Are we all on the same page about Michael's part in starting the war?

[Mudd]

You know, moral debates, like Star Trek. Funny how that works.

No, when the storyline is that dumb and illogical it doesn't "inspire moral debate" when examined on its merits - because it makes no competent argument for or against something.

It's not unlike saying that Trump's "very fine people on both sides" remark was "provocative" - ie , true only in the sense that it "provoked" revulsion and derision at its illogic and wrongheadedness.

 

[zar]

mutiny, noun:
an occasion when a group of people, especially soldiers or sailors,refuses to obey orders and/or attempts to take control from people inauthority


Burnham is many things, but not a group of people.

While not the dictionary definition, the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice considers it mutiny if a person acting alone "creates any violence or disturbance" with the intent to usurp or override lawful military authority. Burnham attacked her superior officer then tried to override Georgiou's orders, therefore she would be guilty of mutiny under the UCMJ and it would appear Starfleet uses a similar definition.

Yes, the main thing is the attempt to override authority. Usually that requires a group conspiracy, which I suppose is why the casual definition includes that, but it doesn't need to. Burnham incapacitated the authority and then lied to the group so they would follow her. That's mutiny. If she had simply refused to obey Georgiou on her own it should only be insubordination, but that's not all she did.

Oh, and technically Burnham is a group of 1 person, anyway. Just saying.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

You know, stupid as "Lorca is from the MU" was, it might have taken a little of the curse off of how stupid giving the bomb to the Cannibal Queen was if it had been used to foreshadow Starfleet's moronic corruption.

Or did they do that? I assume they didn't because the Admiral who was sleeping with him seemed to believe he was just plain old vanilla Lorca.

She knew there was something wrong with him and that he wasn't behaving like the Gabriel Lorca she had known and been involved with before, but she chalked that up to PTSD and survivor's guilt over the loss of his ship and crew rather than to him being an actual different person.

 

[XCV330]

Are we all on the same page about Michael starting the war with the Klingons? To me she is not guilty of starting it is something she has been made a scapegoat for. That's one reason why she is restored in rank by Starfleet at the end of the war.

Technically Burnham assaulted a superior officer, but she did so to the commander of the ship with an aim to take it over and to mislead others into following her lead as captain. Saru already had his doubts, and Georgiou came round too fast for it to be known if the attempt would have been successful. So, not a normal Mutiny perhaps (is there a normal one?), but a Mutiny. Her motives for doing so don't mean anything. She was guilty. She knew it. She admitted it.

She did not start the war, though she did it no favors by killing T'kuvma instead of capturing him, assuming that was still a possibility by the time she was the remaining 1/2 of a hastily assembled assault team on a gigantic ship.

Admiral Anderson had been given her suggestions about how to handle the crisis. If he'd followed them, things may have been different. The 24 houses may have simply said "hell with this" and bailed on T'Kuvma. Or maybe not. In any case Anderson's method of handling it was in adequate. He was incapable of holding a line with his ships, nor did he have adequate intel of their actual fighting strength. He would have probably done better to have his task force pulled back to a reasonably defensible zone while building strength and assaying the enemy. Instead he held a line while trying diplomatic attempts with an already hostile enemy. He was the flag officer, he made a mistake, he lost the initial confrontation and set the tone for the first 6 months of the war. The war is on Admiral Anderson and to a lesser degree, Captain Georgiou.

 

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[Tuskin38]

No she didn’t start the war, but she did possibly help extend it.

 

[Terok Nor]

The war was happening with or without Burnham but she made it worse by making T'Cuntma a martyr.

She is a mutinneer though. She assaulted Georgiou and attempted to take command of the ship. Her being back in Starfleet after that is absurd and the only time we've seen a mutinneer reinstated as far as I know. Ro disobeyed orders but that's hardly in the same league even if it did lead to some deaths.

 

[Lord Garth]

Are we all on the same page about Michael starting the war with the Klingons? To me she is not guilty of starting it is something she has been made a scapegoat for. That's one reason why she is restored in rank by Starfleet at the end of the war.

Anyway T'Kuvma was going to push the Klingons into war regardless of anything Michael did or didn't do.

She had every right to defend herself on the Klingon Ship of the Dead given the circumstances. The Klingons were going to attack even if she had never been there. It seems to me that gossip and misunderstanding about her mutiny among Starfleet rank and file took on a life of its own divorced from the facts.

Re-arranged the order of what you said slightly to make easier to follow and bolded a key part. Yes. I'm with you, so far.

Michael's reasoning about firing first was to smash a would be strongman before he could use aggression against the Federation to further his own ambition (even though he also had an ideology that he genuinely believed in about keeping racial and cultural purity).

Ehhhhh..... This is debatable but not a debate I want to have at the present time. I'll get to it at some point.

I ask because I saw a ScreenRant article that seemed to think Michael was held to a higher standard than Kirk and Spock would be for later actions that seriously violated the chain of command. For Michael she really did break the rules but a war broke out where it didn't for Kirk and Spock even though it was probably *going to happen no matter what she did. There was a need to have her made a scapegoat for more than her actions really amounted to.

True.

*There was logic to her Vulcan influenced belief about hitting the Klingons first and humiliating T'Kuvma before he could impress the other Houses into joining his war. It might have been right but it wasn't her call to make. Or was it?

The situation with the Vulcans wasn't the same as the situation with the Federation. Sarek even tells Burnham this. The Klingons didn't want war with Vulcan, they were just harassing them. T'Kuvma, who wanted to unite the Klingons behind something, chose war with the Federation as something to unite them behind. Without a war with the Federation, he has no cause to unite everyone around.

Separate from that, it was Georgiou's call to decide on how to proceed. Burnham, as First Officer, could point out alternatives, but that was all.

Anyway, that's all just my take. I'd say we're more on the same page than we're not.

I don't want get into all of it with everyone Yet Again. I've done it enough over the past year (seriously anyone else, I'd rather save it for the off-season when we don't have new episodes airing). But I figured you're new-ish, so I might as well say where I stand.

 

[Tuskin38]

Yeah T’Kuvma wanted to start a war, the Vulcan hello wouldn’t have worked on him

 

[Kor]

mutiny, noun:
an occasion when a group of people, especially soldiers or sailors,refuses to obey orders and/or attempts to take control from people inauthority


Burnham is many things, but not a group of people.

Well, neither was Spock in "The Menagerie," but he turned himself in under the charge of mutiny, and was tried for that charge, when he had acted all alone.
So Starfleet in the 23rd century must have a different definition of the word than contemporary dictionaries. And the STDisco writers went with the Starfleet definition.

Kor

 

[Noname Given]

Kirk seems to have absorbed this well enough, successfully waging war on stun in "Errand of Mercy". Why did Burnham not use stun, then?

- This would have allowed her to shoot without fear of hitting Georgiou
- This would have stopped T'Kumva for certain
- This would have rendered T'Kumva helpless to whatever sadistic punishment Burnham wanted to inflict, rather than dead and not caring any longer
...
Timo Saloniemi

Because she saw her Captain (and friend, and mother figure) brutally slain by T'Kuvma, and had an emotional reaction and she acted on said emotional reaction and killed him. (Further setting up her inner conflict as Vulcan society teaches one to control such emotions, but she obviously could not because she killed T'Kuvma.)

 

[Jedman67]

Had Burnham succeeded in disabling or even destroying the Klingon ship; the rest of the houses would not have likely united behind T'Kuvma. The war would have been called a skirmish and over by Afternoon Tea.
1. The Klingons respected strength more than diplomacy. Federation saying, "Hey buds, let's be friends but if you try anything cute we"ll fucking nail you to the wall" would have given them pause. Instead, the Federation was like "We come in peace dude, but when you're asleep at the wheel we"ll turn you all into root-beer drinking Hew Mans" would be duplicitous and not honorable; therefore war is an option until the federation can outgun you and force you to peace.

2. The Klingons may not have intended war on the Vulcans but were certainly not shy about taking potshots at them. A vulcan fleet blowing them to kingdom-come and then waltzing away would certainly send the message of "do not fuck with us"

3. Georgiou started the war. It was essentially a first-contact situation and she should have asked the Vulcans, the Andorians or anyone who'd dealt with them previously for advice before waltzing into their guns and giving them an excuse to open fire.

4. Burnham certainly disobeyed orders and while I disagree with the mutiny charge as poorly written plot contrivance, she does hold some responsibility.

 

[Hythlodeus]

3. Georgiou started the war. It was essentially a first-contact situation and she should have asked the Vulcans, the Andorians or anyone who'd dealt with them previously for advice before waltzing into their guns and giving them an excuse to open fire.

^this.
this gets overlooked too often

 

[Tuskin38]

3. Georgiou started the war.

No

 

[Mudd]

She knew there was something wrong with him and that he wasn't behaving like the Gabriel Lorca she had known and been involved with before, but she chalked that up to PTSD and survivor's guilt over the loss of his ship and crew rather than to him being an actual different person.

Yeah, that was my recollection. Point is, the mucky-mucks didn't suspect him.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

Would we be OK if we agreed that:
(1) What Burnham did might be considered mutinous, but
(2) Since Star Trek seem to act loosely with the definition of mutiny, considering Spock arguably seemed to have done mutinous things on at least 2 occasions, but he still said "there have been no recorded mutinies..."

Therefore when Spock said that about having no record of mutinies, it might technically be true -- but it doesn't make Burnham's actions a canon violation, which is what most fans argue about when discussing Burnham's actions.

It seems fewer fans care that she did it and still remains in Star Fleet (an in-universe argument, but valid) compared to the fans who argue that it is a canon violation (a production argument, and one that is not as valid).

 

[Jedman67]

No

Fine. Georgio's lack of experience with the Klingons and unwillingness to contemplate an alternative method for First Contact led her to walk right into the trap that T'kuvma laid to manipulate the Federation into war.
Happy?

 

[Jedman67]

Therefore when Spock said that about having no record of mutinies, it might technically be true -- but it doesn't make Burnham's actions a canon violation, which is what most fans argue about when discussing Burnham's actions.

I honestly don't think anyone else cares....

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

mutiny, noun:
an occasion when a group of people, especially soldiers or sailors,refuses to obey orders and/or attempts to take control from people inauthority


Burnham is many things, but not a group of people.

The Macmillan Dictionary has that "group" qualification. Merriam-Webster, Oxford, the American Heritage Dictionary, the Collins English Dictionary, and Webster's New World, do not.

And arguably, if she had not attempted to fire first, or if she'd succeeded in doing so, the war might have been avoided.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

I honestly don't think anyone else cares....

The argument a year ago was more about "It's a canon violation for Burnham to be a mutineer considering what Spock said in TOS about mutinies." The more valid argument of "How can she ever be a Star Fleet officer again considering she committed mutiny?" took a back seat to that.