History Fridge / StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E3TheSurvivors

* FridgeHorror: How powerful, exactly, are the Douwd? We never even hear the ''Q Continuum'' acknowledge them. Maybe it's for the best we only hear of them in this episode. They are certainly one of the most powerful races shown in Trek but are most likely still far below the godlike Q in power, particularly as the Douwd apparently have no ability to manipulate events outside of time, as Kevin could not reverse his genocide after committing it.
* Kevin is presumably not omniscient, as Picard was able to hide the Enterprise from him and blindside by abducting him from the surface against his will. How then, could he have known that the Husnock were an AlwaysChaoticEvil race? Only one ship attacked the colony, and politics is complicated; they could have been representing only one faction out of hundreds, they could have simply been a band of pirates operating on their own rules. For all we are told the majority of Husnock could have been peaceful, and if this were the case, Kevin wiped out an entire innocent species based on the actions of a few rogues.

* The fact that even though they may very well have a law to deal with the scope of the crime Kevin has committed. The Enterprise is completely powerless to do anything to enforce it and all they can do is leave the planet and let Starfleet and its allies know what happened and to steer clear of Rana IV and hope that Kevin doesn’t loose the one thing keeping him in check, his own morality.

* The fact that even though they likely have a law to deal with the scope of the crime Kevin has committed. The Enterprise is completely powerless to do anything to enforce it and all they can do is leave the planet and let Starfleet and its allies know what happened and to steer clear of Rana IV and hope that Kevin doesn’t loose the one thing keeping him in check, his own morality.

* The fact that even though they likely have had a law to deal with the scope of the crime Kevin has committed. The Enterprise is completely powerless to do anything to enforce it and all they can do is leave the planet and let Starfleet and its allies know what happened and to steer clear of Rana IV and hope that Kevin doesn’t loose the one thing keeping him in check, his own morality.

* The fact that even if they had a law to deal with the scope of the crime Kevin has committed. The Enterprise is completely powerless to do anything about it and all they can do is leave the planet and let Starfleet and its allies know what happened and to steer clear of Rana IV and hope that Kevin doesn’t loose the one thing keeping him in check, his own morality.

* The fact that even if they had a law to deal with the scope of the crime Kevin has committed. The Enterprise is completely powerless to do anything about it and all they can do is leave the planet and let Starfleet and its allies know what happened and to steer clear of Rana IV.

** People sometimes wonder what Picard meant by "We have no law to fit your crime" — surely the Federation has laws against ''murder'', let alone genocide. But he may well have meant not "we have no ''statute'' to fit your crime," but "we have no ''legal system'' that could fit your crime" — no practical way to impose judgment on Kevin unless Kevin freely chose to cooperate with it, which he's already doing with his own self-inflicted punishment. In other words, the law isn't ''ignorant'' of his crime, but ''useless'' before it.

* Pretty chilling to think, as awful as Kevin's extermination of the Husnock was, it may have been ''the only thing that saved the Federation.'' After all, this entirely unknown, heavily armed, warlike state was making its first incursion against the Federation. We don't necessarily know how they would have fared against a colony with stronger defences, or against Starfleet vessels or bases, but it could well have been devastating. And worse yet, we're only a few episodes away from the Borg assault. Starfleet, to which a single Borg cube handed its ass at Wolf 359, might have had to go into that battle while fighting a war against the Husnock at the same time, if this random colony hadn't happened to have a Douwd living on it.

** An ExtendedUniverse novel shows us the Husnock at the moment of their annihilation. They are indeed as unpleasant as Kevin suggests, but their end is still portrayed as horrifying. (And the abandonment of their lethal technologies turns out to be a whole other existential threat.)

* The fact that even if they had a law to deal with the scope of the crime Kevin has committed. The Enterprise is completely powerless to do anything about it and all they can do is leave the planet and let Starfleet and its allies know what happened and to steer clear of Rana IV.

** Kevin said that Douwd are beings of "false appearances". It's likely that any others of his species assume the appearance of other races and "die" when things get complicated. He also implied that he wasn't from this galaxy.

** Kevin was also living with his sorrow and guilt. Deanna being able to sense what he really is (and that his wife was an illusion) angered him and instead of a fine-tuned effect, he unloaded with his power. He pretty much admitted that to Picard when he explained himself.

* Presumably, there are other members of the Douwd species out there, living among us (or perhaps among Vulcans, Klingons, etc). And all we can hope for is that no one upsets another, maybe less pacifistic, Douwd.

** It’s possible he was lying to assuage his guilt, but he’s also immortal and may have visited them before.

* Kevin put aside his powers to act as the mortal husband to Rishan for decades. He might have been able to fool the Husnock and/or Enterprise if he wasn't so out of practice using his powers or even thinking in those terms.

* Kevin is presumably not omniscient, as Picard was able to hide the Enterprise from him and blindside by abducting him from the surface against his will. How then, could he have known that the Husnock were an AlwaysChaoticEvil race? Only one ship attacked the colony, and politics is complicated; they could have been representing only one faction out of hundreds, they could have simply been a band of pirates operating on their own rules. For all we are told the majority of Husnock could have been peaceful, and if this were the case, Kevin wiped out an entire innocent species based on the actions of a few rogues.

* Kevin threatens the away team with a phaser, but Worf easily spots that the phaser is nonfunctional and does not heed heed the threat. We later learn that Kevin has created everything in his home using his abilities, which means he specifically created the phaser to be nonfunctional. The pacifist Kevin won't even create a working weapon for the purpose of a bluff.