Natural Law

First off, what the hell gives Species 312 the right to make that kind of decision for the Ventu? Even assuming that they asked them what they wanted, certainly they have no right to assume that every successive generation of Ventu will want the same, forever. Even assuming that they had a right to interfere, they certainly did not have any right to set up a permanent prison and then go merrily on their way. If they think they have a right and obligation to 'protect' the Ventu, then they have a duty to stay on the planet and make sure they are exercising that obligation in a responsible manner.

Secondly, Chakotay and Seven discuss the situation and wonder if the Ventu might not be better off joining in with the rest of their planet. Hmm, yeah, just maybe they might enjoy having houses and replicators rather than starving and freezing to death in their noble primitive way whenever nature hands them a bad year. Then again, maybe not. We don't know, because at no point do Chakotay and Seven ever even think about ASKING THEM!

These are not animals, they are people. Chakotay and Seven establish rudimentary communication with them - enough to get help with their own situation. But they never even bother to try and ask the Ventu what they want - it's just automatically assumed that Ventu have absolutely no say in this, that all decisions regarding how these people are going to live for the next few centuries or more are automatically Chakotay and Seven's to make. It's an amazingly, breathtakingly arrogant attitude to take.

You get the impression that the writer of this episode isn't too fond of technology. I mean, what exactly were the Ventu being protected from? Modern life, that's what. It's not like the Vidiians were out there waiting to harvest them for organs or anything - the Ledosian who came to survey the place happily chatted about how they would be given "medicine, infrastructure, education..."; in fact, to judge from the episode about the worst thing the Ledosians have to offer is a strict adherence to traffic laws and a slightly itchy trigger finger when alien Starships try to interfere with their planet. Ooooo, will the horror never end!

If I'm going slightly over the top with the language here, it's because this is an attitude that intensely irritates me. The vast majority of Human history has been a concerted effort to get as far away from nature as is possible, and for very good reason. Now that we're relatively safe and secure from wild animals and bad weather and the thousand other ways that nature tries to kill us all every day, people whose idea of getting back to nature is a couple of weeks in a modern tent wearing warm clothing and eating pre-packaged food are happy to dismiss all of that progress and say we were better off when we were living in mud huts. It's beyond absurd; indeed, in some ways it is actually dangerous - witness the anti GM food nonsense which is going on at the moment. To see Star Trek pedalling this nonsense is a very, very sad thing.