Speculation: SF Debris's view on "Silicon Avatar"

[Archanubis]

Yeah the colonists you can move...

The few pioneers we see at the start of the episode, sure. But what about a colony world with a population in the hundreds of thousands? The millions? Or what about worlds like Earth, Vulcan, Bajor, Qo'noS, etc., that have populations in the BILLIONS. I think at that point, it becomes a case of, "the needs of the many."

[Wargriffin]

Yeah the colonists you can move...

The few pioneers we see at the start of the episode, sure. But what about a colony world with a population in the hundreds of thousands? The millions? Or what about worlds like Earth, Vulcan, Bajor, Qo'noS, etc., that have populations in the BILLIONS. I think at that point, it becomes a case of, "the needs of the many."

Oh trust me... if the entity was in anyway heading for a High profile population center.

Picard would not be grand standing on whether the thing deserves to continued to exist.

[Yukaphile]

Though let's be clear, Picard thinking the creature is just misunderstood is in his character, especially since he is distasteful of what he sees as things like "revenge." Again, the two-dimensional entities he wanted to spare. He seems to be what Roddenberry wished Kirk was, wanting to study an alien lifeform no matter how many it hurts and kills because "it may be the last of its race." We know Kirk was adamant on killing the Horta until their showdown had him try and deduce its motives, and that Kirk gunning down the Ceti eel with extreme prejudice irked Roddenberry, so... this seems more like catering to what the creator wanted than what actually makes sense. Because as others have said, at least the two-dimensional entities weren't raizing worlds. The Crystalline Entity was, and had been shown to be in cahoots with Lore. That suggests it is intelligent, and fully aware of what it is doing.

[Fianna]

Then how was Lore able to communicate with it? What was he telling it?

Maybe it's something you need a positronic brain to do, and squishy biological brains don't really register.

[Yukaphile]

Of course, that was a given. But what was he telling it?

[Lizuka]

Really, the Crystalline Entity has so much raw destructive power that the only sensible solution is to kill it. What exactly was it going to even say if you could communicate with it? Even if it didn't realize the morality of what it was doing there isn't any reason to think it would care or that it could stop.

[Yukaphile]

Could just be Picard had always planned to destroy it, and was just shooting down the Doctor because she was so eager, and he saw it as a bitter necessity, not something he wanted to do. Picard always hated the thought of revenge, remember.

[TheLibrarian]

NB: I haven't rewatched the episode in years, so I'm going by the Metamorphosis Alpha synopsis and thus might have missed details.

Whether you blame the character himself or the writing for failing to provide sufficient justification for his actions, it looks like Picard is almost criminally negligent in his duties to protect innocent civilians and unusually callous toward the many deaths caused by the entity.

For how he should have handled it, you can look no further than Kirk in episodes like The Man Trap and The Devil in the Dark. Kirk's not out for revenge, and he sympathizes with Spock's regret over the destruction of a unique lifeform- but he doesn't for a second let his curiosity interfere with his duty. Picard does. He also seems to have forgotten that the entity actually conspired with Lore back in season 1.

The key difference is Kirk was dealing with more of an "active-shooter" situation--something hidden is picking off the people under his authority one by one--while in "Silicon Avatar" the Enterprise shows up far too late to intervene at Melona colony or the alien freighter. Picard can only hope to intervene before the next attack--and AFAIK they only gain the ability to track the Entity in this episode.

Ethical arguments aside, two good reasons to try to resolve problems with diplomacy first rather than violence are i) if diplomacy fails you can still usually fall back on violence, while it's a lot harder to pursue diplomatic solutions after violence has started, and ii) you can't guarantee the violent option will work. So I think Picard's approach is more pragmatic than it might appear, because they know some form of communication is possible because Lore did it, while Dr. Marr's photon torpedo modifications are untested and might not work (Picard doesn't know she can destroy it with the graviton beam until she does it, but even if he did that was also untested).

There's Riker's whole argument with Picard that the diplomatic option might preclude them from taking the violent one, and maybe he has a point (I'm personally skeptical), but that's also because of the show's conceit that the Enterprise is always the Only Ship in the Sector. If the Crystalline Entity is truly a major threat to sapient life maybe Starfleet should assemble a task force?

[TheLibrarian]

Of course, that was a given. But what was he telling it?

Could be as simple as "Here boy! Dinner time!" If Lore knew the Entity only targeted organic matter and he'd probably survive a direct attack, he wouldn't need to be more specific than that. That could mean the Entity isn't necessarily more intelligent than a dog. Then again, maybe it was.

[Yukaphile]

Actually, "The Man Trap" is a weird case, because the Horta suddenly appears in front of Kirk after caving him in, and he doesn't shoot it. He has his phaser on it, sure, but it freezes rather than attacks him, though granted they had already shot it, so it obviously knew the pain of it. Kirk then waited till Spock showed up, and he was now the one urging not to shoot it, given that it seemed as if it was not being the savage killer he thought it was. That's when they turned to the mind-meld.