ALL SCI-FI

[Bogmeister]

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HOME SOIL episode #18, first season / Air Date: 2/22/88
written by Robert Sabaroff; Directed by Corey Allen

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Here at least we have an interesting, if familiar, science fiction concept — the existence of alternate life, inorganic, which we would be unfamiliar with.

It's not tackled much on TV, though TOS did have The Devil in the Dark, featuring a silicon-based lifeform.

The Enterprise arrives at a seemingly dead planet which is being terraformed by Federation scientists. The head scientist (played by Walter Gotell, general Gogol from the James Bond films of the eighties) tries to make out that all is routine, but he didn't reckon on Troi the tattletale empath. She tells Picard that the scientist is too alarmed and hiding something.

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Soon enough, there's a sudden death, a mystery, and the discovery of a mysterious microscopic form of life which, against all reason, turns out to be intelligent.

When actual communication begins, the lifeform refers to humans as "ugly bags of mostly water". (How rude!)

As with several first season episodes, this is slow paced and some of the acting (by a couple of the younger scientists, especially the female) is horrid — it's like listening to someone recite a manual during moments when we should be fascinated.

Also, there could be a reason why deep concepts such as here are not explored much in the TV format. There are too many constraints, perhaps having to do with time and other limitations, severely undercutting descriptive attempts.

Wesley, for example, calls the discovered lifeform "beautiful". Later, Riker and Troi do so as well. But they are unable to convey to the audience why it is beautiful. It comes off as trite and even pompous.

BoG's Score: 6 out of 10


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Bud Brewster]

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Bogmeister nailed this one cold. The episode has definite strengths and weaknesses, and his review mentions both.

However, in my opinion the episode has more strengths than weakness.

The story's premise is intriguing: a non-organic life form that consists of individual crystals which can replicate. Replication increases the number of "cells" (tiny crystals) which eventually become numerous enough to bond together into a complex structure.



But here's the really good part. The matrix of crystal "cells" are intelligent, because their interconnection functions as a computer. As the number of crystals increase, the intelligence of the growing matrix increases as well.

That's a wonderful idea, and it gives this episode a complexity that many other episodes didn't have. This . . . is science fiction at its best.

The story's conflict is provided by the fact that the Enterprise computer system is taken over by the crystal matrix when it gets large enough and strong enough. It threatens to destroy the Enterprise to prevent the terraforming team from killing the race of crystal life forms.

And yet, this is just the small sphere of crystals that grew in the medical lab after one crystal "cell" was brought on board for study. It becomes a threat to the ship when its replication makes it large enough to increase its intelligence.

I should point out that there's no mention of whether or not the spherical matrix in the lab is in communication with the rest of its "race" on the planet below — and yet the matrix on the Enterprise reveals that the life forms on the planet made several attempts to stop the terraforming team from killing them by altering the delicate chemical balance of the planet's upper layer.

It's unclear how the newly formed, soft-ball-sized crystal matrix in the lab knew all this. But dialog delivered by the Data and the others make it clear that the larger the crystal matrix gets, the more intelligent it becomes.

The episode ends with the matrix telling the Enterprise crew and the scientist that mankind is not yet ready to deal with them, and therefore the humans should leave the planet alone for at least several centuries!

This leaves the audience to ponder this question; just how intelligent is the combined mass of the crystal "cells" which exist all over the planet, a few inches beneath the soil?

Is this a super-intelligent entity which lacks any kind of mobility or means by which it can manipulate its environment? In other words, it can't move around, and it has no "hands".

And yet, the life forms on the planet took control of the terraforming team's laser drill used it to murder one of the scientists. Later, when one "cell" was taken aboard the Enterprise, it grew into a small mass that was capable of commanding the ship's computer in a very intelligent and effective manner!

I'm sure you guys see where I'm going with this.

A mass of these interconnected crystals like the one we see in the episode could actually be given an android body to live in, and it could control it as effectively as Data's positronic brain!

In fact, a starship itself could be commanded by a matrix as large or larger than the one we see, allowing the crystalline life form to travel around the galaxy, instead of being stuck beneath the sandy layer on their planet.

Imagine a starship whose main computer is simply a very large mass of these crystal, and the crew is composed entirely of androids whose brains are smaller masses of these same type crystals!

What an incredible idea for an original concept for an "alien species" which is unlike anything we've see before.

Damn, I LOVE science fiction!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)