TNG - The Masterpiece Society

[MerelyAFan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGDx9BB ... FDebrisRed

Honestly, I never really understood the strong criticism of this episode. I mean, it's dry in parts, and it doesn't quite explore the depth of the ideas there, but it has enough interesting scenes to put it above most of TNG season 1 & 2 and even some of the wackier ones of season 7. Overall, it's probably the first shift of Trek back into the skepticism towards Eugenics after the more neutral take in Unnatural Selection (which in hindsight feels like an odd exception to the franchise overall, likely a result of the general weirdness of early TNG).

Picard's absurd lament at the end is also a telling sign that ST was really embracing the Prime Directive dogma, which get worse in Homeward, get highlighted in Voyager and reach its dreadful culmination in Dear Doctor.

[Rocketboy1313]

I had forgotten all about the Prime Directive stuff at the end.

Strangely this was a favorite episode of when I was a kid. I really liked the moral conflict of a planned society that had separated itself banging against the Federation which was the ultimate in open and diverse.

I have referenced the whole, "Geordi's visor is the solution" thing to people who are not Star Trek fans and it has resonated with them. Heck, people who are only casual fans I have talked to remember this episode because of that moral.

Really, Chuck's arguments at the end, "their society was built to be doomed, feel free to try again" is what Picard should have argued.
Seriously, just tell those people ho wish to remain that you can put a call out for resumes to the various Federation colonies, explain the goals, and they would get their pick of people who want to live in a planned society.

You know what would have been interesting? If "Star Trek Insurrection" was a sequel episode to this one. Have them leave poison world to live in the middle of that weird nebula in the movie, then the Federation comes to take their planet.

[clearspira]

Y'know... monster movies have never scared me. Ghosts and ghoulies and zombies. Because they aren't real and my brain knows it. Its the thrillers and other real world subjects that get me. ''Misery'' of being stuck injured in the house of a stalker. ''Titanic'' of being stuck on a ship with not enough lifeboats in freezing water. And ''Gattaca'' of a world where normal humans are obsolete.

If you believe in equality then genetic engineering is a well-founded and realistic fear because for the most part scientists can already do it. And unlike say ''Deus Ex'' where the inequality comes between normal humans and the augmented; you cannot change how you have been born. Its not a case of just winning the lottery and buying some robot arms. When a sizeable amount of the population has been bred to be faster than the greatest Olympian, smarter than the greatest genius and more beautiful than Aphrodite, then what hope do you have in such a world? Especially as realistically it would be the rich who would have access to it first, once again increasing the power of the 1% over the masses.

I have no problem with genetic engineering out cancer or something like that. There is no real difference between that and a physical cure. But any more than that? Scares and sickens me. And why isn't Khan a likely scenario when throughout human history the strong have always stepped on the weak?

TL;DR - the Federation is right to ban it and imprison anyone who tries it. It has the potential to be the end of the true human race.

[CrypticMirror]

You can lament the passing of a culture, and still be happy that lives were saved. You can do both. Although we'd know much less about how pyroclastic flows work if someone had saved the inhabitants of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Sometimes part of one society's advancement is finding the graves of another one which never had the chance to.

The Prime Directive should exist to prevent brats with mommy issues running riot across the galaxy though, but alas...

[Archanubis]

I have no problem with genetic engineering out cancer or something like that. There is no real difference between that and a physical cure. But any more than that? Scares and sickens me. And why isn't Khan a likely scenario when throughout human history the strong have always stepped on the weak?

Considering part of the basis of the colony's society is based around eugenics (with a no doubt healthy dose of genetic engineering), there's apparently some discussion in other Trek forums on why Khan wasn't even brought up in this episode.

[TGLS]

Apparently the script went through like half a dozen writers. I wonder if Picard's musing that the Enterprise was as dangerous as the core fragment originally had a different context but was kept around for one reason or another.

[MerelyAFan]

Khan might have been ignored for this episode, given that the central flaw of his creation was superior ability breeding superior ambition (hence the dangerous superman), whereas the inherent problem of the colony seems to based around the idea of societal stagnation because it lacks the ability to adapt, including having ideas coming from those with ambition for something beyond their current roles.

Eugenics let Singh's aspirations go unchecked, and it's suppressed the aspirations those in the colony might otherwise have had.

[pilight]

the Federation is right to ban it and imprison anyone who tries it. It has the potential to be the end of the true human race.

Are the people on Moab Federation citizens? The episode doesn't say whether it's in Federation space. They've clearly rejected any contact and chosen to live by laws of their own making. If they've separated themselves from the Federation, the laws against eugenics and genetic manipulation wouldn't apply to them.

[Thebestoftherest]

I do wonder how he would respond if he learn the Klingon found this planet, or the romulans, or cardasian, or the feregi or any of the race in star trek who don't have a prime directive and would happily screw the planet and population over for cheap labor.

[Linkara]

I'm glad he brought up the Prime Directive, since this IS technically a Prime Directive situation given the effects increased contact would do to this society and create changes, particularly for those seeking asylum... but Picard of course drew the wrong conclusion at the end that it was dangerous or that this just reinforces the NEED for the Prime Directive, since of course Chuck is absolutely right - the idea that a society and all the people in it must die vs. changing because of interacting with others is morally abhorrent. And what's funny is season 3 rejected this idea of the societal ideal being more important than staying alive in "Ensigns of Command" - "This is just a thing. Things can be replaced. Lives cannot."