Lower Decks season 5

[hammerofglass]

There are so many plot snarls and thematic muddling in Insurrection that come specifically from the Ba'ku and Son'a being different factions of one village. They not only both have the exact same claim to the world, but it's clearly a purely internal matter which the Federation should immediately have picked up on when they first scanned the planet and washed their hands of. Plus the whole "we love conquering people in spaceships but somehow the pacifist luddites in our village drove us not only from the community but entirely off the planet and kept us off" silliness.

They should have just stuck to their guns and had the initial scenario as presented in act 1 be completely true. If they really needed a twist to wrap it up and return to status quo in the end then make the Federation involvement an unauthorized Section 31 operation or something.

[Jonathan101]

With all due repsect, fuck the Ba'ku and their elven ways.

Star Trek did an episode about not engaging in ejection of indigenous peoples.

In that episode, they used actual native people and not white folk who actually found a planet by accident.

Insurrection could have been a great story if it focused on this a little bit more tbh.

The Ba'Ku have no rightful claim to the planet... but I do not see how the Federation does either. After all, the question does need to be asked as to how and why this planet originally found itself within Federation space when the Federation is a power that governs by the mutual consent of its members. It does not typically acquire land through conquest. And yet they must have annexed the Briar Patch after the Ba'ku arrived there which muddies things considerably.

Plus the whole situation is also made needlessly complicated by the fact that the So'na is manufacturing Ketracel White durung the Dominion War. That was a detail that the scriptwriters should not have put in there and Worf especially should have had something to say on this matter.

It is a grey on grey conflict but the narrative never treats it as such.

I disagree on the Ba'ku not having a right to a planet they colonized before the Federation got to that area. If they have no rights then no one has rights beyond their homeworld. So the klingons can take Mars and no one can dispute it since it is merely a colony.

My biggest gripe (And this gripe is what brought me to SFDebris in the first place) is the stupidity of the collector.
You have a resource being generated by a stellar phenomenon. You do not understand the phenomenon. You do not understand the technology to collect the particles. How do you know it will even work? You will be blowing up the fountain of youth to hope to collect the mist and use it elsewhere. Maybe.

And the in movie arguments. "They have something we want, eff them to death!" The they were not meant to be immortal. Oh but you are?

Sorry the cake needed to rise a bit more.

The thing I've realised with the Collector is that even if it "does" work...it sounds like there wasn't that much metaphasic radiation to begin with, since one go of the Collector is enough to strip the entire planet. That makes me wonder how much the radiation will even last in the first place. The alternative is that the radiation is a renewable energy source; in which case, they are just being wasteful. Either way, it's hard to see "why" the Ba'ku have to go since they only amount to a village on an entire world of the stuff.

Also, the Son'a have a legitimate claim to the planet in their own right since they ARE the Ba'ku themselves, and since it's an internal matter they could feasibly just chuck the Ba'ku out all on their own; or, you know, just set up a colony on the other side of the planet, or conquer it and declare themselves the new government. The admiral seemed to quit precisely BECAUSE he learned it was an internal matter he'd been tricked into, and I'm not sure what grounds he has to tell the So'na to leave their own planet again.

This is all very cold blooded, but it is still true, and neither the Son'a nor the Ba'ku seem to consider themselves members of the Federation in the first place, just people who happen to live in an area of space that the Federation considered their own (which itself raises all kind of issues).

It's really hard to see how the Ba'ku could have kicked the Son'a off-world or stopped them from just living in a different part of it, so I can only imagine the Son'a actually left at least semi-voluntarily and then just came back decades later with greed and a grudge, only to find their home was now technically in Federation territory and they didn't want to admit that they themselves were Ba'ku out of...embarrassment, I guess?

There are so many plot snarls and thematic muddling in Insurrection that come specifically from the Ba'ku and Son'a being different factions of one village. They not only both have the exact same claim to the world, but it's clearly a purely internal matter which the Federation should immediately have picked up on when they first scanned the planet and washed their hands of. Plus the whole "we love conquering people in spaceships but somehow the pacifist luddites in our village drove us not only from the community but entirely off the planet and kept us off" silliness.

They should have just stuck to their guns and had the initial scenario as presented in act 1 be completely true. If they really needed a twist to wrap it up and return to status quo in the end then make the Federation involvement an unauthorized Section 31 operation or something.

Uh...yeah, that.

My only conclusion is that the Son'a were greedy and paranoid that the Federation would try to stop them or take the metaphasic radiation for themselves, and so spun a yarn and made a deal- but, if so, the film should have actually addressed this.

[clearspira]

The metaphysic radiation isn't all that impressive anyway when you really think about it because it has clear limits. Picard's girlfriend nearly died during a cave in and it is stated that the So'na required years of normal exposure to begin to reverse their condition (which is completely forgotten about during the "happy" ending btw).

The effects are 100% temporary too as we saw with Geordi's eyes. So does that mean then that if you run out of the stuff a paraplegic's body will slowly wither and break?

It is also kind of funny when you take Generations into account. "It is our mortality that defines us Soran! Time is a companion!"
And yet as we see here, a lot of people in the galaxy really do not agree with this sentiment.

[Nealithi]

The metaphysic radiation isn't all that impressive anyway when you really think about it because it has clear limits. Picard's girlfriend nearly died during a cave in and it is stated that the So'na required years of normal exposure to begin to reverse their condition (which is completely forgotten about during the "happy" ending btw).

The effects are 100% temporary too as we saw with Geordi's eyes. So does that mean then that if you run out of the stuff a paraplegic's body will slowly wither and break?

It is also kind of funny when you take Generations into account. "It is our mortality that defines us Soran! Time is a companion!"
And yet as we see here, a lot of people in the galaxy really do not agree with this sentiment.

The limits are what make me laugh. "We will have new medical break throughs!" But you do not understand what it does or why. How are you going to do anything but give a handful of people a bath that makes them feel a little better?

[Nobody700]

You want the Bak'u off the planet for medical reasons

I want them off cause I hate them

We are not the same.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

You want the Bak'u off the planet for medical reasons

I want them off cause I hate them

We are not the same.

Word.

[MightyDavidson]

My issue with the Bak'u, beside the ones that you all have, is that their story falls apart under the barest scrutiny. They claim to have been there for centuries and centuries but their community is so small that if that were true they'd all be horribly inbred and we see that's not the case. They also claim to have not used technology in ages but the tech that got them there is still in good shape and apparently well maintained to boot. To say nothing of the fact that their fields are nowhere near big enough to support a community. All signs point to them being recent arrivals yet the movie expects us to believe that they've been there forever.

[CharlesPhipps]

My issue with the Bak'u, beside the ones that you all have, is that their story falls apart under the barest scrutiny. They claim to have been there for centuries and centuries but their community is so small that if that were true they'd all be horribly inbred and we see that's not the case. They also claim to have not used technology in ages but the tech that got them there is still in good shape and apparently well maintained to boot. To say nothing of the fact that their fields are nowhere near big enough to support a community. All signs point to them being recent arrivals yet the movie expects us to believe that they've been there forever.

Eh, they're all immortal so them not being inbred makes sense if they've only had a few children.

I mean, not sense, but that was the premise.

[Nobody700]

Well you gotta remember, they kicked all their teenagers out. Oh I believe the So'na are the teenagers of the species. Why do I think that?

Where the HELL are they? Plus makes more sense why they were defeated when the Bak'u couldn't defeat a mean chicken. Beating up your emotional puberty ridden kids is easier than fighting someone who can fight back.

[stryke]

New episode is just so nice. It's great.