How can there be 'evil logic'?

[aelius]

Here's an example, which I think is what Kodos the Executioner actually did. You have your world thats on the brink of starvation. They are all going to die if you don't find a solution. You could change farming techniques to increase food production, but that takes time. So the quickest solution, and therefor the logical choice, would be to kill half the populace. Just line them up and shoot every other one. That way demand for food is decreased immediately. Although your people might find it evil, you've just made a logical choice.

Well, not really. Unless the timescale worked out just right, Kodos would have had to kill all the people before there was hope of more food. Or then he wouldn't have to kill anybody, because people could easily survive with zero food for several weeks. And there is no indication in the episode that Kodos would have been facing the right sort of time window. Rather, he just made flimsy excuses for satisfying his murderous urges.

Timo Saloniemi

When Spock was explaining the massacre to McCoy he said that food transports were due to arrive within months. Kodos calculated that with half the colonists gone the food supplies would last until then. The transports arrived early however, and the deaths accomplished nothing.
On a side note. Does it seem odd that a man could be the governor of a Federation colony world yet only seven people had actually laid eyes on him. The ep implies that anyone who had seen him was killed, but there were four thousand survivors (based on 4000 colonists killed and being described as half of the colonists), you would think a few more people would have seen him.

 

[USS Triumphant]

The ep implies that anyone who had seen him was killed, but there were four thousand survivors (based on 4000 colonists killed and being described as half of the colonists), you would think a few more people would have seen him.

Maybe he made sure most of the ones who had seen him were in the 4000 that were killed? As a matter of fact, I think I'd be suspicious of those 7 that saw him and survived. Is that because they were co-conspirators in the murders?

Some factors, such as how much value we place upon someone's life, are value judgements that can not easily be quantified.

Those "factors" are not actually factors in a logical consideration. The value placed on a particular person's life would still be drawn from logical considerations, and decidedly quantifiable. The "factors" you refer to stem from emotion, and by the goals of Vulcan logic, should be suppressed.

Also, if one is "justifying" anything, one is not operating with Vulcan logic. True logic derives an answer from the components involved, not the other way around, and is thus neither good nor evil. It just is.

I would submit to you that there is great value in logic. It is very helpful in making day-to-day decisions, and has helped me to maintain some measure of sanity in some very difficult times. However, I would also point out that the most sympathetic Vulcan characters seem to be those who have the ability to correctly gauge when logic has reached the correct conclusion, but not the right one.

 

[Anwar]

Was Kodos the legitimate Governor of Tarsus IV (or whatever colony it was)? They read some notes he wrote about how there had been a "Revolution" that put him in charge.

I figured he used the food crisis as a way of putting himself in power and then killing off the population (mostly those who were opposed to him in the first place) while using the food crisis as the main excuse.

 

[Timo]

When Spock was explaining the massacre to McCoy he said that food transports were due to arrive within months. Kodos calculated that with half the colonists gone the food supplies would last until then. The transports arrived early however, and the deaths accomplished nothing.

Actually, the part about "transports were due" isn't there - there's only the part where Spock laments that relief arrived but too late, and later the part where Karidian/Kodos laments that the relief arrived earlier than expected. So odds are pretty much equal between there being scheduled help, and there being a means of summoning help.

And in either case, famine is something you don't have to, and shouldn't, fight with this sort of culling. Humans can and will sustain themselves for months without any food if necessary: the math doesn't work in this case. The people could eat their shoes or go scavenge the whole planetful for roots and grubs. Unless the whole planet was uninhabitable, in which case the supply setup wouldn't make sense, and eating the shoes would still be more viable than doing culling.

Now, if it were oxygen that was at risk of running out...

On a side note. Does it seem odd that a man could be the governor of a Federation colony world yet only seven people had actually laid eyes on him. The ep implies that anyone who had seen him was killed, but there were four thousand survivors (based on 4000 colonists killed and being described as half of the colonists), you would think a few more people would have seen him.

As said above, Kodos probably only became the governor thanks to this crisis. "Kodos" sounds like a nom de guerre anyway, something this previously unknown guy chose to hide his true identity and origins.

One might think that everybody would know everybody anyway in a colony of just 8,000. But perhaps "Kodos" was a recent arrival, or a mere guest there? After all, we had James T. Kirk present on the occasion. Was his family moving from Iowa farming to an outer space farming? Or was his family already Starfleet, and paying a visit? "Kodos" might have been somebody Kirk had met on the ship that recently took him to Tarsus, and thus unknown to the colonists who were already on the planet when Kirk and "Kodos" arrived.

On a separate issue, this "exotic fungus ruins supplies" business makes one wonder if the whole disaster weren't engineered. It gave "Kodos" the excuse to grab power, and the measures he took make no real sense - so it could have been a deliberate vehicle for giving "Kodos" his coup and his (brief) position of importance.

Timo Saloniemi