4 thoughts on “TNG S01 E23 – Skin of Evil

  1. Hilarious! But sorry, I gotta do a serious comment:

    I always wanted a sequel where they found a whole planet of Armuses (Armussi? Armuu? Whatever the plural is) and it turns out that the one who killed Yar was actually a psycho killer who was exiled to that barren world, because the rest of his species are the gentlest, most peaceful beings in the galaxy, with violence of any kind amongst themselves being almost unheard of.

    And despite initial mistrust on the part of the humanoids, the Armani people actually turn out to be great friends and allies who are willing to join the Federation. And later we could even see an Armin hammer his way onto the Enterprise crew.

    So the Armushole who killed Tasha Yar wasn’t really a “Skin of Evil” shed by a race on their way to ascension to a higher plane of existence, he was just the sole evil member of a generally angelic species of friendly beings. So what he told Picard was true… from a certain point of view.

    Except that’s too similar to the Founders arc from DS9 combined with Yaphit from The Orville, so it’ll never happen.

    1. Interesting. Why did you want a follow up so badly? Is it because you didn’t like the idea of a race putting all their “evil” into one being?

      1. I thought the basic concept was too fairy-taleish for hard SF. I also tend toward cynicism when it comes to the nature of good and evil – everybody has some of each in them, and there’s no magic spell or magical tech that can remove the evil from someone and turn them into an angel.

        On the other hand, there are societies with less tendency toward the kind of selfish attitudes and low self-control that lead to crime and violence. It’s never entirely absent, but it varies wildly, and societies with very little tend to have gentler ways to handle their criminals. It’s not inconceivable that an alien society could have very low levels of violence and handle their few murderers by solitary exile rather than prison or execution.

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