Lynch's Spoiler Review: "A Matter of Time"
Timothy W. Lynch
release. Those not wishing to know plot details are advised to stand clear.
Well, that was certainly *interesting*, but I'm not sure how well it
worked...
I liked it okay, but it didn't always feel quite right. More after this:
The Enterprise is en route to Penthara Four, where an asteroid impact has
caused a dramatic drop in temperature on a global scale. They find a
temporal distortion along the way, however, and are greeted by one Professor
Berlingoff Rasmussen, a historian from the late 26th century!
While his manner is at times irritating, Rasmussen's credentials are solid
enough to Picard that he's willing to grant Rasmussen every courtesy,
including filling out the questionnaires Rasmussen intends to distribute
among the bridge crew. Rasmussen marvels over everything, from little
details in Picard's ready room to Data, "the Model T of androids." However,
he refuses to answer any question *about* the future, claiming that he
doesn't want to influence the past, which is sensible enough.
As the Enterprise reaches Penthara Four and prepares to trigger a
greenhouse effect by drilling down to pockets of carbon dioxide in the crust
of the planet, Rasmussen continues his study. Although he still says
nothing, he more and more frequently drops hints that something big is going
to happen that day--and even more peculiarly, seems to be surreptitiously
pocketing items (a scanner, a tricorder, etc.). The phaser drilling begins,
and is successful--the planet now has enough time to fix itself. Picard is
pleased, and Rasmussen seems almost jubilant.
Rasmussen continues his enquiries, trying to win Troi's trust (an attempt
which fails) and trying to romance Beverly (which also fails, when Beverly
points out that she could easily be his "great, great, great,
*great*...grandmother"). However, the bridge crew's slight annoyance at
Rasmussen's attitude is swept away when a series of earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions begin rocking the planet below them--and all of them occur exactly
where the drills were. Further, the volcanic ash being thrown up is
compounding the problem, and before long the sunlight will be completely
blocked, plunging the planet into an ice age. After some analysis, Geordi
and Data come up with a plan with both good and bad aspects. The good news
is that they can, in effect, turn the Enterprise into a "lightning rod" and
sweep the dust away with an ionizing phaser blast into the upper atmosphere.
The bad news is that the margin of error is very small--and if it isn't done
just right, the entire atmosphere will burn off, killing every being on the
planet.
Picard, caught in a dilemma, turns to Rasmussen in the hope that he can point
Picard the way. Rasmussen refuses, however, since anything he may say or do
could end up altering Picard's choice, and thus his own history. Picard
tries his best to persuade him otherwise, but to no avail. In the end, he
decides to try Geordi's plan--and to his relief, it's successful.
Rasmussen then prepares to leave, but is surprised to find the Enterprise
crew blocking his way into his ship. It seems that they've noticed the
various missing items, and want a look inside his ship for them. He
initially refuses, but after it's pointing out that he'll never get in if
they can't, agrees to let Data, and Data *only* (as Data can be ordered never
to reveal any future secrets he sees) come inside to look. Data finds the
items, but is threatened with a phaser by Rasmussen, who turns out not to be
an historian from the future, but rather a disgruntled inventor from the
PAST. He swiped the time pod from the *real* 26th-century historian who
visited him several weeks "ago", and planned to take the items he stole back
to his time and "invent" them over a few years. He now intends to take Data
as well--but fortunately, the computer picked up the weapon when the door was
opened and deactivated it. Data drags Rasmussen back out, and the
now-emptied time pod vanishes back to where it came, leaving Rasmussen to the
mercy of 24th-century historians who will, no doubt, be very interested in
studying him.
Okay. That's the synopsis [blissfully, far shorter than the last two]; now,
here's the commentary.
The show was definitely an interesting one. Its primary goal seemed to be to
put Picard in a reverse-Prime-Directive dilemma, and in PUTTING him there, it
did well. It also used time travel in a rather more...frivolous...way than
we've seen before [although it's hardly new to those who follow "Doctor Who"
or the occasional episode of the recent "Twilight Zone"], which was fun. And
it had a hell of a guest star.
So what was missing? Well, a few things.
Firstly, I think that after the obviously-draining task of both parts of
"Unification", most of the regular cast was a little off this
week--especially, bizarre as it may sound coming from me, Patrick Stewart.
And even more rare than me criticizing Stewart's performance is me
criticizing it for being too over-the-top, but that's precisely how I felt
about some of it, mainly his debate with Rasmussen over altering the future
or not. Not only do I have a few objections to Picard's characterization in
that scene, but I thought Stewart's performance was off. Sigh. [That's not
a global problem, fortunately--some of the regular characters came off fine,
most notably Geordi and Worf, and most were off only subtly and in a few
places. But something didn't quite work.]
Secondly, I'm skeptical about a lot of the technobabble used to save Penthara
Four. While I think the temperature drop at the beginning was actually
fairly realistic [I admittedly haven't read any papers on nuclear winter, but
the numbers sounded plausible], the temperature rise after the CO2 was
released was simply WAY too fast [the same problem from "Half a Life" rears
its ugly head...], and the solution to the quakes/volcanoes problem didn't
sound coherent to me even after a second look. (And what the HELL was that
coming out of the deflector dish?) It just didn't quite hang together for
me.
On the other hand, the Rasmussen plot hung together nicely. The only thing I
caught Rasmussen discussing which *hadn't* already been mentioned before he
said anything was the discussion of Worf as a Klingon--but by then, he'd been
left in his quarters, and could very easily have called up a history of the
Klingons. Everything else--Picard's name, Data's name, Data's creator,
etc.--seemed to fit. (He did slip at least once--he really should have known
Data's capabilities re: music were he REALLY from a future where Data is only
a "Model T"--but that's forgivable. Besides, I'm at a loss about what the
hell that musical bit was supposed to do anyway.) They were clearly building
up to have Rasmussen not be legit--which actually made the ending slightly
disappointing, as I was hoping he WOULD turn out to be legit--but there was
essentially no hint about *how* he wasn't legit, and the revelation of his
true origins really took me by surprise, which was very nice. (Much worse
would have been what I was dreading--that he was from the future, but was
from the "wrong side", and was trying to alter history to his favor somehow.
Old news, guys--thanks for not doing it.)
And then, of course, there's Matt Frewer. Whee, but he's fun! Okay, so I
wished he'd been a little more Edison Carter and a little less Max Headroom;
a good role was a good role, and he ran it for all it had. Someone give this
guy another shot at a series, please? [Guess it'll have to be NBC this time;
both ABC and CBS have cancelled shows of his by now...]
Most of the characterization itself was fine, but two bits struck me as a
little off. The first was Data's musical bit--smacks too much of "In Theory"
for me, sorry. I didn't see the point, and didn't find it particularly
funny. The second, and far more important, was Picard's whole plea to
Rasmussen. Stewart's performance aside, I can't believe Picard would
disregard the "changing the past" problem so quickly. This is a man who has
devoted his LIFE to the Prime Directive (yes, he's broken it a few times, but
with good reason, and has been willing to sacrifice his life to protect it);
I simply don't think he'd do that. It represents, I think, a rather strong
alteration in his character--and not one I like. [If I accept that, though,
some of his arguments were good.] He was fine everywhere else, but I really
don't think he'd have "knuckled under" to expedience that quickly.
Here's an exceedingly rare and exceedingly odd problem: I think the sound
editing was off for some of the show. Most of the first act sounded both
louder than necessary [as though the actors were shouting a bit], and somehow
hollow. Could someone more familiar with sound technology than I comment on
whether sound dubbing problems could have caused this? It *felt* dubbed,
somehow. [And, to be fair, the initial idea about this was raised by my
wife, not by me.]
A few short comments, observations, and quibbles:
--"If I hand my assignment in on time, can I get a glimpse of next week's
poker game?" Geordi doesn't get many lines, but when he does they
can be fun. :-)
--Geordi discusses the earthquake, and says "*if this was Earth*," then
giving a Richter scale measurement. Bzzt. Wrongo, lads. The
Richter scale relates, if I'm remembering correctly, to energy
released by the quake--the particular planet involved has nothing to
do with it.
--The best in-show quote of the week was one of the one's in last week's
preview: "Everyone dies, Captain! It's just a question of _when_!"
--The best non-show quote of the week came during the "lightning rod"
sequence:
"What the hell are they doing?" --me
"I don't know, but I think it has something to do with the
Ark." --Lisa
--So the pod was heading back to New Jersey. Any bets it overshot and went
back to Grovers Mill in 1938? :-)
--There was another ST6 ad after the opening credits. Wow. It's going to be
a long seventeen days.
That should about do it. This was fun, but something just didn't feel quite
right. Worth a watch, though. So, the numbers:
Plot: 7. That seems to be a good balance of the Rasmussen plot and the
planet plot.
Plot Handling: 5. Something was off, but I don't know what.
Characterization: 8. Generally good, with a bit off for Picard and Data.
Some came back for Rasmussen, though--he was great. :-)
TOTAL: 7. Not bad, but not fantastic.
NEXT WEEK: Reruns, so I get a vacation. Whee! (See you folks for the ST6
review on 12/7...)
Tim Lynch (Cornell's first Astronomy B.A.; one of many Caltech grad students)
BITNET: tlynch@citjuliet
INTERNET: tly...@juliet.caltech.edu
UUCP: ...!ucbvax!tlynch%juliet.ca...@hamlet.caltech.edu
"Everyone dies, Captain! It's just a question of _when!"
--Berlingoff Rasmussen, "A Matter of Time"
--
Copyright 1991, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
Timothy W. Lynch
>>WARNING: This article contains spoilers for "A Matter of Time", TNG's latest
>>release. Those not wishing to know plot details are advised to stand clear.
>>Secondly, I'm skeptical about a lot of the technobabble used to save Penthara
>>Four.
[..]
>It was awful, terribly dumb.
I figured I'd hear that from *you*...you're one of the pickiest posters around
from a scientific standpoint. :-)
>But even more so, I found myself
>wondering *why* the Enterprise was doing what is was doing in the
>first place. *Why* were they trying to get the dust out of the
>atmosphere, *why* were they trying to keep the planet warm? It was
>surely *not* to save the lives of the human colonists. The Federation
>is a society which has replicators. Simply beam down a bunch of them
>and let the colonists eat rocks for a few years, and get in some great
>cross country skiing while they're at it.
Depending on just how cold it gets, there might be a real question of freezing
to death. Food probably isn't the only issue.
>As I recall, volcanic dust
>only stays in the Earth's atmosphere for a year or two, and the
>Alvarez theory has a "downtime" for the Earth of only a few years. If
>the reason was saving the local ecosystem, that seems implausible.
>They could conceivably do so by storing genetic material (remember that
That sounds way too involved. This is Trek, not Niven. :-)
>I also wondered why the asteroid wasn't detected and deflected by this
>spacefaring culture long before it hit the planet.
Do we know the colonists are spacefaring? We know they used to be, but they
could very well not be paying much attention to that now--they've got their
homes to worry about. I don't recall hearing anything which distinguished them
as a spacefaring colony.
>>The second, and far more important, was Picard's whole plea to
>>Rasmussen. Stewart's performance aside, I can't believe Picard would
>>disregard the "changing the past" problem so quickly. This is a man who has
>>devoted his LIFE to the Prime Directive (yes, he's broken it a few times, but
>>with good reason, and has been willing to sacrifice his life to protect it);
>>I simply don't think he'd do that. It represents, I think, a rather strong
>>alteration in his character--and not one I like.
>(Presumably Kirk took the same oath as Picard did, and look how *he*
>obeyed the Prime Directive.)
Ask me if I consider this a reason to like Kirk. I don't. I never have.
>This didn't seem at all out of character
>*if* there was a compelling reason to do so.
Picard has been willing to let people die for the PD before (cf. "Who Watches
the Watchers", where he'd have been perfectly happy to let Liko die, and "Pen
Pals", where he had Sarjenka mindwiped). I don't consider a few million
lives reason enough to fuck with the timestream. Rasmussen may have been a
con artist, but he was a good one--his arguments are precisely what they should
have been.
>>--Geordi discusses the earthquake, and says "*if this was Earth*," then
>> giving a Richter scale measurement. Bzzt. Wrongo, lads. The
>> Richter scale relates, if I'm remembering correctly, to energy
>> released by the quake--the particular planet involved has nothing to
>> do with it.
>Geordi may have been going by nothing but feel. It seems to me it's
>possible that a given amount of energy released on one planet might
>cause larger crustal waves than on another.
I suppose that's true...but he's an engineer. He ought to know better. :-)
>>NEXT WEEK: Reruns, so I get a vacation. Whee! (See you folks for the ST6
>>review on 12/7...)
>You're going on the first day??? But all the screaming, rabid
>Trekkies will... oh, right. Never mind :-)
Kaff kaff. :-)
Tim Lynch
Paul J. Schinder
>WARNING: This article contains spoilers for "A Matter of Time", TNG's latest
>release. Those not wishing to know plot details are advised to stand clear.
>Secondly, I'm skeptical about a lot of the technobabble used to save Penthara
>Four. While I think the temperature drop at the beginning was actually
>fairly realistic [I admittedly haven't read any papers on nuclear winter, but
>the numbers sounded plausible], the temperature rise after the CO2 was
>released was simply WAY too fast [the same problem from "Half a Life" rears
>its ugly head...], and the solution to the quakes/volcanoes problem didn't
>sound coherent to me even after a second look. (And what the HELL was that
>coming out of the deflector dish?) It just didn't quite hang together for
>me.
It was awful, terribly dumb. But even more so, I found myself
wondering *why* the Enterprise was doing what is was doing in the
first place. *Why* were they trying to get the dust out of the
atmosphere, *why* were they trying to keep the planet warm? It was
surely *not* to save the lives of the human colonists. The Federation
is a society which has replicators. Simply beam down a bunch of them
and let the colonists eat rocks for a few years, and get in some great
cross country skiing while they're at it. As I recall, volcanic dust
only stays in the Earth's atmosphere for a year or two, and the
Alvarez theory has a "downtime" for the Earth of only a few years. If
the reason was saving the local ecosystem, that seems implausible.
They could conceivably do so by storing genetic material (remember that
they have successful genetic engineering), and in any event, it would
seem to me to be far more interesting to study the changes to the
ecosystem wrought by this natural disaster.
I also wondered why the asteroid wasn't detected and deflected by this
spacefaring culture long before it hit the planet.
>Most of the characterization itself was fine, but two bits struck me as a
>little off. The first was Data's musical bit--smacks too much of "In Theory"
>for me, sorry. I didn't see the point, and didn't find it particularly
>funny. The second, and far more important, was Picard's whole plea to
>Rasmussen. Stewart's performance aside, I can't believe Picard would
>disregard the "changing the past" problem so quickly. This is a man who has
>devoted his LIFE to the Prime Directive (yes, he's broken it a few times, but
>with good reason, and has been willing to sacrifice his life to protect it);
>I simply don't think he'd do that. It represents, I think, a rather strong
>alteration in his character--and not one I like. [If I accept that, though,
>some of his arguments were good.] He was fine everywhere else, but I really
>don't think he'd have "knuckled under" to expedience that quickly.
(Presumably Kirk took the same oath as Picard did, and look how *he*
obeyed the Prime Directive.) This didn't seem at all out of character
*if* there was a compelling reason to do so. As you pointed out,
Picard has broken the Prime Directive before. I had a problem finding
a compelling reason for the Enterprise to do *anything*. There was
certainly never any chance of any human deaths on the planet.
>--Geordi discusses the earthquake, and says "*if this was Earth*," then
> giving a Richter scale measurement. Bzzt. Wrongo, lads. The
> Richter scale relates, if I'm remembering correctly, to energy
> released by the quake--the particular planet involved has nothing to
> do with it.
Geordi may have been going by nothing but feel. It seems to me it's
possible that a given amount of energy released on one planet might
cause larger crustal waves than on another.
>Plot: 7. That seems to be a good balance of the Rasmussen plot and the
> planet plot.
>Plot Handling: 5. Something was off, but I don't know what.
>Characterization: 8. Generally good, with a bit off for Picard and Data.
> Some came back for Rasmussen, though--he was great. :-)
>TOTAL: 7. Not bad, but not fantastic.
I have a tough time with this one. The Professor was an engaging
character, but the purported reason he was there was dumb, and the
pseudoscience was much worse than usual. Maybe a 5.
>NEXT WEEK: Reruns, so I get a vacation. Whee! (See you folks for the ST6
>review on 12/7...)
You're going on the first day??? But all the screaming, rabid
Trekkies will... oh, right. Never mind :-)
>Tim Lynch (Cornell's first Astronomy B.A.; one of many Caltech grad students)
--
--------
Paul J. Schinder
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Dept. of Astronomy, Cornell University
schi...@leprss.gsfc.nasa.gov
James K. Huggins
|WARNING: This article contains spoilers for "A Matter of Time", TNG's latest
|release. Those not wishing to know plot details are advised to stand clear.
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|--Geordi discusses the earthquake, and says "*if this was Earth*," then
| giving a Richter scale measurement. Bzzt. Wrongo, lads. The
| Richter scale relates, if I'm remembering correctly, to energy
| released by the quake--the particular planet involved has nothing to
| do with it.
I think the comment was trying to convey that the Richter scale was
invented by Terrans (and thus other planets might use other scales
to measure seismic disturbances). Otherwise, we'd have a week of
r.a.s arguments on "Why does everybody in the Federation use Terran
measuring systems?"
Oh ... we do that already? Never mind ... :-)
|NEXT WEEK: Reruns, so I get a vacation. Whee! (See you folks for the ST6
|review on 12/7...)
Gee. Guess I'm gonna have to find my way to a theater that weekend ...
Jim Huggins
enjoying the sounds of silence ...
Paul J. Schinder
>schi...@gsfc.nasa.gov (Paul J. Schinder) writes:
>>In <1991Nov21....@cco.caltech.edu> tly...@cco.caltech.edu (Timothy W. Lynch) writes:
>>>WARNING: This article contains spoilers for "A Matter of Time", TNG's latest
>>>release. Those not wishing to know plot details are advised to stand clear.
>>>Secondly, I'm skeptical about a lot of the technobabble used to save Penthara
>>>Four.
>[..]
>>It was awful, terribly dumb.
>I figured I'd hear that from *you*...you're one of the pickiest posters around
>from a scientific standpoint. :-)
What can I say? The people involved in producing ST keep claiming
it's accurate; the other day in one of the groups I read someone
posted "something that happened in an ST episode" as a support for an
techincal argument (it was wrong, of course).
>>But even more so, I found myself
>>wondering *why* the Enterprise was doing what is was doing in the
>>first place. *Why* were they trying to get the dust out of the
>>atmosphere, *why* were they trying to keep the planet warm? It was
>>surely *not* to save the lives of the human colonists. The Federation
>>is a society which has replicators. Simply beam down a bunch of them
>>and let the colonists eat rocks for a few years, and get in some great
>>cross country skiing while they're at it.
>Depending on just how cold it gets, there might be a real question of freezing
>to death. Food probably isn't the only issue.
C'mon, Tim, these are people who can leap tall buildings in a single
bound, bend steel in their bare... oh wait, that's only Kirk... they
can convert matter into energy and back again, live on bases in space,
produce and handle antimatter, travel from star to star. There's no
reason they can't live on a frozen wasteland. Admittedly, they might
find it a little inconvenient, but that's about all.
>>As I recall, volcanic dust
>>only stays in the Earth's atmosphere for a year or two, and the
>>Alvarez theory has a "downtime" for the Earth of only a few years. If
>>the reason was saving the local ecosystem, that seems implausible.
>>They could conceivably do so by storing genetic material (remember that
>That sounds way too involved. This is Trek, not Niven. :-)
Yeah, but less involved than mucking with a entire planet, with the
result that you may wind up "destroying" it. The Alvarez theory came
up because I thought they said something about "like what happened to
Earth in the time of the dinosaurs" (haven't seen it twice, though,
like you have, so I might be misremembering). It was a "disaster"
only in the sense that for several years the planet will be colder
than normal. Not something we'd like to happen to Earth right now,
but we aren't very adept yet at building artificial environments to
live in.
>>I also wondered why the asteroid wasn't detected and deflected by this
>>spacefaring culture long before it hit the planet.
>Do we know the colonists are spacefaring? We know they used to be, but they
>could very well not be paying much attention to that now--they've got their
>homes to worry about. I don't recall hearing anything which distinguished them
>as a spacefaring colony.
The Federation is a spacefaring civilization, and the colony is a
Federation colony. Whether or not there was a ship around with the
power to do something about the asteroid is a point we can't be sure
of, however.
>>(Presumably Kirk took the same oath as Picard did, and look how *he*
>>obeyed the Prime Directive.)
>Ask me if I consider this a reason to like Kirk. I don't. I never have.
Neither do I, but it's some indication how important the PD is to the
Federation. In the time of Kirk, it wasn't really, in the time of
Picard, maybe more so, but exceptions are still allowed. It sounds as
if it's an ideal, not a law, and certainly not something that
"star captains die for".
>>This didn't seem at all out of character
>>*if* there was a compelling reason to do so.
>Picard has been willing to let people die for the PD before (cf. "Who Watches
>the Watchers", where he'd have been perfectly happy to let Liko die, and "Pen
>Pals", where he had Sarjenka mindwiped). I don't consider a few million
>lives reason enough to fuck with the timestream. Rasmussen may have been a
>con artist, but he was a good one--his arguments are precisely what they should
>have been.
Yeah, but he saved Wesley :-) I'm not so sure that Picard would take
the loss of millions of lives with such indifference. But I agree
with you that Rasmussen was right and Picard wrong if you take the PD
seriously.
>Tim Lynch
Timothy W. Lynch
>>WARNING: This article contains spoilers for "A Matter of Time", TNG's latest
>>release. Those not wishing to know plot details are advised to stand clear.
>>The second, and far more important [problem], was Picard's whole plea to
>>Rasmussen. Stewart's performance aside, I can't believe Picard would
>>disregard the "changing the past" problem so quickly. This is a man who has
>>devoted his LIFE to the Prime Directive (yes, he's broken it a few times, but
>>with good reason, and has been willing to sacrifice his life to protect it);
>>I simply don't think he'd do that. It represents, I think, a rather strong
>>alteration in his character--and not one I like. [If I accept that, though,
>>some of his arguments were good.] He was fine everywhere else, but I really
>>don't think he'd have "knuckled under" to expedience that quickly.
>I have two points here.
>First, I can accept that Picard would ask what he did of Rasmussen, given
>that he had a VERY difficult choice to make...
The choice confronting him is certainly a mitigating factor; I'm not nearly as
annoyed with this as I would be had the circumstances been less crucial. But
based on my own impressions of Picard, I honestly can't bring myself to believe
he'd compromise his principles that way. Even here.
>The second point I have regards Picard's discussion of the possibility of
>Rasmussen's information (had he given it) changing the future. I found
>it a VERY interesting counterpoint to the "war-timeline" Picard's thoughts
>on a similar topic.
[much deleted]
This is true, and something I meant to bring up. Picard's line about "which
future is RIGHT?" definitely evoked images of "Yesterday's Enterprise", which
was nice. (I think YE's version of this scene was a lot
better, probably because Picard had to be convinced into changing history
rather than the reverse.)
Tim Lynch
Tony Murray
>WARNING: This article contains spoilers for "A Matter of Time", TNG's latest
>release. Those not wishing to know plot details are advised to stand clear.
>The second, and far more important [problem], was Picard's whole plea to
>Rasmussen. Stewart's performance aside, I can't believe Picard would
>disregard the "changing the past" problem so quickly. This is a man who has
>devoted his LIFE to the Prime Directive (yes, he's broken it a few times, but
>with good reason, and has been willing to sacrifice his life to protect it);
>I simply don't think he'd do that. It represents, I think, a rather strong
>alteration in his character--and not one I like. [If I accept that, though,
>some of his arguments were good.] He was fine everywhere else, but I really
>don't think he'd have "knuckled under" to expedience that quickly.
I have two points here.
First, I can accept that Picard would ask what he did of Rasmussen, given
that he had a VERY difficult choice to make...a difference that meant either
certain death for many people or potential death for all of them. These
are not circumstances in which Picard routinely finds himself, and so I
can give him (or perhaps the writers) the benefit of the doubt.
The second point I have regards Picard's discussion of the possibility of
Rasmussen's information (had he given it) changing the future. I found
it a VERY interesting counterpoint to the "war-timeline" Picard's thoughts
on a similar topic.
"OUR" Picard said, basically, "From this point on, there are two possible
timelines, and I don't care which one you consider RIGHT, I just want
to know what I should do." The "War" Picard, when faced with the fact
that he was in the "wrong" timeline, determined that the Enterprise-C
should go back to restore the "right" timeline. In both cases, Picard's
decisions were based on what would cause fewer deaths (Rasmussen's comment
about everyone dying aside). Our Picard didn't care which timeline was
SUPPOSED to happen, as long as more lives were saved. The War Picard
wanted the Right timeline to happen because more lives were saved.
Anyway, I thought it was interesting.
--
--Tony Murray (tmu...@socrates.umd.edu)
"I like when they talk real loud trying to tell you what they know."
-MwoH