IDW Star Trek Ongoing...

[Pauln6]

I saw some discussion upthread about Christine Chapel. I haven't seen the entire run of the original series in about two decades, but I seem to remember her being a major supporting character along with Sulu, Chekov and Uhura. Maybe I'm mistaken and she wasn't, but that's what I remember.

She was a bit more secondary. She made 25 appearances in TOS, versus 35 for Chekov, 51 for Sulu, 64 for Scott, 65 for Uhura, etc. Even if you throw in the 9 animated episodes she was in, she still comes in last among the recurring characters (well, second-last if you count Rand).

Still, I suppose it's the movies that solidified a lot of the public perceptions about the characters and their prominence. There's no reason the movies couldn't have given Chapel a significant ongoing role, but after TMP, they didn't. Really, once she became a doctor, having both her and McCoy would've been a bit redundant.

I agree - Chapel was a major recurring character but she was the most minor of the major characters, with the exception of her two guest star appearances in the first half of season one and a couple of other slightly meatier appearances such as the infamous episode with the inter-racial kiss. She was sort of demoted even further because of what happened later in the movie franchise.

The character suffered from being McCoy's assistant in sick bay, despite being a qualified biologist. The mistake was limiting her to a medical role instead of letting her utilise her established skills set i.e. McCoy and even Spock were portrayed as taking the lead in any bio-research episodes and Chapel was very passive, rarely taking any kind of lead herself.

In the reboot, they could have established her as an exobiologist, paeleobiologist, or bio-researcher but they stuck with the name-drop of 'Nurse Chapel' instead, limiting her options from the get-go, and then transferred her off the ship off camera! Most people don't care but I thought it was terribly disrespectful to Majel's memory, to the contribution of the character, and to the female dynamic overall, which was extremely male-dominated even before they wrote out one of the few recurring women.

I thought they were ignoring her in the comics because they did not want to reveal the likeness of the actress who would be playing her in the sequel but that proved to be totally wrong. I'm now hoping that they sent her off to the rim because they intend to feature the character in the comics in an episode where her path crosses the Enterprise's again but I may be hoping in vain once more!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Everyone knows about Section 31 now, so whoever succeeds Admiral Marcus as head of Starfleet will be motivated to prove he (or she) is not one of them.

Do we know that? We know that Kirk knows about them. I'm sure he reported what Marcus told him about them, that there were investigations in the wake of the Vengeance crash, and hopefully the organization was exposed and dismantled by the final scene of the movie a year later. But there was never actually a line in the movie confirming that S31's existence had become common knowledge.

I'm sure Kirk would be listened to, after all of this went down. What with all of the damage to San Francisco and London, and the resurgence of Khan, Starfleet is going to be motivated to hunt down and punish the people responsible. I assume that the reason Marcus blabbed about Section 31 was that he wasn't expecting Kirk to survive...so I think Kirk's whistleblowing will prove fruitful. Even if existing S31 members attempt to cover their tracks, I don't think it will work. I envision all of them (however many there are) being charged with high treason.

 

[Christopher]

^I hope you're right, but it's not something we can say for sure, just something that seems like a reasonable outcome to expect.

 

[bullethead]

Everyone knows about Section 31 now, so whoever succeeds Admiral Marcus as head of Starfleet will be motivated to prove he (or she) is not one of them.

Do we know that? We know that Kirk knows about them. I'm sure he reported what Marcus told him about them, that there were investigations in the wake of the Vengeance crash, and hopefully the organization was exposed and dismantled by the final scene of the movie a year later. But there was never actually a line in the movie confirming that S31's existence had become common knowledge.

I'm sure Kirk would be listened to, after all of this went down. What with all of the damage to San Francisco and London, and the resurgence of Khan, Starfleet is going to be motivated to hunt down and punish the people responsible. I assume that the reason Marcus blabbed about Section 31 was that he wasn't expecting Kirk to survive...so I think Kirk's whistleblowing will prove fruitful. Even if existing S31 members attempt to cover their tracks, I don't think it will work. I envision all of them (however many there are) being charged with high treason.

I just hope the Federation is competent enough to pull off an Operation Paperclip, because I can just see them sentencing all the people with valuable knowledge (engineers, technicians, strategists, etc...) to ridiculous prison terms and then getting blackballed into releasing all of them when the Klingons inevitably come. I can also see the Federation going "See, gene enhancement is bad!" instead of "See, we should have our own guys genetically enhanced to counter this and other threats."

Then again, the Federation Council has a great incentive to look the other way since Section 31 did get some pretty great results from having Khan give his input on weapons designs and what not. And there's also the fact that all of the deaths in San Francisco are Kirk's fault, since he didn't kill Khan when he had the chance, thereby allowing a mass murderer to slam the Vengeance into the city (there's an Unintended Aesop here). I can totally see Starfleet and the Council wanting to cover up the fact that gross incompetence was responsible for such a huge tragedy.

If anything, Kirk getting the five year mission is good way to keep him ruining everything. Just tell him "yeah, it's totally fine if you violate the Prime Directive to save primitives, just don't start a war with anybody while we fix everything you broke" and everything will work out.

 

[Christopher]

And there's also the fact that all of the deaths in San Francisco are Kirk's fault, since he didn't kill Khan when he had the chance, thereby allowing a mass murderer to slam the Vengeance into the city (there's an Unintended Aesop here).

That's a bizarre argument. Kirk had no advance knowledge that Khan intended to do anything of the sort -- because Khan didn't. The kamikaze run was not part of Khan's plan; it was just the only move left to him once the ship was crippled and his plan to recover his people had failed. The Vengeance was already falling toward Earth, and all he could do was try to aim it at his enemies. There's no possible way Kirk could've anticipated something that even Khan had no idea was going to happen.

Indeed, Kirk did know that Khan was potentially a threat and he did make a reasonable effort to restrain Khan by stunning him, but he underestimated Khan's resilience. Spock then beamed him and the others back and used the torpedoes to disable the Vengeance. As far as Kirk knew at that point, the threat was ended, and he had other priorities like keeping his ship from crashing (something that happened partly because of Marcus's sabotage, I believe), something he gave his life to prevent. Even if he had known that Khan still had enough control of the Vengeance to put it on a collision course for San Francisco, he would've had no ability or opportunity to prevent it.

So it's completely nonsensical and factually wrong to blame Kirk for what happened. It was Khan who bears the primary culpability since it was his decision to commit the act; and Marcus bears secondary responsibility for driving Khan to that extreme, giving him the means to do so with the Vengeance, and crippling the Enterprise's ability to counter it.

 

[bullethead]

That's a bizarre argument. Kirk had no advance knowledge that Khan intended to do anything of the sort -- because Khan didn't. The kamikaze run was not part of Khan's plan; it was just the only move left to him once the ship was crippled and his plan to recover his people had failed. The Vengeance was already falling toward Earth, and all he could do was try to aim it at his enemies. There's no possible way Kirk could've anticipated something that even Khan had no idea was going to happen.

Indeed, Kirk did know that Khan was potentially a threat and he did make a reasonable effort to restrain Khan by stunning him, but he underestimated Khan's resilience. Spock then beamed him and the others back and used the torpedoes to disable the Vengeance. As far as Kirk knew at that point, the threat was ended, and he had other priorities like keeping his ship from crashing (something that happened partly because of Marcus's sabotage, I believe), something he gave his life to prevent. Even if he had known that Khan still had enough control of the Vengeance to put it on a collision course for San Francisco, he would've had no ability or opportunity to prevent it.

So it's completely nonsensical and factually wrong to blame Kirk for what happened. It was Khan who bears the primary culpability since it was his decision to commit the act; and Marcus bears secondary responsibility for driving Khan to that extreme, giving him the means to do so with the Vengeance, and crippling the Enterprise's ability to counter it.

Look at it from this perspective. You're Kirk, on the Vengeance with Scotty and Khan, working your way to the bridge. Here's what you know:
1. Khan is a genetically enhance human who effortlessly beat about a platoon's worth of Klingons.
2. Admiral Marcus considers this man and his crew to be a big enough threat that he orchestrates two schemes to get rid of them.
3. Khan is helping you get to the control center of an extremely powerful warship on purpose and is probably going to betray you there (Kirk tells Scotty that they're helping Khan, not the other way around in the novel, can't remember if that happens in the film).
4. After storming the bridge, the only people who should be conscious are you (Kirk), Scotty, Khan, Carol Marcus, and maybe Admiral Marcus.
5. Since Carol Marcus and Scotty aren't trained to fight and you have repeatedly lost fights to Vulcans and Romulans when quickly stripped of a gun, Khan will likely kick all of your asses and take over when given the chance.
6. There is no hope for getting backup from the Enterprise; Khan must taken out in an ambush as quickly as possible before he can enact his plan (whatever it is).
7. If you fail, people are probably going to die.

Now, what are your options?*
1. Stun Khan. Should work, but Bones hasn't had the time to run a really thorough analysis on the guy, so you don't know for sure.
2. Set phaser to kill and shoot Khan. Probably will work, although you don't know since Bones hasn't done that analysis.
3. Shoot Khan multiple times with kill setting phaser. Almost certainly will work, unless Khan is so radically different from humans that he should be considered a whole separate species or he is Jesus/random alien religious figure that died and resurrected himself/Tom Paris in Threshold.
4. Any of the above, plus shooting the consoles. The safest option, but the one least likely to be taken since the Vengeance could be used to tow the Enterprise (which is pretty much dead in space) and be a useful part of Starfleet.

Okay, option 4 is pretty much off the table. Let's run through our check-down list: Option 3 is the most logical/common sense "better safe than sorry" choice, and probably the choice most people would take in that situation. Options 1 and 2 are pretty equal in their chance of success and give Khan the highest probability of achieving his goal.

STiD Kirk takes option 1 and we all know where that ended (it probably would've been worse if Spock hadn't rigged that torpedo to detonate). Option 3, even considered in a vacuum with no knowledge of how things eventually turn out, only requires the death of one person who probably can be only taken down with lethal force anyway (unless you're an enraged Vulcan) and is a known murderer, gets a starship's worth of evidence of Section 31's crimes, and gets the admiral indirectly responsible for Khan's crimes. Kirk's bad decision making is the only thing that allows Khan to take over the Vengeance, which makes him responsible in part for everything that happened after that.

If I was Starfleet Command, I'd toss him out with a dishonorable discharge and give the Enterprise to Spock, since he's at least competent.

*I was going to put "Give a Kirk speech" here, but then I remembered that Kirk was getting verbally pistol-whipped every few minutes by everyone, so it wouldn't have worked anyway.

 

[ATimson]

Now, what are your options?*
1. Stun Khan. Should work, but Bones hasn't had the time to run a really thorough analysis on the guy, so you don't know for sure.
2. Set phaser to kill and shoot Khan. Probably will work, although you don't know since Bones hasn't done that analysis.
3. Shoot Khan multiple times with kill setting phaser. Almost certainly will work, unless Khan is so radically different from humans that he should be considered a whole separate species or he is Jesus/random alien religious figure that died and resurrected himself/Tom Paris in Threshold.
4. Any of the above, plus shooting the consoles. The safest option, but the one least likely to be taken since the Vengeance could be used to tow the Enterprise (which is pretty much dead in space) and be a useful part of Starfleet.

Okay, option 4 is pretty much off the table. Let's run through our check-down list: Option 3 is the most logical/common sense "better safe than sorry" choice, and probably the choice most people would take in that situation.

But not a choice Starfleet would condone. Scotty would be in the right to refuse that order, and Kirk would probably end up court-martialed if he did that.

 

[Christopher]

Look at it from this perspective. You're Kirk, on the Vengeance with Scotty and Khan, working your way to the bridge. Here's what you know:
1. Khan is a genetically enhance human who effortlessly beat about a platoon's worth of Klingons.

And saved Kirk's life in doing so.

2. Admiral Marcus considers this man and his crew to be a big enough threat that he orchestrates two schemes to get rid of them.

And sabotaged the Enterprise and almost destroyed Kirk's crew in order to start an unnecessary war that would kill millions if not billions. Why in the hell would Kirk be sympathetic with anything Marcus believed? Sure, he didn't trust Khan, but at that point he had no reason to perceive Khan as a worse threat than Marcus. The only person he had any reason to suspect of planning mass murder was Marcus.

STiD Kirk takes option 1 and we all know where that ended (it probably would've been worse if Spock hadn't rigged that torpedo to detonate).

See, that's the root of your mistake. You're basing your argument on what you know after the fact, rather than putting yourself in Kirk's head and considering what he knew, and more importantly what he did not know, at that point in the film. You're saying that Kirk should've perceived Khan as a threat so heinous that killing him was the only recourse, but he could not possibly have known that yet. He certainly had reason to mistrust Khan's intentions and to keep a close eye on him, but also to consider him a tenuous ally against the greater threat of Marcus. He had absolutely no reason to default to killing Khan at that point. It would have been immoral and probably illegal for him to kill Khan before Khan had posed a clear and present danger that justified escalating to that kind of response. You can't fairly condemn a man for failing to act on information that could not have been available to him yet.

 

[Pauln6]

See, that's the root of your mistake. You're basing your argument on what you know after the fact, rather than putting yourself in Kirk's head and considering what he knew, and more importantly what he did not know, at that point in the film. You're saying that Kirk should've perceived Khan as a threat so heinous that killing him was the only recourse, but he could not possibly have known that yet. He certainly had reason to mistrust Khan's intentions and to keep a close eye on him, but also to consider him a tenuous ally against the greater threat of Marcus. He had absolutely no reason to default to killing Khan at that point. It would have been immoral and probably illegal for him to kill Khan before Khan had posed a clear and present danger that justified escalating to that kind of response. You can't fairly condemn a man for failing to act on information that could not have been available to him yet.

Yeah this is all true. It's also worth noting that in the previous movie, at the time that Kirk tried to mutiny against Spock, Kirk was not in possession of the additional information from Spock Prime nor the formula for transwarp beaming. Ergo, Kirk's intention to pursue Nero to take him on was highly likely to fail. Spock's decision was also wrong of course - the correct course would have been to contact Starfleet Command on Earth, Andor, and Tellar, notify them of Pike's capture and ask a ship closer to the fleet to get a message to them. Starfleet could have changed the codes on Earth's defences and at warp 8, the fleet could easily have beaten Nero to Earth.

Obviously, there is no guarantee that the fleet would have beaten Nero without the extra intel from Spock Prime but I only use it as an example that while hindsight can condemn or condone, the reverse is also true!

 

[Pauln6]

Ok I've read the latest issue and I really enjoyed it. It was a good framing issue, setting up several plot points for the rest of the arc. It made appropriate use of relevant recurring characters and didn't shoe-horn anybody in for the sake of it - Carol's involvement was a bit forced but it made sense in the context it was presented and I'll be pleased if she gets some appropriate character development.

Taking a bit of extra time to set up a slightly more complex and involving story is a good thing so I hope that all the plot points aren't resolved too conveniently like some of the other 2-parters. This is the first story that has really built on previous stories so it gets a big thumbs up from me.

There are signs that the writers are beginning to increase the number of women involved in the stories but there is still a bit of careless sexism with all-male security guards, an all-male Klingon council (which comes as no surprise since women aren't allowed), an all-male Vulcan delegation except for one, and an all-male Romulan senate.

It is almost as if all the women that appear are romantically linked to a male character or at the very least, they all do seem to be deliberately female as opposed to coincidentally female. There are background women on the Enterprise however, so the artists just need a nudge to remind them that Vulcans and Romulans are not sexist. I really, really, really, really hope that T'Pau features in the next issue - there have been too many Vulcan plot points that have not involved her to date! She could easily be dead but if she is, that would make three strong, well-written female characters from the sixties that have been deliberately written out on top of Chapel. No Janice in this one but she wasn't needed. She could have piloted the shuttle but we got an alien crewman instead - not an Andorian but it's only a matter of time...

Carol may suffer from the same problem as Chapel. As a physicist, she steps on Spock's toes, and it may be hard to see when it would be necessary to use her instead of him, which might mean that a chunk of her usage has to come from a romantic sub-plot, and that never did Christine a lot of favours! Her specialism in weapons tech may mean that she has enough of a niche though - certainly in TOS Spock stole airtime from other characters e.g. by working on communications tech and deciphering codes instead of Uhura. It does look as though that style is going out of fashion fortunately so that the support cast get a fair shout.

They went out of their way to introduce Chekov to the franchise and it appears that they don't know what to do with him. He's the navigator who is better with transporters than the transporter operator and the ensign who gets promoted to chief engineer above more experienced engineers. That's terrible character development. Steering him towards a more weapons-tech related role per TMP might have been scuppered by Carol's niche. I don't think he'll get much to do in this story but I hope they have a story that features him more prominently coming up soon.

The gap in my comic chronolgy has left me wanting the movie adaptation - I hope it's coming soon!

 

[Cadet49]

And there's also the fact that all of the deaths in San Francisco are Kirk's fault, since he didn't kill Khan when he had the chance, thereby allowing a mass murderer to slam the Vengeance into the city (there's an Unintended Aesop here).

That's a bizarre argument. Kirk had no advance knowledge that Khan intended to do anything of the sort -- because Khan didn't. The kamikaze run was not part of Khan's plan; it was just the only move left to him once the ship was crippled and his plan to recover his people had failed. The Vengeance was already falling toward Earth, and all he could do was try to aim it at his enemies. There's no possible way Kirk could've anticipated something that even Khan had no idea was going to happen.

Indeed, Kirk did know that Khan was potentially a threat and he did make a reasonable effort to restrain Khan by stunning him, but he underestimated Khan's resilience. Spock then beamed him and the others back and used the torpedoes to disable the Vengeance. As far as Kirk knew at that point, the threat was ended, and he had other priorities like keeping his ship from crashing (something that happened partly because of Marcus's sabotage, I believe), something he gave his life to prevent. Even if he had known that Khan still had enough control of the Vengeance to put it on a collision course for San Francisco, he would've had no ability or opportunity to prevent it.

So it's completely nonsensical and factually wrong to blame Kirk for what happened. It was Khan who bears the primary culpability since it was his decision to commit the act; and Marcus bears secondary responsibility for driving Khan to that extreme, giving him the means to do so with the Vengeance, and crippling the Enterprise's ability to counter it.

I disagree, Christopher - Kirk is partially responsible

Spoiler: Crash

for the destruction and deaths in San Francisco, because he is the one who chose to form an alliance with Khan and let him out of his cell in the brig, after they had gone to such great lengths to capture him. Kirk was the one that brought Khan over to the Vengeance, thus setting Khan into a scenario when he coupd potentially manipulate the situation which he did -without planning for a continiency if Khan escaped, beyond stunning him. He had already seen Khan in action on the Klingon homeworld, so he should have considered that a stun might not be enough. He also risked Marcus getting his hands on Khan by bringing him over to the Vengeance, which seems to defeat the purpose, if Marcus captured them while aboard. Kirk planned no Plan B for stopping Khan if Plan A didn't work. Kirk saved his crew through his actions, but he set a strategy in motion thatcultimately doomed many people living in San Fransisco, because he let Khan out of jail and essentially helped him get to the bridge of the Vengeance. He may not have had time to come up with an alternative, if there was one, but we cannon deny that he bears some reaponsibility in what happened to the city, especially in the eyes of people who lost loved ones on the ground - they'd be asking, "You had him... then you just released him - why?? To save your ship? Ok ... but isn't it also your duty to protect our lives - by letting him go, how many of our lives did yoy put at risk, Kirk?"


He even did so by leading the Vengeance back to Earth - why did he head for Earth, instead of to a starbase somewhere? By heading to Earth with a potential hostile vessel on his tail, Kirk risked a battle in Earth orbit, where the possibility of collatoral civilian damage could be great - in Star Trek 09, they used the Jellyfish and Nero's hatred of Spock to draw the Narada away from Earth orbit, and led it to open space, where the Enterprise engaged it. Why did Kirk not stop the Enterprise at some place betweeen Klingon space and Earth - surely there are other based and ships that could provide support between locations. By going straight to Earth, Kirk put a lot of civilian lives at risk, especially if Earth's defenses hadn't recovered yet from the Narada attack, as they seem nonexistent in the film ... there is no fleet support, even though there is a giant spacedock in Earth orbit! Perhaps Kirk was anticipating the full strength of Starfleet to back him up ehen he reached Earth, or for Marcus to back down? It was a risk that put a gunfight right at the doorstep of his planet. Mainly, though, Kirk was the one who released Khan from his cell, so he bears some responsibility for the carnage that followed, when he lost control of the situation. I imagine there would be many people in San Fransisco who lost loved ones in the crash who would have been outraged at Kirk when they heard he had Khan in a jail cell, but then released him, and would demand some consequences for the captain, or Starfleet, for putting such an inexperienced young officer in charge. Kirk may have had no choice in what he did, and ultimately, his actions did save the Enterprise, but that might be cold comfort for civilians that had lost family members

I don't know if he had achoice in what he did, but I certainly think this would taint enthusiasm for Kirk and his five-year mission, considering how many lives must have been lost.

 

[Christopher]

It is ridiculous to blame one person for another person's decision to commit a crime, just because they allowed that person to end up in the position to commit that crime. That's like saying that the co-worker who let Lee Harvey Oswald use the elevator in the Book Depository on November 22, 1963 was to blame for JFK's death. Or that it was the fault of the other co-worker who gave Oswald a lift into Dallas that morning, or the boss who hired him for the job at the Depository the previous month. If you use that kind of indirect logic, you might as well blame everyone who ever fed him or clothed him or did anything that sustained his life or activities in any way. It's nonsensical. The person who is responsible for a crime is the person who decides to commit it.

The only way you can hold anyone else responsible is if they knew the crime was going to be committed and did nothing to stop it. As I've already explained, Kirk could not possibly have known that Khan would commit an act of violence on such a scale, because even Khan did not know he was going to do that. It was not his plan from the start; it was simply the only option left to him after his real plans were defeated.

Sure, people would probably blame Kirk based on the kind of reasoning I'm hearing, but it's emotional and irrational reasoning, not something that would remotely hold up in a court of law or a disciplinary hearing. Kirk acted entirely appropriately, in proportion to the level of the threat as he was aware of it at the time. As I said, Starfleet rules of engagement would make it illegal to use lethal force against someone before you had any reason to believe such force was necessary.

 

[Cadet49]

It is ridiculous to blame one person for another person's decision to commit a crime, just because they allowed that person to end up in the position to commit that crime. That's like saying that the co-worker who let Lee Harvey Oswald use the elevator in the Book Depository on November 22, 1963 was to blame for JFK's death. Or that it was the fault of the other co-worker who gave Oswald a lift into Dallas that morning, or the boss who hired him for the job at the Depository the previous month. If you use that kind of indirect logic, you might as well blame everyone who ever fed him or clothed him or did anything that sustained his life or activities in any way. It's nonsensical. The person who is responsible for a crime is the person who decides to commit it.

The only way you can hold anyone else responsible is if they knew the crime was going to be committed and did nothing to stop it. As I've already explained, Kirk could not possibly have known that Khan would commit an act of violence on such a scale, because even Khan did not know he was going to do that. It was not his plan from the start; it was simply the only option left to him after his real plans were defeated.

Sure, people would probably blame Kirk based on the kind of reasoning I'm hearing, but it's emotional and irrational reasoning, not something that would remotely hold up in a court of law or a disciplinary hearing. Kirk acted entirely appropriately, in proportion to the level of the threat as he was aware of it at the time. As I said, Starfleet rules of engagement would make it illegal to use lethal force against someone before you had any reason to believe such force was necessary.

But Kirk was aware that

Spoiler: Catch and Release?

was aware that Khan had committed acts of terrorism on Earth, and that he had worked on the Vengeance's tactical systems, so by releasing Khan from his jail cell and providing him access to the Vengeance, Kirk did precipitate the situation.

Spoiler

. If a prison guard lets a dangerous criminal out of his jail cell and lets him out to the public, then that criminal, with a history of violent crime, commits an act of violence, then that prison guard would be considered negligent under the law for having willfully released that prisoner to the world. However, it could be argued that, if someone had a gun to that guard's head and told them to release the prisoners, then that guard would not be held negligent. I suppose it could be argued that, with Admiral Marcus holding all his weapons on the Enterprise and promising to destroy it, Kirk had no choice but to release Khan, and therefore would not be criminally negligent for releasing Khan.

There would still be questions about other options Kirk could have tried, like

Spoiler: Dial a friend

getting Spock to send all transcripts of Marcus' communications at the Klingon homeworld to New Vulcan, since Spock was able to contact Spock Prime. They could have exposed the whole plot to Spock Prime, or kept the Channel to New Vulcan open when they talked again to Marcus - realizing that his plot was exposed, and that New Vulcan would forward the info to Earth, Marcus would have no reason to destroy Enterprise, really - the gig would be up, and Khan could remain safely locked in his cell. See the scenario I wrote in my post: Dial a Friend ... Friend, Send Help! in the Star Trek XI forum. Starfleet would want to know what options Kirk considered, before releasing Khan - there would be a court martial or trial, if thousands of lives were lost. There would be major questions asked...

 

[ATimson]

But Kirk was aware that

Spoiler: Catch and Release?

was aware that Khan had committed acts of terrorism on Earth...

Spoiler: No

Under Marcus's orders, with a pretty big gun held to his head. Kirk doesn't know what Khan would or wouldn't do when acting independently.

 

[Cadet49]

But Kirk was aware that

Spoiler: Catch and Release?

was aware that Khan had committed acts of terrorism on Earth...

Spoiler: No

Under Marcus's orders, with a pretty big gun held to his head. Kirk doesn't know what Khan would or wouldn't do when acting independently.

No, no...

Spoiler: Harrison

Harrison was not acting under orders when he bombed the archives. He told Kirk he was acting in Vengeance for believing Marcus had killed his crew, so he acted to avenge them. So, he was acting on his own, as far as Kirk knows at that point. So, Kirk knows, from hia oqn confession, that Khan is very, very dangerous, and has planned and implemented terrorist acts. By releasing Khan from hid cell... Kirk is releasing a terrorist who has freely admitted his crimes ... he is, as Kirk says, "a criminal... who killed people.". This warrants Kirk taking extra precautions before releasing Khan ... and by doing so, as a person of authority in a role of law enforcement, Kirk would have to prove that he was not criminally negligent in releasing a suspected terrorist from custody, and that he had absolutely no other alternatives or options available to him at that point - I'm not certain that Kirk was out of other options, like exposing Marcus' plot by contacting New Vulcan, and calling for reinforcements via Spock Prime, or just telling Marcus that he had exposed his plans to New Vulcan - if Marcus proceeded to destroy the Enterprise anyways, with Khan aboard, then Starfleet would still see the records Enterprise sent to Spock Prime, and Marcus would be detained for an investigation when Starfleet arrived, unless Marcus was planning on fighting Starfleet too. Kirk should have just contacted New Vulcan, and have used this as leverage to make Marcus stand down - not released Khan from his cell, it could be argued. Of course, Kirk could counterargue that he couldn't take the change that Marcus would respond rationally to being cornered and exposed like that - he may lash out in desperation, or Vengeance, and destroyed Enterprise anyways ... I'm just saying, there would be more questions about Kirk's actions ...

 

[Christopher]

But Kirk was aware that

Spoiler: Catch and Release?

was aware that Khan had committed acts of terrorism on Earth, and that he had worked on the Vengeance's tactical systems, so by releasing Khan from his jail cell and providing him access to the Vengeance, Kirk did precipitate the situation.

I think that's oversimplifying things. Kirk knew at that point that

Spoiler: ditto

Khan's motive was not terrorism per se but combatting Marcus's plans and freeing his people. Let's not be blinded by our own post-2001 kneejerk reaction to the word "terrorist" as a bugaboo. Terrorism is a military tactic which is used to serve any number of objectives, just like any other military tactic.

And let's not forget that Admiral Marcus was committing terrorism on an even greater level, attempting to launch a devastating strike on the Klingon homeworld in order to precipitate an interstellar war that could devastate entire planets. It was quite obvious at that point that Marcus was a far, far greater threat to the galaxy -- and Khan was a powerful warrior dedicated to stopping Marcus. Kirk would've been negligent if he hadn't used every means at his disposal to stop Marcus, who was the real Big Bad in this movie.

There would still be questions about other options Kirk could have tried, like

Spoiler: Dial a friend

getting Spock to send all transcripts of Marcus' communications at the Klingon homeworld to New Vulcan, since Spock was able to contact Spock Prime. They could have exposed the whole plot to Spock Prime, or kept the Channel to New Vulcan open when they talked again to Marcus - realizing that his plot was exposed, and that New Vulcan would forward the info to Earth, Marcus would have no reason to destroy Enterprise, really - the gig would be up, and Khan could remain safely locked in his cell. See the scenario I wrote in my post: Dial a Friend ... Friend, Send Help! in the Star Trek XI forum. Starfleet would want to know what options Kirk considered, before releasing Khan - there would be a court martial or trial, if thousands of lives were lost. There would be major questions asked...

Okay, maybe you have a point there. But I don't understand this desire to mount a witch hunt against Kirk when it was Alexander Marcus who was "the quintessential devil in these matters."

Besides,

Spoiler: ditto

how do we know Marcus would've stood down when his plot was exposed? His goal wasn't just destroying the Enterprise, it was getting Starfleet geared up for the war he intended to provoke with the Klingons. If it became public knowledge that a Starfleet admiral had attempted to attack Kronos, that in itself might have provoked the war Marcus wanted. So I'm not convinced that exposure would've halted him from continuing to do violence.

 

[Cadet49]

But Kirk was aware that

Spoiler: Catch and Release?

was aware that Khan had committed acts of terrorism on Earth...

Spoiler: No

Under Marcus's orders, with a pretty big gun held to his head. Kirk doesn't know what Khan would or wouldn't do when acting independently.

No, no...

Spoiler: Harrison

Harrison was not acting under orders when he bombed the archives. He told Kirk he was acting in Vengeance for believing Marcus had killed his crew, so he acted to avenge them. So, he was acting on his own, as far as Kirk knows at that point. So, Kirk knows, from hia oqn confession, that Khan is very, very dangerous, and has planned and implemented terrorist acts. By releasing Khan from hid cell... Kirk is releasing a terrorist who has freely admitted his crimes ... he is, as Kirk says, "a criminal... who killed people.". This warrants Kirk taking extra precautions before releasing Khan ... and by doing so, as a person of authority in a role of law enforcement, Kirk would have to prove that he was not criminally negligent in releasing a suspected terrorist from custody, and that he had absolutely no other alternatives or options available to him at that point - I'm not certain that Kirk was out of other options, like exposing Marcus' plot by contacting New Vulcan, and calling for reinforcements via Spock Prime, or just telling Marcus that he had exposed his plans to New Vulcan - if Marcus proceeded to destroy the Enterprise anyways, with Khan aboard, then Starfleet would still see the records Enterprise sent to Spock Prime, and Marcus would be detained for an investigation when Starfleet arrived, unless Marcus was planning on fighting Starfleet too. Kirk should have just contacted New Vulcan, and have used this as leverage to make Marcus stand down - not released Khan from his cell, it could be argued.

 

[Christopher]

^Kira Nerys was a terrorist. Was the Bajoran government negligent because it didn't toss her in a cell? Just saying "He's a terrorist" isn't much of an argument. Terrorism is a tool, not an identity.

 

[rahullak]

^
The Bajoran government did not throw Kira Nerys into a cell because the Bajoran government did not consider acts of fighting the Cardassian occupiers as "terrorism".

Bombing Starfleet archives and killing people are considered acts of terrorism by the Federation and Starfleet.

So yes, Kirk did have other options, which he did not use because the movie makers thought it wouldn't have as much action.

 

[Christopher]

^Of course what Kira did was terrorism, and she freely admitted it on many occasions. Terrorism doesn't just mean "something the evil enemy does." It's a term that has a specific, objective definition, regardless of how pundits and politicians abuse it as a term of emotional rhetoric. Terrorism is is the use of random or excessive violence to induce fear and despair in a population in order to pressure them into abandoning an occupation, war, or other policy. It's generally a tactic used by a weaker group against a more powerful group that can't be defeated by force alone and thus must be demoralized to the point that its own leaders or populace decide to cut their losses and retreat. Which is exactly what happened in the Cardassian Occupation of Bajor.

In Khan's case, he used the tactics of terrorism for goals that were not actually terroristic. He bombed the archive in London, not to terrorize the populace, but to destroy the secret Section 31 facility it contained, and to lure the Starfleet leadership to a specific place so he could strike at them. Terrorism was just the cover he used, the feint that disguised his true intentions. This is something we've seen done in many movies, such as Die Hard.