TNG - Devil's Due

[clearspira]

I am still not sure why no one raised shields though. She beamed the captain of the flagship out of his quarters - no red alert, no shields. What if they had kidnapped him and held him for ransom?

I agree with Chuck. This is a season 2 episode in every respect.

[Riedquat]

I am still not sure why no one raised shields though. She beamed the captain of the flagship out of his quarters - no red alert, no shields. What if they had kidnapped him and held him for ransom?

I agree with Chuck. This is a season 2 episode in every respect.

I was surprised as everyone else seems to be with the revolution about when this was in the show's run. It feels like an early TNG episode in almost every way, although one of the better ones (some glaring flaws, which have been picked apart on here, but not terrible).

[Actarus]

While over all Ardra was very typical TNG villain of the week her Harry Mudd like qualities could had made her potential recurring character allowing writes to expand her. Oh wasting potential that could had been. It's very Berman thing to do.

I don't know. To me she felt too much like Q, who filled the "recurring male crew annoyance" position. The "recurring female crew annoyance" was already filled by Lwoxana Troi. No need to plague poor Jean-Luc and Mr Woof with another one.

[Darth Wedgius]

It was just hidden, Ardra's ship just extended their cloaking field around it so it couldn't be seen. Pretty sure they say that's the case in the episode itself. Transporter beam was down it was true and communications were likely being interfered with but it probably wasn't as bad as it initially seemed. Ardra's made clever use of existing technology (well existing tech in the Star Trek universe anyway) to inconvenience them it's true but that's all they were: inconvenienced.

Really not sure where you're getting that they "just extended their cloaking field". A memory alpha page about damping fields specifically references the episode:
[url]https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Subspace_damping_field[/url]

If you just want to argue about disabled versus inconvenienced, that's a level of pedantry I'm not going to debate beyond saying: If they couldn't move out of the field, couldn't use the transporter, couldn't communicate, couldn't find a way to help the captain get back to the ship, couldn't shoot the ship that had them in the field apparently... That seems more than inconvenient.

Given they managed to capture Ardra's vessel with no appreciable damage and without any loss of life, it didn't seem to really take them all that long for that matter, they clearly weren't terribly hindered. The moment the Enterprise spotted them they were dealt with and apparently didn't even manage to put up much of a fight in the process. So despite all the admittedly clever tricks they used against the Enterprise in the end all they managed to be was a nuisance.

The Enterprise didn't know it was cloaked or wasn't able to do anything about it until Geordi pointed out where the ship was? The Enterprise not suffering damage or loss of life might be because Arda's ship didn't try to inflict damage or loss of life.

There's no evidence to support that first claim though. Geordi and Picard didn't know the Enterprise was cloaked and weren't able to do anything about it, that's true but we don't actually know what the status of the Enterprise was during this time. As for Ardra's ship, the fact that it was disabled and captured in the space of a couple of minutes rather indicates they weren't all that formidable.

They did say that Ardra's ship had extended her ship's cloaking field around the Enterprise, and the shuttle that Picard was on was approaching the Enterprise and diverted when the Enterprise got cloaked. If the crew of the Enterprise had noticed that, don't you think they would have contacted Picard? "Hey, why are you heading away? Don't you like us anymore?"

Well if the Enterprise was as badly disabled as you say, why weren't the crew of Ardra's ship able to avoid being disabled and captured so quickly that the episode didn't even bother to show it happening? The only logical answer is that they weren't all that tough in the first place. They were able to use trickery to to keep the Enterprise crew confused in the short term sure but they were completely and utterly pwn'd the moment they overplayed their hand and revealed their presence in the process.

They seemed to recover when LaForge did... something. But regardless, that "short term" seemed to last a considerable amount of time -- certainly more than long enough for a hostile ship to open fire with torpedoes.

Of course there was no indication that shields or weapon systems were at all hindered. They'd managed to interfere with communication and transporting sure but that's happened to the Enterprise before. If the Enterprise had truly been rendered helpless by Ardra's ship, as you seem to be suggesting, why did Ardra's crew surrender without any indication that they put up a fight at all?

We don't know Ardra's ship was even armed. We don't know the details of that at all.

But consider that Ardra's ship was able to beam Ardra over while it was cloaked. Why couldn't they beam over a fusion bomb instead? Probably they didn't have any. Ardra didn't seem to want anyone physically hurt, as far as I can tell.

[Robovski]

There's some evidence from TOS that worlds near the Klingon border were exempt from the Prime Directive. This does make sense since Klingons didn't have one. Errand Of Mercy, Friday's Child, and A Private Little War are all examples. Note how in the latter, the "hands off" policy was due to a recommendation by Kirk's original survey party and no mention is made of the PD.

That would be an interesting caveat to the PD. That areas which could be taken over by our defacto enemy and exploited need some kind of special dispensation. Like a more hands on approach than the US in Afghanistan against the Soviets. And then once the Federation was there, they just ended up hanging out.

Why do these aliens look dead on like humans? Is that another relic of the TOS era? No blue face paint or weird ears to be seen. Very odd choice.

Well, what we see looks like humans. I like to think they all have vestigial tails and only 3 toes

[Rocketboy1313]

Well, what we see looks like humans. I like to think they all have vestigial tails and only 3 toes

And if Gene wrote/consulted on the script... The most genitals.

[CharlesPhipps]

Fair enough, but that still entails a HELL of a lot of risk. Does this planet have anything worth taking that risk for?

Honestly, barring the Federation flagship showing up, the planet seems like the perfect bunch of suckers. For a single civilian starship of pirates and con men, you could probably get an obscene amount of wealth from the planet. Doesn't matter what. Every planet has something even if it's (mostly) worthless yellow rocks to press your latnium in.

They SHOULD have buggered out when Picard showed up but criminals often let their greed get the better of them.

And let's face it, "Con men pretending to be gods" have shown up elsewhere in Star Trek and plenty of other scifi shows with better results than this bunch.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

They did this premise for both TOS and Enterprise I think. With the Klingons.

[Nobody700]

Personally I never got the whole rejection of technology. You'd think a culture that sold it's planet to the devil would be the first to invent Warp to get the hell out. I know what the episode said but come on, you'd think at least a few of them would beg Starfleet to be left out in the days leading up to it. I know they also sold their souls but like, they can still try to run.

[Thebestoftherest]

Then again this is the guy, who think that Children wouldn't work themselves to the bone in an Amish community.