Title says it all, in a TOS comic (the wormhole something or other) they were destroyed in a war against the Excalibans - but that isn't canon.
So why?
So why?
Why didn't the Organians interfere with the Klingon Federation war?
- Thread starter WraithDukat
- Start date
In their TOS appearance, they were the very incarnation of noninterference. They wanted nothing to do with the Fed-Klingon war. When the stupid kids refused to leave their lawn, they spanked them a bit and told them not to do it again ("One day you will grow up" or words to that effect).
They aren't in the business of dealing with wars, indeed the exact opposite is evident. If the Feds did cross paths with them again, the Federation might well cease to exist. But the Dominion War or its prelude involved no such crossing.
Timo Saloniemi
They aren't in the business of dealing with wars, indeed the exact opposite is evident. If the Feds did cross paths with them again, the Federation might well cease to exist. But the Dominion War or its prelude involved no such crossing.
Timo Saloniemi
People tend to overlook that "Errand of Mercy" explicitly provided a justification for the Organians not to continue interfering. They made it clear that they found interaction with corporeal beings to be immensely unpleasant and wished to avoid it as much as possible. The only reason they eventually intervened and stop the war was because it was the only way to get the corporeal beings to leave them alone. They weren't anti-war activists or anything -- they just wanted the noisy kids to get off their lawn. So as long as a UFP-Klingon conflict didn't involve Organia directly, the Organians would have no interest in getting involved. And surely both powers would make a point of avoiding Organia after that so as not to provoke their ire.
Keep in mind that TOS was made in an era when TV drama was expected to be anthology-like and have minimal continuity. Before heavy rerun syndication, before home video and box sets and streaming sites, it was harder to experience a series as a complete whole, so the focus was more on making sure every individual episode could stand alone without dependence on what came before. So when Gene Coon wrote "Errand of Mercy," he wasn't setting up the Organians as a permanent presence. On the contrary, he knew they'd probably never be seen again after that episode. So he had to build in a reason why their intervention would be a unique thing, for that episode only. That's why he had them clearly establish their revulsion at being forced to interact with corporeal beings. It wasn't something they'd continue doing if they could possibly help it. All they wanted was to be left alone. That was explicit from the start. Which is why it's so surprising to me that so many fans and writers over the decades have overlooked it.
I guess the reason is that "The Trouble With Tribbles" retroactively established the existence of "the Organian Peace Treaty." So fans assumed based on that reference that the Organians' interference was ongoing. But that doesn't really fit with what "Errand" established. I take it to mean that the treaty was negotiated at Organia (like all the various Treaties of Paris), rather than that it's actively enforced by the Organians. Maybe the two powers kept to the treaty for the first few years because they were afraid the Organians might intervene, but by the TOS movie era, it's clear that nothing is preventing conflict between the Klingons and the UFP.
Keep in mind that TOS was made in an era when TV drama was expected to be anthology-like and have minimal continuity. Before heavy rerun syndication, before home video and box sets and streaming sites, it was harder to experience a series as a complete whole, so the focus was more on making sure every individual episode could stand alone without dependence on what came before. So when Gene Coon wrote "Errand of Mercy," he wasn't setting up the Organians as a permanent presence. On the contrary, he knew they'd probably never be seen again after that episode. So he had to build in a reason why their intervention would be a unique thing, for that episode only. That's why he had them clearly establish their revulsion at being forced to interact with corporeal beings. It wasn't something they'd continue doing if they could possibly help it. All they wanted was to be left alone. That was explicit from the start. Which is why it's so surprising to me that so many fans and writers over the decades have overlooked it.
I guess the reason is that "The Trouble With Tribbles" retroactively established the existence of "the Organian Peace Treaty." So fans assumed based on that reference that the Organians' interference was ongoing. But that doesn't really fit with what "Errand" established. I take it to mean that the treaty was negotiated at Organia (like all the various Treaties of Paris), rather than that it's actively enforced by the Organians. Maybe the two powers kept to the treaty for the first few years because they were afraid the Organians might intervene, but by the TOS movie era, it's clear that nothing is preventing conflict between the Klingons and the UFP.
We also had the novel Spock Must Die. The Organians "deprived" the Klingons of spaceflight for a thousand years.
I have no idea how that would've worked if it was canon, or even relating to other novels.
I think it was the only non-anthology ST novel Blish wrote.
I have no idea how that would've worked if it was canon, or even relating to other novels.
I think it was the only non-anthology ST novel Blish wrote.
A treaty involving Organians would be like a treaty involving Vesuvius. The volcano may have stopped two armies from clashing, and facilitated an uneasy but welcome ceasefire during which both sides would reevaluate their tactics and bolster their armies. But a force of nature would have nothing to say about the contents of the treaty. (Although whatever it did say, it would be heard loud and clear!)
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Anyone remember in "Errand of Mercy" just before the Organians intervene it cuts to the council chambers and one of the three Organians with speaking roles says
"It has begun"
Ayeborne (the apparent leader) says "Prepare yourselves"
And finally the last member of the Organian triumvirate says "It will be hard".
"It will be hard" indicates there are limits to what the Organians can do.
"It has begun"
Ayeborne (the apparent leader) says "Prepare yourselves"
And finally the last member of the Organian triumvirate says "It will be hard".
"It will be hard" indicates there are limits to what the Organians can do.
Good point. There's a recurring tendency among Trek writers and fans to assume that every advanced alien has unlimited, godlike powers. But if you look more carefully, you see there's a range of different power levels. They're not all as effortlessly omnipotent as the Q or the Douwd. Ideally, there should be more of an effort taken to clarify the differences in what various advanced species can and can't do, rather than assuming that any and all superhuman power levels equate to infinite power.
Even the shows' own writers tend to be guilty of the same kind of power inflation. "Encounter at Farpoint" showed the Q as a species native to that particular region of space and needing an energy-bubble "ship" to chase the Enterprise, but by his second appearance, Q was already being portrayed as godlike and omnipotent. And the Caretaker in VGR was originally just a sporocystian life form (i.e. an animal that reproduced by sporing) with advanced technology at his disposal, but the next time the species was shown, they were just one more breed of godlike energy beings (giving us the gibberish phrase "sporocystian energy" because the writers were too lazy to figure out what words meant). Too many writers get lazy about portraying superhuman beings and just make them all the same.
The Organians also spoke of the millions of deaths that would occur in such a conflict and asked Kirk and Kor to justify their conflict to such a degree that neither of them could! So maybe the Organians are still watching and waiting to intervene once again or they will allow a brief skirmish and battle here and there! Kirk fought a Klingon vessel in the Tellun star system and crippled it but there was no intervention from on high in the episode Elaan of Troyius and that's the same series that created the Organians!
JB
JB
It wasn't happening in their backyard, so they didn't give a shit.
My bad- I somehow thought I was in the TOS forum. I forgot about the OTHER Klingon war on DS9. Yep- why didn't the Organians step in there? Maybe because they know that conflict with each other would make both stronger against the coming Dominion threat. A threat that even the Organians had no power over for some plot-derived reason.
Like I said, "Errand of Mercy" made it clear enough that the Organians were not interested in continuously policing the galaxy, because interacting with corporeal beings was painful for them. They just wanted to get the corporeal beings off their planet. As long as it doesn't involve Organia itself, the Organians won't get involved.
Plus it's been , what, over a century. Maybe there was a statute of limitations. I actually didn't even give the Organians much thought in DS9 when the conflict erupted. I figured, like Christopher, as long as it didn't involve the Organians it wasn't there problem. We saw in the episode of Enterprise that they had sort of their own Prime Directive and didn't get involved unless events really forced their hand.
Plus, it always seemed to me that the Federation and Klingon Empire didn't ever declare all out war. There were battles and engagements, but it never seemed to erupt into an all out war like they would have with the Dominion. It always felt like they approached that line but never actually crossed it.
I wish "Observer Effect" hadn't called its incorporeal aliens Organians, because they didn't act like Organians. Again, "Errand" said that Organians find interaction with corporeal beings intensely repugnant, so the idea that they'd actually go around possessing corporeal beings to learn about their societies is inconsistent.
True. The Klingons' war was with Cardassia, and they basically just withdrew from the Khitomer Accords because the UFP wouldn't join them in the fight. So that ended their friendship and led to tensions and occasional fighting, but it wasn't a declared war.
Yeah, it did feel a bit out of character. I mean, I guess it's possible they are still curious about the galaxy around them but it seems to me they would keep their observations more passive. This was pretty active. However, it is possible that this incident caused them to reconsider past practices and they became more isolative when Errand of Mercy occurred. It's probably a stretch, though it is alluded to in the episode when "Travis" stated they would have to reconsider their methods.
And it seemed a bit cruel that they would allow other vessels to be affected by something so preventable. While they aren't the direct interference type, they seemed compassionate enough to at least do something to prevent future vessels from being affected. It wouldn't have required them to even interact with corporeals. It'd probably be like us picking up a piece of garbage and putting it in a trashcan. The Organians struck me in Errand of Mercy to at least do that much.
But Ayelborne said "The mere presence of beings like yourselves is intensely painful to us." It wasn't an optional policy to avoid us; they literally couldn't stand being anywhere near us. So it makes no sense that they could physically possess us, or would choose to do so as a matter of intellectual curiosity. I wish the episode had given the energy beings a different name. Calling them Organians contributed nothing to the story except a continuity headache.
ENT had a habit of name-dropping TOS aliens even when it made very little sense in the context of the episode.
I'd say the Organians are the only instance where it didn't make sense. Other name drops included the Axanar -- who were never mentioned as anything but the site of a military victory and the namesake of a peace mission, so could've been anything -- and the Malurians -- who were first mentioned right after Nomad annihilated their homeworlds, so they could also have been pretty much anything. And the Coridan episode established that world as one that future Federation members vied over for control of its resources, which fits pretty well with "Journey to Babel," aside from the ENT episode giving it a much larger population (a discrepancy that the novels resolved rather cataclysmically). Otherwise, they mostly fleshed out aliens that were only briefly featured in TOS, notably Andorians and Tellarites.
Well, there was the astronomically illiterate use of Rigel in the pilot, but there was nothing specifically wrong with the later use of the Rigelians in season 4. And they did botch the introduction of the Romulans by claiming that was their own name for themselves when Paul Schneider had obviously meant "Romulus and Remus" to be the names that Earth people gave to the twin planet system. But aside from the name, the use of the Romulans made sense in context.
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