"by any other name" question

[Shawnster]

^ Thompson was a Starfleet officer, and a citizen of the Federation. Either will do.

Rajan was not a member of Starfleet not the Federation. Therefore, he was not subject to their authority. Likewise, he was not viewed as a criminal, enemy combatant or prisoner by the end of the episode.

Rajan was no different than some foreign operative wiki is returned to his home government after killing a soldier or US personnel.

Well they were within Federation territory and as such subject to Federation Law.

When you visit another country you are subject to their laws, it is up to the local authorities to decide upon what course of action to take should you break any laws.

We're not talking about you and me. We're talking about a representative of a foreign government with whom the UFP has no treaty or extradition agreement.

This would be similar to a Soviet, North Korean or a soldier or diplomat from some other enemy state coming to the US and killing a US soldier. In hopes of opening or preserving diplomatic relations, that diplomat or soldier is returned to the enemy state and not sent to Club Gitmo.

At the end of every spy show or covert ops show, are the bad guys ever prosecuted for the security guards, police, soldiers or spies they kill during the course of the show?

 

[johnnybear]

Whatever contact The Federation ever has with Kelva is immaterial as any question sent will take three centuries to reach the Andromeda galaxy from a satellite outside the galaxy (as no signal can penetrate the barrier) and another three centuries to get a reply! So let's hope whoever sends the first message that his descendants don't forget what the question was in the first place!
JB

 

[Timo]

Rojan crushed Yeoman Tomkins with as little thought as us stepping on an insect crossing our kitchen floor.

We could just as well claim that he took sadistic pleasure in exerting this level of control over our heroes (i.e. a lot of thought, and full understanding that the victim is a fellow sapient) and/or that he made a cool and controlled show of force to demonstrate beyond any doubt his superior position (i.e. a lot of thought, and full understanding that the victim is a fellow sapient).

It might be a much shorter step from there to remorse than from the insect-stomping position, then. As soon as Rojan loses the tactical advantage, he knows he has to face the consequences for his actions, and must start devising new means of survival such as groveling. If he did think of humans as insects, this would not come naturally for him.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

any question sent will take three centuries to reach the Andromeda galaxy from a satellite outside the galaxy

To nitpick, we heard of no speed limit for signals. What we learned was that the best speed Rojan can make with an appropriated and modified local starship amounts to 300 years of travel; that Rojan chose to make that physical trip, rather than just send a signal right after crossing the barrier, may be due to sheer arrogance - he wants to deliver the message in person, and the invasion fleet will take centuries to reach the Milky Way anyway so the delay is immaterial. Or then it was possible to modify the ship but not to build a transmitter.

We also lack information on how long it originally took for the Kelvans to arrive. Perhaps their invasion fleet would be much slower than the modified Enterprise?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nebusj]

Were they in UFP territory? The Enterprise could be exploring deep space--one of the show's core elements--and be well beyond UFP territory.

I don't believe it's a Federation planet they start on, at least. There's certainly not an indigenous population (or they'd be the ones the Kelvans would take over first, after all), and a quick glance at the transcript suggests it isn't even named. At the end Kirk proposes the Kelvans In Human Form could colonize the world, which suggests at least that the Federation didn't have any urgent need for it.

(I don't think this makes a moral difference about the killing, mind you, but it could make a legal difference.)

 

[Timo]

Why are the Kelvans in human guise at the start of the episode? They are "textbook humans", but that sort of carries the implication that they had access to a human textbook. Yet they have not spent any time within this galaxy other than their trip from their shipwreck (*) to this planet where they entrap the heroes - and they can't have eavesdropped on human signals earlier on, because none penetrate the Barrier.

This sort of suggests there are humans either on the planet or then somewhere between it and the crash site... Or at least that humans send "textbook" signals across this region of space.

Possibly the easiest assumption is that there are humans there on the planet - namely, our heroes! And the Kelvans just happen to be very fast adapters. But McCoy supposedly doesn't think that any of the landing party members would be textbook humans. Did the Kelvans remotely read McCoy's medical manuals from his tricorder or what?

Timo Saloniemi

(*) Was the shipwreck right next to this planet? Spock does mention "metallic pieces" within tricorder range - is that the lifepod, the wrecked ship, or a ruse by the Kelvans?

 

[Leviathan]

...she put on the red uniform. She knew what was comin'

 

[Marsden]

AKAAR: If it was your man, wasn't it his privilege to die for you? I do not understand.

Of course, that was after Grant got himself...

 

[Silvercrest]

Rajan was not a member of Starfleet not the Federation. Therefore, he was not subject to their authority. Likewise, he was not viewed as a criminal, enemy combatant or prisoner by the end of the episode.

Rajan was no different than some foreign operative wiki is returned to his home government after killing a soldier or US personnel.

Well they were within Federation territory and as such subject to Federation Law.

When you visit another country you are subject to their laws, it is up to the local authorities to decide upon what course of action to take should you break any laws.

We're not talking about you and me. We're talking about a representative of a foreign government with whom the UFP has no treaty or extradition agreement.

Were they in UFP territory? The Enterprise could be exploring deep space--one of the show's core elements--and be well beyond UFP territory.

I don't believe it's a Federation planet they start on ...
(I don't think this makes a moral difference about the killing, mind you, but it could make a legal difference.)

At the end of the episode the Kelvans are effectively a colonial extension of a foreign power. Perhaps they'd be treated as diplomats in a first-contact situation. In that case the Federation would probably treat the whole thing as an "unfortunate incident" and ignore it in favor of building relations.

The result would be about the same as the Federation and the Horta choosing to move forward after their own "unfortunate incident." And for the same reasons. If you can't do that, then don't bother trying to make peace in the first place.

At that point the only question is whether the Kelvans are legally allowed to represent their empire.

 

[Push The Button]

deleted

 

[Silvercrest]

I didn't say anything about motivations. Only that both episodes ended up in a similar place from the political perspective of the Federation. So the Federation has a reason to treat them similarly. No punitive actions. "An unfortunate incident."

It helps that the character motivations by that time are no longer what you're describing.

 

[johnnybear]

any question sent will take three centuries to reach the Andromeda galaxy from a satellite outside the galaxy

To nitpick, we heard of no speed limit for signals. What we learned was that the best speed Rojan can make with an appropriated and modified local starship amounts to 300 years of travel; that Rojan chose to make that physical trip, rather than just send a signal right after crossing the barrier, may be due to sheer arrogance - he wants to deliver the message in person, and the invasion fleet will take centuries to reach the Milky Way anyway so the delay is immaterial. Or then it was possible to modify the ship but not to build a transmitter.

We also lack information on how long it originally took for the Kelvans to arrive. Perhaps their invasion fleet would be much slower than the modified Enterprise?

Timo Saloniemi

But Rojan wouldn't be able to arrive back on Kelva in person, as he stated in the episode, that his descendant would return but Kirk made him see the sense in that they would be humans! Alien enemies to The Kelvan empire! The radiation in Andromeda might take a little more than a few centuries to overwhelm Kelva and they were planning ahead by a millennium or two!
JB

 

[Timo]

True. But that Rojan bought that argument goes to show how low into the depths of humanity he had fallen already.

His original conviction was that descendants of him would complete the mission. Descendants of him, not of any other members of the team! So there was pride involved in getting back physically. But would the descendants really need to disguise themselves as human? The team had already worked wonders in modifying the ship to their needs. It would seem reasonable that they could build a Kelvan environment within the ship, too - if not quite converting it into a Kelvan ship, then at least allowing Rojan's seed to live in comfort while others toiled for him in human form.

We can easily argue, though, that the stranded team was incapable of that much innovation and engineering. Hooking up a gadget or two salvaged from their lifeboat might be doable, while building Kelvan tech out of scratch might not.

The extent of forward planning is certainly commendable - and it doesn't sound as if the Kelvan threat would have been negated by this adventure at all. If they sent one scout mission, they probably sent ten thousand! And they wouldn't take no for an answer lightly, giving up after a mission merely went missing...

One wonders... How big was the scouting team originally? Did anybody perish in the loss of the Kelvan ship? Two? Trillions? Are Kelvans even individuals if not in disguise?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Hatshepsut]

In the discussions above it's fairly clear that Star Trek was never able to go beyond the social and legal concepts available to 20th century humans. This is necessity rather than the show's fault if viewers can't be taught completely alien thought in one hour, yet a fact which greatly constrains things. The original post asked whether Rojan was punished for his killings. We might presume the audience is encouraged to think he at least deserved so: When he crushes the polyhedron representing Thompson, Rojan cackles with all the glee of a TV villain. In the arena of "international" law, the Kelvan civilization becomes illegitimate only because it pursues conquest where the Federation supposedly honors freedom and self-determination for other peoples. A Cold War contrast shines brightly here.

"Whom Gods Destroy" treats the medicalization of crime, then a recent trend which has lately proven abortive. (Federal law and most states abolished the insanity defense after John Hinckley shot President Reagan in 1981, and American corrections policy in general has rejected its former goal of rehabilitation.) In practice I find a distinction between therapy and punishment hard to make: Captain Garth also cackled while his horse ran high and the solitary cells in the mental asylum look as sterile as anything the supermax prison at Florence, Colorado might offer. Only Garth's happy outcome in a magic chair session with attending psychiatrist Cory tells us we have entered a land of aspirational TV.

I can't opine on whether Rojan should be considered an agent acting in an official capacity and thus not liable for murder charges. Even if the planet they are on lies outside Federation territory, would the equivalent of a "Law of the High Seas" apply? The latter forbids the piracy Rojan commits. But then we're back to our conundrum: Our inability to anticipate the concepts and forms that underpin an interstellar civilization, which need not resemble our own.

Thanks to each contributor here. Fascinating, indeed.

 

[Marsden]

At that point the only question is whether the Kelvans are legally allowed to represent their empire.

I would think they would not be empowered as such by their own Empire, but they would be so empowered to represent themselves as a seperate entity in the Federations recognition of them. In other words, they are an independent colony of the Kelvan Empire allowed to peacefully settle that planet with diplomatic relations to the Federation. If the Kelvan Empire agreed to that is another matter completely, but I doubt that they would judging by what is said in the episode.

 

[Hatshepsut]

Rojan cackles...

In these moments [Rojan is] amoral and emotionless throughout.

You'll notice Kelinda is noticeably ''hiding from the camera'' unlike the others during the Thompson sequence, probably to make her character more sympathetic.

Your close observations noted, and appreciated. "Cackle" goes too far, yet Rojan hardly strikes me as emotionless in the way Vulcans usually. He seems smug, quite satisfied with his successes. He prefers the term "punish" over its emotionally neutral counterpart "suffer consequences of." I overlooked the question of whether that was due only to the side effects of assuming a human body.

This was one of Star Trek's better pieces. I like the appeal with which Kirk convinces Rojan to release the Enterprise voluntarily at the end. It tells me that if not fear, then the desire that son be like father still applies. And that intellect doesn't vaccinate against slips of logic. The same evolution of Kelvans away from their ideal state while occupying human bodies can occur on the planet they agree to return to as easily as aboard the ship.

 

[Dude111]

As much as I like the comical elements of the episode, I struggle with the lack of remorse from Rojan. Maybe that's simply due to the constraints of the time in the episode. It still bothers me, though.

I just watched this one the other day...

I guess they wanted to be THE BETTER people of the universe and that meant taken the abuse from others NO MATTER WHAT THEY DID........