If Kirk Had Killed Spock in Amok Time

If Kirk had killed Spock during the challenge in Amok Time would Kirk have been convicted of murder ?
Spock sure thought he would be arrested for killing Kirk and he was temporarily insane when it happened.
Kirk agreed to the challenge and even had the chance to back out.

 

I’m sure that Kirk, being an officer and a gentleman, would resign his Starfleet commission and submit himself for prosecution on the charge of murder. Samuel Cogley...are your services still available?

 

The series would've been in deep deux deux because they're already signed Nimoy back for a bunch of episodes they'd have had to pay him for evcenif his character didn't appear.

 

I'd be kind of amused to see T'Pring as Kirk's new science officer/wife.

 

I actually started writing a fanfic a few years ago, in which T'Pring is flabbergasted (in a perfectly logical way, of course) that Kirk decides to keep her. All appeals to T'Pau to prevent this are for naught, as Kirk acted according to Vulcan law.

But Kirk doesn't want her as either science officer or wife, or even concubine. He plans to teach her a lesson that logic doesn't excuse manipulating people to the point where she causes someone's death for her own convenience.

 

A long stretch but if by accepting the challenge (which T'Pau said he needn't accept) was Kirk breaking the prime directive. Would killing Spock interfere with the normal development of Vulcan?

 

Kirk could claim ignorance due to the fact that he was unaware that the fight was to the death but I agree, I think he would resign his commission and willingly go to trial just like Spock would have done if not for McCoy's trickery!
JB

 

The Prime Directive does not apply to other Federation members for fairly obvious reasons, the simplest being they're already aware of you and all your magic tech and your culture.

 

Since the kal-i-fee (death combat) is a normal (if rarely used) part of Vulcan culture, Kirk didn't break the Prime Directive.

If he had tried to stop the ritual flat-out, that would have been a violation (interfering in a planet's internal customs/politics).

 

Yup, I wouldn't be surprised if a Star Fleet court martial just accepted his resignation as its job done without further proceedings because it was all done under the auspices of T'Pau and Vulcan customs and practice.

 

But Kirk is not part of Vulcan culture/society. Granted he was requested to participate but it seems he had no business being involved other than for personal reasons.

 

TOS doesn't have the TNG anal version of the Prime Directive. We saw with Wolf in the Fold the planet's laws will take precedence.

 

It would have been self defense. He just respected Vulcan traditions when he agreed to the fight and Vulcan is after all a federation member and I don't think he could have been expected to know that the fight was to the death. Vulcans after all don't seem to be otherwise very violent people. And once the fight started it was already hard enough of him to survive at all as Vulcans are so much stronger than humans and the Vulcan homeworld has also thin air and a hot temperature. So just incapacitating Spock to survive was an unsafe strategy, if the other Vulcans would have even accepted such an end to the fight and wouldn't just have waited until Spock woke up so the fight could continue. So it was either he would die or Spock and that is a classic self defense situation.

 

If you've read The Lost Years, you know that T'Pring was actually evil. Her husband, Stonn, died early, leaving her with all his estates. To get back at Spock for embarrassing her by leaving with the Federation, she almost succeeded in getting Vulcan to leave the Federation. As an additional plus, she would gain a great deal of money through underhanded deals in selling land that people from the Federation used to own.

 

Sorry, that was Spock's World.

 

Novels are not canon.

 

Totally unrelated but I had an early teen crush for Arlene Martel. I loved her Tiger role in Hogan's Heroes.

 

They might not be, but I thought it was a pretty realistic book.

 

Nah, he was told it was a death fight before he took his first swing. The commercial break was based around his finding out.

 

It wasn't his choice to make.

Remember, T''Pring chose Kirk to fight on her behalf. And of course Kirk wouldn't dare refuse, as it would be a grave insult to Spock (and to Vulcan in general).