2nd Guessing Kirk

[CorporalCaptain]

In "A Taste of Armageddon", there's not much left to interpretation regarding what the Enterprise will do. Dialog:

SCOTT: The entire inhabited surface of your planet will be destroyed.

Sounds like a brute force barrage with phasers and photon torpedoes over the entire planet's surface.

That still sounds like killing everyone rather than dismantling the planet itself. Besides destroy enough that also releases deadly radiation and not everyone has to die immediately.

Destroying the surface does not imply dismantling the planet, obviously. But "destroy[ing]" the inhabited surface clearly implies killing everyone directly and immediately. Rendering the surface uninhabitable and letting billions die slow deaths is not the same as destroying it. That's not complete destruction.

 

[Forbin]

Prefer not to date a bag full of crazy. (Also see Karidian, Lenore)
Speaking of Kodos...call the cops!!!!!!

To be fair, Kirk had no way of knowing that Lenore was crazy when they first met. She was an actress, and possibly the innocent daughter of a suspected war criminal, but she didn't come off as crazy until that final meltdown. Indeed, the episode takes pains to establish that Lenore wasn't even born when Kodos executed all those people on Tarsus IV.

Heck, not even Kodos knew that Lenore was the killer.

(And this is where I shamelessly mention that Lenore returns in my most recent Trek novel, Foul Deeds Will Rise.)

The gift of hindsight is in play here. I'm here to help Kirk. Good book.

Lenore Karidian? She's totally worth putting up with the insanity. Take a good look at her!

Oh, I have. Trust me I have.

I've also dealt with real life crazy. It's not all it's cracked up to be. No matter how pretty the package.

I have a nephew can attest to that. Married a girl every bit as gorgeous as Barbara Anderson. There followed 15 years of insanity, police, injuries, jail, cheating, drugs...

 

[Disco]

In "A Taste of Armageddon", there's not much left to interpretation regarding what the Enterprise will do. Dialog:



Sounds like a brute force barrage with phasers and photon torpedoes over the entire planet's surface.

That still sounds like killing everyone rather than dismantling the planet itself. Besides destroy enough that also releases deadly radiation and not everyone has to die immediately.

Destroying the surface does not imply dismantling the planet, obviously. But "destroy[ing]" the inhabited surface clearly implies killing everyone directly and immediately. Rendering the surface uninhabitable and letting billions die slow deaths is not the same as destroying it. That's not complete destruction.

Yeah destroyed in this instance makes me think of Hiroshima and not total obliteration.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

When you think about it, we should be second guessing Starfleet for even having General Order 24. "Bombard and devastate the planet I'm sending this message from." In peacetime?

 

[BillJ]

When you think about it, we should be second guessing Starfleet for even having General Order 24. "Bombard and devastate the planet I'm sending this message from." In peacetime?

Nah. I like the idea of Starfleet having a directive like General Order 24.

 

[Gov Kodos]

In "A Taste of Armageddon", there's not much left to interpretation regarding what the Enterprise will do. Dialog:



Sounds like a brute force barrage with phasers and photon torpedoes over the entire planet's surface.

That still sounds like killing everyone rather than dismantling the planet itself. Besides destroy enough that also releases deadly radiation and not everyone has to die immediately.

Destroying the surface does not imply dismantling the planet, obviously. But "destroy[ing]" the inhabited surface clearly implies killing everyone directly and immediately. Rendering the surface uninhabitable and letting billions die slow deaths is not the same as destroying it. That's not complete destruction.

I would assume the Enterprise could do a variety of destructive things, from the quick and simple level cities, or something more doomsday like crack some continental volcanic arcs with the photon torpedoes and create something like the Siberian Traps, or drain off a couple ounces of antimatter and beam it down to the surface in a few choice areas and watch the big kaboom.

 

[Warped9]

We saw the Enterprise spray an entire planet to help stop a plague in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield." Therein lies the means to poison an entire planetary atmosphere and gas people to death.

Probably a standard procedure in the Mirror universe.

 

[Gov Kodos]

We saw the Enterprise spray an entire planet to help stop a plague in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield." Therein lies the means to poison an entire planetary atmosphere and gas people to death.

Probably a standard procedure in the Mirror universe.

Forgot that one. From Babylon 5, I liked the mass drivers for bombarding a planet. No need for fancy bombs, some good sized high metal content asteroids propelled at a high sublight speed would do the trick just as well.

 

[Shawnster]

CAROL (on viewscreen): Please do something.
KIRK: Uhura! What's happening? Damn it.
UHURA (on intercom): Transmission jammed at the source, sir.
KIRK: Alert Starfleet Headquarters.

....

SULU: Reliant in our section, this Quadrant, sir, and slowing.
SAAVIK: Sir, may I quote General Order Twelve, 'On the approach of any vessel, when communications have not been established...
SPOCK: Lieutenant, the Admiral is well aware of the Regulations.
SAAVIK: Aye sir.
KIRK (OC): Is it possible that their Comm system has failed?
SPOCK (OC): It would explain a great many things.

...

KIRK: This is damned peculiar. ...Yellow Alert.
SAAVIK: Energise defence fields.
UHURA: I'm getting a voice message. They say their Chambers coil is overloading their Comm system.
KIRK: Spock?
SPOCK: Scanning. Their coil emissions are normal.

KIRK thinking to himself: Something intentionally jammed Carol's signal from her end, they haven't established communications, they lied about their chamber coil. This is all very damned peculiar.

KIRK: Raise shields, red alert!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

We saw the Enterprise spray an entire planet to help stop a plague in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield." Therein lies the means to poison an entire planetary atmosphere and gas people to death.

Probably a standard procedure in the Mirror universe.

Standard procedure on the ISS Enterprise was to phaser the cities.

SPOCK: Standard procedure, Captain? (Kirk nods) Mister Sulu, you will programme phaser barrage on Halkan cities.

 

[Kemaiku]

Usually because they wanted to generate terror among other races, rather than use the most effecient means of eradicating a species.

It doesn't mean they didn't do both when they needed to. But then the satellite deployment system works too, they could drop enough into high orbit to bombard the surface with whatever energy they wanted.

A planet with a rebel species but no value to them could be bathed with just below the lethal level of radiation of their choice, leaving them all to die painfully too.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

When you think about it, we should be second guessing Starfleet for even having General Order 24. "Bombard and devastate the planet I'm sending this message from." In peacetime?

Nah. I like the idea of Starfleet having a directive like General Order 24.

Plus its extremely useful; for these kinds of situations

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCbfMkh940Q[/yt]

 

[ToddPence]

I would assume the Enterprise could do a variety of destructive things, from the quick and simple level cities, or something more doomsday like crack some continental volcanic arcs with the photon torpedoes and create something like the Siberian Traps, or drain off a couple ounces of antimatter and beam it down to the surface in a few choice areas and watch the big kaboom.

Or shoot "red matter" into the planet's core?

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I would assume the Enterprise could do a variety of destructive things, from the quick and simple level cities, or something more doomsday like crack some continental volcanic arcs with the photon torpedoes and create something like the Siberian Traps, or drain off a couple ounces of antimatter and beam it down to the surface in a few choice areas and watch the big kaboom.

In The Cage didn't they mention having the ability to destroy half a continent.

 

[BillJ]

I would assume the Enterprise could do a variety of destructive things, from the quick and simple level cities, or something more doomsday like crack some continental volcanic arcs with the photon torpedoes and create something like the Siberian Traps, or drain off a couple ounces of antimatter and beam it down to the surface in a few choice areas and watch the big kaboom.

In The Cage didn't they mention having the ability to destroy half a continent.

Yep. Sounds like the Enterprise had some upgrades done during the refit between Pike and Kirk.

 

[Forbin]

I would assume the Enterprise could do a variety of destructive things, from the quick and simple level cities, or something more doomsday like crack some continental volcanic arcs with the photon torpedoes and create something like the Siberian Traps, or drain off a couple ounces of antimatter and beam it down to the surface in a few choice areas and watch the big kaboom.

In The Cage didn't they mention having the ability to destroy half a continent.

Yep. Sounds like the Enterprise had some upgrades done during the refit between Pike and Kirk.

The difference between lasers and phasers!

 

[JimZipCode]

Don't you remember? The ship was incapable of diverting it on its own. Spock crippled the ship trying, and they had to limp back to the planet

That never made ANY sense. With a few months of time until the asteroid was due to hit, they could have nudged it sideways with a tractor beam, rather than trying to destroy it. A horribly written & conceived situation. Seriously, they could have just added a tiny, 1 foot-per-second sideways vector to it, and the asteroid would have completely missed the planet.

Why the hell wasn't the ship able to destroy it, anyway? Was it made of neutronium or something?

That business is baloney, top-to-bottom.

 

[JimZipCode]

By the way, McCoy is a complete asshole in Paradise Syndrome. Just a shrill bastard from beginning to end, complaining all the time with no sense or even point of view,contributing absolutely nothing. Completely unlikeable. The episode would have been more enjoyable if Spock had had him confined to quarters or something.

 

[Warped9]

Don't you remember? The ship was incapable of diverting it on its own. Spock crippled the ship trying, and they had to limp back to the planet

That never made ANY sense. With a few months of time until the asteroid was due to hit, they could have nudged it sideways with a tractor beam, rather than trying to destroy it. A horribly written & conceived situation. Seriously, they could have just added a tiny, 1 foot-per-second sideways vector to it, and the asteroid would have completely missed the planet.

Why the hell wasn't the ship able to destroy it, anyway? Was it made of neutronium or something?

That business is baloney, top-to-bottom.

Exactly right. A brief consultation with an astronomer or cosmologist could have straightened this out. Hell, for all we know Kellum DeForest Research could have advised them on it.