Ask The Tropers

That isn't an example. Picard is trying to disprove his own God Guise.

Yes, it's not an example of the trope, so it can be deleted on those grounds alone. It's also complaining about the show's (perceived) attitude towards religion, so even if it had been an example it should have been rewritten to be more neutral.

If the OP puts it back, then it's an edit war, and in that case you should report it and not delete it again.

Edited by GnomeTitan

Thanks for the input.

Just to do some due diligence, could we get an IP check between Alt Cat Cuisine and Skid Troper (AKA Snap Tap) from this ATT query? Said user's primary purpose was complaining about Religion Is Wrong in sci-fi works.

Edited by Larkmarn Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Who_Watches_The_Watchers_(episode) http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/152.htm - The script of the episode.

PICARD: "Horrifying. Doctor Barron, your report describes how rational these people are. Millennia ago, they abandoned their belief in the supernatural. Now you are asking me to sabotage that achievement, to send them back into the Dark Ages of superstition and ignorance and fear? No! We will find some way to undo the damage we've caused. Number One, tell me about this group's leader."

Picard was not trying to disprove his own God Guise in the sense of deliberate disguise, and his argument is clearly with "the supernatural", not the mistake of seeing him as a god.

Edited by AlfCatCuisine

Those two things are the identical. Federation technology makes them a Sufficiently Advanced Alien, and Captain Picard is dismayed because he would prefer if they concluded there's No Such Thing as Space Jesus.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I'd be inclined to agree with you, except that's not the point addressed in the context provided by the script.

RIKER: "It's senseless for this stranger to be held captive. All this talk of the Overseer, it's old superstitions."

Old superstitions. As in, not new superstitions.

PICARD: "Doctor Barron, your report describes how rational these people are. Millennia ago, they abandoned their belief in the supernatural. Now you are asking me to sabotage that achievement, to send them back into the Dark Ages of superstition and ignorance and fear? No!"

Did those Dark Ages have anything to do with Picard? No. He's referring to a time before his crew ever interfered with their culture. He's conflating the local belief in his accidental God Guise with religion in general. There's also the matter of the Prime Directive itself being rewritten for this episode. For context, a quote from "Bread and Circuses" and another from "The Omega Glory":

CLAUDIUS: (...) Now, Captain, what are you going to order your men to do? KIRK: If I brought down a hundred of them armed with phasers- CLAUDIUS: -you could probably defeat the combined armies of our entire empire, and violate your oath regarding noninterference with other societies. I believe you all swear you'll die before you'd violate that directive. Am I right? SPOCK: Quite correct. MCCOY: Must you always be so blasted honest?

Kirk: "Captain's log, supplemental. The Enterprise has left the Exeter and moved into close planet orbit. Although it appears the infection may strand us here the rest of our lives, I face an even more difficult problem. A growing belief that Captain Tracey has been interfering with the evolution of life on this planet. It seems impossible. A star captain's most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive."

This is repeated countless times, in all Star Trek series to date. With that in mind, return to this episode:

BARRON: You must go down to Mintaka Three. RIKER: Masquerading as a god? PICARD: Absolutely out of the question. The Prime Directive- BARRON: Has already been violated. The damage is done. All we can do now is minimise it. PICARD: By sanctioning their false beliefs? BARRON: By giving them guidelines. Letting them know what the Overseer expects of them. PICARD: Doctor Barron, I cannot, I will not, impose a set of commandments on these people. To do so violates the very essence of the Prime Directive.

The same Prime Directive which has already been violated thanks to Picard's own questionable actions earlier:

CRUSHER: Before you start quoting me the Prime Directive, he'd already seen us. The damage was done. It was either bring him aboard or let him die. PICARD: Then why didn't you let him die? CRUSHER: Because we were responsible for his injuries. PICARD: I'm not sure that I concur with that reasoning, Doctor. But now that he's here, you must remove all memory of his encounter with the away team. CRUSHER: By erasing short term recall? PICARD: It has been accomplished before.

It didn't work: he remembered enough to start a religion around it. As Crusher's Commanding Officer, the whole incident is Picard's fault, and he bears the bulk of responsibility for the violation. Going by the rest of the entire franchise, both Picard and Doctor Crusher would have been arrested and subsequently discharged from the Starfleet at absolute minimum. Instead, Picard is in a conference suggesting alternative methods to minimize the damage he caused, and Crusher isn't even reprimanded. In essence, the entire nature of the Prime Directive was waived by the script for this narrative to exist in the first place - clear evidence of Author Tract.

Edited by AlfCatCuisine

You're ranting. "Old superstitions" as in "Omnipotent Beings dictate life and death". "Old superstitions" as in "worship or die". "Old superstitions" as in "scientific research cannot explain the actions of gods".

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Captain Picard is conflating the local belief in his accidental God Guise with religion in general. He's also calling it a bad thing. It's somewhat atypical of Star Trek, which preferred religious tolerance to Religion Is Bad. However, none of the protagonists have ever suffered punishment for their numerous violations of the Prime Directive.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

The prime directive gets broken all the time in nearly every show by the protagonists without any issues. That's not really a good argument.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

Is it, though? The most cited examples of Kirk supposedly violating the Prime Directive are Return of the Archons, Bread and Circuses, A Piece of the Action, and The Omega Glory. In all of these episodes, he was acting to undo an already present cultural disturbance, as he must according to the regulations. As Spock said in The Omega Glory:

SPOCK: "Regulations are quite harsh, but they're also quite clear, Captain. If you do not act, you will be considered equally guilty."

Kirk didn't actually violate the Prime Directive at any time. He did act to minimize the damage already done by someone else, whether it was a Starfleet Officer taking sides in a local war, or a history book left behind by an old expedition that became a holy book to the natives. Adding to that, no prior protagonist of Star Trek was responsible for accidentally creating a religion around himself by simply failing to exercise his command authority.

Edited by AlfCatCuisine

Can't pin it to Skid Troper, but did have an overlap with Mark(—)Wilder, and what do you know? Account created right when Mark was bounced. And now Alf Cat Cuisine is bounced as well.

Edited by nombretomado

Should we revert all of there edits due to being a ban evader ?

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."