Before Decker was able to give a statement, the Constellation's logs were transmitted to Enterprise and analyzed by Spock. If the records were anywhere near as detailed as those used in Court Marshall, lying would have been a complete waste of time on Decker's part. That theory falls through.
Initially, Decker wouldn't have been sane enough to care whether his lies were contradicted or not. Later on, he would have been sane enough to understand that none of them would come out of this mess alive anyway. That is, unless he had another shot at his wonderfully wacko original scheme...
OTOH, the logs would not necessarily have extended to the final, damning moments of the ship. If everything else was destroyed, why not the log recorders? (Decker could have seen to that with his hand phaser, just to be on the safe side.)
If the transporters were working, why didn't Kirk and the damage control team use it to beam back to Enterprise? That theory falls through too.
Not saying the transporters were all right. Just saying that they were not completely out of commission when the crew pleaded and Decker refused. Not because the (flimsy, even nonexistent) evidence would point either way, but because this interpretation caters for a certain new kind of drama.
Decker was willing to use the Enterprise to save Rigel, but Rigel wasn't known to be at risk when his crew was killed.
Why not? Decker's crew was following the same trail as Kirk's. Are we to assume that every science officer but Spock is incompetent?
By virtue of his long hunt, Decker knew more about the DDM than any of our heroes did. For all we know, he had the suicide-kaboom-in-the-maw thing all figured out, too, and this is exactly what he was originally attempting with the
Constellation when either his ship or more probably his courage failed him.
More to the point, you wish to read more into the character than was part of the story... which is fine, their are people who invent conspiracies for just about everything, why should this be any different. If you need a maniacal villain to enjoy the story, I guess Decker is just about your only choice in this episode. Who knows... maybe that is how you see life in general, bad guys lurking around every corner.
Am I completely off kilter for reading a bit of disapproval here?
Decker acts suspicious. He acts elusive. He acts irrational. And he acts hostile. Sure, he might have been a fine man before his encounter with the DDM (all starship skippers would be, if we believe in those psycho-probe tests Kirk flaunts in "Bread and Circuses") - but where you see dramatic potential in the interpretation that he snaps after his crew dies, I see equal if not greater potential in the theory that he snapped
during the event, killing his crew through something more dramatic than mere failure to fight the invincible.
Such an alternate plotline would IMHO detract nothing from the Kirk/Decker comparison, either in terms of moralistic considerations or the ultimate dramatic effectiveness.
But if you are actually interested in what the story was all about
Never. That's for the unimaginative only.
The person you seem to be describing matches Tracy pretty closely, but is quite far off the base when applied to either Decker or Kirk.
Not really. If he's Decker, then he's a good match for Decker by default. And he's no Tracy in that he doesn't act out of selfish motivations when put in a threatening situation, then develop a megalomania to cover it up. Instead, he's a wannabe hero who cops out at the crucial moment, and then tries to make up for it, working through well-deserved guilt to a tragically meaningless conclusion.
And of course Kirk shouldn't be either Decker or Tracy, because he is Kirk. He should have his own, customized way of snapping under pressure...
Timo Saloniemi
