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Willfully obtuse Tholians
felderburg
Member Posts: 854 Arc User
The new mission was pretty fun, but it did leave me with some questions about the Tholians. They're smart enough to have multi-dimensional capabilities, but don't have a way to distinguish beings from different dimensions? Even if that's a linguistic issue (language shapes thought) for not distinguishing dimensional groups, surely the idea of different "factions" exists in Tholian culture/language, and can be applied to dimensional groups.
And the whole 'we're going to destroy the na'kuhl because we don't like time travel' thing. Do they really detest time travel so much that they have completely forgone any research or understanding of predestination paradoxes? Or do they just ignore the na'kuhl's stated reasons for time travel being the destruction of their sun and do it anyway, hoping they'll succeed in wiping out the na'kuhl entirely?
And the whole 'we're going to destroy the na'kuhl because we don't like time travel' thing. Do they really detest time travel so much that they have completely forgone any research or understanding of predestination paradoxes? Or do they just ignore the na'kuhl's stated reasons for time travel being the destruction of their sun and do it anyway, hoping they'll succeed in wiping out the na'kuhl entirely?
Join Date: July 29 2008
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-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
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I don't really like the constant (mis?)use of the multiverse either. I don't think we're going to spend a lot of time in alternate realities ourselves though, based on the episode's conclusion. So what our characters will be doing, will matter.
I'd have to play it again to read the exact lines once more, but I don't think it was implied that they are incapable of distinguishing different political entities and parallel individuals from alternate realities. To me, it seems that they just never really saw those alternate realities as truly alternate - which might precisely be a result of their enhanced dimensional mobility.
This doesn't really have to be a shortcoming - it could result from a fundamentally different understanding of reality. I don't know where it was exactly, but I believe it's been stated elsewhere in STO that Tholians have indeed a much deeper understanding of time travel as well. Perhaps the Terran Empire - for example - isn't just an evil copy of the Federation, it might indeed be something else entirely. It's a matter of perception, probably.
And of course we're inclined to think about our own perception as the right one - as well as to define others/other realities by comparing them to ourselves/ours - but that doesn't mean that our view is right and they are wrong.
For comparison: some species have a very different visual spectrum compared to humans. We might say that the world is made up of blue, red and yellow and mixtures of those. A dog would likely disagree, as would some other species that can see more colours than we can.
Archer might treat red and yellow flowers as different things because he can see the difference in colour, Porthos 'knows' they look the same. On the other hand, if you were to give Porthos Geordi's visor and make him see the difference, he might think that he's looking at something outside our 'normal' reality. While Archer probably won't have a clue and think it's still the same one.
Basically, the more limited one's own perception, the more separate 'realities' they will perceive when something does break through , for example, through a spatial anomaly.
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(Which, on thinking about it, makes me wonder - did Harry Kim ever get grief counseling after learning that his USS Voyager, and everyone aboard but him, died? That's gotta be kind of a gut punch...)
I do think the general idea of a race that has no conept of distinguishing realities is indeed cool, and perhaps not a shortcoming. However, it was explicitly stated that they view the Terran Empire and the Federation as part of the same group, and that actions against Tholians in one dimension could start a war with Tholians in another. I'll have to play through again, but I remember being astounded by a race so seemingly advanced or having expanded vision in alternate reality studies being so foolish in the same realm of science/diplomacy.
Considering the normally Xenophobic nature of the Tholians... they probably just don't care to try and tell the difference between the Terran Empire and the Federation because mammals all look the same as far as they're concerned. Sure the Terrans are more aggressive, but hey they use the same tech as the Federation. Same faction different universe.
It does show just how uninterested the Tholians are in dealing with other species and factions. They generally just want to be left alone. Perhaps we'll learn more as this story arc progresses.
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The mission "Temporal Ambassador" would seem to support this.
I mean imagine if you felt the destruction of one of your bodies in one universe, or the effect of changes to another universe as people changes the choices made in that universe. Also the fact that the Tholians have seen/experienced all of the different variations of races thru the different realities could explain why they are so xenophobic, not that they hate other races really, but that they distrust other races an find keeping to themselves as the safest measure.
This blog does contain some of those pieces of lore you're referring too.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/1025010-temporal-lock-box?originLanguage=fr
first time?^^ srsly all the episodes lately have so many internal logic failures, i think i didnt see a single good episode after the dominion arc with the jem hadar.
O, I disagree... somewhat.
I'm thinking it was trying to cut off the cause of the damage to the star. Then when we get someone more familiar with the tech on the case... in the famose words of Henry Jones Sr.
"A solution presents itself!"
I have a feeling we'll learn more as more episodes are added to the story arc. And ultimately it could also be a case of "we can't modify the tech until we turn it off."
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I would also argue that the very existence of a genuinely friendly Tholian would be quite a shock to the system. Personally, I liked that particular twist; I've never found Always Chaotic Evil all that plausible absent some kind of hive mind like the Borg.
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When Bright Eyes came and was willing to try a way that didn't involve the local star going (super)nova, it dealt with 2 problems at same time (the Tholian issue and temporal rift) and as Rattler pointed out there's a logic in how Tholians act, they're highly xenophobic and blunt and generally don't care if their actions hurt non-Tholians but at same time that goes both ways and they don't care if the solution didn't hurt non-Tholians as long as the problem is solved.
If you don't think of Tholians as cartoon villains who only do evil for the sake of doing evil but rather as insular and high xenophobic culture who only really care that they themselves are safe, their actions here make more sense as will our actions.
Fair point. I nonetheless think having a genuinely friendly Tholian is a nice touch.
I hate when stories do this...gets really confusing, WoW did this with the burning legion...gets extremely confusing especially when you have a multiverse of realities where things may be so much different
Doesn't take into much consideration just HOW DIFFERENT a timeline could be from another...or just pretends like it isn't possible for the timelines to be that much different? Telling me in every possible universe with every possible outcome a certain individual would choose to become a demon in every one? Same for the people who rejected the demonic corruption?
So the Tholians have a very similar culture to the Gorn then, the Gorn aren't a chaotic evil race themselves, they're just aggressively territorial with the same "Don't bother us and we won't bother you" lifestyle.
I heard he's from the IDW Comics, I personally never read any of the Star Trek Comics, so for me, Bright Eyes just comes completely out of left field, I never even heard of this character before this Arc, plus I associate the name "Bright Eyes" more with the Planet of Apes franchise.