I'll just switch the transponder code
- Thread starter gakelly
- Start date
I liked it. Maybe the others didn’t know how or we’re too well trained to think it’d work.
Also the only way it would work is if he tried to kill one of them before ever trying lesser punishments.
Well, he did execute him, much in the same way that if I knew someone was going to kill me with their gun, & I got to it beforehand, & rigged it or its ammunition to blow up in their face instead, when they tried to use it to kill me, it's an odd kind of premeditated self defense
I'm not even sure what the Transponder codes are in this episode. 
I'm pretty sure that Picard looked fairly edible most of the episode though, yep, I remember THAT.
I'm pretty sure that Picard looked fairly edible most of the episode though, yep, I remember THAT.
What if you were provoking that guy with a gun to pull the trigger knowing his gun would explode?
You mean provoking him to murder you with his gun, by like talking to him? Well, he's still an attempted murder for attempting to murder you. (& IIRC I believe an admitted murder of the last captain too?)
The criminality of your own action is bit suspect though, in that if you have the ability to rig someone's weapon to backfire, then it's probably reasonable to assume you could've had the ability to neutralize it altogether instead
Exactly when/how did Picard get that ability to switch the transponder codes? & Like @Nakita Akita was saying, what does that even mean, except that he obviously altered the command signal of the controller from directing commands at his own device to Boran's instead
What that fictional process is we'll never know. Maybe there was no way to disrupt the signal altogether, & hacking the receivers, to have the signal direct to Boran instead, was the only option. In situations like this, where we don't have all the facts, I err on the side of supporting our normally ethical main characters, & assume he did it as his only option, & didn't just willfully execute someone by having them unwittingly be the triggerman against themselves.
There's also the fact that Picard had no idea the next time the device was used, it would be set at a fatal setting. Had it just been another reprimand, & Boran found himself shocked, but not dead, then the situation would've played out very differently. In that sense, that act to use it for murder was still all on Boran. Picard didn't choose the setting. The only action Picard took was that it would not be used on him in any capacity again.
Regarding the "ethicality" of the characters, the heroes (other than Kirk) do not generally shy away from killing their opponents. Nameless assailants are nonchalantly gunned down, to their apparent deaths rather than to stunned submission. Objectively, Arctus Baran having a full name and lines should not alter the setup one iota. Even when not doing much, he's a threat force more concrete and capable than any of the random goons who ineffectually fire their rayguns at the heroic away team in a futile ambush and thus make themselves free game for getting shot to death. Presumably Picard is by profession entitled to taking Baran's life to eliminate the threat, as no objection to the taking of life arises in the other situations, either.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
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