History Headscratchers / StarTrekInsurrection

* The Son'a exile doesn't make any sense. So the Bak'u children want to industrialise and reclaim their lost technology. Okay. So why didn't they just set up their own colony, ON THE SAME PLANET? Planets are -- how should I put this? -- ''fucking massive''. And the Bak'u number ''six hundred''. Why didn't they just say, "yep, we're exiled now, kthnx bye!" and set up a few hundred kilometres away? More to the point, how the ''fuck'' did the Bak'u manage to exile them? They refuse to pick up weapons! What are we supposed to think, a) the Son'a went into exile because of strongly-worded letters of disapproval, or b) the perfect SpaceElves armed themselves and threatened to kill their children if they didn't run away and accept a slow death? Jesus ''Christ'', the Bak'u are assholes.

** Because they'd have to launch a full-scale invasion. Crap area of space or not, the Federation is going to notice when warships start moving into its territory.

* Why the hell did the Son'a try to do the complicated plan of allying with the Federation? They already enslaved two races! They could take the colony by force! Alternatively, they were supplying drugs to the Dominion forces. Why not use the Jem'Hadar?

* Why the hell did the Son'a try to do the complicated plan of allying with the Federation? They already enslaved too races! They could take the colony by force! Alternatively, they were supplying drugs to the Dominion forces. Why not use the Jem'Hadar?

** Data didn't recognize people, only groups. The Federation and Son'a were threats, in which classification Picard's Federation shuttle would lie. Data could have destroyed it but didn't. He only tried to drive them off. He also made sure not to kill anyone.

** Data didn't recognize people, only groups. The Federation and Son' were threats, in which classification Picard's Federation shuttle would lie. Data could have destroyed it but didn't. He only tried to drive them off. He also made sure not to kill anyone.

* Geordi claims that Data's ethical subroutines were controlling him when he was running wild at the start of the movie. Even ignoring the question of how you can have him acting in a perfectly ethical manner beyond 'don't hurt people around you' how was firing on Picard's ship at all ethical? What exactly is his definition of 'ethical'?

**** Although the fact that he thought Starfleet wouldn't care enough to punish him either shows how insane he is, or sheds some light as to how evil Starfleet is. (I prefer to think he's insane.)
**** He makes a point about the Dominion War going badly, and suggests that Star Fleet Command has decided that desperate times call for [[strike:enhanced interrogation techniques]] moral compromise.
**** An ExpandedUniverse novel reveals that this was a Section 31 operation. They don't exactly follow normal Starfleet procedures. After all, there's no way an official Starfleet operation would have a sanctioned cloaking device. Those are still illegal in the Federation, remember?

**** The Space Amish are one town of a few hundred, maybe a few thousand. On a planet all to themselves. Why did nobody in the Federation say to the facemelts, "Why can't you just settle in the other hemisphere and leave them alone?" This is a widely recognized plothole (I've seen it on the internet in two independent places).
***** Uh, you may want to check your facts with the source material instead of "two independent places on the Internet." The Internet isn't always right, and this is not a widely recognized plot hole. It is, in fact, not a plot hole at all: ''in the movie's dialog,'' Picard brings up this idea with the Admiral, and the Admiral tells him that the Son'a are too far gone, and some of them would die before the planet's natural effects begin to heal them if they just made a separate colony on the other side of the planet. The {{Phlebotinum}} is said, again, in plain dialog, to be an all-or-nothing deal. It will irrevocably destroy the planet as part of its working process, no matter what. And, you know, Ru'afo ''hates'' the Ba'ku and ''wants'' to kill them all.
****** [[DontExplainTheJoke Yes, two independent places are not the same as a mandate.]] Also, who's discussing Ru'afo's motives? We're talking about the Federation response.
******* Ru'afo's motives are why the whole thing happens in the first place. Not even getting into how likely it is he would share, by the Son'a's own (quick) admission, they don't actually know how to actualize the radiation as a medical application, they have to hope they can figure it out after killing the planet.
****** I was asking why they can't settle on another planet...

**** The Prime Directive doesn't apply anyway. The Prime Directive only applies to Pre-warp species, not post-warp species that have decided to give it up.

**** But where the hell does the Federation get off even saying this is "their planet" in the first place? They've ''never even been there before!'' They set some arbitrary boundary based on how far their starships could [[strike:intrude]] explore before they kept getting shot at too much to go on, and they say everything in that boundary is "Federation space", and that's it: it's ''theirs'', regardless of what any insignificant people who already happen to be living on the planet may think about the whole deal -- after all, since being within Federation space doesn't automatically confer Federation membership, those insignificant people are not Federation citizens, and they are therefore at the mercy of whichever captain or admiral has the least interest in keeping up the Prime Directive. "Might makes right" is certainly a philosophy in its own right, but it's pretty fundamentally at odds with everything the Federation ''claims'' it's supposed to be about.
***** Not that ''Insurrection'' doesn't have one badly overwritted, tangled-up mess of an aesop, but the people living on the planet were colonists and, if I remember right, they'd only been on that planet for a hundred years or so. Maybe the Federation had already charted and claimed it back in the early days, and they just didn't make a fuss about the Space Amish who came along in the meantime until the planet became important. Maybe they'd been quietly debating what to do about that situation for years, and using the research teams to keep tabs on things in the meantime, until the magic radiation discovery turned it into a pressing issue.
****** They had been there for 300 years (not that it would matter: "How many does it take before it becomes wrong?"), which would predate the Federation.
***** The Federation had no idea that the Ba'ku used to have advanced technology, but gave it up. They thought they hadn't developed it yet. So, as far as they were concerned, the Ba'ku were simply an indigenous pre-warp culture, hence the whole holoship charade.
****** No, the Federation is well aware that the Ba'ku are colonists:

******* And there's the "e-word" [[HollywoodEvolution being misused]] yet again. A naturally-formed planet that naturally produces radiation that constantly heals organic beings ''is'' part of "natural evolution".

*** I consider it silly as well, but it's at least a little better than another example of TechnicalPacifist. They seem to have not even particularly wanted Picard and the rest to fight back on their behalf, but simply accepted that it was going to happen at some point.

** The extended universe tries to fix this; the Ba'ku don't care at all if anyone else settles the planet (the Son'a end up building their own, non-genocidal colony far away from the Bak'u settlement) or if Starfleet builds a presence in the system (a starbase in orbit,) they object to their way of life being disrupted. They don't care if anyone makes use of the magic radiation, they just want to be left alone. The Son'a were unwelcome because they didn't just advocate wanderlust, they advocated industrialization. In the movie, the Son'a and Admiral Dougherty adamantly refuse any option that allows the Bak'u to continue existing as they do, and the only (possible) way of using the radiation that doesn't involve moving to the planet would render it desolate. The fact that the Bak'u are completely unwilling to defend themselves when pushed against the wall, though, is pretty silly.

* Throughout StarTrek in each and every one of its permutations, our heroes have been depicted as displaying compassion toward their opponents, even after some rather heinous actions on the villain's part. (Example: Kirk offers to help Kruge from falling to his death even though Kruge had given the order to kill Kirk's son earlier.) However, no one blinks at the thought of the ''Enterprise'' crew leaving Ru'afo to die on the exploding {{Phlebotinum}} collector when they could just as easliy beamed him off as they did Picard. No question that Ru'afo is a prototypical CompleteMonster, but I can't think of another instance when an ST villain was disposed of in this manner.

* It seems like the Bak'u are [[PlanetOfHats a race of]] [[BitchInSheepsClothing bitches in sheep's clothing]]. They want to maintain their hold over the planet and its planet of youth powers, but don't want to dirty their own hands defending it. So they manipulate Picard to stand against Starfleet and the Son'a. And the fact that they forced the Son'a to leave simply because '''[[WallBanger they wanted to explore the galaxy]]''' again makes it more infuriating.

---->'''Admiral Dougherty''': The Prime Directive doesn't apply. These people are not indigenous to this planet. They were never meant to be immortal. We'll simply be restoring them to their natural evolution.

------->'''Admiral Dougherty''': The Prime Directive doesn't apply. These people are not indigenous to this planet. They were never meant to be immortal. We'll simply be restoring them to their natural evolution.

* It seems like the Bak'u are [[PlanetOfHats a race of]] [[BitchInSheepsClothing bitches in sheep's clothing]]. They want to maintain their hold over the planet and its planet of youth powers, but don't want to dirty their own hands defending it. So they manipulate Picard to stand against Starfleet and the Son'a. And the fact that they forced the Son'a to leave simply because '''[[WallBanger they wanted to explore the galaxy]]''' again makes it more infuriating.

* It seems like the Bak'u are [[PlanetOfHats a race of]] [[BitchInSheepsClothing bitches in sheep's clothing]]. They want to maintain their hold over the planet and its planet of youth powers, but don't want to dirty their own hands defending it. So they manipulate Picard to stand against Starfleet and the Son'a. And the fact that they forced the Son'a to leave simply because '''they wanted to explore the galaxy''' again makes it more infuriating.

** Nothing says that these events had to happen one right after the other. The Ba'ku could have kicked the Son'a out some time before leaving their CrapsackWorld. They didn't have to kick them out as they were leaving their home planet.

***** Not that ''Insurrection'' doesn't have one badly overwritted, tangled-up mess of an aesop, but the people living on thr planet were colonists and, if I remember right, they'd only been on that planet for a hundred years or so. Maybe the Federation had already charted and claimed it back in the early days, and they just didn't make a fuss about the Space Amish who came along in the meantime until the planet became important. Maybe they'd been quietly debating what to do about that situation for years, and using the research teams to keep tabs on things in the meantime, until the magic radiation discovery turned it into a pressing issue.

* Sojef tells Picard that the colonists left their CrapsackWorld and arrived at the Ba'ku planet three hundred and nine years ago. Yet according to Riker and Troi's research, the Son'a conquered and subjugated two other races "half a century ago." Given that [[spoiler:the Son'a were actually Ba'ku kids kicked out of the colony "a century ago" after failing to take over,]] ''this doesn't make sense.''

* Throughout StarTrek in each and every one of its permutations, our heroes have been depicted as displaying compassion toward their opponents, even after some rather heinous actions on the villain's part. (Example: Kirk offers to help Kruge from falling to his death even though Kruge had given the order to kill Kirk's son earlier.) However, no one blinks at the thought of the ''Enterprise'' crew leaving Ru'afo to die on the exploding {{Phlebotinum}} collector when they could just as easliy beamed him off as they did Picard. No question that Ru'afo is a prototypical CompleteMonster, but I can't think of another instance when an ST villain was disposed of in this manner.

***** Not that ''Insurrection'' doesn't have one badly overwritted, tangled-up mess of an aesop, but the people living on thr planet were colonists and, if I remember right, they'd only been on that planet for a hundred years or so. Maybe the Federation had already charted and claimed it back in the early days, and they just didn't make a fuss about the Space Amish who came along in the meantime until the planet became important. Maybe they'd been quietly debating what to do about that situation for years, and using the research teams to keep tabs on things in the meantime, until the magic radiation discovery turned it into a pressing issue.