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1[[foldercontrol]]
2
3[[folder:What the Hell, Starfleet?]]
4* They discover a planet with the mysterious power to provide eternal youth and immortality. Its inhabitants have for centuries lived an idyllic, pastoral existence. Everyone there wants to maintain their peaceful way of life. The captain of the Federation's flagship is adamant that their wishes should be respected. The planet is surrounded by a immense cloud of lethal energy storms, even the most heavily-armored starships risk destruction should they try to penetrate it.
5** '''Starfleet Response:''' Where do those f*** ing hippies get off squatting on OUR planet?!
6*** To be fair, they come around at the end because Picard points out that they're being pricks.
7*** To be fair? ''Starfleet'' never actually knew. It was a rogue admiral who was the Starfleet representative on the whole deal, and his position was, "When Starfleet finds out, it'll already be done. And since I'll have the eternal youth drug, they'll just say 'bad boy,' and let me continue with my career."
8*** 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.)
9*** [[InsaneAdmiral As most Starfleet flag officers are.]]
10*** 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.
11*** 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?
12*** Pretty sure forced relocation of a population is illegal in the Federation too so not sure why the cloaking device would be the kicker. But as an aside, I hate how Section 31 has become the excuse every time the Federation does something less than squeaky clean. It was introduced as the dark cloud to the Federation's silver lining and an introduction of more complex morality to the moral paragon nature of the sparkly idealistic future, but instead it just became a convenient scapegoat to blame everything less than perfectly moral a Federation officer ever did for. If you take the line that Section 31 was responsible, Insurrection goes from "Even an idealistic society can compromise its morals if it becomes desperate enough, and some people have to make a choice which side of the moral line they'll stand on" to "Haha, we beat the mustache-twirlers again, shiny heroes!"
13[[/folder]]
14
15[[folder:Only One to Beam Out?]]
16* Throughout ''Franchise/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 have just as easily beamed him off as they did Picard. I can't think of another instance when an ST villain was disposed of in this manner.
17** If you had a choice between absolutely saving your captain, one of the greatest men you'd ever known and someone you loved like family, and risking his life so that you could also save the man trying to not only kill him but commit small-scale genocide, would you seriously take the risk of your captain dying just so you could feel better about yourself on having adhered to principle? It's stated several times that the beam out had an extremely thin margin of error, period, so it's as likely as not that whoever was working the transporter realized they could only get one beam out, so of course they took Picard.
18** It was a quick hectic situation with a few seconds to locate and beam out. Picard had his comm badge that the computer could instantly lock onto. Ru'afo did not.
19[[/folder]]
20
21[[folder:Timeline Twists]]
22* 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.''
23** 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.
24** I don't understand the problem. They colonized the planet three hundred and nine years ago. They banished the Son'a two hundred years later, or one hundred years ago. Fifty years later the Son'a conquered those other races. Fifty years from that is the present. Why is that confusing?
25** A more interesting set of questions in this vein is if there are only 600 Ba'ku, how are the Son'a supposed to have conquered those two races? Do the Son'a massively outnumber the Ba'ku? And if that's the case, then why did they leave the planet in the first place instead of exercising majority rule?
26*** They obviously had warp-level technology when they were kicked out, which means they likely had something equivalent to phasers/disrupters and photon torpedoes to work with. The races they conquered were probably pre-warp civilizations who could have been laid low by a particularly canny and ruthless individual using a Federation shuttlecraft, let alone a full-sized ship. If they picked their targets carefully, it wouldn't take a lot of time and effort.
27*** Heck, they needn't even use [[WeaponOfMassDestruction Weapons Of Mass Destruction]] if the races they enslaved were primitive enough; those drones they sicced on the Ba'ku certainly worked well against a weaponless population, even when the ''Enterprise'' crew had warned them in advance. No reason they couldn't have loaded those things with lethal ammo instead of transport-tracers and overwhelmed a few pre-industrial planets without a single Son'a even leaving orbit.
28[[/folder]]
29
30[[folder:It's Perfectly Ethical for me to Shoot You]]
31* 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'?
32** 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.
33[[/folder]]
34
35[[folder:Two Entire Slave Races Are Not Enough Help to Beat Our Enemies]]
36* 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?
37** 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.
38*** They were in the middle of a war. The Dominion was already sending ships through Federation territory, even holding on to Betazed. Yeah, that's weird. Troi seemed pretty chipper considering her planet was under Dominion occupation...but yeah. Send one ship with maybe 200 Jem'Hadar and problem solved.
39*** The Son'a wanted to harness the power of the planet for themselves. Since the war was going so swimmingly for the Dominion, taking part in this harvesting operation would be unnecessary at best and a drain on their resources at worst. If they had to deal with the planet at all, the Dominion would most likely just carpet bomb it into oblivion, something the Son'a definitely wouldn't want. The Son'a came to the Federation because they'd be desperate enough to go along with the plan.
40*** They wouldn't have to launch a full-scale invasion or use force at all. These people were pacifists who shunned technology, if the Son'a wanted the planet without killing any of the Bak'u, what was stopping them from building an internment camp in some remote corner of the planet and transporting the Son'a into it? Hell, that was more or less the exact plan that they were going to use to relocate the Bak'u anyways.
41*** They don't need the full-scale invasion to deal with the Bak'u, they'd need a full-scale invasion to ''get to'' the Bak'u. The Bak'u planet is in Federation territory. In the "Son'a don't contact the Federation" scenario being presented, the Federation doesn't know the Son'a's motives, but they do know that they're allies of the Dominion, and if you're considered a hostile target and you're messing around deep in enemy space, you'd better have stealth, speed, or power so that the enemy forces don't blow you to hell because they think you're on a scouting mission or are otherwise considered a target of opportunity. A Son'a ship flying around Federation territory trying to do a secret mission is not going to be tolerated. A Son'a ship with a few Jem'hadar escorts are similarly not going to be tolerated. Sure, the Federation might be stretched thin, but they'll probably try to do ''something''. Sure the Dominion was sending ships into Federation territory, but these were not lone vessels, and if they were, they were usually part of larger fleets that were too close to engage comfortably.
42*** Why not just tell the Federation the truth? That they're members of the same species, returning home to settle a dispute. At that point it becomes an "internal matter." The Prime Directive would prevent Starfleet from protecting the Ba'ku.
43*** Because it isn't an internal matter if the planet is in Federation space.
44*** "Federation space" is an extremely nebulous concept. For example, planets occupied by SufficientlyAdvancedAliens that lie within the nominal boundaries of "Federation space" nonetheless routinely tell the Federation to stay out of their faces (assuming they have faces). In this case, the dispute is between two factions of a single species occupying a non-member world in territory loosely claimed by the Federation. They could scream "Prime Directive!" with impunity if they chose.
45** For all we know, the Son'a asked the Dominion for help first, but were turned down flat. The Founders, assuming they ever age at all, are probably too biologically different from humanoids to benefit from the radiation's effects, and their servitor-races are all brainwashed to be content with the lifespans they were given. Why should the Dominion divert troops away from more strategic targets, just to help Ru'afo throw a hissy-fit? Better to just crank out fresh Jem'Hadar faster than to chase after dubious medical treatments for troops that were bred to be cannon fodder anyway.
46*** Even more, the Founders may fear that some of the subject species see the increased life-span tempting and want to rebel, Jem Hadar live like nine years IIRC.
47*** Jem'Hadar live for around thirty years at maximum known lifespan, and are "honoured elders" at twenty as per ''[=DS9=]''. A few years is simply the ''average'' lifespan, given that they are cannon fodder for the Dominion.
48** Also, the film may have been attempting to imply that the So'na needed Federation resources to complete the project. After all, the collector ship seemed like some pretty specialized tech.
49[[/folder]]
50
51[[folder:You Want Technology? Okay, Say Goodbye to Immortality Then]]
52* The Son'a exile doesn't make any sense. So the Bak'u children want to industrialize 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 kilometers 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. Picard should've just invoked the Prime Directive (remember, they're the same species, and the Prime Directive prevents him from interfering with internal matters of other races), and then lived it up thanks to the de-aging technology.
53** If memory serves the admiral suggests that the planet's effects would take too long to save them. So actually the movie gets even worse with the heroes refusing the option that keeps both sides alive.
54*** The Son'a were dying -- of old age -- because they chose to go off conquering other planets instead of living in peace on the one that made them eternally young. After the logical consequence of their choice has caught up with them, they decided they'd rather have their cake and eat it, too. It would've been decidedly unheroic to [[ImmortalityImmorality steal other people's immortality]] to give it to these thugs who willingly gave up on their own.
55** The Son'a exile happens this way, if you pay attention to the movie: The rebellious kiddos say "We want to industrialize." The establishment says, "No, we don't want to." Rebels: "But we WANT to!" Establishment: "Go do it somewhere else then." Rebels: "NO WE'RE GONNA DO IT HERE!" Then the rebels try to take over by violence and force everyone to do what they want. They get their butts whooped and the establishment says "We don't care where you go but you can't stay here." 'Here' being the actual settlement itself. It was probably the Son'a's own decision to take some of the old technology and leave the planet... but even if it wasn't, they'd attempted a violent coup so exile is still a pretty lenient punishment.
56*** How did the establishment do that butt whooping though? They were ActualPacifist, refusing to fight even in self-defense.
57*** Maybe they were less ActualPacifist a hundred years ago.
58*** That could actually work. The Ba'ku say that they came from a planet that was destroying itself in a war. The Son'a rebellion would have been a sobering reminder of their species' violent history.
59*** The Bak'u probably kicked the Son'a's butts once push came to shove (or they weren't so pacifistic back then) and then went "Okay, you want to follow the ways of the Offlanders? (or whatever they called them) Fine, take this old P.O.S. and get the hell off our planet." Then the Bak'u gave them some barely even warp capable ship with no weapons and the Son'a were forced to wander the galaxy for a few decades at a snail's pace looking for better stuff. Given the Son'a's typical attitude by the time they had technology that could just annihilate the Bak'u they were too busy dealing with the metric crapton of enemies they made in the process to have the time for their revenge. Add in that the Federation had claimed the space and were at war with their allies The Dominion they had no choice but to barter with the Federation to complete their revenge before they died from old age. They might also have simply been reveling in their childhood fantasies of power and glory and thus didn't particularly care about getting revenge on the Bak'u until they started degenerating and really realized what being forced off the planet had really done to them.
60*** To address the ActualPacifist issue, perhaps the Bak'u adopted that stance as a DIRECT result of the Son'a rebellion. The adults get into a civil war with their own children, beat the crap out of them and force them off the planet, then after awhile suffer a Bak'u wide [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone My God What Have We Done?]] and become ActualPacifist out of regret for what they've condemned their children to.
61[[/folder]]
62
63[[folder:SpaceAmish]]
64* The Ba'ku claim not to use machines in the movie. Ignoring the fact that we do see them using machines (primitive machines but still machines) in the movie where did their clothes come from? Those clothes look rather clean, they fit well and they don't have many apparent patches on them, none of which you would associate with clothes in a society that rejects machines to make and clean clothing.
65** Rejecting advanced technology doesn't mean they also rejected everything that technically counted as machines. [[RealityIsUnrealistic And people in the past often had nice/clean clothing as well]]. One can only imagine how good someone could get with a loom if they had 300 years of practice.
66** The Ba'ku's EXACT stance on Technology is this: "Our technological abilities are not apparent as we have chosen not to employ them in our daily lives. We believe that when you create a tool to do the work of a man, you take something away from that man." The machines the Ba'ku use require manual work by hand. This does not contradict their stance in any way.
67** To put it as simply as possible the Ba'ku are SpaceAmish.
68[[/folder]]
69
70[[folder:Eternal Youth Doesn't Mean Eternal Hair]]
71* Why can't the radiation make Picard's baldness go away? It causes Worf to have accelerated hair growth, and Geordi to not only regrow his eyes, but make them functional!
72** Patrick Stewart lost his hair when he was especially young, like 21 or so. I wanna say he was in his 50s when this movie was made, so maybe it was just too much of a gap.
73** Plus the movies retcon Picard into having gone bald when he was that young as well, so unless the radiation started reverting him to a teenager (which it specifically doesn't do), it wouldn't make him grow hair on his head again.
74*** But that doesn't really hold up as Geordi was born blind, so if the radiation couldn't regrow hair, it shouldn't be able to fix whatever genetic defect made Geordi blind. Not to mention (unless I misremember the film/misinterpret what is stated) it caused him to regrow his eyeballs which is surely more extreme than hair growth (and on that note, shouldn't Picard have re grown his heart if this is the case?)
75*** The effect may have something to do with re-generation, having Geordi's eyes re-generated from whatever original problem cause his blindness is possible, but baldness is not cause by that, there are many causes but I'm pretty sure none of them get cure by re-generating organs or tissue. Also IIRC the effect not only make you younger, also healthier and, again, baldness is not a health issue.
76** Simpler explanation: reversing the cause of his baldness wouldn't cause him to immediately have hair. The planet's radiation would repair the underlying issue, but his hair would still have to grow out, and the film takes place over too short a time interval for that to happen noticeably.
77** Yeah, while the effects of the planet are kind of arbitrary, it doesn't make sense that it would stimulate an unnatural degree of hair growth even if it's possible in principle. It's not Dimoxinil from WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons.
78[[/folder]]
79
80[[folder:Species Detectors]]
81* One minor question. HOW DO THE TRICORDERS NOT RECOGNIZE THE BA'KU and SON'A AS THE SAME SPECIES? Shouldn't they have figured out that they are the same species once they scanned the Ba'ku and realized they were the same one as soon as one realized they were the same biosigns?
82** Chalk it up to operator error. The Medical Tricorders probably (I say probably because we don't know just how much futzing with their DNA to try to obtain longevity the Son'A have done) could, ''if'' someone thought to look for that relationship. Obviously no one bothered to check that out. Remember, Federation mindset is that you aren't supposed to care what species someone is, so with that in mind it probably didn't occur to anyone to scan for that. All cultures have their cultural blindspots after all.
83*** It's not specifically stated if they had scanned both the Ba'ku and Son'a already. Dr. Crusher says the Son'a "declined to be examined" (doubtless to escape detection of this) and by usual medical ethics one cannot examine any patient without their consent. Presumably she thus felt duty-bound not to do this, and no one else had a reason to before apparently.
84** Crusher didn't scan any of the Son'a until they started skirmishing on the planet -- specifically, the ones that Worf nearly blew up with his purple space bazooka. Presumably she had already scanned at least one Ba'ku, which finally gave her the opportunity to compare the two.
85---> '''Crusher:''' ''(shows Picard her tricorder)'' Captain, take a look at this med-scan. His DNA profile.\
86'''Picard:''' ''(surprised look)'' How can that be possible?\
87'''Crusher:''' ''(re the Ba'ku)'' Maybe we should ask ''them''.\
88''(later)''\
89'''Picard:''' ''(to Dougherty)'' Didn't you know, Admiral? The Son'a and the Ba'ku are the same race.\
90'''Sojef:''' Picard just told us. Our DNA is identical.
91* The Son’a and Ba’ku don’t seem to know they’re the same race. Am I missing something? How could they not know? And would Picard and company believe the Ba’ku? This is a nasty family fight at heart.
92** The Ba'ku were well aware that their rebels had left the planet, but they didn't know that said rebels had become the Son'a, nor that they had returned. Even when Data exposed the undercover observation mission, the Ba'ku probably assumed the Son'a were some random alien race, as they were probably unrecognizable as their younger selves, and the Ba'ku lacked the medical technology to do a more thorough examination (and the Son'a never consented to any such procedures). The Ba'ku probably assumed that the rebels they had driven out weren't coming back, or had probably died out by the time of the film in-universe rather than coming back to seek revenge.
93[[/folder]]
94
95[[folder:The Gilbert & Sullivan Button]]
96* Why would the songs from ''[[Theatre/HMSPinafore HMS Pinafore]]'' be loaded into the shuttle's computer? Surely more essential information would be loaded on a shuttle than an opera? Did Picard have the shuttles in the Enterprise loaded with ''HMS Pinafore'' in the event he got stranded or had to take a long shuttle trip and needed something to entertain himself?
97** [[WebVideo/RedLetterMedia Mr. Plinkett]] made the humorous observation that Picard only had to press two buttons to call it up. Have fun trying to figure out why a shuttle pilot would need Creator/GilbertAndSullivan hotkeys on the helm console
98** Guys, we have compact storage devices ''today'' that could hold several thousand songs, 300 years and access to aliens who've been around a lot longer probably means they could fit the entirety of 20th century media on something the size of an iPad (actually, IIRC, the Voyager Episode Prime Factors had something like the entirety of the Federation's media on something the size of a couple of glasses cases thick, and that may just have been the casing). As for how quickly he accessed it, the angle of his hands would indicate that it's not directly in front of him, but more to the side, centralized, if you will, like where the car radio would be if it was a car. Why they'd have such a thing, well, you need to kill the time when you're waiting hours for a spatial anomaly to appear.
99*** Yup, and Picard did say aloud what he wanted when he asked Worf. It's not that hard to see the shuttle's LCARS-Alexa automatically monitoring what they are saying and he just had to tap a couple buttons to make it so. Likewise, Picard's personal iTunes library could easily follow him everywhere in all sorts of ways that can be done today.
100[[/folder]]
101
102[[folder:We Don't Like Technology But Do Like Androids]]
103* Why did the Ba'ku repair Data? They believe that "if you create a machine it take takes something away from the man" so surely Data should be an abomination in their eyes as essentially he takes ''everything'' away from the man considering he effectively ''replaces'' a man.
104** They tried and failed, and given he just exposed the fact that they were being spied on, it's the least they can do. They're luddites, not jerks.
105** Data is not a machine created to replace a person's workload, he's a machine created to be a person. The Ba'ku are advanced enough to recognize that and progressive enough to realize that a different form of life is still a form of life.
106** They do seem to distrust him initially. Maybe they thought that if they fixed him as soon as possible, they could send him on his way and they wouldn't have to deal with him anyone.
107[[/folder]]
108
109[[folder:Can't We Share the Planet?]]
110* Why did the Son'a want to relocate the Ba'ku anyway? It was clear That Ru'afo HATED them and the rest of the Son'a were probably doing this out of spite as well, so why didn't they just steal the rings and let them all die? It would've eliminated any need for a Federation alliance and Ru'afo would've had his revenge.
111** Unless I'm misremembering, the planet was inside Federation space while the Son'a were Dominion allies at the time. If the Son'a had tried, then they would have been repelled by a Federation task force before they got there or after getting there but before they could build the collector and make off with the particles. To achieve their goal they had to take the diplomatic route and butter the Federation up with promises of the benefits of an alliance.
112** Ru'afo simply wanted to get vengeance upon the Ba'ku, that's all there was to it. First he went with the "relocate them all without them noticing" plan because it would be deliciously ironic, the Ba'ku suddenly finding out within a decade that their magical radiation no longer works and they proceed to slowly languish away just like the Son'a did without any means to get themselves off the planet because they rejected technology, all the while the Son'a laugh themselves sick enjoying the benefits of eternal youth once again AND being technologically advanced race at the same time, and when that fails simply launching the Injector and killing them all. This is all under the assumption that Ru'afo's claim that the Injector actually WORKED to get those particles is true and wasn't just a load of B.S. the Son'a said to the Federation in order to use their doomsday weapon to kill off the Ba'ku and prevent the Federation from ever getting their hands on the particles ever as a last laugh to their enemies. Ultimately everything the Son'a that don't go against Ru'afo do throughout the movie is about getting this revenge.
113** Gallatin, at least, did object when Ru'afo decided to use the Injector with the Son'a still on the planet. So in answer to the question of why not just steal the rings without relocating the Ba'ku, it could be as simple as Ru'afo knowing that relocating the Ba'ku would be less controversial among the other Son'a than killing them.
114[[/folder]]
115
116[[folder:Why wasn't that ship in orbit?]]
117* So why would they hide the damn holo-ship in a lake instead of keeping it in orbit where a starship belongs?
118** Well the cloaking device probably takes a lot of power, and hiding it in orbit without being cloaked wouldn't work against starfleet sensors. In a lake on the other hand it can be powered down and only found if someone stumbles on it or goes actively looking for it. The real question is "why did they park it in a lake so close that the Baku can walk there in an hour or two?" This is another instance of the writers of this movie seeming to forget how big planets really are.
119** Also, didn't the Briar Patch have some kind of negative effect on ships' engines? Maybe it was more practical to keep the ship on the surface than it was to modify it to be able to loiter in orbit for an extended period of time.
120[[/folder]]
121
122[[folder:Immortal Population Growth]]
123* So the Baku are immortal and have been living on the planet for three hundred years. We know that they are able to reproduce because we have seen their children; they are largely devoted to pursuing the greatest amount of pleasure in life and yet...somehow there are only six hundred of them? Just how many of their citizens did they kick out to start the Son'a?
124** The Federation has done, what? A full year of research on metaphasic radiation? What if metaphasic radiation radically lowers fertility? The Bak'u wouldn't care, as it would just mean that they could enjoy themselves as much as they like with minimal consequences without worrying about going extinct - there are children, just a small number of them. Even if the Son'a know about that, all they care about is staying young while not having to stay in the Briar Patch. It would have been karmic if Section 31 had successfully harvested the planet only to end up sterilizing a significant part of the Federation.
125** To throw some possible FridgeBrilliance into this, maybe the radiation doesn't affect fertility at all, the Bak'u were simply smart enough to keep their breeding to a minimum considering their low genetic diversity and the problems of overpopulation that the Eternal Youth radiation would cause. The Bak'u's children rebelling and trying to take over only to get exiled would have enforced this policy even further.
126[[/folder]]
127
128[[folder:Regular Population Growth]]
129* Relatedly...why don't the Son'a just, you know, expand the population the usual way?
130** Given all the toxins that get sucked out of Ruafo along with some other scenes, it's somewhat implied that, well, that might not be quite as much of an option for 'em anymore.
131** [The idea is ''meant'' to be that trying to use lower amounts of the magic radiation would eventually result in physiological twisting like the Son'a have, even if actual age was extended, never mind the possible moral implications of struggles within the Fed for controlling the technology (keeping in mind that this movie was filmed and takes place during the DarkerAndEdgier Trek period of ''[[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]]'s'' final few seasons). It's so briefly and vaguely alluded to, however, that it's possible to nibble on some popcorn and miss it.
132** And later, we definitely learn of something hinted at earlier: the Son'a '''are''' the Ba'ku and it's as much a revenge motivation for the Son'a as it is anything else, and the Fed has been snookered into helping. Again, though, the foreshadowing is of the "blink-and-miss" variety, and the big reveal is really made in the last ''twenty minutes'' of the film, making it feel tacked-on.
133[[/folder]]
134
135[[folder: Health Spa]]
136* Couldn't the Ba'ku open a hospital or health spa someplace on the planet that they're not using?
137** No, because (blink-and-you'll-miss) it'll take ten years for the radiation to reverse the effects on the Son'a, and "some of them might not survive that long."
138*** Sucks for the Son'a, ok. But for the Federation, it'd essentially be like opening up another Risa paradise planet with a nifty "Fountain of Youth" feature. They could even offer residency there in exchange for service in Star Fleet. 30 years serving on a ship gets you 10 years on Bak'u. That'd solve their manpower shortages in a hurry. It would be an immortality serum that they could maintain absolute control over because it's a friggin planet. And furthermore, they could do it entirely without the Bak'u even knowing it. Just keep all people and air traffic 100 miles away from their settlement and they'd never know a thing. A planet is a big place.
139*** The radiation heals Geordi's eyes, firms up Troi's boobs and makes Worf go through puberty again all within the span of what, a week? And the Son'a won't experience the restorative effects for years? Now maybe the Ba'ku/Son'a are just different enough from humans, Klingons and half-Betazoids that the radiation takes years instead of days to have an effect, but that seems like a rather large plot hole to me.
140*** I don't know, if the So'na are really well over a hundred years old they could be kind of dead. Did you see the toxins that were extracted from Ruafo? The Enterprise crew were all perfectly healthy mature adults. And quite alive. The So'na? A little past the expiration date.
141*** I'm pretty sure they could if they wanted to. Or if the Federation wanted to, it's not like the Ba'ku could really stop them, and I doubt they'd care enough anyway as long as visitors are either friendly toward them or leave them alone. In fact, Picard said he had planned to take some shore leave on the planet near the end of the film. The problem is not that they were hogging the planet. The problem is that they objected to people trying to kidnap them and destroy their planet without bothering to try a third option, which the other people tried to hide with a "we can help billions with this stuff" argument. The Ba'ku would probably counter-argue "you could help billions without having to destroy our planet!"
142[[/folder]]
143
144[[folder: Each of Us is worth a Thousand of our Subject Species!]]
145* On a related note, how did a few hundred, or at most, thousand, Son'a manage to subjugate two entire species?
146** If they have starships and their potential slaves don't, they come in, bomb a few cities, and tell the rest "either work for us, or we keep bombing cities." Think Hopper's speech from WesternAnimation/ABugsLife, about "keeping those ants in line".
147[[/folder]]
148
149[[folder: Great, that was our only Warp core]]
150* For a somewhat more classic flavor of FridgeLogic, though... wait, how the hell do they get home ''after ejecting the warp core''? Hell, shouldn't the ''impulse'' engines stop working without main power from the warp core?
151** For those of you who haven't either read the tech manuals or played with the Starship Creator program, the answer to the above is a) They were towed, and b) the impulse engines are powered by multiple fusion reactors, not the warp core.
152** [Also, I'd wager there were enough spare parts in the cargo bays to rebuild the core. Or at least let [[GadgeteerGenius Geordi]] cobble something together.
153** The Master System Display for the USS ''Voyager'' shows that it has a spare warp core (though of course they forgot this in the episode where the alien-of-the-week stole the primary core). As it is of an even more advanced - and much larger - class than the ''Voyager'' it's entirely possible that the ''Enterprise''-E has at least one spare core that the crew didn't forget about.
154*** Except that Geordi specifically says that "There's nothing stopping them from doing it again (the subspace tear weapon) and we're fresh out of warp cores!".
155*** Well if he said "We're fresh out of warp cores that are already loaded into the warp core assembly and thus powered and containing the charge we need to attract one of those rifts if we ejected it from the warp core assembly it's not in and even if the spare warp core were in the assembly and powered and we ejected it they could just fire it a third time and THEN we'd be completely out of warp cores!" then the ship would be destroyed by the time he finished.
156** Quite simply, the ''Enterprise'' didn't have to go all the way home, just clear of the Briar Patch where they could get a clear transmission to the Federation Council. Back to Earth and then ''back again'' to the Briar Patch would likely have taken weeks, if not months, even at warp.
157** Much simpler solution, really. Everyone always forgets the shuttles. Just send one out to warp out for help, and problem solved.
158** Given they couldn't warp out of the Briar Patch anyway they probably just used impulse to get clear of it then either went to the nearest Starbase in impulse range or assuming their wasn't one called a supply ship to give them a new warp core to install.
159[[/folder]]
160[[folder: Fountain of Eyes]]
161* The {{Fountain of Youth}} effect on the planet enables Geordi to see. But reducing the age of his eyes to before the point where they ceased to function wouldn't work, because he was ''born'' blind. In addition, Geordi never wanted to have 'normal' vision, because he found the features of the visor (and in ''[[Film/StarTrekFirstContact First Contact]]'', the contacts he replaced it with) to be far too useful.
162** Not really, as Admiral what's-his-face states that the medical applications for the unique radiation haven't even begun to be explored. Not so much {{Fountain of Youth}} as much as 'Fountain of make-everything-work-properly-and-at-what-is-considered-to-be-the-peak-for-insert-your-species-here'. Which is ''hard'' to say more than once in a conversation.
163** Geordi ''has'' mentioned wanting to have normal vision; in fact he said so in the third episode of the series, "The Naked Now", mentioning it to both Yar and Doctor Crusher. Granted he was under the influence of the ''Tsiolkovsky'' virus at the time, but he certainly seemed sincere (the fact that he declined Riker's gift of normal vision when Riker had the powers of the Q was explained when Geordi said, "The price is a little too high for me, and... I don't like who I'd have to thank.").
164[[/folder]]
165
166[[folder: Just Set Up Shop on the Other Side of the Planet]]
167* When the Son'a got kicked out, why didn't they just set up a new colony on the other side of the planet? It's not like the Bak'u had any way of enforcing the banishment.
168** Their main priority was revenge.
169*** Can't have been that high a priority, since they spent decades attacking other planets.
170*** It's like in Franchise/FinalFantasy: they spent time going around leveling up before having a go at the dungeon.
171*** How much grinding do you need to take on <600 complete pacifists?
172*** It's not a practical strategy. The Son'a have fairly clear-cut ComplexityAddiction issues likely related to whatever bug got up their butts about leaving home and building a stellar empire.
173[[/folder]]
174
175[[folder: We Hate Technology. No, Not ''That'' Technology]]
176* The no-technology aspect. ''Irrigation is a form of technology.'' Even if you were willing to allow things like hammers and plows, irrigation systems are almost always referred to as a form of technology in textbooks, especially ones as well built as the Baku's.
177** And the ''dam''. Dam's are ''always'' technology, even when built by beavers.
178** And, as Linkara pointed out, the clothes are surprising well made for not being manufactured. As someone's who's seen home woven cloth, I'm inclined to agree.
179*** Remember that amazing art Picard was looking at? Anij said it was the work of students. Who would then go on to apprentice for ''thirty or forty years'' before being able to be a full artisan themselves. These are a people more akin to Tolkien's elves in longevity, so being a master weaver probably means something more on Ba'ku than it does here on Earth.
180** Linkara pointed out that some claim that the Ba'ku accept a certain level of technology, i.e. anything without a transistor circuit. However, they do not specify this in the movie, and after all, an irrigation system would take away a man's ability to carry buckets of water several miles.
181** They specifically state they avoid tools that "take something away from a man". They don't say anything about rejecting tools that allow them to SURVIVE: A dam prevents flooding and provides a water source, preventing thirst, an irrigation system allows for mass growth of food, preventing starvation, and a loom provides clothes for sanitation and protection from the elements. all of these tools require manual work by hand, not something that does the work for them.
182*** So how were they able to repair Data? Also their clothes look much better woven (and cleaned[[note]]as does their entire village considering they supposedly live at agrarian level tech[[/note]]) than what they realistically should be capable of.
183** They have "no technology" the same way that wellness resorts have "no technology". They make a pretentious show of of a pre-modern lifestyle, but they almost certainly have stuff hidden out of sight. Anybody who has ever worked on a real farm could tell you that there is ''no'' way that they could have such nice, clean, clothes and homes without technology. Especially since they are a closed economy which would mean that ''everything'', right down to the most basic tools they use, would need to be made somehow. Where is the filthy village blacksmith for example?
184** Seems like some posters are going hyper-technical. The man said "Our technological abilities are not apparent because we have chosen not to employ them in our daily lives." It's a huge jump to read that as "they hate technology" (though Picard himself does pretty much say that). "Our DAILY lives" is a pretty important part of that statement. That doesn't mean they don't use tech as needed, and certainly not that they're deliberately trying to fool anybody. It just means things like "we make our own bread" vs using replicators. As to what is technology, well, they have houses, that's tech. Really, even sticking a seed in the ground is a form of tech.
185*** It is strange that they have the means to deliver technobabble like: "There was a phase variance in his positronic matrix which we were unable to repair." They must have some advanced technology at hand to even assess this as being beyond their abilities. Yet this went unobserved by the Federation team?
186
187[[/folder]]
188[[folder: Dam it!]]
189* Speaking of the dam - Data opened the flood gate to lower the water level enough to reveal the holodeck ship. That ship looked like it was about 6m high, and the lake looked like it was a couple of square miles. Where did the water go? Did Data just destroy the Baku's crops and flood the village? And why doesn't the water level in the lake appear to go down?
190** And speaking of the holo-ship -- why the hell wasn't it in orbit?
191[[/folder]]
192
193[[folder: Defeated by Total Pacifists]]
194* The Ba'ku are ActualPacifist to the point of refusing to act in their own defense when attacked and refuse to use technology more advanced than a certain arbitrary level; when the Son'a reclaimed the tech from their space-faring past and started their rebellion how did the Ba'ku beat them so solidly they actually fled the planet?
195** Likewise, how did they kick them off-world? Did they just keep the Starship they arrived in lying around? ''Why?!'' And didn't that ship have weapons? Why didn't the Son'a use them to shoot the Ba'ku? All these makes it look like the Ba'ku secretly have a big old warehouse of technology lying around that they drag out whenever their inane philosophy fails them.
196*** Would explain how they attempted to fix Data, despite none of their supposed tools being suitable for this task.
197[[/folder]]
198
199[[folder: No Immortal Hair Growth]]
200* Here's something I thought was really odd. How does the radiation cause Geordi's eyes to not only regrow but become functional...yet not cure Picard's baldness? And we see that it can cause extreme hair growth in Worf later?
201** If Nemesis is to be taken into account, Picard was bald since he was a youth. Alternatively, Picard likes the bald look and shaved it down.
202*** Except TNG episodes showed him with hair well into adulthood (iirc one episode shows him with receding hair in a flashback to when he told Beverly about her husband's death so was at most only ten or so years before the first season of TNG), so the Nemesis thing is one of a) a goof/did not do the research on the part of the writers/directors/props department/etc of the film, b) a photo taken after the 24th century equivalent of student hijinks or c) a photo taken after he shaved it for charity or the like.
203*** Except in that episode (Violations) the flashbacks are often 'off' in a few ways. I think Picard having hair could be explained that way.
204*** I put it under that Picard simply wasn't on the planet long enough for the radiation to affect his baldness, just like he doesn't end up looking like Marcus Nash by the end of the movie. It might be able to fix things like Geordi's blindness and grow out Worf's hair, but some bigger things like completely reversing baldness might take awhile. Besides, it might not even be possible for the radiation to reverse that sort of damage in the first place, just like Picard doesn't end up spontaneously regrowing the heart he lost when he was a teenager.
205*** Except Geordi grew new eyeballs - remember at some point between Generations and First Contact he has his eyes replaced with artificial implants and iirc in Insurrection he specifically said Dr Crusher had to remove the implants because he'd grown new organic eyeballs, so it must be pretty arbitrary radiation if it can regrow eyeballs but not reverse baldness and regrow a heart.
206** Isn't Worf's extreme hair growth explicitly stated because the radiation is causing him to experience puberty again and one of the effects of Klingon puberty is extreme hair growth? Maybe it was reversing Picard's baldness, but human hair grows too slowly for there to have been a noticeable effect? Although that falls apart when you factor in the whole Geordi growing new eyes thing.
207*** No, the radiation didn't regrow Geordi's eyeballs, he still had them and the radiation repaired the cells IN the eye that were preventing him from being able to see. The implants were something added TO Geordi's eyes, it did not replace them.
208** Given how male pattern baldness works Picard's hair follicles would need to be regenerated, then hair would have to start forming, and then finally start growing out enough to be visible. That would take far longer than the period of the film, it would probably be over a month before Picard started having obvious stubble on his head and several months to have a decent head of hair again.
209[[/folder]]
210
211[[folder: United Crew?]]
212* Why is everyone in the main crew so in favor of helping the Ba'ku? Worf is friends with Julien Bashir, who ran the math and said that if they lose the Dominion War (which the Alpha Quadrant was at the time), over eight hundred ''billion'' people would die. At the very least, ''Worf,'' the ''Security Officer,'' who has ''fought on the front lines of the war'', should have suggested that the bad guys might have a point, that developing this medical technology into something ''helpful to the war effort''. But no, Worf instead sides with his captain to allow a planet of six hundred hypocritical luddites to stay in the same mudhole they've always lived in while Dominion Warships are lining up to blow the hell out of Earth and the other homeworlds of the Federation.
213** Wouldn't Worf side with Picard because the Son'a are known allies of the Dominion? That their plan to destroy the Ba'ku planet would come across to him as playing on the Federation's desperation and being more likely be a Dominion plot to sabotage this very resource?
214** The real problem isn't that they agree, it's that they do so without question as though there was no moral grey area at all.
215** You're expecting the guy who'd ''wanted to be ceremonially euthanized when he broke his back'' to rate improved medical care as a crucial-enough military advantage to be worth dishonorably abandoning one's principles for?
216*** He might not view those principles the same way as the others. One episode had his adopted brother use identical tactics to save the remnants of a race the Federation had chosen to exterminate through deliberate inaction.
217*** Except the Ba'ku are not victims of a natural disaster, they're the victims of a deliberate and active attempt at genocide being perpetrated by vengeful warmongers using "the greater good" as their excuse, as most evil people often do.
218[[/folder]]
219
220[[folder: See the Map? Yeah, that's all ours]]
221* How does the Federation, an alliance of hundreds of semi-independant worlds united by common cause, claim ownership of a planet they haven't even explored properly? Did they claim ownership of vast swaths of unexplored space like historical imperialist powers, or is it just the Briar Patch?
222** I think it's likely that the Federation claims control of vast swathes of space, but the planets (and their systems) are independent but under 'Federation Protection' until they achieve warp flight. And considering the Federation tries to avoid First Contact until after the natives achieve warp capabilities they probably generally stay out of the system save for the odd probe/monitoring ship/undercover anthropological team to minimise the chances of first contact prior to that. As such, the natural resources are also placed off limits and declared the property of the natives. (Obviously when there are no natives, they plant a flag, declare 'this is ours' and start colonisation). As for why the Ba'ku planet wasn't fully studied before the Son'a came along, maybe it's a combination of the Briar Patch being too hazardous to bother with most of the time and the Feds having studied it, but not being able to do anything with it without the Son'a's help?
223** Considering the number of expansionist space powers just within the Alpha Quadrant alone, the Federation may find it necessary to stake a claim to territory before somebody else does. Try reimagining this story if the Ba'ku planet were in space claimed by the Breen, Cardassians, Ferengi, Klingons, Romulans, etc... ''None'' of those powers would have given the slightest credence to the Ba'ku's Space Amish nonsense in the face of such an incredibly valuable resource and any of them would have just slaughtered the Ba'ku without the slightest twinge of angst.
224** Most likely they do what everone does. Take a map with a top down view of the quadrant and say "we have systems here, here, here and here" and then draw lines between them and claim to own everything within that boundary, and if they're doing that why not have curved rather than straight lines to cover a fee more systems. Practically, they can only claim what they can hold, but the Fed is massive and can hold a lot of places if needed.
225[[/folder]]
226
227[[folder: Prolonging only beneficial life]]
228* How does the planet's magic radiation distinguish between "good" life (e.g. people, crops, etc.) and "bad" life (disease organisms, parasites, etc.)? It seems oddly convenient, to the point of Intelligent Design, that the radiation from the planet's rings does not produce unbeatable super-diseases that just keep coming back or swarms of dangerous insects that overwhelm the ecosystem because they never die off.
229** The Ba'ku do have advanced technology, they just don't use it when they don't have to. Perhaps they sterilized the planet from "bad" life when they first came there, and use periodic sweeps as necessary to keep it that way.
230** Wow! That would take the already Broken Aesop of the film and utterly ''disintegrate'' it! If the Bak'u are not only using advanced technology, but using it to wipe out inconvenient lifeforms then ''everything'' they preach is a bald-faced ''lie'' and the whole narrative falls apart!
231[[/folder]]
232
233[[folder: Why not just do a ColonyDrop?]]
234* The planet is located deep in the Briar Patch, which is difficult to navigate and even harder to monitor. The Ba'ku live in a small community of just 600 people. A single photon torpedo from orbit could wipe them out in an instant! If the Son'a felt that they needed to conceal the extermination of the Ba'ku from the Federation, a simple asteroid would work just as well and leave no traces. Since the Ba'ku were not known to occupy the planet until the Son'a drew Starfleet's attention to that fact, a seemingly random impact crater would likely go unremarked upon.
235** The Son'a could have done something like that soon after they left, but were too busy off conquering primitives. By the time of the film just going back to the planet was not going to allow the Son'a to regenerate quickly enough to save them, and they needed the Federation's help building the collector to do the quick version. Once the Federation had been to the planet and seen the Ba'ku there it would be no longer be possible to wipe them out without awkward questions.
236** Apparently an entire ''century'' elapsed between the Son'a being banished and the events of the movie! Are you seriously arguing that in all that time the Son'a couldn't find the time to go back and do something to the Bak'u? It's not like they were running an especially large empire.
237** They conquered two entire species and created a slave culture that had them completely obedient by the time of the movie. That seems like it could take some time.
238*** Why? If they conquered lower-tech species, and their conquests were based on superior technology rather than having enough troops to occupy their conquered worlds then all they would have really needed was to keep a starship parked in orbit with the clear threat of laying waste to the planet if their subjects rebelled. The Son'a were not numerous enough to micromanage their conquests. Which is presumably why they never became a major power.
239*** We're talking about maybe a couple hundred Son'a were ruling at least two entire species of millions or billions. It would be a full time job for all of them, no matter how much they delegated.
240*** That literally takes ''one'' person to bomb the planet if necessary. Heck, a Federation hologram could do that job!
241*** Bombing a planet's people out of existence doesn't take many people or much time, but forcing an entire species into useful slavery and administering them for 50 years is a major task.
242*** Yes, but the extent of their decrepitude in them film makes it very doubtful that they are ''personally'' overseeing their subjects on the ground. They also apparently do not have a very large population, which is also problematic.
243[[/folder]]
244
245[[folder: How far away did the Son'a go?]]
246* It keeps being repeated that the Son'a never addressed the fact that they were aging until they were already extremely old. But it is never explained why. Even with all of their ''many'' adventures, the ''Enterprise'' crew still managed to visit their homeworlds. In the franchise as a whole, characters like [=McCoy=], Spock, Tuvok and even Kirk himself took sabbaticals from Starfleet that lasted for years. In all the time they were away, with their bodies noticeably aging, why didn't the Son'a build a settlement on the other side of the planet and make periodic returns to be rejuvenated? They wouldn't all need to do so at the same time, and their conquests were minor, rather than being a large empire needing their constant supervision. How far away were their conquests that they could not even make occasional trips back?
247** Did the Son'a understand how aging works when they left? Consider that they were born and raised on a planet with no aging or disease. They would see aging in the other species they conquered, but would they recognize, when their health started to deteriorate, that age was their own problem? Maybe not until it was almost too late.
248*** Not plausible. Their species had been mortal until they settled on the planet, not that long before the Bak'u-Son'a dispute. If they remembered their technological history then they almost certainly remembered their biological history as well. By the time they hit middle-age it should have been incredibly obvious what was happening to them.
249*** What is middle age for their species? Do they age in the same way as humans, with a gradual decline, or is it all at once? And how does the regenerating radiation they absorbed in their youth affect the aging process? It's quite possible no one born there had ever left the planet before for long enough to loose their immortality, so they would have had no idea what would happen.
250*** That's just more headscratchers, not a hypothesis. One can assume that, if they were accustomed to not aging at all once they reached adulthood, then ''any'' aging would be noticeable. They would have also needed to maintain some focus on medical science because leaving the planet would have also ended their immunity to illness. That would especially be a problem if they were conquering other planets (unless they never set foot on them). It seems implausible that they went from the equivalent of being in their 20's to what they were in the film overnight. And, just to reiterate, their species was not immortal prior to the colonization of the planet, so they ''knew'' that being ageless was ''not'' an inherent trait of their species.
251[[/folder]]
252
253[[folder: Maybe I'm missing something, but...why do they need to move the population?]]
254* I mean, the rings are in space, the village is on the ground. Why can't they just use some sort of fancy space bucket (assuming the transporters wouldn't work) to collect some of the ring material and fly it back to a Federation research station? The rest of the rings will still be there, and the Bak'u will never know the difference.
255** They didn't. As Picard and his crew show, being rejuvenated by the radiation is as simple as being on or near the planet for even a few days. Furthermore, as is stated many times in the movie, the entire Bak'u population consists of a single six hundred person village. That planet is at least as big as Earth. If the Federation wanted to use the planet's radiation to help people, all they'd have to do is set up their own colonies. And they could've done it without the Bak'u even knowing it, let alone objecting (REALLY don't get where people keep getting that idea), as long as they were left to do their own thing on their own little patch of the planet. But then, relocating them was never the Federation's idea to begin with; it was the Son'a's, and for them, or at least Ru'afo, this was just as much, if not more, a revenge plot than it was an attempt to get the particles.
256** This point was sort of addressed in the story. There was something unique beyond the particles in the rings and to harness them required a procedure which would leave the planet uninhabitable. We were informed that the Federation's best scientific minds had looked into it and this was the only way to do this (we weren't told why this was the case but it was). As for why you couldn’t set up colonies on the planet, this was sort of addressed for the Son’a (as it would take too long to save them if they didn’t do this procedure which left the planet uninhabitable; though that doesn’t explain why they didn’t come back twenty years ago). For the Federation, the reason they couldn't just set up colonies is probably just a matter of scale. Some of the hundreds of billions of people in the Federation could visit the planet and cure a disease but many couldn't, it won’t extend the average lifespan long term and it would be no use for helping save a soldier on the battlefield who wouldn’t have time to make the trip.
257[[/folder]]
258
259[[folder:Did Anyone Try Asking Nicely?]]
260* Before deciding on forced relocation, did anyone approach the Ba'ku and make an earnest plea for them to leave their planet voluntarily so that billions of lives across the galaxy could be saved? And, if they did, what reason did the Ba'ku (who seem like compassionate chaps) give for refusing?
261** No, they didn't ask. At the beginning of the film the Federation believes the Ba'ku are a pre-warp society, and therefore under the protection of the Prime Directive.

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