Hard Time
- Thread starter Tribble Threat
- Start date
Because he wasn't informed of the punishment, just as in "Justice"?
"Do not spy" is a good law. Seeing it written wouldn't help one understand that asking for directions to the local spaceport is spying. Likewise, "do not break public property through careless action" is intuitive, but you really don't have the motivation to be "careful enough" unless you know they are going to kill you for tripping into a flower bench. Perhaps you'd be more careful if you saw everybody around you frozen solid with terror of getting caught - but that wasn't the case with the Edo, and if it was the case with the Agrathi, perhaps O'Brien misunderstood (much more difficult to read scaly lizard people than human-equivalents who hide nothing).
Timo Saloniemi
In most cases, ignorance of the law doesn't exonerate you. However, it seems like the Agrathi should have at least t notified Starfleet of what happened before punishment, even if they still had every intention of going along with the punishment. I can't imagine the Agrathi would have good diplomatic relations with anyone for very long if they don't even bother to inform anyone beforehand.
Was he actually spying in that case or was he wrongly accused?
In that cell, what was the bathroom situation? Was it like the movie Hunger?
In that cell, what was the bathroom situation? Was it like the movie Hunger?
Any law that carries an automatic 20-year prison sentence for breaking, there's an obligation to at least TRY to put down some kind of warning ahead of time.
And it begs the question, what kind of trial - if any - did O'Brien receive? Did he have the opportunity to defend himself in any way? For all we know, the Argrathi legal system is no more fair than, say, the Cardassians'.
O'Brien was curious about Argrathi technology, and just asked one too many questions. So I'd have to say the latter.
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So they definitely had a poo corner?
Careful, you're coming close to asking too many quesionts...
I guess the timeline on that is ambiguous. Sisko says that the Agrathi acted before telling "us", but this might simply be an artifact of the knowledge slowly trickling to Sisko himself despite having been handed over to "Starfleet" in an envelope some time prior - possibly even with the conscious intent of delivering the information so that it's formally there in time but cannot be acted upon in time.
This would be the ideal balance of power from the storytelling POV. The Agrathi would not be advanced and powerful enough to stop Feds or Klingons or the like from busting their citizens out of jail in a daring high tech raid, but would be powerful enough to discourage folks from going to the trouble of an actual war.
A curious conclusion, unless one assumes that intent counted in that crime more than the act itself. If you kill folks by accident, you still face consequences, even though the law generally is gradated on pretty much everything and will go easier on you when intent is missing. In spying, though, once the secrets get pried out, the full damage is done, intent or none. The location of the starport is now known to Starfleet, as is the ingenious latching mechanism to the toilet stalls. And O'Brien is to blame.
Although since the Agrathi seem to be masters of memory, wouldn't the negating of knowledge of this sort be practically achieved, too? How about letting O'Brien go without the spoils of his crime, whether punished or not?
Timo Saloniemi
I think we can all agree that the Agrathi shouldn't have imprisoned O'Brien like this. There is some disagreement about Starfleet and the Federation should do about it.
You summed it up perfectly.
What, never? He worked for Starfleet Intelligence against the Orion Syndicate. Maybe other times too?
flute at the end of it all ...
I don't think it was the method of O'Brien's punishment that caused him the greatest issues but the content. He had to deal with the guilt of killing his cellmate and then spent years in isolation. Though I've not have to deal with the former (
) I have had a taster of the latter under lockdown and still dealing with the effects of loneliness and isolation thanks to lockdown. It is a horrible thing to contend with and is not something I would wish on anyone as it can break you.
) I have had a taster of the latter under lockdown and still dealing with the effects of loneliness and isolation thanks to lockdown. It is a horrible thing to contend with and is not something I would wish on anyone as it can break you.
You and me both.
It is certainly a hard time right now. Therapy's an option. Calling people you know is an option. Still not a perfect solution, but we can get through this. We've made it this far, so I think we can make it to the end.
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