Code of Honor

[Deledrius]

I think there are a few in S1 that, while they aren't up to the quality of later seasons, at least show the promise. Datalore, 11001001, Coming of Age, and Conspiracy are generally watchable, IMO. Most of the latter half of the season fit into the mold of Arsenal of Freedom, where it's not awful, but it's missing that special something to make it remarkable. The worst part of Season 1 (and Season 2) are the episodes which were clearly unproduced TOS/Phase2 scripts.

[Fianna]

Though an unproduced TOS/Phase 2 script gave us the very good "Devil's Due" a few seasons later.

[Worffan101]

Season 1 also had a much more TOS-y "big wide-open scary galaxy" feel than the later seasons, which I do appreciate...in TOS. It doesn't fit as well with the later TNG-DS9 era's galaxy very well.

And of course season 1's scripts were borderline unwatchably stupid a lot of the time, so...

[Beastro]

I think there are a few in S1 that, while they aren't up to the quality of later seasons, at least show the promise. Datalore, 11001001, Coming of Age, and Conspiracy are generally watchable, IMO. Most of the latter half of the season fit into the mold of Arsenal of Freedom, where it's not awful, but it's missing that special something to make it remarkable. The worst part of Season 1 (and Season 2) are the episodes which were clearly unproduced TOS/Phase2 scripts.

The problem with Arsenal of Freedom and its ilk isn't that it's missing something, it's that it contains something. That is, it comes off feeling like a TOS script that was laying around and was discovered 20 years later.

[Durandal_1707]

Not only that, but a lot of the time they feel like episodes that the TOS team didn't produce for good reason.

"Ehhhh, this is just too much, even for us. Hey, do we still have that 'e plebnista' script lying around? Let's just do that instead."

[Deledrius]

Not only that, but a lot of the time they feel like episodes that the TOS team didn't produce for good reason.

That's not inherently damning. Some bad scripts are just waiting to be turned into a good script by someone who sees the potential, and manages to rewrite it to something better.

It's when they just Find & Replace the crew names from TOS to TNG ones where this really hurts.

[BunBun299]

And what about the cure?

Violence would already be well underway by the time the notion we need the cure from the planet gets brought up. There would be no several hours of waiting patiently to learn that detail.

Besides, they didn't seem to be in any great hurry to deliver it at the end of the episode anyway. It's been a while, but didn't they leave the system at Warp 3? It didn't seem to be all that great a priority.

That still ignores the fact though that all Lutan would have to do is hold the cure in his hand and threaten to destroy it. We can all laugh at how slow they warped out, and how it only appears to be a mild flu, but sooner or later it is lethal. And what do you mean ''by the time we need a cure is brought up?'' they WENT THERE for the cure. Your psycho captain would be doing all of this knowing that she would potentially be sacrificing thousands for one person, breaking the Prime Directive which is a court martial offence, and potentially causing untold damage to a WHOLE society when it is really only a handful of men who are the problem.
There is middle ground between ''Not The Face, Not The Face Picard'' and ''Parody Janeway.''

They thought they'd be able to replicate it, till Crusher brought up that it can't be replicated hours after Tasha had been kidnapped. So, by the time that detail came up, the fight would be over. Also, my Captain would not be starting the fight. That started with the kidnapping. But she would finish it, and quickly.

Also, like I said, phasers have stun settings.

Regardless of whether they knew it could be replicated or not, your captain's actions to rescue one person still cost the lives of thousands, broke the Prime Directive, and potentially punished a whole planet for Lutan's actions. Take your initial suggestion to destroy the satellites. You do realise that would leave everyone on this planet open to attack by the next person that comes along right?

Lutan should have thought of that before abducting an officer from an alien ship carrying enough fire power to render his planet incapable of supporting life. And no, that's not some game level of fire power, that's something Capital Ships from Kirk's time could have managed. The Enterprise D could manage it half the time. Any damage done in this is on the head of the person who started it, and that's Lutan. He is risking the planet to sate his own ego.

And no, I am not suggesting actually glassing the planet. But a bit a property damage to make damn sure we have their undivided attention is warranted, considering he just kidnapped an officer. Waiting around for hours doing nothing is telling Lutan he can get away with anything. Or would you rather give Lutan hours to gang rape Tasha, which didn't happen, but for all they knew at the time, could have been happening?

And as for the phaser stun settings, am I the only one that remembers that one of Chuck's oldest running jokes is that the phaser routinely does nothing at all even on kill? These are actually very shitty and inconsistent weapons that in real life would never have replaced what we have today for any reason.

Nothing suggested these people are phaser proof.

Why should Lutan have thought of that? He's one guy, not the ruler of the entire planet. Do you know any criminals that think of the entire world before doing things? And still not seeing any address of the ''you are breaking the Prime Directive'' point. Or does that not exist in STO?

My reaction to the Prime Directive in this scenario is, "Fuck the Prime Directive!" Are you happy to finally get that out of me?

Of course, it doesn't even apply here. The PD has two applications that we know of. One is do not interfere in Pre Warp cultures. Since we're talking to these people, it's a safe bet they've achieved warp capability. The other is, do not interfere in the internal affairs of other space fairing cultures. The most obvious application of this was the Federation not getting involved in the Klingon Civil War, even though they had a clear interest in seeing the House Duras faction defeated.

Abduction of the Starfleet Officer by a foreign head of state (we never get an official title for Lutan, but he acts like he runs the place for most of the episode), takes this well out of the realm of local internal affairs.

Now, it probably would be a PD violation to take large quantities of the vaccine by force. But as I've said several times, I'm operating only with the knowledge available at the time of the kidnapping. Under no circumstances would I wait the several hours it took Dr. Crusher to figure out they couldn't replicate the stuff for Lutan to answer.

And if someone at Starfleet Command took issue with the actions I'm suggesting, I'd say I did what the situation demanded, and accept the consequences.

[TGLS]

I dunno. I would have just beamed Tasha right back up again, and if that wouldn't work for some reason, I'd send a landing party to go accost Lutan. I'd also have to resist the urge to beam up Lutan's hat too.

[BunBun299]

I think there are a few in S1 that, while they aren't up to the quality of later seasons, at least show the promise. Datalore, 11001001, Coming of Age, and Conspiracy are generally watchable, IMO. Most of the latter half of the season fit into the mold of Arsenal of Freedom, where it's not awful, but it's missing that special something to make it remarkable. The worst part of Season 1 (and Season 2) are the episodes which were clearly unproduced TOS/Phase2 scripts.

Yeah, I would say I at least kinda like those episodes.

[Durandal_1707]

Wil Wheaton disagreed rather emphatically about "Datalore."

I don't know if his reviews are still up anywhere, but if you can find them, they're incredibly entertaining. And as an odd bit of coincidence, the last one he did, IIRC, was "Code of Honor." I do have to say that losing your stomach after this one is understandable.