Actually, the plot of the episode sounds Terror on Rutia four Like a typical story of the spaceship Enterprise: the next century. The crew around Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) heads for a planet broken up by war to deliver relief supplies. Unplanned, part of the crew is involved in a attack of terrorist separatists: Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden) is captured and is held hostage by the terrorist militia.
A negotiation follows in which, as so often, the big questions of humanity are addressed. It is not the first time that Star Trek: TNG picks up difficult moral topics: Can terror serve as an instrument for political change? The devastating sentence, which has led to the result, then falls through precisely this topic On British television channels censored became.
Also interesting:
Data predicts Irish reunification for 2024
Because the humanoid robot data (Brent Spiner) also employs the moral reasonability of terror. In a dialogue with Captain Picard, he raises the question of whether the use of violence is justifiable if it serves a higher goal. He lists some examples of successful political terror in human history – and mentions Irish reunification in 2024.
Picard finds a compassionate answer to Data’s problem in the series:
Data, these are questions that humanity has struggled with over the course of its whole story. Your confusion is … extremely human.
In reality, however, some people reacted less understanding.
The episode was censored for a long time in Great Britain – it has not been broadcast in Ireland to this day
The broadcaster RTé, who holds the rights for Star Trek in Ireland, has not yet taken the episode. And also the British BBC showed the episode for the first time in 2007 uncensored – 17 years after the original charisma. Incidentally, she is not the first Star Trek episode that was censored.
In this case, presumed reason for censorship were known to the ongoing political conflicts in Northern Ireland, also as The Troubles, which at the time of the series still caused violent arguments and political controversy. The exact decision -making process for censorship can no longer be traced. The author of the episode, Melinda Snodgrass, described the BBC 2024 her surprise about the controversy and explained her interest in the topic:
I studied history before my law studies and wanted to deal with this topic; Discuss the fact that the freedom fighter is one terrorist of the other.
Star Trek’s prophecy has not been fulfilled. Even after 2024, Northern Ireland is not united with the rest of the country – but the Dealing with the episode has meanwhile something relaxed. For example, an author of Irish Times was joking: “The reunification will come, but the Romulan annex could happen beforehand.”
In any case, the episode impressively proves that science fiction always comments on the conflicts of the present with the politics of the future.