Rewatching "The High Ground"

[Tiberius]

Timo wrote:

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Well, yes, if it takes one gunshot but a lifetime of constant tasering to keep the assassin from completing the crime she cannot stop committing.

It's apparently well within Starfleet regulations to fire mercy shots to execute a defeated enemy; Kirk does it in STXI and ST3, but Picard and Janeway also engage in lots of it when facing the Borg. Yuta is a pretty good match for the Borg, a gift that keeps on giving unless put down for good.

Timo Saloniemi

Are you SERIOUS?

A phaser hit on heavy stun for ten seconds. She goes down in pain, she gets arrested, beamed to the Enterprise and is perfectly fine the next day. But instead you vote to KILL HER?

Timo, that's pretty fucked up. If that happened today, what would you think? Imagine the newspaper headline...

Police officer shoots dead armed suspect because taser was deemed too painful.

A 30 year old woman was shot dead today. Witness say that pepper spray had been used but had only limited effectiveness. Another police officer had used a taser, which left the suspect unable to move, but a malfunction had caused the taser to fire at reduced capacity. After the taser discharge had finished, another police officer drew his weapon and fired a single shot, hitting the woman in the head and killing her instantly. He had a taser which was working perfectly, however he chose to use lethal force instead. When asked why he chose this course of action, the officer said, "In my opinion, the taser was painful and I didn't want to subject the suspect to that level of pain."

What would you think of that?

Seriously, how fucked up must you be if you think that ending a life is a better choice than inflicting temporary, non-lethal pain? Or do you think that the ONLY OPTION is to keep shooting her with a phaser on stun for the rest of her life? They do have PRISONS that are kinda hard to get out of, you know!

[Timo]

...is perfectly fine the next day.

And again tries to murder somebody. And will keep doing so for every second of every day till she dies (or, if the programming was clever enough, till the last from her list of victims dies, childless). Each day spent in a padded cell without the chance to do what she was bred to do is agony to her.

There is no "perfectly fine" for Yuta, who really does not deserve to be treated as a person, not by Star Trek norms.

They do have PRISONS that are kinda hard to get out of, you know!

And many other types of torture methods, too. Currently, torture is greatly favored in the western world as a means of dealing with crime, mainly a) for the supposed deterrent value and b) because it's not that much more expensive than executions yet. But Yuta is not a criminal who could be deterred. She's a fucked-up death machine who has already outlived her welcome by far, and has absolutely nothing to look forward to in terms of "life". She just happens to look like a sexy chick, so gunning her down doesn't feel as comfortable as putting a hole in a tank with a bazooka.

Timo Saloniemi

[BillJ]

What do you do with Yuta if you arrest her? Set her free and she's just going to start hunting again, capture her and there's no telling how long she'll be in your custody as she hadn't aged a day in fifty-three years and according to her she had been hunting for a century.

Vaporizing Yuta was probably the most humane thing Riker could have done.

[Tiberius]

Timo wrote:

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And again tries to murder somebody. And will keep doing so for every second of every day till she dies (or, if the programming was clever enough, till the last from her list of victims dies, childless). Each day spent in a padded cell without the chance to do what she was bred to do is agony to her.

So you are, for some reason, completely discounting prisons entirely, even though we've heard of them several times, and seen one of them at least once.

There is no "perfectly fine" for Yuta, who really does not deserve to be treated as a person, not by Star Trek norms.

A sentient being who does not deserve to be treated like a person?

And many other types of torture methods, too. Currently, torture is greatly favored in the western world as a means of dealing with crime, mainly a) for the supposed deterrent value and b) because it's not that much more expensive than executions yet. But Yuta is not a criminal who could be deterred. She's a fucked-up death machine who has already outlived her welcome by far, and has absolutely nothing to look forward to in terms of "life". She just happens to look like a sexy chick, so gunning her down doesn't feel as comfortable as putting a hole in a tank with a bazooka.

Timo Saloniemi

And now you are, for some bizarre reason, equating a 24th century Federation prison as "torture".

[Timo]

So you are, for some reason, completely discounting prisons entirely, even though we've heard of them several times, and seen one of them at least once.

I'm simply acknowledging that they amount to torture. And significantly, that they amount to much more severe torture for Yuta than they would for a human being. In fact, a prison would be much less humane a fate for Yuta than death by bludgeoning, because the latter would only take, oh, three hours of suffering max.

A sentient being who does not deserve to be treated like a person?

Few in Star Trek do. You have to abide to human standards of existence to get accepted as a person there. From the very first aired episode on, it has been clear that there's no mercy for sapient vampires, and Yuta obviously is one.

And now you are, for some bizarre reason, equating a 24th century Federation prison as "torture".

All imprisonment is torture - that's its sole function, to make the victim suffer from freedom deprivation and see the error of his ways. The sometimes quoted secondary function of keeping the victim temporarily out of further mischief amounts to basically nothing unless the sentence is life or some sort of rehabilitation eventually takes place. We hear of both these things being true in the Trek universe (life spent at Elba II, or then six-month sentences for things like attempted genocide, followed by apparent 100% recovery rate for the specific crime-illnesses) - but only for people who are not Yuta. She's not curable, and life spent not murdering would be constant torture for her.

Timo Saloniemi

[sonak]

Timo wrote:

---

I'm simply acknowledging that they amount to torture. And significantly, that they amount to much more severe torture for Yuta than they would for a human being. In fact, a prison would be much less humane a fate for Yuta than death by bludgeoning, because the latter would only take, oh, three hours of suffering max.

Few in Star Trek do. You have to abide to human standards of existence to get accepted as a person there. From the very first aired episode on, it has been clear that there's no mercy for sapient vampires, and Yuta obviously is one.

All imprisonment is torture - that's its sole function, to make the victim suffer from freedom deprivation and see the error of his ways. The sometimes quoted secondary function of keeping the victim temporarily out of further mischief amounts to basically nothing unless the sentence is life or some sort of rehabilitation eventually takes place. We hear of both these things being true in the Trek universe (life spent at Elba II, or then six-month sentences for things like attempted genocide, followed by apparent 100% recovery rate for the specific crime-illnesses) - but only for people who are not Yuta. She's not curable, and life spent not murdering would be constant torture for her.

Timo Saloniemi

your nonsense is very amusing to read. Please continue.

[R. Star]

^

I have often wondered if Timo is serious about some of the stuff he throws out there or is just joking somehow.

[BeatleJWOL]

With phrases like "life spent not murdering", who knows.

Still, a devil's advocate position is always welcome.

[Timo]

It's just that Star Trek is supposed to be science fiction (at least on some level), but discussion about it typically revolves purely around the soap opera aspects of it. For example this very thread was started because the act of gunning down somebody was pondered from the 21st century point of view, as if Sergeant Devos of the PSNI had pointed her service revolver at an IRA terrorist - while the interesting thing about Cyril Finn's death, morals-wise and drama-wise, was the pseudotechnological nature of the raygun used, i.e. did it have a stun setting or not?

Of course, there's duality to this: the stories are supposed to be about this world, and the scifi element is just a distraction. But I'm chiefly interested in the story logic as established by the scifi setting, not in the story logic as intended despite the conflicting demands of the setting.

Timo Saloniemi

[Tiberius]

Timo wrote:

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I'm simply acknowledging that they amount to torture. And significantly, that they amount to much more severe torture for Yuta than they would for a human being. In fact, a prison would be much less humane a fate for Yuta than death by bludgeoning, because the latter would only take, oh, three hours of suffering max.

Well, if you're ever arrested, I'll make sure to recommend that the judge sentences death rather than imprisonment.

Few in Star Trek do. You have to abide to human standards of existence to get accepted as a person there. From the very first aired episode on, it has been clear that there's no mercy for sapient vampires, and Yuta obviously is one.

Do you make any sense to yourself?

All imprisonment is torture - that's its sole function, to make the victim suffer from freedom deprivation and see the error of his ways. The sometimes quoted secondary function of keeping the victim temporarily out of further mischief amounts to basically nothing unless the sentence is life or some sort of rehabilitation eventually takes place. We hear of both these things being true in the Trek universe (life spent at Elba II, or then six-month sentences for things like attempted genocide, followed by apparent 100% recovery rate for the specific crime-illnesses) - but only for people who are not Yuta. She's not curable, and life spent not murdering would be constant torture for her.

Timo Saloniemi

Again, no sense is made.

I know you like trying to see all sides, but really, you're straining all credibility here...

[Timo]

Just your comprehension skills, is all.

Timo Saloniemi

[Tiberius]

You suggesting that I got it wrong when I thought that you were saying that executing a criminal is better than imprisoning them?

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

Enough of the - umm - debate, guys.

[Lynx]

The funny thing is that I actually watched both those episodes last week and was thinking the same.

I never really understood why he killed Yuta. he could just have stunned her. Was he p***ed off that she wasn't what he hoped and expected, that the girl he actually had strong feelings for turned out to be a ruthless killer, obsessed with the clan war revenge thing? Or was Yuta that dangerous that it was necessary to eliminate her?

As for Finn and "The High Ground", there were lots of interesting things in that plot. Very thought-provoking and one of my favorite TNG episodes.

[Unicron]

I think the main thing was dramatic license, and I've sometimes wondered whether Yuta's modifications would have made it impossible for her to pursue a normal life if she'd been successful. If her sole purpose was to be a weapon of vengeance, maybe there were no other allowances or the Trilestas simply didn't have the means to create them.