NuTrek's Faulty Moral Compass

Discussion in 'Star Trek Movies: Kelvin Universe' started by Brutal Strudel, Jan 23, 2014.

  1. Commishsleer

    Commishsleer Commodore Commodore

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    Perhaps extract Nero's promise that he will never again attack the Earth and try to kill all her peoples. Making sure that his fingers aren't crossed behind his back.
     
  2. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    IIIIIII'm not sure I'd trust the word of a guy who killed billions of people, tried to kill billions more, and didn't even break a sweat doing it.
     
  3. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    No.

    He must apologize, or no dice!
     
  4. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    NERO: I'm really really sorry I committed genocide, destroyed two fleets of spaceships and tried to destroy Earth.

    KIRK: And?

    NERO: And I'm sorry I killed your dad and screwed up your childhood.
     
  5. Brutal Strudel

    Brutal Strudel Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    I seem to recall somone suggesting--oh, in the very first post--that Nero should have pulled a Kruge and tried to drag the Enterprise to hell with him. The Narada was a mining vessel. Even with the weapons out, the writers could have given it mining equipment--mechanical mining equipment--that could have made it an immediate threat.

    Morality and ethics aside, I found Nero's "I would rather die..." speech cringe-inducing. It sounded like a stuck-up girl turning down a request for a prom date. The film-makers should have provided him with one last chance to be truly menacing and Kirk with a clear and present danger to his ship and crew. Not only would it make Kirk--already reimagined from the thoughtful, driven, serious man into a caricatured bad boy action man--less dickish but it would have made the whole sequence more exciting.
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2014
  6. Yanks

    Yanks Commodore Commodore

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    How about having nuKirk ensure his ship is safe?

    How about nuKirk order that any lifeforms be beamed out while ensuring his ship and crew are safe?
     
  7. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Transporters work very differently in this universe. The ship is being pulled into a singularity. Just how stable do you expect it to be in order to properly enable transport? How do you, in just a few moments, coordinate with the people on the ship who wish to go willingly, and will not cause trouble for the Enterprise if they are transported aboard?
     
  8. Brutal Strudel

    Brutal Strudel Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Or simply:

    Nero gives his silly speech. Spock points out that the Narada, while wounded, could still pose a threat; "There's no way to be sure with a ship that advanced, Captain."

    Kirk pauses a beat, then says, "Mr. Sulu, fire everything we got."

    Really, just cutting his sado-cocky "You got it" would almost be enough.
     
  9. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    That might work, but to me it was already implied. The Narada is obviously a big, powerful, deadly ship. It beat the shit out of Starfleet's best, and did it like it was swatting flies. It proceeded to then kill billions of people on an innocent planet.

    From that point forward, it went to attack Earth, with the same purpose, and to continue that line of death and destruction for as long as deemed necessary.

    To me, Kirk even offering the appearance of mercy is more than what Nero deserved. They were in the heat of battle, and Kirk could have blown the Narada to high hell, and it would have been morally and ethically justifiable considering the circumstances.

    I'm against the death penalty, I'm against torture, and I also happen to be against a genocidal maniac trying to murder until the very end, and I do not see any moral or ethical quandary with Kirk's decision. In this case, Nero was absolutely, actively dangerous to every living creature in his path, and had to be eliminated lest billions more died. It's pretty clear cut. Anything else is splitting hairs solely for the sake of pedantry which is, granted, something we all do as Trek fans, but I stand by my statement anyway. ;)
     
  10. Yanks

    Yanks Commodore Commodore

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    :D

    They have no choice and Scotty is a miracle worker.
     
  11. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Point taken. ;)
     
  12. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    you wanted it literally spelled out by a character word-for-word that it was still a potential threat? I think leaving it implied shows restraint.
     
  13. Brutal Strudel

    Brutal Strudel Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    I never suggested Kirk try to rescue Nero and his crew by force.

    And, to me, the implication was that the Narada was, most likely, doomed. A line of dialogue contradicting that would have been nice. One stinking line.

    I'd also get rid of Kirk and Spock's exchange about why Kirk offers clemency.To curry favor with the 23rd Century Romulans? How about because whenever Kirk had the chance to "not kill today," he took it, even if he desperately wanted to kill. And I'd make Spock's satisfaction at the Narada's demise the thing that is implied; I think Quinto could have wordlessly played the internal struggle between his civilized and savage sides by simply looking on impassively as the ship broke apart under Kirk's attack.
     
  14. RPJOB

    RPJOB Commander Red Shirt

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    If we accept that Kirk fired on Nero because he honestly felt that he could escape through the wormhole then we also have to consider the probability that the same thing actually happened to Vulcan and Nero didn't actually kill everyone on the planet. Perhaps Vulcan was just shifted to an alternate universe and/or back in time. Reasonable doubt works both ways.

    When Spock and Nero travelled back in time, they both entered a black hole that was created by red matter. When the Narenda was being destroyed at the end of the movie, the black hole was inside the ship. We saw it being bent, torn and crumpled. If the Narenda could reasonably be expected to survive passage through a black hole to the extent that Nero and his crew would survive then the same should apply to Vulcan. We also saw it being distorted. Perhaps a red matter black hole tears apart whatever falls into it but then reassembles it on the other side. Much like a transporter would reassemble you and not move you whole from one spot to the other.

    If Kirk had reasonable doubt that Nero would die then Nero could use the same defense. Kirk had no proof that Nero killed everyone on the planet and then destroyed the planet. Never having encountered red matter black holes before the on;y thing that he could say for sure was that they transport objects back in time. For all we know everyone on Vulcan is fine, even the guy that got flattened by the statue. When you emerge out the other side, time runs backwards and you end up exactly in the same physical state you were when you first entered the black hole.
     
  15. Amaris

    Amaris Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Except that we saw Vulcan crumble to pieces. Saying it was reassembled on the other side has no merit, since there is no way to test the theory. Yet even if that were a viable theory, for all we know Vulcan could have been reassembled in an alternate liquid universe, and everyone instantly died from severe radiation poisoning upon arrival.

    All we know is that from what we saw, billions of innocents died, and the madman who did it so casually, tried to do it again to another planet full of billions, and had plans to further destabilize the Federation with untold billions of lives in the balance.

    Even though the Narada was breaking apart, there's no reason to assume it wasn't making it out the other side, because it had traversed the singularity before, and had come out whole. A hypothesis could be made that small enough objects could pass through the singularity without being destroyed. There simply is no way to know, especially not when one is in the heat of battle, the enemy has refused to surrender, and has no intention of ever stopping his killing spree.

    This means you have to go on the available data, which is:

    * Nero is an absolute and imminent threat to all life forms.
    * Nero's ship is extremely powerful, capable of destroying multiple starships without sustaining damage.
    * Nero's ship passed through a singularity once, and may be able to do so again.
    * Nero's ship is still an unknown quantity, and may contain weapons or devices as yet unknown.
    * There is no time left to assess the possible capabilities of his ship due to being in a situation requiring immediate action lest your ship may be destroyed.
    * Nero has rejected any form of offered assistance.

    It's nice to play the what-if game, but at the end of the day, Kirk still took the only real course of action available to him.
     
  16. Belz...

    Belz... Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I don't think it's very useful to expect everyone to frame their comments and questions this way, given that everybody here knows that Star Trek is fiction.

    There's a difference ? I mean, isn't fiction a kind of idea exploration anyway ? And aren't most of those ideas present throughout all genres ?
     
  17. Sindatur

    Sindatur The Gray Owl Wizard Admiral

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    First, if Vulcan was simply transported, it's a Planet. If it ended up in a Goldilocks Zone (Especially, if it ended up in it's own Space/orbit), there's already a planet there, either one, or both planets will be destroyed when Vulcan from JJVerse arrives. If it doesn't arrive in a Goldilocks zone, they're gonna die a slow painful death

    Second as far as Nero/The Nerada surviving, it's not just about Nero, it's the ship as well, and any technology. How screwed up can a timeline become with that kind of technology dropping out of the future for any old Despotic race to find? That, in itself, could be at least as bad and cause as much death as Nero
     
  18. Pauln6

    Pauln6 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yep. there's no way out of the circle. Just a way into a new circle. But I agree with the things that people have said. A genuine attempt to avoid killing because it's wrong would have been nice.
     
  19. Shaka Zulu

    Shaka Zulu Commodore Commodore

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    Exactly how I feel about this movie and what the hero did, and also about what was done in Man Of Steel with Superman & Zod.
     
  20. Ryan8bit

    Ryan8bit Commodore Commodore

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    Really, the battle was over. It's one thing if it's in the heat of battle, but they stopped and had time to collect themselves apparently. I think they should've just omitted the offer, and once the Jellyfish collided then they should have opened fire. Once the characters stop to deliberate about it, it becomes more like an execution.