TOS: Patterns of Force

[Yukaphile]

You should know this is something I've remained completely consistent on. I don't demonize Trump voters either, cuz there were like 60+ million. You can't just judge large groups of people that huge.

[CharlesPhipps]

That's just it though, HE IS NOT A MAN. He is a boy. A boy forced into service. You've got some balls to look at a crying boy and start insinuating that he murdered pregnant women. Real asshole actually.

You realize you're defending the use of a conscripted young man to defend the Nazi regime by saying it was just a bunch of people that were victims too, right?

Reinhard Heydrich was 25 when he became a Nazi.

How old do you think the boys Hitler recruited and conscripted were?

[Yukaphile]

For someone who's bitching about how awful Nazi Germany was for "otherizing" human beings, that's precisely what YOU are doing. And thus is ultimately why I prefer being center left rather than... hard left. They can get a bit too... judgmental for my tastes.

[CharlesPhipps]

For someone who's bitching about how awful Nazi Germany was for "otherizing" human beings, that's precisely what YOU are doing. And thus is ultimately why I prefer being center left rather than... hard left. They can get a bit too... judgmental for my tastes.

I find the idea that I don't understand the victims of Nazi Germany include the Germans themselves to be offensive.

But yes, if you want to say I'm the monster then go ahead. I'm a big boy. I can take it.

[Yukaphile]

At least in death, they have their peace. The living were left in hells no living should endure. And I refuse to accept that they were influenced or coerced to act the way they did as I see others do to make excuses for them. But at the same time, those who conducted themselves honorably, who did not sink to that level, I can sympathize with and feel their pain. Likewise, for those during the German invasion who similarly committed atrocious acts, I don't care. They'd have been better off getting torn apart by a mortar, and then left bleeding to death in a muddy hillside. Maybe I wouldn't have to defend the Germans so fiercely if people wouldn't look at the women and children the invading armies left shattered and permanently destroyed and try and stop others from accusing them of being monsters, of being complicit in Hitler's genocide even if they supported him because they weren't the leaders of their government? That's like blaming me for Trump because I'm an American like he is, and that's all we share.

[Darth Wedgius]

About what you might expect from an ethno-nationalist system with a strong socialist bent. Authoritarian, certainly, but at that point it didn't call for exterminating anyone or any kind of ethnic cleansing. They were anti-semitic, but "kill all jews we can kill, everywhere" didn't come into play early on.

I think there's a very real possibility that the writers meant for John Gill to have not been quite so clean as Captain Kirk hopes he is. After all, John Gill is the dictator of the planet and clearly set himself up as the Furher of the people. His subordinates are also all highly into this genocidal war and racial politics so it's clear he set the groundwork for that.

In short, he may have dialed down the race hatred elements but he had to have done enough that it developed every bit as poorly as in RL.

Could be! I suppose his hands aren't that clean, either way. Deciding you know how a whole world should be run and setting up a global dictatorship even with the best of intentions might be considered just a tad arrogant.

[CharlesPhipps]

Yukaphile, it wasn't the soldiers who were killed by the tens of millions.

And by the end of the war, it was every Soviet who could grab a gun or be handed one.

Kinda how wars of survivals came.

I admit, part of me was influenced by seeing the memorials that consisted of towns that were completely killed to the last and then simply covered up in a concrete block. Letting you know what was done there.

And the dead may know peace but their futures have been robbed from them.

[CharlesPhipps]

Back to the episode...

Things I liked about PATTERNS OF FORCE:

1. I do fundamentally like the fact that it shows Nazism as an inherently evil system. Whether it's inefficient or not doesn't matter because it's powered by racial supremacy and militarism. There's no way it doesn't become a toxic waste dump on the souls of the people. Without an enemy to focus that rage, they create one.

2. I like the episode doesn't ZOOTOPIA this shit by making the Zeons guilty of some sort of crime against the Nazi aliens. No, they were just a people that were resented for being superior in technology and there. There was also apparently some cultural mixture but this judt made it worse.

3. I do like the subtle Captain America joke that the most Aryan appearing person in the show is the Jewish-equivalent woman. Which is all the more appropriate as Shatner does look like an Aryan ideal as Kirk but, of course, is Jewish himself. He's also a two-fisted man's man and makes the whole thing all the more ridiculous.

4. I actually do think of this as one of my all time favorite episodes because it really does take an unambiguous stance on the ideaology and while it shouldn't still be relavent, it is. It reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode HE LIVES. Notably, Rod Sterling had NEVER gotten hatemail before but the office was DELUGED with Nazi apologia as well as hatemail for writing a story decrying Neo-Nazism and the idea that hatred of Jews, blacks, and socialists was evil.

5. I have very little sympathy for John Gill as he is basically Kaiser from FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS. He was a historian who took his technological superiority to a primitive planet and used it to set himself up as a God. The episode really should have raked him over the coals, IMHO. Because even the kindest interpretation that he didn't mean to get it this bad has him as a kind of Cecil B. Rhodes figure.

6. I have to wonder how much the "efficiency" of the Nazis on the planet isn't just the result of John Gill giving them advanced technology and calling it a day. Certainly, you can bypass a lot of the problems of a primitive divided society if you give them technology from the Federation. It reminds me a bit of Vandal Savage from the Justice League cartoon.

7. I've had it speculated that John Gill's replacement was actually his half-local son. I wonder if that's an interesting idea as it would give insight into John and why the man has taken his position so quickly.

8. If we want to get all STAR TREKY, I should point out the Eugenics Wars combined with the destruction of human civilization in the 90s means that a lot of these revelations about the Nazis we talk about and how they were a crappy civilization that could barely stand up by the end would have been lost to Federation historians.

[Yukaphile]

Do any of us have a future? I don't see one for us, not in the long term. I do think humans are going to wipe themselves out, so it's not my problem, thus in the short term, we have to make our lives meaningful. And that is reflected in how we treat others. I do want to say, their future was already robbed. It was stolen the second Gorbachav was forced out of power and replaced with power-mad ghouls. They won't admit to anything, and they keep rewriting history, and they keep abusing their people, and it's horrible, and I do feel the weight of that. I can't do anything, or I would. But I do. When 90% of the news is false over there... how do you know what to trust?

Okay, go ahead.

[CharlesPhipps]

I find it kind of weird to talk about Zeons, though.

I keep thinking of Gundam.