TOS: A Taste of Armageddon

[TGLS]

And of course, Duchess would have insisted on going to the planet over the objections of the diplomat, gotten his dumb ass kicked while being captured, blundered his way to an escape, then bombarded the planet to ash to show them real war.

[Formless One]

Actually, I think its probably best not to consider Archer's Enterprise for this question, because a) there was no Federation in his time, so the mission is implausible for him to be undertaking and b) the NX-01 does not present a credible threat to the Eminarians the way the Enterprise C, Enterprise D, Defiant, and Voyager do. It doesn't even have shields! I bet a ship like his is exactly the kind that the Eminarians blew out of the sky the first time Starfleet sent one in.

[Crowley]

My biggest question is why the hell the Computer decided that one side would open fire on a neutral third party ship of a nation that could easily glass both planets if they felt like it. I can understand why the people follow it, they've been doing it for hundreds of years after all.

It'd be like if India and Pakistan went to war again, and one of the decided to start firing missiles at US or Russian, or Chinese ships sent to help mediate the situation.


Seems like those computers need a firmware update.

Well, they were told to stay the hell away and they ignored the warning. I would say that's more like an aircraft from a third party ignoring warnings of a no-fly zone and then getting shot down.

[Revolverman]

My biggest question is why the hell the Computer decided that one side would open fire on a neutral third party ship of a nation that could easily glass both planets if they felt like it. I can understand why the people follow it, they've been doing it for hundreds of years after all.

It'd be like if India and Pakistan went to war again, and one of the decided to start firing missiles at US or Russian, or Chinese ships sent to help mediate the situation.


Seems like those computers need a firmware update.

Well, they were told to stay the hell away and they ignored the warning. I would say that's more like an aircraft from a third party ignoring warnings of a no-fly zone and then getting shot down.

Of a nation that could reduce them to char husks with little effort. Not logical.

[CharlesPhipps]

The computers of TOS Star Trek aren't terribly smart and neither are these computers. The computer isn't sentient and seems about as sophisticated as a really advanced version of the one from WARGAMES.

Why did it shoot the Enterprise?

Because it was an unidentified ship in its field of fire.

As for WHY shooting it? The people of this world are deeply devoted to their war game because it's killed millions and they don't want to acknowledge it's pointless.

[MaxWylde]

This is one of those TOS episodes I wish TNG sort of revisited, just to see the results of what Kirk did, along with Patterns of Force, The Apple, and A Piece of the Action. I realize that TNG didn't want to link too much to TOS, to be its own thing (but they linked The Naked Now with The Naked Time, and that was their very second episode), but it would've been rather interesting to see what becomes of Eminiar and Vendikar. I have read from one account that they both end up joining the Federation, which seems a bit pat to me, rather unimaginative. Because I'm always reminded of something G.K. Chesterton wrote, that you never take down a fence until you know the reason it was put up. Not that Kirk shouldn't have ended the war, don't get me wrong, but sometimes doing something like that would end up with problems for yourself that you do not foresee.

Take Patterns of Force, for example: In that episode, Kirk does not really end the Nazi regime; he just ends up removing Malakon's plans for an invasion of Zeon, their nearby neighbor. How interesting would it have been for Picard and the Enterprise-D to encounter a primitive but warp-driven starship 80 years later with a Nazi Swastika on it, asking for diplomatic contact to potentially join the Federation? What a great opening for an episode that would've made.

With this episode, I might've posed a new problem for the Federation; Eminiar and Vendikar are now one nation, and they're very expansionistic. They've fully embraced the notion that they're a "killer species," as Anon 7 said, with Anon 10 as their ruler, they decide they're going to wage war not because they have to, but because they think they must. How does Picard handle this one? Their ships are as advanced as the Federations', if not as many, but the problem is not that they're numerically inferior, but that they're about to annex, through conquest, a non-Federation world, primitive (Prime Directive problem), and they are willing to go to war with anyone because it is inevitable, and they'd rather die with the honesty (so-called) of war than the dishonesty of political squabbling (a side effect of not having waged a real war for 500 years). This has been an issue before, in human history, many times. It might be too complex an issue for television, but it would be interesting.

[Durandal_1707]

Take Patterns of Force, for example: In that episode, Kirk does not really end the Nazi regime; he just ends up removing Malakon's plans for an invasion of Zeon, their nearby neighbor. How interesting would it have been for Picard and the Enterprise-D to encounter a primitive but warp-driven starship 80 years later with a Nazi Swastika on it, asking for diplomatic contact to potentially join the Federation? What a great opening for an episode that would've made.

Ugh, just no.

[Wolf359]

I agree with Chuck that the ambassador is terrifying to look at. Even scarier is that that's pretty much his actual real face! His aide bothered me though. He appears with the ambassador on the planet, never says anything, then at point goes and sits in a corner and everyone just leaves him there and never mentions him again. Was kinda like he remembered he needed to be somewhere else that day so they just did that quickly so he could go!

Nice that they gave Tamura a bit more to do that the usual female crew member parts, plus her being a red skirt didn't get her killed. In fact, red shirts normally die at the drop of a hat, but beam three into an actual warzone, and they all make it home! What show is this!!?

[MadAmosMalone]

...His aide bothered me though. He appears with the ambassador on the planet, never says anything, then at point goes and sits in a corner and everyone just leaves him there and never mentions him again.

IIRC that guy got shot in the hallway ray-gun fight after Spock rescued him and his boss.

Nice that they gave Tamura a bit more to do that the usual female crew member parts, plus her being a red skirt didn't get her killed. In fact, red shirts normally die at the drop of a hat, but beam three into an actual warzone, and they all make it home! What show is this!!?

Yeoman Rand stand-in I think. Kirk had a slew of these: Yeoman Mears, Barrows et cetera. He stopped bringing them down with him when one of them got turned into a cube and crushed, becoming the first red-skirt death of the series.

[MaxWylde]

Take Patterns of Force, for example: In that episode, Kirk does not really end the Nazi regime; he just ends up removing Malakon's plans for an invasion of Zeon, their nearby neighbor. How interesting would it have been for Picard and the Enterprise-D to encounter a primitive but warp-driven starship 80 years later with a Nazi Swastika on it, asking for diplomatic contact to potentially join the Federation? What a great opening for an episode that would've made.

Ugh, just no.

Why? See, I was always curious why Kirk just left the Nazi regime in power. And what would Picard think about this? If the Ekosians effectively qualify to be members of the Federation on paper, but remain fascists, does Picard refuse to even entertain the notion of their admittance? That would be an interesting episode.