Areas where you'd respectfully disagree with Chuck

[bronnt]

To get away from the Q, I also recently rewatched his review of Memorial.

I agree with him on two points. First, then a ton of triteness in the episode, specifically with Seven's comment about how her memories of being a Drone doing horrible things helps her avoid doing horrible things in the future (which misses the mark because Seven was not CHOOSING to do those things). Second, making people experience this trauma as part of their own memories is pretty fucked up.

But when he gets into his rant near the end of the review, he's way oversimplifying and it irks me. This episode is pretty clearly referencing the My Lai massacre. Chuck points out how much he knows that mass murder is wrong, but misses the point that what happened there was much more complicated than a mass murder. The people who participated in that were not murderers before they went to Vietnam, and I can't find a single report of any one of those men ever murdering a person again after returning from Vietnam.

What happened was a bunch of people, many of whom had been drafted, put into a situation where people were fighting and dying over a prolonged period with poorly defined objectives. The army's typical sense of a successful mission was defined by enemy casualty counts, so being able to report that you'd killed 150 of the enemy at the loss of only 1 US soldier was praised as a rousing success, even if your 150 included only 4 people who were armed and many of whom ran away screaming. Soldiers were stuck in a situation where they were often powerless, didn't know if one of these random villagers might have planted the landmines that killed one of their squadmates last week and might kill them later, fighting in a conflict that had started when they 14 years old with unclear victory conditions. That's not to absolve them of blame because this was clearly wrong, and many men refused to participate even at the cost of defying orders, but there were a myriad of conditions that led to it. And as I said, these were not violent, hateful people who went on to murder more people once they left the army.

In short, the lessons to take from that massacre are much less clear than, "Murdering people is wrong and we shouldn't do it." What's even more damning is that many of the people in power seem to have not learned or forgotten the lessons from Vietnam, where men are thrown into a war with unclear victory conditions and no end in sight because we've been in Afghanistan for 17 fucking years. If we could build a memorial that would put some members of Congress in the position of the conditions that led up to My Lai massacre, as fucked up as that would be, I might be in favor of it.

[clearspira]

To get away from the Q, I also recently rewatched his review of Memorial.

I agree with him on two points. First, then a ton of triteness in the episode, specifically with Seven's comment about how her memories of being a Drone doing horrible things helps her avoid doing horrible things in the future (which misses the mark because Seven was not CHOOSING to do those things). Second, making people experience this trauma as part of their own memories is pretty fucked up.

But when he gets into his rant near the end of the review, he's way oversimplifying and it irks me. This episode is pretty clearly referencing the My Lai massacre. Chuck points out how much he knows that mass murder is wrong, but misses the point that what happened there was much more complicated than a mass murder. The people who participated in that were not murderers before they went to Vietnam, and I can't find a single report of any one of those men ever murdering a person again after returning from Vietnam.

What happened was a bunch of people, many of whom had been drafted, put into a situation where people were fighting and dying over a prolonged period with poorly defined objectives. The army's typical sense of a successful mission was defined by enemy casualty counts, so being able to report that you'd killed 150 of the enemy at the loss of only 1 US soldier was praised as a rousing success, even if your 150 included only 4 people who were armed and many of whom ran away screaming. Soldiers were stuck in a situation where they were often powerless, didn't know if one of these random villagers might have planted the landmines that killed one of their squadmates last week and might kill them later, fighting in a conflict that had started when they 14 years old with unclear victory conditions. That's not to absolve them of blame because this was clearly wrong, and many men refused to participate even at the cost of defying orders, but there were a myriad of conditions that led to it. And as I said, these were not violent, hateful people who went on to murder more people once they left the army.

In short, the lessons to take from that massacre are much less clear than, "Murdering people is wrong and we shouldn't do it." What's even more damning is that many of the people in power seem to have not learned or forgotten the lessons from Vietnam, where men are thrown into a war with unclear victory conditions and no end in sight because we've been in Afghanistan for 17 fucking years. If we could build a memorial that would put some members of Congress in the position of the conditions that led up to My Lai massacre, as fucked up as that would be, I might be in favor of it.

The problem is that we have no context. It is all well and good to quote the My Lai massacre, but we don't know if the memorial is lying to us or not. A real world example would be someone beaming into your brain that the Americans not the Nazis were the ones with the gas chambers. You wouldn't know, its a thousand years later. This whole thing could be propaganda and yet Janeway is treating it as if it must be 100% accurate. And this is compounded by the fact that the Doctor states that it is causing physical and emotional distress amongst the crew and Janeway does not care. All she does is put a warning beacon in orbit, which like Chuck says, is worthless because this thing has the range of a solar system.

[Koshundheit]

Could be all a ploy of Q in order to get into Janeways panties?

Look No offense to Kate Mulgrew...

but of all the females Q could spend chasing... 'Which brings up why he'd bother but'

He picks Janeway... who isn't someone I'd call a "Helen of Troy" so beautiful to start a war over

How superficial. I wouldn't expect Q to go for the kind of dolled up fantasy women he would whip up for Riker. He clearly likes heated verbal repartee, someone who challenges him. Say what one will about her quips, but Janeway isn't one to back down from a disagreement. In fact, men who are very powerful often seek a woman to dominate them in their downtime. Thus the dominatrix. If ever there were a woman who would do her best to put absolutely anyone in their place, no matter how powerful, again, I could see that be Janeway. So I can totally see Q imagining her towering over him, telling him she's the one in control now, demanding that he grovel before her and submit to her like everyone is expected to. Yup... And now to purge that thought before it goes any further.

[Darth Wedgius]

Then maybe the Q can't wish the puny humans into the corn field when they're in the continuum. Maybe putting them into the continuum changes them somehow. That kind of makes sense if they're using Q weaponry, anyway.

That still only brings up more questions as far I'm concerned. If bringing people into the Q continuum means they're immune to Q powers, for whatever bullshit reason, then in a war, one side should have come up with the idea of either recruiting a bunch of people, or creating a bunch of people, and then bringing them into the continuum. The entire balance of the war was swung by just Voyager with 150 measly people dropping in...for a conflict that spanned the entire galaxy.

Was there no Q immoral enough to brainwash an entire planet's population with the snap of his fingers, conjure up some Enfield Rifles, and then zap them into the contiuum?

We're not sure just any Q could create the Q weapons that looked like rifles to the crew (and us), but yes any Q could conjure up a lot of people to enqueue in the Q and just do a mass rush, overrunning the enemy Q.

There might be no saving the logic in this one.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Then maybe the Q can't wish the puny humans into the corn field when they're in the continuum. Maybe putting them into the continuum changes them somehow. That kind of makes sense if they're using Q weaponry, anyway.

That still only brings up more questions as far I'm concerned. If bringing people into the Q continuum means they're immune to Q powers, for whatever bullshit reason, then in a war, one side should have come up with the idea of either recruiting a bunch of people, or creating a bunch of people, and then bringing them into the continuum. The entire balance of the war was swung by just Voyager with 150 measly people dropping in...for a conflict that spanned the entire galaxy.

Was there no Q immoral enough to brainwash an entire planet's population with the snap of his fingers, conjure up some Enfield Rifles, and then zap them into the contiuum?

We're not sure just any Q could create the Q weapons that looked like rifles to the crew (and us), but yes any Q could conjure up a lot of people to enqueue in the Q and just do a mass rush, overrunning the enemy Q.

There might be no saving the logic in this one.

I, against my brothers. I and my brothers against my cousins. I and my brothers and my cousins against the world.

[Yukaphile]

I wouldn't wanna relive the memory of Soviet war crimes. It's disgusting. I don't wanna see myself doing that to women and girls as young as eight. NO THANK YOU. Especially not against my will. SF Debris was ranting against this from a strong Libertarian perspective, and I agree 110%.

[CharlesPhipps]

I maintain for my own interpretation of Q that the "Q war" was just another of humanity's tests by providing how humanity would react to it.

I'm also inclined to think we've never met any Q other than Q.

And the other Q are just faces of him or constructs to test us in different ethical ways.

[Yukaphile]

That's headcanon. The real canon... is what we saw, sadly...

[clearspira]

I wouldn't wanna relive the memory of Soviet war crimes. It's disgusting. I don't wanna see myself doing that to women and girls as young as eight. NO THANK YOU. Especially not against my will. SF Debris was ranting against this from a strong Libertarian perspective, and I agree 110%.

Agreed, I fail to see why I should be mentally scarred for the crimes of others.

[Yukaphile]

YES... Chuck was right to tear that episode a damn new one. It's one of his finer moments.