Silicon Avatar - morally conflicting plot

[Cardassian General]

So I just finished watching the episode Solicon Avatar, and I have to say I don't think the moral position the captain took was the right one. It seemed really off-colour actually.

The Crystalline Entity should have been hunted and destroyed. Regardless of Kila Mars need for vengeance which was positioned in the plot to assume the wrong approach, the entity destroyed entire planets and killed thousands of people. 11 recorded instances of total destruction.

I genuinely don't understand why the captain didn't want to kill it when they meet towards the end. Being such a threat to humanity it needed to be neutralised. However throughout the episode the captains approach seems too naive in wanting peace.

I understand that later it is discovered that the entity needs matter to absorb so it can convert into energy to survive, but the fact remains it is a danger to the federation and should have been destroyed by the enterprise.

After Kila Mars destroyed the entity, the episode seemed to have portrayed this as a bad move. I don't think this was bad at all. Thoughts?

 

[Ghrakh]

Wasn't Kila Mars working on a way to communicate with it, and Picard prepared to destroy it if that communication failed? But upon encountering the entity, Kila Mars simply killed it even though the communication seemed to be working. Correct me if I am not recalling correctly.

 

[Mojochi]

Correct. They'd begun to establish intelligent communication when it was destroyed, which is always the first step in diplomacy, even when there have been potentially unintentional tragedies like loss of life.

That entity maybe never realized the damage to sapient beings it was doing. It is the reverse scenario of that in "Homesoil". One would hope that our intelligence is enough to not just wage war on an entity or their kind, in that situation. When the signs of intelligent communication are there, you afford it to them 1st. Picard was right.

In fact, the creatures in Homesoil actually had been trying to communicate, & got ignored by that main scientist. They had more grievance for war than our crew had against the Silicon Entity, IMO. Of course, it probably didn't help that Lore got to it 1st, & somehow lured it to Omicron Theta. He may have singlehandedly opened the buffet on Federation worlds, intentionally

 

[Mojochi]

Now! If some colonists had found a way to destroy it, WHILE they were under attack, then that would be acting in self , or if it began consuming again, & Picard had to preserve life, but your main goal as an explorer should be to hope it doesn't come to that, & try to prevent it

 

[BigDaveX]

For me the major problem with the episode - aside from the fact that it was really based on a false premise, since "Datalore" showed that the entity could understand human communications, and seemed reasonably well aware that humans were sentient - was that there was never any serious discussion about whether or not the course of action they were doing was the right thing. Picard dismisses Marr's and Riker's recommendations out of hand because they're just angry at losing someone close to them, and it's clear that we're supposed to agree whole-heartedly with him.

I think there was the potential for a good story, but re-using the Crystalline Entity was the wrong decision. Either they should have created an entirely new biosphere-devouring alien, or had the entity be revealed to be a different creature to the one which destroyed Omicron Theta.

 

[Timo]

A couple of old points again:

1) Killing the creature does not negate the threat, or even diminish it in the slightest. This is an apparent lifeform - a fragile thing, incapable of harming combat starships, trivially easily destroyed if it does harm, but one that strikes out of the blue to deadly effect against more vulnerable targets. It is highly improbable that it would not be a representative of a species. And if Starfleet's one and only sample of the species is destroyed without much study, then Starfleet will never learn to predict its behavior and be there when colonies again need help.

2) "Datalore" showed no communication with the creature. Very much to the contrary, when Lore thought he was communicating his intent (a very simple and precise point) to the creature, he failed miserably: the creature did not attack when shields were dropped for transport. Most probably, Lore was simply delusional, and the creature just did its own thing which the mad android misinterpreted in his usual megalomaniacal fashion.

3) Might be the entity was sapient enough to understand humans or humanoid androids. Might be it wasn't. Now we will never know, and that may cost lives. Picard would be justifiably angry for that. But we also never learn why exactly Picard was angry. He had half a dozen other reasons at hand: outright mutiny against his orders, an act of destruction no doubt against UFP civil law, an apparent conspiracy to commit said act while feeding sweet lies to Picard, etc.

Explicitly revealing that this was a different individual would have been cool, and would have driven home the #1 point: Marr had just made the galaxy less safe, aiding and abetting those who killed his son.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The Enterprise should have been prepared to destroy the creature, if it proved the only way to neutralize it as a threat. Marr destroyed it during their attempt to find a peaceful solution, before one could be attempted, because she did not WANT the peaceful solution to succeed.

As for the question about whether the entity knew that its victims were sentient, how are we to know that the crystalline entity even had the same concept of sentience as we do? That it draws the line between 'soul' and 'non-soul' the same way? The Enterprise could have explained to it "Look, we can kill you whenever we want, so you better listen", and come to an agreement where it gets to live but it doesn't feed on sentiently inhabited planets. Maybe it would have failed, but preserving life is worth the attempt. Like Picard said, it was not evil, it was feeding.

 

[Timo]

I guess even that is up to dispute, now that Marr ruined the attempt at intel gathering. The entity did manage to avoid detection, even when attacking spacecraft - a dumb beast would probably have fallen prey to the warships of some aggressive culture or another, and then all of its spieces-mates would have been hard pressed to score further. Perhaps there was sufficient intelligence there to discern between prey types. And if one can so successfully discern between a weakly shielded freighter and a warship, one might be capable of moral judgements, including choosing "evil" guerilla tactics over "fair" open combat.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JesterFace]

What a memorable episode... First thing that comes to mind about this one is the scene where Dr Marr is holding her tricorder upside down... and that's about it.

 

[Eckauskas]

Do they not come to the conclusion that the entity is feeding? That it's no different to a lion hunting gazelle or an anteater devouring a colony of ants?

It's not as morally conflicting as 'The Survivors' imo.

Hearing that Kevin Uxbridge wiped out an entire civilisation with one thought in an act of vengeance is quite difficult to comprehend. Would anyone else do that in a fit of rage to avenge the death of a loved one? Who knows.

 

[Makarov]

This is a great episode that always causes debates.

Do they not come to the conclusion that the entity is feeding? That it's no different to a lion hunting gazelle or an anteater devouring a colony of ants?

Yeah but who would blame the ants if they were able to defend themselves and take down the gazelle? At that point something's gotta be done regardless of the creature's intentions.

Wiping out the creature mid diplomacy was the wrong thing to do, but potentially missing the chance to destroy it is also the wrong thing to do. The only thing I don't like is that the episode ends with Data getting the last word on how she did the wrong thing when it's not that clear cut. Woulda been better to end it on Picard staring out the window.

Probably the best thing would be to develop the defense against it and transmit that knowledge, THEN attempt the diplomacy. But since that didn't seem to be an option, it was very risky to use the last line of defense as part of the diplomacy attempt.

 

[Eckauskas]

It's also worth remembering that Starfleets primary objective is to establish peaceful contact with other lifeforms. It's in their remit to try and communicate with the entity first, then trying to destroy it if it then poses an immediate threat.

Dr Marr isn't killing the entity to protect others though. She's doing it out of cold blooded revenge.

 

[Timo]

Probably the best thing would be to develop the defense against it

But as the audience would know, the tactical defense had been there ever since "Datalore" already: just blow up the damn thing! It can't hurt shielded Starfleet ships, and it supposedly can't withstand standard Starfleet weapons, either.

What was missing was the strategic defense, of figuring out the feeding patterns, the number of individuals, the breeding routines, the exact diet and so forth. And that couldn't be done within an Act - it would be a Jane Goodall project taking at least a couple of years. So it wasn't something the heroes could "get done" before proceeding with politely asking for a word.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DonIago]

Assuming there are other Crystalline Entities out there, I wonder whether they'd interpret what the E did as an act of war. It could be perceived as the E having lulled an individual of their race into a false sense of security and opening diplomatic relations only to then murder said individual.

If there'd been no evidence that communication was succeeding, I imagine Picard would have ordered the Entity's destruction and then mused on how regrettable it was that they never were able to reason with it.

If there'd been communication and the Entity showed no interest in changing its ways, we'd just have another Hard-Headed Alien story.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Even if you can argue that destroying it was the correct move, it was Picard's call to make, not Marr's. You can't excuse violating chain of command on a starship for anything short of clear illegal orders.

 

[Vandervecken]

A couple of old points again:

1) Killing the creature does not negate the threat, or even diminish it in the slightest. This is an apparent lifeform - a fragile thing, incapable of harming combat starships, trivially easily destroyed if it does harm, but one that strikes out of the blue to deadly effect against more vulnerable targets. It is highly improbable that it would not be a representative of a species. And if Starfleet's one and only sample of the species is destroyed without much study, then Starfleet will never learn to predict its behavior and be there when colonies again need help.

2) "Datalore" showed no communication with the creature. Very much to the contrary, when Lore thought he was communicating his intent (a very simple and precise point) to the creature, he failed miserably: the creature did not attack when shields were dropped for transport. Most probably, Lore was simply delusional, and the creature just did its own thing which the mad android misinterpreted in his usual megalomaniacal fashion.

3) Might be the entity was sapient enough to understand humans or humanoid androids. Might be it wasn't. Now we will never know, and that may cost lives. Picard would be justifiably angry for that. But we also never learn why exactly Picard was angry. He had half a dozen other reasons at hand: outright mutiny against his orders, an act of destruction no doubt against UFP civil law, an apparent conspiracy to commit said act while feeding sweet lies to Picard, etc.

Explicitly revealing that this was a different individual would have been cool, and would have driven home the #1 point: Marr had just made the galaxy less safe, aiding and abetting those who killed his son.

Timo Saloniemi

But--THIS is the example of this species running amok in the alpha quadrant. Killing it--applying a death penalty for its mass murders, if the justice of the issue is a consideration--unquestionably eliminates THIS particular threat. Maybe others will come--and maybe they won't. You say it is unlikely that it is a singular example of a kind and I agree. But they may be far flung and someone else's problem, like possibly the Dominion's or even the Kelvans'. Given that they traverse the huge distances of space, they probably are far flung and of low population density. Kill this one and some innocent Federation or even Klingon or Romulan or Cardassian colony will never be obliterated.

Is it intelligent? Probably. A crystal is complex and could be a structure capable of holding the complexity of information and processes that would make up a consciousness. But maybe it's no more intelligent than a gorilla. They are very smart, but we'd still kill one running amok in a city and killing people.

What we do know about it is it has killed and kills Federation citizens in large numbers.

 

[DonIago]

Should Kirk & Co. have simply blown up (or tried to blow up) V'ger and The Whale Probe? They were running amok and killing people.

I'm sure they would have done so if they'd felt they had no choice, but they reserved violence as a last option.

At the time the E-D initiated communications with the CE, it was not running amok and killing people, it was wandering through space. Our Heroes had plenty of time to resort to violence if diplomacy failed. Marr deprived them of the opportunity to see whether diplomacy was a valid option.

 

[Terok Nor]

This episode makes me sad. Sad for the entity, sad for Dr. Marr and sad for her son. I understood Dr. Marr's reasoning but she made the wrong decision.

 

[Makarov]

The entity was wandering around but it had already just killed an entire crew minutes earlier in the episode because they hadn't caught up to it yet. The Dr looked pretty upset about that so I don't think revenge was her entire reason. It would annihilate any defenseless ships that it came across, and continue to if it had somehow managed to evade them after the diplomacy attempt.

If there were other crystalline entities viewing the E-D's actions well I'd think they'd understand once realizing the impact that the CE in the episode was having. If we can understand them feeding, they can understand us put a halt to that at aleast. Even if peace with them would be the ideal outcome.

Very similar to the I, Borg thing where it's debatable if Picard should have done the wrong thing for the potential greater good.

 

[Timo]

But--THIS is the example of this species running amok in the alpha quadrant.

The key question would be, if an entity remains unknown before hitting Omicron Theta but thereafter conducts a well-known killing spree, does that mean it's a rare, merely briefly trespassing threat - or that Starfleet isn't very good at knowing about as such common threats?

Most of Star Trek would have us believe in the latter. Hindsight allows our heroes to figure out that the Flying Pancakes or Redjac were always there. They seem to extend such thinking to the Space Amoeba and the Dikironide Cloud, considering them great risks mankind will be forced to deal with, even though here they have no access to retrospective statistics on past chains of attack. The Crystalline Entity has been wreaking havoc for a couple of years. What are the odds that those years are exceptional in the history of the galaxy, or even this local part of it?

Strategically speaking, the CE apparently must eat whole ecosystems at short intervals, far too short to allow replacement ecosystems to arise, in order to survive. Yet the galaxy is not devoid of ecosystems. So the CE by definition is not a problem (unless it was born yesterday). Starfleet just has to figure exactly how it isn't a problem, that is, what protects the vast majority of ecosystems in the galaxy. And clearly that isn't Starfleet!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JesterFace]

If the Crystalline entity attacks and kills sentient beings, that's not cool. If it's a way of feeding, how about feasting on a herd of antilopes or something... If it attacks and kills sentient beings, it's basically a declaration of war and should be treated equally.

 

[Vandervecken]

The key question would be, if an entity remains unknown before hitting Omicron Theta but thereafter conducts a well-known killing spree, does that mean it's a rare, merely briefly trespassing threat - or that Starfleet isn't very good at knowing about as such common threats?

Most of Star Trek would have us believe in the latter. Hindsight allows our heroes to figure out that the Flying Pancakes or Redjac were always there. They seem to extend such thinking to the Space Amoeba and the Dikironide Cloud, considering them great risks mankind will be forced to deal with, even though here they have no access to retrospective statistics on past chains of attack. The Crystalline Entity has been wreaking havoc for a couple of years. What are the odds that those years are exceptional in the history of the galaxy, or even this local part of it?

Strategically speaking, the CE apparently must eat whole ecosystems at short intervals, far too short to allow replacement ecosystems to arise, in order to survive. Yet the galaxy is not devoid of ecosystems. So the CE by definition is not a problem (unless it was born yesterday). Starfleet just has to figure exactly how it isn't a problem, that is, what protects the vast majority of ecosystems in the galaxy. And clearly that isn't Starfleet!

Timo Saloniemi

You're basing these conclusions on the CE being a steady eater. We don't know that. It may eat a bunch and then go into some sort of hibernation for a long time, for an evolutionary reason you have suggested: giving its food source a chance to regenerate. So the havoc could be exceptional.

I have to admit that this general lack of knowledge about the thing does strongly point toward the idea that infomation gathering about it might have been a good idea--with an eye, though, to finding the other CEs and keeping watch on them if not destroying them, if communication shows that our differences are irreconcilable. Also it's a naturally warp-capable species (like the Obsession cloud, but as far as we know no one has come across more of these) and that might be of some value to learn about as well. I'm convinced (and just changed my vote), learn more, retain the option to destroy it. Not for any moral reason concerning killing/not killing it, but because finding out about the others and how they behave is important and may save Federation lives. Secondarily, it could potentially be of value to know how it achieves warp.