Spoilers Discovery, Burnham, & Section 31
- Thread starter guyute03
- Start date
I hope they don't do this. I really REALLY hope it's nothing to do with S31.
That said, I did say "I hope they don't do a space wars thing" back when DSC was still relatively undeveloped, and I like the show thus far in spite of it not meeting that desire. (At all...haha)
So whatever happens will happen...and I'll see how it turns out.
That said, I did say "I hope they don't do a space wars thing" back when DSC was still relatively undeveloped, and I like the show thus far in spite of it not meeting that desire. (At all...haha)
So whatever happens will happen...and I'll see how it turns out.
Good question. Not necessarily. (though I would strongly presume that this is something the Federation is either working on, or has already instituted.)
TNG "Chain of Command" makes it clear that a comparable convention exists as of the 2360s. Whether our heroes there have a leg to stand on when expecting the Cardassians to comply is left unclear. All bets are currently off as regards the mid-23rd century, as Kirk never appealed to such a convention.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
ST VI speaks of "interstellar law", whatever that means.
Good to hear you have an idk... Moral compass I guess?
It wasn't even just a "whoops this is sorta grey zone thing" kind of plot device, what they did was crystal clear violation of not just one, but several statutes on war crimes.
1: Collection of the dead. Ever since the rules on war (and war crimes) were invented, it's been recognized that collection of the dead is not just optional, it's a duty of the warring parties. Furthermore, interfering with the collection of the dead is a war crime in itself.
2: Article 6 of the 1980 Protocol II to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons reads:
1. Without prejudice to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict relating to treachery and perfidy, it is prohibited in all circumstances to use: ...... (b) booby-traps which are in any way attached to or associated with:
(i) internationally recognized protective emblems, signs or signals;
(ii) sick, wounded or dead persons;
The rules of war aren't terribly complicated: It's pretty simple, and pretty black and white.
Don't massacre civilians, don't shoot someone surrendering, don't interfere with collecting the dead and don't booby trap dead bodies. It's basically: Don't be a dick.
And frankly I think it's appalling that they had the Federation break those, in the very first battle of the series.
It smacks of either: A: Lazy writing or B: A writing team that tries too hard to be all edgy and grimdark and "Hey
Trekkies! This isn't your dads Federation! R ur minds blown yet?!"
If we're to believe that the Federation grew out of the UN (waaaay back) then the rules of war still apply to the Federation though, even in the absence of some galactic wide Geneva treaty.
Do the laws written in the 19th or 20th century still apply 2-300 years from now? Yes they do.
2-300 years isn't a whole lot in terms of legal theory.
You have a 2nd amendment in the US today, because of British common law and laws from the 17th century.
In Europe the legal codes owe much to the Napoleonic codes from the early 19th century, and in many cases they stretch back to Roman Law which is over 1500 years old.
TLDR: What is a war crime in the 20th century is also a war crime in the 22nd or 23rd century.
What are you talking about? Outdated laws get purged from the system as soon as possible. Only laws that do not offend modern sensibilities are allowed to persist. Sometimes mistakes happen, but not all that often. If the future sees a need to redefine war crime, it will. After all, it has, often enough.
There is no reason to assume that any of today's rules of war would apply. They are all heavily tied to the human context, after all, and in Trek, humans no longer fight humans. The very episode opening DSC shows how it's accepted practice in at least some parts of the Federation to give the Vulcan Hello, an obvious future sensibility rather than a current one. We see Federation hospital ships armed to the teeth. Starfleet doctors kill left and right. Ships flying false colors is a sound tactic rather than a crime. Etc. etc.
Heck, in all of Star Trek, there is only one mention of "war crime" touching on the Federation - the charging of Gul Dukat with said in "Waltz". And even there, it's only Dukat himself who uses the terminology, which we know is certainly a thing for the Bajorans he used to oppress. For all we know, the very concept of war crime has ceased to exist in the UFP.
Timo Saloniemi
There is no reason to assume that any of today's rules of war would apply. They are all heavily tied to the human context, after all, and in Trek, humans no longer fight humans. The very episode opening DSC shows how it's accepted practice in at least some parts of the Federation to give the Vulcan Hello, an obvious future sensibility rather than a current one. We see Federation hospital ships armed to the teeth. Starfleet doctors kill left and right. Ships flying false colors is a sound tactic rather than a crime. Etc. etc.
Heck, in all of Star Trek, there is only one mention of "war crime" touching on the Federation - the charging of Gul Dukat with said in "Waltz". And even there, it's only Dukat himself who uses the terminology, which we know is certainly a thing for the Bajorans he used to oppress. For all we know, the very concept of war crime has ceased to exist in the UFP.
Timo Saloniemi
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I don't get your point.
The Nurnberg trials recognized that following orders isn't a defense or excuse for committing a war crime.
That has been reflected in all armies since, including the US Army.
It is in fact illegal for a US officer to carry out an illegal order. (Like the one Georgieu gave.)
Now what does that have to do with Starfleet in the 23rd century.
It's very simple really. The law is built on precedents and case law. Hence, there are still legal and illegal orders in the 23rd century, which means that Burnham should have recognized Georgieu's order as illegal and refused to comply.
Failing to do that, makes her (also) guilty of a war crime.
That's kind of a self defeating argument right there, since Capt. Georgieu refused to entertain the "Vulcan Hello" since the "Federation doesn't shoot first".
Ehm, well actually there is. (Aside from legal arguments and traditions.) Surely you must have come across the argument that humanity is a more enlightened and progressive bunch in the 22nd and 23rd century, through hundreds of episodes of Enterprise, TOS, TNG etc? It's a pretty integral part of Star Trek, and for humanity to take the advances in law and civil rights that are epitomized in (for example) the rules on warfare, goes against everything that is Trek.
There's no reason to assume that the crew of Discovery don't go around cracking racist jokes behind Burnham and Saru's back either when it comes down to it. Except there is, it goes against the whole mythos of Star Trek.
So are laws against slavery, but you don't see the Federation engage in the trade with Slave girls from Orion.
And of course, if humanity in the 23rd century still haven't moved beyond placing human lives above other sentient species, and still treats other races as less important or with less respect, then what's the point of making a Federation at all?
Yet they allow death duels and ownership of mates on Vulcan. Federation isn't as squeaky clean as people think. They continued to do business with the Klingons even though they subjugate worlds.
I couldn't see an organization like the Federation surviving without a department like Section 31.
Hmm. My point was that law didn't matter at Nürnberg: German law was summarily dismissed for being wrong, even when it was the only one applying to the Germans, while laws condemning the planning and executing of invasions of neutral countries were applied on Germany but not on Great Britain and France. And never mind defining crimes against humanity so that these did not cover Allied crimes.
This is solid and sound practice for dealing with the fallout of a war. It is a mockery of civilian practices, though, as those simply do not suffice.
Enlightening does not mean clinging on to the past. Today, we have decided it was right to steal from slave owners by rewriting the law. We have decided it was wrong to castrate homosexuals for their crimes. Black has become white and white has become black as enlightment shines upon us all. In the future, those accusing people of war crimes may well be declared insanely criminal and worthy of exhumation and shredding, because it's the decent thing to do.
To claim that the laws of 2017 should hold in 2256 is just idiocy. To defend the idea that certain lines of ethical reasoning would remain the same is just conservatism, possibly justified but probably not, considering real world examples.
As for Trek examples, the Federation was fine with the slavery on Ardana, and indeed it probably still persists - Kirk at least wanted to do nothing about it. The Federation hasn't stopped duels to the death on Vulcan, either. Indeed, in the TNG era, we don't actually hear of anything being illegal but the possession of certain controlled substances. That's probably what enlightenment gets you.
Edit: partially ninja'ed, which isn't a wonder at these message lengths. Sorree!
Timo Saloniemi
This is solid and sound practice for dealing with the fallout of a war. It is a mockery of civilian practices, though, as those simply do not suffice.
Enlightening does not mean clinging on to the past. Today, we have decided it was right to steal from slave owners by rewriting the law. We have decided it was wrong to castrate homosexuals for their crimes. Black has become white and white has become black as enlightment shines upon us all. In the future, those accusing people of war crimes may well be declared insanely criminal and worthy of exhumation and shredding, because it's the decent thing to do.
To claim that the laws of 2017 should hold in 2256 is just idiocy. To defend the idea that certain lines of ethical reasoning would remain the same is just conservatism, possibly justified but probably not, considering real world examples.
As for Trek examples, the Federation was fine with the slavery on Ardana, and indeed it probably still persists - Kirk at least wanted to do nothing about it. The Federation hasn't stopped duels to the death on Vulcan, either. Indeed, in the TNG era, we don't actually hear of anything being illegal but the possession of certain controlled substances. That's probably what enlightenment gets you.
Edit: partially ninja'ed, which isn't a wonder at these message lengths. Sorree!
Timo Saloniemi
According to pretty much any military today (Except the North Korean maybe) that would be an illegal order that Burnham should have refused to carry out.
(Now I suppose it's possible that at some point in the future, say in the year 2200, humanity came together and decided to undo the legal tradition of the past 250 years, and eliminated the concept of "illegal orders." But I don't see that happening in the Trek timeline/universe.)
[quotes]We don't know what kind of conventions, if any, actually exist between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.[/QUOTE]
A war crime doesn't need both parties to have signed a convention, in order to be a war crime. The fact that the Soviet Union (for example) wasn't a party to The Hague convention didn't make the holocaust any less of a war crime. (Most victims were from
the Soviet Union.)
Or are you suggesting, that if the Federation started to drop neutron bombs on Klingon civilian targets, that it wouldn't be a war crime, since the Klingon Empire hadn't signed the Space Geneva Convention?
That isn't the problem with the assumption. The problem is with Klingons coming to arrest Picard for his war crime of using androids in fighting, or Ferengi executing Sisko on the spot for his war crime of using ammunition sold by third parties.
In order to have law, one needs either agreement or then overwhelming means of enforcement. The Federation and its Starfleet would have neither - if it tried to prosecute Klingons by human standards of wrongdoing, it would either be laughed out of the court by Klingons and everybody else, or find itself even deeper in the throes of a war it cannot hope to win. And we know for a fact that many human standards currently considered immutable are anathema to alien standards of proper conduct (say, Klingons want to slay the wounded and will consider anybody failing to do so an immoral monster), and even that humans/Feds have in fact adapted (say, their hospital ships are armed combatants).
Heck, the Feds could get in trouble even by prosecuting their own ranks by human standards. A lawyer successfully argues that the use of photon torpedoes at Alpha Kappa III by his client was not wrong and she should walk free, Klingons get offended and launch a war. A lawyer successfully argues that the use of pulse phasers and ground troops at Beta Theta IV by the defendant was wrong and he should be brainwashed, Klingons get offended at their preferred method of waging war being declared illegal and launch a war. Which is fine if the Feds can clean their chronometers or whatever, because might makes right. But we know they can't, not in any era explored so far.
Timo Saloniemi
In order to have law, one needs either agreement or then overwhelming means of enforcement. The Federation and its Starfleet would have neither - if it tried to prosecute Klingons by human standards of wrongdoing, it would either be laughed out of the court by Klingons and everybody else, or find itself even deeper in the throes of a war it cannot hope to win. And we know for a fact that many human standards currently considered immutable are anathema to alien standards of proper conduct (say, Klingons want to slay the wounded and will consider anybody failing to do so an immoral monster), and even that humans/Feds have in fact adapted (say, their hospital ships are armed combatants).
Heck, the Feds could get in trouble even by prosecuting their own ranks by human standards. A lawyer successfully argues that the use of photon torpedoes at Alpha Kappa III by his client was not wrong and she should walk free, Klingons get offended and launch a war. A lawyer successfully argues that the use of pulse phasers and ground troops at Beta Theta IV by the defendant was wrong and he should be brainwashed, Klingons get offended at their preferred method of waging war being declared illegal and launch a war. Which is fine if the Feds can clean their chronometers or whatever, because might makes right. But we know they can't, not in any era explored so far.
Timo Saloniemi
I agree with this as well. I think that the Discovery is a R&D ship. All the weird things going on onboard. We all ready know that Lorca is a military genius and it seems that several times in the new trailer, he is trying to plead his case to "win the war". I think we are going to see some of those banned weapons we always hear about in other series. Also explains why Mudd is there.
Yep, research and development. But did they say that it is NOT a unique ship? Or that it is? I didn't read that part.
She could be a testbed for new technology.
