The 14 Dumbest Things In Star Trek: Insurrection

PICARD: You go to sleep one night in the village. Wake up the next morning on this flying holodeck transported en masse. In a few days, you're relocated on a similar planet without ever realizing it.

The notion that the bad guys can move the Ba’ku without their knowing simply doesn’t work. Sure, maybe they can create a convincing illusion inside the holoship for the short term, but what about on the destination planet?

Think about it. For them to never realize they've been moved is impossible. To fool them even for a while this new world must be indistinguishable in countless ways, both subtle and gross. Does it have exactly the same gravity? Atmospheric composition and air pressure? Are the plants and mineral concentrations the same? What about the biome? The flora and fauna and fish? Does it smell the same? Did they terraform the target landscape so it matches every minute aspect of the region the Ba’ku have seen or explored in the past six centuries? Is the local water table at the same level? Does the planet rotate at the exact same speed so day and night are precisely the same? What about the sky? Is the sun the exact same apparent size and color as on Ba’ku? Does the night sky look identical, right down to the rings?

Or is the plan, “They won’t know we moved ‘em til it’s done, and then who cares?” If that’s the case, why bother hiding the move at all? The Ba’ku are conceptually dumb, but not dumb enough to fail to notice any of this. It’s an oversight as big as in 1968's Planet of the Apes, where the Moon and constellations almost immediately ought to have spoiled the twist that it was Earth all along.