YMMV / Star Trek Voyager S 6 E 14 Memorial

• Broken Aesop:
  • The lesson of the episode is that it's necessary to preserve the memory the tragedies of the past to ensure they never happen again, no matter how horrific it may be. However, the titular memorial doing so by implanting traumatizing memories of said tragedies into the minds of unknowing people, comes off as ridiculously harmful and ineffective. Not only is it shown to be highly traumatizing, doing serious and long-term psychological damage to the people exposed to it, but the Voyager crew are clearly horrified and incapable of understanding how could they do anything like this, and the episode relies on viewers knowing this is highly OOC of them. Even with the fact that later we learn that it was more due to machine degradation that they only receives bit and pieces of it, but it clear that the mental backlash did more harm than good.
  • Jim "Reviewboy" Wright points out another flaw in the lesson — the experience may not affect the viewer the way it's meant to.
    "This indiscriminate imposition of traumatic memory, though perhaps well meaning, is not the best approach — and may in fact be counterproductive. If the recipient is not chosen wisely, might not some of those who relive these memories actually approve of the slaughter? How would you expect a Hirogen to react, for example? They might simply be disappointed that the prey were so easy to hunt. Another species, as ignorant of homicide as last week's aliens were to music, could decide they like the sensation and look for someone else to kill for an encore."
• Values Dissonance: As resonant as a lesson about the atrocities committed by the powerful against the powerless continues to be, there’s a reason why the phrase “say their name” has become a rallying cry. Remembering someone just for the violence performed against them is an insult to their memory - and that is exactly what the titular transmitter is enabling. Janeway says that without intervention, the colonists would have been forgotten, but what are they even being remembered as, other than nameless victims? It may be a good lesson, but it’s a crap memorial.
• Values Resonance: This is the harsh truth of "Memorial", its central thesis having aged remarkably well in the years since it was originally broadcast. There is something traumatic in confronting these atrocities, particularly as a privileged class – and in using the experiences of the soldiers carrying out the massacre, "Memorial" is very much about how the privileged class confronts atrocity. It is similar to debates about teaching slavery in schools, acknowledging that it involves confronting children with harrowing imagery and horrifying brutality. The pain and shame of these lessons is not an unfortunate side effect. It is the entire point of the lesson. People should feel disgusted by what the privileged can do to the powerless, even if they have never actively participated in something as brutal. Ideally, lessons like this serve as a warning that might prevent them from ever repeating the mistakes of others. Neelix offers the perfect response to Chakotay, “That’s how you learn not to make the same mistake.”