#Home soil

[episodicnostalgia]

Star Trek: The Next Generation, 117 (Feb. 22, 1988) - “Home Soil”

Teleplay by: Robert Sabaroff Story by: Karl Guers, Ralph Sanchez & Robert Sabaroff Directed by: Corey Allen

The Breakdown

The Federation has asked Picard to check in on a terraforming outpost, since the team that was stationed there has gone radio silent.  With the Enterprise’s arrival at the outpost, the project director (Kurt Mandl) reluctantly picks up to explain that nothing suspicious is going on, and that Picard is welcome to politely fuck off (I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist).  Counsellor Troi confirms that Mandl is indeed as shifty as his unmistakably shifty behaviour would suggest; so, Picard sends Riker down to check it out.  While there, Riker and his team are introduced to the other Terraformers (Arthur, Bjorn, and Luisa), who kindly provide the audience/away team with a useful exposition dump about how the terraforming process works.  They impress upon Riker and co. that every planet designated for terraforming undergoes rigorous vetting to first determine that there are NO LIFEFORMS WHATSOEVER, before they begin the decades long process.  Geordi starts to nerd out with Arthur about some of the unique challenges this planet has presented, but Mandl sends Arthur away to ‘go work on the drilling lasers’, because they have a tight schedule to keep.  Predictably, the drilling lasers go bonkers and kill Arthur, so now we have a mystery on our hands.

Since it does KIND OF seem like Mandl had his guy killed in a cover up attempt, Picard brings the terraforming team to stay on the Enterprise while his people try to find out what caused the malfunction.  During that time, Data has his own run-in with the killer-laser (which he destroys) and is able to determine that something was indeed controlling it, but it wasn’t Mandl.  Further inspection of the drilled bedrock leads Geordi and Data to discover some glowing matter that exhibits strange properties, so they have it beamed up to Crusher’s lab.  There, it’s determined that they’ve discovered the first known non-carbon life form, and that it’s not only attempting to communicate, but also capable of reproducing.  What initially looks like a Christmas light on a petri dish, begins to grow until it eventually forms into an exotic looking plastic crystal, roughly the size of a baseball.  While this is all initially very exciting for the Enterprise crew, things get a bit more concerning when the non carbon lifeform reveals that it plans to wage war on the gross ‘water bags’ that attacked it (aka humans).  To make matters even more dire, the life form starts taking over the ship’s computer functions, as it grows exponentially more powerful.

So what’s going on?  Well, it turns out that the terraformers did indeed notice some exotic energy deposits on their planet, but they didn’t think much of it at the time.  Little did they know that their terraforming was endangering the saline water deposits beneath the planet’s crust, which apparently serve as a sort of networking system for the micro crystalline life forms living there.  So why was Mandl’s team behaving so secretively?  Because they’re workaholics and they don’t like distractions, and that’s… apparently the actual reason for their behaviour.  With that out of the way, team-Enterprise figures out they can stop ol’ Crystal (I’m calling it crystal now) by dimming the lights, which were evidently the source of it’s power.  Crystal agrees to a peaceful surrender, on the condition that no more Water-Bags return for at least 300 years (which is fair enough), and Riker has it beamed back to the planet.  Mandl won’t be able to finish his project, but at least it’s led to an exciting new discovery, and all it cost was Arthur’s life.  WORTH IT.

The Verdict.

Considering how many aliens look like humans with forehead prosthetics (Yes, I realize there’s an episode that addresses this), it’s kind of refreshing to see a Starfleet crew discover non-carbon life that isn’t just an abandoned supercomputer, or some other kind of artificial intelligence.  Realistically, if humans ever did discover extra-terrestrial life, it seems reasonable to expect that it would be almost wholly unrecognizable to us.  To that end, I found myself enjoying the story when it focussed on the mystery of a truly ‘new life’, something alien in every sense of the word.

Where the episode loses me is in the red herring that kicks off the episode, which suggests that Mandl’s team are up to no good.  We spend much of first couple acts as Picard and Mandl play cat and mouse with the truth, but the answers we’re given don’t really justify the investment we put into them.  Mandl WAS acting very suspicious, and Deanna supposedly could sense he was hiding something, so what exactly was he trying to hide?  He didn’t murder Arthur, and apparently neither he nor his team were aware that they were harming an unidentified species.  Mandl doesn’t even really give any kind of satisfactory explanation for his lack of decorum when Picard first arrived, leaving us to chalk it up to professional tunnel-vision. So, I guess he was trying to cover up… scheduling delays?  I don’t buy it.  I love a good red herring as much as the next guy (and trust me, the next guy won’t fucking shut up about them), but a red herring still needs an explanation that holds up to scrutiny. 

It would have been a stronger choice to have Mandl (or one of his team) acting with malicious intent, leaving a conflict that would be a little more complicated, and more interesting, to resolve.  Star Trek doesn’t always need to be a morality play, but that is the foundation upon which the franchise was built, and there was a decent opportunity to weigh the balance of scientific ambition with ethical restraint.  As it stands, ‘Home Soil’ narratively amounts to little more than “Woops.  Our bad.  Sorry about that.”  Perhaps that doesn’t classify the episode as an outright failure, but at it’s best this was a missed opportunity.

2.5 stars (out of 5)

Additional Ovservations

The electronic voice given to the NCL (aka “Crystal”) sounds kind of like a slightly less annoying Dalek.  Couldn’t the computer have provided it/them with something that sounds a little more dignified?

Troi-spiracy: I think it would be so funny if it turned out that Deanna Troi was just lying about her empathic abilities.  I’m just imagining that she never actually inherited any of her mum’s telepathy, but always felt too awkward to admit it (Lwaxana is kind of the worst, and you know she would never let it go), so whenever someone acts obviously sketchy she’s like “Yeah, I can totally sense they’re hiding something with my abilities that I absolutely have.”  Maybe Mandl wasn’t acting sus after all.  Maybe he’s just a tense fella, and Picard caught him at a bad time, but then he SEEMED off, so Deanna had to pretend that she sensed something.  Lucky it all worked out. This time.

Bad Counselling: Riker asks Deanna for the terraform team’s psychological profile.  Troi offers that Luisa is basically talented and imaginative, but otherwise an intellectual scatterbrain, and indicates that Riker’s charms might work on her (to get information), presumably because Riker is irresistible to a grieving airhead woman.  Yikes.

Riker enters a darkened lab, and approaches the Crystal in a way that I found hilariously, unintentionally, sultry.  But you just know Riker would if he’d had more time.

[prissnukem]

[en-wheelz-me]

[ryllen]

do u know that even the size of the different size of vegetables at another country amazed me because from where i came from they are all smaller and scrawnier

[data2364]

via Trekcore.com

Brent Spiner (Data) and LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge) 1988 in Star Trek: The Next Generation "Home Soil“

https://data2364.wordpress.com/2017/06/25/daily-spiner-25-juni-2017/

[adricthemindnimon]

I can’t believe Deanna really just said “here’s my professional opinion, but maybe Riker could try to come on to the grieving woman, that might give us more information”.

[justalittlesolarpunk]

Getting emotional about the salmon run again…

[sweetmyrrhs]

NO NO NO GUYS. HEAR ME OUT. ETHO NEVER MADE IT TO HIS FRONT DOOR, BUT HE GOT TO THE ORIGINAL LOCATION OF THE GRAVEL SHACK. HE WENT HOME, TO HIS FIRST HOME.

[ibrithir-was-here]

i adore your bad end series! with the most recent post, i have to wonder what little quincey considers dracula to be. his weird uncle? his parents' "friend?" a spooky roommate?

Ah yes, the vampire lord in the corner.

I’m going to tag @unchartedentity for this as they asked a very similar question!

So, @animate-mush who’s wonderful writing keeps inspiring this series to new heights has had Quincey call him “Father” in parallel to Jonathan’s ‘Papa’ and yeah I can definitely see Dracula pressing for that title, both by his ‘right’ as the reason the child is a vampire in the first place “He owes what he is as much to myself as to who’s blood he shares. And doesn’t some of mine run through him now as well?”

And also just because he knows it’s a knife in Jonmina’s hearts to hear Quincey call him that

How the relationship actually pans out? I think that in actually it’s much more of a creepy weird uncle situation, mixed with a lot of Palpatine corruption attempts. Dracula finds Quincey’s whole existence deeply interesting, seeing the Harkers attempts at domesticity is incredibly bizarre to him and also humorous—I think he really feels at some moment Quincey will twist into proper Vampire mode and break his dear papa’s heart doing so, and robbed of his chance to take over England he’ll take his kicks where he can get them.

Also going to take this opportunity to post the Dracula and Quincey interaction I just drew

[ghost-bxrd]

I want Fae!Dick to scare Deathstroke, or Jason using his "scary big brother privileges" 🥺

Omg literally can you imagine tho!?

Like, I don’t know much about Deathstroke, only that he’s apparently had a phase or two where he’s obsessed with Robin and making him his apprentice.

And Dick? Oh boy did Slade bite off more than he could chew with that particular sidekick.

Dick is amused.

When Slade tries to threaten him? Well, sure. Okay, he can play along. He’s got his gimmick with the titans right now and Bruce isn’t here to lecture him on morals. So, bring it, old man! And Slade? Totally convinced he scared the kid into submission? He’s in for a nasty surprise, because he was expecting an angry, terrified kid who was gonna fight him every step of the way. Someone he’d have fun breaking and molding into his version of a good soldier.

He’s not prepared for Dick “several rows of teeth” Grayson, for Robin “you should really work on leaving so many loopholes in your instructions” sidekick to Batman, for Richard “I am about to make you regret the day your mom and dad had their first kiss” Grayson-Wayne.

And Slade does. He regrets it so, so much. By day seven he’s ready to throw in the towel when he once again wakes up in the middle of a swamp with Robin splashing through the murky waters like it’s a day at the beach, animatedly talking to a something that looks like an alligator but has way too many eyes and feathers to be one.

“What? You only said not to move anywhere with trees again. We’re in a swamp!”

“This counts as the woods!”

“You said trees tho” :))))

“There ARE trees!!!!”

“They’re mangroves, jackass. God, read the room. They’re real sensitive about being called trees.”

(Slade will forever deny that he sheds a tear out of sheer relief when Batman comes to pick up his weird af kid)

And I’m afraid Jason would never actively have to invoke scary older brother privileges. It’s more of a “Dick, I know I complained about my maths teacher one (1) time, but please don’t have the deer eat her.”

Dick, who was totally about to tell the deer to eat her: “… Not even a nibble?” 🥺

[steffigraf]

italian jannik sinner records his first career win over novak djokovic in turin, italy (x)

[prissnukem]

“I left Cybertron many stellar cycles ago, leading a crew on a voyage of exploration.”

[froggyrights]

[moonlight-stalker]

# 67 Dc x Dp

Danny had been cursed when traveling the infinite realms he was exploring a world where the year was 1528, he had been exploring when a person uses magic to try to bind Danny to himself instead he bonded Danny to the land killing the magic user in the process. Danny became stuck in this new dimension unable to leave, he had no one to look and find him. Over the years many have tried to bond Danny to themselves but ended with their death, and Danny with more chains and being cursed

In the year 1695 people started to settle down in the land that Danny was bound to. Over the years the place became known as Gotham Danny protect everyone he could but he has grown weak because of the chains that hold him down. When Batman appeared and started helping protect Danny's people Danny decided to bless him with protection and each Robin Batman had would be protected

In 2260 another magic user appeared and tried to take control of Danny this time they were able to take control of him, but Danny made sure that the magic user and he could not leave Gotham. Batman had to let The Justices League into his city with a couple of the Justice League Dark. John was the one to tell the bats that the magic user had been able to enslave the Gotham spirit.

[typhlonectes]

[bonksoundeffect]

The born in Eastern Europe curse of knowing you were doomed from the start