Of course moral standards do alter in wartime, after all it becomes not only acceptable but an expectation to kill people. However that does not mean there aren't lines which should be maintained.
In practice I think few people truly keep to what we would term justified or humane behaviour in warfare, particularly in the way they treat non combatants. Rape, torture and indiscriminate murder are common place and history suggests that peer pressure, conformity, adherence to authority, tribalism, stress and the breakdown of social conventions mean few people truly go through war as idealised dignified exemplars of humanity, which is precisely why I would almost always argue in favour of peaceful alternatives.
War really is hell and whilst there are instances of nobility and heroism the vast majority of it is people dying, suffering, terrorised and being traumatised in ways they will never recover from, shouting in futility for help as their organs pour out into the soil, living in abject fear of the next minute, relationships and families torn apart for no good reason other than to give some inadequate politician or officer a place in history. In fact even in peacetime pretty much any form of violence is unlikely to be anything other than awful and I've seen enough of it to confidently base that on more than Hollywood.
Having said that the question is whether trek is right to have given us a glimpse of that behaviour (and it is only glimpses, SF are shown as war criminals yes, but only in very specific instances to which are attention is drawn. We do not see routine massacres of civilian populations or PoWs for instance).
Certainly it does not superficially fit with TNG era idealism, but perhaps by showing us the consequences of warfare it could be said to give a clear argument why those values do in fact matter. Yes Sisko's actions on several occasions are either questionable or outright horrendous, but what troubles me more from an ethical viewpoint is that those choices are invariably shown to be effective. Eddington is caught because of the biogenic weapon. ITPM leads to the Romulans joining the war. TSOAR558 has the cloaked landmines break the deadlock and thus save SF lives.
The only times that spring to mind wherein a warcrime is commited or attempted and leads to disaster is the joint Romulan-Cardassian attack on the Founder homeworld, which crucially from a story telling perspective was NOT carried out by the protagonist.
In a sense I am glad trek burst the bubble, but the manner in which DS9 seemingly went beyond realism in order to outright lambast the TNG idealism does trouble me occasionally.
In practice I think few people truly keep to what we would term justified or humane behaviour in warfare, particularly in the way they treat non combatants. Rape, torture and indiscriminate murder are common place and history suggests that peer pressure, conformity, adherence to authority, tribalism, stress and the breakdown of social conventions mean few people truly go through war as idealised dignified exemplars of humanity, which is precisely why I would almost always argue in favour of peaceful alternatives.
War really is hell and whilst there are instances of nobility and heroism the vast majority of it is people dying, suffering, terrorised and being traumatised in ways they will never recover from, shouting in futility for help as their organs pour out into the soil, living in abject fear of the next minute, relationships and families torn apart for no good reason other than to give some inadequate politician or officer a place in history. In fact even in peacetime pretty much any form of violence is unlikely to be anything other than awful and I've seen enough of it to confidently base that on more than Hollywood.
Having said that the question is whether trek is right to have given us a glimpse of that behaviour (and it is only glimpses, SF are shown as war criminals yes, but only in very specific instances to which are attention is drawn. We do not see routine massacres of civilian populations or PoWs for instance).
Certainly it does not superficially fit with TNG era idealism, but perhaps by showing us the consequences of warfare it could be said to give a clear argument why those values do in fact matter. Yes Sisko's actions on several occasions are either questionable or outright horrendous, but what troubles me more from an ethical viewpoint is that those choices are invariably shown to be effective. Eddington is caught because of the biogenic weapon. ITPM leads to the Romulans joining the war. TSOAR558 has the cloaked landmines break the deadlock and thus save SF lives.
The only times that spring to mind wherein a warcrime is commited or attempted and leads to disaster is the joint Romulan-Cardassian attack on the Founder homeworld, which crucially from a story telling perspective was NOT carried out by the protagonist.
In a sense I am glad trek burst the bubble, but the manner in which DS9 seemingly went beyond realism in order to outright lambast the TNG idealism does trouble me occasionally.
Sorry, I just had to mention it.
