Did Star Trek Actually Rip Off Ursula K. Le Guin?

Comments · 668

• JE

  @JessieGender1 · 3 years ago · pinned

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-eiN0UGfoU&amp;t=1650">27:30</a> actually I interviewed Bill Wolcoff on my channel and he said that it was directly the intention to use LeGuin as the basis for the episode

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• NO

  @normative · 3 years ago (edited)

  For me the most heartbreaking line in LeGuin’s story also marks an important difference from the SNW episode: “Please let me out, I’ll be good.” &nbsp;Because it implies that (unlike the First Servant) the child in Omelas <b>does not understand</b> what is being done to them, and is denied even whatever consolation might come from knowing the purpose their suffering serves. The Omelas child appears to think they are enduring a punishment because they were bad in some way, and might someday be released if they promise to be good, which the reader knows will never happen. That’s the line that punches me in the gut hardest whenever I read the story.

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• BA

  @Bakamoichigei · 3 years ago

  The moment they first dropped the word &quot;Ascension&quot; I was like &quot;Ohhhhh, they&apos;re <i>totally</i> puttin&apos; that kid in a murder machine...&quot; 😅

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• AC

  @ActuallyDoubleGuitars · 3 years ago (edited)

  That Ursula Le Guin story is way more heartbreaking, haven&apos;t stopped thinking about it all day. I suppose Star Trek didn&apos;t want to go that dark even though the acting on that kid having one moment of fear just before he gets connected was also horrific.

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• JA

  @Jack_Garland78 · 3 years ago

  I swear, you&apos;d think Starfleet would have a form for potential host planets to fill out before a ship visits them.<br>&quot;Do you certify that you&apos;re civilization is not powered by the continuous suffering of one (or several) small child?&quot;<br>&quot;Do you certify that any member of our crew will not be executed if they accidentally break a window while playing football?&quot; etc.

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• JA

  @Jack_Garland78 · 3 years ago

  Le Guin&apos;s Omelas story is the kind of thing meant for a Star Trek episode which makes episodes and societies based entirely on thought experiments all the time. Surprised there wasn&apos;t a ToS or TNG episode that does this.

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• RU

  @russrollins9978 · 3 years ago

  Le Guin is an amazing author. I definitely recommend the Earth Sea series and the Hainish Cycle, as well as the novel The Left Hand of Darkness.

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• KE

  @kenhallermd8897 · 3 years ago

  I did catch up with the short story after reading about the similarities between it and this SNW episode. In agree with you that this is a case of inspiration rather than adaptation. Indeed, when I first saw this episode, I was reminded of Shirley Jackson&apos;s &quot;The &nbsp;Lottery,&quot; wherein a small town regularly has a lottery, the &quot;winner&quot; of which is stoned to death, for reasons lost to collective memory but enshrined in tradition. &nbsp;If the lottery were not held, if the child in Omalas were freed, it the First Servant were not connected to the machine, would their communities still thrive? Perhaps, but no one seems to have the courage to find out.

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• RI

  @rixlan · 3 years ago

  I&apos;m surprised no one has brought up Spock&apos;s &quot;The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. &nbsp;Or the one&quot;.

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• BE

  @benroberts2222 · 3 years ago

  Glad you mentioned James at the end. The whole concept originates in criticisms of moral consequentialism and anyone familiar with the arguments could easily wrap a setting around such thought experiments; crafting a plot and characters is the part that makes the episode good

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• DA

  @darkonc2 · 3 years ago

  Once (back in the pre &apos;net days of BBSes) someone asked &quot;What would you do if the couple in the apartment above yours had a <b>really noisy</b> bed?&quot; &nbsp;Somebody answered &quot;I&apos;d just oil the bed.&quot;<br>&quot;That&apos;s silly,&quot; &nbsp;I thought. &nbsp;&quot;It&apos;s not your bed -- You&apos;d be interrupting the couple upstairs.&quot; &nbsp; Then, I let my imagination wander and wrote a short story (4-5 pages, I guess) about how that interaction would work -- complete with inside jokes and transporting characters from the community into the story. &nbsp;My story won an award for the best post of the year, even thought <b>everybody </b><i><b>also</b></i><b></b><b> &nbsp;knew about the interaction that it was sourced from.</b><br>In fact, the fact that everybody knew about the source of the premise of the story probably made it that much more interesting. &nbsp;<br>You could probably start with &nbsp;the premise of &quot;The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas and create <b>dozens</b> &nbsp;of stories -- each one being quite distinct from all the others.

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• DR

  @drachasor · 3 years ago

  I think this episode is honestly one of the stories that shows a weakness in SNW. &nbsp;They spend the entire episode building up to the dramatic reveal (that pretty much anyone could guess long before it&apos;s revealed), and basically no time examining it and what it really means to the society. &nbsp;No time discussing how the society might try to extricate itself from this situation and the reasons why they haven&apos;t. &nbsp;It&apos;s a huge missed opportunity.<br><br>In fact, it&apos;s so focused on drama, that &quot;Tots Drama&quot; must be the 4th pillar of their society, because there&apos;s no reason for them to show the ceremony to Pike and act like they&apos;d have no idea how he&apos;d react. &nbsp;They&apos;ve spent the entire damn episode hiding what&apos;s going on exactly because they know the reaction will be bad.

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