Prime Factors Behind the Scenes

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 Jeri Taylor: "The problem we had was Tim Russ had a lot of trouble with it," referring to Tuvok's betrayal of Janeway. "Tim has a very protective streak about Tuvok. I suspect Tim is actually a Vulcan. He thinks like Tuvok and he knows TOS very well. He knows Vulcans. He knows Spock, he knows his Star Trek role and he knows every tiny facet of anything Vulcan. He was very afraid that this was something a Vulcan would never do. I disagreed; Michael disagreed. We saw it as a noble, heroic act that he would do to spare his captain her personal ethical dilemma and that he would find the logical way to rationalize that. I told Tim that if he is never going to have flaws or make a mistake or take a step that's beyond the Vulcan limit, what are we going to do with him? It's a death-signature to a character that he cannot push the envelope and that his reach does not exceed his grasp at some time. We made some minor modifications that made it possible for Tim to integrate that action into his conception of his character and we shot the film. To my mind, it's one of the best that we did first season."
   
Michael Piller agrees, likening the debate to that about the TNG episode "The Enemy", another episode in which an actor vehemently opposed an unpleasant choice made by his character (in that case Michael Dorn was opposed to his character, the Klingon called Worf, allowing an ailing Romulan to die when Worf withholds a critical blood transfusion). "Tim was adamant that he would never, as a Vulcan, violate the trust of his captain. We felt very strongly the opposite way. Someone who thinks logic is the answer to all questions should think again. Logic can lead you the wrong way too."
   
Tim Russ: "We had a good deal of debate about how far we were going to take that particular move from this character. I think that the only thing we didn't have enough time for was to get more clarification on the reasons for his motivation. I think there was a basic difference between what I thought and the producers thought in terms of why he did what he did. We could have clarified those reasons more than we did, but there just wasn't enough time to go back and forth on it since we were shooting in a few days. We changed about thirty percent of the script just from my input alone. I would have liked to have changed about another twenty-five percent. The main thing that they wanted was for Tuvok to use logic as to why he did it. Now, that's not a reason why you do anything. That is just a method by which you do things. It's a method of execution. It's a way of thinking and a way of doing things, not a reason for action. There are Vulcans who are capable of choosing whatever road they wish to choose."
   
Tim Russ: "Look at the feature Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. There's a Vulcan character who's a saboteur. Now why has she chosen this particular path? She believes in whatever philosophical doctrine it is that she believes in and she chooses a methodical, logical way of executing it. She does her part. They never explored those reasons, but she was Vulcan. She wasn't another race, and so you know you could question from now till doomsday why she, as a Vulcan, joined in a conspiracy, and Tuvok also sacrificed his commission and risked court-martial in order to help the captain achieve her goal. He did this because he had a special relationship with her and he knew he was going to be court-marshalled. It's a sacrifice. It's kind of a choice. There's nothing logical or illogical about it, it's just his choice. The second thing about it that I wanted to point out was the fact that Janeway says, 'How can I tell the crew I can't get involved because of my principles,' and, in my position as tactical security officer, I also wanted to make a point that if she did not do that she might be risking mutiny."
   
Tim Russ: "Lieutenant Carey, who was a regular Starfleet officer, was involved in the conspiracy. He was not a Maquis. He was involved in getting that thing (the Sikarian spatial trajector) to work as well. He wanted to get home. How many others wanted to do that, and how many others in a situation like that would be willing to take over the ship? You're walking a very precarious balance when you're that far away from home. The base of authority is nowhere near you. It's almost the same as a pirate ship. If you don't give the pirates enough gold, you as captain aren't going to be captain anymore. If you are in a situation in a society where everything breaks down, it's every man for himself when there's no authority to back up the law."
   
Tim Russ: "Take away the police - you saw what happened in L.A. - and you have riots. OK, so without the authority, people are going to do what they want to do, and I think that Janeway is walking a very fine line in making a decision based on her standards and principles when all they're talking about is a trade, not a direct violation of the Prime Directive by taking the technology. They offered to trade it with someone who was on the planet for something that they had as a commodity. It was a very technical reason why she did not want to do it. And that I don't think would've been seen the same way by a lot of crew. I think there would've been a lot more tension and a lot more trouble."
   
For Michael Piller, Janeway's dilemma had great resonance, although the hedonistic alien culture was less effective. "I just felt nothing seemed to work with the aliens. They looked like they should be on that commercial with the director for HBO where they go to a party and everybody mistakes this guy for an HBO movie director. What was tricky about it was to flesh out those pleasure-seekers so that they were something other than people walking around always talking about pleasure. I don't think people act like that, so I looked for other things, including the idea that stories were very important to them.

We felt really good about the script when it was done. I think it was one that everybody thought was working. We got a little concerned with the dailies because the stuff that was happening on the planet, in spite of all our efforts, was tending to look a little too much like that hedonistic Roddenberry-esque society.

I was worried that it was going to be sort of off-putting and that people would not get involved with what the real story was, which had to do with our people and the moral dilemma that was happening around the ship. But when it was done, I thought it was marvellously produced and that part of the story you kind of moved through really quickly. When you got onto the ship with the dilemmas and decisions, that's when the story grabbed hold."