Star Trek Publicity Myths

[Timo]

Chekov got the Order number wrong, which was probably straight up "last show of the series, nobody gives a crap" writing.

The funny thing is, it works out being more realistic that way.

Starfleet is more than a century old at that point. An incident mere dozen years before the episode resulted in "General Order 7" being formulated? At best, it ought to have affected a footnote on GO 228. Plus, it was an incident of little lasting impact: it was resolved in full in an episode preceding "Turnabout Intruder" by a few years, story time and airtime.

Yet if we assume that all GOs can and will feature the option of sanctions up to death penalty, and that various incidents activate (and then at their resolution deactivate) these as events warrant, it makes sense for the honor of the one active death penalty to move from GO7 to GO4 (probably also going on a hiatus in between, before and afterwards). General Orders aren't affected exclusively by the exploits of the starship Enterprise, but by all sorts of Starfleet activities.

Basically, a writing mishap turns a naive concept into something that could actually be stomached given the context... Which is more or less how the best in Star Trek comes to be.

I would have him say, "We discussed a minor problem at our working breakfast on Tuesday."

At our most charitable, we could say that Spock gives his opponents too much credit. So they can create a convincing illusion of being Jim Kirk? Surely they have worked out a way to get that down to a tee, then, and any attempt at outmaneuvering them is futile. After all, that's how Spock himself would do it. So he only makes token gestures to show that yes, he knows the opponent is a fraud, but won't stoop down to playing his or her game.

There's no contradiction whatsoever between "Metamorphosis" and "Errand of Mercy."

Whether a soldier or a diplomat, Kirk really is duty-bound to tell blatant lies every now and then. Especially regarding his status as one of those!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kor]

Perhaps Kirk received all of his diplomatic training after the events of "Errand of Mercy" but before the events of "Metamorphosis." The incident with the Klingons and Organians could have been the impetus for Star Fleet Command requiring all captains to complete course work on diplomacy, an area that had previously not been emphasized.

...or not.

Kor

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Well, it's a five-year mission. I'd say not, but ya never know.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Yeah, Kirk getting diplomatic training smack dab in the middle of the 5YM doesn't make any sense to me. You'd think that would be a standard part of command school.

I personally don't see much contradiction between the two lines of dialogue. Kirk has had diplomatic training, but he still considers himself more of a soldier than a diplomat. Easy.

 

[GNDN18]

I think it is worth noting that Gene Coon was the credited writer for both of these episodes. Many of his stories explored the tension between diplomacy and warfare.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

GR was apparently turning into a hippie, which was perfectly compatible with the sympathies of most of the Hollywood types he was working with anyway.

Then how come so many Hollywood movies and shows glorify violence and gunplay? How come Hollywood movies are so backward when it comes to ethnic and gender diversity? The claim that Hollywood is ruled by liberal sensibilities is malarkey. Hollywood is ruled by wealthy businessmen, who tend to be conservative -- although their decisions about what to put onscreen has more to do with what they think audiences will pay to see than with anything ideological or political. And creators and performers include as wide a mix of different political views as you'll find anywhere else.

And the period where Hollywood films were a lot like Europe and Scandinavia in terms of complexity of film subjects only lasted a few years, anyway (1969-1981).

So Starfleet was a uniformed, armed service with naval ranks and titles, that fought the Federation's space battles, but it wasn't "the military." And that's ridiculous.

Indeed. You don't even have to fight battles to be a military. Sure, a military is an armed service, but it can be strictly defensive (like the Japan Self Defense Force), and it's not like militaries do nothing during peacetime. Real-world militaries don't just fight, they also engage in engineering projects, scientific research and exploration, international diplomacy and law enforcement, medical and humanitarian relief missions, peacekeeping missions like treaty verification... in short, real militaries today do everything Starfleet does, even if you leave combat out of the equation. Starfleet is not warlike, but that doesn't mean it isn't a military.

If Roddenberry had really though this out, he would have had a separate military force that would have handled conflicts on behalf of the Federation (Starfleet Marines for ground operations, a combat fleet for more intensive combat as many fans have shown in fan art) and written it accordingly.

Just my $0.02....

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I think it is worth noting that Gene Coon was the credited writer for both of these episodes. Many of his stories explored the tension between diplomacy and warfare.

Good observation! That Gene Coon guy knew what he was doing.

 

[erastus25]

^Yep, I'm familiar with it. What we ended up with isn't quite as bad as what's in the outline and script.

That is a terrifying thought. Yikes.