Talk:The First Duty (episode)

From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference

Contents 1 Episode talk page 1.1 Maintenance links 2 First Duty reference on Voyager? 3 The Locarno/Paris Connection

[edit] First Duty reference on Voyager?

This line from the background section of this page:

"The First Duty" is again referenced in VOY: "Fair Trade" when Captain Janeway is forced to discipline Neelix over some unauthorized, illegal transactions.

Is that accurate? Seems like a very odd thing for Janeway to reference. I'm not insisting it be deleted, but I am bringing it up as a talking point, because it seems... strange. Hossrex 22:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Ummm... bump? Hossrex 09:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I removed the note pending some clarification and justification. Is the note saying Janeway mentioned the events of this episode or the first duty to the truth? I haven't seen "Fair Trade" so I'm equally in the dark.– Cleanse 11:56, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

She says "The first duty of any Starfleet officer is the truth." which would seem to indicate that this is more of a policy that is taught at the academy than a reference to the TNG episode.

[edit] The Locarno/Paris Connection

In Background information, it states;

"Robert Duncan McNeill (Cadet Nicholas Locarno) later played Tom Paris on Star Trek: Voyager, a character partly based on Locarno. It was hoped that Locarno himself would be a character on Voyager, but when it was realized that such a decision would mean that the writers of this episode would receive royalties for each Voyager episode, it was deemed cost-prohibitive and the character was adjusted to become Tom Paris."

There are actually two versions of this story. One was what was said above, and the other was that the producers felt the charcter was too far gone, and could never have evolved into the settled, kind-hearted character Paris turned into. The reason I bring this up is because this argument is far more plausible, since there's no reason why royalties would have to be paid to Moore for the use of Locarno.

Remember that Intelectual property laws are not designed to protect the writer, they're designed to encourage creativity. By taking the character to new places and giving him a complete re-design, the staff of Voyager were being creative, and Moore would not have been able to prove otherwise, and thus he would not be allowed to demand royalties. For this reason, I ask this line be removed, or amended to include what I have stated. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.222.189.94 (talk).

I seem to recall that the Voyager companion book actually stated that the character was changed due specifically to the royalities issue. Thus... the background note. -- Sulfur 19:03, 16 October 2008 (UTC)