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  • Honestly, the trial episodes of Star Trek tend to be the some of the best. Drama without explosions are when it's different from most other sci-fi franchises, and it's good to see it come back. SNW really is the best current Trek show.

  • This really was classic trek, Star Trek as Star Trek should be.
    Don't have much to add, but I really loved the episode

  • I think this episode was really good...if the issue of discrimination was over literally anything other than a social practice of genetic modification. Star Trek's hardline stance on linking social genetic modification to eugenics is one of the things that I've really appreciated, especially as corrosive "thought experiments" about it have sort of entered back into the discourse. I don't think you can practice genetic manipulation on a society wide level without it going very bad very fast. At least I don't think humans can, and the episode doesn't really make a case for why the Illyrians are better at it.

    The core message of this episode is so important, especially at this current moment, and the right of people to self determination and to safety and security in their identities and differences is right at the heart of Star Trek, so I'm glad to see SNW continue to affirm it. But...just...there are reasons, real reasons, with lots of horrific history behind them, for why normalizing genetic manipulation in the name of improving or "fixing" populations of people is still a real third rail for me, and I wish the episode had figured out how to engage with that specifically a bit more. This episode does not actually convince me that in the far future utopia of the Federation the dangers of genetic modification as a practice have been addressed, and in absence of that "It used to happen and its bad, but stuff is better now and can't we relax a little" is a bit...hollow

    I think you could fix this for me if you made it so that Illyrian genetic modification was something that members of their species voluntarily entered into in adolescence or early adulthood. Make it more of a practice that people voluntarily keep up and less of a program that their society runs and the whole thing works way better for me. That also makes the loose analogy to transgender people in our current time, and really just the right of bodily autonomy and self determination, way more coherent.

    • I think they kept that genetic manipulation is bad for the reasons you suggest...but also that the children did not have a choice and shouldn't be punished for their heratige or things they didn't choose. It was more don't single.out the individuals

    • I really hated this episode for this reason. I hate the thought experiment of "what if we found a planet where everyone practices eugenics and so therefore it's racist to be against eugenics".

      Like if the rest of the world had found an isolated Nazi Germany, would it have been discriminatory and prejudiced to be against their practices? To not let them into the military? Of course not

      Like why even write that plotline? Why are the writers choosing to legitimize eugenics like this, like it ever could be neutral or good and not horrific? I'm unwilling to entertain the idea that there's a good way to do it, just as I'd be unwilling to entertain a fictional society that showed slavery in a positive light

      • I am European, we had an interesting talk about the travelling community at my work the other day. When certain groups of travellers come to town there is issues with their culture fitting with the settled communtity and a small but visible element of not following the laws and customs. From issues with their approach to educating their children especially girls, to petty theft, to resolving disputes with violence.

        However they revealed among those at my work were several children of travellers or even those that had travelled and settled down. For the first time I heard my self internally saying "not you though your the good ones" and felt ashamed. Ina a sort of interview format they revealed people called local sites slurs in front of them or even they joke about his RV (he has still some connection) being a "[traveler slur] wagon" not realising his connection and that it does hit home to his roots.

        It really opened my eyes to those in a communtity where there may be a large minority that have questionable practices but we should still treat individuals on a case by case basis.

        a similar thought might be devout Muslims (e.g. personally I think following religious practice IS a choice) with community level mysogeny or homophobia. Again while we may not agree with the community, hating the individual is not humanity.

    • I agree with this. It was clear from when the lawyer called the eugenics laws "race laws" that Number One was going to get off somehow, but I really missed seeing in the courtroom somebody make the case that genetic augmentation is meaningfully different from genetic modification -- in particular in the case of Illyrians, that they modify themselves to exist harmoniously with their environment and not to breed superhumans. Eugenics is bad, and genetic augmentation is also bad and I think corrosive to society, as is covered in Doctor Bashir, I Presume.

      Overall, I thought it was good Star Trek, but missing a robust engagement with the issue at hand which was disappointing. A better episode than last week, though.

      Oh also -- it was very exciting to see a Tellarite! We barely see any of them, especially compared to the other three founding members.

      EDIT: Thinking about it more, I do actually think it's a bit objectionable to call anti-eugenics laws "race laws". I get that Starfleet is fictional, but in our actual universe, "race laws" have tended to go hand in hand with eugenics, so it really feels a bit ... unfortunate. And based on this episode's Ready Room, they seem pretty comfortable with the idea that Starfleet and the Federation are in the wrong about genetic augmentation, and I don't feel like they drew the line in the episode or in the Ready Room episode between augmentation and modification.

    • But…just…there are reasons, real reasons, with lots of horrific history behind them, for why normalizing genetic manipulation in the name of improving or “fixing” populations of people is still a real third rail for me, and I wish the episode had figured out how to engage with that specifically a bit more.

      Other episodes did, and I hope we'll see more of that. Specifically, it's about Illyrian culture: Genetic modification is deeply ingrained, required in their ethics: "We don't terraform planets, that's disrespectful of nature, we transform ourselves", as heard previous season (I'm sure someone will fill in the episode number). As such the practice doesn't root in a desire for dominance or superiority, but gentleness towards the universe.

      That is, the issue with the eugenics wars wasn't genetic manipulation itself, but that humanity was war-like and out for dominance and superiority. The augments' attitude of supremacy simply reflect cultural attitudes back then, they were not caused by genetic modifications, but enabled. (Alternatively: The bad idea of imbuing augments with such a sense was due to bonkers scientists influenced by cultural attitudes).

      Or maybe more like entheogens: Drugs that kill one society are used responsibly and for benefit by others because they have cultural practices regulating them, rites (regulations) saying when and where and why they should be used.

      If the federation ever gets around to legalising genetic manipulation having regulations written by Illyrians and Denobulans sounds like a very good idea.

      • What I can't get out of my head this morning is actually Bashir's plotline with his parents on DS9, because it captures what's so insidious about even "benevolent" genetic modification. He's not angry at them just because they broke the law, he's angry at them because they decided they didn't like who he was and chose to transform him into someone else, someone he feels is a different person. And this is actually the fundamental argument against a social program of gene management in real life; it allows society to police what types of bodies and what types of minds are "normal" and flattens species diversity and experience diversity in favor of whatever the norms say is "better". The danger isn't just the risk of Khan like supermen, its a moral argument against determining how people's bodies and minds are going to develop before they can even consent, even before they're born.

        As strongly as I feel about this, I do think you could create a case for why what the Ilyrians do is meaningfully different, the "adapting to other planets rather than making them adapt to us" idea is interesting and complicated, but it felt extremely cursory in this ep

    • Thank you! Came on here because the episode left such a bad taste in my mouth. I'm a queer person with multiple disabilties, one of which is known to be genetic. Using genetic engineering as the metaphor for marginalized groups felt like a trojan horse to garner public sympathy for genetic engineering.

      And through making genetic engineering acceptable then we're opening up the world to letting parents engineer the gay out of their children and to engineer the neurodivergence out of their children.

      Instead of being a story about accepting marginalized groups to me it feels like they're actively pushing for a technology that can be used to wipe out marginalized groups. Why did the writers do this? They literally did not have to set this up or write it this way.

      Also the references to the Eugenics Wars as though they are somehow irrelevant today just did not at all sit well with me as somebody who is high risk for covid. This whole pandemic the drumbeat has been "only those with pre-existing conditions will die" and we have been fighting for our lives to get the most minimal public health measures and the ableds just keep putting their conviences over our lives. Eugenics is still here, it's still going strong, but we're just not calling it eugenics anymore.

      • I think it's really hard to philosophically (which I think is needed as a base to write a law coherently, though I may be the only one) draw a line between medicine and "eugenics" at least as Sci-Fi explores the concepts. And I have real difficulty seeing why it's not just a naturalistic fallacy to say evolution is good but genetic engineering for adaptation or reducing disease or even enhancing abilities is bad.

        I see all sorts of problems with government forcing some sort of improvements or discrimination a la Gattaca. I have more trouble saying parents can't make an informed choice however - the alternative seems similar to the Texas shooting where the police prevented parents from trying to save their kids. If there's a treatment or prevention from a disease that causes horrible deaths at young ages - it feels a lot like swinging in the other direction way to far to say - well, we don't want to "wipe out" the minority that dies horribly at 5 from this genetic disease that we otherwise could cure.

        I suppose the other point of contention I'd have is I don't have a belief system that says anyone is meant to be in some cosmic sense. So I don't feel a sense of community around being fat let's say. If I had a magic wand to genetically ensure my potential kids could never get fat - I'd think I was doing them a favor, kind of like the teeth sealing that came out too late to prevent cavities for me. I think it's horrible to treat currently fat people poorly, but to let parents decide to stop that from happening to currently not existing people? I struggle to see who we're harming.

        Historically, Star Trek has been rather on the side of no cosmic plan, though the newer shows are muddier on that. I don't know if the episode was claiming that the main reason the Federation was against genetic engineering was because it was seen as an "afront against God", but they did call that out in one line. But even if the show was making a religious argument, that's very weak to those of a different or no religion, and the new shows also make it clear the Federation is good with lots of different faiths and atheists too.

    • To me the vibe was that from the writer's perspective generic modification is so obviously acceptable that it's impossible to even come up with an argument against it that stands up to scrutiny, and that the racism against the genetically modified was just an idiosyncratic cultural trait of the federation that they would hopefully one day grow out of entirely. And I'd pretty much endorse that take. What risk of genocide could possibly be posed by letting parents give their children the modifications they think will serve them well in life? As the episode said, it's not like augments have Khan lurking within them or anything, they're morally no different from anyone else and no more likely to start a genocide.

      • The danger of letting parents choose modifications they think will serve their children in life is exactly what Bashir expresses in DS9: it gives parents, and society more generally, the power to determine what's acceptably "normal" and flatten out anything that deviates. Geordi similarly expresses at least twice that he doesn't want normal vision, that his blindness is not a defect that needs fixing and what's utopian about the Federation he lives in is that his difference is accommodated and supported.

        I've always really appreciated Star Trek's hardline stance on this, because its a moral problem that I feel we've lost a little bit of sight of and is going to emerge again in the next few decades in real life. I think you could make a case for the Ilyrian environmental adaptation being different, but to do that you would have to explicitly place it against the real arguments against gene editing and work through them, and this episode went in a different direction.

      • Can't believe I have to tell you that deliberate genetic modification for the enhancement of individuals and species is the definition of eugenics, and that eugenics is not "so obviously acceptable that it’s impossible to even come up with an argument against it that stands up to scrutiny".

    • I don't think it tries to justify that the Illyrians are better at it, or even that the practise should be justified in any way.

      It's more about the treatment of others in a reasonable, decent way which seems to have been clearly lacking from Una's account. So regardless of what practices her people might have been continuing against Federation law, that did not and does not justify the behaviour of others.

      So I agree, it doesn't try to justify the dangers of genetic modification though I do not believe that's the aim regardless. It's about treating others decently. From a continuity standpoint I don't think it'd make sense to do so anyway, but my concerns still lie here: how did the Federation manage to cover up the treatment of the Illyrians up through the TNG/DS9/VOY era?

  • Ad Astra Per Aspera

    A beautiful title, I remember watching the anime Ad Astra a few years back. They had a ROUGH time.

    Through hardships, to the stars.

    You had your playtime, acting like one of them. Accept your dismissal, take your licks and go home.

    Una: No. (Why not?) Because I shouldn't have to hide anymore. None of us should. I know I should have done better. I didn't stand up when I should have. I'm standing up now.

    YES! GIVE ME THAT STRENGTH!

    So it was either dishonorable discharge OR Dishonorable discharge with 20 years in a penal colony.

    That's a rough decision.

    GIVE EM HELL UNA!

    So La'An has an idea that the evidence against Una might have been illegally obtained. This is going to be a really in depth court drama from Star Trek!

    La'An: We need to find out who turned her in. It might well be the only way to save her.

    But Uhura strictly refuses La'An's illegal order. :|

    Counselor: Admiral, it would seem that the rules of Starfleet only apply when a captain deems that they do. (Robert April: Is there a question Counsellor?)

    You have shown that you have been repeatedly willing to break the very first order of starfleet and you are hailed a hero. you can break the law if you so choose. So, hiding behind order and protocol to explain why you would not have admitted Una Chin-Riley to Starfleet is a sanctimonious falsehood, is it not?

    And of course the JAG gets pissed off at that type of reasoning, how convenient.

    Counsellor: My client did not ask to be genetically modified. It is an Illyrian cultural practice done to children before they are even born. It is done for survival and yet she has been arrested because of a violation of a law. But the Admiral has just shown us that Starfleet regulations are are flimsy and subjective at best.

    Spock's line about what una was hiding OMG!!!

    Spock: Yes, I did get the feeling that she was hiding something.

    Neera: What was she hiding?

    Spock: An affanity for Gibert and Sullivan musicals.

    A BRITISH TAR IS A SOARING SOUL AS FREE AS A MOUNTAIN BIRD HIS ENERGETIC FIST SHOULD BE READY TO RESIST A DICTACTORIAL WORD

    Spock: Perhaps. Although I think it is illogical for Starfleet to punish itself.

    Neera: I'm afraid I don't understand.

    Spock: The loss of Una would be destructive to Starfleet as an organization. She is an extraordinary officer.

    Una: She is a Mentor Spock: I have learned a great deal about leadership by serving under her.

    M'benga: She puts the lives of her crew above her own. Always.

    Spock: She is a friend.

    La'An: Family. Una is Family.

    And we get more into exactly That.

    Counselor: Could it be that you carry your family's augmentations, and you believe that because of them you may become dangerous?

    Una: Yes, I do.

    OH MY GOOOOOOD...

    Counselor: There is nothing wrong with you Lieutenant, no hidden monster inside. But I do know how they make us feel. They look down at us for so long that we begin to look down at ourselves. Genetics is not our destiny despite what you may have been taught. The fear of yourself it's not your own. It was drilled into you. You're not born a monster. You were just born with a capacity for actions, good or ill. Just like the rest of us... i guarantee you are not the the person who leaked Una's true identity to Starfleet.

    "Ad Astra per aspera"

    To the stars through hardship.

    .......

    Una: My family, we went to the non-illyrian city. You see, some of us could pass. We could blend in, so we did. We left everyone else behind. Our families. Our friends.. We left them all. I regret it to this day.

    ...

    I wanted my crew to know who me for who I really was. I thought maybe if they did, I would finally be safe. And starfleet would finally understand Illyrian's better.

    So it was four months in between Ghosts of Illyria and last season's finale.

    Neera: She believed in the best of Starfleet, and that through it she could find salvation from the hardship and danger of her everyday life. Danger she faced just for being born an Illyrian. Dangers born on prejudice. Spurred on by laws against people like her. But through her hardhsips, Una saw the stars. Una joined Starfleet because she believed it was the only thing that could save her life. She fled persecution, and within Starfleet she sought safettu. She Asked for Asylum and Captain Pike granted it.

    What an amazing courtroom episode! Did a lot of work for equality in the current moment.

    I was recalling a lot of the classic courtroom episodes too, The Menagerie, Drumhead, Measure of a Man. This is top tier stuff.

    I also feel relevant to our current controversies.

  • This episode restored my faith in the series. It one of the best single episodes of Trek to have blessed my eyes.

    • I agree, this is a phenomenal episode for long-term fans and I'm interested how newer audiences might interpret it, the iMDB rating has been all over the place.

  • I've seen it said a couple of places that this should have been the season premiere and I think I agree, but I haven't seen much mention of the episode's impact. We know that on the larger timeline, Federation policy on gene manipulation remains unmoved, but there's more going on here.

    It becomes evident in the arbiter's closing statement on making an effort to judge augments on their individual circumstances rather than applying the "broad brush" approach, and that is significant. This episode retroactively sets a precedent for Bashir and Dal's cases later.

    ... also the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" allegory is subtle as Tsar Bomba and I am fucking here for it.

    Trek and courtroom dramas name a more iconic duo

  • I really enjoyed it even knowing the laws wouldn't change in the end since Bashir was still persecuted in ds9 but it's always fun to get a court room trek episode

  • Thoughts as I watch the episode:

    • Previously on Star Trek: Una is an augment, and Starfleet greatly dislikes that.
    • Oh, Kid Una!
    • “How can he council me when he works for you?” Good point!
    • This was the ready room scene last week.
    • Illyrians hiding on a poisonous planet is a nice touch.
    • So, this is an allegory for Don't Ask-Don't Tell and similar anti-gay and discriminatory policies, isn't it? Hiding who she is, for example. Timely.
    • Damn, Batel's boss is an asshole.
    • Damn, that took awhile to get to credits.
    • Oh, more case law for Starfleet!
    • “I know you hate giving inspiring speeches.” Heh.
    • Ortegas imagining a Vulcan conversation is hilarious.
    • “I regret that you had to witness that outburst.”
    • Seriously, that outburst, it was so horrifying. Not sure if I can ever emotionally recover from it.
    • Oh, those dress unis! Look so much like the TOS ones while still being all modern.
    • Hahaha, she's using all the times they ignore the Prime Directive to show the hypocrisy of rules.
    • The stuff about her being tried for stuff her parents did calls to mind the stuff with the DREAM act.
    • Hang on, wouldn't the fact that La'an has Khan blood flowing through her veins kind of give a possible method of pointing out how much hypocrisy there is to the law?
    • “An affinity for Gilbert and Sullivan Musicals”
    • Good point about how family isn't destiny and also how the discriminated against can be led to self-loathing.
    • I just noticed that the mural/engraving behind witness stand seems to show a bunch of humans, tellarites, andorians, and so on... wonder if it's meant to show the founding of the Federation or great legal scholars of the Fed species.
    • Oh shit, she turned herself in.
    • “Starfleet is not a perfect organization, but it strives to be.” We all should try to live up to that.
    • My Badmiral Sense is tingling.
    • Ah, so an asylum loophole! Clever way of allowing her to stay in while still keeping the anti-genetics stuff still in place come Bashir and Dal's time.
    • Pike Hugs must be the best hugs.

  • I largely quite like SNW, but this episode had some extremely questionable eugenics apologia laced into the narrative.

    I think the broadest problem with nu-trek (though it's strongly reined in in SNW) is the heavily maudlin over-scoring and the bathos-laden dialogue. When almost every exchange between two characters sounds "perfectly written" and is dripping in score, it's hard to take seriously.

    If SNW employed like, 20% more restraint in that regard, it would sing.

    • I'm currently watching both SNW and Voyager (season 5) in parallel. So far, I'm enjoying Voyager way more, but I cannot pinpoint why. Could it be the longer camera shots? The more stoic personalities? The nostalgia effect? I don't know, but I will keep watching SNW and see how it turns out. I wasn't too impressed with Picard, but the season 3 ending was pretty good event though the show didn't feel like TNG to me.

      Sorry about the grammar mistakes. I'm not a native English speaker.

    • I was definitely missing those pregnant pauses that they had in Measure of a Man. I figure they had a lot of dialog to pack in there, but it did come off pretty "perfect".

    • We’re in a different era.

      I for one am very glad we’re not in the melody-free scoring that was imposed by Berman in the 90s. I recall being at a con in the 90s where Rick Sternbach was presenting. There were several questions from fans asking why TNG and DS9 didn’t use the melodic motifs and themes in the way they had been in TOS. Sternbach laughed, noted that the norms of television scoring had changed but that someone ‘must have played really bad Vivaldi to Berman at some point in the past.’ He also talked about how happy they were to get the theme composed and recorded for DS9.

      So, we have to expect each era to reflect the more general trends on use of music.

      I find Nami Melumad’s episode scoring on SNW and Prodigy much more restrained than Jeff Russo’s on Discovery and Picard seasons one and two. In particular, I found some of his use of splatting horns overwhelmed some of Discovery’s more dramatic moments. Russo is however award-winning and an in-demand composer on top streaming shows beyond Star Trek.

  • I might need to give this episode another shot in a few years. It wasn't bad per se, but I just couldn't get into it.

  • I LOVED this episode.

    When I was a child and watched TOS and TNG for the first time I remember how I was amazed by those Starfleet crews who come from so many different backgrounds and who worked together for a good cause. I really shaped my worldview. And this episode brought all those memories back through Una's story.

    And on top of that comes an allegory about the struggles that minorities (still) face today.

    Classic Star Trek.

    Random sidenotes:

    • those dress uniforms look chef's kiss
    • the same goes for Neera's dresses and the dress of her assistant. I'm a guy and I'm envious of those dresses. 😄
    • I really like how everyone has slightly different hairstyles every now and then. Captain Batel styled her hair in three (or even four?) different ways in this episode alone. It feels so much more realistic than what everyone having the same hairstyle for years or even for the entire series, like it has often been the case for previous Treks.
248 comments