Headscratchers / Star Trek: The Next Generation S4E2 "Family"

• The show seems to waffle on whether the replicators can produce actual alcohol. It's stated in a previous episode that the replicators can create real alcohol if requested, but in this episode, Robert insinuates that synthehol is all that is available to Jean-Luc on the Enterprise. Picard only defends synthehol rather than state that he could have alcoholic wine whenever he chooses.
  • Picard had no reason to indicate in this discussion that he could have real alcohol whenever he chooses. Ship stores do keep non-replicated goods, and Picard himself has been shown keeping a bottle aside, so regardless of whether replicators can make alcohol, he could have accessed it and Robert never claimed otherwise. Robert's exact accusation was, "You've been drinking too much of that artificial stuff. What do you call it? Synthehol? It's spoiled you. Ruined your palate." So the point Picard needed to address was not whether he could have accessed alcohol, but whether synthehol had ruined his palate. In that case defending synthehol, and how it had changed his pallet, made sense. Claiming that he could have alcohol if he wished would be a rather poor argument (indeed it may have suggested his pallet was so dulled by synthehol that he didn't think to request real alcohol, which if anything supports Robert's accusations).
  • Robert was just taking a swipe at Picard's lifestyle. The technicalities weren't important.
  • Expanded Universe material indicates synthehol doesn't have the same inebriating effect as real alcohol, and any side effects can simply be shaken off. Given how often the Enterprise finds itself at red alert, it's not surprising the idea of being drunk or hung over on duty would be frowned upon.
• How aware are the people of Earth of the Borg incursion? Considering the large number of lost Starfleet ships and the cube waltzing through the solar system's security, as well as exploding in Earth orbit, it seems likely that everybody would be well aware of what happened. Yet nobody seems remotely bothered by the event.
  • Giant threats from outer space happen so regularly in Trek that it is just normal life. Weird alien thing happens, Starfleet stops it. It is just how it is.
  • The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Homefront" reveals that a state of emergency was declared on Earth during the Borg attack, so people were definitely aware of it.