I would believe it allowed Khan access to get the transwarp beaming device.
Thomas Harewood - Would You Kill 42 People?
- Thread starter Commishsleer
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I would believe it allowed Khan access to get the transwarp beaming device.
This clearly was not the intent of the scene, but I wouldn't put it past Khan to have told Harewood a lie about the scope of the bomb he was carrying. After all, it was just a ring, so you could be forgiven to think the explosion would be pretty localized, and perhaps only meant to cover the evidence of his data transfer and to kill of the only person who would be interrogated about it (Harewood himself). So Khan might have told him it was just a small bomb to cover his tracks and Harewood never realized he'd be blowing up the entire Section 31 facility.
...But he only needed that device to get to the Klingon homeworld. Which is where Admiral Marcus wanted him to go, because that would get the war started. How was Marcus planning on getting him to that planet if the Admiral himself didn't provide this gadget?
It's an interesting little waltz there, and one never knows which one of the villains is leading - Khan or Marcus. Both have some goals in common - getting Federation and Starfleet assets blown to pieces for casus belli, getting Khan to Klingon space, getting Kirk and his torpedo/Augment-laden ship to Klingon space. Both have opposite goals, too, not the least of these being they want each other dead.
The bit where Khan gets the transwarp ghetto-blaster is among the unclear ones. Who planned this? Did everything go according to that plan? And would Harewood have approved of that plan? Say, Khan comes to him and says "In exchange for your daughter's life, blow up this place - it's being used to ignite a horrible war, and even I can't kill the monstrous Admiral behind it all, but you can destroy his weapons shop", or Marcus sends Khan to say "In exchange for your daughter's life, blow up this place - this will ignite a horrible war which we will win and Klingons won't rape your daughter after all"...
Timo Saloniemi
I don't know who was pulling whose strings. But at the explosion site, Khan is seen (through photos) carrying a two bags, both about the size of the transwarp beaming apparatus that Scott finds.
It seems like he is retrieving something in the chaos of the Kelvin Memorial explosion.
I'm wondering what the word "tact" means in the universe you come from...
In any case, you can thank the veterans you seem to hate so much that you have the freedom to say things like that in the first place.
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I don't know who was pulling whose strings. But at the explosion site, Khan is seen (through photos) carrying a two bags, both about the size of the transwarp beaming apparatus that Scott finds.
It seems like he is retrieving something in the chaos of the Kelvin Memorial explosion.
So while I thought the purpose of the explosion was to get the 'special meeting' so that Khan could blow up Starfleets best and finest, was the underlying purpose to get access to the device?
Somehow Khan knew that the device would be safe from the explosion (and then accessible afterwards) while 42 people died. OK...
That could explain why Khan needed to kill everyone. So there wouldn't be crack investigators on the scene working out what's missing.
Still seems pretty harsh on Harewood's part.
Maybe Marcus never intended for Khan to go to Klingon space. And was worried what Khan was up to out there. Whether Khan intended to warn the Klingons about the Vengeance or help the Klingons with weapons. Perhaps he thought by 'firing' Khan's family at him, he was destroying the evidence while giving the finger to Khan.
Still seems a bit sketchy to me. Am I the only one who didn't get it? While normally I like a bit of ambiguity in a movie, i would have just like the movie to make a little more sense on first viewing.I suppose the same could be said for any other movie in the series.
Yep. He probably even threatened to kill his wife. Harewood was a dead man and his family at risk the moment he agreed to Khan's deal. He was probably on the clock, too, with very little time to think things through rationally.
As far as Harewood being a murderer goes, that's an awfully harsh accusation under the circumstances. He was more or less a mule for Khan's bomb. Khan was the murderer and he was going to destroy that part of Section 31, killing the people there, one way or another.
As far as what I'd do, I tend to agree with Dennis: for me, no; for my family, yes. Then again, as Jarrold Russell points out, I've just killed many other parents and children of parents. It's terrible all the way around.
I don't think so. He knowingly and wilfully killed 42 people. That's murder regardless of if you feel sorry for his situation.
I don't know who was pulling whose strings. But at the explosion site, Khan is seen (through photos) carrying a two bags, both about the size of the transwarp beaming apparatus that Scott finds.
It seems like he is retrieving something in the chaos of the Kelvin Memorial explosion.
One would imagine that he would safeguard (or know of the safe places) to guard tech against enemy attack. Such foresight would be part of any organization, especially S31.
The destruction of the Kelvin Archive was likely a multi-prong attack on Marcus' operation, designed to force his hand, and get the Vengeance out of dry dock, putting it accessible to Khan.
He might also have stashed his equipment until the ship was unguarded in the aftermath of the explosion, allowing him to use it to conduct his attack.
The attack is all bait for Marcus and the torpedoes. Either a ship is sent with the torpedoes to destroy Khan and his crew, or the Vengeance is sent to kill Khan. Either way, Khan knows that he will have access to the Vengeance. The the torpedoes will be easy pickings.
I guess what I'd say is Khan got into his mind and made him a weapon, or Khan's weapon. Khan could be very persuasive. I'm just saying Harewood probably (almost certainly) wasn't of sound mind. It was semi-heroic under the circumstances that he got off a message to Marcus.
Even if that was the case, still murder.
Even though I agree with what he did, I also agree it was murder and terrorism.
I think you missed the point. War veterans will have to face the issue whether this is a valid accusation or not. From the point of view of the daughter, the interesting issue about dad isn't the murder, it's the facing.
That's entirely a matter of viewpoint. Many war veterans (in fact the great majority of them today, globally speaking) were on the side that did its damnedest to try and take that freedom away from me, after all.
This resonates on the thread at hand, too. Is slaughtering S31 employees a good sort of murder or a bad sort? It's murder in the sense of being illegal (as opposed to, say, the slaughtering of Klingons or other alien scum at war with the UFP), but perhaps the law should be different?
Timo Saloniemi
I get that. Yet this very discussion is about appropriateness - is it appropriate for Harewood to end the lives of 42 people, is it appropriate to call that murder, and so forth. It's clearly not within our mandate to decide such things, because the true judges of appropriateness would be the fictional people and organizations of the fictional universe.
But it is our mandate to discuss such things without needless prejudices; if our laws differ from theirs, we can argue theirs are in the wrong and the heroes are in fact villains, or we can say that Star Trek postulates a nice alternative to the wrongs of the real world laws and mores, etc. If one reality defines the machine-gunning of young men as legal and another decides that bombing them out of existence in fact isn't, that's good, fertile ground for interesting arguments.
Timo Saloniemi
But it is our mandate to discuss such things without needless prejudices; if our laws differ from theirs, we can argue theirs are in the wrong and the heroes are in fact villains, or we can say that Star Trek postulates a nice alternative to the wrongs of the real world laws and mores, etc. If one reality defines the machine-gunning of young men as legal and another decides that bombing them out of existence in fact isn't, that's good, fertile ground for interesting arguments.
Timo Saloniemi
As far as it being murder or not goes, it would depend quite a lot on the degree to which being under extreme duress can be used as a defense or at least a justification for killing. I'd bet that varies by jurisdiction. If Samuel T. Cogley exists in that universe, he'd know the answer.
Harewood killed 42 people and himself. That is undeniable. Is it a homicide? Yes. Murder? That's debatable (though not exactly the topic of this thread).
Harewood killed 42 people and himself. That is undeniable. Is it a homicide? Yes. Murder? That's debatable (though not exactly the topic of this thread).
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...Also, what is the society's response to homicide, murder, or unlawful killing under the influence of a superior being? Does nuTrek still send murderers, forgers and jaywalkers to the same shrink to be cured of their mental illness, like TOS did? If so, would it matter whether Harewood checked all the boxes on the definition of murder or not?
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
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