Prototype
- Episode aired Jan 15, 1996
- TV-PG
- 45m
B'Elanna gives aid to a failing automated device found adrift in space. After the repairs, the device recalls what its purpose was - and carries it out.B'Elanna gives aid to a failing automated device found adrift in space. After the repairs, the device recalls what its purpose was - and carries it out.B'Elanna gives aid to a failing automated device found adrift in space. After the repairs, the device recalls what its purpose was - and carries it out.
- Lt. B'Elanna Torres
- (as Roxann Biggs-Dawson)
- Ensign Culhane
- (uncredited)
- Kashimuro Nozawa
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaOne of the robotic arms seen on the table in the reconstruction bay is that of Johnny Five from Short Circuit (1986) and Short Circuit 2 (1988).
- GoofsAt 15:12, when B'Elanna Torres comes around the table in Engineering, you can see her wearing white shoes, not the standard black boots that go with the Starfleet uniform.
- Quotes
[Unit 3947 tells Torres about the war between the Pralor and the Cravic]
Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres: Has anyone in all these years ever tried to stop this war?
Automated Personnel Unit 3947: The Pralor and the Cravic called a truce.
Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres: Wait a minute. If both sides called a truce, then why didn't they stop you from fighting?
Automated Personnel Unit 3947: They attempted to do so.
Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres: And?
Automated Personnel Unit 3947: We terminated the Builders.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Star Trek: Voyager: Warhead (1999)
This episode is but another example of the warped application of mechanical science to understanding the grand Godliness of man and his elevated unique spirit.
As if, despite being a technical person, B'Elana couldn't see the enormous world of difference between a human being and a machine whose nature and functions were nothing more than the very limited programming created by a human being.
The story follows her risking human life and the prime directive to save human-created mechanisms, solely on the basis of the appeal of their simulated human characteristics and programmed self-awareness.
As if a program running on a machine - whether a human-looking graceful android, any more than a clunky mainframe computer - could ever be truly sentient and have an identity simply because of a clever program with a modicum of artificial intelligence!
Has mankind in its love of technological conveniences actually come to believe that a human-equivalent deserving of respect and human rights can be constructed out of machinery and human-written code that, at best, simulates the infinite broadness of human thought to only a miniscule degree?
Do they not realize that such a machine - even if it is made to look human - is merely electronics and motoric parts running a program that is itself human-designed, error-filled and based upon a human creator's extremely limited understanding even of himself - let alone the depth and breadth of a human soul?
Even the best actor delivering an astoundingly realistic portrayal of a character can by no extrapolation of imagination even begin to become that fictional character in his daily life. Similarly, a human-style android is a mere shadow of a human character and has no internal identity. All attempts to create such an identity are simply pre-written computer logic that simulates human style, but has no intrinsic self at its core.
What is so horrendous about this story and others like it that abound in the later Star Trek and other science fiction stories, is the degradation of true human life and its lofty moral capabilities by equating life with mechanical lifeless mechanisms.
Mechanisms have no identity and no morality - fortunately this episode at its end does, atypically, make that point to a certain degree.
- loyalcitizenship
- Jan 13, 2020
Details
- Runtime45 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
- 4:3