In The Pale Moonlight-Would you do it?
- Thread starter WarsTrek1993
- Start date
Knight Templar
Commodore
Yes. If your first obligation is to protect people and protecting them requires lying then you do what you must do.
So you'd chicken out while friends and family suffered? Classy guy.
Knight Templar
Commodore
Hasn't this discussion veered into Miscellaneous forum territory?
in what way? It's a discussion of the "dilemma" in ITPM. That's a DS9 episode. Whether we relate it to real-life concerns or not, it's still based on a DS9 episode.
The Romulans were not the enemies, the Dominion were.
I'm curious. How does Sisko's decision stack up against the Romulans unilateral plan to collapse the wormhole in Visionary? Vreenek's and the forgers life plus the millions already lost in the Dominion war to date in ITPM, versus the lifes lost on Ds9 when the Romulans attack.
If we appreciate Sisko's decision, should we also not appreciate more the Romulans decision to attack the station in that episode and collapse the wormhole?
Yes we should.
One of the few clear definitions of an enemy is someone who, by his actions, directly - or indirectly - works towards your destruction.
Vreenak fits the definition; he was working to prevent for the federation desperately needed romulan help. Just because his motives were not those of a moustache twisting villain does not change the fact that his actions were highly detrimental to the federaion's survival.
When the romulans wanted to collapse the wormhole, they were not facing a direct existential threat from the dominion likely to lead to their destruction - unlike the federation in ITPM.
Nevertheless, yes, the romulan plan made relative sense - the more likelier an all out war with he dominion was at that point, the more sense.
In any case, for the romulans, the 'civilisational threat' threshold for such action was proven - in 'Visionary' - to be far lower than the federation's (and lower still in a multitude of TNG episodes).
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Is civilisational threat the only relevant way to measure morality in the two cases? Is it really probable "fall of a civilisation" versus "amount of people lost in war"? From what I can see the moral actions of the Romulans in Visionary were no different to what Sisko did in ITPM, except in effect.
More innocent people killed in Visionary as opposed to ITPM, with advantages of massive benefit (no war whatsover) versus ITPM's benefit of adding more allies to the Federation cause.
"Vreenak fits the definition; he was working to prevent for the federation desperately needed romulan help. Just because his motives were not those of a moustache twisting villain does not change the fact that his actions were highly detrimental to the federaion's survival."
Sisko and the entire Ds9 crew fit the definition, he/they were NOT working to prevent Dominion interference of Federation/Romulans/Klingons/Cardassians internal affairs and were NOT working to prevent a Dominion invasion of the Alpha Quadrant. Sisko/Ds9's inaction was gross negligence of the highest order and extremely harmful to the entire Alpha Quadrant. (not just the Federation).
Looking back at it, if we justify Sisko's actions in ITPM, we MUST justify any action which may involve killing Sisko to prevent the war from ever happening.
More innocent people killed in Visionary as opposed to ITPM, with advantages of massive benefit (no war whatsover) versus ITPM's benefit of adding more allies to the Federation cause.
"Vreenak fits the definition; he was working to prevent for the federation desperately needed romulan help. Just because his motives were not those of a moustache twisting villain does not change the fact that his actions were highly detrimental to the federaion's survival."
Sisko and the entire Ds9 crew fit the definition, he/they were NOT working to prevent Dominion interference of Federation/Romulans/Klingons/Cardassians internal affairs and were NOT working to prevent a Dominion invasion of the Alpha Quadrant. Sisko/Ds9's inaction was gross negligence of the highest order and extremely harmful to the entire Alpha Quadrant. (not just the Federation).
Looking back at it, if we justify Sisko's actions in ITPM, we MUST justify any action which may involve killing Sisko to prevent the war from ever happening.
That's the slippery slope fallacy, blackzoid. If you follow it, you reach the point where it's OK to kill a random person you just happen to see in a park because there exists the theoretical possibility that this person will become Stalin.
The probability of a calamitous future event has to be VERY high in order to make actions such as the ones in ITPM or Visionary morally defensible - that is to say, the lesser evil.
In ITPM, the near-inevitability of slavery under the dominion was established in that and previous episodes.
In Visionary, the inevitability of a war with the dominion was nowhere close to being established.
I would say "The Search" made it pretty darn clear that the Dominion had every intention of bringing calamity upon the Alpha Quadrant, and it was only reinforced by the events of "The Die is Cast" (don't recall if that was before or after "Visionary", but then, even if it was after, the Feds could have borrowed from the Romulans' playbook). If the Romulans' plan had succeeded, many Federation lives would ultimately have been spared, certainly more than were saved due to Sisko's actions in ITPM.
I don't recall the sense of impending doom in ITPM that you're reading into the events of the episode. And heck, the last time the AQ faced impending doom Sisko pulled a Deus ex Machina out of the wormhole. If anything there seems to be evidence that the Feds shouldn't be quite so quick to abandon all hope.
I don't recall the sense of impending doom in ITPM that you're reading into the events of the episode. And heck, the last time the AQ faced impending doom Sisko pulled a Deus ex Machina out of the wormhole. If anything there seems to be evidence that the Feds shouldn't be quite so quick to abandon all hope.
This is true I remember Robert Hewitt Wolfe saying that, the Dominion had the Federation in their sights for a while, it was the wormhole that sped up their confrontation.
it's pretty heavily implied that the war is not going well for the Federation, and that they're pretty desperate. Relying on repeated deus ex machinas doesn't seem like a very good strategy.
There is no way to know that. If the Romulans and The Cardassian Obsidian Order had eradicated the Founders, I doubt they would just have turned around and gone home.
They could have easily pulled in the Breen, convinced the Vorta to work for them and learned how to produce Ketracel White in order to control the Jem'Hadar. The Jem'Hadar were genetically designed to obey the Founders. That could be changed by Romulan scientists.
There's no reason to think that the alliance described above would not have posed as big (or bigger) threat to the Federation as the original Dominion - and killed as many Federation citizens.
The dominion - as per the scenarists' intent which was not established on-screen - may have been planning to invade the alpha/beta quadrants from the beginning.
But our characters are not omniscient - as such, they could not know the extent of the dominion's plans from the beginning ('the search') - or the fact that the dominion will find a bridgehead as convenient as the cardassians, enabling it to launch the war.
And these are some unacceptably large speculations to make.
As opposed to Sisko's speculation that without deceiving the Romulans into joining the war, the AQ will fall?
When does a speculation become acceptably large, exactly?
Anyway, I doubt I'm the only one who thought the Dominion established pretty much from their first contact with Our Heroes that they were hostile and diplomacy wasn't likely to go anywhere.
When does a speculation become acceptably large, exactly?
Anyway, I doubt I'm the only one who thought the Dominion established pretty much from their first contact with Our Heroes that they were hostile and diplomacy wasn't likely to go anywhere.
A tricky question - where exactly is the point between unlikely assumptions and likely foresight?
For the problem at hand regarding ITPM, though, this question need not be answered.
Why?
Because, after 'the search', speculation about the dominion invading, effectively, was just that - unlikely speculation; and before/during ITPM, the conclusion that the dominion would win was almost certain.
In other words, because these two assumptions are at the opposite ends of the likely/unlikely scale, not at its middle, where the demarcation point lies.