FakeGeekGirl wrote:That's a character that could have been completely unsympathetic, but instead I liked her enough that I got really quite angry at the Myriad Universe novella "Places of Exile" for a portrayal that I thought wasn't giving her enough credit.
Angry and rightfully so. It flies in the face of everything that the Vorta are and it is in direct violation of their nature. Not only do they reproduce clearly and only asexually at that point in time (though you could certainly make a story about a pair of Vorta falling in love, maybe reproducing out of line and how the Dominion reacts to that situation), but it also just could not work. One need only think to the moment where Weyoun is asking Kira if a portrait painted by Zial, is in any way shape or form good. If there is no appreciation for beauty, then there can be no attraction, there can be no admiration, there can be no love. The only thing that the Vorta are allowed to love and devote their lives for, both by social norm and by genetic impetus, are the Founders. They are breed that way, they are literally engineered that way.
Now, granted, there is wiggling room for such sitatuions, given how sloppy the Founders work in general and how imperfect the genetic programming is, think of the one episode where a Jem'Hadar of all people, points out to Sisko that a Jem'Hadar might crave for more than dying for the Founders, but Weyoun of all people? One would assume that the Founders had a closer look at his genetic makeup after such an event and Weyoun 6 could not have happened. Come to think of it, not even Weyoun 6 was capable of placing anything higher than the Founders. But I digress.
MaxWylde wrote:Winston Churchill, somewhere in his history of WWII that he wrote, spoke of this kind of situation where doing the right thing often does cost lives that otherwise could've been spared had other options been known and/or considered. One such situation that comes to mind was the use of the atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Not many people know this, but General Douglas MacArthur was livid over this, saying that if only the White House and General George Marshall and others had asked him about this, that he would've suggested changing the terms of surrender to allow the Japanese to retain their Emperor, which they ended up doing anyway, because one of the stipulations of Unconditional Surrender was originally that the Emperor was to be deposed completely, and because of this the Japanese were not going to surrender if it meant losing him, because he's the Son of Heaven. He said that if the stipulation was changed prior to dropping the atom bombs, that the Japanese might've considered it.
The problem with this is that Mac was not especially popular in Washington, so they weren't going to ask him on advice on anything, regardless of his own personal expertise on the Far East and their cultures. Secondly, even if they had consulted him and did change the stipulation, there was no guarantee that this would work to resolve the war earlier. There was a plan for the Invasion of Japan itself building up for launch called Operation Downfall, comprising of two phases, and nobody had any illusions as to what this was going to cost in terms of lives, both for the Americans and the Japanese, particularly Japanese civilians, who were being trained by the Japanese military government in an operation called Ketsu-Go, which would've had children strapped with bombs to throw themselves under American vehicles and tanks, and women running around with bamboo spears in banzai charges. The thought was that the atom bombs, at the least, would give the Japanese people, and the government, a way to save face in the wake of such overwhelming military firepower and superiority.
Similarly, Churchill talks about a little known event that happened in early 1940, prior to the Americans entering the war, after the Germans had taken Paris To prevent the Germans from taking French warships sitting in a harbour across the English Channel, he ordered that the Royal Navy fire on those ships in harbour to destroy them. There were French sailors and officers on those ships at the time, and the claim was that the French themselves had no intention of allowing the Germans to have those ships either, and that they were getting ready to move them out and, if necessary, scuttle them. Churchill said that there was no way he could guarantee if even the French would be successful at all, given how close the Germans were to that port, and he could not allow them to take hold of those ships to threaten Britain. He made the call, and yes, he was depressed over the issue, and it did cause considerable animosity between the Free French government and Britain, but he said he'd do it again even knowing what he knows now (that it's very possible the French would've also succeeded). To this day, understandably, there are a lot of old French naval veterans who remember what happened on that day, and have never forgiven the British or Churchill for it.
In such desperate situations, often you can't go on "what ifs," and hope for the best. You have to take the actions necessary to accomplish the objectives under the information you have at the moment. This is the nature of military and government leadership, as well as being a policeman and a fireman, and paramedic, that sometimes you do the best that you can, even if you don't have all the options you ought to have. It may cost lives, but that's the nature of the beast.
Captain Hindsight, the best of all superheroes, because he always knows better, except it's only after the fact, which makes him the most useless of all heroes. Sometimes... scratch that, most of the times you do not have access to all information and even if you had all information, you wouldn't necessarily be able to discern the best solution for a problem, due to other reasons, like social obligations, personal biases or limited ability to effect things. That's just what Life is. Musing about how things could have been better is an easy trap to fall into, but there is really little reason to do so and one should instead focus on how to do it better next time. Or as someone once said: "Accept the things you cannot change, have the courage to change the things you can and have the wisdom to know the difference."
"If you get shot up by an A6M Reisen and your plane splits into pieces - does that mean it's divided by Zero?
- xoxSAUERKRAUTxox
