Rules of Engagement thoughts.

[RogueVasad]

I just finished re-watching Rules of Engagement. Am I the only one who thinks Sisko was out of line for chewing Worf out at the end of the episode?

Sisko talks about how Starfleet officers aren't supposed to ake actions that will even potentially put civilians at risk to protect their own lives.

Ok but the problem is that if Worf had held his fire it wouldn't have just been his life or even the lives of the Defiiant's crew which he would have been putting at risk. He would have been the lives of the civilians crewing the convoy that Defiant was escorting at risk, and the lives or at least the well being of the civilians that were intended recipients of the medicine that the convoy was carrying.

So Sisko is basically saying that it is ok to put all those Cardassian civilians at risk just because there is a slight chance that a Klingon civilian ship might not only drop its cloak in the middle of a battle but decloak exactly where a Bird of Prey has been predicted to come out of cloak next. Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy?

 

[USS KG5]

I think Sisko's point was that Starfleet don't take the shot until they have the target, to be 100% sure. Worf DID screw up, he walked right into a trap set by the Klingons.

If Worf had waited, he would have been presented with an empty freighter decloaking, and likely a swift Klingon retreat. Sometimes command and leadership means that a reasonable, yet also incorrect, choice can lead to a harsh conversation.

 

[Mage]

Worf assumed. And in the heat of battle, you never asume. Lives are at risk. It looks awesome in movies and shows, the plucky hero taking a big risk and coming out on top. "Yeah, if I was wrong, it would have been horrible. But I wasn't, so deal with it." And we all love his manly manliness for being a bad ass.

This episode showed us what happens when the plucky hero IS wrong. Yes, in the end it turned out to be a trap. But Worf WAS wrong. He should have confirmed. And he didn't.

 

[kkt]

First rule of guns is to know what you're shooting at.

Consider a couple of incidents. The South Korean airliner flight KAL 007 shot down by the USSR in 1983. The airliner was off course, flying over military installations and did not respond when Soviet fighters signalled them or fired warning shots. It seems clear that the Soviets did not realize they were shooting down a passenger flight, but the CIA had used military versions of airliners for intelligence gathering before. It's the Soviet's fault for shooting them down, even though the aircrew was off course and did not respond to several warnings.

In 1988, the United States cruiser Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner with 290 on board over the Persian Gulf. The Vincennes was under attack by speedboats, and was in Iranian territorial waters. The Vincennes radioed warnings, but over a general frequency and called the aircraft just "unknown Iranian aircraft". No visual ID was made. The U.S. clearly didn't mean to destroy an airliner full of passengers, but stress and confusion led to failure to identify their target.

Worf was lucky it was just a ruse. He was absolutely wrong to fire on an unidentified target.

 

[RogueVasad]

IMO its a little different. If you are escorting a convoy that is under attack your first objective is to eliminate the attackers. If some dummy flying a civilian ship enters the combat zone and drops cloak mid-battle they screwed up massively and the results are on their head.. Sucks for any bystanders on their craft but your first duty is to the convoy not to them.

On another note has anyone ever figured out how many of the 235 engagements O'Brien had fought in before the trial appeared on screen?

 

[tomalak301]

Oh my god, I just saw this episode last night too. Glad to see an episode being talked about that I just saw.

I enjoy this episode, but then I'm a sucker for courtroom type shows. It's not Measure of a Man, but I really liked how they did the interviews within the flashbacks. It added to the tension of the story, and Ron Canada is always a nice presence in Star Trek.

This episode also has one of my favorite (And most underrated) Captain Sisko lines in the entire series:

"Wait till you get four pips on that collar. You'd wish you'd gone into botany"

 

[RogueVasad]

Yeah I love the episode to I just feel like Sisko is off base by acting like Worf was only acting to protect the Defiant and its crew rather then acting to protect the convoy as well. If Defiant had been alone he would have a point or in a Starfleet formation but she wasn't alone and the ships with her were multiple civilian craft that she was responsible for protecting. Given the situation, and the absurdly low chance that a civilian craft would fly through the battle zone, drop its cloak in the battle zone and decloak exactly where n analysis of the attack pattern indicates a warship will be decloaking I still feel that Worf was justified in attacking based on the information he had at the time..

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Would a different Federation ship have been justified in attacking a decloaking ship without identification, even if that ship could possibly be the Defiant?

 

[USS KG5]

I still feel that Worf was justified in attacking based on the information he had at the time..

Yes on some level it was a reasonable choice, but remember the results of a decision are also important, because he assumed and took the shot he seriously embarrassed Starfleet, almost got himself extradited for murder and potentially would have really hurt the Feds cause at a difficult time.

You can't expect being a leader to be fair or easy, especially where lives are concerned, isn't that kind of Sisko's point?

 

[RogueVasad]

Would a different Federation ship have been justified in attacking a decloaking ship without identification, even if that ship could possibly be the Defiant?

If they have absolutely no reason to believe Defiant would be there yes.

Consider how big space is. The odds of a ship not only decloaking inside the battle zone but decloaking exactly where the attack pattern shows the bird of prey decloaking next and not being the bird of prey are what? A tenth of a percent, a hundredth, a thousandth? They are so absurdly small that Starfleet should have thought it was a setup from the beginning.

Another thing I just thought of would a Klingon transport ship really be unarmed? The Klingon prosecutor implied the ship was supposed to be unarmed when he compares the ship to an unarmed man but Sisko suspects it might have been planning to join the battle early in the episode which implies that it was armed, Even Federation civilian transports carry some weapons.

 

[starburst]

I have always loved this episode as it does show how the decision making of a starship Captain especially in combat is not always black and white and what ever you do will have consequences, or in this case supposed consequences.

The Klingons argument is that a Klingon Civilian transport wandered into Cardassian space and decloaked right in front of a Federation starship which was protecting a convoy from members of the same group as the transport.

So we are to believe that the ship had a massive navigation failure as well as a failure on the intelligence of her Captain and crew, not to mention the suggestion that a civilian ship with a cloak would be “unarmed” (as others have said space is BIG).

Lets assume this to be true, the Defiant was fighting a cat and mouse game with a Bird of Prey and a Battlecruiser who’s tactics were to shoot and hide, one attacks the convoy while the other distracts the Defiant; Worf had no idea that the ship he was about to fire on was anything other than one of the ships he had previously engaged, and why would he? The only logical reason for that ship to have been there at that time would have been to aid their fellow Klingons.

Had Worf hesitated the transport would not have been destroyed however the process of confirming who and what they were, then disengaging could have given both Klingon warships the time to jointly attack and possibly destroy the convoy and the civilian ship could have joined in the attack (again the notion of a Klingon ship being unarmed seems daft) or used their ship itself physically in the way to block and delay the Defiant further.

Alternatively Worf could have paused and identified it as another Klingon cruiser giving them the time to raise shields and hold the Defiant off while their sister ships again finish off the convoy.

In the end its a gut reaction, one I think the likes of Sisko or Riker may have also made, your ship is taking damage and your on the verge of loosing another important convoy to the enemy…

To use another example of an unexpected ship popping up at the wrong time what if the Enterprise in the Mutara Nebula had come up behind a civilian science trip on a jolly with some school kids checking out a Nebula, the Enterprise may not have even been able to ID them with the view screen problems. Or in the real world, WW2 an American destroyer protecting a convoy fires at what they believe to be a surfaced German U Boat but it turns out to be a group of civilians in a sub popping up in the shipping lanes amongst an attack by the Nazi war machine.

 

[Timo]

Worf assumed. And in the heat of battle, you never asume.

What? If you don't assume, and act, before you are completely certain, you're completely dead. A few comrades or random bystanders may have to pay the ultimate price for your survival, but the other option is for you to pay that price.

The Klingons argument

The Klingons didn't really have an argument. They essentially dropped all charges at the start of the so-called trial. They had no case, and had no interest in having a case. All they wanted was have the UFP say no to a demand to extradite Worf: that'd be the one and only propaganda victory they could score here, and that one they did score.

A bonus was to see Starfleet squirm in defending an action that did not really require a defense - least of all in the Klingon context. Had Worf served in the Klingon fleet instead, he'd have been given an extra commendation with skull and crossbones (and a coupon for a barrel of bloodwine) for not just repelling two Starfleet ships but also successfully killing hundreds of stupid Federation civilians.

Sisko falsely thought that the Klingons wanted to embarrass the UFP into stopping the shipments. But that doesn't wash - the shipments had already stopped (Worf's convoy had been one of the last). Sisko just didn't know how to think like a Klingon.

Timo Saloniemi