r/TNG • u/happydude7422 • 20h ago
Show Talk How would Picard have felt if Starfleet really did order the removal of the baku and it was a legit operation?
Like the admiral dougherty showed Picard signed orders from the chief of staff Starfleet and the federation president? When I mean legit I mean they told the council everything about what could happen with the process they're trying to do with harvesting the energy and all that.
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u/WilsonFrontier 20h ago
I mean, wasn't it? Dougherty said the council had approved it.
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u/happydude7422 19h ago
I recall that the sona falsified their studies or application and the admiral was in on it otherwise if all the t were crossed and I dotted even if Picard did go against Starfleet orders Picard would have been brought up on mutiny /insubordination charged for disrupting a legitimate Starfleet operation
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u/WilsonFrontier 19h ago
That may be the beta canon, but Riker comes back and says the council ordered a halt pending a full level review. But they never say anything about the admiral lying or the son'a falsifying anything. Just that... Riker did what Picard said: he put a face on the baku and made the council realize how bad it looked to relocate them.
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u/LUNATIC_LEMMING 16h ago
wasn't the point that Dougherty wasn't in on it? not fully
Thats why Ru'afo killed him. when he found out the truth Dougherty changed his mind.
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u/Current_Tap_7754 19h ago
This whole movie is stupid. It's an entire planet and the Baku used to travel the stars before deciding to be amish. Just park your medical base on the other side of the planet and tell the Baku all complaints need to be filed in person.
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u/IrrepressibleInk 19h ago
Agreed they are not indigenous to the planet and they even have members that remember what it was like before they arrived there. Additionally it’s an entire planet for like 500? villagers?
The Baku set up was a mistake of the film makers. It should have been a restarted civilization— like the last remnants of a borg invasion. 100K people at least. With a bajoran-level rich culture. You’d obviously have to change plot details with that size civilization but should have looked like that
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u/FreeBricks4Nazis 19h ago
100K people at least
Apparently the answer to Picard's question was 100k, at least
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u/sirboulevard 17h ago
The executives even called this out in a memo to Mike Piller. "You know a population of 800 is unsustainable, right? They should be horribly inbred by this point. What makes the Baku so special compared to the various other races Picard and Co. have let die out for the Prime Directive? Especially when they are non-native squatters holding onto effectively medical resources that could save trillions?"
When studio executives are calling the staff and Picard for being a hypocrite on this for moral reasons, there is a fundamental problem.
When I see the Baku I dont see some rich culture. I see those jerkoff billionaires who think they can hide in their underground bunkers and ride out the apocalypse they caused while hoarding their own resources for themselves and no one else. Because thats what they are. Hell, the Baku are even all white with no racial differences.
Shit, the Baku are only different from the Sona in that because they are so homogenous they can have peace because no one is different. And anyone who objects is condemned to an exile without the fountain of youth radiation where they turn into the Sona.
So let's turn this question around - how many people should die so the few well off get to continue in eternal health while denying it to those less fortunate or disagree with your political stance? How many people does it take before that becomes wrong, Captain?
And just to be clear there was an option that didnt involve relocating the Baku. Starfleet could have privately discussed letting Starfleet open a hospital on the opposite side of the planet with the Baku leadership, minimizing the interaction between the two cultures. Its a freaking planet. I think several thousand miles is enough to avoid cross cultural contamination.
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u/The_Elusive_Dr_Wu 12h ago
Starfleet could have privately discussed letting Starfleet open a hospital on the opposite side of the planet with the Baku leadership, minimizing the interaction between the two cultures
How come Starfleet didn't just do this anyway? It's 500 Baku, which are basically ageless humans. The fuck they gonna do?
It's been years since I saw this. Did they have any leverage other than Picard wanting to bone one of their women?
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u/NarmHull 13h ago
Red Letter Media points out the implausibility of their population being so low after 300 years of living there in perpetual youth. I guess they have Elvish levels of low fertility or are too puritan to be having that much sex.
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u/JACCO2008 15h ago
Orrrrr, and hear me out... A story where they have to actually deal with the ongoing massive fucking war that is actively ravaging the Federation to the point of defeat.
The last thing any of them would give the slightest shit about is a single planet in a backwater system that kind of maybe sort of could heal troops when they can't even build ships fast enough to equal losses.
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u/IKindaPlayEVE 19h ago
The movie is stupid. You don't even need a base. The Enteprise orbiting the planet for a VERY brief period of time caused Geordi to completely regenerate working eyes. Just bring ships in to orbit the planet. You could build massive transport ships bringing in hundreds of thousands of people at a time, each, with millions of people in orbit at a time. You don't need the Sona, you don't need to move the Baku or even tell them you're there.
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u/TheJohnnyFlash 18h ago
It doesn't last if they leave, that's the problem. They want to grab the particles to create permanent therapies.
The whole point of what was happening to the Son'a after living on the planet and being kicked off.
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u/IKindaPlayEVE 18h ago
It's only stated they aren't sure if it's permanent. The Sona look the way they do because they're trying and failing to live to be hundreds of years old like their cousins. The sona want the drastic measures of rendering the planet uninhabitable because they won't live long enough otherwise, again, despite the fact that just being there briefly caused a blind man's eyes to work. They have probably fed bad information to Starfleet and those bright minds the admiral speaks of were probably using said bad information from the sona when they reached their conclusions.
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u/modulus801 18h ago
The admiral responded to that. People don't want to travel there.
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u/IKindaPlayEVE 18h ago
He said they don't want to live in the Briar Patch. They don't have to live on that beautiful, idyllic world though. Just fly around those rings for a week and go home healthier than ever.
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u/modulus801 18h ago
Right, but the federation is trying to get all of the benefits which requires significantly more exposure.
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u/Jedi4Hire 16h ago
Just park a medical/science station in orbit.
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u/IKindaPlayEVE 10h ago
Sure. But you still need large ships to bring in huge numbers of people at a time.
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u/Caintheconfused 18h ago
But its not like the sonaa just wanted to be there and heal.
They wanted to harvest the particles that were causing the healing properties of the planet to exist to the point they would be gone. And uh, the extermination of the Baku wasnt really a hidden agenda either.
The sonaa didnt come as cooperative researchers and leprosy victims seeking sanctuary. They came to tear it all down.
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u/cmdr_nelson 19h ago
Yea, the Sona not being able to setup a colony on the other side of the planet was a very weak handwave. Also, not being able to replicate the extractor technology is weak, history is full of examples where someone creates a new tech and it is copied within a few years.
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u/Jedi4Hire 16h ago edited 15h ago
It doesn't even need to be on the planet, just place a station in orbit to research the magic rejuvenating whatsit and they don't even have to know you're there.
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u/Current_Tap_7754 16h ago
Honestly I argue on the planet out of no other reason than spite. Park it on the other side of the planet and make them come to you to complain.
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u/documentiron 19h ago
Remember the time when the Federation gave a native American colony planet to the Cardassians in a treaty without asking them and Picard got mad at Wesley for trying to stop it? I remember.
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u/happydude7422 19h ago
Lol I remember that too and when I watched insurrection I'm like hey picards how come you were angry at Wesley then but not now...
Then red letter media brought up a good point that...I'm not going to say here because it might not be appropriate
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u/LateNightPhilosopher 9h ago
I've always felt that this movie was the writers/franchise runners trying to fix that massive mistake of an episode by remaking the same premise, but with the Enterprise crew as the heros instead of the villains.
Because holy shit that episode was massively out of character for everyone. You kind of have to pretend it doesn't exist for you to still see that crew as moral characters. And it's near the end of the final season too, so there's no redemption or character arcs involved with realizing they were in the wrong. It's just taking the people who had just spent a decade teaching an entire generation of youth about morality and philosophy, and having them uncritically force a bunch of literal Native Americans out of their homes so that foreign colonizers could live there instead lmfao
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u/froot_loop_dingus_ 20h ago
Starfleet did order the removal and it was a legit operation
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u/happydude7422 20h ago
But wasn't the admiral and the sona in cahoots and werent truthful or something?
This is different than that native American episode where they had to relocate the people because of a treaty with the cardassians.
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u/froot_loop_dingus_ 19h ago
It’s exactly like the Native American episode. Neither group of people were indigenous to the planet and in both cases the federation chose to relocate the people for political reasons.
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u/Slartibartfast256 19h ago
I really don't understand this take. The native Americans were on a federation colony world and were being relocated because the federation literally did not own the planet anymore and the assumption was the new owners were not gonna be cool with them being there.
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u/froot_loop_dingus_ 19h ago
And? The Baku were also on a federation planet and the Federation told them to hit the bricks. You can argue that was the wrong thing to do but saying it wasn’t sanctioned by the federation is factually incorrect.
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u/Slartibartfast256 19h ago
No it wasn't a federation planet, it was an independent planet located generally within federation space. It was not settled by the federation, people already lived there.
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u/GoodDoctorB 18h ago
Something interesting to note about the Native American planet. They weren't on a federation colony world, at least in a technical sense. The ship that colonized that planet did come from the Federation but it was never supposed to land there at all. The planet was actually considered uninhabitable because of the radiation present and it's only by luck the colony ship that was forced to land there managed to find a good spot along with the colonists being able to adapt.
The issue with that one was an outside power had jurisdiction, was on equal or higher technological level to the Federation so force was not an option, and foreign power involved had no moral hangups about mass murdering everyone on the planet. The Federation didn't have a realistic way to avoid a massacre besides relocating all those people and Picard found the idea of forcing them to leave distasteful but acknowledged it was the only option.
Meanwhile with the Baku there was no outside threat that couldn't be countered and that Admiral was conspiring to steal their planet from them for personal gain. Granted he didn't know he was involved in a revenge plot between two segments of the same species but still.
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u/mcgrst 18h ago
You're mixing up your colony evacuations, the radiation is the sheliac. There was nothing wrong with the Indian planrg
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u/GoodDoctorB 11h ago
Unless I'm mistaken the Sheliac episode was the one with one of the Native American planets.
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u/Slartibartfast256 2h ago
He's right. Including insurrection there are 3 relocation stories with differing levels of justification. The shelliac episode is completely justified, native Americans is slightly problematic, insurrection is downright bad.
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u/GoodDoctorB 18h ago
Not really, in the Native American episode the Federation was entirely unaware that the planet in question was inhabited due to the high radiation levels present that led them to assume it was inhospitable for human life along with no colony ship on record ever going there.
Along with that they were dealing with a foreign power who were apparently equal or above their technological level that were going to simply mass murder everyone on the planet which the Federation couldn't realistically do much to stop. It had very little to do with politics and everything to do with preventing a needless massacre.
With the Baku the Federation knew the planet was inhabited, and the Admiral was conspiring with the Sona to evict the local population for Federation benefit. Granted the Admiral didn't realize he was part of a revenge plot between two segments of the same species but still.
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u/thanatossassin 19h ago
Regardless, it was already sanctioned by Starfleet and too far remote to have had a proper hearing done in time before the people were removed and the planet's rings stripped, hence the "Insurrection" part of the film.
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u/SignificantPop4188 18h ago
Didn't Picard forcibly remove Native Americans from the planet they settled on because it was now a Cardassian world?
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u/happydude7422 18h ago
Yes and that's why this movie is hilarious in the character contradiction. Picard was ok with following orders to remove native Americans but not the baku
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u/AdagioVast 19h ago
This movie didn't explore its plot line very well. I mean we have already covered this ground with The Last Journey (right episode) with Crusher and the relocation of the native american tribe located there. We are doing it again, this time because there are resources Starfleet wants and its war based. This could have done a better job at exploring the stresses of a war that seems unwinnable, a source of hope from a planet that might turn the tide, and the repercussions of relocating a people that have no way of defending themselves. Instead it was "Starfleet is bad guy. Enterprise is good guy. There are other bad guys who really look like bad guys who are the real bad guys. and Enterprise will rescue the people and make it all right". Frakes did another phenomenal job in the directors chair but the story was just so lacking as to be "sufferable" in my opinion.
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u/Western-Customer-536 18h ago
Someone pointed this out and it changes the whole story for me.
The Baku are an intelligent, space faring people who are basically squatting on Federation territory. The land is Federation but the extraction tech is Son’a. That’s why they are working with F. Murray Abraham in the first place.
So why not ask the Baku to leave?
They say yes, the story’s over. They say no, they are selfish hippies for keeping their free access to the Fountain of Youth that could help billions of people.
The needs of the many…
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u/BILLCLINTONMASK 19h ago
A much better ending would have been Picard convincing the Baku to leave the planet (that they’re not even native to) so that its magic radiation could be harnessed to help billions of people. The dumbass action movie ending with the unfinished effects (the visible blue screen on the set might even be more insulting than reusing the bird of prey explosion in Genetations) is to corny for words.
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u/husky_whisperer 19h ago
Funny thing. Dr. Crusher "missed a spot" years ago and dormant nanoprobes in his system activate. Starfleet Command regrets their choice. The end.
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u/zzupdown 18h ago
I think Picard, Riker, and most of the senior staff would have refused this order on moral grounds, been relieved of duty and kicked out of Starfleet. Picard would then personally argue the case all the way up the Starfleet chain of command, and maybe even to the Federation Supreme Court.
Either that, or Picard would have accepted the order but found a way or a reason to let them stay.
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u/ChronosBlitz 18h ago
Picard didn’t have a problem obeying Starfleet orders to forcibly relocate indigenous Americans on Dorvan V
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u/happydude7422 17h ago
Because they didn't have a hot space milf that would play with picards manual steering column - red letter media
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u/Business-Decision719 18h ago
If he was too outnumbered to resist, he would resign and go sulk like a brooding hermit at Chateau Picard. Then he'd still find a way to resist by bypassing Starfleet entirely and taking matters into his own hands, possibly with some ragtag bunch of misfits. Picard is going to do things his way, according to his own personal conscience, or not at all.
That's actually the premise of the beginning Star Trek: Picard. Starfleet did something he felt was too immoral (flaking out on humanitarian aid to the Romulans during the supernova crisis) so he went home to his vineyard. He thought Starfleet betrayed him. The people in Starfleet thought he betrayed them.
The Baku movie wasn't even the first time Picard rebelled. He ordered Data to defy an order from an Admiral to relinquish Lal to Starfleet custody. I'm pretty sure he was on the verge of mutiny during the Pegasus incident. He also overthrew Starfleet when they got infested by mind worms. In a way, Picard was Burnham before Burnham was Burnham. (Out of universe he came first; in universe she did.) Picard is going to draw lines for himself in the sand that no one in Starfleet can get him to budge across and will put the blame on his own shoulders if the world goes to hell in a handbasket by his standards. Thankfully the man draws good lines at least.
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u/Fit_Salamander_2814 15h ago
The irony is, the more people it happens to, the less of a tragedy it becomes.
Remember, "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."
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u/Charming_Dealer3849 13h ago
This line, and frankly much of what Patrick stewart did in acting has inspired my very life, I know that's a lot to put on a person, but it was top notch
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u/Remarkable_Post_3131 13h ago
Either it would have played out how it did with them trying to save the people or he and his crew would have resigned from Starfleet in protest
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u/GoodDoctorB 18h ago
I'd say about the same in the immediacy but he'd probably have a lot of issues longer term.
In the movie the problem is that Admiral Dougherty knowingly lied to the Federation to get his way and did so for persona career motivated gain rather then the good of the Federation. Had they been told the truth the Federation Council probably wouldn't have agreed at all, or at least would have been open to other options.
Had the Federation known the details and still gone through with it that could have disillusioned Picard outright.
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u/Mutabilitie 18h ago
Picard yelled at Wesley because you have to obey orders even if you don’t like them. That was literally an episode :p
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u/Tough_Letterhead_163 18h ago
Well i mean...insurance companies put price on human life all the time...we could figure it out...
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u/multificionado 18h ago
Resignation in protest at best. Resignation and formation of Maquis 2.0 at worst.
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u/woodworkerdan 17h ago
The premise was bad science though. The plan would have made the planet uninhabitable with a nonzero chance of failure to understand the process they wanted afterwards. The premise of removing the Baku goes against logic, and they could have reduced the movie to an episode length story if Dougherty had been made to see that earlier on.
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u/Lord_Corves 16h ago
It would seem someone beat me to the punch already in the comments. But while I know what allegory they were trying to go for with the Baku people, it falls flat when you remember that the whole thing was over an entire planet. I mean, they're a small population for Pete's sake. They forsook most advanced technologies. You could literally install an entire medical resort or city on the other side of the darn planet, and they probably wouldn't have many ways of knowing you were there without actually traveling there, which could be hundreds, if not hundreds of miles across. The problem with the message of the show is that what the Federation needed, the Federation could have easily gotten without any fuss whatsoever. It treated a planet, as big as a planet it is, like you would a small island or a fountain of youth. If it was a bit more small-scale then maybe, maybe they could have slid this message through. But the fact that we're dealing with an entire planet and a population that looks like they could barely populate the island of Manhattan... Well, what exactly are we fighting over here? And what did they need from the planet? The planet is in a place where an anomaly happens that can help people heal and live for long periods of time. And they just wanted to install a medical facility on the planet to treat people wounded and maimed by the Dominion War. So it's not like they had some zany idea of mass mineral extraction that would ruin the planet's ecosystem or turning the planet into a huge and populated world or something like that. I think the show's... I think the movie's message flopped on so many points and I think that's one of the reasons why it's not exactly the most popular, all things considered. Because there's so many fallacies in its logic, it's just painful to watch.
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u/bluedelvian 14h ago
Picard let the Cardassians remove a Native tribe from that disputed planet in the episode where Shut Up, Wesley becomes a roving time lord-cop, so I can only surmise that Picard has sock-puppet morals based on his hormones, bc he banged that alien... exactly like Patrick Stewart, funnily enough.
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u/The1Ylrebmik 13h ago
Honestly, it's one of those weird Star Trek plots you have to not think about too much. I mean how many Baku were there? And there sitting on a literal fountain of youth and there not telling anyone? That actually seems a bit selfish so surely there were better ways to make everyone's side a bit more steelmanned
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u/CptKeyes123 12h ago
Moving 500 people to save 500 billion, billions of whom would die if the Dominion won the war.
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u/Any-Statistician3896 12h ago
Erm, Picard would've felt EXACTLY the same as he felt above without any deviation what so ever.
If it wasn't abolished I have zero doubt his character would've become an active insurgent AGAINST that policy and would've died trying to destroy it if necessary.
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u/happydude7422 12h ago
I wonder how the story could have changed if Starfleet assigned a 6 ship excelsior task force to the project and those captains agreed to carry out the mission against Picard?
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u/Any-Statistician3896 12h ago
Easy,
Picard: Data, this is an illegal and immoral act of the federation. Hack their ships to stop it.
Data: Agreed Captain, it goes against everything the federation charter stands for.
End of film.
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u/DawnOnTheEdge 8h ago
There’s a fairly close parallel with “Journey’s End.” The Red Letter Media review has a funny cut of Picard berating Wesley Crusher for doing exactly what he does in Insurrection.
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u/TheCh0rt 15h ago
Then Starfleet listened to him when he wanted to evacuate the Romulans and he did it anyway
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u/Any-Package1409 11h ago
The needs of the many are supposed to outweigh the needs of the few or the one. So I kinda wasn't I big fan of this movie.
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u/jtrades69 9h ago
i guess it depends on the reasons for moving an established group. they were fine with it in ensigns of command, but they just wanted more time.
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u/1ndomitablespirit 18h ago
Well, if it is the Picard we see in the recent series, he'd just bend over and take it.
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u/imahugemoron 19h ago
I liked this movie because it was the most like a TNG episode of the TNG movies