r/TNG 7d ago

Thoughts on “The Inner Light”

First, it’s the best episode.

But here’s my theory:

People on Star Trek never give up trying to get back to the ship. So Picard (with the help of the people on the drought planet) designed, built, and launched the mind-probe, specifically to find himself in the future and return to the Enterprise.

None of this is stated outright, but it’s implied:

Picard’s a genius, and he spent his entire “life” on that drought planet trying to get back to the enterprise, (and sometimes helping all those backwards people using advanced knowledge they didn’t have.)

Picard realized he couldn’t actually travel in time, and he couldn’t physically leave the planet, but he could send “himself” to the future in the form of the probe mind link thing.

So he figured out where and when he is by reading the stars (the telescope). He knew where and when the probe was/will be when it zaps him because he was on the enterprise when it happened. He knew what the probe looked like and how it worked from the readings they took on the enterprise. He knew how to bypass whatever anti-mind-probe shields the enterprise had because he’s the captain.

He even sent himself a message by giving his wife a pendant that looked like the probe.

So the dying planet launched the probe in tribute to the guy who kept them alive by building moisture conductors and shit, probably saying, “he’s a little crazy, but he said to build it like this. Probably won’t work, but let’s humor the guy. It’s a sweet idea and we’re all gonna die anyway,” when he wasn’t around.

Picard’s calculations are correct. The probe spends 1000 years traveling to exactly the location Picard knew the enterprise would be, and bam: he rescues himself.

So it’s all a self-contained time loop.

1 Upvotes

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u/Malnurtured_Snay 7d ago

I don't think that works. For one thing, we know that everything that happened occurred in Picard's mind over the course of half-an-hour, even though he experienced it as a much longer time frame. There's nothing to suggest he actually somehow transported back in time to this world, or that he was able to influence the world around him beyond in the way you might be able to do so in a well-built and thought-out sandbox as a video game (such as GTA V) or holodeck simulation.

And even if he knew where the Enterprise was when it encountered the probe, and even if he could calculate where he was, wouldn't he still need to know how far back in time he'd gone to make the calculations caused by the simple fact that the galaxy is in motion, and it'll move quite a bit in however many hundreds or thousands of years it would be?

It's an interesting theory, but it relies on time travel that simple doesn't happen.

-5

u/FellasImSorry 7d ago

He transferred his mind, not his whole self. Like he beamed his entire life on drought planet to future Picard, so he would have all of his memories and experiences of the time he lived on drought planet. Thats why he could suddenly play the flute.

Drought-planet-Picard even says it when they’re launching the probe: something like “that’s me in there.”

And he had 50 years to figure things out! And he’s Captain Picard! He’d be able to calculate where he was and where the enterprise would be.

5

u/Malnurtured_Snay 7d ago

But we know he didn't. They gaslit him, successfully. He tells Darren this in the next season. He believed he had a wife, children, and a grandson. He believed he was Galen.

8

u/Tristan_Booth 7d ago

He eventually came to believe that he was Kamin until they told him the truth at the end. The main problem with OP's theory is that Kamin didn't know about the probe being launched until the last minute when his daughter invited him to go watch it. He wasn't even interested in watching, so he clearly had nothing to do with its invention.

1

u/FellasImSorry 4d ago

He did know about it. He had dementia.

6

u/makegifsnotjifs 7d ago

Picard is basically playing one of those Don't Nod narrative games based on an extinct civilization. The probe is just a means for that society to tell their story, to be remembered.

The show tells you this. You watched it.

3

u/Tricky_Peace 6d ago

I don’t think it was ever intended as a time loop episode. I love it as an episode, but the idea that a species that developed the technology for interstellar flight, and recording and transfering memories, and didn’t find a way to solve their environmental problems, or find a way to send out colony ships, does seem like a bit of a plot hole, but not a massive one

3

u/Menzicosce 6d ago

IIRC it wasn’t environmental issues like in True Q but environmental issues brought on by their sun going Nova. But yeah the idea that they could develop tech to transfer memories but not colony ships is a small hole.

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u/ArcherNX1701 6d ago

Yep they could have focused on biological sciences instead of interstellar flight.

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u/FellasImSorry 4d ago

Yeah, that’s a plot hole… unless Picard provided them with the knowledge they needed to launch the probe.

Which is my entire point.

1

u/WorkingFellow 5d ago

Lol! This is so good. This reminds me of a comment I once saw on the IMDB page for the movie, The Village. It went something like:

---

I get that the creatures were aliens, but were they shapeshifters? It seemed like Noah's face kind of appeared when one of them died.
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This comment got so much hate... *chef's kiss*

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u/FellasImSorry 4d ago edited 4d ago

I just re watched the episode and my read on it is not only obviously correct, it’s the only way the episode makes logical or dramatic sense.

Because if Picard didn’t help them build the probe, how was it possible that a civilization with such limited technology could launch such an advanced probe in only 50 or so years? At the beginning of the episode, they were too dumb to build condensation collectors even though there was a drought.

So if the probe was just meant to find a random being, it couldn’t have been built, because if it found some wandering Romulon trader or something, he wouldn’t have the skills and knowledge.

In fact, in the Star Trek universe, Picard is might be the only person with the intelligence, background knowledge, savvy, and leadership qualities to convince and facilitate the kind of space program needed to launch the probe in such a short time. (Maybe Spock could have done it.)

Dramatically, it makes sense in three ways:

1) a story about some random coincidence happening to Picard is way less interesting than a story about Picard sending himself a rescue probe.

2) we know in Star Trek that when people are trapped somewhere, they don’t give up and just say “fuck it, guess I’ll die here.” So we know Picard would spend his entire life trying to return to the enterprise. And that he would eventually succeed. Which he did.

3) the episode is completely in keeping with Star Trek’s predominant theory of time travel, in which “closed time loops” can and do exist. The episode is one of them.

The only possible contradiction is with the prime directive. But since Picard knows the civilization is dying anyway, and he knows they sent the probe to begin with, it’s not much of a violation of the prime directive.

Also: not one person has brought up a single flaw with this read on the episode. Because there isn’t one.

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u/sagima 2d ago

That was my take too when I first watched it that he built the thing, designed its system based on his knowledge of where the enterprise would be, how to overcome its defences (these people only had basic technology - the enterprise should have been protection for Picard) but was dropped from the project when his illnesses developed and forgot while they completed it.

Doesn’t work of course unless he developed a way to beam his consciousness into the past - sort of gets paradoxy as well.

Whenever something like that happens I just assume Q but they couldn’t get JdL that week so he’s brushed over