A Private Little Right Wing War

[jayrath]

I find this episode to be a million times worse than even "Spock's Brain." It is so offensive.

The planet is clearly Vietnam, and the Klingons and Federation are playing out a proxy war, just as with the U.S. and Chinese communists (with help from the U.S.S.R.).

I don't have time to do a history lesson, but there are so many assumptions, especially "the domino effect." But why not let the Mugato planet fall? Lord, why are the Klingons even there in the first place? Why do TOS-style Klingons even value the place?

Others above have asked for alternate solutions. Here are two: instead of engaging in a proxy battle that will devastate the native population, just be honest about it and declare war on the Klingon Empire. Not too good, but...

Or you could do what we did with Vietnam: Pull out. Let the Klingons have it. What possible difference would that make to the scattered hill tribes and village people?

And did they even ask the Federation to "protect" them? Or give them more advanced weapons? I see only continued escalation. Will we eventually give them machine guns? A-bombs? Phasers?

 

[Vance]

And did they even ask the Federation to "protect" them? Or give them more advanced weapons? I see only continued escalation. Will we eventually give them machine guns? A-bombs? Phasers?

What's a little genocide in the name of keeping your hands clean, right? That does seem to be what you're advocating. The reason why Kirk (and the United States) made that decision was to enable people to defend themselves.

And, since you clearly don't know history to well, why not look up what happened in Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos immediately after the Hanoi disaster?

 

[BillJ]

And did they even ask the Federation to "protect" them? Or give them more advanced weapons? I see only continued escalation. Will we eventually give them machine guns? A-bombs? Phasers?

What's a little genocide in the name of keeping your hands clean, right? That does seem to be what you're advocating. The reason why Kirk (and the United States) made that decision was to enable people to defend themselves.

And, since you clearly don't know history to well, why not look up what happened in Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos immediately after the Hanoi disaster?

 

[Kegg]

I don't have time to do a history lesson, but there are so many assumptions, especially "the domino effect." But why not let the Mugato planet fall? Lord, why are the Klingons even there in the first place? Why do TOS-style Klingons even value the place?

For that matter, the episode presents the conflict as one between two naturally occuriring groups, independent of each other that are just now being tinkered with... as opposed to a postcolonial peace settlement that was certainly seen by some as arbitrary and unsatisfactory.

As an analogy for the situation in Vietnam it is something that can be picked apart, that's quite true.

 

[Christopher]

^Fictional allegories should never be exactly parallel to the things they're commenting on. After all, it's still fiction, so you should bring some imagination to the table. The story comes first, the message second. Roddenberry has been quoted expressing that very sentiment.

 

[Kegg]

Obviously, but allegories - however nuanced - are designed to accept the premises of the people telling the allegory. So I'm cautioning a little here about reading the Vietnam analogy to mean reading the Vietnam alternatives. What could work in the real world doesn't necessarily work in a fiction that's boiled down the conflict to a selective grouping of facts.

 

[scotpens]

Or maybe they're just really bad managers and administrators.

All they know is guns and blowing shit up, do you think the average Klingon Knows how to install a toilet main?

Klingons don't need no stinking toilets. They shit wherever they want to!

 

[Rom's Sehlat]

That kind of thinking leads to extremely high casualties, wartime or not...

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

This episode mainly indicates how conflicted the creative minds behind the show were, politically. Guys like Roddenberry were New Deal, "Kennedy" liberals - socially progressive, maybe a little leftish economically (as long as they were personally doing well) but with a certitude about American hegemony and our use of the military as a tool of foreign policy that was born out of World War II.

Yet they were also increasingly bothered by the U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, and consciously trying for social as well as personal ethical reasons to "evolve" with the activist politics of the 1960s. So it's not surprising that they would greenlight, and in some cases themselves write, stories for Trek that came down all over the map on the use of military force. "A Private Little War" is an undisguised apology for U.S. policy in Vietnam; OTOH, "A Taste Of Armageddon" is nearly a polemic that embraces draft resistance.

 

[xortex]

Yea, no Cuban missile crisis perimeter for Kirk and the Federation. Contamination was how the Klingons got to be powerful themselves. The hill people probably had dilithium crystals and don't forget the power hungry Kanutu woman who knew how to control their men with the root. Picard would have sent a Kanutu woman healor to the hill people leader with a root is all, and she would have had the Enterprise destroyed as well. Actually, while my edit is still available, I'm sure Picard would have tried to trick (convince) her into selling out the Klingons as either she would have not been interested in using the root on him or it would not have affected him and she would have betrayed the Klingons and gotten back the man who truly loves her and the power she craved as well. Of course the rest they would have to make themselves but they would be rid of the Klingon's control and stronghold as she would have more power over the hill people's leader than the Klingon's would have had any day of the week. Wow, and that's saying alot. They offered him extreme wealth and power as well.

 

[toonloon]

And did they even ask the Federation to "protect" them? Or give them more advanced weapons? I see only continued escalation. Will we eventually give them machine guns? A-bombs? Phasers?

EXACTLY! This is what troubles me about the episode. It doesn't hold with established Star Trek doctrine at the time it was produced and it most definitely does not fit with Star Trek as expanded through the other series, as I think others have quite rightly pointed out with their (sometimes barbed) comparisons.

 

[toonloon]

This episode mainly indicates how conflicted the creative minds behind the show were, politically. Guys like Roddenberry were New Deal, "Kennedy" liberals - socially progressive, maybe a little leftish economically (as long as they were personally doing well) but with a certitude about American hegemony and our use of the military as a tool of foreign policy that was born out of World War II.

Yet they were also increasingly bothered by the U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, and consciously trying for social as well as personal ethical reasons to "evolve" with the activist politics of the 1960s. So it's not surprising that they would greenlight, and in some cases themselves write, stories for Trek that came down all over the map on the use of military force. "A Private Little War" is an undisguised apology for U.S. policy in Vietnam; OTOH, "A Taste Of Armageddon" is nearly a polemic that embraces draft resistance.

This is my favourite post in this thread (so far) about this episode. I think describing the episode as an "undisguised apology" is the closest I'm going to get to understanding it. 4000 quataloos to Dennis.

 

[Christopher]

And did they even ask the Federation to "protect" them? Or give them more advanced weapons? I see only continued escalation. Will we eventually give them machine guns? A-bombs? Phasers?

EXACTLY! This is what troubles me about the episode. It doesn't hold with established Star Trek doctrine at the time it was produced and it most definitely does not fit with Star Trek as expanded through the other series, as I think others have quite rightly pointed out with their (sometimes barbed) comparisons.

I don't see the conflict with how the Prime Directive was portrayed in TOS. In other episodes, we saw Kirk intervening to correct the results of other people's interference and allow a planet's natives to regain their freedom of choice, as when he destroyed Vaal in "The Apple" or halted Ron Tracey's interference in "The Omega Glory." This was more of the same. The idea was that the Klingons were disrupting the "natural" balance of power by giving guns to the villagers, so the only way to restore that balance was to bring the hill people up to an equal level. If they'd just left the planet alone, then the Klingons would've still been interfering and the hill people would've been wiped out. The Prime Directive, as defined in TOS, was about preventing all interference in a planet's cultural development, not just one's own. So it could be justified to interfere to the extent necessary to cancel out someone else's interference. It was a more activist, '60s-ish, Peace Corps-style doctrine than the ultracautious "hands off even if it kills them" approach of the TNG era.

And yes, giving the natives guns and risking an ongoing escalation was a troubling and far-from-ideal application of the Directive, but that was the whole point! This was not meant to be a happy ending. It was meant to be a tragic story, an episode where Kirk had no good choices and the best he could manage was a necessary evil. If you find it troubling, then the episode has succeeded in doing what it was trying to do.

 

[BillJ]

And yes, giving the natives guns and risking an ongoing escalation was a troubling and far-from-ideal application of the Directive, but that was the whole point! This was not meant to be a happy ending. It was meant to be a tragic story, an episode where Kirk had no good choices and the best he could manage was a necessary evil. If you find it troubling, then the episode has succeeded in doing what it was trying to do.

This is why it is one of the most powerful "social commentary" episodes in all of Star Trek.

 

[Anwar]

Did the Klingons teach them how to make weapons, or just give them weapons?

If it's the latter, they could have thought about taking them away. Though the question would be how to keep the Klingons from doing this again, which again raises the question of just why this world meant something to them in the first place. If it was just a one-shot thing they might just not bother coming back, but otherwise it would be something of a resource drain for both sides to keep interfering with the planet.

Which either means leaving a Fed presence there permanently or just arming the natives.

 

[Christopher]

Did the Klingons teach them how to make weapons, or just give them weapons?

Let's go to the transcript:

KRELL: ...(He hands over another flintlock.)
Your next improvement. Notice what we've done to the striker. See how it holds the priming powder more securely? Fewer misfires. When I return, we will give you other improvements. A rifled barrel.
APELLA: What?
KRELL: A way to shoot further and straighter.

...

KIRK: Well, here's your forge. People's exhibit number one. A chrome steel drill point.
MCCOY: (scanning) This pig iron is almost carbon-free. That village furnace certainly didn't produce it. People's exhibit number two. Cold-rolled gun barrel rod fashioned to look homemade. You were right about the Klingons, Jim.

...

APELLA [OC]: Is it difficult to cut grooves into the barrels?
KRELL [OC]: It's quite simple. I'll show you.

So it looks like a mix of both. The Klingons provided the materials and equipment for manufacturing the weapons and taught the villagers how to assemble them.

If it's the latter, they could have thought about taking them away. Though the question would be how to keep the Klingons from doing this again, which again raises the question of just why this world meant something to them in the first place. If it was just a one-shot thing they might just not bother coming back, but otherwise it would be something of a resource drain for both sides to keep interfering with the planet.

Again, the episode itself provides the answer (really, everyone should just bookmark the transcript page, it makes it so much easier to get answers):

KRELL: You will be rich one day, Apella, beyond your dreams. The leader of a whole world. A governor in the Klingon Empire.

So the Klingons' long-term goal was to absorb Neural into their empire. That's what empires do -- they expand by conquering new territories and draw on their resources and personnel to support the empire's economy and activities. But of course it's always easier to rule a conquered territory if you can get a local faction to rule on your behalf, win them over with gifts and power. That way, they do the work of controlling the population and gathering taxes and resources, so you don't have to expend your own efforts and personnel on doing so.

But of course, due to the Organian Treaty, the Klingons couldn't conquer the planet openly, so they had to make it look like the villagers were having a spontaneous industrial revolution and took over the world through their own efforts.

Anyway, the Klingons' objectives on Neural did seem to be long-term, since it would take rather a long time to build the villagers up to that kind of global dominance (although the episode pretty much implied there were only two population groups on the entire planet). It's possible that once they realized they had to keep providing more and more resources to counter the Federation, they would've cut their losses, but I think it's more likely that they would've continued to escalate rather than back down and risk appearing weak.

 

[Anwar]

Well, with lack of other reasoning we'd have to assume that Neural either had dilithium or was strategically located. Or arming the natives really wasn't costly at all (which makes perfect sense for civilizations at the level of the Federation and Klingons).

 

[BillJ]

Let's go to the transcript:


Again, the episode itself provides the answer (really, everyone should just bookmark the transcript page, it makes it so much easier to get answers)

No Star Trek fan should argue without it.

 

[Christopher]

Well, with lack of other reasoning we'd have to assume that Neural either had dilithium or was strategically located.

Since it was a planet the Federation had surveyed twice, it stands to reason that it's near UFP territory and would be a good foothold for the Klingons. And there could certainly have been other valuable resources besides dilithium. Maybe just land for their growing population to colonize. Maybe subject races to use as cannon fodder or slaves. Or, yeah, there could've been rare, valuable metals in the system.

Or arming the natives really wasn't costly at all (which makes perfect sense for civilizations at the level of the Federation and Klingons).

"Catspaw" established that 23rd-century synthesizer technology could effortlessly manufacture precious gems in large quantities. Pig iron and steel would be easy by comparison. Although since we're talking about an interstellar supply line here, the bulk of the cost and effort would go into delivery.