TOS: Patterns of Force

[clearspira]

I might derail this WW2 thread with a WW1 rant, because I don't believe that war was inevitable, and I definitely don't believe it was just a case of winners writing the history books- the belief that this was a case in fact contributed to the ride of the Nazi's and even afterwards, became a sort spot amongst German historians when they got a hold of WW1 primary sources and concluded that yes, Germany and the Triple Alliance started the war.

There also seems to be some misunderstanding about German war crimes during WW1; lots of people, maybe most people, believe it was all British or Western propaganda, when in reality- although certainly propaganda exaggerated stuff- the initial German push into Belgium involved a range of atrocities against the Belgian people in accordance with the policies of the German High Command of the time: massacre civilians to quickly and ruthlessly crush all resistance.

So even allowing for lurid exaggerations by the British and others, the Germans still murdered thousands and thousands of Belgian civilians, often ordering men and boys in towns they occupied to march out just to be shot, homes were set on fire etc.

And it must be remembered that many of the German soldiers and officers who joined the Nazi party or rose through the ranks of the Wehrmacht by the time WW2 broke out either took part in these atrocities themselves, or (like Hitler) came to Belgium after the fact and didn't care. There was a culture of brutality even in then German army of the First World War that was inherited and exaggerated by the perpetrators of the Second.

Not saying the Western Powers or Russia were all fluffy and innocent, but make no mistake- Germany was still the bad guy of WW1 almost as much as they would be in WW2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Belgium

As I say, I think a proper discussion of John Gill must also include WW1 as well, so imo you cannot derail this thread with it

I'm not saying you are wrong, but my understanding was that the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was an excuse for war rather than the cause which seems to imply that it was inevitable. No one was particularly eager to negotiate away from war.
I have to say as a Brit, the thing that stings for me the most is the Battle of the Somme, where our men were ordered to WALK into machine gun fire. Its not an official atrocity but should have been. Its called the lost generation for a reason.

[Mabus]

So we have our heroes wear civilian clothes, then switch to Nazi uniforms to go undercover, one accidentally reveals himself to the Nazis due to a wrong hand gesture, someone gets whipped in jail, our heroes infiltrate a Nazi place by disguising themselves as filmmakers and are accompanying a blonde woman who's a double agent, then one of Führer's man betrays him, and at the end the Führer gets mowed down by an MP40.
And no Inglourious Basterds jokes? I'm disappointed.

[CharlesPhipps]

Mind you, there's no end of apologists for the Mayans and Romans. I have no doubt that plenty of future Federation historians can fall in love with brutal authoritarian regimes while papering over their faults. That element of the show has held up because historians do this all the time (I work in academia).

[Jonathan101]

As I say, I think a proper discussion of John Gill must also include WW1 as well, so imo you cannot derail this thread with it

I'm not saying you are wrong, but my understanding was that the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand was an excuse for war rather than the cause which seems to imply that it was inevitable. No one was particularly eager to negotiate away from war.
I have to say as a Brit, the thing that stings for me the most is the Battle of the Somme, where our men were ordered to WALK into machine gun fire. Its not an official atrocity but should have been. Its called the lost generation for a reason.

We're veering into historiography here- the stuff you're bringing up are issues of debate within academic circles.

In general, it seems more like some Austrians and Germans (and others) saw the assassination as an excuse for war, while others saw it more as an excuse to impose their will on the Serbs (and reduce Russian influence in the region), others still honestly wanted vengeance for the killing of the Archduke and his wife, and yet others tried to stop the war entirely- in fact, the Kaiser, the Tsar and King George all sent letters to each other in the following weeks agreeing that war between their nations was not desirable, but monarchs didn't always control events.

In the event, all three had pacifists in their circles as well as warmongers as well as pragmatists and realists, and the reality was that deployment of armies at that time depending a great deal on who mobilised first and who controlled the roads and railways- if you decided not to go to war but your enemy did it anyway, then you were at a distinct disadvantage since they had no doubt gotten hours or even days head start on sending their forces against you; ergo, the Russians for instance (who had the poorest roads and railways of all the major powers involved) declared war as much out of fear of being too late as anything else, with the Tsar caving in to pressure from his ministers and generals rather than wanting to start a war himself.

So..it was complicated, but German pressure on the Austrians (not entirely with the blessing of Kaiser Wilhelm, who was on holiday at the time and actually hoped to avoid war, despite his usual militancy) along with Austrian pressure on their own Emperor led to the intervention of Russia against Austria and, convincing Wilhelm that Russia, France and England just wanted an excuse to destroy Germany as they knew they were bound by treaty to defend Austria, leading to France to declare war on Germany because Germany declared war on their ally Russia.

And in that mindset, they invaded Belgium and committed massacres against the Belgian population on the trumped-up pretext of reprisals against (non-existent) Belgian partisan attacks, in reality hoping to decimate as much of Belgium as necessary to make it to France in six weeks and knock them out before Russia stepped in, but in doing so prompting the British to declare war in defence of Belgium (also protected by treaty, but the British might not have intervened if the Germans hadn't been carrying out those atrocities as the British government weren't too keen in getting involved in a European conflict).

So, not quite as black-and-white as WW2 was perhaps, but still mostly caused by Austro-German paranoia and vengeance. At the same time, not entirely accurate to say that it was just an excuse for war either- that was an individual matter rather than a national one.

As for the Somme, that's also a matter of historiographical debate, as while it's usually seen as an example of either the incompetence or callousness of the British generals, there is a school of thought that they were really just making the best of a bad situation and honestly either misread the situation due to bad intel, or just had their hands tied, or at the very least that things were a bit more complex than first appeared (should further be noted of course that how critical one was of British conduct during the war often depended on what side of the political spectrum they fell on). Also interesting that it's taught in school in the UK but most Germans are probably completely unaware of it.

[Steve]

There also seems to be some misunderstanding about German war crimes during WW1; lots of people, maybe most people, believe it was all British or Western propaganda, when in reality- although certainly propaganda exaggerated stuff- the initial German push into Belgium involved a range of atrocities against the Belgian people in accordance with the policies of the German High Command of the time: massacre civilians to quickly and ruthlessly crush all resistance.

I think it's because of two things. For one thing, some of the British propaganda was just lurid or villifying nonsense (the poster depicting German nurses pouring out water on the ground before wounded, thirsty British prisoners, for instance, or the claims the Germans melted down the bodies of enemies to use the fat in soap and such), so people tended to associate claims of German war crimes with that propaganda. For the other, by the end of the 20s Germany's former foes had basically turned entirely against the war having been fought at all, holding the leadership of their own countries as equally culpable in a needless war. The Germans actually doing bad things against innocent countries thus becomes an undesired fact.

IIRC a lot of German misbehavior in occupied territory back in WWI was from their obsession with francs-tireurs, the "free shooter" fighters that France employed in the Franco-Prussian War. Because they didn't wear identifying military uniforms the Germans saw them as brigands and highwaymen, and in the war they often launched effective attacks on German targets. When they went into WWI the Germans were ready to attribute even the activities of fully uniformed Army snipers to the francs-tireurs, and their preferred method for dealing with them included reprisals against civilian populations for presumably sheltering them.

[Mabus]

While the reason why Gill chose Nazi Germany as template for rebuilding the Ekosian civilization, that they were able to rebuild Germany after a disastrous war and collapsed economy, was outdated even at the time, now it's even more outdated (and problematic), as there was already a better model of a society that managed to rebuild itself after a massive war and no doubt collapsed economy: the Federation itself.
Now obviously, Star Trek First Contact and Enterprise weren't written and thought by Roddenberry or other writers back in the 60s, but still, this little detail makes the episode even more silly. I mean why would you try to fix a broken society using an ideology from what is essentially the 18th century to Gill, that lasted little over a decade, as opposed to your own society that is still going strong even after a century.

[Jonathan101]

I think it's because of two things. For one thing, some of the British propaganda was just lurid or villifying nonsense (the poster depicting German nurses pouring out water on the ground before wounded, thirsty British prisoners, for instance, or the claims the Germans melted down the bodies of enemies to use the fat in soap and such), so people tended to associate claims of German war crimes with that propaganda. For the other, by the end of the 20s Germany's former foes had basically turned entirely against the war having been fought at all, holding the leadership of their own countries as equally culpable in a needless war. The Germans actually doing bad things against innocent countries thus becomes an undesired fact.

Yup. That, and of course the Germans themselves were either not present for the atrocities in question (because they were civilians, or signed up much later, or were fighting elsewhere etc) or joined the Nazi's in denying it in public and approving of it in private, so neither the British or the Germans really wanted to think of what the Germans did to Francs and Belgians.

The French and Belgians were more complicated since the Belgians were too small a power for anyone to listen to them, while the French seemed to be more divided between those who absolutely loathed the Germans and those who feared yet more aggression from them (in fact, when the Germans invaded again in WW2, there were lots of acts of sabotage and desertion within the French army inspired by Communists- acting on orders from Germanys' then-ally Moscow- whose line was generally "hey, remember how bad it was the LAST time this happened?")

IIRC a lot of German misbehavior in occupied territory back in WWI was from their obsession with francs-tireurs, the "free shooter" fighters that France employed in the Franco-Prussian War. Because they didn't wear identifying military uniforms the Germans saw them as brigands and highwaymen, and in the war they often launched effective attacks on German targets. When they went into WWI the Germans were ready to attribute even the activities of fully uniformed Army snipers to the francs-tireurs, and their preferred method for dealing with them included reprisals against civilian populations for presumably sheltering them.

Yes, but the German High Command was also operating on a time-table, so they often ordered the massacre of, say, every man in a particular town or village, just so they wouldn't have to worry about Belgian resistance and could speed up the invasion of France and get it over with as quickly as possible so they could turn their attention to the Russians. It was official German policy from the very beginning to kill so many Belgian civilians in order to pre-empt any potential uprising, which was just a toned-down version of what the Nazi's ended up doing when they invaded Poland and elsewhere.

[FaxModem1]

While the reason why Gill chose Nazi Germany as template for rebuilding the Ekosian civilization, that they were able to rebuild Germany after a disastrous war and collapsed economy, was outdated even at the time, now it's even more outdated (and problematic), as there was already a better model of a society that managed to rebuild itself after a massive war and no doubt collapsed economy: the Federation itself.
Now obviously, Star Trek First Contact and Enterprise weren't written and thought by Roddenberry or other writers back in the 60s, but still, this little detail makes the episode even more silly. I mean why would you try to fix a broken society using an ideology from what is essentially the 18th century to Gill, that lasted little over a decade, as opposed to your own society that is still going strong even after a century.

I think it's due to the conditions the Federation were founded on. Even in TOS, the UFP seemed to be an outgrowth of 20th progress and international cooperation. That's not a good model for a utterly chaotic planet scrounging for resource and order.

With First Contact and Enterprise, Earth had tons of Vulcan guidance and help in uniting and building up the world from Fallout to world Peace. Gil didn't have that kind of resources or time.

Still, a model more off of a contemporary, such as FDR and his New Deal, would have been a much saner and more practical choice.

[Linkara]

Really the biggest flaw of this episode, IMHO, is the fact that it wraps up a little too cleanly. Deconstructing a hateful society is not something that can happen with the death of one bad leader - it takes time, self-analysis, pushing progressive laws and attitudes and culture... there's no reason to suspect that their desire to stop being Nazis would be so clean-cut as "Melakon is dead, these two high-ranking party members will fix it all. DUH END!"

[CharlesPhipps]

While the reason why Gill chose Nazi Germany as template for rebuilding the Ekosian civilization, that they were able to rebuild Germany after a disastrous war and collapsed economy, was outdated even at the time, now it's even more outdated (and problematic), as there was already a better model of a society that managed to rebuild itself after a massive war and no doubt collapsed economy: the Federation itself.
Now obviously, Star Trek First Contact and Enterprise weren't written and thought by Roddenberry or other writers back in the 60s, but still, this little detail makes the episode even more silly. I mean why would you try to fix a broken society using an ideology from what is essentially the 18th century to Gill, that lasted little over a decade, as opposed to your own society that is still going strong even after a century.

Well, there's multiple reasons.

1. Because John Gill made himself the Furher. I think the episode is very clear this is a power fantasy for John as well as something he intended to do "right." It made him dictator of the planet and absolute ruler.

2. It would require aliens visiting them as the Earth rebuilt itself via First Contact with the Vulcans who supplied vast amounts of information, technology, and help to them. This would be something that he couldn't provide without tipping off the Federation.

I think people assume the episode expects us to believe John's plan is working when it's absolutely clear that Nazism was in-universe a stupid idea by John and one that naturally reverted to its original racist genocidal form.

It was a stupid idea in-universe and we saw the results of a stupid idea.

Really the biggest flaw of this episode, IMHO, is the fact that it wraps up a little too cleanly. Deconstructing a hateful society is not something that can happen with the death of one bad leader - it takes time, self-analysis, pushing progressive laws and attitudes and culture... there's no reason to suspect that their desire to stop being Nazis would be so clean-cut as "Melakon is dead, these two high-ranking party members will fix it all. DUH END!"

Yeah, but it's not like the Enterprise can stay for the next twenty years as they De-Nazify the planet either.

Mind you, in a modern Star Trek series, I'd love to see them revisit it and have the people suing the Federation for negligence.