Page 1 of 4 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 46

Thread: A very spooky idea

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    New Richmond, WI USA
    Posts
    235

    Post A very spooky idea

    All the discussion of Federation ideals got me thinking about a very creepy idea for an episode. It involves Hodgkin's Law, which is normally in irritating element, but here is really needed. It also needs an "observer" from some other galactic power, maybe a Klingon or Romulan.

    So, the basic point is this, the Starship Hesperus, or whatever, is exploring a not-well-mapped corner of space, and for some reason has this Klingon on board, maybe as an exchange officer. They check out a star a whole lot like Sol, and come across a planet which is a dead ringer for Earth.

    Unfortunately, this happens to be a dead ringer for Earth in 1943, at the height of World War II. Right at that moment, on the planet below, Auschwitz is in full gear. Million of men, women, and children are being murdered.

    Three points need to be made:

    1. This isn't a time travel story. The crew doesn't need to worry about changing the time line.

    2. The war is late enough along that a Nazi victory is almost impossible. The issue is not one of the Nazis threatening the Federation; it is purely humanitarian.

    3. No interferance caused this to happen. This is not a case of "John Gill". It is purely a natural, coincidental horror.

    Now, here is the real conflict:

    The Klingon has a simple solution. This is clearly a case of the greatest crime in human history, so go in swinging. "Klingons will not let such horrors happen twice...." It sounds better in my best Worf-accent.

    The enlightened, progressive Federation, however, has a thing called the Prime Directive, which will not allow them to interfere in the affairs of a "primitive" culture, no matter what. Clearly, to at least some people in the Crew, this is the case, here.

    So, what can be done?

    And, who is the real barbarian?

    ------------------
    Slan agat!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2001
    Location
    Brockville, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    4,394

    Post

    Well, I'll start this avalanche off with this question.

    What difference is one ship and crew going to make in this situation? Even the Enterprise under Kirk wouldn't be able to stop a global conflict. Are you suggesting putting a bunch of Sec/Tac specialists in green combat fatigues and beam them down with phaser rifles?

    I'm not a big fan of General Order No.1 myself, but if something like it isn't in place then you get alot of situations like the "Freedom 1" fiasco on Voy.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 1999
    Location
    Vallejo, CA USA
    Posts
    221

    Post


    "While we understand the similarities, this isn't our Earth, or our history. We cannot interfere, even if that appears to be the right thing, the moral thing, the humanitarian thing to do.

    "Sometimes, the most difficult decision of all É is deciding not to act. The people who are fighting and dying down there aren't caught up in a re-enactment of our distant past; they're fighting and dying for concepts they believe in. As horrific as we may find the battles and the atrocities, the very fact that those are happening may be the seeds that change their world for the better. Who knows, they may even achieve world peace sooner than we did.

    =====

    So, the challenge is to make the issue personal. Involve a survey mission, or -- since this isn't a time paradox -- put someone's ancestor in the middle of it all. It's well and good to promote the Prime Directive, but can you still grit your teeth and do it if you knew that you could save an ancestor from dying on D-Day?

    Even 'Patterns of Force' brought the threat home by having the Ekosians launch ABMs against the Enterprise. Then the search for John Gill took on additional meaning - he would be able to explain why this culture took on icons from Earth history.

    Bob

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 1999
    Location
    Morgantown, WV. USA
    Posts
    218

    Post

    Keep in mind that if this is really a "Hodgkins'Law" case of parallelism, then there won't necessarily be identical names or duplicates of historical personages. There might be, but there usually won't be.
    Now, in my games I dealt with the ol' Parallel Earth idea, when it rarely came up, as being a by product of quantum effects and subspacial physics. Parallel worlds are linked by some kind of quantum effect which causes the extreme degree of duplication. Originally unique and unrelated worlds become "linked" through subspacial topography, quantum string thingies or other mostly voodoo-like pseudo-physics. The process is not well understood, but it relates to some of the same laws that govern Transporters and divergent timelines.
    This all leads to what I called the Doppelganger Paradox effect. If you find a Parallel world that duplicates another world's historical situations, that means that both worlds are LINKED through space and time by the Effect. If you disturb the Parallel, you may in fact cause disruptions in the timeline or alterations in the conditions on the "prime" world. Or you might create such a disruption, severing the link between the two worlds, that subspace is distorted for lightyears around the duplicate world. This can lead to a situation where warp travel is not possible out to as far as five light years. Effectively dooming the ship to stay inside the pocket of disruption they created for the remainder of their natural lives.
    (THAT usually proved enough to settle down the "Let's Make History Turn Out Right" crowd in my games.)
    Additionally, there are those that speculate that such linkages and parallel worlds are in fact gigantic experiments being run by staggering advanced cultures like, the Preservers, or the Organians, or the Q, whoever! Messing with their "petri dishes" can lead to some very unpleasant confrontations.
    Mind you, NONE of this is canon. This is stuff I made up to satisfy my cranky players over the years. Hope some of it helps.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
    Location
    Canada
    Posts
    6

    Post

    <font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Robert Lai:

    "While we understand the similarities, this isn't our Earth, or our history. We cannot interfere, even if that appears to be the right thing, the moral thing, the humanitarian thing to do.

    </font>
    When is the humanitarian thing to do the wrong thing to do? I say help and damn General Order No. 1. The idea that interfering with a pre-warp civilization is wrong, but not for a post-warp one, is an arbitrary dividing line. If you interfere, you change their evolution, regardless of their spacefaring capabilities.

    Besides would the UFP sit by and watch the Borg assimilate a starfaring race? I can not see the UFP allowing even the Romulans to be assimilated. So would they sit by and watch the Borg assimilate a pre-warp civilization? I cannot see how. But the Prime Directive says not to interfere with the natural evolution of a civilization.

    Under what conditions could being assimilated be considered part of anyone's natural evolution? That a civilization must be a spacefaring one is merely a non sequitur.

    If the Federation would intervene to protect a "primtive" culture from the Borg, then why will it not intervene to protect "primitive" sentients from other bullies? Is that not part of their heroic nature?


  6. #6
    Join Date
    May 2001
    Location
    Overton, TX, USA
    Posts
    156

    Lightbulb

    Chello!

    <font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by 8472spy:
    [BSo would they sit by and watch the Borg assimilate a pre-warp civilization? I cannot see how. But the Prime Directive says not to interfere with the natural evolution of a civilization.

    ~snip~

    If the Federation would intervene to protect a "primtive" culture from the Borg, then why will it not intervene to protect "primitive" sentients from other bullies? Is that not part of their heroic nature?

    [/B]</font>
    Assimilation by the Collective would not be part of the culture's natural assimilation. Starfleet would be bound to do whta they could to stop the Borg without comtaminating the culture. I believe the Bolians gained their UFP membership by evacuating 80% of a pre-starflight planet's population when the planet's sun novaed, if memory serves,

    The difference with these Nazis, is that without any previous comtamination (such as Gill on Ekos), it is a purely internal affair in which SF cannot interfere. Tough, but that's the way it is.

    ------------------
    "We are Klingons!"

    Cmdr. Kruge, ST III

  7. #7

    Post

    But WHERE does one draw the line, if you want to really get technical the Tahuari (Romulan Box Set) are "by-definition" a pre-warp culture- they use a form of worm-hole FTL propulsion, not true warp drive, though they are technologically more advanced than the UFP.

    The Feds have interfered with primitive pre-warp cultures on many occasions, though normally it was in order to undo or balance what some other star-fairing government has done.

    Now here's a new situation for you:
    A long lived (or very patient) sub-light culture (circa: 2100) has decided that they need the resources from a near by system, say 4-5 light-years away, however in that system another less advanced pre-warp culture (circa: 1900) exists. Now what call is a Captain to make, interference or non-interference, either could violate the Prime Directive given the Borg example above, sub-light interstellar conquests are not the "natural evolution of a civilization", but to stop the sub-light ships (even from plundering their less advanced neighbor) would be a direct interference on the Federation's behalf. Or would this senario fall into the Federation cry of "...it's an internal affaire of their culture...(aka. FOUL)" IMO is a sad, sad excuse.

    Yes, I am a fan of Star Trek, but I don't have to aggree with all of the rules

    Oh wow, for off the top of my head that wasn't too bad, I may need to do this to my players (BaaaWhaaa HAA HAA Haa Haa ha ha), sorry self promotion mode sliped in there.

    Phoenix...

    ------------------
    "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
    -Napoleon

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Sep 1999
    Location
    Melbourne, Australia. Winner of the First Trek Survivor Trivia Show, and Bearer of the Steve Long Pink Elephant Stamp of Learning. :)
    Posts
    526

    Post

    There are two issues here, from where I sit:

    1) Do we interfere in a global conflict, which very closely mirrors part of Earth's history, and such the outcome of which we already know?

    2) Do we interfere in the natural development of a socially immature species?

    From what was said regarding the war in the initial post, there's no point in interfering in the war. The crew of a starship couldn't do an awful lot, anyway, in the overall scheme of things, and historically, we/they want the Nazis to lose anyway (which they are in the process of doing without the starship's help, thank you very much. )

    The bigger problem becomes - "If we do go down there and put our two cents in, are we going to cause any damage to the social fabric of the planetary community?" Look at it like this: the planetary authorities are probably unaware (a) that there is a starship in orbit, (b) that there conflict has already been run on another planet, and (c) the crew of the starship from (a) are mainly from the planet mentioned in (b). In all likelihood, they wouldn't care - with a global war going on, there are probably more important things than "What's that thing in the sky?" In any event, 1940's technology wouldn't detect the starship (they wre only just perfecting radar for detecting enemy planes a few hundred kilometers away, never mind looking for starships in orbit).

    If the crew of the starship beamed down into the middle of the conflict, even with the best of intentions, untold damage could be done to the future history of that planet. Even without the Prime Directive, you couldn't really make the decision to go down - it would be morally wrong to do so. (Besides, the Good Guys win the war without the help of a starship and her crew.)

    ------------------
    "...and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes, and Who is this God Person Anyway?"
    - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams (dec.)

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 1999
    Location
    Vallejo, CA USA
    Posts
    221

    Post


    Slightly outside of the paradigm, remember that Star Trek was born in the middle of the Vietnam War ... and intervention in another culture's sovereign right of self-determination was a hot-button issue for many at the time. The Prime Directive reflects a hope for the future, that as we move out into space, we would not be imposing our historical lessons -- no matter how painful, how clear they may be to us -- upon another culture.

    So, yes, there is a mandate to NOT interfere, even if the obvious solution fits other criteria in our world view.

    'When is the humanitarian thing to do the wrong thing to do?' -- that's a command dilemma that is not restricted to the Prime Directive. Deanna Troi faced the same issue in her Bridge Certification Test ... sending Geordi to effect a repair, even though he stood an even chance of dying in the process. The humanitarian choice - not to send Geordi - was, in fact, the wrong one.

    I'm not looking to argue every command decision and the validity of the Prime Directive. The quote reflects how I would portray a command officer faced with that decision. That's why I also offered considerations that might make it work for a game.

    Ultimately, if the adventure depends on the players saying, 'Yes, we must intervene!' - then the narrator must also consider the possibility that the players will say, 'No, we cannot intervene!' ... and look for ways to bias them towards the desired conclusion.

    Bob



  10. #10
    Join Date
    Oct 1999
    Location
    Morgantown, WV. USA
    Posts
    218

    Post

    Hmm. Demmit. Looked at this from a Player, instead of a GM angle and this is pretty much what I would do.

    I'd beam groups straight out from the gas chambers, reroute them to an isolated part of the planet. Replace the "victims" with cadavers beamed out of mass graves at other camps. Repeat as necessary. Then I'd start slowly trickling the worst of the weak and dying from the camps at night. Provide health care while they were unconcious or rewrite their damn engrams if necessary. Then beam them to the same remote location.
    Repeat as necessary until the war was over.

    Once the war is over, I'd retrieve the survivors and hopefully drug, rewrite engrams or otherwise muddle their memories of how they survived the Death Camps, and filter them back into post war homeland.
    Then I'd probably go back to Starfleet Command, toss my commission in their faces say, "This damn stinkin' Prime @#$%ing Directive business has gone too far! But at least I minimized the damage for you. G'Night. I'm off to join a monastery on Bajor or something."
    then I'd really go sign up with the Orions and live a life of decadence and exploitation...

    but that's just me!

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Nov 1999
    Location
    Vallejo, CA USA
    Posts
    221

    Post

    <font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Sheliak Bob:
    then I'd really go sign up with the Orions and live a life of decadence and exploitation...</font>
    Yanno, any mission that can end with that ... has to be a good one.

    "Nice place you got here, Mr. Sheliak."



  12. #12
    Join Date
    Feb 2001
    Location
    MD/USA
    Posts
    286

    Post

    One ship can't do much? Consider:

    1) The use of the ship's phasers to do everything from stun massed troops to the total destruction of command complexes.

    2) Beam der Furher and his General Staff, unconscious, into a well guarded prison camp.

    Having said this, I believe, as nasty as it sounds, that cultures and/or worlds sometimes have to endure great hardships in order to grow (which is a moral decision far above my pay grade).

  13. #13
    Join Date
    May 2001
    Location
    Middlesex, NJ, USA
    Posts
    73

    Post

    There is, of course, the old adage that says, "A country has the government it deserves."

    Abraham Lincoln believed the Civil War to be the United States' karma* for so long allowing the institution of slavery.

    One can come up with a myriad of argumentation justifying or condemning interference in the described situation. It all boils down to whether laudable but idealistic interpretations of right and wrong can survive the visceral immediacy of such horror. For some, who have faith in the big picture, it can. For others, who believe that they themselves are instruments of compassion incarnate, it cannot. Either side is justifiable--which is why the Federation must have a tremendously difficult time enforcing the Prime Directive in such situations.

    Let me ask the gallery this: Are the Douwd, the Q and the Organians ethically bankrupt for refusing to intervene and help the Federation during the Dominion War? They obviously have the power... and since the Organians are far more intellectually endowed and compassionate than humanity at this stage in its development, their enforced peace in "Errand of Mercy" could be seen as tacit disapproval of the Prime Directive.

    See, it works both ways.

    * - He probably didn't use that word, though. :-)

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    New Richmond, WI USA
    Posts
    235

    Post

    Ah, now y'all see why I like this episode idea. It really does stimulate some very interesting thought, doesn't it?

    ------------------
    Slan agat!

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Apr 2000
    Location
    Tucson,AZ,USA
    Posts
    37

    Question

    I see it so many ways here. If you don’t offer help to those in need, just because they have not reached a certain technical development level, seems like playing the role of an “uncaring god” to me. Think how upset you would be if an epidemic of massive per potions struck human kind and there are aliens who could solve it in quick order, and they did nothing. All just because they have a mode of transportation we don’t. Seems a bit looking my nose down at less technical people. I do understand the pitfalls of acceleration of a cultures development. I think it was said in a next gen episode that the most caring phrase was not “I love you “ but “how can I help?”

    Now lets put this on its ear. How do you know the “Nazi” are going to lose I could not have told you that in 1943. It would have been a safe bet that Germany not the USA would be the first with atomic weapons. Hitler’s interference in the war at many levels lost it for them, but at the time, they were not so bad off. So what is to say these “Nazis” will make the same mistakes or the allies blunder very badly.

    Twist your ear again; it makes no difference to the prime directive if the “Nazi” are going to win. What if they are well on their way to doing so and think how big the camps would have been with the multi ethnic USA under the Nazi thumb. What to do then all it takes is for one crewman to “defect” with a working tricorder and a shuttle with a transporter to change the way the whole thing turns out. I would take a good long fight, but so much suffering ended. How would a jury convict a man who just saved the lives of millions?

    Just something to chew on for a while.


    By the way, don’t you think it is funny USA developed the first atomic bomb and the most warlike culture of it's day never even started a real true atomic weapon development program.

    Looks to the sky “if that was you guys ……….. Thanks”




    [This message has been edited by warmon4 (edited 06-09-2001).]

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •