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Star Trek open thread: Rescuing dissidents [1]

['Alonso Del Arte', 'Angmar Barrow', 'Wafflehacker Aka Joshhacks', 'Greg Dworkin', 'Thom Hartmann']

Date: 2026-09-30  

Back in 2012, during the first term of President Obama’s presidency, Chinese dissident Chen Guancheng escaped house arrest to go to the American embassy in Beijing. As that international incident unfolded, NPR mentioned comparisons to a similar incident from the 20th Century. Fang Lizhi spent a year in the American embassy with his wife and son before they were exiled to America in 1990.

Fang Lizhi continued to speak out against human rights abuses in China until his death in 2012, before Chen Guancheng made the news. Perry Link, an American who helped Fang Lizhi escape, told NPR he understood why Chen Guancheng was very ambivalent about leaving China forever.

I wasn’t paying attention to the news as much back then. Chen Guancheng’s saga registered just barely on my radar. A Star Trek rerun brought it to the foreground in my mind. The Heroes & Icons digital TV channel recently reran the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Face of the Enemy,” which involves defectors and dissidents.

That episode first aired February 6, 1993. It might seem a reasonable assumption that either you’ve already seen this episode a dozen times or you haven’t seen it because you haven’t wanted to. Still, just in case, I give a spoiler warning. In this open thread, we will freely discuss anything that happens in this Next Generation episode. We may also discuss other Star Trek episodes if they’re relevant to the topic of political dissidents.

Of course you can watch this and any other Star Trek episode on Paramount+, but you can watch the older episodes, like this one, for free on Pluto TV.

I find this episode riveting even though I know all the dialogue almost by heart, and even though the cold open no longer has any shock value for me. Starfleet Lt. Commander Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) regains consciousness in a dark room, but she’s dressed like an officer of the Romulan Tal Shiar, an agency like the Cardassians’ Obsidian Order or the real life Soviet KGB. She gets out of bed and finds and mirror, in which she’s surprised to see herself as a Romulan.

Once Subcommander N’Vek (Scott MacDonald) sees that Troi is awake, he goes into her room wanting to give Troi only the minimum amount of information necessary for her to do what he wants her to do: override the Khazara’s mission to go to some random spot in some odd sector and transport mysterious cargo to another ship. Understandably, Troi wants an explanation of how she got here and why.

She remembers she was at some seminar in some planet we’ve never heard of before and probably never will again. She remembers going to her guest quarters, being attacked and jabbed with an injection of some drug (it was a hypospray, so “jab” might not be the right word). While she was unconscious, N’Vek must have had someone surgically alter her to look Romulan and outfitted her in the appropriate uniform for her disguise as Major Rakal of the Tal Shiar.

Now Troi as Rakal is aboard the Romulan Warbird Khazara. Presumably N’Vek is the ship’s first officer. The captain of the ship is Commander Toreth (Carolyn Seymour), who doesn’t have a particularly high opinion of the Tal Shiar. In a tense conversation on the bridge, Toreth pushes the boundaries of what she’s allowed to say as a military officer under a repressive regime. Troi as Rakal improvises her part with confidence.

TORETH: Tell me, is there a reason why the commander of a ship is being kept ignorant of its cargo?

TROI (RAKAL): I don’t know what you mean.

TORETH: I have been ordered to take on cargo but its contents are unknown to me. Does that seem wise? I am responsible for the safety of this ship and its crew. How do I know this cargo is safe to transport?

TROI (RAKAL): I’m sure it is safe, otherwise it would not have been loaded.

TORETH: Ah, the Tal Shiar is deeply concerned for the safety and well-being of the military. I’m sure that every person on the bridge of this ship could offer testimony about personal experiences with the Tal Shiar, but I doubt that many could recall those encounters as tender and caring. So I must ask you to forgive me, major, if I hesitate to accept your assurances that that cargo presents no danger to my crew. I intend to open those containers.

TROI (RAKAL): That cargo is the property of the Tal Shiar. You will not touch it.

TORETH: On whose authority?

TROI (RAKAL): Mine. And if you do not wish to undergo another personal experience with the Tal Shiar, I suggest you not question me again.

Meanwhile, a human defector to the Romulan Star Empire comes aboard the USS Enterprise with a message from Ambassador Spock asking Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) to go to the same random spot in the same odd sector that the Khazara is headed to.

Presumably N’Vek knows what the cargo is. Troi wants to know, too. They have a conversation in the cargo bay, next to the mysterious containers.

N’VEK: For your own sake, counselor, the less you know about the specifics of this plan, the better.

TROI (RAKAL): What is your plan?

N’VEK: When we reach the Kaleb sector, we will rendezvous with a Korvalan freighter. You will take these containers into their ship and accompany them back to Starfleet Headquarters.

TROI (RAKAL): The Korvalans are mercenaries. Do they know what’s in these containers?

N’VEK: No. They were hired simply to take you to Federation space.

TROI (RAKAL): Very well.

N’VEK: We are due in the ward room shortly. The senior officers always dine together.

I think Toreth suspects this Major Rakal might not be a Romulan at all. Over dinner, Toreth tests Rakal on, among other things, Romulan cuisine. Troi falls in the trap but quickly recovers.

The Khazara arrives at the specified coordinates and meets up with the Korvalan freighter. But Troi senses the Korvalan captain is lying, so N’vek destroys the freighter. Troi once again has to improvise: she orders the ship cloaked and to hold position, buying herself some time to come up with the alternative plan of ordering the ship to where the Korvalan freighter was supposed to go.

Once there, the Khazara decloaks in front of the Enterprise. N’Vek and Troi figure out how to beam the mysterious cargo to the Enterprise, but Toreth also figures out that Rakal and N’Vek are traitors to the Romulan Star Empire. Troi gets beamed off the Khazara just in the nick of time.

The mysterious cargo consisted of three Romulans in stasis: Proconsul M’Ret and two of his aides. They’re Romulan dissidents who needed to escape the reach of the empire. The NPR article gives us some idea of what might be in store for these fictional dissidents.

“This [Fang Lizhi’s case] was different in a sense … because, in those days, to leave and go to the U.S. didn’t seem to be leaving the Chinese democracy movement quite as clearly as it does now,” Link says. “The record of the last decades shows that Chinese dissidents who leave China become irrelevant inside China.” For someone like Chen Guancheng, being relevant in China is very important because his whole career as a lawyer is there, Link says.

By its nature, this show was not equipped to delve into what happens to the dissidents after the rescue. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had a few episodes about Cardassian dissidents, culminating in the transformation of Damar from a loyal lieutenant to a freedom fighter and eventual martyr.

Supposedly, last year the United States rescued a few Venezuelan dissidents. I’m skeptical of that, in part because that was apparently part of the same mission to abduct then-President Maduro, and because the New York Times reports that repression in Venezuela has actually intensified since Maduro’s kidnapping (I have not read the Times article as I’m not a subscriber).

I hope the time never comes that other countries have to rescue American dissidents. The midterm elections here are battles for the soul of America.

[END]
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