A Taste of Armageddon - repercussions and alternatives

[Qonundrum]

(For the record, it's one of my favorite episodes, showing how a facade of war can be worse than the real thing - which is bad enough as it is.)

Scotty refuses to comply with Ambassador Fox's demand to lower the shield (which would then allow Anan Seven to blow up the Enterprise). Let's say Scotty complies, Enterprise is destroyed. Other ships called into investigate. Because of Fox's being too rigid a diplomat (the qualities mix just as good as how oil and water don't), wouldn't he be the cause of a far bigger war and a real one? I wish TOS had done a follow-up on this and other season 1 and 2 episodes that had open endings...

But it makes one wonder -- in an episode where we get the following amount of detail from Ventikar's society:

____________________

(none, nada, zero, zilcharama)

-- why would Fox be given the position of mediating both Eminiar Seven and Ventikar? (It's clear Eminiar's leaders are being honest, but why does everyone assume Ventikar is going to behave identically? Who's going to convince Ventikar's leaders that the Federation Ambassador isn't in cahoots with Eminiar? Early-TNG, had a potentially big opportunity with this, since its "Too Short a Season" does the sort of follow-up, even if TSaS follows up on a story similar to "A Private Little War" yet wasn't that actual episode?)

At the same time, I did appreciate how Anan was shown not as a cardboard stick but a person who really felt the situation was real (after 500 years, this sort of tradition would be as real as it gets) and had mixed feelings in engaging in duplicity. TOS loved showing complexity in villains and Anan is somewhat underrated in this respect.

And for a 1960s one-hour format where previous episodes are rarely brought up and built upon in any way, of which the only two stories I recall off the top of my head are "The Menagerie" (featuring the unaired pilot) and "Turnabout Intruder" (only as a plot device to sell the trapped status of Kirk's mind, but it counts), I have to admit that TOS made a lot of stories that easily could have had sequels. As I recall, TOS failed because of nobody was considering the demographic, which Neilsen ignored when doing stats counting, but then through reruns in the 1970s it dawned on everyone that, whoops, the show really was very popular...

 

[Ssosmcin]

Don't forget "By Any Other Name," where they mentioned Spock's telepathic suggestion to the guard on Eminiar 7. And then the barrier itself.

 

[Warped9]

If the Enterprise had not returned then Eminiar 7 was screwed. We saw merely one Federation starship was too much for them to handle. A Federation fleet, or even just a squadron, could easily handle the planet.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The one thing that doesn't work is that they establish that you can't beam down with the shields up, but then Amb. Fox beams down somehow.

I'm not sure what TNG episode introduced the idea of being able to beam or shoot through shields if you know their frequency. In universe, that wasn't necessarily always true. That could be a significant tech upgrade.

If there were events we didn't see in Armageddon, Scotty could get around the problem by deploying a relay satellite high over the Eminiar city, at maximum transporter altitude. Then he takes the ship further out, staying just within transporter range of the satellite, and beyond the range of the planet's guns. Now he can lower his shields and bounce Fox's transporter beam off the satellite and down to the planet. Bam, done.

 

[Timo]

The thing is, nowhere in Trek is it established that you can't beam down through your own shields.

Probably it falls in the same category as being able to fire your own death rays out through your shields while the enemy can't fire his in. And the obvious tactical concern with transporters would be that usually, you do want to reserve the option of beaming back in if something goes wrong - so if the situation discourages the dropping of shields, then any beaming down should also be discouraged even if that part doesn't require the shield-dropping yet.

Agreed that destroying the Enterprise would not have resulted in a war. It would merely have resulted in the UFP stomping on Eminiar, with so much force that they wouldn't need to glass the surface or even level the cities. The approach in the episode was the soft touch: "Give us a treaty port, and no, there's no 'or else' available to you, but we may still discuss this like civilized beings".

As for mediating, I really don't see the need for two middlemen. Of course one side is going to suspect the other of duplicity - but two middlemen would simply cease to be middlemen and become part of the respective enemies, while one can plausibly ride on his explicitly divided loyalties (that is, no real loyalty to worry about).

Not that Fox would have been a middleman, not really. He was sent in to throttle the Eminians until they gave the treaty port, and Vendikans be screwed. Once the adventure was over, he offered to help the Eminians as a negotiator, and again the Vendikans be screwed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Galileo7]

General Order 24 was threatened to be used by Kirk only in this one episode and was surprising that this was even available to a Starfleet captain. General Order 24 could have been an option in many other episodes, but was never was.
The Prime Directive must have caused General Order 24 to be revoked.

 

[Push The Button]

General Order 24 was threatened to be used by Kirk only in this one episode and was surprising that this was even available to a Starfleet captain. General Order 24 could have been an option in many other episodes, but was never was.
The Prime Directive must have caused General Order 24 to be revoked.

I can see the need for GO24 in an Operation Annihilate! scenario, where the pancakes could not be allowed to spread to another star system. Kirk threatening to use it in Armageddon was just thinking outside the box.

 

[Forbin]

It's possible GO 24 is another one of Kirk's bluff tactics, like the corbomite maneuver.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It's possible GO 24 is another one of Kirk's bluff tactics, like the corbomite maneuver.

I seriously doubt that. It would require Kirk and Scotty to have pre-planned the entire charade off camera, without any indication whatsoever on camera in this or any other episode that they did that. If it was meant to be bluff, we would have been told that it was a bluff, just like in "Corbomite." Instead, Kirk orders GO 24 canceled at the end.

So, no.

 

[Timo]

If GO24 is a charade, of course it's a preplanned one - it's in the books and all.

And when Kirk cancels it, it simply means he tells Scotty to stop pretending and get serious again. Kirk doesn't tell Scotty "not to destroy the planet after all" or anything of that sort - all the bluster about the "meaning" of GO24 is in front of Anan 7, while the canceling, ordered after Anan has departed, is a simple affair giving us no further insight into what exactly is being canceled.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

So if it's a planned bluff, wonder who thought of it first - Kirk on an earlier mission or someone else?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

So if it's a planned bluff, wonder who thought of it first - Kirk on an earlier mission or someone else?

It's not!

 

[Captain Rob]

Just curious. Why would a planet that's been engaged in a simulated war for five centuries have REAL planetary disruptor banks? Unless they are really old and built very well. Seems like a waste of resources to me.
I would think that Scotty's first action after being fired upon would be to take out those disruptor banks. Fox can stuff it.

 

[MacLeod]

Just curious. Why would a planet that's been engaged in a simulated war for five centuries have REAL planetary disruptor banks? Unless they are really old and built very well. Seems like a waste of resources to me.
I would think that Scotty's first action after being fired upon would be to take out those disruptor banks. Fox can stuff it.

I would say isimply down to these line of thinking

We need to maintain real weapons in case the otherside decides to attack with real weapons instead of a simulated attack.

 

[Spock's Barber]

General Order 24 was threatened to be used by Kirk only in this one episode and was surprising that this was even available to a Starfleet captain. General Order 24 could have been an option in many other episodes, but was never was.
The Prime Directive must have caused General Order 24 to be revoked.

If General Order 24 commands the complete destruction of a planet, I wonder what kind of deviltry is in General Orders 1-23?

 

[Captain Rob]

An idea: General Order 23
Beam a cubic acre of water from their ocean into their main council chamber. Hope they can swim.