JPH>> My particular personality sometimes requires seperation from the
JPH>> things I talk about...
JPH>BK>ROFLMAO! Well I could have fun with this considering all
JPH>BK>the things that went through my mind.. but.. well.. ;)
JPH>        Oh, go for it.  I like the BBS/Fidonet world because in person,
JPH> I often wind up pegging the a**hole meter.  In the world of glowing
JPH> phosphor dots, I can sound *much* more reasonable.
       To a lesser or greater degree, I find that to be true of ALL of
     those I have met at the phosphor interface and again in the "real"
     world (et culpa mea).
   ( Snipping down to my impulse)
JPH>        No.  I am very clear.  I get the feeling that we are having a
JPH> minor interpretation problem.  The reliance on Treknobable is a symptom
JPH> of the problem.  But in "The World of Star Trek" David Gerrold
JPH> described a very similar incident concerning the episode that became
JPH> "The Cloud Minders".  The original thrust of the story was that the
JPH> rich and powerful lived in castles in the sky while the poor toiled in
JPH> the mines.  The problem was not zenon gas but a basic inequity in the
JPH> society.
JPH>        The story was rewritten so that the problem was zenon gas and
JPH> the Enterpise solved it with filter masks.  Every bit as satisfactory
JPH> as recent Voyager Episodes  (Evil Grin).
JPH>        A decision was made to take out a social problem that wasn't
JPH> easy in favor of a treknobable problem that was easy to solve.  While
JPH> this wasn't always the case in TOS it is much more prevalent in VOY.
     I retain the impression that at the beginning of the colonization
   of the mine/planet everyone lived in the cloud city. Then the miners
   began to change (due to the effect of the zenon gas) so management
   began to limit cloud dwelling to those not effected (management),
   reenforcing the attitude management generally have toward the
   workers: low intelligence, emotionally imbalanced, less deserving of
   the finer things of life.
     Thus, the problem was an inequity enhaced by the effect of the gas.
   That's why Capt Kirk had to expose the leader of the cloud city to
   the gas, so the effect could be shown on him: a member of the elite.
 * SLMR 2.1a * In my next life I plan to kick back and HAVE common sense
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