Comment by latexr

8 hours ago

> the aliens pretending to be dumb

Pretending? The Pakleds were genuinely dumb. If TNG’s episode left you with any doubts, watch Lower Decks and let them all be dispelled.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Pakled

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latexr

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Arainach  2 hours ago

The Pakleds assembled a huge pile of technologies they didn't invent together into a powerful ship and social-engineered the Enterprise into giving them more valuable stuff to exploit.

This is Hacker News, replace "Pakleds" with "startup founder" and so long as it's profitable that's called being brilliant and innovative.

altcognito  7 hours ago

I do remember waiting for the formulaic “aha! Tricked you! You thought we were dumb moment” and then it was just like “nope, this is just the way they are”, was definite an interesting twist.

rob74  4 hours ago

Ah yes, if you like Pakleds, you should really watch Lower Decks! Also if you like TNG, as it's set in the timeline just after TNG and has guest (voice) appearances from many TNG, DS9 and Voyager characters - though not Picard unfortunately (IIRC).

dbcooper  8 hours ago

Was it just their verbal intelligence?

  • goalieca  8 hours ago

    No. And this reminds me of the “meat proxies” we see now who are “smart” and “powerful” using Claude.

  • latexr  8 hours ago

    No, they really were (hilariously) dumb and simple. Of the top of my head I remember their capital was named “Big Strong City”, their “Red Alert” was “Red Alarm” (it’s funny in context) and they didn’t really understand that’s an emergency, and despite being corrected multiple times by the woman herself, they kept thinking captain Carol Freeman was captain Kathryn Janeway. For reference, one of them in black and the other is white.

    • hnlmorg  7 hours ago

      The Pakleds weren’t as dumb as they pretended.

      Yeah Lower Decks played on their stupidity. But everything about Lower Decks was an exaggerated form of cannon.

      But the actual behaviour of the Pakleds was to mislead people into thinking they were harmless through playing on their own stupidity.

      Now I’m not saying they were a smart race comparable to (for example) the Romulans. But they weren’t as stupid as they portrayed themselves.

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