A visiting instructor arrives at the Academy and uses an unorthodox method to help our cadets process the emotions of recent trauma. At the same time, a cadet faces an unexpected challenge that will alter the trajectory of her life forever.
Written by: Gaia Violo & Jane Maggs
Directed by: Andi Armaganian
There is no spoiler protection in the episode discussion threads, and spoiler tags are not necessary!
Geordi basically got super vision from his choice to integrate technology. He did not simply stay blind. What are you talking about?
If you could offer an effective, affordable and safe tech solution to people’s disabilities, the vast majority would use it. Nobody is out here ‘accepting myself’ if a fix exists. We know this because we already fix disabilities when able and nobody is choosing no. All of medicine is fixing disabilities or preventing them, from a broken finger to avoiding diabetes.
The modern process for overcoming trauma is the best we have right now. That it’s the same in 1000 years is bad science fiction, especially when medical science in the same world is lightyears more advanced. Why is mental health processes and treatment no better than 2025?
‘Taking a happy pill’ is, again, the modern equivalent of technology in mental health treatment. People in 3100 might, I don’t know, have advanced since now? The point of science in the fiction is to envision how it might have advanced. If you think mental health treatment is going to be talk therapy or CBT for the next thousand years, that seems pretty unlikely, particularly for severe trauma which has physiological affects on the brain that could potentially be modified.
Some stuff just does not advance that much, even in long timeframes. By that logic, you could criticize the series for not everyone linking to a supercomputer and share information immediately instead of “talking” which has been the way to share information for millenia now. Or you could criticize TNG for not having come up with a solution to this yet.
Geordi chose the equivalent of a wheelchair that constantly kicks you in the balls. His VISOR gives him actual pain. Polaski gave him alternatives, even curing his blindness, and he refused. There’s also that DS9 episode with the alien that comes from a low grav planet and has to rely on a wheelchair for anything. Bashir could have “fixed” her, she refused.
Also, I am not saying I agree on every view that is brought up in Star Trek. There are (even today) many ethical discussions on what constitutes as a disability, and whether it would be ethical to cure it or not (or at what stage of life). I am just saying that in the world of Trek, the process of things has always been evaluated more important than the solution. That’s the spirit of the series.
I don’t buy that excuse, mental health treatment doesn’t advance in a world of dramatic medical technological advances? They can repair brain matter with an external device and recombine a person, atom by atom in transport but talk therapy is the best therapy for mental health… nah, that’s ridiculous.
And Geordie traded pain for augmented sight, arguably better vision than normal. He chose the tradeoff, not because he just didn’t want to see and accepted his blindness.