Kirk on the Nazi planet

[Warped9]

How sick do you have to be to think that Nazism is a great model for rebuilding a society? In the episode it almost seems like he started out with the best intentions but then things got out of hand.

"Best intentions" and Nazism cannot be in the same sentence.

Have you looked around you and the world these past years? Goes hand-in-hand with those claiming “true communism” has never really been tried. Such apologists and sympathizers have been around for several decades at least. Most likely everyone knows at least one person like this in their lifetime. I have. Interestingly few if any of these revisionists have actually lived under the regimes they wax eloquently about.

You know, I don't know if they could do an episode like that today. Many people would complain: "Why do you paint all Nazis as bad??? This is an unfair and ahistorical generalization! There were a lot of good Nazis who joined the party just by convenience. And Nazism did a lot of good things!"

Yep.

Sadly, the longer removed we are from horrors of the past the more easily it is to normalize…we remember aquaducts more fondly than the autobahn I suppose.

Yep.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Remember, Ayn Rand was big at the time this was aired….a person perfectly happy to see people starve with no safety net….no government…

That's not true. Rand saw a proper role for government. But you're dumping your politics into this forum, and we aren't supposed to do that, either.

 

[Skipper]

Have you looked around you and the world these past years? Goes hand-in-hand with those claiming “true communism” has never really been tried.

Uh, I don't know if they're comparable. Hitler was the founder and ideologue of Nazis and Fuhrer of the Third Reich. There were no different currents of Nazism. I think "true Nazism" was perfectly realized.

On communism, however, there are I don't know how many theorists and schools of thought, even if we want to stop at classical Marxism. Furthermore, the ultimate goal for Marx was the abolition of the State, and it doesn't seem to me that this has ever happened in any of the so-called "communist" regimes.

 

[publiusr]

It could also be that, with WWIII, some history about the Axis powers was lost.

Gill may have only seen photos of well organized events, with no context of what went on behind the scenes…that’s as charitable an argument could be. Leni’s propaganda films might have been all that was left—and he fell for it, as opposed to the animated film WIZARDS, where the villain was a bad guy to start with and used it to pump up troops.

I seem to remember reading in CBR or something, about how humans kept being surprised by encounters with the ALIEN…it being chalked up to computer failures and corporate secrecy both:
https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/The_Big_Deletion

Something similar may have erased some history, before being restored after Gill made his mistake.

I still don’t know what he meant by a dangerous anarchy…a Mad Max situation?

 

[scotpens]

You know, I don't know if they could do an episode like that today. Many people would complain: "Why do you paint all Nazis as bad??? This is an unfair and ahistorical generalization! There were a lot of good Nazis who joined the party just by convenience. And Nazism did a lot of good things!"

Well, it did give us the autobahn and the Volkswagen.

 

[Shawnster]

Gill may have only seen photos of well organized events, with no context of what went on behind the scenes…that’s as charitable an argument could be. Leni’s propaganda films might have been all that was left—and he fell for it, as opposed to the animated film WIZARDS, where the villain was a bad guy to start with and used it to pump up troops.

.

Kirk, a student of Hill's, seemed to understand what the Nazis were really about. He was shocked that Gill chose that abomination to emulate and his question to Gill implies Kirk felt Gill was aware of what the Nazis were really like.

 

[publiusr]

It's been years since I've seen the episode...I have been scatterbrained recently..ill health

 

[Skipper]

.

Kirk, a student of Hill's, seemed to understand what the Nazis were really about. He was shocked that Gill chose that abomination to emulate and his question to Gill implies Kirk felt Gill was aware of what the Nazis were really like.

Well, maybe he was simply the 23rd century equivalent of modern revisionists. Unfortunately you don't know how many nostalgics for Mussolini and Fascism we have in Italy. They usually say "Yes yes, maybe he made some small mistakes, but he was a great statesman!!!"

 

[Guy Gardener]

Uh, I don't know if they're comparable. Hitler was the founder and ideologue of Nazis and Fuhrer of the Third Reich. There were no different currents of Nazism. I think "true Nazism" was perfectly realized.

On communism, however, there are I don't know how many theorists and schools of thought, even if we want to stop at classical Marxism. Furthermore, the ultimate goal for Marx was the abolition of the State, and it doesn't seem to me that this has ever happened in any of the so-called "communist" regimes.

Relatively unimportant correction, Hitler did not found the Nazi Party.

Back to weird sifi bullshit.

The 1960s definition of the universal translator...

There are certain universal ideas and concepts common to all intelligent life. This device instantaneously compares the frequency of brainwave patterns, selects those ideas and concepts it recognises, and then provides the necessary grammar.

Gil thought "I want the Trains to run on time" and the UT churned out an instruction manual on how to become a NAZI, or its possible from the Definition above, that the Ekosians already had NAZIs on their planet from the past (It could have been another Parallel Earth?) depicted as similar brainwave frequencies between Gill and these poor bastards.

 

[fireproof78]

Well, maybe he was simply the 23rd century equivalent of modern revisionists. Unfortunately you don't know how many nostalgics for Mussolini and Fascism we have in Italy. They usually say "Yes yes, maybe he made some small mistakes, but he was a great statesman!!!"

GILL: Planet fragmented. Divided. Took lesson from Earth history.
KIRK: But why Nazi Germany? You studied history. You knew what the Nazis were.
GILL: Most efficient state Earth ever knew.
SPOCK: Quite true, Captain. That tiny country, beaten, bankrupt, defeated, rose in a few years to stand only one step away from global domination.
KIRK: But it was brutal, perverted, had to be destroyed at a terrible cost. Why that example?

Gill gives his answer, and he felt it was the quickest way to solve the problems facing with rebuilding. Spock even agrees with the assessment. So, the idea of missing information seems quite out of step with the episode.

 

[publiusr]

China lasted longer…I seem to remember a saying about “the nail that stands out will be hammered down.”

If individualism is something eschewed culturally before being stamped out governmentally, it makes oppression easier I suppose.

That and people love uniforms.

When I see flags—I just see them as gang colors on a bigger scale…or Doc Marten laces.

 

[Guy Gardener]

China lasted longer…I seem to remember a saying about “the nail that stands out will be hammered down.”

If individualism is something eschewed culturally before being stamped out governmentally, it makes oppression easier I suppose.

That and people love uniforms.

When I see flags—I just see them as gang colors on a bigger scale…or Doc Marten laces.

For the longest time, China has had quarter of the planets population.

China doesn't have to be efficient.

Without much effort, China can easily conquer any 25 countries together at the same time, who are not non nuclear powers.

Jesus, there were 80 million people in Germany in 1939???

I assumed because they gave away so much territory in Versailles, that their population in 1914 was greater than it was in 1939, but it wasn't, so never mind.

 

[publiusr]

80 million?

I hear they are trying to shutter coal—after WWII, I didn’t think they’d have much left.

 

[fireproof78]

China lasted longer…I seem to remember a saying about “the nail that stands out will be hammered down.”

If individualism is something eschewed culturally before being stamped out governmentally, it makes oppression easier I suppose.

That and people love uniforms.

When I see flags—I just see them as gang colors on a bigger scale…or Doc Marten laces.

Never underestimate the desire to fit in and belong. How many people enjoying costuming and being groups? Gaming groups? Sports fans?

Humans long to feel connected and like they belong somewhere.

 

[publiusr]

Football hooligans, gangs... American History X.

What came before Gill... something so bad he had to go to the other extreme...there's a story

 

[Guy Gardener]

We know that Gill said two thing that were fancy enough to be written in a book.

1. Nazi's are efficient.
2. Johnathan Archer was the greatest explorer of the 22nd century.

Surely if Gil is wrong about this one thing, so indelibly wrong, that he is also wrong about every thing else too?

 

[fireproof78]

Football hooligans, gangs... American History X.

What came before Gill... something so bad he had to go to the other extreme...there's a story

Not usual to try and go to another extreme to solve a problem.

 

[Mudd]

Ayn Rand has never been "big." Her fans are dogged.

That's kind of the point. It's meant to... limit things.


But yeah, had Gill died, Kirk and McCoy likely don't make it off the planet. Although no I really don't think Scotty just throws up his arms and says "oh well"... that's not his style. Scotty is 100% getting involved, and if Kirk and McCoy were killed, alot of Space Nazi's are going to feel the wrath of Scotty and I don't think he'd even care about the consequences.

"To Hell with General Order One."

 

[Autocad]

One of my favorite lines and All Star Trek is when Spock puts the helmet on and Kirk says "" That helmet covers a multitude of sins"".

 

[Guy Gardener]

The particulars elude me.

The only method for this race to rebuild and live, was to enslave another?

What if Gil's intention was not to use Nazi methodology to brutally subjugate space Jews, which was apparently unavoidable, but it was there to make sure that when finally the world was back to where it was, that there was an established system of Justice to hold the Space Nazi's accountable.

Further... If the Space Nazi's got into Space before they were punished, and met some earth ships, isn't that a massive red flag that these assholes did something awful, a secret signal that was sent through time to all Earth ship Captains that these new aliens are not friends, they are ####s who need to be shot on sight.