Variations on The Inner Light
Aug. 12th, 2018 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakWhat about The Inner Light was a multi-voiced cry after not finding it on my list of favourite Picard-centric episodes. Not surprisingly, given it frequently ends up on a lot of people’s Best Of Trek episodes, and Patrick Stewart is indeed excellent in it.
Now, I like The Inner Light. I’m a sucker for quiet character episodes, and I do like the basic concept .of a civiliation that, upon realising it’s doomed by inevitable natural disaster, decides to tell its story, and do so via someone’s entire every day life, and have that someone not be a leader or mythical hero but a „normal“ citizen. You have to handwave several things about the very premise – if they had tech so sophisticated that it allowed the probe to transmit a life time of memories/virtual reality, why not at least try to build space faring evacuation pods for the people -, but that’s possible; after all, we only see excerpts of Kamin’s life, and it’s entirely possible the people on the council or whoever was governing the planet did attempt to build a spacecraft first, only to realise the next inhabitable planet was too far away and they didn’t have the ability to break the speed of light, or something like that. (Though then you have to question why Picard-as-Kamin, who retains Picard’s memoirs, didn’t share the technical knowledge once he figured out what was going on with the droughts.) That’s not the point of the story, and it doesn’t stop me from enjoying the episode. More enthusiasm-dampening is another bit, which can be summed up as: They didn’t ask. (The people of Kataan who created the probe, that is.)
I wouldn’t go as far as to share the minority opinion I’ve also seen after googling the episode reactions which compare what happens to Picard here with what happens to O’Brien in DS9’s Hard Time; the decades of memories forced on O’Brien were specifically designed to „punish“, i.e. hurt him, whereas the Kamin memories were intended as a gift to their receiver. Memories, or virtual reality; the episode never gets definite as to whether Kamin existed, and Picard was given his actual memories, or whether Kamin’s story was an artificial creation in order to represent aspects of Kataan life and more of an interactive game, i.e adepting to whoever would be accessed by the probe. That Picard is able to make decisions within the story – it takes him five years until he fully accepts Eline as his wife, for example – would argue the later, and I suppose the flute could argue the former – or it could simply be a flute because that was a core element of the story designed by the Kataans. However: in both cases, neither O’Brien and Picard made the choice to receive those memories. They do share that. I suppose partly because Trek in various incarnations has done the „aliens intend to force false reality for sinister purpose on one of our heroes, hero fights back“ story (and will do so again – ask Riker in Frame of Mind) and the writers and producers wanted to mislead the audience at the start a bit when they like Picard expect something like this until realising that no, this is a different story altogether. But still: Picard at the start being told that he’s Kamin and all his other memories were a feverish delirium would be called gaslighting in another context.
If the story had begun slightly differently – the Probe offers their story, Picard, passionate hobby archaeologist that he is, would never forego the chance to learn about a vanished people even at risk to himself and agrees to undergo the experience – and avoided the part where the Enterprise‘ crew’s attempt to interrupt the transmission ends up nearly killing Picard (which implies that the Kataanians were willing to let their future memory host die rather than reject their stories) , it could still have been the same moving tale, minus those pesky consent issues.
On a more flippant note, I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if the Kamin memories had been given to another Starship Captain. And my conclusions were thusly: Janeway, Sisko and Kirk would have more or less done what Picard did, with varying degrees and lengths of initial resistance to the Kamin identity. (If you think Kirk would have never stopped rebelling, you didn’t watch the episode where he was an amnesiac Native American in Space.) Janeway, because she needed to get her people home, might have held out the longest, but she would eventually have accepted being Kamin. Sisko might have assumed this was another Prophet experience at first and adapted most quickly. With Archer, it would have depended on just when the Proble would have made contact. Season 1 and 2 Archer might have been suspicious of Vulcan or other aliens meddling and a ploy to stop humanity’s space exploration, but eventually, his paranoia would have settled and he’d gone with the flow. Though wondering who’d take care of Porthos would have kept him up many a night. Season 3 Archer, otoh, might have killed every single person in Kamin’s community in order to prove this was clearly just a fiendish simulation by the Xindi. Season 4 Archer is back to being paranoid for some years and then going with the flow.
And Gabriel Lorca? Here’s what Lorca-as-we-knew-him would have done (meaning we never met Lorca Prime, so I have no idea, and am answering for MirrorLorca only): Lorca pretends to accept being Kamin post haste. In a stealth move, he then ousts the Councilman from his job and becomes Councilman himself. Having deduced the oncoming supernova in the meantime, he then pushes forward a space programm by manipulating everyone he can get a hold of to work themselves to death if needs must in order to save their people from extinction. Lorca-as-Kamin’s life concludes, however, with Lorca-as-Kamin using the first finished space craft to escape Kataan on his lonesome and leaving everyone behind to die in the supernova. He promises he’ll tell their story, though. The end of the memories is Eline, Batai, Meribor et al telling Lorca they’re really really disappointed in him.
Now, I like The Inner Light. I’m a sucker for quiet character episodes, and I do like the basic concept .of a civiliation that, upon realising it’s doomed by inevitable natural disaster, decides to tell its story, and do so via someone’s entire every day life, and have that someone not be a leader or mythical hero but a „normal“ citizen. You have to handwave several things about the very premise – if they had tech so sophisticated that it allowed the probe to transmit a life time of memories/virtual reality, why not at least try to build space faring evacuation pods for the people -, but that’s possible; after all, we only see excerpts of Kamin’s life, and it’s entirely possible the people on the council or whoever was governing the planet did attempt to build a spacecraft first, only to realise the next inhabitable planet was too far away and they didn’t have the ability to break the speed of light, or something like that. (Though then you have to question why Picard-as-Kamin, who retains Picard’s memoirs, didn’t share the technical knowledge once he figured out what was going on with the droughts.) That’s not the point of the story, and it doesn’t stop me from enjoying the episode. More enthusiasm-dampening is another bit, which can be summed up as: They didn’t ask. (The people of Kataan who created the probe, that is.)
I wouldn’t go as far as to share the minority opinion I’ve also seen after googling the episode reactions which compare what happens to Picard here with what happens to O’Brien in DS9’s Hard Time; the decades of memories forced on O’Brien were specifically designed to „punish“, i.e. hurt him, whereas the Kamin memories were intended as a gift to their receiver. Memories, or virtual reality; the episode never gets definite as to whether Kamin existed, and Picard was given his actual memories, or whether Kamin’s story was an artificial creation in order to represent aspects of Kataan life and more of an interactive game, i.e adepting to whoever would be accessed by the probe. That Picard is able to make decisions within the story – it takes him five years until he fully accepts Eline as his wife, for example – would argue the later, and I suppose the flute could argue the former – or it could simply be a flute because that was a core element of the story designed by the Kataans. However: in both cases, neither O’Brien and Picard made the choice to receive those memories. They do share that. I suppose partly because Trek in various incarnations has done the „aliens intend to force false reality for sinister purpose on one of our heroes, hero fights back“ story (and will do so again – ask Riker in Frame of Mind) and the writers and producers wanted to mislead the audience at the start a bit when they like Picard expect something like this until realising that no, this is a different story altogether. But still: Picard at the start being told that he’s Kamin and all his other memories were a feverish delirium would be called gaslighting in another context.
If the story had begun slightly differently – the Probe offers their story, Picard, passionate hobby archaeologist that he is, would never forego the chance to learn about a vanished people even at risk to himself and agrees to undergo the experience – and avoided the part where the Enterprise‘ crew’s attempt to interrupt the transmission ends up nearly killing Picard (which implies that the Kataanians were willing to let their future memory host die rather than reject their stories) , it could still have been the same moving tale, minus those pesky consent issues.
On a more flippant note, I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if the Kamin memories had been given to another Starship Captain. And my conclusions were thusly: Janeway, Sisko and Kirk would have more or less done what Picard did, with varying degrees and lengths of initial resistance to the Kamin identity. (If you think Kirk would have never stopped rebelling, you didn’t watch the episode where he was an amnesiac Native American in Space.) Janeway, because she needed to get her people home, might have held out the longest, but she would eventually have accepted being Kamin. Sisko might have assumed this was another Prophet experience at first and adapted most quickly. With Archer, it would have depended on just when the Proble would have made contact. Season 1 and 2 Archer might have been suspicious of Vulcan or other aliens meddling and a ploy to stop humanity’s space exploration, but eventually, his paranoia would have settled and he’d gone with the flow. Though wondering who’d take care of Porthos would have kept him up many a night. Season 3 Archer, otoh, might have killed every single person in Kamin’s community in order to prove this was clearly just a fiendish simulation by the Xindi. Season 4 Archer is back to being paranoid for some years and then going with the flow.
And Gabriel Lorca? Here’s what Lorca-as-we-knew-him would have done (meaning we never met Lorca Prime, so I have no idea, and am answering for MirrorLorca only): Lorca pretends to accept being Kamin post haste. In a stealth move, he then ousts the Councilman from his job and becomes Councilman himself. Having deduced the oncoming supernova in the meantime, he then pushes forward a space programm by manipulating everyone he can get a hold of to work themselves to death if needs must in order to save their people from extinction. Lorca-as-Kamin’s life concludes, however, with Lorca-as-Kamin using the first finished space craft to escape Kataan on his lonesome and leaving everyone behind to die in the supernova. He promises he’ll tell their story, though. The end of the memories is Eline, Batai, Meribor et al telling Lorca they’re really really disappointed in him.
Gaslighting, ew
Date: 2018-08-12 10:45 am (UTC)"The Inner Light" just freaks me the hell out, what with the kind of Stockholm Syndrome air, but particularly the sexual reproduction as a kind of "giving in" and being normalized by "now I can't imagine my life without children!" I get that it's a touching story, but I think as an entry in the Star Trek canon it's highly overrated.
and
I know exactly what you mean about "The Inner Light" being triggery for "everyone thinks you're nuts" too. There's a lot to unpack in that episode. I don't think it won the Hugo for its subtle handling of the plot. I think it won because Patrick Stewart knocked it out of the park in terms of the emotion he managed to convey when playing a flute at the end.
I think your re-imagining of the story as Picard the archaeologist *choosing* to undergo what he did would have made the story way more palatable to me.
Re: Gaslighting, ew
Date: 2018-08-12 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-12 10:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-12 11:29 am (UTC)ETA: Been thinking about this some more.
the writers and producers wanted to mislead the audience at the start a bit - I think you are right and it's a bit of a "have your cake and eat it" situation that didn't quite work. They wanted the narrative tension and didn't care about the implications.
And regarding the other Captains, with Sisko my impulse is "what about Jake?" but you are perfectly right that if he thought it was a Prophets thing, he'd go with it. (Which is a DS9 problem.) Although that actually means he'd still be convinced that he's Sisko and would just go with it because he knows it's a scenario! Which is the best and least broken place to come from here, because it's closest to the truth.
I'm only half-way through season one of Enterprise but I think this early version of Archer would definitely go with it after a while; Janeway would be really stubborn for a long time. Have not seen Discovery yet, but your description of Lorca kind of makes him my favourite-to-watch scenario. ;) In general I think that all of these people are very much leaders and, no matter how they feel about their identity at that point, I don't quite see that they'd just stay quietly living in the village when they could be doing something, especially once the supernova threat becomes apparent.
no subject
Date: 2018-08-12 01:43 pm (UTC)Thanks. It really did seem the most obvious solution - I mean, Picard chose to mindmeld with a Vulcan who had Vulcan Alzheimer in order to help the man through a negotiation! He'd totally regard it as worth while to let an Alien device download the story of a lost civilisation into his brain. He'd do it. If he were asked. And the only reason not to let the asking be done first is so we get a "surprise!" effect later on, and some initial suspense about the probe's intentions.
BTW, googling about reactions yesterday also led me to a Ron Moore quote re: The Inner Light and Hard Time, that they, the Writers, only saw later that in terms of emotional realism such an experience should have affected Picard and O'Brien respectively far beyond the episodes in Question and altered their characters substantially, but it did not occur to them at the time (Beyond a few callbacks for Picard like Lessons.) Then I found an interview with one the actual writers of the episode, Morgan Gendel, and decided to invoke death of the author, because in it he says he regarded it as his mission to make Picard more Kirk-Like "so I made him a Lover in The Inner Light and a fighter in Starship Mine". I mean… *does the Picard facepalm*
no subject
Date: 2018-08-12 02:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-12 06:30 pm (UTC)I have never, however, felt any desire to defend the aliens' choice of how to be remembered. And will absolutely agree that Picard having made the choice himself would have been so, so much preferable. Because, yeah. He would.