T'Pel t'problems

[nnnnnnn]

The whole T'Pel thing just didn't work for me.

The Romulans supposedly arranged this entire meeting in the neutral zone, with several warbirds nearby, and this presumably novel transporter trick, just to transfer a spy?

I cannot believe there was not some simpler and less risky way of doing it. Romulans have spies all the time, it can't have been that hard to find some other way. The clandestine transporter trick would have come in handy other times, I would have thought.

And how did the Vulcans not realize T'Pel was Romulan? Was the real T'Pel killed? Or was she a sleeper?

And Data's behavior did not make a lot of sense. He was asked about Enterprise shield capabilities, and told T'Pel he would have to report the request to the captain. T'Pel then said that the request was just a test. Data reasoned that since Vulcans did not lie, he did not have to report it. But Data's orders were to report any such inquiry, so he should have reported it. And it's a bit scary to have a senior officer so naive that he would fall for a trick like that: that kind of naivete should have been discovered at Starfleet. At the very least, Data should have been disciplined for violating the reporting order. But it just seemed out of character for Data, in no other episode did he endanger the Enterprise or Starfleet at all, much less by falling for an obvious trick.

 

[BillJ]

The Romulans supposedly arranged this entire meeting in the neutral zone, with several warbirds nearby, and this presumably novel transporter trick, just to transfer a spy?

The logic was that if she just up and disappears people will begin digging into her activities in an attempt to track her down. She dies in a transporter accident it should be an open and shut case.

Apparently, the Romulans were unaware of the amount of safety redundancies built into Starfleet transporters.

 

[Doug Otte]

The Romulans supposedly arranged this entire meeting in the neutral zone, with several warbirds nearby, and this presumably novel transporter trick, just to transfer a spy?

The logic was that if she just up and disappears people will begin digging into her activities in an attempt to track her down. She dies in a transporter accident it should be an open and shut case.

Apparently, the Romulans were unaware of the amount of safety redundancies built into Starfleet transporters.

I thought the Romulans set the whole thing up to recover her and take the Enterprise.

Edit: Maybe I'm mixing this up w/ The Defector?

Doug

 

[Tora Ziyal]

I don't remember the episode well enough to have an opinion, but I love the name of the thread. T'problems

 

[Pavonis]

Romulans have spies all the time, it can't have been that hard to find some other way.

They do? I can't think of any other Romulan spies that were active in TNG. Actually, I can't think of any other Romulan spies in Trek at all. My memory must be going.

And how did the Vulcans not realize T'Pel was Romulan? Was the real T'Pel killed? Or was she a sleeper?

I suppose she was a sleeper agent. Vulcans and Romulans aren't so different that one can't masquerade as the other easily.

And Data's behavior did not make a lot of sense. He was asked about Enterprise shield capabilities, and told T'Pel he would have to report the request to the captain. T'Pel then said that the request was just a test. Data reasoned that since Vulcans did not lie, he did not have to report it. But Data's orders were to report any such inquiry, so he should have reported it. And it's a bit scary to have a senior officer so naive that he would fall for a trick like that: that kind of naivete should have been discovered at Starfleet. At the very least, Data should have been disciplined for violating the reporting order. But it just seemed out of character for Data, in no other episode did he endanger the Enterprise or Starfleet at all, much less by falling for an obvious trick.

You're right about Data, definitely.

 

[nnnnnnn]

I suppose she was a sleeper agent. Vulcans and Romulans aren't so different that one can't masquerade as the other easily.

But the Vulcans would have checked and known T'Pel's background. How would a Vulcan be recruited and turned, if she was a sleeper. I'm not clear on how this would happen, unless the real T'Pel was killed and replaced with a double.

 

[Pavonis]

If she were a sleeper agent, she would've been in the Federation for years. She'd have a perfectly acceptable background, because she'd be exactly what she appeared to be. There'd be no need to kill and replace anyone named T'Pel.

 

[nnnnnnn]

If she were a sleeper agent, she would've been in the Federation for years. She'd have a perfectly acceptable background, because she'd be exactly what she appeared to be. There'd be no need to kill and replace anyone named T'Pel.

Sorry I still do not understand how this would work. T'Pel was Romulan, right? She became Vulcan ambassador, so her whole background and family would have been checked. Who were supposed to be her parents, for example? You can't just show up on Vulcan and become the Federation ambassador, you know.

 

[Pavonis]

1. You don't need to recruit sleeper agents. You can have them inserted, usually by immigration. In this case, I suspect she was sent early, perhaps via a colony that wasn't fully monitored, and gained access to the Federation diplomatic corps by working her way up.

2. Who said Vulcans don't lie? Vulcans lie all the time! They're perfectly capable of telling falsehoods. They have a reputation for being honest and forthright, but that's not the same as being incapable of lying.

 

[The Dominion]

2. Who said Vulcans don't lie? Vulcans lie all the time! They're perfectly capable of telling falsehoods. They have a reputation for being honest and forthright, but that's not the same as being incapable of lying.

Although they're famous for claiming they don't.

 

[Timo]

Perhaps more to the point, there is no known reason why Data couldn't lie. Indeed, he frequently does.

If Data told a character, then, that he buys T'Pel's claims because he believes in a popular fairy tale about Vulcans and truths, we could easily assume that this is a lie intended to keep T'Pel from learning that Data suspects her, a story intended to reach T'Pel's ears and convince her that Data is a simpleton and will not expose the agent despite her risky stunt.

Yet he tells Commander Maddox this in his personal correspondence. T'Pel is unlikely to learn of this via rumor. Perhaps Data is testing whether T'Pel reads his mail?

On the character of T'Pel, we learn in ST:Nemesis that Romulans once had an active infiltration program involving the one-on-one replacement of UFP personalities. It must have been an extensive one, as it involved the young Jean-Luc Picard, a random officer of no known political or military significance. Even though we know Picard was not replaced that way, T'Pel might very well have been. And doing the insertions, extractions and possible kidnappings via transporter is a likely way to proceed, in technological terms - so the extracting of T'Pel could have been a continuation of a well-proven technique.

Or then Romulans regularly withdrew agents by having them "die", and they were running out of plausible ways to fake death so they tried out something new. And it didn't quite work.

Of course, I'd rather believe that, as in any good agent story, a seeming "failure" was in fact a Romulan triumph. Note how quickly T'Pel undergoes facial surgery to gain the ridges of Subcommander Selok. Why on Earth would she hurry like that? Well, an obvious explanation is that T'Pel never was a Romulan agent, and that the Romulans killed her and then "reverse-faked" her death to make it look as if all her previous actions within the UFP were in support of Romulan interests. That'd be quite an intelligence victory for the Star Empire!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Doug Otte]

Note how quickly T'Pel undergoes facial surgery to gain the ridges of Subcommander Selok. Why on Earth would she hurry like that?

Does she undergo surgery? I thought she wore the funny hat on the Enterprise to hide the ridges.

Obviously, I should re-watch the episode before a post erroneous info, but then I've never been accused of being smart.

Doug

 

[Pavonis]

The hat didn't really hide her forehead, but I don't remember her Romulan guise having any ridges, either.

Do all Romulans have ridges? Do all Vulcans lack ridges? No one seemed to think Spock was unusual for lacking forehead ridges while he was on Romulus.

 

[Timo]

Before:

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s4/4x11/datasday029.jpg

After:

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s4/4x11/datasday320.jpg

The ridges are faint, but there (although with the low resolution of TNG, we could just as well decide they aren't there).

Do all Romulans have ridges? Do all Vulcans lack ridges?

No and no. And it might even be that the ridges aren't permanent. Perhaps they bulge as a sign of excitement, and Vulcans are ashamed to show this so they dedicate their mental powers into hiding the effect, while Romulans flaunt it. (That doesn't take into account the times the full Vulcans Sarek or Tuvok went emotional without going ridged, though.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Doug Otte]

Before:

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s4/4x11/datasday029.jpg

After:

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s4/4x11/datasday320.jpg

The ridges are faint, but there (although with the low resolution of TNG, we could just as well decide they aren't there).

Do all Romulans have ridges? Do all Vulcans lack ridges?

No and no. And it might even be that the ridges aren't permanent. Perhaps they bulge as a sign of excitement, and Vulcans are ashamed to show this so they dedicate their mental powers into hiding the effect, while Romulans flaunt it. (That doesn't take into account the times the full Vulcans Sarek or Tuvok went emotional without going ridged, though.)

Timo Saloniemi

As per usual, good points, Timo. I suppose she could have had the ridges surgically removed, too.

This is the problem w/ introducing the ridges in TNG - it led to so many problems reconciling ridged vs. non-ridged characters.

Doug

 

[Satyrquaze]

And Data's behavior did not make a lot of sense. He was asked about Enterprise shield capabilities, and told T'Pel he would have to report the request to the captain. T'Pel then said that the request was just a test. Data reasoned that since Vulcans did not lie, he did not have to report it. But Data's orders were to report any such inquiry, so he should have reported it. And it's a bit scary to have a senior officer so naive that he would fall for a trick like that: that kind of naivete should have been discovered at Starfleet. At the very least, Data should have been disciplined for violating the reporting order. But it just seemed out of character for Data, in no other episode did he endanger the Enterprise or Starfleet at all, much less by falling for an obvious trick.

I think the catch is that Ambassador T'Pel pointedly retracted the question. Therefore, in Data's mind there was nothing to report.

Yes, we can look back in retrospect and say that Data is being naive here. But that's hardly out of character for him, and probably not terribly fair to him in much the same way it was unfair of Admiral Satie to level the blame for this on Picard and Worf during her "investigations" for this incident.

Data's default response is to trust honored Federation dignitaries and officials. Bear in mind that the writers built T'Pel up to Sarek-like stature in diplomatic circles. Why would any member of Starfleet be mistrustful of her, because she's 'distantly related' to the Romulans? So is Sarek, and Spock for that matter.

 

[Timo]

Data is socially clumsy. But naïve? He frequently outwits opponents, virtually never lets slip anything that might give the enemy an advantage, and slips like fish into water in "infiltration missions" during the later seasons (say, "In Theory" or "Time's Arrow"). He seems to have a good command of the difference between friends (with whom he can babble and ask stupid questions) and foes (whom he treats with an "outsmarting subroutine", it seems).

Also, it's very early on in the show that Data develops a liking to being an investigator. He has all the antics of a sleuth down pat; even if he were somewhat unsure of his footing, he could be expected to default to the mannerisms of a private investigator: keeping the cards close to his chest, suspecting and doubting everybody and everything, playing need-to-know. This particular scene in "Data's Day" appears to be a minor deviation from that...

We might attribute this to Data keeping a facade between him and Maddox, essentially his shrink, but also onetime enemy... Perhaps Data dare not make accusations in writing? Perhaps he dare not reveal his fondness of Sherlock Holmes? Perhaps he is indeed being naïve - but only to fool Maddox.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Balrog]

I'm just posting because I think the thread title is hilarious. Well done!

 

[Satyrquaze]

I was speaking to the social context. He is socially naïve to one extent or another throughout TNG.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The whole T'Pel thing just didn't work for me.

The Romulans supposedly arranged this entire meeting in the neutral zone, with several warbirds nearby, and this presumably novel transporter trick, just to transfer a spy?

Half the point of getting sensitive intelligence from your enemies is making sure THEY don't know you've got that intelligence. Half the time, an exposed secret ceases to be relevant when the enemy knows it's been exposed; he can do all kinds of things to mitigate the advantage you might have gleaned from it.

If the Federation never knew T'pel was a spy, the Romulans would have an unprecedented inside look into some of the most classified Federation secrets without anyone being the wiser. As it stands, now they at least know what the Romulans know (which is just about everything) and they know enough to change their codes and transmission protocols since those have clearly been compromised too.