Star Trek The Next Generation Ruminations S6E26: Descent

[@bbbbKeJodddd]

Now I want a series of seltzer water reviews called "Carbonations".

[@EnvisionerWill]

I'm more interested in watching that than I am in his cooking show....

[@Jose_Hunters_EWF_Remixes]

When he mentioned _The Color Purple,_ did he mean the wavelengths of light between 380 and 450 nanometers, or did he mean the movie with Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey?

[@beyondlimitationsvideo]

Hey! You might be interested in our new project featuring Robert Picardo (Star Trek: Voyager). kzbin.info/www/bejne/jKKsY6WjZrqjg7s

[@corssecurity]

Amazing how the probes can deal with scanning black holes, supernova, wormhole, ion storms but no one ever thought to stick a camera on one

[@lucasvincent2875]

I never considered that Borg only reproduce by assimilation. There was a baby in the QWho cube. So Crosis could have no pre-Borg memory

[@lancebaylis3169]

My 20 cents: 1) Retrospectively, "Descent" Parts 1 & 2 not only foreshadows the unfortunate running on the spot that *TNG* does in Season 7, but also in many ways is the progenitor of the way the *TNG* movies settled into a format: a myopic focus on Brent Spiner to the exclusion of other characters, dumb plot contrivences that come out of nowhere for no reason but to be convenient to the plot, a 'darker tone' with characters acting out of character/violent/murdering people/etc, a kind of negative continuity in terms of lining up with past and future events... in fact, it shares many of these things in common with *Star Trek: Picard* as well. None of these are good things. I realized this whena few years ago I saw a movie-length edit of both episodes together and I was like, "Huh, that's weird, this feels exactly like one of the later *TNG* movies". 2) Interesting observation about the use of the holodeck as a means to chill with or spitball ideas off of historical figures (I guess "Booby Trap" from Season 3 is another example). As "Descent" was being written of course so was the scripts for the eventual first *TNG* feature film... and at the time, there were two script treatments being considered. One was by Ronald Moore and Brannon Braga, and it was this one that Rick Berman eventually chose to be put into production, but the alternative un-used story pitch was by Season 2 head writer Maurice Hurley, and this featured Picard using the holodeck to interact with James T. Kirk... or a holodeck version of Kirk... in order to find answers to a 24th century era problem the Enterprise finds itself in.

[@Ash_Rein]

You described the structure of emotion pretty well

[@athrunzala6919]

And I think that's what Troi meant, she just didn't go on to articulate it like that was the failing.

[@philipmorgenthaler8714]

Oooooooooo..... I never considered the admiral to be in with section 31. Good call

[@efulmer8675]

25:00 ...A Lore-on? I will see myself out with great apology.

[@paulscott2037]

Honestly I have never hot the sense that Nacheyev is a bureaucrat. She actually seems to me to be someone who has a huge amount of competency and experience behind her. It's just that her background is in security and tactical rather than anything else. Oh she sold her soul a long time ago which likely will do more harm than good. I wouldn't be surprised if she is definitely working with Section 31 far more closely than most. But ultimately what she does has experience backing it up.

[@ThePoshboy1]

I wouldn't be surprised if a few admirals have been contacted by section 31, they seem to have contact with Ross as well.

[@paulscott2037]

@@ThePoshboy1 I think anyone ranked above Captain probably are aware of them. For the same reason that only captains and above are briefed on Omega. The depth of what they know is probably left to 31 to decide though. The ones they know they can trust are brought into the fold. Idealists like say Picard or even Kirk are told they're a black ops unit and maybe how to contact them but little else. And then the Admirals who are somewhere inbetween like Ross are kinda brought in when a specific situation arises if they're recognised to be pragmatic enough.

[@jeffreymaxson6216]

I can't wait for your Season 7 reviews. It's my favorite season of TNG for how wacky and weird it is.

[@mr51406]

Strip Fizzbin, that’s my game! Physicists are definitely not boring! Hawking, Kip Thorne, Sean Carroll, Don Lincoln (Fermilab channel), the profs at the University of Nottingham (Sixty Symbols channel), and Becky Smethurst! Btw, Lore, I just finished all your Voyager ruminations. Amazing analysis, eloquent critique, wonderful memories. ⭐️

[@mr51406]

14:02 Emotion: Graham Greene said something similar in “The Comedians”: “Violence can be the expression of love, indifference never. One if the imperfection of charity, the other the perfection of egoism.” 🚩Nechayev: notice she strikes the same 3/4 fashion pose (not face on) when she talks to Picard as when she talks to Sisko when she provokes in him the awesome “paradise Earth” speech. She must’ve done modeling before she joined Starfleet. 😜 As with many inept leaders, she thinks she is hard when she’s just abrasive.

[@thexalon]

A key thing which raised an eyebrow on this was when the Borg were noticeably failing to adapt to Federation phasor fire. Also, how often in this sort of combat are you likely to find yourself in hand-to-hand? Like, if I see a Borg 3 feet from me, and I'm Data with Data reflexes, and have a phasor, which works for some reason, I'm going to just shoot him rather than try to wrestle with him. As for security personnel, I just think back to Family Guy's bit where a landing party consisted of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Ensign Ricky, and Ricky knows exactly what's coming. The same thing with Picard, Troi, LaForge, and Ensign Nobody from security: You know Ensign Nobody is dead already.

[@athrunzala6919]

I remember hearing that the original script was for the saucer section to crash land on the surface, but they decided to save it for the movie, but they kept the episode name 'Descent' anyways

[@starwolf99]

The high alert of Starfleet reminds me of the Doctor Who short Last Day in which just ONE Dalek is enough to cause havoc in the sky trenches of Arcadia.

[@nickokona6849]

I actually put Jellico and Nachayev in a similar place. Both strong, uncompromising people. They are both presented as an obstacle, or the problem. Both designed to contrast the likable main cast. I always thought Nachayev was in the uncomfortable position of answering to the Federation council, but lacking the necessary resources to do things. She’s not the CnC, so I can’t put that at her feet.

[@Thathumanoverthere1701]

I love it when we get episodes that have you chatting. I want to give a counter to a point that you mentioned concerning Nechayev. I don't think she handled it in a way that you feel she did. From my 8 years in the Air Force, she really feels like the generals I have met (which is a lot due to the profession I had in the military). Additionally, I feel you have missed what Picard is in reference to the Borg. Like Sisko feels, he's The Guy that facilitated the massive destruction at Wolf 359. While it is acknowledged that he had no choice, and therefore maintained his command, the emotions attached to him may be far from the awareness of the facts. And like you mentioned concerning the panic of the people sending false distress, the Borg utterly decimated the UFPs sense of security. Then, Picard nursed Hugh to health and sent him home. He put a report on his moral arguments. They have been digested Thoroughly by Federation command. Nechayez and command have already decided. Now Nechayev is the fleet commander of this operation. She's not herself coming at Picard with her personal orders. For the scene, as far as a captain is concerned, it is simple. Picard is not invited to join the argument or debate. His option to counter this is to resign to captain the Enterprise, but he's definitely not going to at this point. With Data being who he is, it fair to say they worry the Borg may use Data to an even more devastating end. Picard has more to lose here than morals. And now, another major Borg event has caused loss of life. Wolf 359, Hugh, and now this, has all eyes on Picard...No One is listening to Picard. (This is his Shut up, Wesley, moment) Again. The reason Picard says 'Yes, Sir.' is definitely how that would have gone down. Genocide is the Federation's go to when they meet a race that is violent and unreasonable (Devidians, for example, and they literately needed to eat human energy to live. But Picard didn't hesitate there). Picard has no argument to offer that matters or will be heard. When it comes to rank and command, Nechayev and the others are mommy and daddy, Picard is among the children. Get in the car; this family trip is happening. Nechayev is 100% in bed with Section 31. Also, the Borg with no memories could very easily be drones made from the babies from maturation chambers. All Borg didn't have a life before assimilation. For them, they have the ethnicity and nationality of Borg from infancy.

[@videogenics86]

Ok, so THIS episode. First and I don't know if I've ever mentioned this but I always thought that Necheyve was played by Sandy Duncan until recently, weird how the two actresses look so much alike. Anyway, this whole concept I think works better as a season long arc. Of course doing so would have to involve DS9 to an extent. Like this episode introduces the mystery of destroyed colonies. Call back to the Neutral Zone and how there are similarities to the early Borg attacks, but there are enough differences that it calls into question. One of the differences would be survivors, which weren't part of the earlier attacks because presumably any survivors of Borg attacks got assimilated, but here there are because they just destroyed, however all the sensor records are destroyed so all they have are ground level observations of the attack which tells them very little. I'd have to put thought and actual effort into coming up with the rest, but it would have been an interesting way to send off TNG with a bang...instead of the whimpering puppy that season 7 is by memory.

[@EnvisionerWill]

Remember that in late season 1 and early season 2, when the borg were still half-conceptualized, assimilation wasn't a thing yet. As originally conceived, the Borg simply stole technology and cared nothing whatsoever for the living. Frankly it might have been better if they'd stayed that way; they would have worked somewhat better as villains, and not been this absurd unstoppable juggernaut which the writers keep having to make up a technobabble weakness for, so they end up Worf Effected into oblivion despite being theoretically invincible.

[@AlucardNoir]

The best season of Star Trek: Voyager is season zero, the one where Voyager wasn't even an idea in anybodies mind. Great times, great episodes. Probably the best episodes ever not filmed. If only it could have ended before it got picked up. But hey, at least it isn't Kurtzman nutrek.

[@1300l]

I agree, ppl give Kurtzman "trek" flak (and rightly so) but DS9 and VOY kind of open the doors for this kind of "trek". ENT actually not since at least it's the prequel of the Federation, not the "prequel of Kirk".

[@rafetizer]

*Picard throwing and stomping on racist Romulan sign*

[@rafetizer]

My assessment of this episode is that the first ten minutes or so are pretty good, and the rest is a runaway toboggan on a tree-filled slope. The poker game is by far the best part, followed by the firefight with the rogue borg at the installation. It was cool seeing the borg fight sensibly, and Data getting "pissed". (although yes, the whole "stop it" routine was laughably bad. I guess we'll chalk it up to Data's inexperience with being pissed.) I noticed that they don't seem to give a crap about anyone who gets killed here, because at the end of the first fight, Riker and Worf completely ignore the other security officer who got shot to ask Data if he's alright. (even though it's not very apparent that anything was even amiss with him) Okay, hey, maybe check out the person who got shot to see if she's in need of medical attention. We see this again when they realize that Data and the captured borg have stolen a shuttlecraft. Nobody bothers to check on the security guard that was in the brig with them, even though he's likely out of commission or worse. When the borg on the planet surround Picard's away team, I shouted, "Quick! Shoot the nameless guy!" and was immediately rewarded with them shooting him for no good reason. I laughed out loud. (I've seen this episode a few times before, but I didn't remember if he died or not, so it was a good surprise) Regarding the stupid occurrences in the episode; I noticed the same thing with the security guy in the brig. Was he blasting some dubstep in his Raycons or something? Because the borg and Data weren't exactly whispering. Hell, Data's basically looking right at him when he admits he would kill Geordi to feel emotions again. Hello! Earth to no-name! Perk up your ears, bucko! The next dumb thing is when the Enterprise arrives on the other end of the conduit following the shuttle. They were like, a minute or two behind the shuttle, tops. Now the shuttle doesn't appear on their scans? Okay, I guess it was close enough to the planet with the interference that it was able to duck into it before the Enterprise arrived, a few minutes later. Now, why do they say Data has a three hour head-start on them?? What?? You were _right freakin' behind him!_ Of course, the skeleton crew/ gigantic search party is stupid for the reasons Lore mentions here, but another reason is that the big borg ship could return at any moment. Is a skeleton crew going to have much of a chance at stopping a boarding party that can transport through their shields? Granted, their phasers seem to do a pretty good job of killing the borg, but the borg are a lot more tactically savvy here, what with their preference for surprise and use of cover. Okay Picard, leave your awesome flagship basically unguarded. Even if Beverly managed to run away before being boarded, they could easily follow the Enterprise and strike on the exit end of the conduit, when the ship's shield's are at like, 16% and there's like four guys on board. Afterthought here; when Geordi is trying to explain the feeling of anger to Data, I'm surprised he didn't describe it better. I would have said something like, "Anger is when you feel compelled to lash out at someone or something, regardless of whether or not it would be the logical course of action - perhaps _especially_ when it is not the logical course of action."

[@ChocolatierRob]

Huh, rewatched your MGS1 rumination recently and your description here of the one ship trans-warping in and destroying a colony to trans-warp out again to strike literally anywhere else sounds a lot like the Metal Gear Rex scenario. Clearly the solution is Solid Snake, who I guess is Data. He even has to face off against his evil twin who just won't stay dead.

[@rafetizer]

On the other hand, unless Lore and the borg procure more ships, they're pretty much throwing all of their eggs into one basket.

[@andrewlindsay7930]

Jeez I remember the CCG from the early-mid 90s - it felt like it nailed the license with the gameplay - at least playing as the federation and maybe sort of the Romulans. But the federation characters were way OP for the expansions I played with ( premiere, alternate universe and q continuum).

[@hughsmith7504]

Funny enough some Novel writers also thought the admiral was part of section 31. As for the shuttle not being damaged in the conduit? I just chalked that up to the borg adjusting the shields for a smoother ride or something.

[@user-yv4mm6bx3c]

The searching for Data bit did always bother me. The Enterprise has a small fleet of shuttles. Nearly everyone is Starfleet has basic piloting skills. Small crews of all the shuttles can do search patterns, a few people in each shuttle puts more eye on the coverage area. Not only that the Saucer can separate to also cover more area.

[@wangbot47]

At least she never told Picard to "shut the f*** up"

[@ThePoshboy1]

Nachayev held some form of professionalism, unlike Admiral Potty-mouth

[@rafetizer]

All I've learned about Picard leads me to believe he's got some fucking hubris!

[@ThePoshboy1]

24:58 The things you say about Mr Reloaded.

[@AlcomIsst]

_He's Lore, he's Lore, you're Lore, I'm Lore! Are there any other Lores I should know about‽_

[@starwolf99]

I like Descent Part 1 for the intro with Stephen Hawking. To this day, he's the only one to guest star in Star Trek as himself.

[@EnvisionerWill]

For me Voyager peaks in season 4, but I could also see an argument for 5. We're comparing "Night", "Extreme Risk", "Infinite Regress", "Nothing Human", "Latent Image", "Bliss", "Course Oblivion", "Relativity", and "Equinox pt. 1" (these are the episodes I would give 9/10 stars or better), against "Scorpion pt. 2", "Revulsion", both halves of "The Year in Hell", "Waking Moments", "Retrospect", both halves of "The Killing Game", "One", and "Hope and Fear"; that's nine episode-stories versus ten episodes containing eight stories, so that's pretty much a wash. But we're also comparing "In the Flesh", "The Fight", and "Once Upon A Time" against NOTHING, because Season 4 didn't have ANY horribly bad episodes; "Vis a Vis" was the worst one for me, but even that was not too awful, certainly not comparable to "Threshold" and "Sacred Ground". But S5 also has "11:59" and "Someone to Watch Over Me", which are respectively an episode that bores me to tears and one that I almost can't stand to sit through. So ultimately S4 wins; there are only three or so episodes in 4 that are generally on my skip list, and none that I wouldn't consider at least acceptable popcorn fare. That's pretty firmly as good as it gets where Voyager is concerned.

[@ramble_0]

Nice one Lore, I cracked up at the 404 joke.

[@EnvisionerWill]

Kinda makes me wonder if Nechayev is a Cardassian plant. She really wants to see Starfleet giving the Union whatever they want, regardless of the cost to Federation citizens who don't toe the line.

[@mb2000]

On the nameless security guard who gets killed and who cares, he was the only one of the three guards that died this episode who wasn’t named! Corelki, the female on the first planet and Franklin, the man on the bridge.

[@wangbot47]

Ah yes, the Q episode where Q is turned human. Pretty sure that's Deja Q

[@rafetizer]

Such a good episode.

[@EnvisionerWill]

For the record I don't interpret the ending of Deja Q as Data experiencing the emotion of humor, so much as the physical sensation of laughter. IIRC he says nothing to definitively establish which one it was, but the fact that he immediately goes back to acting like normal Data really makes me think he didn't actually FEEL anything, he simply got the mechanical action of a titanic belly-laugh, and was like "hm, okay, I see why they appreciate that", whereas I feel like the real emotion would have been more transformative for him.

[@SchneeflockeMonsoon]

Ah, Decent… Yeah, there’s not much there to really do with. I do have a bit of a headcanon though. I like the idea that this was right after the Borg assimilated the floating head aliens from Nth Degree, and barely acquired transwarp technology. So they can make these punctures of point-to-point rifts, but they’re not stable and they are really limited in lots of ways. Notice they have one to the middle of nowhere, and then another one to where they actually want to go. If they were tactical I would praise this as a method of preventing pursuit, but these guys are run by Lore (4).

[@jimschuler8830]

When you are up against a species/entity that relentlessly and without exception exterminates all before it, genocide is a virtue, not a sin. Now, you can argue that Hugh means the Borg do have exceptions, and there is plenty of time to debate that point after we press the button that annihilates all Borg. But this hand-wringing becomes tiresome with things like the Daleks.

[@ABC-oz5zy]

In a military organisation, the superior officer can most assuredly order the troops to fight and destroy/kill the enemy combatants - such as the borg. Merely labeling this order as 'genocide' changes nothing to the above.

[@ThePoshboy1]

The point is that we don't know if every member of the borg is a "combatant", while I'm sure if the current governments of the world would allow the destruction of the borg it would still mean the deaths of trillions.

[@ABC-oz5zy]

We most definitely know every borg drone is an enemy combatant. Have you even watched star trek? And the destruction of the borg would mean the destruction of a collective being - composed of trillions of drones - whose primary activity is genociding species. Which it has done at least thousands of times - humanity being next.

[@ToddCarpenterToddPCWV]

One of my favorite tropes in Star Trek is the arrogant, immoral Star Fleet Admirals. One of my favorite validations of this was Admiral Janeway.

[@dirtywashedupsparkle]

And that's why it's called descent? I think it's a problem when there's a checklist of things that need to happen and not much thought into what logically led up to it.

[@tbk2010]

6:52 Yes... Yes. Yes! Yes. Yes... Ye- Wait WHAT?? NO! Get her out my hypthetical holodeck!

[@steakman1989]

They made the Borg ship by going to Space Walmart and buying a bunch of toy kits and bashing themtogether.

[@TheKetsumei]

Old ST: CCG player here. I do remember!

[@Jokie155]

You forgot Pike in 'Poker with the Captains'. How could you?

[@ThePoshboy1]

Ah this episode, the one that shouldn't have been the season finale. It was fun watching Steven Hawking in this episode though.

[@wcoleman99]

Crosis was probably the baby from Q who. Given that 7 was put in a maturation chamber same could apply to him. I hated the transwarp thing especially given the series finale for Voyager. Like hey we want to take over the Earth and we can literally be at their front door with a shortcut and win. Should we do it? No let's do the terminator rules and send one ship at a time for the takeover while traveling at warp speed from the delta to the alpha quadrant.

[@ohgoditshimrun1346]

Two things that I feel a need to address, sir. First, the less complex. I am rather amazed that your discussion of the tactical applications of transwarp conduit deployment did not draw any parallels to STO's Iconian War arc, since the exact same issues were discussed almost in exactly the same way therein. And second, you are wrong about the emotion chip. Watch "Data's Day" again. Watch him nervously tapping his fingers on the console while narrating about how fortunate it is that he can not suffer from nervousness. And remember Lal. He incorporated her neural pathways into his own positronic brain. Including her pathways which had exceeded his own capabilities. Dumbo's feather indeed.

[@DanielleWhite]

They could also have used probes as part of the visual scan of the surface. Over the years I've watched this episode at least 3 times, and probably more, but it ends up rapidly going into a mental memory hole; while the premise is interesting I find the execution lacking. The only things I remember from the story long-term are in part 2. I can't help feeling like this would have benefited from a B plot to create the skeleton crew still aboard situation, but it would be hard to create one that didn't include any of the main characters necessary to this story. I can stomach the "Data's first emotion" thing since the laughter one was caused by Q, so this was "Data's first emotion for reasons not yet known" but that's rather a mouthful.

[@EnvisionerWill]

@Lorerunner: You had a CCG? How am I only learning this now?

[@clearmountain28]

You need to create a country called Rumi in one of your stories. That way we can say you created the Rumi nation....... 🙂

[@1300l]

In my opinion, this episode is flat out a lamentation.

[@malvane8061]

Is this core emotion, by chance, sweet emotion?

[@rafetizer]

You caused that song to instantly begin playing in my head.

[@harpercole5321]

Would've been awkward if Geordi had walked in on Data in the middle of his porn-watching... The seduction to the dark side scene was good (if we ignore the screwup with the security guard). Not much else to excite. The first weak Borg episode in Star Trek (but not the last). I wonder whether Picard intended to obey Nacheyev's genocide order, or whether he was just saying that so she'd get off his case?

[@Cobheran]

Stop....stop...stop it...stop. I remember really liking this episode when it came out. As a kid it was the first HARD continuity I'd noticed and thought it was amazing. As an adult I cant stand it and usually skip it. As for the shuttle, I assumed Crosis told Data how to, or did himself, reconfigure the shuttle to be able to properly navigate the conduit. As for eyes, nobody has eyes in Star Trek, if sensors can't see it it doesn't exist!

[@RA-VEN8]

🖖

[@maisiesummers42]

Descent is... my least favourite two-parter. I was never that enamoured of Lore to begin with, and this episode just didn't work for me. It's also where the Borg start to go wrong. Yes, it brought back Hugh, which was nice, but their takeover by Lore was awful.

[@athrunzala6919]

Second worse, Times Arrow and Gambit and Birthright also suck. In that order ha ha;)

[@Eelco_de_Boer]

Summary: The Borg begin a new offensive against the Federation, but this time they're acting as individuals. May this have something to do with Hugh? Data experiences his first emotions while fighting them. (Spectacular episode, horrible story)

[@EnvisionerWill]

That last four-word summary really makes me want to hear more.