It can be from any series, and if you want to pick a favorite from each show go ahead.
Picture very much related.
TOS, third season, episode 8: For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
I also love The Cloud Minders from the same season (episode 21), but that first one gets me every time, I have no idea why.
EDITED TO ADD: I also really like most of the SNW episodes, but haven’t seen them enough times to have a clear favorite. Possibly Ad Astra Per Aspera, or Charades, lol.
Voyager 5.17 “Course: oblivion”
Hell of an ending.
So hard to choose. I can tell you what isn’t my favorite is Darmok. I didn’t mind the episode…but when you think about it, it makes no logical sense. A lot of people like to hype that episode up, but the reality is society could never function that way.
But but, if I post a meme gif everyone understands it! Sure, but try to explain to someone how to make a semiconductor using only memes. It doesn’t work. A species could communicate on a casual level like that, but they’d all still have to understand normal language.
There’s no way you could possibly develop advanced science and technology with a language based entirely on metaphor. Also, how do you have a language based on metaphorical references to old stories when you can only tell those stories metaphorically too?
You would need an ancient society with perfect memories to even be able to get to the point of “language of metaphors” and a metaphor for everything you could need.
Languages evolve over time, so I like to think that’s what happened here.
but then how do new babies learn this language and what anything means? The language is also super imprecise and just conveys basic feelings or acknowledgments of situations. Even if you developed a meme for every single word and thought everyone would have to be on board, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed on not, it’s pretty hard to get a room full of people on board with something let alone an entire species.
I liked the ds9 episode where they were playing baseball. “Take Me Out to the Holosuite”
It’s a really good episode in terms of a basic story and really good acting, but if you think about it, its both a really bad way of memorializing a civilization and a horrible thing to do to a person. They could have put the entire library of their civilization into that probe, but instead they decided to make a device to make a person live an imaginary life and then have to live with the loss of a family that he never actually met in the real world and it all felt far more real than anything the holodeck could do.
I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I think it’s the kind of technology that would change a civilization. They probably had games where you could spend weeks in a fantasy world in only the blink of an eye. It would be awesome. And probably normal enough eventually that they wouldn’t think it weird to chronicle the end of the world that way
They did not make that clear in the episode and I am a firm believer that if you have to spend time thinking about an explanation for why something is the way it is in a TV episode when the writers didn’t seem to come up with a reason shows the episode is flawed.
Oh, I strongly disagree. I think half the fun of watching a sci-fi show is thinking about the rest of the world, and what it would be like based on the little snapshot we get as viewers
I always feel so sorry for Picard after this episode. He literally gets convinced that his life is not real, to the point that he buys the fantasy, embraces and loves the fantasy. Then when he sees some fulfillment it gets taken away and he gets told that it was not real. He may have never wanted a family in his real life, but he got one he loved them so much…
It was a great episode but boy it cut really deep when you started thinking about it.
You make good points, and even bring up a point I hadn’t really considered fully. But did they not put their knowledge base and other things into the probe? I vaguely remember the people in the Memory World saying they did, and the flute was a personal touch added near the end.
If they had the means to, they could have sent out dozensof probes (not likely, resources didn’t seem to be abundant) in all directions, some broadcasting low signals with their story, some just deep storage info crypts. That way they maximized their potential for discovery.
It’s also possible the only reason Picard had physical issues with the exchange due to incompatible biology, but without that being stated in the show directly… Its a reach.
Still my favorite though.
