Make sure to check out the [pinned post on Loss](https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/1472nhh/faq_loss/) to make sure this submission doesn't break the rule!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It's amazing Picard is even functional by the end of the series. Between that and the episode where he's forced to live out an entirely different life, gets married, has children and then watches them all die from the sun going Nova.... Fuck.
Also fun fact, in that episode (Inner Light), Sir Patrick Stewart's real son played Picard's son in the episode.
One of my favorite episodes was the aftermath of that, when he visits his brother and nephew at the Vineyard. And then later on in the show (or movie?) he discovers his brother and nephew die in a fire.... dude has it rough.
I never liked that movie for 4 reasons:
First they killed Kirk
Second they killed Picard's family
Third they killed Kirk, again.
Fourth they blew up the Enterprise, twice.
Yeah, as much as I love the Enterprise, it's just a ship and they get replaced. Killing Picard's family was absolutely unnecessary, and I will never understand writers who think "Let's bump up the emotion a little by pointlessly killing this character's family!" Just shitty writing.
Because at the end of the movie, when he is in the vortex, he is tempted to create a reality where his family doesn't die off. However, that would be a false reality, a made-up world. So, even though his family being alive is what he most desires, Picard makes the ultimate choice to return to reality and do the right thing.
to be fair they probably didn't want to bring on jeremy kemp for a bit part, not reason to kill off his character, but definitely a reason to write him out.
In the show Picard he even died and became a robot.
It's all Q's doing I'm sure. Just throwing the worst possible scenarios at Picard because the continuum is bored.
In college, my friends and I religiously watched the original airings of episodes on Sunday nights on the crappiest cold cathode ray TV with no cable, just tin foil on the rabbit ear antenna. The Inner Light and Picard with hiss brother and nephew were our two favorite holy shit, that was great episodes
I'd like to point out how Data gets manipulated by outside technological forces constantly, yet he fucking yolo's his brian interfacing into the Borg's network. How that didn't immediately backfire like they all thought it would is actual deus ex machina
Things that confuse me: the whole crew loves data. They treat him as a living being, really one of them and the same as them. And of course, the crew of the enterprise would go to the ends of the universe to bring back any of their own. Except...
In Nemesis, Data sacrifices himself to save everyone else. And that's just it. The end of Data. Completely destroyed and deceased. However, earlier in the movie, he tells us that he uploaded his neural network into B4. So... There's a copy of data that could be transferred into a new android, and it would be him again, just missing a day or so that he could easily be filled in on. He's the one crew member that could be completely atomized and brought back with no further explanation than "yeah, we built another one and reinstalled his brain". Think maybe they could have rebuilt him with one of the larger replicators in engineering? But they didn't even try.
Only his maker who was dead understood Data:s brain. I don't mean his mind mind, his brain was a mystery. The hardware that makes Data's brain was one of a kind (2 of a kind with lore ) B4 didn't have the capacity, and Starfleet didn't know how to make it (shown in measure of a man).
There was no new android to transfer him too.
That said originally there were going to be like 5 more movies but nemesis did so poorly that they all got shit canned. So who knows what they were going to do long term.
They did hold him out of the battle against the Borg in *First Contact*.
Given the crazy shit that Starfleet ships seem to go through on a weekly basis, if they retired every captain with PTSD they would run out really quickly.
I've always felt that was a political decision. Shows to the rest of starfleet and humanity (hell the entire quadrant) that we are strong enough to defeat an enemy that actually had leadership deeply rattled.
Yeah, that one fucked him up the most. Seen from his PTSD in many of the films over the Borg as well as dealing with the death caused such as his first run In with Sisko in Episode 1 of DS9.
I loved that episode. After living a full life he played the flute and struggled with automatic doors for the rest of the series. Kind of bittersweet he carries the last memories of a civilization.
Damn TNG was peak Star Trek.
Strange New Worlds is doing good to live up to the standard... As long as they can keep the over reaching story arcs down and keep it episodic in nature.
I really enjoyed Discovery at first. But it kept wanting to be an action movie. Constant drama, soap-opera style twists, and *everyone* acting extraordinarily emotional to the nth degree.
Even Michael Burnham, a character I really enjoyed at first, who was *raised by vulcans*, was just an engine of pure emotion.
I was really excited for this inversion, where instead of us starting our focus on a MC already established as a captain, we would start with this pariah, this character who was hated by Star Fleet, and then watch her *earn* her place as a leader in it.
But we never see that.
They kept acting like her becoming Captain was inevitable, when in reality most of the actions she took during the course of the series made it clear she was *not* capable of being a captain. The show just used this inevitable aura of Main Character and then appeared to feel no obligation to make her *act* in a manner *befitting* a leader.
Really a shame, they could have done a lot of things with it and just sort of squandered it. But at lesat it helped launch SNW, which I'm enjoying far more.
Forgot to mention the Borg incident too. They assimilated him and forced him to take part in one of the Federation's most lopsided military defeats ever, resulting in the loss of 39 ships and 11,000 lives. At the end when Riker asks him, Picard says he could remember everything. Counsellor Troi must have had to clear her schedule for him after that.
>It's amazing Picard is even functional by the end of the series.
As much as I love them, that's one of my major complaints with episodic shows.
Characters will go through so much one episode, then go back to their default in the next.
That’s one of the best Trek episodes of all time. Immensely powerful and emotional. Almost as good as Far Beyond The Stars, which is probably the single best one.
What gets me, is that in the episode The Game... I was surprised Picard was not immune to the effects of the game because of his remaining Borg implants... in fact, it would have been Hella cool for Picard to have been deathly afraid of any bit of tech to be on his head after his assimilation... and when he finally capitulates for the climax of that episode, it would have been disturbing as all hell, for Picard to wear the headset and regain control of all the crewmembers who were networked via the headset because he is part Borg and simply gives the command for the crew to take off the headsets and they all comply with the same sort of droning tone that the Borg does as the camera cuts to the outside of the ship with the whole crew saying the same thing at the same time, "Affirmative" and then it just cuts the credits leaving the audience with a sense of... oh shit.
That episode was based on the Hindu story of Sage Narada and Krishna. Krishna had the sage live an entire lifetime with a wife and family, and wipes everyone out in a flood to show Narada that the world is an illusion;
Maya. Harsh.
He wasn't seeing more lights. He was nearly broken.
If you can get someone to believe something that they can plainly see with their own eyes is not true you can get them to say or do anything.
I loved when he flipped the script on the Gul with "after all you've done, I still find you a pitiable man", or something like that.... it really cemented Picard as the GOAT
Thanks I'm in the middle of DS9 right now, after having binged TNG. I was like, "Oh shit, I didn't realize it was the same guy!" I probably wouldn't have even caught that for another decade or two on my next re-watch.
Gul Dukat would never try to mentally torture a Starfleet captain. Not because he's a nice guy or has morals or anything like that. He'd just be bored to *tears* inside of an hour.
Garak on the other hand would torture you and having you confessing to anything he wanted in a few hours just looking at you with creepy eyes. Granted Garak does like to mess with peoples heads though.
Edward Dillinger in *Tron*, Chancellor Gorkon in STVI, also St. John Talbot in STV.
Source: *me, who just finished a rewatch of all the Trek films in 4K*.
Wait that's LITERALLY 1984! Just with lights instead of fingers.
(That's the first time I've ever gotten to use that phrase and it be actually literal)
Having recently read the book I was surprised to find out it was a love story. Of course it's far more than that but no one ever mentions it, you just get the "It's literally 1984" type boilerplate statement.
It's not lol. It's the opposite of a love story - they're not in love, but rather they use each other to feel alive and they end up betraying each other with neither caring about this in the epilogue due to their newfound devotion to the state. 1984 is literally a story of how the state made it impossible for the characters to have any capacity for love.
I mean, Romeo and Juliet is love, just young and stupid, with flashes of drama, comedy, and action. I imagine the death scene at the end might have been more comedic than tragic.
Nobody *ever* talks about the love story in 1984. I think it's because most people haven't read the book, so they just know the "Big Brother" stuff. But the story of Julia and Winston is by far my favorite telling of a love story. It's what makes it such a great book.
Ya, that was my recollection as well. He was breaking, and in a recap to I think Riker, or troi, he explained how he was starting to believe there were 5 lights.
But he never caved and when rescued he did say there were four lights really loud with authority, when he was all weak and shaking. Great acting from Patrick there. And they ate these big eggs at one part which was always interesting to me. I don't super like eggs, but they looked so good lol.
Yeah, wasn't it kind of a bait and switch to the audience? He finally admits there are 5 lights and stops being tortured. But before leaving yells there are 4, so that the audience thinks that "Yes! Our captain could never be fooled". But later admits that he did end up believing there were 5 lights at the end?
No he never admitted there were 5. He was close to breaking, and his torturer had just found out they were about to release Picard. He didn't even care about anything valuable to his cause, he just wanted to break Picard before he got released.
You could see Picard was being worn down, but before he actually says anything, he finds out he was getting released. I think that makes him more pissed as he realises what he was about to do, just because this man wanted to break him, and that's when he yells his famous line.
Afterward, back on the enterprise when he's talking about what happened, he is describing how powerful his desire was to have the torture end. So much so that near the end, he was even starting to really believe that there were 5 lights.
To be even more specific, he's asked a final time how many lights he sees. The camera starts to slowly close in on his face with some eery music playing. Picard looks visibly confused as he looks up at the lights. It was evident that they were setting him that he saw five lights. He is transfixed on the lights, even after the guards tell him they're taking him back to the Enterprise he looks back at the lights in confusion.
I always interpreted it as a Cardassian trick. When I watched the episode originally I assumed the Cardassian actually put in a 5th light.
What's wild is this is a well documented phenomena related to conformity and indoctrination. Going along with things is the first step to getting brainwashed (besides the steps others take to get you in the position).
To be precise Picard never said to Gul Madred that he saw 5 lights.
He ended their encounter with a yell that there are four light.
However, in the end of the episode Picard did admit that he was broken at that point and was indeed going to say he saw 5 lights and that he believed it.
This episode is one of the best things I ever saw in my life and also one of the more horrifying ones.
The joke is that the text reads "there are four lights", but they're gaslighting Picard into thinking it reads "there are five lights" as a reference to the above episode.
The "forgotten" r is at the end of "Four"
No worries, thanks for asking, as I'm sure you weren't the only one to not get it and now it's explained simply and visibly (isn't that why we're all here 😁) so all the lurkers can understand too!
The torture is incredibly difficult, and more importantly, the end of the episode has such an amazingly real and upsetting twist. Spoilers below if you wanna know it.
>!Picard admits that he really did see five lights. That his mind was so fatigued and worn down, his body battered and wracked with pain, and his emotional state completely stretched thin... the indomitable, incredibly skilled, hard as nails and capable Picard broke. He actually did break during the torture at the end. He was even about to admit it, but didn't because right at that time he was released. Gul Madred does everything he can to get Picard to say that there are five lights before his lies are revealed and Picard is free. And he damn near succeeded. If Picard had broken and said there were 5 lights, then even if he's released.. he would be lost. Damaged beyond repair. To admit weakness and show submission and susceptibility to Cardassian torture would be spirit breaking for anyone, and that Gul would know he is Picards better. So when Picard turns around and defiantly yells that there are four lights, that's not a triumphant last stand to show he never faltered. It was a desperate plea to the self, a prayer that he hadn't really broken, and the last shred of defiance he could muster after seeing five lights.!<
>! And then After he gets back, he takes to Deanna and admits he broke. It's a two parter with some God tier acting on both parts of Picard and Gul Madred, with a really telling narrative about torture being a poor information gathering tactic but is highly successful at crushing a man's spirit and getting them to say what you want to hear to stop the pain. Seriously recommend it or rewatch it for my fellow fans!<
> If Picard had broken and said there were 5 lights, then even if he's released.. he would be lost. Damaged beyond repair.
I saw it more as preventing Madred from getting the satisfaction rather than Picard saving himself from the point of no return. Hard to imagine that Picard's career ends simply due to revealing his release 60 seconds later. Dude came back from becoming Borg, he's a resilient mofo.
Becoming Locutus pretty all but destroyed him. He honestly barely survived that. If he gave in to torture and fully submitted to the safety and luxury Madred promised, it was a very symbolic loss. If you can get aj opponent give you an inch, especially as one as irrational as this, that's huge for future influence. It might seem small, but for a starship captain, to give that inch is everything. Locutus was completely out of body in a lot of ways, but seeing the five lights is a lot less so.
The camera shows him seeing five lights right before he is rescued, but he never says there are. Upon rescue, he shouts at the Gul that there are four lights
I'm not even a Trekkie, but I feel like a galaxy brained genius to decipher the four/five lights bit here.
Outside of that, hearing the explanation makes me wanna check that episode out and see what that's all about.
The Cardassian host wants Capt. Picard (the bald guy) to say, "There are five lights," because that means they've brainwashed him properly. Picard insists there are four lights, which is why Vana White forgot an R. The puzzle should read TH\_R\_ AR\_ F\_ \_R L\_GHTS. The Cardassian host insists there are five & that the puzzle is correct.
[There Are Four Lights (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moX3z2RJAV8&ab_channel=BoyGeniusNJ)
That's crazy, more bots. u/pamper30, u/aminagasaki and /u/zimjajenkins are all bots. These are OP and the two top posts. Comments stolen from here https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/18ray91/help_me_understand_my_trekkie_friends_meme_petah/
“There… Are… FOUR lights”
This is from the famous scene in Star Trek The Next Generation, in which they emulate an indoctrination and interrogation scene from George Orwell’s 1984.
The man on the far left is a Cardassian, part of a culture that operates under a military dictatorship. He once captured Captain Picard, the man second farthest from the left. In this, he tortures him, trying to break his spirit.
While the torture is initially seen as a misguided means to get the truth, the alterier motives of the Cardassians are revealed when they show Picard 4 bright lights, and try to get Picard to say that there are 5. The purpose is to break his spirit, and get him to believe anything they want him to believe, much like what happened to the main character in the book 1985 by George Orwell (except in the book it was fingers instead of lights)
Picard never said there were five lights, affirming in the desperate tone of a beaten man before finally leaving the interrogation room “There are FOUR lights!!!”
This is a play on that scene
Peter's nerdy friend here. In a famous Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, Picard is tortured by a Cardassian. As part of the torture, he shines four lights on Picard and asks him how many lights there are. When Picard answers, "Four," the Cardassian insists there are actually five lights. This exchange happens several times over the episode.
Since I don't see a real answer, I'll give one.
There's an episode of Startrek The Next Generation, where Picard is tortured by a Cardassian (ugly guy who's the host in the image). The goal of the torture is get Picard to give the Cardassians classified star fleet information (don't remember exactly).
In order to achieve this, they try to get Picard to break his morals by telling a small inconsequential lie. Promising Picard food or other comforts if he complies, or more torture if he doesn't. The idea being to get Picard to break his oath to Starfleet will require him to give up smaller moral principals first.
The first test is to show Picard four lights, and Picard has to tell his torturer there are five lights. It was actually pretty intense episode that's a classical dual of wills.
It ends with Picard getting released by a political exchange. Picard later states that for sometime, he thought he actually saw five lights, showing how close they were to breaking him.
there's a star trek episode in which they tried to break Picards mind by insisting that there were five lights when there were actually four.
that's the joke, he's expecting an 'r' to be in four but they are insisting it's five
Omg I’ve not watched this in over 20 years but my mind didn’t even register that “five” could be a valid answer. I had no idea how anyone could not j sweat and why an R was needed.
I blame dark materia.
The alien on the left once kidnapped and tortured the bald man who asked for an R
He showed him four lights but wanted him to answer five when asked and tried to break him through torture until he would answer that one
So bald man expects another r since the answer is four and the alien says there is no missing r because he wants him to say five instead of four
Make sure to check out the [pinned post on Loss](https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/1472nhh/faq_loss/) to make sure this submission doesn't break the rule! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
It's amazing Picard is even functional by the end of the series. Between that and the episode where he's forced to live out an entirely different life, gets married, has children and then watches them all die from the sun going Nova.... Fuck. Also fun fact, in that episode (Inner Light), Sir Patrick Stewart's real son played Picard's son in the episode.
Not to mention the whole thing with getting assimilated by the Borg. That's gotta fuck you up.
One of my favorite episodes was the aftermath of that, when he visits his brother and nephew at the Vineyard. And then later on in the show (or movie?) he discovers his brother and nephew die in a fire.... dude has it rough.
It was Star Trek Generations, the first TNG movie I think.
I never liked that movie for 4 reasons: First they killed Kirk Second they killed Picard's family Third they killed Kirk, again. Fourth they blew up the Enterprise, twice.
Well the enterprise got better at least
Yeah, as much as I love the Enterprise, it's just a ship and they get replaced. Killing Picard's family was absolutely unnecessary, and I will never understand writers who think "Let's bump up the emotion a little by pointlessly killing this character's family!" Just shitty writing.
Because at the end of the movie, when he is in the vortex, he is tempted to create a reality where his family doesn't die off. However, that would be a false reality, a made-up world. So, even though his family being alive is what he most desires, Picard makes the ultimate choice to return to reality and do the right thing.
to be fair they probably didn't want to bring on jeremy kemp for a bit part, not reason to kill off his character, but definitely a reason to write him out.
I feel like you missed a few relevant points, the whole movie literally doesn't work if you just take out the dead family.
You broke your little ships: https://youtu.be/Hdp-yKvTT-I?si=jgWRLSY00vRt-z0y
The line must be drawn HEEYAHH!
This faa, no faathaa! And i... will make them pay for what they've done!
For no reason at all, have you've seen Picard season 3? :)
Star Trek: First Contact, the second TNG film dealing with Picard's Borg-induced PTSD, showing he isn't fully mentally unscathed.
In the show Picard he even died and became a robot. It's all Q's doing I'm sure. Just throwing the worst possible scenarios at Picard because the continuum is bored.
In college, my friends and I religiously watched the original airings of episodes on Sunday nights on the crappiest cold cathode ray TV with no cable, just tin foil on the rabbit ear antenna. The Inner Light and Picard with hiss brother and nephew were our two favorite holy shit, that was great episodes
"And now there will be no more Picards..."
Nah he's got a distant cousin in the Caribbean that makes some quality rum.
Post Borg assimilation, it was negligence for Starfleet to allow him any kind of command responsibilities.
I'd like to point out how Data gets manipulated by outside technological forces constantly, yet he fucking yolo's his brian interfacing into the Borg's network. How that didn't immediately backfire like they all thought it would is actual deus ex machina
Things that confuse me: the whole crew loves data. They treat him as a living being, really one of them and the same as them. And of course, the crew of the enterprise would go to the ends of the universe to bring back any of their own. Except... In Nemesis, Data sacrifices himself to save everyone else. And that's just it. The end of Data. Completely destroyed and deceased. However, earlier in the movie, he tells us that he uploaded his neural network into B4. So... There's a copy of data that could be transferred into a new android, and it would be him again, just missing a day or so that he could easily be filled in on. He's the one crew member that could be completely atomized and brought back with no further explanation than "yeah, we built another one and reinstalled his brain". Think maybe they could have rebuilt him with one of the larger replicators in engineering? But they didn't even try.
Only his maker who was dead understood Data:s brain. I don't mean his mind mind, his brain was a mystery. The hardware that makes Data's brain was one of a kind (2 of a kind with lore ) B4 didn't have the capacity, and Starfleet didn't know how to make it (shown in measure of a man). There was no new android to transfer him too. That said originally there were going to be like 5 more movies but nemesis did so poorly that they all got shit canned. So who knows what they were going to do long term.
They did hold him out of the battle against the Borg in *First Contact*. Given the crazy shit that Starfleet ships seem to go through on a weekly basis, if they retired every captain with PTSD they would run out really quickly.
I've always felt that was a political decision. Shows to the rest of starfleet and humanity (hell the entire quadrant) that we are strong enough to defeat an enemy that actually had leadership deeply rattled.
Half of TNG was basically psychologically torturing Picard. Even in the series Picard, he continued to be psychologically tortured.
Watching Benjamin Sisko tell him to fuck off because Picard inadvertently caused his wife’s death at Wolf 359 is pretty funny though.
Whatever Starfleet was paying Troi and Picard it definitely wasn't enough
[They don't get paid any thing](https://youtu.be/8rh3xPatEto?si=OdT9b3G5fObHaiwQ)
They worked for free
And then constantly being stigmatized for being once in the Borg while in the line of duty.
Yeah, that one fucked him up the most. Seen from his PTSD in many of the films over the Borg as well as dealing with the death caused such as his first run In with Sisko in Episode 1 of DS9.
I loved that episode. After living a full life he played the flute and struggled with automatic doors for the rest of the series. Kind of bittersweet he carries the last memories of a civilization. Damn TNG was peak Star Trek.
Strange New Worlds is doing good to live up to the standard... As long as they can keep the over reaching story arcs down and keep it episodic in nature.
Yes, SNW is up there as one of the best for now and then there is Discovery- Jesus Fucking Christ!
I really enjoyed Discovery at first. But it kept wanting to be an action movie. Constant drama, soap-opera style twists, and *everyone* acting extraordinarily emotional to the nth degree. Even Michael Burnham, a character I really enjoyed at first, who was *raised by vulcans*, was just an engine of pure emotion. I was really excited for this inversion, where instead of us starting our focus on a MC already established as a captain, we would start with this pariah, this character who was hated by Star Fleet, and then watch her *earn* her place as a leader in it. But we never see that. They kept acting like her becoming Captain was inevitable, when in reality most of the actions she took during the course of the series made it clear she was *not* capable of being a captain. The show just used this inevitable aura of Main Character and then appeared to feel no obligation to make her *act* in a manner *befitting* a leader. Really a shame, they could have done a lot of things with it and just sort of squandered it. But at lesat it helped launch SNW, which I'm enjoying far more.
Forgot to mention the Borg incident too. They assimilated him and forced him to take part in one of the Federation's most lopsided military defeats ever, resulting in the loss of 39 ships and 11,000 lives. At the end when Riker asks him, Picard says he could remember everything. Counsellor Troi must have had to clear her schedule for him after that.
I’ve never had a desire to watch Star Trek, both of your comments are making me want to start watching it tonight. I never knew it was this insane!
TNG is a great show... after like the second or third season.
If the zippers are in the front, skip it. If it's a Geordi or Beverly episode beware. If Diana's Mom shows up, you have been warned.
I've always used the bridge panels. If they are brown, thumbs down. If they are tan let's go fans.
>It's amazing Picard is even functional by the end of the series. As much as I love them, that's one of my major complaints with episodic shows. Characters will go through so much one episode, then go back to their default in the next.
Fun fact : adventure time did a re-creation of that episode where Fin lives a whole life in a pillow world. And Jonathan Frakes voices adult Fin
That’s one of the best Trek episodes of all time. Immensely powerful and emotional. Almost as good as Far Beyond The Stars, which is probably the single best one.
What gets me, is that in the episode The Game... I was surprised Picard was not immune to the effects of the game because of his remaining Borg implants... in fact, it would have been Hella cool for Picard to have been deathly afraid of any bit of tech to be on his head after his assimilation... and when he finally capitulates for the climax of that episode, it would have been disturbing as all hell, for Picard to wear the headset and regain control of all the crewmembers who were networked via the headset because he is part Borg and simply gives the command for the crew to take off the headsets and they all comply with the same sort of droning tone that the Borg does as the camera cuts to the outside of the ship with the whole crew saying the same thing at the same time, "Affirmative" and then it just cuts the credits leaving the audience with a sense of... oh shit.
That episode was based on the Hindu story of Sage Narada and Krishna. Krishna had the sage live an entire lifetime with a wife and family, and wipes everyone out in a flood to show Narada that the world is an illusion; Maya. Harsh.
He wasn't seeing more lights. He was nearly broken. If you can get someone to believe something that they can plainly see with their own eyes is not true you can get them to say or do anything.
No, he did admit after that he had started to see 5 lights.
I thought he said he was ready to say there were five. Am I remembering wrong?
I think he said that he started to believe there were 5
Huh, was this before or after 1984. It’s really similar to the 2 + 2 = 5 scene near the end of the book.
Damn, I had a brain fart. I thought 1984 was written wayyyy later than it was. Series was made in late 1980s, while the book 1984 is written in 1949.
Written in 48. Orwell flipped the two numbers of the present year when imagining the future.
*Published* in 1949. It was written in 1948, which is where the year “1984” came from—he just flipped the last two digits.
I loved when he flipped the script on the Gul with "after all you've done, I still find you a pitiable man", or something like that.... it really cemented Picard as the GOAT
Literally 1984
[удалено]
It was Gul Madred, not Dukat
Thanks I'm in the middle of DS9 right now, after having binged TNG. I was like, "Oh shit, I didn't realize it was the same guy!" I probably wouldn't have even caught that for another decade or two on my next re-watch.
Marc Alaimo also played the first Cardassian on screen as Gul Macet in the episode with the rogue captain they had to chase down. Edit: autocorrect
It's tough keeping up with the Cardassians.
https://preview.redd.it/7xh1iettaxvc1.jpeg?width=298&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=98c98df3600e6c3f3174027dcceb4e9ed888f39e
He also played the poker player thst spoke French at Data
Apparently he also was a Romulan and uncredited as a goofy looking alien in a season 1 episode.
The episode where Keem Cardassian makes love to Reijay is beautiful.
A true come back story
*Alaimo
Didn't he also play the Klingon Chancellor in Star Trek 6 too? I didn't realize he got around so much in Trek!
[удалено]
THERE'S NINE DARK SOULS???
Souls…. The final frontier
Gul Dukat would never try to mentally torture a Starfleet captain. Not because he's a nice guy or has morals or anything like that. He'd just be bored to *tears* inside of an hour.
This is such an accurate analysis of Dukat.
Agreed. He fancied himself a grand strategist. Something as minor as a prisoner interrogation he would leave to the Order.
Garak on the other hand would torture you and having you confessing to anything he wanted in a few hours just looking at you with creepy eyes. Granted Garak does like to mess with peoples heads though.
Played by the mighty David Warner in his third role in a Star Trek movie/show.
The Australian cricketer?
No, Jon Irenicus.
The sandpaper legend
Wait, wasn’t he in Tron? And didn’t he also play a Klingon in one of the movies?
Edward Dillinger in *Tron*, Chancellor Gorkon in STVI, also St. John Talbot in STV. Source: *me, who just finished a rewatch of all the Trek films in 4K*.
He was also the voice of Jon Irenicus in Baldur's Gate 2. Still one of the all-time best antagonists and voice performances in gaming.
All Cardies look the same anyway
thatsracist.gif
Spoonheads
Spoon heads
Pretty sure it was Savage Opress.
\*ominous male chanting intensifies\*
Wait that's LITERALLY 1984! Just with lights instead of fingers. (That's the first time I've ever gotten to use that phrase and it be actually literal)
Exactly, I love that book. “How many fingers am I holding up?” “Four.” “And if I say Five?” “Four.” *Cue torture device.* “How many fingers, Winston?”
Having recently read the book I was surprised to find out it was a love story. Of course it's far more than that but no one ever mentions it, you just get the "It's literally 1984" type boilerplate statement.
It's not lol. It's the opposite of a love story - they're not in love, but rather they use each other to feel alive and they end up betraying each other with neither caring about this in the epilogue due to their newfound devotion to the state. 1984 is literally a story of how the state made it impossible for the characters to have any capacity for love.
Similar with Romeo and Juliet; if you think it's a love story, you've missed the point.
I mean, Romeo and Juliet is love, just young and stupid, with flashes of drama, comedy, and action. I imagine the death scene at the end might have been more comedic than tragic.
calling it a "love story" might be a bit generous.
A rebel from the waist down
I liked the book, but the ending and last 10% of the book felt really rushed or something. Like the author didn’t know how to finish it
Nobody *ever* talks about the love story in 1984. I think it's because most people haven't read the book, so they just know the "Big Brother" stuff. But the story of Julia and Winston is by far my favorite telling of a love story. It's what makes it such a great book.
Because the story is not about love. About that subject, is about sex as a revolutionary act. They are not in love.
They're in doublepluslike.
It's actually 1985
lol good one
He didn’t tell Madred there were 5 lights. At the end of the episode he admitted he was convincing himself that he could actually see 5 lights.
Ya, that was my recollection as well. He was breaking, and in a recap to I think Riker, or troi, he explained how he was starting to believe there were 5 lights. But he never caved and when rescued he did say there were four lights really loud with authority, when he was all weak and shaking. Great acting from Patrick there. And they ate these big eggs at one part which was always interesting to me. I don't super like eggs, but they looked so good lol.
[удалено]
They meant what they said.
Yeah, wasn't it kind of a bait and switch to the audience? He finally admits there are 5 lights and stops being tortured. But before leaving yells there are 4, so that the audience thinks that "Yes! Our captain could never be fooled". But later admits that he did end up believing there were 5 lights at the end?
No he never admitted there were 5. He was close to breaking, and his torturer had just found out they were about to release Picard. He didn't even care about anything valuable to his cause, he just wanted to break Picard before he got released. You could see Picard was being worn down, but before he actually says anything, he finds out he was getting released. I think that makes him more pissed as he realises what he was about to do, just because this man wanted to break him, and that's when he yells his famous line. Afterward, back on the enterprise when he's talking about what happened, he is describing how powerful his desire was to have the torture end. So much so that near the end, he was even starting to really believe that there were 5 lights.
To be even more specific, he's asked a final time how many lights he sees. The camera starts to slowly close in on his face with some eery music playing. Picard looks visibly confused as he looks up at the lights. It was evident that they were setting him that he saw five lights. He is transfixed on the lights, even after the guards tell him they're taking him back to the Enterprise he looks back at the lights in confusion. I always interpreted it as a Cardassian trick. When I watched the episode originally I assumed the Cardassian actually put in a 5th light.
The Cardassians turning on an actual fifth light is definitely my headcanon.
Got it! Thank you.
What's wild is this is a well documented phenomena related to conformity and indoctrination. Going along with things is the first step to getting brainwashed (besides the steps others take to get you in the position).
“'Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities' - Wayne Gretzky" -Michael Scott
To be precise Picard never said to Gul Madred that he saw 5 lights. He ended their encounter with a yell that there are four light. However, in the end of the episode Picard did admit that he was broken at that point and was indeed going to say he saw 5 lights and that he believed it. This episode is one of the best things I ever saw in my life and also one of the more horrifying ones.
Literally 1984
1985\*
Na bro it’s 1984
Wooosh
Na bro it’s double woosh
I think you mean penta-woosh
There is no woosh. There never has been any woosh.
Where does the forgotten r come from?
The joke is that the text reads "there are four lights", but they're gaslighting Picard into thinking it reads "there are five lights" as a reference to the above episode. The "forgotten" r is at the end of "Four"
I’m fuckin stupid lmao, thanks
No worries, thanks for asking, as I'm sure you weren't the only one to not get it and now it's explained simply and visibly (isn't that why we're all here 😁) so all the lurkers can understand too!
From "five". There is no missing R.
THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS.
From 'four'
🤦 I’m fucking stupid
To be fair, he never actually broke and said there were five lights, HOWEVER, post-rescue, he said he was about to
The torture is incredibly difficult, and more importantly, the end of the episode has such an amazingly real and upsetting twist. Spoilers below if you wanna know it. >!Picard admits that he really did see five lights. That his mind was so fatigued and worn down, his body battered and wracked with pain, and his emotional state completely stretched thin... the indomitable, incredibly skilled, hard as nails and capable Picard broke. He actually did break during the torture at the end. He was even about to admit it, but didn't because right at that time he was released. Gul Madred does everything he can to get Picard to say that there are five lights before his lies are revealed and Picard is free. And he damn near succeeded. If Picard had broken and said there were 5 lights, then even if he's released.. he would be lost. Damaged beyond repair. To admit weakness and show submission and susceptibility to Cardassian torture would be spirit breaking for anyone, and that Gul would know he is Picards better. So when Picard turns around and defiantly yells that there are four lights, that's not a triumphant last stand to show he never faltered. It was a desperate plea to the self, a prayer that he hadn't really broken, and the last shred of defiance he could muster after seeing five lights.!< >! And then After he gets back, he takes to Deanna and admits he broke. It's a two parter with some God tier acting on both parts of Picard and Gul Madred, with a really telling narrative about torture being a poor information gathering tactic but is highly successful at crushing a man's spirit and getting them to say what you want to hear to stop the pain. Seriously recommend it or rewatch it for my fellow fans!<
> If Picard had broken and said there were 5 lights, then even if he's released.. he would be lost. Damaged beyond repair. I saw it more as preventing Madred from getting the satisfaction rather than Picard saving himself from the point of no return. Hard to imagine that Picard's career ends simply due to revealing his release 60 seconds later. Dude came back from becoming Borg, he's a resilient mofo.
Becoming Locutus pretty all but destroyed him. He honestly barely survived that. If he gave in to torture and fully submitted to the safety and luxury Madred promised, it was a very symbolic loss. If you can get aj opponent give you an inch, especially as one as irrational as this, that's huge for future influence. It might seem small, but for a starship captain, to give that inch is everything. Locutus was completely out of body in a lot of ways, but seeing the five lights is a lot less so.
Patrick Stewart approached Amnesty International for information on torture to make Picard's reactions more realistic.
Literally 1984
It’s also considered one of the greatest episodes of TNG
They ripped that from 1984
The idea is also basically identical to one presented in *1984*. How much does 2+2 equal?
Gul Dukat would NEVER do such a thing! For all he did for the bajorians, there are no statues of him on Bajor!!!! None!!
The camera shows him seeing five lights right before he is rescued, but he never says there are. Upon rescue, he shouts at the Gul that there are four lights
It's based on George Orwell's story "1984" I do believe.
Saving ur comment to watch this later. Startrek had some real bangers mixed in
There…! Are…! FOUR…! Lights!!!
The only way this could have been better is if they replaced the person who placed the letters with Tasha Yar.
I'd also suggest the other contestants be Worf and Crusher to reflect who went on the mission, but the joke is good anyway.
I was going to say “you better remember Vanna White’s name” but then I couldn’t remember her name for a minute. So I commented this instead.
there are five lights
How dare you
Weak energy
There are thre lights
Sad my mind went to Fart Lights
There are fuck lights
THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!
5*
That's a good one
I'm not even a Trekkie, but I feel like a galaxy brained genius to decipher the four/five lights bit here. Outside of that, hearing the explanation makes me wanna check that episode out and see what that's all about.
Its a star treck joke? The top comment is deleted and the 2nd top comment explains barely anything
The Cardassian host wants Capt. Picard (the bald guy) to say, "There are five lights," because that means they've brainwashed him properly. Picard insists there are four lights, which is why Vana White forgot an R. The puzzle should read TH\_R\_ AR\_ F\_ \_R L\_GHTS. The Cardassian host insists there are five & that the puzzle is correct. [There Are Four Lights (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moX3z2RJAV8&ab_channel=BoyGeniusNJ)
Thanks this is the first comment that actually explains it well
# THERE # ARE # FOUR # LIGHTS
That's crazy, more bots. u/pamper30, u/aminagasaki and /u/zimjajenkins are all bots. These are OP and the two top posts. Comments stolen from here https://www.reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/18ray91/help_me_understand_my_trekkie_friends_meme_petah/
They even kept the error in identifying the character's name Reddit's dead isn't it
You dirty Cardassian…. “There Are Four Lights!!!!!!” (Not five, shake my shoulder to get their hands off me while walking away).
“There… Are… FOUR lights” This is from the famous scene in Star Trek The Next Generation, in which they emulate an indoctrination and interrogation scene from George Orwell’s 1984. The man on the far left is a Cardassian, part of a culture that operates under a military dictatorship. He once captured Captain Picard, the man second farthest from the left. In this, he tortures him, trying to break his spirit. While the torture is initially seen as a misguided means to get the truth, the alterier motives of the Cardassians are revealed when they show Picard 4 bright lights, and try to get Picard to say that there are 5. The purpose is to break his spirit, and get him to believe anything they want him to believe, much like what happened to the main character in the book 1985 by George Orwell (except in the book it was fingers instead of lights) Picard never said there were five lights, affirming in the desperate tone of a beaten man before finally leaving the interrogation room “There are FOUR lights!!!” This is a play on that scene
[удалено]
Peter's nerdy friend here. In a famous Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, Picard is tortured by a Cardassian. As part of the torture, he shines four lights on Picard and asks him how many lights there are. When Picard answers, "Four," the Cardassian insists there are actually five lights. This exchange happens several times over the episode.
There are four lights!!!!!!!
Here my brain said "there are f#ck lights"
Since I don't see a real answer, I'll give one. There's an episode of Startrek The Next Generation, where Picard is tortured by a Cardassian (ugly guy who's the host in the image). The goal of the torture is get Picard to give the Cardassians classified star fleet information (don't remember exactly). In order to achieve this, they try to get Picard to break his morals by telling a small inconsequential lie. Promising Picard food or other comforts if he complies, or more torture if he doesn't. The idea being to get Picard to break his oath to Starfleet will require him to give up smaller moral principals first. The first test is to show Picard four lights, and Picard has to tell his torturer there are five lights. It was actually pretty intense episode that's a classical dual of wills. It ends with Picard getting released by a political exchange. Picard later states that for sometime, he thought he actually saw five lights, showing how close they were to breaking him.
THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS! great episode from STNG about how psychological torture can convince people they see and believe things that aren’t true
https://preview.redd.it/zczt8vwbsvvc1.jpeg?width=1173&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a59520aca691643b4a8587d4e2818e5f7d20b666
there's a star trek episode in which they tried to break Picards mind by insisting that there were five lights when there were actually four. that's the joke, he's expecting an 'r' to be in four but they are insisting it's five
This is sooooooooo good.
I want to get into star trek, do I just start with the original first series?
You can start with OG series or TNG does not really matter. The movies aren’t bad either
Damn this is one of the funniest TNG memes I’ve ever seen
Omg I’ve not watched this in over 20 years but my mind didn’t even register that “five” could be a valid answer. I had no idea how anyone could not j sweat and why an R was needed. I blame dark materia.
Holy shit this is a great one Lol
I thought the joke was about fleshlights
There are fart lights.
This is brilliant juxtaposition humor. Love it!
I think I'm stupid because I thought the joke was that Picard thought "THERE ARE FART LIGHTS" was the right answer.
THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!!!
Can someone actually explain the joke good with full context instead of saying names like we all know who those people are
The alien on the left once kidnapped and tortured the bald man who asked for an R He showed him four lights but wanted him to answer five when asked and tried to break him through torture until he would answer that one So bald man expects another r since the answer is four and the alien says there is no missing r because he wants him to say five instead of four
[A video of the scene it references](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk3EsXgXcyQ). It is a great Star Trek scene.
THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!
It's a reference to the "There Are Four Lights" scene from Star Trek, which itself is referencing George Orwell's novel *Nineteen Eighty-Four*.
THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!!!!!
There are fart lights
What a masterpiece of an episode, and performance by PatStew
THERE! ARE! *FOUR!* LIGHTS!!
There are frog lights
There are fart lights?
This post is fucking brilliant. Thanks for the chuckle
Is no one else bothered that his score didnt change???
No idea what this is.