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Dabo Queen

Man Of The People...WTF?

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Okay so SEB and I were just watching this epi the other day, and she made an excellent point.

 

When Alkar tells Picard that he has been guaranteed safe passage by the Federation and he expects Picard to honor it, why doesn't Picard tell him to go screw himself?

 

Alkar, at this point, is in the process of KILLING a Star Fleet officer (and not just killing her; he's essentially slowly emotionally poisoning her). He's done this to at least one other woman who was a passenger on the Enterprise when she died.

 

Why in the world would the Federation continue to offer safe passage to someone who knowingly and brutally murdered a Star Fleet officer, among other people? Doesn't Star Fleet have regulations against aiding and abetting killers?

Edited by Dabo Queen

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My advice is to ignore the episode entirely because it's one of TNG's worst.

 

I'm surprised Deanna Troi survived as a character for seven seasons.

 

LOL - Whattaya mean by that?

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Why in the world would the Federation continue to offer safe passage to someone who knowingly and brutally murdered a Star Fleet officer, among other people? Doesn't Star Fleet have regulations against aiding and abetting killers?

Politics and chain of command.

 

The Federation made promises to Alkar's government - the type of promises that a starship captain wouldn't have the authority to override. It's like diplomatic immunity - sometimes it's a great thing and sometimes it sucks.

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Why in the world would the Federation continue to offer safe passage to someone who knowingly and brutally murdered a Star Fleet officer, among other people? Doesn't Star Fleet have regulations against aiding and abetting killers?

Politics and chain of command.

 

The Federation made promises to Alkar's government - the type of promises that a starship captain wouldn't have the authority to override. It's like diplomatic immunity - sometimes it's a great thing and sometimes it sucks.

 

Dear God...I hadn't thought of that. So you think that if things had gone according to Alkar's plan, then once he was delivered to his planet, Federation cops would've shown up and reclaimed him?

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Why in the world would the Federation continue to offer safe passage to someone who knowingly and brutally murdered a Star Fleet officer, among other people? Doesn't Star Fleet have regulations against aiding and abetting killers?

Politics and chain of command.

 

The Federation made promises to Alkar's government - the type of promises that a starship captain wouldn't have the authority to override. It's like diplomatic immunity - sometimes it's a great thing and sometimes it sucks.

 

Dear God...I hadn't thought of that. So you think that if things had gone according to Alkar's plan, then once he was delivered to his planet, Federation cops would've shown up and reclaimed him?

I doubt the Federation would have done anything however I would assume that Picard would have made things known to the planet's authorities and since, other than Deanna, he had been doing it to citizens of his home planet that they might have taken action against him.

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What?!?!? So some hot-shot sadist diplomat kills a Federation citizen and they don't do jack? How would they explain that one to Lwaxana? And if that's the case, why on earth would anyone want to work in Starfleet?

 

*Sniff* Just seems so unfair. :blink:

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What?!?!? So some hot-shot sadist diplomat kills a Federation citizen and they don't do jack? How would they explain that one to Lwaxana? And if that's the case, why on earth would anyone want to work in Starfleet?

 

*Sniff* Just seems so unfair. :blink:

Just because the Federation couldn't send him to a rehabilitation colony doesn't mean that he would have been given a slap on the wrist by the justice system of the planet he was from. From what I recall what he was doing probably wouldn't have been condoned.

 

And since when is life fair?

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My advice is to ignore the episode entirely because it's one of TNG's worst.

 

I'm surprised Deanna Troi survived as a character for seven seasons.

 

LOL - Whattaya mean by that?

 

I meant that 1- the episode is poor and 2- Deanna Troi is one of the worst Star Trek characters in the history of the franchise and should have been cut at the same time the equally rubbish Tasha Yar departed.

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While I liked Deanna, I will have to agree with LB about the utter uselessness of her character.

 

She had three purposes:

 

- Getting angry with her mother when she showed up

 

- Being in love with Riker

 

- Saying "It's hard to tell." or "He's definitely holding something back." anytime anyone asked her about the true intentions of said aliens. (Hence why I started calling her Deanna "It's hard to tell" Troi).

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In the TNG character guide, Deanna is described as "ethereal"

 

In the VOY character guide, Kes is described as "ethereal"

 

 

The lesson is if a character is described as "ethereal" it means 1) they are pretty 2) they are often filmed with soft focus lenses 3) they are crap characters.

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Yeah, Alkar probably wasn't under the Federation's jurisdiction (i.e. not a citizen of the Federation) and may have even had diplomatic immunity. If he's a Federation citizen, they could probably arrest him, no problem.

 

I'm sure once factors had been worked around, he would have been prosecuted on his homeworld especially since I doubt Maylor was the first of his "receptacles". However, it never got that far.

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While I liked Deanna, I will have to agree with LB about the utter uselessness of her character.

 

She had three purposes:

 

- Getting angry with her mother when she showed up

 

- Being in love with Riker

 

- Saying "It's hard to tell." or "He's definitely holding something back." anytime anyone asked her about the true intentions of said aliens. (Hence why I started calling her Deanna "It's hard to tell" Troi).

 

:biggrin: My sister and I were watching an early ep with Romulans and when Picard asked Troi about her opinion on one she said, "He's hiding behind a mask of false cheer" or something to that effect. My sister snickered and said, "I could've told you that. You don't need to be empathic to tell when a Romulan is lying."

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