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Berman maintained Roddenberry's idea of "conflict from outside" even during DS9. Sure, there were slightly more disagreements between the characters than there were in TNG, especially among the non-Starfleet characters, but even the DS9 crew became like a close-knit family fairly quickly in the series, with most of their conflicts with people outside their immediate circle.
VOY set up a situation of a crew with an ongoing internal conflict as part of its original premise, but ultimately only dabbled with it every once in a blue moon during the course of seven seasons.
Although ENT began with a captain that had a personal grudge against Vulcans, that eventually became sidelined in favor of the conflict from outside thing and bumpy-headed aliens of the week.
Roddenberry started the no ongoing conflict between main characters stuff in early TNG, but it was really Berman that ran away with it and was its biggest champion for over a decade, IMO.
Yeah, I know. I agree that they do show Starfleet ships with a variety of strength levels. I just personally think the technology level and capabilities of Starfleet should make any ship (even those that are not the strongest/newest ships) at least contenders in most situations.
I think the Titanis a contender in most situations. It just so happens that the Shrike is so incredibly powerful that this is one of the rare situations where it isn't.
Look how easily it was for Starfleet to replicate hundreds of the most advanced ships available at the end of S1
There is no indication that the Inquiry-class starships seen in "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part II" were newly replicated. They were new ships but they had all almost certainly been constructed the same way multiple Galaxy-class starships had been constructed in the early 2360s, just at a larger scale.
While I think it is true that there are places or times in earlier Trek where the ideals of the Federation aren't always upheld (that was practically DS9's overarching theme - the series, not the exact setting on DS9 in Bajoran space/the frontier), in previous Trek it always seemed to be more one-offs. One bad admiral, one bad day, or one bad situation.
That is a prime example of the difference between substance and tone. If you look at TNG objectively without internalizing the optimistic tone the narrative works to project, TNG's depiction of multiple recurring acts of corruption and criminal activity within the upper echelons of the Starfleet hierarchy strongly imply a level of institutional corruption and violation of Federation principles that would in real life be incompatible with the TNG tone. Think about it! Over the course of TNG, we see:
Admiral Mark Jameson who illegally armed both sides in a civil war with advanced Federation weapons
Infiltration of the highest levels of Starfleet Command by the alien parasites
Commander Bruce Maddux, apparently with the support of Starfleet Command and the Daystrom Institute, deny Data's sentience and try to force Data to submit to terminal experimentation
Captain Picard argue that the standing precedent from Starfleet Command is to allow pre-warp sentient species to go extinct in the event of planetary natural disasters
Captain Picard attempt to admonish Data for reproducing without permission
Admiral Anthony Haftel attempt to abduct Lal into Starfleet custody against the will of her father
Starfleet push Picard back onto regular duty less than a month after having his entire mind violated by the Borg
Infiltration of the Federation Diplomatic Corps by Romulan Tal Shiar agent Selok, posing as Federation Ambassador T'Pel
Systemic bullying against Lt. Reginald Barclay
Retired Admiral Norah Satie, who sets up a witch trial with near-impunity casting about for Romulan and other anti-Federation spies before being shut down by Picard
Admiral Kennelly, who attempts to illegally arm Bajoran Resistance fighters in return for Bajoran civilians being forcibly resettled out of Federation space and is tricked by the Cardassians in the process
Starfleet Cadet Nick Locarno talk Nova Squadron into performing an illegal piloting maneuver and then attempt to cover up the death of one of their squadmates
Abusive squad leaders at Starfleet Academy does appear to be a systemic issue, since we subsequently saw the leader of Red Squadron talk his team into undertaking a doomed mission against orders out of pure hubris, leading to the destruction of the USS Valiant and all but one Red Squad member
Captain Picard order Lt. Com. La Forge to develop a genocidal weapon against the Borg
We subsequently see Admiral Alynna Nechayev order Picard to deploy said weapon if given the opportunity
The Federation government and scientific community systemically ignore politically inconvenient research from Rabal and Serova about the damaging consequences of traditional warp drive technology until Serova sacrifices herself to prove it
The Federation government and scientific community engage in systemic discrimination against the Ferengi scientist Reyga for his species
Admiral Erik Pressman and Commander Riker engage in a conspiracy to develop illegal cloaking technology, cover up the deaths of Pegasus crewmembers, and then illicitly retrieve the cloak before Riker exposes him
Picard and Starfleet once again attempt to allow the sentient pre-warp people of Boraal II go extinct before being forced to relocate a small number of them by a Federation civilian scientist
The Federation Council perpetuate systemic racism against the Native American inhabitants of Dorvan V by trading their planet to the Cardassians against their will and attempt to forcibly relocate them
The Federation refuse to protect their citizens living in the Demilitarized Zone from murderous attacks by Cardassian civilian paramilitary forces being illegally supplied weapons by the Central Command
The Federation violently retaliate against those of its citizens who attempt to defend themselves from said Cardassian paramilitaries
Admiral Dougherty and his subordinate officers engage in a conspiracy to forcibly relocate the Ba'ku from their planet
And that's just TNG! I'm sorry, but the Federation that TNG paints has a lot of systemic problems! It's not a utopia in spite of Picard's rhetoric about humanity being more evolved. (Also, that's a very Human-centric way of framing a multi-species Federation.) These problems recur often enough that, frankly, they're not one-offs. But TNG gives you a tone of optimism and doesn't ask you to think deeply about whether or not these problems are symptoms of larger systemic issues in the UFP, so it feels more optimistic than it actually is.
And in the end, with a few exceptions, the result was to realize the failure, to try to fix it, or to improve things.
Which is exactly what happens in PIC. I mean, think about it. The world of PIC starts off somewhat dark, but in the course of PIC we see:
The Federation admit that they were wrong about synths and sending a fleet to protect the Coppelian Androids from the Zhat Vash
The Federation (thanks to Picard's actions) ferret out the Zhat Vash infiltrators within their ranks
The Federation repeal discriminatory laws against sentient synths
Starfleet re-instate Picard and put him in charge of the Academy
Starfleet repeal its discriminatory anti-Romulan enlistment regulations and accept its first Romulan Starfleet officer in Elnor
The Federation engage in an extensive diplomatic bridge-building mission with the Coppelian Androids in spite of their previous conflicts
The Federation lay down its arms and ally themselves with the Jurati Borg in spite of decades of war and trauma from the traditional Collective
The crew of the USS Titan-A act to protect the Crushers in spite of the danger posed to themselves by the Shrike
Textually, the Federation in PIC is working really hard to redeem itself from past mistakes and move in a more progressive direction!
Maybe that was somewhat a function of the episodic nature of earlier Trek, but now it seems like failures/dark underbellies/vices are the basic background for whole seasons and not just corruptions of the status quo.
See, I would argue that you're taking the events of Season One and projecting them onto the entire series. Season One was, indeed, among other things, about Jean-Luc Picard leading the Federation out of the bigotry, xenophobia, and fear it had fallen into after the Mars Attack. And he does so! At the end of S1, the Federation has rejected that xenophobia and repealed its anti-synth laws. The Federation in S2 is doing so much better! It's not only building a relationship with the Coppellians, but they'e repealed discriminatory anti-Romulan Starfleet enlistment regs, and accept an olive branch from the Jurati Borg, even considering accepting them as Federation Members. The Federation in PIC S2 basically does nothing wrong!
And, we have just learned from "Seventeen Seconds" that the Federation in S3 is also doing nothing wrong!
Beverly told Jean-Luc to trust no one because she didn't know what was happening and had seen Starfleet officers try to kill her and abduct her son -- in reality, they were rouge Changelings who had rejected the Dominion's peace treaty with the Federation.
In earlier Trek the bad stuff could occur often (we do want/need conflict to help drive drama), but it wasn't the point; it was the exception that proves the rule of a more enlightened, and improving, society.
I would say that if bad stuff keeps happening again and again and again, and your narrative keeps depicting them as one-offs and doesn't ask the audience to think about whether there's a systemic issue at play, then your narrative is being more than a little dishonest to its audience.
Thinking about it, I don't know if I could name any positive actions or positive developments that take place in PIC s1 (outside of the main/hero characters) until maybe the last couple of episodes of the season.
1) That's a little bit like saying that you couldn't name a single thing Commodore Decker does right in "The Doomsday Machine" until the final act when he sacrifices himself to save the Enterprise. It is a single story using a very common story structure in which bad things happen until the end, when a cathartic act redeems the character and restores a prior (or establishes new) morally just status quo. The same thing applies to PIC S1. It is a story about Jean-Luc Picard leading the Federation out of darkness and into the light; you can't write the Federation as entering that light until the end of the story, because redemption is your thematic climax.
2) Even at its darkest, PIC S1 makes it clear that the Federation between 2379 and 2399 was still a constitutional liberal democracy with numerous guaranteed rights protecting the overwhelming majority of its population, where Federation worlds lacked almost all forms of classism, racism, cisheterosexism, crime, disease, etc etc etc. We even see that in spite of anti-Romulan prejudice leading the Federation to abandon the Romulan Rescue Fleet mission, Romulan refugees live on Earth in peace and happiness.
(Yes, Raffi was angry at Jean-Luc and accused him of having class privilege early on, but her claim there is undermined by the very next scene in which we discover that Dahj, a recent college graduate who is unemployed and who has no family on Earth, nonetheless enjoys a vary comfortable living space in a major metropolitan area with a replicator, strongly indicating that this infrastructure is given as standard to anyone who needs it. Raffi herself also appears to have access to sufficient shelter, the planetary internet, and good nutrition in spite of being herself also unemployed. The United Earth welfare state appears to be working just fine.)
I am sure I am forgetting some things, but thinking back, it is just seems so bleak: the news reporter, the Romulan kill squads, infiltrated Starfleet with no one noticing, Starfleet abandoning the Romulans, accepting Picard's resignation, Clancy,... Rios's whole backstory,... the whole reason for the Fenris Rangers,
Again, these are all elements of the story being told about Jean-Luc leading the Federation back into the light after falling into darkness. You can't redeem a culture that never sinned.
And, yes, the Fenris Rangers/Vashti backstory is also about Jean-Luc realizing he has sinned and needs to redeem himself for past failures, just as he'll lead the Federation into redeeming itself for its failures. Nobody is perfect in Star Trek: Picard, but the protagonists are all trying their best to be good and be better.
Seven's revenge,... the hell planet that is Freecloud,
I don't think either of these elements speak to the question of the Federation, because Freecloud is not a Federation planet. Honestly, I don't see how Seven's vengeance against Bjayzl is morally any different from Kira's violence against Cardassian occupation officials in the Resistance -- in both situations, the protagonist (Seven or Kira) is in an environment where there is no rule of law (Cardassian-occupied Bajor or Freecloud), facing a murderous opponent who is unrepentant, who poses an ongoing threat to the lives of innocent people, and for whom there is no possibility of the law bring them to justice (Cardassian occupation forces or Bjayzl and her criminal syndicate). Yet no one claims Kira is somehow irreparably tainted by her actions.
Star Trek has always, always, always contained elements of tragedy in its characters' lives. Will's mother and Deanna's father both died when they were kids in TNG. So did Jack Crusher senior -- Wesley's father, Beverly's husband, and Jean-Luc's best friend. Tasha Yar was a survivor of a planet where sexual assault was so routine that there were "rape gangs." Worf's parents and his entire community were killed in a Romulan attack on Khitomer.
She's a kid, but she does a lot to help Soji realize that she can trust Jean-Luc and organics in general. She's very thematically important to the story of S1.
Again, this speaks more to the Romulans than to the Federation. It's a Federation citizen in Hugh who is attempting to rehabilitate and protect the XBs, after all.
Maybe that is how I need to look at this whole post-Dominion War period - that it was more profoundly affecting than I realized, and even the Federation is seriously damaged by it in the medium term. Not just physically and economically but socially, mentally, and institutionally.
DIS S1 is about the Federation going through a major war, being tested, but in the end refusing to become the genocidal, authoritarian monster it's tempted to become. DIS S2 literally ends with the Federation joining with its S1 adversaries the Klingons to fight side-by-side and defeat a monster of Starfleet's accidental creation. S3 and S4 are all about the triumph of Federation values as it rebuilds after a horrible natural disaster.
Sci said:
...Even at its absolute darkest, the Federation of Star Trek: Picard is not a dystopia. It is clearly still a constitutional liberal democracy in which poverty, disease, and most systems of oppression have been eliminated. Picard S1 begins at the tail end of a time when the Federation has betrayed some of its values, but the plot of S1 is literally Jean-Luc Picard leading the Federation into realizing it has done wrong and making amends for it. I mean, it literally ends with the Federation Starfleet sending an armada to protect the androids whom it had once banned from being genocided and rescinding their laws against synthetic lifeforms.
...
No. The Federation of Next Generation was a society with serious systemic issues and a lot of internal corruption. In substance, the Federation of Picard is not that different from the Federation of Next Generation -- what you are responding to is tone, not substance.
I like your take on the ending of S1 of PIC. I wish I "felt" that that was the story that was told. The ending was so rushed and just not explored that I don't really get that that was the message of the show or even the plot (at least as far as Starfleet/the Federation is concerned).
I mean, I think it's perfectly fair to say that "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part II" should have been less rushed and gone into more detail about that element of the episode. But it is there. Picard's death was the Federation's redemption for its treatment of Synths and the Romulans.
Because it was so contracted, when I think back about it, it "feels" to me that Starfleet only really cared that Riker came to them with info on a Romulan plot and they sent a fleet to protect innocent beings.
Except that was Jean-Luc, and Admiral Clancy had a redemptive moment with him where she made it clear that she trusted him and was sorry for how she had treated him.
Because Riker and the fleet warps away immediately and because the synth ban is dealt with offhand in a single line of dialogue, I think it is safe to say the show wasn't really concerned much with those plot lines or what they really said about the Federation at large being damaged or changing/healing. I think the show was more interested in proving to the androids that we weren't all bad because some of us reacted negatively and banned them.
I think those two things are completely intertwined. I do agree that the episode should have given us more info on that, but "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part II" essentially wanted to depict the Federation's redemption in the person of Jean-Luc Picard, who quite literally dies for the Federation's sins, encounters his dead ersatz son in the symbolic afterlife a la Orpheus, and then is reborn as is the Federation. They traded sociological storytelling for psychological and symbolic storytelling, in other words. I loved the psychological stuff to, but the sociological stuff was still there. And then S2 depicted the Federation in a very positive light!
As for tone vs substance: that is definitely one of my objections to DIS and PIC. While how much of a difference in substance there is (how "bad" things were depicted in "old Trek" vs NuTrek) can be argued, I think the tone is very much darker, and I don't like it.
I don't particularly see why they need to be "reconciled" anymore than the tone of DS9 had to be reconciled with the tone of TNG. They are all different works of art that can have divergent tones. There's no reason the Star Trek franchise cannot encompass both the redemptive storyline of PIC S1 going from darkness into light, the optimistic episodic structure of SNW, the light-hearted comedy of LD, or the we-all-have-trauma-but-we're-working-through-it tone of DIS.
Sci said:
...
Hell, Star Trek: Voyager arguably depicted the Federation as far worse than Picard ever did, since it depicted the Federation as using sentient EMHes for slave labor in "Author, Author."
...
Seven kills an unrepentant murderer who poses an ongoing threat to the lives of innocent people and who lives on a planet where there is no rule of law. I repeat: Bjayzl lived above the law on Freecloud, a non-Federation world. Killing organized crime leaders in an environment where the rule of law does not exist is a very different moral question than in one where there is the rule of law...
I pulled these two bits out to discuss them separately:
Despite that the episode was decent and pretty fun, I always disliked VOY's ultimate approach to "Author, Author": that they failed to reference (in all but the most tangential way) the obvious precedent from "Measure of a Man" and thus seemingly forgot a seminal moment in Trek and what it should mean for the rights of artificial persons in the Federation.
On the other hand, in real life, legal structures often apply basic principles inconsistently out of the desire to maintain unjust hierarchies. It's a thing that happens, and it happening in "Author, Author" was fairly realistic. And, it's a good example of the difference between tone and substance. The tone of "Author, Author" is extremely light, but the substance is very disturbing, since it establishes that the Federation has a huge blind spot vis-a-vis the rights of synthetic lifeforms and that this has been ongoing since "The Measure of a Man." In other words, even in the supposedly optimistic TNG and VOY, the Federation has been engaging in long-term systemic injustices. PIC is just the first show to have a season that centers that systemic injustice instead of handwaiving it as a one-off.
As for Seven killing Bjayzl: while I kind of like the execution (no pun intended) of the story of Seven getting revenge on this obviously evil person, I still think it does a major disservice to the character of Seven and the "character" of Starfleet/the Federation/Star Trek. It doesn't really fit in Trek.
That a main heroic character, "raised" by Janeway to understand the principles of the Federation and what it means to be human and in Starfleet (though she technically wasn't), who developed and demonstrated a set of principles and morals throughout 4 years of VOY, would decide to beam back down and in cold blood kill someone (even a ruthless gangster),
Seven has always had a different take on Federation principles than Janeway. Even as she's accepted most of them, she has always been more skeptical about some of them than Janeway would have preferred. She has agency -- she's never allowed herself to be indoctrinated into a Federation institutionalist.
Should Kira suffer criminal penalties for her actions during the Occupation?
In Seven's story, it was more like a "look at her being badass and violating some moral/ethical boundaries to get petty revenge on someone who harmed her" without ever addressing what any of it was trying to say about her character as a person.
If you don't think "Stardust City Rag" addressed what any of it was trying to say about Seven's character as a person, then you weren't paying attention. Go back and re-watch her scene immediately before it. Jean-Luc might have been talking solely about the Borg, but Seven wasn't.
I don't think they were actually concerned about what it meant for her character, especially as it has never been referenced again.
I think you are confusing the writers not wanting to hit you over the head with the Wheel of Morality with them "not being concerned about what it meant for her character."
Berman maintained Roddenberry's idea of "conflict from outside" even during DS9. Sure, there were slightly more disagreements between the characters than there were in TNG, especially among the non-Starfleet characters, but even the DS9 crew became like a close-knit family fairly quickly in the series, with most of their conflicts with people outside their immediate circle.
VOY set up a situation of a crew with an ongoing internal conflict as part of its original premise, but ultimately only dabbled with it every once in a blue moon during the course of seven seasons.
Although ENT began with a captain that had a personal grudge against Vulcans, that eventually became sidelined in favor of the conflict from outside thing and bumpy-headed aliens of the week.
Roddenberry started the no ongoing conflict between main characters stuff in early TNG, but it was really Berman that ran away with it and was its biggest champion for over a decade, IMO.
I think you need to rewatch the later Seasons like I did. The characters and especially Cisco are more like TOS era characters than 24th century era TNG style characters..
Sisko committed at least two war crimes during the Dominion War era. The first was when he knowingly poisoned a Cardassian colony and a Federation colony in the demilitarized zone to get the Mauqi leader Michael Edington to surrender to him in the DS9 S5 episode For The Uniform.
The second was with the full endorsement of the Federation Council and Starfleet in DS9 S6 episode In The Pale Moonlight, with ultimately condoning the outright murder of the Romulan Senator once said Senator knew Confederation tried to get them to join the war against the Dominion with fake holographic recording.
There are more examples of questionable things many of the DS9 main characters have done during the Dominion War era; but the two above are definitely something I could see Captain James T Kirk also doing; but there's no way in hell Captain John-Luc Picard would even consider either of these actions.
I think you need to rewatch the later Seasons like I did. The characters and especially Cisco are more like TOS era characters than 24th century era TNG style characters..
I strongly disagree with that. As I said earlier, the DS9 crew did have disagreements maybe a bit more than TNG crew had, but still nothing that was ongoing (Quark and Odo being the exception, of course). Definitely by the later seasons they had a united front. They had far more problems with people outside their immediate crew.
I don't think she has to have anything be imposed from an outside source. She could just deal with it internally. But I would have liked to see some dealing with it. As it was left, Picard - an absolute moralist - argued against the theoretical action, but Seven a more practical, "efficient" actor, decided to kill her. Now that it is a reality and not just theoretical how do the characters feel? In the longer term does Seven still agree with it? Does Picard ever learn of it, or did he kind of know she was going to do it when she not-so-slyly asked to borrow some weapons? Does the fact that she hid her intentions from Picard affect her relationship with him?
And Trek doesn't need to pontificate about it either. I too appreciate it when they discuss, explore, and present evidence and arguments about a scenario, but leave the ultimate conclusion up to the viewer. That could have been what we had here, instead it is just never discussed or referenced again.
note, above, re: presenting arguments and letting the viewer decide. (my preference)
But how do these two characters with opposing viewpoints feel about or deal with the results of this decision? If this is supposed to be a serialized show where decisions have consequences and can't just be ignored by warping off to next week's crisis, I would like to see some of those consequences.
I think it would have been (and may yet be!) interesting to see how Seven's avenging of Icheb would affect her relationship with Jean-Luc, but it's not necessary per se. It's fine for that to be a singular, contained story arc that informs our understanding of Seven without it needing to be followed up on.
I think it would have been best to deal with it in season 1 or at least in season 2 (there was plenty of time to fill in that season). There were other things that I would have liked to see explore more, like Seven being tempted by the role of Borg Queen, more follow-up from having most of the Borg being ejected into space, or the Artifact crash landing on the android planet...
Picard doing something more to resolve his relationship with Elnor, beyond Elnor just adopting a new, more hopeless cause...
plenty of dropped plot lines.
I strongly disagree with that. As I said earlier, the DS9 crew did have disagreements maybe a bit more than TNG crew had, but still nothing that was ongoing (Quark and Odo being the exception, of course). Definitely by the later seasons they had a united front. They had far more problems with people outside their immediate crew.
I think you need to rewatch the later Seasons like I did. The characters and especially Cisco are more like TOS era characters than 24th century era TNG style characters..
Sisko committed at least two war crimes during the Dominion War era. The first was when he knowingly poisoned a Cardassian colony and a Federation colony in the demilitarized zone to get the Mauqi leader Michael Edington to surrender to him in the DS9 S5 episode For The Uniform.
The second was with the full endorsement of the Federation Council and Starfleet in DS9 S6 episode In The Pale Moonlight, with ultimately condoning the outright murder of the Romulan Senator once said Senator knew Confederation tried to get them to join the war against the Dominion with fake holographic recording.
There are more examples of questionable things many of the DS9 main characters have done during the Dominion War era; but the two above are definitely something I could see Captain James T Kirk also doing; but there's no way in hell Captain John-Luc Picard would even consider either of these actions.
Sisko only poisoned the one Maquis planet to get Eddington to surrender, and that was after Eddington crippled TWO Starfleet ships (Defiant and Malinche), stole cargo from a Bolian freighter (and turned cargo from that ship into biogenic weapons), poisoned TWO Cardassian worlds, and nearly killed a Cardassian freighter full of civilians trying to evacuate a poisoned planet just to stop Sisko from continuing to chase him. And by the way, Eddington announced he would be poisoning EVERY Cardassian colony.
Sisko only poisoned the one Maquis planet to get Eddington to surrender, and that was after Eddington crippled TWO Starfleet ships (Defiant and Malinche), stole cargo from a Bolian freighter (and turned cargo from that ship into biogenic weapons), poisoned TWO Cardassian worlds, and nearly killed a Cardassian freighter full of civilians trying to evacuate a poisoned planet just to stop Sisko from continuing to chase him. And by the way, Eddington announced he would be poisoning EVERY Cardassian colony.
I mean, yes he was a cadet before leaving, but he also held a rank of Lieutenant just before embarking the Enterprise originally, so who knows how this works in Starfleet
I mean, yes he was a cadet before leaving, but he also held a rank of Lieutenant just before embarking the Enterprise originally, so who knows how this works in Starfleet
Ah, you Are right. I was conflating this with the German dub version, where he was made a Lieutenant for some reason.
However, he was elevated from acting ensign to a full field commission I think?
Something changed in his status, when he changed to a regular uniform in those last few episodes during his regular stint.
Ah, you Are right. I was conflating this with the German dub version, where he was made a Lieutenant for some reason.
However, he was elevated from acting ensign to a full field commission I think?
Something changed in his status, when he changed to a regular uniform in those last few episodes during his regular stint.
Even so canonically he resigned as a cadet so whatever temporary rank he had on the Enterprise was disregarded. So, either a) he came back into the service and earned his rank or b) he's a scumbag wearing rank pips he's not entitled to. These are the only options.
Sisko only poisoned the one Maquis planet to get Eddington to surrender, and that was after Eddington crippled TWO Starfleet ships (Defiant and Malinche), stole cargo from a Bolian freighter (and turned cargo from that ship into biogenic weapons), poisoned TWO Cardassian worlds, and nearly killed a Cardassian freighter full of civilians trying to evacuate a poisoned planet just to stop Sisko from continuing to chase him. And by the way, Eddington announced he would be poisoning EVERY Cardassian colony.
Whoops! Yeah I miss remembered. Michael Edington poisoned a planet first.
That still doesn't change the fact that what Benjamin Sisko did in response was also illegal, and like I said, a war crime.
I also remember that Dax asked him if he had cleared the action with Starfleet command, and his response was:
" I knew I forgot something .."
And her response to that line was:
" I like it when the bad guy wins..."
Sorry, but given how Starfleet and the Federation operate, Benjamin Sisko as well as Worf, and Miles O'Brien should have all been court-martialed. Sisko for giving the illegal order, O'Brien for prepping the torpedo used at Sisko's order, and Worff for firing the torpedo on Sisko's order
Whoops! Yeah I miss remembered. Michael Edington poisoned a planet first.
That still doesn't change the fact that what Benjamin Sisko did in response was also illegal, and like I said, a war crime.
I also remember that Dax asked him if he had cleared the action with Starfleet command, and his response was:
" I knew I forgot something .."
And her response to that line was:
" I like it when the bad guy wins..."
Sorry, but given how Starfleet and the Federation operate, Benjamin Sisko as well as Worf, and Miles O'Brien should have all been court-martialed. Sisko for giving the illegal order, O'Brien for prepping the torpedo used at Sisko's order, and Worff for firing the torpedo on Sisko's order
Even if your scenario would happen, O'Brien was in the Engine Room, and he was never ordered to prep the torpedoes, so he is not involved in that order.
And it was not a war crime because Sisko warned that Maquis colony that he would be doing it in an hour, giving them more than enough time to evacuate. And no one was killed by that action. (No casualties were ever mentioned.)
And since there was not a war going on, it can't be called a war crime. The Maquis were terrorists, and they were actually killing people on both sides. Sisko simply restored the balance of the region, despite it being a tenuous balance.
And it was not a war crime because Sisko warned that Maquis colony that he would be doing it in an hour, giving them more than enough time to evacuate. And no one was killed by that action. (No casualties were ever mentioned.)
And since there was not a war going on, it can't be called a war crime. The Maquis were terrorists, and they were actually killing people on both sides. Sisko simply restored the balance of the region, despite it being a tenuous balance.
I really think you need to read up on what the definition of "War Crime" is.
As for no war going on, please, Benjamin Sisko fired a weapon of war (the Torpedo itself) with the intention of making a planet uninhabitable to the group of people who are legally living there; and they were forced to leave said Planet because of that action. That in itself is an act of War.
I really think you need to read up on what the definition of "War Crime" is.
As for no war going on, please, Benjamin Sisko fired a weapon of war (the Torpedo itself) with the intention of making a planet uninhabitable to the group of people who are legally living there; and they were forced to leave said Planet because of that action. That in itself is an act of War.
For there to be a war crime, people had to have died. NO casualties were mentioned at all.
War crimes
Violations of the laws or customs of war, including:
Atrocities or offences against persons or property, constituting violations of the laws or customs of war
murder, ill treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose of the civilian population in occupied territory
murder or ill treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas
killing of hostages
torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments
plunder of public or private property
wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages
devastation not justified by military necessity
None of these markers that define a war crime fit what Sisko did.
While Eddington actually did, since he not poisoned TWO Cardassian planets, but he did with the full intent of stealing those worlds for himself and the Maquis. In other words, he plundered those two worlds. Sisko did not plunder anything.
