The episode "Darmok" of Star Trek: The Next Generation - a Different Perspective

"Darmok" from Star Trek:The Next Generation is pretty much a consensus "top 10" episode on the list of Trek fans, and it is a fantastic episode with some wonderful ideas and themes.

In it, the Enterprise crew encounters aliens who speak in words we can understand, but their language is made up of metaphors that are common to their culture and way of life, but about what our crew knows nothing.  So, for instance, when the aliens say "Darmok and Jilad at Tenagra" in trying to establish communication, well, unless we know who or what Darmok, Jilad and Tenagra is, we haven't a clue as to what they are saying.  Both the Enterprise crew and the alien crew are frustrated at their inability to communicate with each other.

So, the aliens' captain, Dathon, transports himself and Picard down to a planet and makes it so they can't leave.  They must learn to communicate with each other in order to survive a dangerous creature native to the planet that is trying to kill them.  

However, I just came to the realization of what an insensitive person Captain Dathon is, at least from the mindset of a person interested in the welfare of animals and not causing them grief. Lemme 'splain.

We can assume that Dathon knew there was a dangerous animal on El-Adral IV.  I don't think he would kidnap Picard and send them both down to a planet where they would have weeks to learn how to live together before they would succumb to starvation.   No, Dathon needed a deadly threat and he needed one right now, that would affect Picard and Dathon shortly after they transported to the surface.

Let's look at this from the point of view of the animal they face on El-Adral IV

Imagine, on earth, you are a grizzly bear, perhaps a sow with a couple of cubs.  You are minding your own business in the Montana wilderness, hundreds of miles away from people and civilization.  All of a sudden, two people with weapons show up in your territory.  The bear doesn't know who these people are, or what their intentions are. Her instinct is to protect her cubs and herself from harm. So, she watches.  The two intruders don't leave her territory, but instead set up a campsite.  At this point, and throughout the episode, we’re given no indication that the animal Picard and Dathon face is any different from something like a grizzly bear, with similar instincts.  It’s not evil or sadistic, or wishes to do them harm, like Armus from the episode “Skin of Evil”.  It’s just an animal that is native to El-Adral IV.

Keep in mind that there isn’t any interaction between Dathon/Picard and the animal on El-Adrel IV until the next morning, when Picard found Dathon gone.  Dathon returns a few minutes later, breathless, urging Picard to help him defend themselves against this animal.  What did he do during this time?  Did he go seek out the animal, who was content to watch them and leave them alone?  Did Dathon attack the animal first, or taunt it?  Keep in mind that Dathon’s plan was for himself and Picard to have to work together to protect themselves from this animal.  His plan wasn’t going to work until the animal became threatening to them, and the animal wasn’t a threat until Dathon apparently went to find and perhaps confront it. 

Let's throw in the variable that Captain Dathon's ship put up some kind of "invisible fence" to keep the animal from leaving.  After all, that was what Dathon's plan was all along - to have him and Picard face a deadly threat to force them to understand each other and work together.  If the animal could simply take her cubs and hightail it out of there, then Dathon's plan wouldn't work.  So, not only do we have the possibility that the animal is worried about her safety and the safety of her cubs, but now when she tries to leave, she can't. That would make her even more desperate to protect herself and her cubs.

I realize that is farfetched, to think maybe that the El-Adrel IV creature was a mother protecting her offspring, but even if it wasn't, it still was an animal, minding its own business, when all of a sudden it is faced with two strange, dangerous creatures who just might be trying to kill it.  It also doesn’t attack them until it is sought out and possibly confronted by Dathon.

The premise of the episode is wonderful - to have a common obstacle which forces two people who can't communicate into doing so.  I'm just concerned that they did this at the expense of a clueless, otherwise nonthreatening animal who is minding its own business, who only becomes dangerous when its territory, safety, and perhaps the safety of its offspring is threatened.