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By Chris Snellgrove
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When Star Trek: The Subsequent Era first got here out, many followers had been curious if the brand new characters would really feel principally like up to date variations of the outdated ones. They rapidly found that Captain Picard was nothing like Captain Kirk, however it was tempting to check Shatner’s iconic character to a different new child on the block: Commander Riker. Whereas Riker wasn’t practically as very like Kirk as some followers assume, he just about copied that earlier officer’s playbook for a enjoyable bluff within the episode “Samaritan Snare.”
Conned By Pakleds
If it’s been a minute because you noticed the episode, that is the one the place the Enterprise crew will get conned by Pakleds, primitive aliens who use their obvious helplessness as a means of stealing or outright extorting superior know-how from different races and cultures. They find yourself kidnapping Geordi La Forge and making an attempt to power him to offer them harmful weaponry, however the chief engineer finally ends up quietly disabling their weapons as an alternative. They assume that is the work of Riker deploying a “crimson power subject,” a enjoyable bluff that echoes Kirk’s equally daring bluffing in The Unique Sequence episode “The Corbomite Maneuver.”
To actually recognize how a lot Riker and La Forge channeled Captain Kirk in “Samaritan Snare,” it is advisable perceive extra about their loopy plan. All of it begins when Riker hails the Pakled ship, realizing that his engineer can hear all the dialog. Understanding his commanding officer’s coded communication, La Forge finally ends up disabling the Pakled’s weapons.
Bluffing With Nothing
Usually, this is able to put the engineer’s life at risk…in spite of everything, who else might the Pakleds probably blame for his or her weapons immediately failing? Nevertheless, a part of Riker’s plan (one which we expect Kirk would recognize) was to create a innocent outer area mild present by blowing hydrogen exhaust by means of the Enterprise’s Bussard collectors. La Forge convinces the conniving aliens that his commanding officer deployed a “crimson power subject” that managed to disable their techniques.
In actuality, Riker was simply distracting the Pakleds and shopping for La Forge time to covertly disable their weapons. The aliens, believing the Enterprise to be a lot stronger than themselves, stand down and return the chief engineer. In the meantime, longtime followers of earlier Star Trek adventures realized that Riker’s bluff in “Samaritan Snare” is similar to one thing Kirk did in “The Corbomite Maneuver.”
The Corbomite Maneuver
In that old-school episode, the Enterprise faces a robust alien risk, Balok, an intergalactic creep performed by an impossibly younger Clint Howard. When the alien turns harmful, Kirk famously decides to bluff him by saying that the Enterprise is filled with “corbomite,” a robust substance that may destroy each his personal ship and any who assaults him. In actuality, there’s no such factor as corbomite, however the bluff labored lengthy sufficient for Kirk to comprehend Balok is a Star Trek staple: a robust alien who needed to check our Starfleet heroes.
It’s one thing of a false impression that Riker was impressed by Kirk…in actuality, the TNG commander was impressed by Will Decker, the character from Star Trek: The Movement Image. Nonetheless, Riker picked up some Kirk-like qualities over time, together with turning into a girls’ man that no one can resist. And on the subject of outsmarting bizarre new aliens, Riker proved that he, just like the well-known Enterprise captain earlier than him, can bluff with the very best of them.
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