By Any Other Name

[Ssosmcin]

^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.

Well, no doubt, a best case victory is beating your adversary, saving your crew, and living to tell the tale. But if the last two are not an option, then defeating the enemy is the bottom line objective. If the only way to do that is by sacrificing yourself and the ship, you still beat him by stopping him from succeeding at whatever the objective was. Heroes don't have to enjoy the spoils of victory; it's just a perk.

 

[buckeyenation]

not only did kirk defeat the kelvins, but made a pact to help them....the federation does good work, folks.just ask the next horta you see

 

[Timewalker]

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

The point was made during the fight between Kirk and Rojan that the Kelvans had become too human to even consider shifting back to their native form. So it's likely that by that time, changing back would be either very difficult or outright impossible.

This thread makes me wonder, though... who threatened to destroy the ship more times, Kirk or Janeway? I think it's safe to say that Janeway actually did destroy the ship more times than Kirk did, and took herself with it!

 

[Timo]

But if the last two are not an option, then defeating the enemy is the bottom line objective. If the only way to do that is by sacrificing yourself and the ship, you still beat him by stopping him from succeeding at whatever the objective was. Heroes don't have to enjoy the spoils of victory; it's just a perk.

And in that respect, I really cannot agree with the idea that the self-destruct bluff in "Let That Be" was anything but bluff.

I mean, what sort of an enemy are we talking about here? A guy who wanted to alter Kirk's schedule and fly the ship to a nearby star system, without any implication that he would have had further designs on the ship, her crew, or the Federation! Surely not a threat worth sacrificing even one Federation life, let alone 430...

Kirk would have to be pretty idiotic to consider self-sacrifice over something that trivial. Indeed, he might face posthumous court martial and disgrace if he did wantonly destroy important Starfleet property and, worse still, murder Starfleet personnel, for nothing much.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[siskokid888]

^While your point is well taken, I think "murder" is too strong a word. The crew may have been sacrificed unnecessarily, but that is part of the risk of being a starfleet officer. Did Decker murder his crew in "Doomsday Machine?" He made a bad decision, and might have had to pay for it, but it wasn't murder. If Kirk blew the ship in "Let That.." he might be guilty of the same poor judgement, but not murder.

 

[Timo]

Did Decker murder his crew in "Doomsday Machine?"

Probably. I mean, he really couldn't have made that bad a decision with honest intent. The part about his crew pleading for mercy is probably true; the part of them beaming down to the planet willingly, as part of an emergency evacuation, probably isn't. Nobody would beam down to a planet when there's a planet killer loose. Far better to die aboard one's starship when death is 100% certain on both locations; and since Decker himself survived, odds would probably have been in favor of staying.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ssosmcin]

But if the last two are not an option, then defeating the enemy is the bottom line objective. If the only way to do that is by sacrificing yourself and the ship, you still beat him by stopping him from succeeding at whatever the objective was. Heroes don't have to enjoy the spoils of victory; it's just a perk.

And in that respect, I really cannot agree with the idea that the self-destruct bluff in "Let That Be" was anything but bluff.

I mean, what sort of an enemy are we talking about here? A guy who wanted to alter Kirk's schedule and fly the ship to a nearby star system, without any implication that he would have had further designs on the ship, her crew, or the Federation! Surely not a threat worth sacrificing even one Federation life, let alone 430...

Kirk would have to be pretty idiotic to consider self-sacrifice over something that trivial. Indeed, he might face posthumous court martial and disgrace if he did wantonly destroy important Starfleet property and, worse still, murder Starfleet personnel, for nothing much.

Timo Saloniemi

Since no mention of Kirk bluffing was made by anyone other than Bele, which prompted Kirk to step up and go through with it, we're not led to believe that Kirk was anything other than dead serious. It was played straight, Bele caved at the last possible second, leaving Kirk no time to change his mind and fold.

It may be too extreme a decision to stop some guy from taking the Enterprise for a ride home, but there you go. Everyone was out of character in the third season. This season's Kirk would do something like this. He did a lot of crazy stuff during the year.

 

[The Castellan]

I'm just wondering if Scotty was found, face-down, in a pool of his own vomit after the Kelvin thing was settled.

 

[Shaw]

Did Decker murder his crew in "Doomsday Machine?"

Probably. I mean, he really couldn't have made that bad a decision with honest intent. The part about his crew pleading for mercy is probably true; the part of them beaming down to the planet willingly, as part of an emergency evacuation, probably isn't. Nobody would beam down to a planet when there's a planet killer loose. Far better to die aboard one's starship when death is 100% certain on both locations; and since Decker himself survived, odds would probably have been in favor of staying.

I totally agree with you...



... as long as we accept that all of that is based on your fantasy version of what happen rather than the episode as presented. But I'm not sure that your fan fiction rewrite of the events of Doomsday Machine is appropriate for this forum (specially as there actually exist a Fan Fiction forum for this type of thing).

But if you ever get around to actually watching Doomsday Machine (without reading all your conspiracy theories into it), you might find it an interesting and enjoyable episode.

 

[Timo]

Oh, we can take the episode two ways:

1) Accept as true every word written by the (apparently not all that motivated) scriptwright as coming out of the mouths of the characters, which means that not only was Decker fatally incompetent, but so were all 400 of his crew, or

2) Accept as true only part of the words, and choose to take as lies some others, in which case we can assume that less than 400 people were fatally incompetent.

In either case, somebody is gonna lose his or her rep posthumously for choosing to beam down on a planet when there's a known planet killer loose. Is it "mass murder by antiproton-spewing instrument and transporter" or "mass suicide by antiproton-spewing instrument and transporter"? You decide. Apparently, the writer couldn't.

Interesting? Definitely. Enjoyable? Absolutely. Well-written? Well, thankfully, that has never been a requirement for being interesting and enjoyable.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[siskokid888]

^I never saw it as Decker beaming his crew down to kill them. I always extrapolated that he thought he could use the Constellation to lure the planet killer away - maybe he was even considering blowing it up in the things maw, like he did the shuttlecraft, when the power got knocked out, and he was dead in space, while the thing turned back to the planet. The crew's begging was, I always felt, for him to do something, and he was helpless, which drove him over the edge.

 

[Timo]

The idea of him deliberately trying to get his crew killed makes no sense to me, either - for one thing, he wouldn't have succeeded in that sort of thing if 400 people opposed him! But we have to face the illogic of Decker's story and insert our own interpretations where we best see fit, so that the story begins to make sense.

Clearly Decker didn't want his crew dead, but we then have to invent a reason for why he and the 400 would all have agreed that beaming down was a good idea. And what you say about blowing the ship up sounds like the best possible reason. Not only does it explain the strange behavior of the 400, who now would indeed have been saved despite beaming down, since the planet killer would be killed by Decker before it could act...

...It also makes Decker look all the more heroic in his shuttlecraft stunt. He'd have realized the shuttle would do zip to the planet killer, but he'd have done it all for a greater cause: to show Kirk what his original plan had been, so that Kirk could follow it. No mere madman's suicide flight, then, but a combined act of penace and heroic salvation, with only a smidgen of diminished mental capacity thrown in. A good way for a good guest star to go.

The only remaining bit of illogic would be in that Decker never told Kirk, Spock or any other hero about his original plan. But that's not a big piece of illogic to swallow. After all, he was an incoherent wreck at first; then he got better, probably thanks to McCoy's help or something, and suddenly he had an undamaged starship available to him and the suicide plan became unnecessary (or so he thought).

Timo Saloniemi