i fear you have decided for your self how you wish the characters to respond, to deliver, and mislabel incidents where they display more complexity and depth as being "out of character".

[@joluoto]

Everytime I see Riker I can only think: God's sake, give this man a beard!

[@MidnightSt]

would be funny if the first thing he did with Q powers was give himself a beard for a moment, just to see how it looked =D

[@Neoxenok]

I'm sorry, I've normally been with you with regards to your points in these videos, but "hey, it's okay to give a human (Riker, in this case) omnipotent power is fine" is something I'll have to disagree with. Great, you argue, even because he can resurrect pink girls and stop hurricanes and earthquakes (something we later learn humans can do anyway in the episode following the best of both worlds episodes season 5 opener. I know you don't believe in the idea that power corrupts, but American and ancient history tends to be rife with examples of this happening. Further, Riker keeping his powers might mean he can be a great benefit to humanity, but then we run the risk of the entire galaxy suddenly revolving around what Riker wants. That girl that snubbed him (unlikely as it might be)? Snap! She's way into him now. Dissenting political opinion? Snap! What dissenting political opinion? I don't think any human is altruistic enough to avoid descending down into a pitfall that wouldn't result in the omnipotent being simply running the show until the other Q stopped him anyway or he gets absorbed into the Q continuum and he doesn't interact with humanity enough for such a thing to come to pass but that, by definition, is already proving the point that such a thing would be necessary to avoid Riker simply running the entire galaxy in some manner or another. Now, I don't disagree that the episode isn't stupid beyond words for dumb writing (mostly in the area of not providing a good counter-argument as to 'why not have/use this power), but I do think that giving Riker the omnipotent power of the Q is a mistake. I even agree with Picard's allowance of the girl to die. The reason being that it would show how Riker would react. If he reacted poorly and resurrected the girl anyway, it would already show that Riker would simply do as he wished regardless of what others thought of him even if the cause was just and Riker was right. Picard (nor anyone outside of the Q continuum) has the power to stop Riker from doing whatever he wants. If he did, he might be saving this girl's life now, but that doesn't mean Riker is or should be humanity's moral guiding light and given that he has more power than anyone, it means that his decisions, good or bad, would be THE directing force of the universe. This is a bad episode, but their ultimate point: humans shouldn't have this kind of personal power: is on point. At least with corrupt admirals, they still have some checks and balances against their actions - including other admirals, starfleet command, and so forth, and other people still have the power to stop them.

[@supernoob17]

Neoxenok I agree I feel like arch is really downplaying the ethical implications of electing a random coworker to be the new God. So like if he saves the one girl in pink is he now morally obligated to save everyone? Once you intervene with God powers to save a life, technically every death that occurs is blood on your hands because you're tacitly allowing them to die. At that point every stubbed toe is technically a stubbed toe you allowed to happen. I feel like THAT'S the slippery slope Picard is getting at, the idea that with that much power he'd be motivated to change the universe so drastically that it would in no way resemble our own

[@paulscott2037]

Neoxenok i was going to write practically the same points. Saved me a good 15 minutes. :p

[@sarafandumah4572]

I feel the argument is who lives? Who dies? That is where it goes.

[@AlekTrev006]

I guess I'd ask what our group concept of the Q themselves is then, under such a perspective ? Like..if we believe that Power DOES corrupt -and thus Riker (or anyone) should never have such power.... then why are we "okay" with the Q existing...or having such powers in the first place ? It's almost as if we're saying "it's fine for a Q to have such omnipotence, but heaven forbid we give that power to a Human, cause THAT would corrupt them !" ? /// Surely if we're against this in Human hands, we should be against it in Q hands too ?

[@HolyknightVader999]

If you believe in the idea that power corrupts, then you might as well get rid of the Enterprise. It's a warship with devastating firepower and replicators that can create almost anything that they think of, whether it be sex dolls, guns, or french fries. That's literally A) the power to create, and B) the power to devastate to an enormous degree. That's the kind of power that most people in human history didn't have. If the power to save lives is too much for your fragile heroes, then commanding a starship that can fart out infinite goods and lay waste to a planet ought not to be in their hands, because that's an awful lot of power to be given to people who think power corrupts. That's practically absolute power in most cases, and as Picard said, "absolute power corrupts absolutely". So they might as well go back to Earth and send the Enterprise hurling towards the sun. They're not ready for that kind of power or responsibility.

[@harpercole5321]

Riker's gift to Wesley would reduce his life expectancy by 10 years, which doesn't seem so good ... It is a bit of a mess, really. Frakes seems to struggle with Riker's strange mood swings and OTT moments (the manic laugh, "And that's not all!", etc). There's an interesting debate to be had on where you draw the line with intervention, if you have Q-like powers. Too much could smother humanity's growth, yes ... but they don't explore that debate. Interesting that Troi was in the script initially. I wonder whether Geordi's "you're as beautiful as I imagined" line was originally meant to be directed at her, or whether it was always for Yar? HC

[@Kaefer1973]

Well he could prolong Wesley's lifespan as well, but of course that would lead to yet another can of worms. How would he know what lifespan was ideal for Wesley, damming people to eventually become bored immortals wishing to die wouldn't be a nice thing to do either.

[@leightoncressman6188]

I agree hole heartedly and have always been very critical of Star Trek in their portrayal of ground combat I think personally that it is assumed amongst the writers that ground combat doesn’t happen because of having ships in orbit or that there small arms are so advanced that it completely negates the need for any other military equipment for ground warfare which is patently untrue and quite frankly absurd it doesn’t matter how powerful your small arms are or that you have spaceships capable of orbital bombardment or even Percision orbital strikes you’re still going to need to put boots on the ground in any war which requires the necessary ground warfare equipment meaning not just infantry we should be properly equipped with body armour grenades infantry support weapons like a phaser equivalent of a machine gun etc. but also all the other equipment like artillery and tanks and APCs and close in Air support and all of the necessary ground warfare equipment.

[@odo324]

I love your TNG and DS9 series but I never thought you'd be so far-off point. So, the girl in pink issue: What about everyone else in that conflict? What about other massacres? Why just massacres? Kids have fatal and life changing incidents -- why not fix all those incidents too? Why should parents keep kids away from the busy street if (Q-Riker) will fix any serious issue? I think the "gifts" scene was just a dumb way to show fear in the crew and their wish for the non-cocky Riker. ....The point of the episode was about AUTHORITY. Who should hold the responsibility. In my opinion (and that's all this is), that is what Riker was laughing about: a 'person' can't make those decisions. Why do you think (at this point in the series) the Q have "evolved" into the annoying & unhelpful species that they are?

[@HolyknightVader999]

If you believe in the idea that power corrupts, then you might as well get rid of the Enterprise. It's a warship with devastating firepower and replicators that can create almost anything that they think of, whether it be sex dolls, guns, or french fries. That's literally A) the power to create, and B) the power to devastate to an enormous degree. That's the kind of power that most people in human history didn't have. If the power to save lives is too much for your fragile heroes, then commanding a starship that can fart out infinite goods and lay waste to a planet ought not to be in their hands, because that's an awful lot of power to be given to people who think power corrupts. That's practically absolute power in most cases, and as Picard said, "absolute power corrupts absolutely". So they might as well go back to Earth and send the Enterprise hurling towards the sun. They're not ready for that kind of power or responsibility.

[@oakleysierney1918]

holyknight your comment made as little sense this time as the last time you repeated it

[@KneelB4Bacon]

Why? Starship captains have the power to lay waste to entire planets. If "power corrupts" then what's stopping them from doing that? How can you be FOR giving them that kind of power while at the same time being AGAINST giving Riker that kind of power?

[@Kaefer1973]

@@HolyknightVader999 Just arguing semantics here, but I like arguing semantics. It's not "the power to create", when using the phrase "power to create" we generally mean the power to make something from nothing, which is not in the power of replicators that just rearrange and reconstruct things that already exist. That would be the power of alteration.

[@Jose_Hunters_EWF_Remixes]

Thanks LR, for another fine yob. You're no. 2 on the list of people I feel are worthy enough to be granted omnipotence. I think omnipotence should be granted only to those who already display "godliness". Besides "power corrupts absolutely", I would refer to the central argument as a "slippery slope" type as well, and slippery slopes are usually considered a fallacy. Also, the answer to Picard's "what happens when you grow to like (the power) too much", is "you become a Q". Interesting that in all of Trek, there's only one person who attained omnipotence yet remained completely benign: Reginald Barkley.

[@EnvisionerWill]

And the dead girl isn't about the dead girl at all, it's about the dead girl's *parents* (or other loved ones, childhood friends, etc). If someone can just snap his fingers, or throw his arm up in a gigantic arc, and bring everyone who dies back to life, then the entire concept of grieving and learning to cope with tragedy and to move on as a person, that's just gone. Everybody gets a miracle; everybody *expects* a miracle, and if they don't get a miracle, instead of being sobered and pensive and learning how to accept the limits of life, they stamp their feet and whine and demand that their dead relative be wished back to life, or else they'll hold their breath until they turn blue and won't that make you sorry! Not to mention, if you bring back everyone who ever dies starting from today, then how is someone supposed to feel if their loved one died yesterday, or a week ago, or five years ago? How about people in the past who are already dead; they had to watch *their* relatives die, they mourned and suffered and said goodbye and then found a reason to go on living (or didn't), and eventually (or immediately) died, and now someone can travel back in time and tell them "hey, in the future, there isn't any death because we have a wishing machine; sucks to be you, not having that yet!" It's horrendously insulting to anyone who had to live in the past, to think that something could change the very meaning of life so radically, just in an instant, just on a whim, with no real reason why it happens at all, and no real reason why it happened at that time rather than any other.

[@EnvisionerWill]

I feel like the point of Riker's extreme gesture was to show that he's new at this. Let's pretend that the power of the Q is the same as the telekinesis of the "elves" in Elfen Lied, where they have a bunch of invisible telekinetic arms that can reach out from their back in a dozen directions at once, cut through everything and lift everything and crush everything, etc. etc. So we'll give the Q those arms - we'll call them "waldoes" for easy reference - and we'll say that the waldoes are a sort of hyper-technology that can reach into subspace and rearrange particles of Ultimazium, which is a substance that the entire universe is made of and it controls time and destiny and everything, so that if you can reach in and mess with those particles, you can change the universe in basically every way possible through just a single type of manipulation, controlled very precisely so that you make only the changes you're going for. So given all this, the "real" Q have been controlling the waldoes for millenia (DeLancie actually claims in another episode that the Q have existed since the beginning of time), and they have so much practice that they can make all their manipulations just by snapping their finger. Riker doesn't have that experience, so when he gets the waldoes grafted on, he thinks he has to work really hard to use them; he doesn't know how to be subtle, the same way children are always shouting because they haven't learned how to talk quietly. On the subject of "humans are special", I feel like the best way to address what makes humans special is to also acknowledge another problem that Star Trek has, and turn it into the solution here. All the other alien cultures we encounter in Star Trek are pretty boring; they don't have a lot of depth or complexity, even compared to historical Earth cultures that were confined to like a peninsula, and the idea of an entire planet of people being this uniform and this unimaginative is hard to grasp. Think of the Bajorans, for instance; we've seen a ton of them, and yet, how much diversity of culture do they have? Even knowing that they have a unifying religion whose gods are actually real and whose relics totally work, it's still hard to believe that Bajor doesn't have thousands of cultures who wear thousands of styles of clothes and listen to thousands of types of music and eat thousands of types of clothes. Compare Bajor to, say, Italy, and it looks pretty pathetic. We obviously know the real reason for this, but let's pretend that there's a perfect in-setting explanation: humans really are more special than other races, because we have more different ideas and more diversity of thought. All Bajorans tend to fall into the same patterns of thought, and they naturally take to the idea that they should all be kind of the same, because they're just not that creative and they don't tend to think in interestingly different ways. Ditto for all Vulcans, all Klingons, all Ferengi, all Talaxians, etc. It's kind of a sad and crappy outlook on the universe, but it very much fits with the Roddenberry ideal and the idea that the Q might be envious of us, and it somewhat reasonably explains why the Conservation of Detail which we pretty much have to have on a TV show, just because no team of writers is capable of inventing an entire second Earth worth of cultural diversity, might actually make sense.

[@SaveTheFuture]

Relating to the abilities of the Qs, I always found the line about humans potentially evolving or becoming something even beyond what the Qs are capable of an interesting line. It would seem from this line and the statement of Quinn in Voyager that the continuum is not really omnipotent. Perhaps saying that they are is not exactly a lie, but a partial truth. Perhaps they can do anything they want but only within a limited portion of the universe at a time (like if they were dragging along the Nexus with them, and they can manipulate a certain number of cubic light years of space in a certain time period). The fact that their civil war caused supernovas means that they're extremely powerful but their power could be quantifiable.

[@ChocolatierRob]

As some others have mentioned here the problem is not as simple as 'power corrupts'. The problem is also 'What do you want?' The Shadows in B5 are not entirely wrong in their philosophy that conflict creates growth, if Qriker can arbitrarily stop death or anything else from happening to people then what will spur people to keep growing or evolving. The Q themselves have this problem, they have completely stagnated due to their overwhelming power, everything has become boring and safe, hence their desire for 'new blood'. Now the episode does a poor job of explaining this through Picard so 'power corrupts' becomes the more obvious explanation for why Riker gaining Qness is a bad thing.

[@oakleysierney1918]

"what will spur people to keep growing or evolving. " The human spirit. Q himself said that humanity might evolve past the QContinuum exactly for this reason. Meaning he thought even after we would get their abilities we would still keep growing because of our make up. OK maybe the progress wouldn't be as fast without conflict but it wouldn't be eliminated entirely. Or perhaps without petty things to worry about we'd grow even faster.

[@mr51406]

We are crawling up (very!) slowly from the abyss that were Code and Justice. The wish scene was wayyyy to long. 🇫🇷 Napoléon might beat the Klingons. But Pétain would invite them in. 😜 🚩Over the top Q: understandable, he was desperate. This episode wasn’t a test of Picard or Riker, it was a test of Q by the Continuum. Our Q was always for reform. The seeds of Death Wish were indeed here. Q isn’t “the old” but “the new.” Riker’s refusal is Q’s defeat. But I doubt if the Continuum would really allow Riker to join. I wonder if Picard had figured all this out. ♦️The zinger: more appropriate to Red Dwarf than TNG. 🔺Power: it doesn’t have to be corrupting: see the Organians.

[@stanislavkostarnov2157]

basically, the argument is three-step 1 - it is possible power can corrupt 2 - Murphy's law 3 - the risk is too great

[@Mr1flapjack1]

Ultimate power can cause ultimate good, but risks ultimate evil. Nothing is worth the risk of ultimate evil. I do not trust anyone to wield ultimate power, because an entire universe should not be controlled by the subjective view of right and wrong held by a single person. My good could be your evil, and your evil could be my good. Neither of us is right, and neither of us should have the right to silence the other. The episode did a terrible job of discussing this, but that doesn't mean you're inherently right. A viewpoint isn't bad just because it's being communicated by a moron.

[@Kaefer1973]

I agree to this, it's only one of many reasons not to give a Human godlike powers but certainly a good one.

[@thexalon]

I like many others have to disagree with the basic premise of your rant. Here's why: All your examples of humans using power responsibly were cases where the person in question has other people around them able to influence or control that person, rather than situations where nobody can really stop someone from doing whatever the heck they want. When you look at absolute rulers, be they historical monarchs or modern dictators, things can and do get really messed up really quickly, and then the only solution is assassination and/or war to remove them from power. And that's especially true when power was handed to somebody who did nothing to get it. When you look at historical dynasties, usually the founder is an extremely capable and wise leader, their sons and brothers may have been involved in founding the dynasty and are often pretty good, but after a few generations you have guys like Caligula in charge. Or, a smaller-scale example of otherwise responsible adults seriously misusing power: Lottery winners. The "sudden wealth effect" is when a generally powerless and poor person suddenly gets a big pile of cash and the power that goes with it, and most of the time they squander it. Another good argument the episode doesn't make: Even if Q-Riker remains completely benevolent, he can also be tricked into doing not-good things by others. It's established that neither Q nor Q-Riker are omniscient. So that means whoever controls the information Q-Riker is using to decide what to do can control Q-Riker. I mean, Q-Riker would be a pretty busy guy, what with everybody in the galaxy coming to him with "resurrect my kid", "heal my untreatable disease", "whisk my loved ones out of this dangerous situation", and that means whoever's coming up with his todo list for the day has the real control.

[@Ragitsu]

Can't he just create an incorruptible assistant with an incredibly advanced analytical intellect?

[@oakleysierney1918]

That's why if I was in Riker's position I'd search out and assemble a panel of the best minds humanity has to offer. People you are confident are not only intelligent but of good character. And try really hard to only use the power as they advise and approve of. The panel could then devise a way of handling the huge masses of people that would come forward asking for things. I would think that such a group of intelligent individuals would favor great restraint in how the power gets used. Ie not fixing every stubbed toe. But there could be agreement by most reasonable people that AT LEAST in cases such as existential threats to a planet or mass atrocities it would be an appropriate use. Even if that's all it's ever used for.

[@cullysloy2705]

I don't see it as "humans are special because they are superior" I see it as humans are lucky enough not to be snuffed out before reaching Q status. Not every species lasts for a kajillion years or whatever.

[@DrRyan82994]

i think using Q powers to just eliminate all tragedy wouldn’t just be bad tv but life would be pointless without the struggle. actually in star trek, earth has a weather modification system that protects against tornados for example, but humans had to work for that and discover that technology for themselves. people need something to work towards, if we had a riker fixing everything, you wouldn’t need a federation or an enterprise. where’s the fun in that? In our own world, would there be much of a point in exploring our solar system if we didn’t have challenges or struggles? and if resurrecting a dead human requires giving up what makes us human. we might as well end ourselves

[@jerryharris876]

23:00. Starfleet is essentially the US Navy and NASA combined.

[@Ozzy_2014]

Happy new year Lore. An idea or 3 pops up. Even in doing good out of purest motives can have terrible consequences. What wrongs will you choose to right with that power? What facts might you ignore or be ignorant of that might lead to unimaginable diaster if we start using power to fix things. What if you do go down the road of ignoring good advice especially when it goes against your best judgment or deeply felt sense of right & wrong. Where is the line b/w helping somebody from circumstances beyond their control and the consequences of ignoring or violating moral agency. A person starts experimenting w drugs uses an infected needle and gets a horrible disease? If there are no consequences how do you learn? Or more broadly how about if you could fix historical injustices large and small. How screwed up does history become. Some of this is a slippery slope argument but that doesn't make it wrong. Power tends to corrupt if not the holder than those around you ? Pretty heady concept to think your advice could change the fate of worlds. What causes might you advocate? What corrections would you seek? What unforseen consequences might arise? Without the ability to see every possible consequence and computational power to judge those outcomes in favour of desirability the risk is astronomical to use such power.what if they grow up to be a monster? Or take a position of critical importance and make a mistake that had they not been there someone else would choose otherwise and save the day? Well food for thought.

[@oakleysierney1918]

A great comment except for the example of people who get "a horrible disease" from using drugs because that makes it sound like you think that the medical system we have now should just let people die if they assign blame to them that it was their fault. I hope you don't really think that.

[@MidnightSt]

Geordi is paying the price of knowing he cheated. Sorry, not even that. Not even that HE cheated, but that a cheater gave him what he wanted. For free. That's the price. Go replay Mass Effect, and the first time you get control of Sheperd, cheat yourself all the skills and weapons and abilities. Then finish the whole trilogy with the consequences of that. Oh, sorry, no. Go to someone who's playing Mass Effect for the first time ever, give him all those things with your cheats, and then observe him playing through the whole trilogy with the consequences of that.

[@DrRyan82994]

exactly. but yeah some people just don’t give a crap and cheat at everything. i don’t understand these people. humans need struggle.. we have to die too. yes even little pink girls. if they couldn’t die, you wouldn’t have any reason to protect them would you? and Lore mentions it earlier, the Q have everything they want, they also often times look completely bored with their status quo

[@EnvisionerWill]

I don't think the message of Picard expecting Riker to refuse Q powers is meant to be "Power corrupts" - after all, the Q have Q powers, if they're corrupt, then the most powerful beings in the universe are also the most evil, and that's hardly the Roddenberry ideal in action. I think the idea instead is that Q powers are for the Q, who maybe don't use them well and are kind of shitty in general, but that giving Q powers to a human is certain disaster, on the level of letting a baby play with a loaded gun. The reason that the Q are so hopelessly stagnant is presumably because they understand the consequences of their abilities. They may not entirely care, they may use their powers in petty mercurial ways, but at least they are basically competent enough that they don't usually cause Butterfly Effect repercussions that constantly shatter inhabited planets every time they play a game of hyper-dimensional hopscotch.

[@Kaefer1973]

"I think the idea instead is that Q powers are for the Q, who maybe don't use them well and are kind of shitty in general" This assumption can only really be supported by Voyager though, and I like to disregard Voyager when talking TNG. In TNG it was repeatedly stated or implied that the John de Lancie Q is a particularly annoying and misbehaving example of his species.

[@maxh_music]

The fact that Ryker didn’t res that girl is so egotistical and philosophically braindead, EVEN if he wanted to get rid of the power, he could have revived her first and drop the ability later. The power gives him a choice that’s no different than the many choices characters are given to make a difference, yet the writers throw the power is corrupt argument like a tarp over everything, making the enterprise look horrible. If you’ve seen Harry Potter, (spoiler) what Harry did with the Elder Wand is similar but on a smaller scale.

[@AnacreonSchoolbagsJr]

You're right that this episode sucks but I disagree with your "power corrupts" point. An impotent person is technically the most "pure" person because they don't face temptation to wield power in ways that would cause negative consequences. This is why monks of various religions typically practice abstention and piety, and also why Jesus is the superhero of the Bible. He had infinite power (being God) and never used it for ill, but the reason he is revered is because no mere human could live up to that standard themselves. This episode is a typical "anvilicious" facile thematic browbeating for Star Trek but the idea that power is inherently chaotic is not a slippery slope.

[@HolyknightVader999]

If you believe in the idea that power corrupts, then you might as well get rid of the Enterprise. It's a warship with devastating firepower and replicators that can create almost anything that they think of, whether it be sex dolls, guns, or french fries. That's literally A) the power to create, and B) the power to devastate to an enormous degree. That's the kind of power that most people in human history didn't have. If the power to save lives is too much for your fragile heroes, then commanding a starship that can fart out infinite goods and lay waste to a planet ought not to be in their hands, because that's an awful lot of power to be given to people who think power corrupts. That's practically absolute power in most cases, and as Picard said, "absolute power corrupts absolutely". So they might as well go back to Earth and send the Enterprise hurling towards the sun. They're not ready for that kind of power or responsibility.

[@leightoncressman6188]

Also do they think that the people aren’t with primitive muskets are not going to return fire or do they think that phasers make them bulletproof.

[@markcharron]

Did you want the moral of the episode to be "Riker is a god and can solve all problems" going forward?

[@EnvisionerWill]

I for one never noticed Tasha flirting with Picard. But it does make more sense of that scene to realize it was originally supposed to be Troi. I forget whether you've ever talked about this, @Lorerunner, but in a DVD bonus feature for Season 1 TNG, Denise Crosby and Marina Sirtis both say that they were initially hired to play each other's characters. Besides being generally a good way to blow your mind by trying to picture them as each other, this also very much explains the inconsistent characterization of Tasha, and for that matter the blandness of Troi - the writers were probably flip-flopping lines between the two of them willy-nilly throughout Tasha's entire time on the show.

[@DrownedInExile]

I hadn't considered how awful this episode was at ground-combat. So why did everyone just it around twiddling their thumbs when Worf charged the animal-soldiers? Especially Tasha Yar? I would have loved to see her unleashing her frustrations at Q controlling her, and kicking some ass! Worf should have also stolen their "muskets" and used them against the enemy. Regarding Riker, I'm surprised at your comments. To the real-world extent I agree, power doesn't change or corrupt, it *reveals* But the power of a God? That wouldn't just change Riker, it would change everyone around him. What if he asks a girl out on a date. Is she going to say no to someone who might respond to rejection by finger-snapping her out of existence? Say he brings the dead colonists back to life. What about the next disaster, or war? Will he finger-snap the Borg out of existence? Eventually the Federation might become overly dependent on his good graces. If I had the power of Q, I'd want to finger-snap a few gigatons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. That might help Earth's climate, but that would make people less inclined to go through the hard work of decarbonizing our infrastructure. Why bother when they can just come to me? I could finger-snap away all the corruption in all the governments of the world, but that would invite me to charges that I was acting like a dictator. And they wouldn't be wrong.

[@Spawnfreak]

Dammit Arch stop hating good episodes

[@EnvisionerWill]

In conclusion, while I found this episode to be very awkward and weird in a lot of places, I regard it as the second really good episode Season 1 has had so far (after "Where No One Has Gone Before"; I personally like "The Naked Now" enough to call it "good", but I won't claim that it's "really good"). Though it has a few problems, they don't feel crucial to me; they are just odd details, like the fact that giving Worf a Klingon sex partner *on the bridge* was one of the first ideas that occurred to Riker. That's not great, a lot of other things like that are not great, but they seem like little things to me. The overall message, that a human being shouldn't accept the gift of Q powers from the Q (and keep in mind, this is only a few months after the Q condemned humanity to imprisonment within their solar system; there has been no previous interaction, so everyone on the Enterprise has reason to think that the Q are pure evil, and to want nothing whatsoever to do with their way of operating), that message makes sense to me, and I don't personally see it in that really negative way that you've taken it, not at all. Several of the lines that you called out as being bad are actually favorites of mine. "As well you should" is a response to the fact that Riker's way of using Q powers has been openly idiotic (see Worf's Klingon-hooker-at-work moment, or the idea of making Wesley physically ten years older without giving him ten years of actual life experience to remember - I have to wonder if Riker's arm-swing also updated Wes's Starfleet personell records to reflect the change in his age). Why Riker made those stupid decisions is harder to explain - maybe being a Q for the first time is effectively intoxicating, and Riker is so "drunk on power" that he acts instantly on the first, stupidest thoughts to come into his head. But once he did that, Picard chiding him for such idiocy is a perfect response IMO. Likewise, Geordi saying "I don't like who I'd have to thank" obviously means DeLancie Q, not Riker Q. (If DeLancie gave Riker the Q powers, what stops DeLancie from taking them away? Even if that's somehow impossible, it would still be unquestionably true that everything Riker Q does is ultimately the result of DeLancie choosing to enable him.) On top of it all, I think Picard rightly suspects, at once, that Q has some ulterior motive in all of this, and that "playing his game" would have disastrous repercussions for the future of humanity. On this and many other points, you may perhaps think I'm "reading too much into it". But that's kind of the way I experience fiction as a whole - the works I like are the ones which instantly start my brain going in this way, making me question the decisions that seem wrong while applauding the ones which I think worked, and starting to create my own "perfected" version of the work, that pulls out all those hidden themes. There are all sorts of works that are flawed in this way, which I absolutely love - the movies "Pacific Rim" and "Sucker Punch" are two gigantic examples, both of them are generally viewed as mindless geeky action and eye candy, but to me they're loaded with subtext that just pops out at me like a Magic Eye painting. (Ironically, actual Magic Eye paintings don't work for me at all.) The episodes of Trek (or anything else) which I hate are the ones which have no such effet on me - they're boring, or they're stupid in a petty and annoying way, or they're schmaltzy and sentimental to the point where my brain just turns off, because I can't sympathize with characters who are speaking with so many violins playing behind them. Of these first eight episodes (I write this after you reviewed "Haven", which I definitely consider the worst one so far, and the actual worst episode of the season IMO is still quite a ways off), the only one I would characterize as outright bad is "Encounter at Farpoint", which gets a pass for being the pilot. About half of "Lonely Among Us" is awful, but the other half is really neat; "Justice" I love in spite of its flaws, ditto for "Naked Now", and "Code of Honor" is just okay to me. (That leaves only "The Battle" for me to mention, which I would characterize as "good but deeply flawed"; it's "objectively to me" better than this one, but I like it less personally, and so its problems bother me more and its triumphs resonate with me less.)

[@goldflyknows]

Power attracts the corruptible.

[@samirsinha1135]

I wish we had a scene with Picard explaining to the parents of that dead girl the ethics of why Riker did the right thing.

[@Kaefer1973]

Odd I always thought the opposite of the way you seem to do. In the case of the DS9 episode "in the pale moonlight" I assumed there's no way Sisko could justify betraying everything we (as the human society at that point) stand for just to save my life (or maybe that of my daughter). Personally I couldn't have found it in me to forgive him for such a "safe".

[@MidnightSt]

there's... ...in my mind, there's a cathegory of scenes which are literally unwritable. there's no way to write them ...not even "not bad", let alone well, because even in reality, there's basically no way to handle them well, but in fiction, on top of that, it's almost impossible to write them well even if you're writing "the character handled it poorly". there's just some things you can't imagine/fictionalize, even if you experienced them for real. and yes, that's a huge cop-out, but... i really believe they exist, and if you try to write them, 99% of the time (reserving 1% for the miracles) you end up with a horrible cliché which only works because it's a cliché so people are somewhat accustomed to accepting it.... or something even worse. It's the "i have absolutely no idea how i would behave in this situation, and i will never have any idea about it, unless i actually experience that situation, which will force me to have a sincere reaction"

[@Melchiorblade7]

I agree with you about power being a thing that can reveal a persons innate corruption. For example, you might not know the extent of a persons evil will until they are given power; that person was already inherently evil and wanted to do evil all along, they just never had the means to achieve it. That is an example of one type of person. Its likely there are other people who wouldn't think about taking certain evil actions unless the actions were available to them as an option. I have a friend who never thought about smoking weed until it became legal in the state he lives in (not that weed is evil). This is the idea of temptation that others in the comments talked about. The more a power is available to someone, the more they are likely to try it out. The more they try it out, the more corrupted they get. I agree with Aristotle's concept of corruptibility. That a person becomes more gradually good or bad based on continued actions they make. The more actions one can make, the stronger the temptation; the stronger the temptation, the more likely it is that the person will give in to the temptation once in a while. Gradually over time, they will have become more corrupt through the means of power, than without it. In other words, power can gradually corrupt a person the more they are tempted by the availability of it. All that being said, I agree with you that the episode didn't make the best use of the idea. Plus, you are right that it isn't just a dumb "power is evil 100% question". I think it really depends on the individual.and its dumb they didn't save the girl of course

[@Kaefer1973]

It's also that certain actions are good on a small scale but bad on a large scale. Riker would need much more wisdom than that of a human to judge his own abilities as soon as he has Q-like powers, which however is something he couldn'd achieve by himself, since he wouldn't know what exactly that greater wisdom is he'd have to gift himself with.

[@jerryharris876]

2:45. They are telling us what triage is... not their staff, but it is presented in a bad way.

[@Eszuran]

It's like we live in different realities. I love this episode, to me it's one of S1's best. It's pure joy, and if you don't find anything pleasant in such a story, I don't know why do you even watch Star Trek. It's one of these classic episodes where they explore a hardcore sci-fi idea, and the wrapping around it is just it - a wrapping. Yeah, they explain triage - it doesn't matter. It does not. Not in this episode. It's not what it's about. This is what you need to buy in Star Trek, at least TOS and early TNG: these are s-f concepts within a certain framework. You nitpicking all the details is like having issues with sound in space in Star Wars. It's not the point. It's how classic sci-fi dealt with stuff - it was about an idea, not details surrounding it. Man, you'd hate Wells's writing, or other early sci-fi masters.

[@1300l]

I kind of felt the same on the Justice episode. I like that episode (even with the flaws).

[@Eszuran]

@1300l YES! I like Justice very much, it's in the spirit of TOS - presents an idea and expects you to think about it a bit after the episode ends. It's what I love about sci-fi - the dillema it shows, not technical stuff.

[@Eszuran]

@Lady Wandered, on the contrary: focus your mind on the issue, not on the background. I don't think it's lazy storytelling - I think it's storytelling that treats the sci-fi framework as a simple tool to insert characters into an interesting situation. If you read old s-f stories, you'll see the same mindset. It was about testing human behavior, exploring our soul. Writers weren't too interested in the technology, focusing instead on what it meant and what it could result in for the human race. It's awesome, and I like it so much more than s-f that puts insane attention to technical accuracy while being founded on the simplest ideas. Also, let me say this: at this level of nitpicking, it should be a problem that the landing party always go down on strange planets without protective gear. It's silly, isn't it? But it's not what Star Trek is about. It's about dealing with other cultures, having moral dillemas etc., not about scientifically accurate space exploration.

[@oakleysierney1918]

Sci fi should not all be about technical accuracy but that the same time the writing shouldn't be so lazy that it makes mistakes that are glaring enough to detract from our enjoyment of the story. As an example, telling the Starfleet flagship medical trained staff that they should take the most critically injured patients first was so stupid it did just that. It served no purpose either. This is contrasted with the other example given of sounds in Star Wars. Having those sounds is not lazy writing it's a DELIBERATE choice to sacrifice accuracy for enjoyment because the sounds do add a lot to it. There is no comparing these two cases they are so different. This episode had a crap ton of bad writing. No excuses.

[@resurrectedstarships]

Perhaps the Q view of humanity is a little bit of both of your proposals, on one hand they see a meteoric rise of humanity and feel envy for the young, so they do not want them as a rival, but at the same time want the new perspective to inject new meaning into the continuum, but like any elder trying to hold onto purpose, in the way that 'they' think is the right way. They are something like a stagnant ascendancy if you ever play Stellaris. :D

[@jerryharris876]

51:25. It could be that he loses the extra sensory vision or that he would feel indebted to either Riker, or more importantly, Q.

[@WoWKackorot]

19:07 What about term "Stagnant Ascendancy" It is used to describe some of the Fallen Empires of the game Stellaris. Seems like it would fit.

[@jerryharris876]

58:30. Food is a necessity... the gifts aren't.

[@Threesixtyci]

The Q and the ancient assended of SG1 are kinda the same...except opposites?

[@MidnightSt]

"being a captain of a starship isn't corrupting, right?" wrong. being a captain of a starship means accepting the idea that whatever YOU PERSONALLY DECIDE as the next course of action: 1) hundreds to thousands of people (your crew) have minimal say in, and that's okay. which i would say is... a very complicated notion to have, at the very least 2) people are possibly going to die for, and that's unfortunate, but kinda okay/necessary/part of the job. and at that point, some corruption has already happened 3) you treat numerous lives and billions of tech as if it belonged to you. I'll repeat: you treat LIVES OF PEOPLE as if they belonged to you and their main purpose was to enact your will. That idea by itself is...to use your words... actually pretty horrible, when you think about it. How exactly you use it is another thing, but the fact itself that you are able to choose how to use OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES... that fact itself points to you already being corrupted, because non-corrupted being would have an issue with even the act of choosing how to use other people's lives, regardless of what the choice is. the moment you start percieving a group of people as a single organism which is the extension of your body/will, at that very moment, you have become at least somewhat corrupted, because you have lost the perception of people as individuals. you have forgotten/ignored they have lives and wills of their own. and that is a form of corruption. any time anyone is able/willing to command people to do something that will potentially kill them, that's already consequence of the corruption. I didn't say it's not natural, or even necessary, in many contexts (such as being a captain/commander of anything), but it is inherently corrupting. Any time you as a person are able to send other persons to die, even if truly necessary, you have already been corrupted. Noncorrupted person, in my opinion, doesn't have the ability to send others to die. But i think the thing is that we have a very different definition of what "being corrupted" is, at least in this context.

[@MidnightSt]

And then let's extend this to Q powers. You have the power to impose your will unto anyone and everyone, at a snap of a finger. That by itself is a pretty horrible thing, even before you use it. And by using it, you kinda admit that yes, it's okay for me to impose my will unto others and the universe, in a way they and it has literally no way to defend itself against. The "but they would want..." then kinda becomes a cop-out. You might be right the first few times. But how long until you start being wrong, without even realizing? Same as Q was? I mean, obviously, THEY WOULD WANT Q powers... ;) obviously... right?

[@MidnightSt]

also, slippery slope. "i saved the girl, why not save these thousands of people by snapping an asteroid out of existence? i saved these thousands, why not save millions by preventing a war by snapping this whole race out of existence? it's okay, they won't feel anything, nobody will feel anything it'll be as if they had never existed in the first place!"

[@MidnightSt]

oh and btw all these comments have been written by a person who had a period of about 2 or so years when he had issues talking to people because he was aware that interations with others are basically attempts at manipulating them. changing someone's mind is basically manipulating them. etc.

[@dirtywashedupsparkle]

I find Picard's reaction to Q entirely plausible - if you're visited by someone who holds all the cards, the best you can do is try to be genial and stay on their good side. Ranting is useless, though also expected at some point - Q really throws everything into chaos at the worst critical time. The scene with Yar and Picard, yes that makes sense now that it was meant to be Troi saying those lines. Until then I thought it was an awkwardly wrong scene - Yar crying like that just doesn't fit her tough character, though her fear and sense of helplessness is. For Yar a proper portrayal would be far more subtle and less open vulnerability, an attempt to remain tough but cracked. From what I remember of the Q Continuum, the first TNG episode showed us Q assuming humans to be savage but ending up surprised. This second appearance Q is hoping Riker will add new blood and change things - and, as we find out, he's doing this against the continuum's ways and gets in trouble. Q is a different Q in the context of the continuum, an unconventional upstart and the last bright ember in what is an otherwise bloated ancient civilisation that has ceased to be evolving because they are so advanced. Worf is disappointing as a warrior as portrayed in this season. Here he at least dispatches two assailants but really I wonder if they're protecting his makeup or something. Okay, letting Wesley die under analysis doesn't make the best sense but it's something fast enough not to worry bout. Humans are special - this is the usual humanistic ideal espoused by ST in general. But humans are pretty screwed up too, and as long they own up to that as well, that takes them halfway to redemption, but it doesn't change the underlying truth that we really don't know what's good for us. So if we humans have the power to change and fix all the natural disasters, we would probably try to do it. But then we would see the fallout of our decisions as they go their distance and see them lead to unintended consequences on a whole lot of things we could not have foreseen. I think that is the fundamental underlying mindset at work for the scene where Q-Riker is allowed to use his powers by Picard. We know that kind of power is corrupting absolutely - we see it in Q's reckless behaviour, we see it in Riker in his face the moment he has that power. It is actually a commendable thing to Riker that he still exercises restraint and respect to his captain even when he has that power, but he hang on that precipice. I'm sorry but I have to echo others here that I don't agree that power is not corrupting - anyone in power has to fight its influence, and as I go through life it becomes far clearer that humanity is at its heart afflicted with an inability to be good gods. That being said, I think the episode suffers from not exploring that in a way where Riker actually tries to save everyone and everything and finds out that he will fail. Riker is right not to save the child because the moment you do that you step into godhood and you take a journey where you set into motion all kinds of forces you did not anticipate, and some will cause serious consequences. Think Flashpoint making that point. Save Flash's mother. OF COURSE! If I can do that, why not!? It's RIGHT! But then it RUINS the lives of everyone else and Flash realises he should not have tried to be god, much as it pains him. He tries to reverse it all. This episode should have had Riker try in order to find out. So I understand the seemingly obvious choice to save that child - but that is the trap. Riker doesn't know whether saving that kid will cause some disaster down the track. Let me say though that I can at least sympathise with how you felt with what seems to be an obvious choice, even if I won't agree.

[@timriggins70]

I guess Lorerunner would have been too young to see CHIPS back in the day.

[@storagedisk]

I like how in the first episode you said Season 1 wasn't as bad as you remembered, but here we're 10 episodes in and you've more or less hated every single one since the first. I think in general the first season is consistently interesting in presentation and concept, but is also consistently weak in every other respect. I say "interesting in presentation" because it sometimes feels like it was made by aliens, and I can't really think of any shows like it. Even TOS is significantly different in tone and ideals. It's fascinating as a sort of archaeology dig for later TNG, seeing what ended up getting carried over in terms of setting, characters and rules, and what ended up totally forgotten. Other than that, it's very rough. For a first time viewer trying to go through it in just a few sittings, I can imagine it being a tremendous slog like no other.

[@Melchiorblade7]

I really like this episode. One reason is just how thought provoking it is. The questions it raises are not very simple and one look at the different opinions in the comments can testify to that. The penalty box scene is terrrible though

[@elenarossi8398]

so what I take from this rumination is that Q are space elves lol also I like the flavour of humans being special in combination with scifi th most if it is humans are spaceorcs/ earth is space australia

[@jamessmith1269]

an ancient. venerated, superior race, gone utterly stagnant. that would also be a perfect description of Tolkien's elves, and Doctor Who's Time Lords. both races were just better than the humans, very old, but both have already done everything and stopped caring about the universe, becoming utterly stagnant over the years.

[@ryanhau1073]

It would have been better if Trek at the time kept Continuity better, because in the arguments about not using Q Powers someone could bring up Gary Mitchell. Like if something like this situation happened a few times before and each time didn't end well would be a better reason to be wary of getting Q Powers

[@donovanbradford8231]

Dispite all the issues with the episode I enjoy it. But sadly to me I would say if it wasn't for Riker's loyalty to Capt. Picard and his friends the Riker with the power of the Q he would have become another Gary Mitchell. An all power being that abuses his power to his own ends. Also Q put Wesley in the battle because he knew Riker would use his powers until put in a situation that they couldn't win. First fight, they had weapons and they get out of the situation, second fight they have their weapons taken away, hence everyone acting like idiots.

[@stanislavkostarnov2157]

I actually do believe 100%, power corrupts... in thesame way that energy burns. you cannot not use power, for that is not to exist, but (without a regeneration of psychological, & finally a spiritual kind), using power, any kind of power, to move, to breathe air, all will in the end lead you to death. that is however life, the exertion of ones given power/energy between two emptiness's, before and after... (at least when we look at this existence)... the question, and a valid one, is how much power we are able to channel as beings, doing right or wrong, power itself has side-effects, especially power the body is not designed for (in the same way some professional athletes (especially Pre-doping-regulation) could actually break there necks stretching just with the power of there neck muscles(real story)) its also why I think Data could make a real Q, in fact, my theory is, he is the only one that Q really wanted to accept. as for your theory on Picard & why he supports Riker's inaction... if it's so, it lines up very nicely with the theme of the episode... absolute power corrupts absolutely, even if you are John Luke Picard...

[@timf7413]

You could argue that "the hard way" for many of these choices is to learn to live with the adverse outcomes. I know that's not your argument, but it is an argument.

[@tee_es_bee]

I have enjoyed your rant tremendously. You are bringing up interesting points with the "in mediation" part. I can see part of that myself although not to such an extreme. IMHO the episode should have spent much longer discussing the problem at hand, like DS9 did in the episode Jax. Also, there was not answer provided in Jax to the whole problem. Would have worked nicely here as well. Keep up the good work!

[@blinstales1554]

I would say that children is a bad analogy for humanity in early TNG as humanity at this point can survive with out the Q unlike children without parents a better analogy in my opinion would be humanity as a young adult fresh out of college entering a new world with some naivety but still able to support themselves without outside help.

[@scd147]

Beverly tried to rush Wesley off the bridge because she met Riker before and knew these gifts would suck and would come with no gift receipt. And look what happened, Wesley becomes a grown man in a big boys sweater (cause Beverly always dressed him in clothes he'll grow into), and he still has Wil Wheaton's awkward teenage voice... Good luck picking up chicks now ace. How does this end? Wesley never moves out of Beverly's quarters. Oh, she knew what she was doing and indeed was one of her wisest decisions ever made.

[@corssecurity]

They passed on a great opportunity to write him out of the series.

[@FrontFox]

Anviliciously. I've learned a new word that needs to be in my vocabulary now. :3

[@andrewledbetter4112]

This was a great episode. Couldn't disagree with you more.

[@radioflyer68911]

He may have screened Squire Of Gothos after doing Far Point.

[@WilliamGarland]

The reason, I would very likely not take these gifts myself, from omnipotence to the 'mere' cure of blindness, would that the purpose of human existence is to strive for that which we desire, most often that is 'the good' (as conceived to by Socrates), and sometimes more abstractly perfection, often without the promise of success ("we must imagine Sisyphus happy"), by our-selves and with the help of our peers. Once I had the ability to do anything and everything without effort or consequence, my existence would no longer have meaning. I have often asked this question of myself throughout my life, if I had to the option to magically wish away my mental illness, my depression, my anxiety, my physical maladies, would I do it? And I find I could not. It is one thing to overcome my illness through my own exertions and help of friends and through combined scientific ingenuity of mankind, but to for it to be wished away upon the caprice of some deity? I be no better than Job.

[@MidnightSt]

oh, your analogy in the end there... yeah, now i understand. you were in actual serious situations where you wished for that power. i was not. so you are approaching the episode from "fuck your moralizing, let's be practical" i am approaching it from "let's think about the metaphysics and philosophy of the whole thing" now i get why you're so angry and why you hate it so much. i would probably agree with you, if i could approach it from the same angle. but it's still a battle between what's right and natural, and what's the thing YOU WANT. and the point is being able to let go of what you want, in lieu of what's ...NATURAL, mainly. the "right" part is a complicated discussion. but natural. think of necromancers. They can make people be alive, but it's... not really the same. It never is, regardless of what method they use, and that's the point of the whole necromancer trope, their "giving life" being... complicated, twisted, having difficullt and often unforseen consequences. This whole episode is trying to be the same thing. And I would have to re-watch it in analysis mode to be able to tell whether it succeeds or not... But at the very least, i very much agree with the message. Don't mess with things you're not even aware of just because your will is different...

[@MidnightSt]

yes, but you, a parent... you're helping and guiding your child through the process, you're not skipping the process and you never would (hopefully) because you know the process is what gives the child the tools to then be able to handle it themselves.

[@TheRPGChick]

I apologize, but I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. It's absolutely true that they could've explained the concepts and the reasoning better as to why Riker shouldn't use/have this power. Throwing the "I can't save the little girl" scenario in was way over the top... BUT... Is anyone ready for Riker to effectively be a god? To have godlike abilities? Where anything he thinks could become a reality? Humanity (even at the Star Trek stage of human development) is not ready for that kind of power. It's not so much that it corrupts, it's the fact that we're already corrupt. Any kind of authority at this point in humanity has individuals who abuse power in some way. Politicians, law enforcement, multinational corporation CEOs... sure, not all of them abuse power, but many do, even in some small way. Down to a more personal level, I can't tell you how many times I've wished harm on someone because of some way they had wronged me. My exes would probably all be dead, haha! But I kid. Or... do I? The simple fact is that we're not ready. We can't be trusted with that kind of power. I'm not ready, you're not ready, Riker wasn't ready. The human race may achieve great things "eons from now," as they said in the episode... but we have to get there our own way. Let our humanity keep up with our abilities. I have a feeling that if Lorerunner (I almost typed Arch!) were to do a rumination on the original Dark Phoenix Saga, he would really trash that one! "Dark Phoenix Lamentation."

[@HolyknightVader999]

If you believe in the idea that power corrupts, then you might as well get rid of the Enterprise. It's a warship with devastating firepower and replicators that can create almost anything that they think of, whether it be sex dolls, guns, or french fries. That's literally A) the power to create, and B) the power to devastate to an enormous degree. That's the kind of power that most people in human history didn't have. If the power to save lives is too much for your fragile heroes, then commanding a starship that can fart out infinite goods and lay waste to a planet ought not to be in their hands, because that's an awful lot of power to be given to people who think power corrupts. That's practically absolute power in most cases, and as Picard said, "absolute power corrupts absolutely". So they might as well go back to Earth and send the Enterprise hurling towards the sun. They're not ready for that kind of power or responsibility.

[@Kaefer1973]

@@HolyknightVader999 Well somebody mass-posted a copy paste of the same comment without completely reading the statements he was answering to. Kinda tempts others to assume them wrong on principle doesn't it?

[@tiffanyshank8837]

When I called this up to listen to it on Tuesday, I realized that I'd heard this Rumination one time before. I remember enjoying your points, and I still do. This episode has always rubbed me the wrong way. Up until now, I couldn't put my finger on why. I think it's just this -- I love the character Q, but I kind of wonder if the Q shouldn't be used sparingly in the Star Trek universe because the idea of the Q ... it's one of those giant things that makes everything else seem small in comparison. Giant rescue medical mission? Suddenly insignificant because Q could just wave his hand and make it so (of course that's not how it works). I think that letting Riker both get and keep Q powers for the rest of the show would have been a bad idea from a writing perspective (I think the existence of Q powers is sometimes a bad thing for a given episode from a writing perspective). But the episode didn't just do that. It also told a "you can't keep them because that's immoral" type lesson for Riker. You make a convincing argument that's wrong and it could be moral, and that was enough to convince me. I think it would have been so easy to fix this episode just by tossing in a reason that Riker actually couldn't keep them (not "wouldn't") -- for example, considering that wishing for more wishes creates paradoxes, wouldn't a Q being able to create more Q out of mortals create paradoxes? So if Q knows that, but makes the bet with Captain Picard without revealing his hand (because why would he) and then pretends to give Riker powers while he's actually running around behind him doing the Q snap or something ... this would be a lot better episode.

[@MidnightSt]

i don't even care anymore which i've heard before and which i haven't. (unless i get the "oh yeah i remember this one" moment, but even then many times i re-listen to it again. firstly DAT VOICE! secondly, you never remember all the points anyway.

[@christykottke5772]

"In the twenty-fourth century, no one grieves. Death is accepted as a part of life." - Roddenberry I guess that includes girls wearing pink. Death is not a tragedy, it's simply a fact of life. Riker drunk on Q power forgot that enlightened view of life, but Picard managed to bring him back to not getting upset if people live or die anymore. This wasn't a prime directive issue, this was a "Roddenberry box" issue.

[@Kaefer1973]

Well nobody who seriously thinks about it (and isn't a moron) would believe that immortality would be a pleasant and good think, so we all should pretty much be able to accept death as a part of our existence, a beneficial part even. It's just that nobody likes death to come to early, death before we got a chance to live out our lives to our complete satisfaction is natural but certainly not a good thing for the individual.

[@ZemplinTemplar]

I'll say this: Not a good episode, but it sufficiently amused me. :-D Q is far better in other episodes, but he still has some killer lines in this one. Concerning the one serious element of the episode (IMHO, out of place), I don't really know how to feel about it. Too dark an element in an otherwise goofy episode.

[@Cherdir]

This episode pissed me off too when I re-watched it for pretty much the same reasons (I seriously considered skipping it when I realized which episode it was). However I have to wonder how fresh the Eugenics Wars were in the characters memory as an excuse for their behavior and flat out rejection of personal power. That said, in a world where the Roddenberry ideals rule surely the characters should have the discipline to use their power without abusing it.

[@gallendugall8913]

My understanding is that the writer's intention when writing Q, apparently they agreed on this, was that he should be a bombastic straw man argument to prop up the Federation as the good guys.

[@MidnightSt]

that's so incredibly stupid. and it's so incredibly lucky that he doesn't come across that way in the result. to me, he was always a great variation on the original Devil character - a trickster. Curious, analyzing, tempting, reckless due to not having to care about consequences, pushing others into difficult situations not actually out of malice or wanting to hurt them, but out of curiosity of what's going to happen, how will they react, combined with not percieving them as actual beings worthy of the same consideration of he himself is. Think a child playing with lego. "Oh, I can attach a dude's head here on the top of the mast of a ship? Cool, let's see what happens!" * lego dude screams in pain and horror as it's done to him, child hears nothing of it, so it just laughs and continues exploring how it looks when it attaches the head to other places *

[@terminat1]

Sounds like the slippery slope fallacy.

[@MidnightSt]

53:20 the idea that there's a difference between earning something, and having something given to you. yes. and yes, i agree that the whole script and episode was built on wanting to make this point. and yes, i agree it's not ideal to force a point into a script in this way. but i still agree with the point, and i still like the episode. see my previous comments.

[@oakleysierney1918]

It's unfortunate that you had to go so psycho about your point in the rant because I was in basic agreement with you at first. The fact that they didn't even CONSIDER if there was a way to use the Q's power to help humanity is ludicrous. Even to think that it was their, Piccard's and Riker's, prerogative to make such an important decision for the human race is crazy. But your vitriolic hatred towards any aspect of that line of thinking was way over the top. And many of your arguments against it were spurious and poorly constructed.

[@DrRyan82994]

i’m agreed. seriously i’m thinking of all the times characters in a work of fiction gain an immense power but they didn’t earn it, and i’m imaging this guy writing it like “hell yeah you take the power” like vegeta was totally right to become a majin so he could beat goku even though the whole show is about training to get stronger. i mean star trek is really about people working to make things better… if you could snap and make everything better, there’d be no value in it. yea in the immediate, suffering would end and we’d all be happy for a little while… then what?

[@joluoto]

Should probably be lamentation considering how angry you were at it.

[@MidnightSt]

Looking forward to you doing STD. A whole series of lamentations about the whole show.

[@resurrectedstarships]

Oh.K I just got to the point in the video where you rant about Riker's gifts! IDK if anyone here has been in a position where an elder or a parent offers a 'gift' when you are an adult. If you are an adult who takes pride in achieving goals on your own, you feel a little undercut when someone just 'helps you' without your asking. Its the Kreia argument in KOTR, which I think applies here.

[@resurrectedstarships]

And then I get to the point about the child....ayaya. Ok I would argue that, people who cannot accept Death will never grow up. You make a good argument for saving the child, however I am on the fence on that - I'll have to rewatch to get better context.

[@DrRyan82994]

hm maybe that’s the issue. i have known people that have no shame, they are well off but think it’s just fine to steal and accept handouts, they don’t want to work and never give back, but our society today has a way of celebrating people like that…

[@TheChatterbox1991]

o7 Reporting for Duty 2018, Captain! Also, i 'member liking this episode as well, mostly for John DeLancy so shrug.

[@1701Wren]

Regarding Data - all I'm going to say Star Trek Picard

[@secondaryadjunctofu0]

Is the name of the argument your using called Pasgals wager?

[@MidnightSt]

it's Pascal's, as far as I know. Pascal's wager. "If you believe A, and you're wrong, nothing bad happens. If you're right, good things happen. If you believe B, and you're wrong, bad things happen, if you're right, nothing happens. So it's prefferable to choose to believe A because the sum of the possible outcomes is better than if you believe B." but it's a shit argument. it basically argues for you to lie to yourself "just in case". Meaning, not only it advocates for alibism, but it also utterly misunderstands the nature and mechanism of belief, otherwise it would know you can't really choose your belief. btw: it's the same pascal who has the unit of pressure named after him.

[@Kaefer1973]

Personally I'd assume any human to mishandle great power, but I agree that power doesn't corrupt, I just think humans are stupid.

[@KneelB4Bacon]

40:10 _"If you take the mentality that power corrupts universally as a writ law well then I mean I don't even know how to begin just dissecting that, because that's such a stupid argument anybody saying that doesn't know what power IS. Anybody saying that don't know doesn't know how people work. Being a captain of a starship isn't corrupting right?"_ Totally agree. If folks here are going to argue that "power corrupts always, always, always" then they HAVE to argue against the very IDEA of StarFleet. A starship captain has IMMENSE (one might even say "absolute") power at his command, namely a ship with the power to destroy entire planets. There is no question about that. So what's stopping a Starship captain from laying waste to the entire Alpha Quadrant? I'll tell you why. It's because starship captains are given years of training and are selected for their emotional and intellectual maturity. (Although you'd never assume that from watching any of the JJ-Trek or STD episodes). Are you also be against the idea of government, modern medicine and knowledge? Because those things give other people the power of life and death over you. You shouldn't be OK with that if you truly believe that "power corrupts" right? This is a simplistic and cynical attitude about human beings that proves Q's point: that humans are innately savage and destructive under all circumstances. You are infantilizing the human race by doing this.

[@Kaefer1973]

"infantilizing" is an interesting word though. I don't think that power corrupts, but I do think you need a certain amount of knowledge, wisdom and intelligence to handle power appropriately. You seem to agree since you seem to be in favour that "starship captains are given years of training" and are being "selected for their emotional and intellectual maturity" For that reason I'm against Riker having Q-like powers. He may have the wisdom, intellect and experience to be the second ranking officer of a single space ship, but I doubt that qualification to be enough to handle the amount of power Q have. To get back to the word "infantilizing", making Riker a being with the power of a Q it's quite close making an infant absolute monarch of not just a country or the planet but most of the universe. It's not so much infantilizing humanity to doubt any of us evolved (mature) enough to handle such power as it is arrogance to assume the opposite. As far as I'm concerned to handle superhuman powers he'd also need superhuman intelligence, wisdom and knowledge of the workings of the universe, which would mean to not just give him power but uplift (evolve) him as a being altogether.

[@ieatvirgins]

Picard was right. Of all the episodes to get mad at, this is the one?

[@starwars90001]

Sorry lore but giving someone the ability to do whatever dangerous, in real life people have power but they also have checks and balances, A general for example can't just order the death of one of his soldiers unless for good reason, a president can't just order his country to be at war without congress approval. In other words checks and balances, but if someone has absolute power who do they answer to, who says what their doing is wrong, what are they not allow to do. Let's say that someone has godlike power, what's to stop from killing or forcefully changing people they don't like. Like I don't like Fanboys or hateboys of an kind, what stops me from forcefully changing those people to what I want them to me?

[@DarianHarder]

Can we just admit that this series didn’t start getting good until season 3?

[@cjc363636]

This was never one of my favorite TNG S1 episodes. Strangely acted and back when the Prime Directive (and similar philosophies) were bashed over our heads a bit. This really isn't the same show that would have Picard facing questioning on his PD violations in The Drumhead. Anyway, while not angry about this ep, I enjoyed your take on its problems.

[@nemesis9022]

New favorite lol