What??? How in the hell do you justify genocide as an act of "self-defense?" Tracey went hugely beyond protecting himself. He slaughtered thousands of people who had no way to defend themselves.
Umm, no.
Kirk did that hurt-the-helpless schtick. The Gamma Trianguli folks didn't even know how to sharpen an avocado for a weapon, yet Kirk pulled the plug on their society. Tracey shot back at hordes of well-armed, aggressive warriors who had been the initiators of the hostilities and were about to overrun his positions with the aim of proceeding to slaughter others. He shot at people who were
perfectly and demonstrably capable of harming him and his heavily armed friends.
Both parties did what was absolutely necessary to defend themselves - no lesser use of force would have sufficed in either case. Kirk killed a planetful (unless we assume the Triangulites learned to take care of themselves afterwards, or were provided with the necessary help), apparently with a double-or-nothing plan of absolute salvation or absolute genocide. Tracey killed thousands, with the aim of living and letting the winning side live, too.
As said, suicide or surrender (probably the same thing, really) would have been a viable way out, and the wording in "Bread and Circuses" sort of suggests that this is what Kirk and Tracey both
should have done. But the only other way out was the use of force. And Vaal didn't listen to any force lesser than the main phasers of a starship, and the Yangs didn't listen to any force lesser than the full output of four Type 2 phasers.
And it's bigotry to see the Yangs' way of life was "savage" just because it wasn't as sedentary and technologically advanced as that of the Kohms.
It's bigotry to see Vaal's or Landru's tyranny as a negative thing, too, then.
There was every objective reason to think that the Yangs would have meant death to Tracey's party, and to the people he had learned to know planetside. That's the same sort of "bigotry" that the Soviets held against the invading Nazi hordes, or the Nazis against the counter-invading Soviets.
The Yang culture was basically analogous to that of Plains Native Americans, according to Kirk. The Plains peoples certainly weren't "savages," except in the racist propaganda of their rivals. They were just as much victims of Kohm aggression as the reverse; there was no unambiguous right side. If Tracey chose to embrace one culture's denigration of the other and commit mass murder using that as a justification, that is a huge and obvious Prime Directive violation in every imaginable way, and a grossly evil act regardless of Starfleet regulations.
What would Kirk know? He is the one who jumps to bigoted conclusions on no evidence whatsoever. Spock fully supports Tracey's take on the Yangs, as does the testimony of their own eyes, ears and aching bodies when our heroes meet Yangs in person.
The Yangs were the bad guys till the bitter end. Sure, it wasn't Tracey's position or duty to side with the white hats against the black hats here - it is a completely separate issue that he did, in the name of self-defense and under the thin pretense of altruism. But it has to be acknowledged that Tracey and Spock both had it right from the beginning: the Yangs were the villains of the play, and a threat to heroes and bystanders alike.
Besides, Kirk didn't "destroy" those cultures, he merely removed the artificial controls that were inhibiting their development. That did disrupt their status quo, but it's nothing like genocide.
In the case of Landru, that's probably so. In the case of Vaal, we don't even know whether the Triangulites could
breed! Once again, Kirk intervened without sufficient intelligence - he didn't even ask McCoy.
In contrast, his officers in "Omega Glory" did offer their views, supporting Tracey's points of view even when being appalled at the fact that the man now was a violent lunatic.
And he didn't make an arbitrary choice to side with one faction over another; he destroyed computers that had enslaved everyone on the planet equally.
Which is of no real relevance. It's absurd to claim that siding with a faction would somehow be worse than siding against all factions!
Most of all, he didn't personally murder thousands of them with his own phaser!!!
Irrelevant details. Just because a deed is done without getting one's own hands dirty with blood doesn't make the deed any better as such. Tracey vaporized armies. Kirk may have doomed entire civilizations. That Kirk did it clinically doesn't absolve him in any way.
Tracey's actions weren't self-defense, they were a one-man Holocaust.
They were
both. Which is why most cultures, apparently including the Federation, outlaw self-defense in the general case. It's no different from other kinds of violence in the practical sense, even if it comes with an excuse: the victim is just as dead (or wounded) in the end.
You've offered some truly bizarre interpretations of Trek-universe concepts in the past, but this one really takes the cake.
I think it's just because of the bigoted and jingoist worldview that TOS offers. We don't live in the 1960s United States any more, so morals that once were acceptable or even commendable don't wash any more. Heroes can't be worshipped or even tolerated merely because they are heroes, and villains cannot be judged merely in relativist terms of comparing them with the heroes - or worse still, the heroes' idealized views of themselves.
Timo Saloniemi
