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Paul Giamatti Boards ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’
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this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
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I think the cause of the Burn is a nearly-perfect example of Star Trek's humanist values, and find it interesting when people feel the need to go out of their way to misrepresent it with words like "magic" in an effort to justify their dislike of it.
We can replace the words "magic" with "strongly telepathic" and it's basically the same problem.
It's a great idea to fuck warp travel right on its head as a concept, but the execution was majorly lacking for me. I would have much rather had a continuation of the plot from Force of Nature where warp had significantly damaged subspace gradually (like a climate change allegory), rather than a universe-wide explosion that happened all at once in a flash.
I don't know that I agree that "telepathic" is quite the right word - Su'Kal was a polyploidal mutant whose genes were affected by the dilithium in the environment - a sci-fi extension of a real genetic phenomenon that can occur when extreme environmental stresses are present. The explanation they gave was more scientific that many of those that we've had across the history of the franchise.
At the end of the day, if it doesn't work for everyone, that's fine - I personally think it's a very TOS/TNG idea, sort of a "Charlie X" by way of "The Survivors", and I think it's pretty obvious that the producers wanted the source to have a "human face" if you'll forgive the expression.
I think putting the face onto the source is what made it lose the value, unfortunately.
My comparison is what they did with the Borg and the Queen. Wolf 359 is a terrifying, tragic ordeal, made all the more serious by the fact that it was done by one cube that could not be negotiated or reasoned with. As soon as the Borg had a way to negotiate and reason, they became less scary because they had understandable motives and goals that could be bargained with, as excellently demonstrated by Janeway.
Ultimately, I agree with you that it's kind of more of a TOS-y sort of plot device. I do feel like back then they really followed the science being indistinguishable from magic logic, and we've progressed over time to wanting more hard and serious technobabble. I think that's kind of a disconnect for me, personally, is that they had to dip into a serious explanation for something that effectively functions like magic.
Oh boy, one day we should probably have the Great Borg Queen Debate - it would be a thread for the ages...
That's the thing, I think the technobabble surrounding Su'Kal is actually pretty good. I will grant that the episode has a lot going on, and it's easy to miss, but it's solid enough that it's had me doing some light genetics research on more than one occasion.
I'm rewatching season 3 now, and the themes of trauma and mental health are so pervasive that I think it was really appropriate that the burn would be the result of a mental health crisis in one way or another. In that context, I think putting a face to it works. The "Force of Nature" or old-school Borg route could work great, but for a different show/season.
I find it interesting when people who are confronted with disagreement about a plot point they like resort to making implications about the other person's character instead of discussing anything in the post they're responding to.
I believe I did responf directly to your misrepresentation of the facts, but do go on.
(please don't go on)
I gave my opinion on a key plot point, which you took so much offense to, you ignored everything else in the post. Please, keep living up to your username as you find a place on my block list.
If you have to make things up that weren't in the episode, I'm going to respectfully suggest that your point is pretty bad.
I'm also going to suggest that you know that it's pretty bad, which is why you chose to employ such a weak rhetorical device to begin with.
But sure, I'm the one that's offended!