Did the Baku incident go public?

[FaxModem1]

Before Insurrection, everyone acted as if they had never heard of the Briar Patch, as if it was somewhere out of the way and you wouldn't go there unless you were going there.(Like certain small towns) After the events of Insurrection, what happened to the Briar Patch and the planet Baku? Was it basically kept a Starfleet secret in order to bury the whole thing? Or is it now publicly known as the fountain of youth with ships flying there every week for people to colonize and heal up? Somewhere in between?

Or is Starfleet supposed to be the keepers of the gate, guarding the planet from any who would take it from the Baku but not getting to use it themselves?

[Darth Paxis]

Picard does mention that he will be coming back for shore leave, possibly indicating that Starfleet officers have access. Also, considering that Riker's mission was to alert the Federation Council about it, It would be understandable for the public to at least know about it. Although, since many Federation citizens don't have ships of their own, and what with all the crap happening in the milky way at this time, not many people actually go there.

[Batman]

IS it a fountain of youth? From what I can remember the metaphasic radiation would halt and to a certain point reverse the aging process (once you were a grown-up, awfully convenient kind of radiation, that) as long as you stayed within its area of influence.The So'na certainly didn't look so hot (though they DID seem to have kept at least some of the longevity) and I THINK Geordi was back to using implants in Nemesis which would mean the healing doesn't last if you leave the planet.

[FaxModem1]

Picard does mention that he will be coming back for shore leave, possibly indicating that Starfleet officers have access. Also, considering that Riker's mission was to alert the Federation Council about it, It would be understandable for the public to at least know about it. Although, since many Federation citizens don't have ships of their own, and what with all the crap happening in the milky way at this time, not many people actually go there.

Does this mean that the planet Baku has now become a tourist trap of the Federation after the Dominion war? Whether they like it or not, the Baku will now have guests coming to their planet?

It sounds like the equivalent of tourists going to an Amish village, with their children becoming exposed to the Federation way of life and getting a repeat of generations that might want to explore space.

[JME2]

Or is Starfleet supposed to be the keepers of the gate, guarding the planet from any who would take it from the Baku but not getting to use it themselves?

While not canon, the video games "Hidden Evil" and "Armada" show that Starfleet establishes a defensive outpost in the Briar Patch to prevent either rogue Son'a or other parties from harvesting the metaphasic particles.

[Darth Paxis]

Picard does mention that he will be coming back for shore leave, possibly indicating that Starfleet officers have access. Also, considering that Riker's mission was to alert the Federation Council about it, It would be understandable for the public to at least know about it. Although, since many Federation citizens don't have ships of their own, and what with all the crap happening in the milky way at this time, not many people actually go there.

Does this mean that the planet Baku has now become a tourist trap of the Federation after the Dominion war? Whether they like it or not, the Baku will now have guests coming to their planet?

It sounds like the equivalent of tourists going to an Amish village, with their children becoming exposed to the Federation way of life and getting a repeat of generations that might want to explore space.

Possible. Also, does the Federation recognize the Baku as a seperate power, or are the Baku still under Fed control.

As for the space explorer idea, the Son'a will probably serve as an example of what happens when you leave, as an attept to discourage such ideas, but this is again dependent on The Ba'ku's status in the Federation.

[Darth Wong]

That whole situation makes no sense. That planet should be absolutely inundated with would-be colonists and tourists. Neighbouring star empires should be demanding access to the planet for medical purposes, since even a short stay over the planet in orbit can do amazing things like regenerating Geordi's eyes. And even if you start aging again after you leave, so what? You stay there for a few months, drop 10 years, then go back home. It's still totally worth it.

Frankly, the planet should be a diplomatic situation by now.

[Stark]

At very least you'd expect government and military elite to find reasons to visit or be posted there, even if for a few hours or days. Offering a Romulan diplomat a tour of 'the fantastic mountains' or 'idyllic lakes' of Ba'ku becomes a powerful negotiating tool.

[lord Martiya]

According to Memory Alpha, the Klingon name of Briar Patch is Klach D'Kel Brakt. Knowing that Klach D'Kel Brakt is a contested area between Klingon and Romulans and that they actually fought a battle in or near the Briar Patch, I suppose the Federation kept the thing secret for not having immediatly another war.

[Bounty]

The Klach D'Kel Brakt connection is based on one comment from Soong that can mean pretty much anything (he proposed escaping to a region with that name, calling it his own "Briar Patch" - as in, general hiding place).

As for the planet, the original ending of the movie - the sucky one with Quark - has Picard saying the planet will become a Federation protectorate to stop it getting turned into a spa. Word about the rejuvenation is out by then - but then again, the ending wasn't used.

[DaveJB]

The Klach D'Kel Brakt connection is based on one comment from Soong that can mean pretty much anything (he proposed escaping to a region with that name, calling it his own "Briar Patch" - as in, general hiding place).

There was a funny little spat between Mike Sussman (who wrote the episode) and Darkstar about just this matter over on Memory Alpha a few years ago. Leaving that aside, Sussman said that he intended for Klach D'Kel Brakt to be the same thing we saw in Insurrection.

[Bounty]

I know, the reference is pretty obvious, I'm just saying the link to it being in contested Romulan territory doesn't necessarily hold.

Not that it's much of a problem anyway; the Battle of Klach D'Kel Brakt took place in 2271, the border could and would have shifted since then.

[Alferd Packer]

I can only assume that it didn't go public, because it seems to me that all the other powers in the quadrant would be beating down the door to get the planet, and they wouldn't be so kind to the population.

Were I another power (that is, not the Feds), I would seriously consider a joint military operation with the Son'a to blow the shit of anyone guarding the planet and harvest the metaphasic particles for my own people and/or for export to the galaxy at large. If that's not an option, simply take control of the planet and throw it open for every health tourist in the galaxy. The Feds might be mad, but once you turn it into the premiere vacation spot in Galaxy, what are they gonna do? Blockade the Fountain of Youth?

[Themightytom]

Well if they jsut get cracking on the transporter procedure that made Dr pulaski turn from crone to hag (A marginal step backwards ) They wouldn't need to do it the comparatively slow way in the briar patch.

I suppose the fountain of youth is an appealing idea but there are probalby more convenient ways to do it in teh TNG universe.

[Mayabird]

They're not even that big a population and planets are big places. They could let the silly people live in their little corner and use the entire opposite half of the world for spas or whatever and just not tell them. As Chuck said in one of his reviews, how much living space do they need?

[Darth Wong]

Well if they jsut get cracking on the transporter procedure that made Dr pulaski turn from crone to hag (A marginal step backwards ) They wouldn't need to do it the comparatively slow way in the briar patch.

I suppose the fountain of youth is an appealing idea but there are probalby more convenient ways to do it in teh TNG universe.

Tricks like that are only deployed when facing unnaturally rapid aging, of a sort which makes no more sense than the subsequent rapid de-aging. The implied subtext is that they would not work on natural aging.

[Darth Wong]

I can only assume that it didn't go public, because it seems to me that all the other powers in the quadrant would be beating down the door to get the planet, and they wouldn't be so kind to the population.

It's impossible to keep something like that a secret for long. Insiders in the Federation would want to quietly move elderly friends and family there for de-aging "spa treatments", and when these people come back rejuvenated, people will ask questions. Not to mention the fact that the entire story was known to the entire crew of the E-D, and was reported to the Federation Council so would have been noted by large numbers of politicians and their staff, stenographers, etc.

Frankly, if they could keep something like this secret, the 9/11 conspiracy theories would seem downright plausible by comparison.

[Solauren]

Given how the Baku incident happened in the middle of the Dominion war, I don't think Baku is a problem anymore.

If you were the Dominion, especially the Founders, would you let the solids have a planet like that? I would not be surprised if, upon learning of the incident, a rather large force of Jem'ha'dar attacked and made the planet useless.

After all, the Female changelling was rather spiteful (remember, she was going to burn Cardassia out of spite...), so I can see making sure the solids didn't have a fountain of youth as high on her list of things to do.

[Darth Wong]

Given how the Baku incident happened in the middle of the Dominion war, I don't think Baku is a problem anymore.

If you were the Dominion, especially the Founders, would you let the solids have a planet like that? I would not be surprised if, upon learning of the incident, a rather large force of Jem'ha'dar attacked and made the planet useless.

After all, the Female changelling was rather spiteful (remember, she was going to burn Cardassia out of spite...), so I can see making sure the solids didn't have a fountain of youth as high on her list of things to do.

Yeah sure, as if they could actually spare "a rather large force" in the midst of an intense shooting war to foray deep into Federation space on a target of zero military significance. And all of this just to spite the Federation, most of whose citizens did not even know it existed in the first place.

For that matter, how would the Dominion even know about it? Their intel-gathering apparatus is not omniscient; they didn't even know Section 31 had commissioned and deployed a genocidal bioweapon against them. Sure, it would have eventually gotten out, but in the middle of a shooting war people are a bit more concerned with immediate problems.

[Samuel]

Given how the Baku incident happened in the middle of the Dominion war, I don't think Baku is a problem anymore.

If you were the Dominion, especially the Founders, would you let the solids have a planet like that? I would not be surprised if, upon learning of the incident, a rather large force of Jem'ha'dar attacked and made the planet useless.

After all, the Female changelling was rather spiteful (remember, she was going to burn Cardassia out of spite...), so I can see making sure the solids didn't have a fountain of youth as high on her list of things to do.

Harvesting the Briar Patch would be extremely obvious and would have made an excellent Dominion bargaining chip. I don't see how you could eliminate it otherwise- would shooting it actually do anything except disperse the gas?

[Solauren]

um, it was the rings around the planet, not the briar patch itself.

And depending when in the war Insurrection happened (I couldn't find a Stardate), it could be while the Dominion had the advantage, and sending a force to take out the planet would not have been hard.

(i.e when the Wormhole was closed, before the Romulans entered the war, and right after the Breen energy weapon beat the living hell out of the Alliance Fleet).

As for the question of Dominion intelligence gathering abilities....

I guess it would depend on if the incident was public or not (which gets back to the OP), and who knew about it.

[Darth Wong]

um, it was the rings around the planet, not the briar patch itself.

And depending when in the war Insurrection happened (I couldn't find a Stardate), it could be while the Dominion had the advantage, and sending a force to take out the planet would not have been hard.

(i.e when the Wormhole was closed, before the Romulans entered the war, and right after the Breen energy weapon beat the living hell out of the Alliance Fleet).

As for the question of Dominion intelligence gathering abilities....

I guess it would depend on if the incident was public or not (which gets back to the OP), and who knew about it.

That's retarded. If the Dominion ever did have such an advantage, they would have pressed it against Federation targets of military significance, thus achieving victory in the war and being able to take control of that region directly. They would not squander it by devoting a large force to an obscure target of no military significance, thus taking those forces out of the fight for the duration of the mission. Do you actually work at thinking in such a non-strategic way?

[Serafina]

um, it was the rings around the planet, not the briar patch itself.

IIRC, the particles responsible for the radiation could be found all over the briar patch, but they did not have sufficient technology to mine them anywhere but from the rings.

[Alferd Packer]

It's impossible to keep something like that a secret for long. Insiders in the Federation would want to quietly move elderly friends and family there for de-aging "spa treatments", and when these people come back rejuvenated, people will ask questions. Not to mention the fact that the entire story was known to the entire crew of the E-D, and was reported to the Federation Council so would have been noted by large numbers of politicians and their staff, stenographers, etc.

Hmm, good point. And, if we're given to assume that time has passed in the TNGverse at the same rate it does here(which seems to be the case), the Baku incident would be over ten years out in the TNGverse. These surreptitious health visits you describe would have become more and more common, and pretty soon, someone would've started building resorts in earnest. I can imagine the insane demand: old Klingons looking to have a second youth or recapture their honor or some other nonsense, Vulcans like Sarek suffering from Bendii Syndrome (assuming that Bendii works like Alzheimer's or similar forms of dementia), and so on. Of course, that says nothing of the myriad species who would just want to go get another ten good years of youth, or whatever. Hell, sex tourism on Risa would deader than dogshit; all the good looking people would be on Baku.

That would have made a great final scene in ST:I. It's ten years after the incident, and the village is annoyingly happy and peaceful. One of the insipid Baku characters is on a hike in the mountains, working his or her way through a particularly difficult mountain pass. He reaches a crest, and huge vista opens up below him. He can see for fifty miles! But instead of natural splendor, he sees hotels, resorts, spaceports, health clinics, stretching on as far as the eye can see. Perimeter sensors go off, and he gets beamed to a holding facility built just for incidents like this. Federation doctors erase his short term memory, his arm is surgically broken, he's given a few superficial cuts and bruises, and they beam him back at the bottom of a ravine near the village.

Afterwards, a young Federation officer writes up an incident report, and files it with several dozen others. His equally youthful wife appears on the viewer and wishes him a happy 80th birthday with a grin.

[lord Martiya]

It would be a very probable final.