By Any Other Name

[siskokid888]

As we all know, in this ep, where the Kelvins are taking the ship out of the galaxy, Scotty and Spock rig the ship to explode when they hit the energy barrier, on Kirk's order. Kirk doesn't give the word, and the ship is not destroyed, and our heros find a way out of the situation. My question is was Kirk right not to destroy the ship? Was he acting on sentiment instead of doing his duty? It's obvious Spock and Scotty thought that was the way to go, to keep an enemy from capturing the ship. Was Kirk's duty to blow up the ship? Did his love for the E interfere with his required duty? Of course he had no way of knowing if they would find a way out. It appears that this is one of the times when Kirk went with his gut rather then with his intellect, but it easily could have gone bad, if the Kelvins had decided to shrink him and the others as well.

 

[Yeoman Randi]

I thought it would have been way too soon to go the self destruct road...they has plenty of time to figure another way out, which of course they did. I'm not sure if it was his gut or his love of the ship that kept Kirk from giving the order.

Aside from the fact that if they had self destructed that would have been the end of the series!

I love this episode. It has some great dialog and the thought of what the Kelvins really looked like was so neat to me!

 

[Hambone]

I think it was just a matter of Kirk knowing that there had to be a way to beat the Kelvins. Destroying the ship would have been a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Of course, as we learn later in the episode, the Kelvins knew about the self-destruct scheme all along and had already taken steps to prevent it.

By the time Kirk actually did destroy the Enterprise (Star Trek III), the ship was dead, there was no crew, and the Klingons were about to board her. There was really no better choice.

 

[siskokid888]

^That's true, but what's interesting is that Spock and Scott thought that self destruct was the way to go. I guess you could say that they were giving the captain options, but Spock seemed to think that it was better to blow the ship than let the Kelvins have it, and if he were Captain, that's what he would have done.

 

[barnaclelapse]

I thought it would have been way too soon to go the self destruct road...they has plenty of time to figure another way out, which of course they did. I'm not sure if it was his gut or his love of the ship that kept Kirk from giving the order.

Aside from the fact that if they had self destructed that would have been the end of the series!

I love this episode. It has some great dialog and the thought of what the Kelvins really looked like was so neat to me!

I always thought he was going with his gut. He does, after all have a habit of pushing things as far to the limit (or just his idea of the limit) as possible.

Yeah, great episode.

 

[Timo]

Kirk is famous for not believing in no-win scenarios. He has never considered self-destruct a viable option when his own life was at stake, and obviously never had any plans on dying.

I gather standard Starfleet training would require self-sacrifice at that point, but Kirk doesn't act according to standard Starfleet training. Foolish or not? Well, Kirk knows he's fortune's favorite child - he has escaped certain death often enough, and accomplished his mission by alternate means. We could argue that he goes by empirical evidence here when once again refusing to get himself killed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[siskokid888]

Kirk is famous for not believing in no-win scenarios. He has never considered self-destruct a viable option when his own life was at stake, and obviously never had any plans on dying.

I gather standard Starfleet training would require self-sacrifice at that point, but Kirk doesn't act according to standard Starfleet training. Foolish or not? Well, Kirk knows he's fortune's favorite child - he has escaped certain death often enough, and accomplished his mission by alternate means. We could argue that he goes by empirical evidence here when once again refusing to get himself killed.

Timo Saloniemi

Good point, Timo. His actions in this case do fit in with his later assertion that he doesn't believe in the no win scenario. The only flaw in his logic is that the Kelvins could have easily neutralized him and the others, and gained the ship. However, the argument could also be made that if the Kelvins did take the ship, they wouldn't be back for, I think it was 600 years. If their plan was conquest, the Milky Way Galaxy might have been sufficiently advanced to hold them off by then, and Kirk may have considered this. He is usually 3 steps ahead of everyone else.

 

[paudemge]

Kirk is famous for not believing in no-win scenarios. He has never considered self-destruct a viable option when his own life was at stake, and obviously never had any plans on dying.

I gather standard Starfleet training would require self-sacrifice at that point, but Kirk doesn't act according to standard Starfleet training. Foolish or not? Well, Kirk knows he's fortune's favorite child - he has escaped certain death often enough, and accomplished his mission by alternate means. We could argue that he goes by empirical evidence here when once again refusing to get himself killed.

Timo Saloniemi

Yes, that is exactly how I feel, he just knows that he can defeat the Kelvins and save himself and much more important his ship,his crew, his friends.

He is like the coach that always goes for it on forth down and always makes it, so is always the hero and never the goat.

 

[Timo]

People may get confused by Kirk often threatening with suicide and self-destruct. But those are just threats, bits of masterful bluffing, in episodes like "I, Mudd" or "Let That Be, Let That Be, Let That Be, Let That Be-ee, Your Last Battlefield, Let That Be". Kirk never needs to follow through - which is something I'd expect his adversaries to catch up on pretty quickly, since it's such a standard trick of his, one that he actually uses for fairly trivial matters. Good thing he doesn't run into the same adversaries often.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Myko]

"Bones, if you don't get me off this diet of green leaves.. I'm destroying the ship!"

 

[siskokid888]

^LOL! Interestingly, in TMP, Kirk, when he is leaving the ship to confront Vejur, tells Scotty to blow up the ship if he (Kirk) fails. Guess he figures he is the only one that can find a way out of these situations. Thought admittedly, in that situation, all of Earth was in danger, not just the Enterprise.

 

[Wingsley]

Spock and Scotty were simply giving Kirk an option. That's their duty. If these two command-grade officers were truly desperate and felt there was no choice, they would have rigged the ship to automatically destroy itself without warning Kirk. But they didn't do that; they gave Kirk the choice, and Kirk rejected it. "Are you mad?!"

Keep something else in mind: if we assume that the Kelvan Empire from Andromeda may be a serious threat to Federation security, and may be substantially more advanced than the Federation (maybe even more advanced than the Borg, for that matter) then self-destructing the Enterprise would still leave the Federation exposed to an unknown threat. (Kirk had no way to warn Starfleet about the Kelvans' existence.) By taking a chance and waiting for an opportunity to turn the tables on Rojan, Kirk was able to establish a benevolent relationship with Rojan. The Federation is able to learn about the Kelvans, and the Enterprise supposedly benefits from at least some residual Kelvan technology. (You don't think Scotty let all of the Kelvan refit work slip away, do you? Once he sees how to make the Enterprise sustain super-high warp speed, you know he's taking ideas back to Starfleet!) And the Federation gets to send a robot ship to Kelva to extend an olive branch to the aliens.

Sounds like a win-win to me.

 

[siskokid888]

^All good points, but I thought of another "trekverse" puzzle - does Rojan have to answer for the murder of the young female yeoman? He knowingly killed her in front fo Kirk - is he or Federation authorities going to act, or is it going to be chalked up to first contact risk? It was pretty cold blooded.

 

[Timo]

Probably depends on what the Feds want of the Kelvan relationships in the near term. If it's important to stay in good terms with these technologically advanced folks, the idea of a "first contact risk" might apply. If it's more important to show that the Feds will take no crap from the Andromedan fugitives when they arrive, then their advance party will also get to feel UFP justice as a warning example.

Then again, criminals in TOS aren't "punished". They are considered ill and are cured - forcibly if need be. Can the Feds cure a Kelvan?

Probably Dr. Adams' techniques will work on Rojan, as he became quite human in basically every significant respect when taking the human form. But if Rojan doesn't want to maintain human form, can he still be subjected to human justice?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

I would imagine that Scotty would be elbowing Kirk to see if the Kelvans will leave behind any of their technology in Engineering, and be happy with that. Keep in mind that there is no indication in this ep what the true intentions and policies of the native Kelvans in Andromeda may be. Will they come as conquerors, or as refugees? Will they be diplomatic, or hostile? Will they regard the Federation as a potential friend, or threat? The Federation doesn't know the answer to these questions, and will likely look the other way about Yeoman Thompson's death, since doing so will make it easier to establish a relationship with the Kelvans. Keep in mind that despite Rojan's aggression, Kirk and Starfleet will likely be understanding about the desperation of the Kelvans. After all, they seem to have lost their starship and most likely a large crew with it.

 

[ToddPence]

Would the Kelvans have really been able to conquer our ENTIRE galaxy? Wouldn't our more advanced races be at least a match for them?

 

[siskokid888]

^A good question. Spock's analysis after briefly melding with one of them seems to show them has a highly evolved technologically very advanced race - especially since they got from Andromeda in only 300 years. Could they have taken the Dominion, the Borg, or the other heavy duty empires? They seemed to be pretty confident that they could.

 

[Timo]

One might say that the ability to cross intergalactic distances would be related to the ability to deal a big helping of whupass.

Sure, the Borg seem to be at least as fast as the Kelvan-upgraded NCC-1701, and the original Kelvan scout apparently didn't make the crossing in a forthnight, either. But other Milky Way players don't seem to be in the same ballpark with the Borg. OTOH, the Borg are secretive; the Kelvans probably wouldn't have learned about them until it was too late.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ssosmcin]

Kirk's reaction to the suggestion is pretty strong as well. He may be willing to destroy the ship when left with no other choice, but it was too soon for him. Blowing up the ship as the final option to stop the Enterprise from being used to transport invaders or otherwise is still a triumph. The adversaries are defeated, and if it costs Kirk his life, it's still not a no-win scenario.

Timo suggests Kirk's threat to destroy the ship in "Battlefield" is an example of Kirk bluffing; I feel otherwise. Kirk wasn't bluffing, he was playing to win. Bluffing and gambling are not the same thing. Kirk was gambling Bele would release control before the point of no return. Granted, he's effing relieved when Bele caves, but that's what gamblers do: they put everything down on what they consider a sure winner, but sometimes they guess wrong and go bust. Kirk played the odds, but Bele was no idiot - he realized Kirk could be bluffing. If there is anything that Kirk might have done to tilt the odds in his favor, it would be that he lied about the irrevocability of the order "from 5 to 0." That might have been a interesting revelation later on in the episode.

Too bad this Kirk didn't exist by the time Sybok commandeered the Enterprise.

Butm anyway, a no-win scenario is being shot out of the sky by Klingons, unable to rescue the crew of another ship, and peaceful overtures fail. Destroying your ship - and yourself - as a last resort to stop your adversaries is a victory.

 

[siskokid888]

^I guess that depends on how you define victory. If being victorious simply means destroying your enemy, then your discription fits. If victory means doing that while remaining intact, well, then there is more to consider before you chalk it up as a win.