The episode Silicon Avatar

[Ghost Rider]

I still think the entity may not have known that some of it's victims were sentient. It certainly didn't single them out after all. The entity stripped planets of all forms of life. Plants, trees, grass, bugs, bacteria, humanoids...everything. Naturally planets (in the Trekverse) with such life rich enviroments routinely sport humanoid lifeforms.

The only being we know it's communicated with is Lore, who we know to be a pathological liar. He could have easily explained to the entity how humanoids are just parsaites aboard the Enterprise (another artificial thing the entity interacted with) or any other location with them around.

I would've given the creature the benefit of the doubt. You can always destroy it after.

Yes, because like wild animals we talk to them before blowing their heads off.

Oh wait this thing grasped sentience are you saying. Good, now we know it willfully destroyed life. Thus more the reason to kill the thing as a THREAT to us.

This is the stupidty behind this episode. The creature was a threat and was hostile. You do not go "We'll see if the creatue is intelligent and try communicating with it, becaue y'know it's already killed hundreds of other humans....maybe we won't be #4662816."

Isolder74's second post demonstrates the ignorance to think of talking to this thing is okay.

As for the OP. Who knows....this episode was a rigamorale of ineptitude.

[Patrick Degan]

I still think the entity may not have known that some of it's victims were sentient. It certainly didn't single them out after all. The entity stripped planets of all forms of life. Plants, trees, grass, bugs, bacteria, humanoids...everything. Naturally planets (in the Trekverse) with such life rich enviroments routinely sport humanoid lifeforms.

The only being we know it's communicated with is Lore, who we know to be a pathological liar. He could have easily explained to the entity how humanoids are just parsaites aboard the Enterprise (another artificial thing the entity interacted with) or any other location with them around.

I would've given the creature the benefit of the doubt. You can always destroy it after.

Yes, because like wild animals we talk to them before blowing their heads off.

Oh wait this thing grasped sentience are you saying. Good, now we know it willfully destroyed life. Thus more the reason to kill the thing as a THREAT to us.

This is the stupidty behind this episode. The creature was a threat and was hostile. You do not go "We'll see if the creatue is intelligent and try communicating with it, becaue y'know it's already killed hundreds of other humans....maybe we won't be #4662816."

Isolder74's second post demonstrates the ignorance to think of talking to this thing is okay.

As for the OP. Who knows....this episode was a rigamorale of ineptitude.

And to underscore the point:

"DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?! It killed over 200 crew."

"Captain Garrovick was pretty important to you, wasn't he?

"He was my commanding officer from the day I left the Academy. He was one of the finest men I ever knew. I could have destroyed that thing if I hadn't hesitated."

"You don't know that, Jim. You don't know that anymore than you know that Garrovick could have destroyed it."

"I sensed its intelligence, its malevolence. It's evil. It MUST be destroyed."

—Kirk and McCoy, TOS, "Obsession".




"One man has a chance for survival, the other is dead. You can add that little price-tag to your monster hunt."

"That's enough, Bones."

"It's not enough! You didn't care how many lives it cost as long as you could hang your trophy on the wall. Well it's not on it, captain, it's IN it.

"Gentlemen, may I suggest that we no longer belabour the question of whether or not we should have gone after the creature. The matter has been rendered academic. The creature is now after us."

"'Creature', Mr. Spock?"

"It turned and attacked, doctor. It's method was well-considered. And intelligent."

—McCoy, Kirk, Spock, TOS, "Obsession".

[Isolder74]

On that note how can we know that the entity didn't actually let the Enterprise find it? How do we know weather or not this creature is now hunting the Enterprise?

[Spanky The Dolphin]

You can't, so you're just better off destroying it the first chance you get.

"Try to communicate..."

[Isolder74]

You can't, so you're just better off destroying it the first chance you get.

"Try to communicate..."

Of course this is the touchy feely Federation isn't it

Lets be nice. I'd guess they would sit in a van and then talk to a killer Grizzly bofore shooting it.

Nice bear...Lets hug! Good bear...You can be nice. Pease stop killing people. All to the sound of Winnie the Pooh playing on the radio

[Junghalli]

Talking to the creature is not in and of itself a risk.

Maybe not to the Enterprise (which I kind of doubt in of itself, considering the Entity gave it a hard time in Datalore), but Picard implied that it was a heavily populated area of space. If it got bored and decided to proceed to its next feeding grounds before the E-D could properly decipher the Entity's language... well, the results wouldn't be pretty, but I'd love to see Picard trying to explain giving the Entity a head-start on the journey to its next feeding grounds!

Well then the Enterprise can take off after it, catch up with it, and blow it apart. A "populated" area of space still means light years of void in every direction.
The point was that the Entity was showing some interest in doing something better than eating people. Like I said already, it may not have been aware that it was destroying sapient beings. There was no real risk in attempting to communicate with it instead of destroying it instantly.

[Isolder74]

Talking to the creature is not in and of itself a risk.

Maybe not to the Enterprise (which I kind of doubt in of itself, considering the Entity gave it a hard time in Datalore), but Picard implied that it was a heavily populated area of space. If it got bored and decided to proceed to its next feeding grounds before the E-D could properly decipher the Entity's language... well, the results wouldn't be pretty, but I'd love to see Picard trying to explain giving the Entity a head-start on the journey to its next feeding grounds!

Well then the Enterprise can take off after it, catch up with it, and blow it apart. A "populated" area of space still means light years of void in every direction.
The point was that the Entity was showing some interest in doing something better than eating people. Like I said already, it may not have been aware that it was destroying sapient beings. There was no real risk in attempting to communicate with it instead of destroying it instantly.

What if it can move faster than the Enterprise? The Thing takes off eats a planet so that the Enterprise arrive just to see it leave. Is it worth taking that risk?

The thing is a danger. Trying to talk to it is only and option after you have rendered it unable to do harm. If they can hurt it so that it can't run off on them, I would do that first. After all this is a creature with a track record of killing whole planets and does so on a regulare basis.

As for Picard's question about if a Whale eating Krill is evil vs the entity. If the Krill could build a ship and then blast the whale would that make what the krill did wrong just because the whale is different or smarter then them?

In another episode they approached a space creature and it attacked them. They fired back and killed it to find it was only about to give birth and weas protecting its young. The problem was is that they did not make the efforts to properly investigate the situation. Picard whined about them killing it saying it was bad after it attacked them. The odd thing is Trio and empathy abilities showed no sign of being any help here. Why couldn't she sense its pain and fear for its young? Why when her abilities might actually be useful does she do nothing?