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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   4822 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 18, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Is there a name for the genre of "man wakes up heavily medicated in hospital and is told he had an accident/breakdown, but clues he sees in the mirror and his alphabet soup tell him he's being held prisoner and needs to stop taking his meds and escape"? (And is it totally overused?)

Obviously there were like 20+ star trek episodes with that concept, but have there been any stories that leave the protagonist's sanity ambiguous because the audience doesn't know who he really is?

Seems like it would make a great point and click adventure game/walking simulator; let the scenery change subtly as you go off your meds, revealing further clues. Your doctors' and family's skinsuits start looking more and more frayed and insectoid as you get closer to the truth...

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I'm not good at remembering titles, but there was a TNG one where it happens to Riker, he was practicing for some play (it might be actually existing one, but it's title also escapes me) set in some dystopia, where he's a prisoner, who is having his sanity ground down. Then the "wake up in the hospital" thing happens to him, and he has trouble telling which part is real and which is a dream.

Then there were a few DS9 ones, which may have been a sign of things to come for us. Sisko wakes up in Racist America. But it was all just a dream... or was it? Maybe DS9 is the dream? At least two episodes like that, I think one of them was in a hospital.

Frame of Mind is the TNG episode, and Far Beyond The Stars is the DS9 episode you recall. In that one, Sisko is getting a vision from the Prophets, though to what end I can't recall.

Nah, arjin_ferman's right; there are two DS9 ones. FBTS is the first; the second is Shadows and Symbols and indeed is a followup to FBTS in a mental hospital.

Far Beyond The Stars is a message from the Prophets amounting to "cheer up". Shadows and Symbols is the Pah-Wraiths attempting to mind-control Sisko and stop him opening the Orb that's got the Rapist Prophet* in it.

*By which I mean "the Prophet that possessed Sarah and forced her to seduce Joseph Sisko in order to conceive Benjamin Sisko". DS9 seemingly doesn't notice that she's a rapist, since she's pretty much portrayed as a pure good character, but, well, DS9 glosses over a lot of horrifying things the Prophets do.

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