TOS: Patterns of Force

[Fianna]

Their fascist society was apparently created by one guy, so saying one or two more can deconstruct it seems reasonable. This is a Star Trek planet, after all; there's little indication that any civilization exists outside whatever town the heroes initially beam down to.

[Aotrs Commander]

Maybe Gill was just a big fan of historical wargames, and chose Germany based on them being his favourite nation to play in Hearts of Iron XCIV or something...?

...

Ye gods, imagine how much worse things would have been like if he played Crusader Kings XXII instead...?

[FaxModem1]

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!"

Makes you wonder if every planet they visited in the series has someone like Khan, plotting revenge against Kirk for visiting their planet and waiting for the opportunity to strike back against him when the opportunity arrives.

[PerrySimm]

Here ya go Melakon, you earned it.

[CmdrKing]

This is an amazing thread and i’m Loving the history lessons, gotta say.

Dammit, and now I want to see a Stargate/Star Trek crossover where you put Kirk, Spock, MaCoy and Scotty on an SG team alongside O'Neill, Teal'c, Danial and Sam... The character interaction would be *awesome*.

Considering that TNG has x-men and Doctor Who crossovers, and TOS has one with the Green Lanterns, it’s stunning there isn’t a comic for this!

[rickgriffin]

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!"

Well this happens in like...literally every story. I know, I kinda hate it too. "Knock down a few pieces on the top and everything should reassemble itself into peace" makes for a 'satisfying' resolution but it's not terribly realistic when you're talking about armies and nations and tradition. And the older I get the less I'm a fan of "the rebels just make this one big win against this weak point and it's all resolved" stories precisely because it implies that the one big victory is all that's needed. And that simply is very rarely true.

[Mabus]

I have a feeling that Gill was blinded by the Federation's belief that humans have improved sufficient that they can handle toxic ideologies and we conquered our flaws, thus humans could alter such ideologies to turn them into something good (maybe he wanted to reclaim the swastika from the Nazis as well). But instead it failed miserably, and if anything this proves that some things just don't work, which kind of fits with the DS9 and STFC themes of humans still being, well, flawed, and not everything is roses.

[FaxModem1]

After watching the episode, and looking up it's fate on Memory Beta, turns out things didn't work out. The Zeonians and the Ekonians are still in a brutal war a century later, with the Federation stepping out after a Starfleet officer got killed in peace talks.

Guess Kirk's adventure didn't settle things after all.

[Linkara]

Well, it's not like they needed to stick around for 20 years to oversee things, but rather have something in the coda to indicate "It's going to take a long time to overcome that hate. It took a long time for us, after all."

[Darth Wedgius]

Oh, and that subcutaneous transponder, is that not the most laughable piece of forgotten tech in the history of this franchise?
Starfleet: ''gee, we could implant this into every away team so we always know where they are in the possibility that their comunicator/commbadge gets broken or stolen, but nahhhhh....''
Lets file this away with the phaser proof barrels, Ezri's rifle with teleporting bullets, and the cloaking suits from Insurrection.

We can compare at length the merits of Star Trek vs Stargate, but man, would I rather be on an SG team than an away team. At least they carry kit, wear camo, and have guns that work.

In later seasons, SG team members also have subcutaneous locater beacons, after they got ships capable of beaming people around.