Right, exactly. We know what's wrong. Dropping atomic bombs on people is wrong. Is a wrong done for the greater good still wrong? I'd say so. Justifiable maybe, but still wrong. I guess what 'wrong' means is what's in question here.
Spoilers Strange New Worlds 1x01 - "Strange New Worlds"
- Thread starter Mudd
- Start date
Right, exactly. We know what's wrong. Dropping atomic bombs on people is wrong. Is a wrong done for the greater good still wrong? I'd say so. Justifiable maybe, but still wrong. I guess what 'wrong' means is what's in question here.
And this disconnects what was actually going on. This was already mass murder well before the bombs dropped by burning most of Japan to the ground with fire bombings.
Either we were in it to win it, or we weren't. There was going to be bloodshed, either by dropping the bombs or fighting island to island on the way to the mainland.
I'm not sure what you're trying to teach me. Do you want me to say that I cannot make a claim on what was necessary in 1945? I already understand that. My bad that I am unable to convey that.
On that point, I couldn't agree more!!!
Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara spoke specifically to that, that "if we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals... [we] were behaving as war criminals." (Feel free to look up the full quote.) As angry as we were about Pearl Harbor, we were doing far worse.
Funny thing with Japan, even with all we know, I'm still not sure of the "right" outcome.
Nor should we be. Because all the options on the table in 1945 were ugly. The fact it ended as quickly and relatively bloodlessly as it did is something of a miracle given how fanatic the regime and military were up until then.
It was tough, I imagine. You were dealing with an enemy that had already proven untrustworthy and wasn't interested in surrender.
I'm not really trying to teach you anything; just clarifying points that I thought might not be clear.
That's how bad World War II was. It was clearly a war of good versus evil but even the good guys were sometimes evil. I suppose that's all wars, really, but it really stands out in this particular orgy of violence. The only truly innocent were the civilian dead.
Gotcha. Thanks for looking out.
They definitely were interested as they saw the Soviets closing in. Some hardline generals were not interested, but if they had actually committed to fighting to the last man, they never would've accepted peace with the United States.
After indoctrinating the Japanese public with the idea that America would ruthlessly kill men, women and children, it didn't make it any easier for the people of Japan when America did, in fact, start killing men, women and children on a regular basis through fire bombings and nuclear bombings. If anything, we confirmed those notions for them. It makes one appreciate peace all the more.
8/10 (Old Warp Scale)
My thoughts:
I initially wasn't liking what I was seeing. Despite a pretty cool teaser, the beginning scenes with grizzly Pike and Spock on Vulcan felt like filler. I don't care that these two are smooth pimp-daddies. Pike's continuing struggle with the knowledge of his fate at least gave these scenes a little something to work with, and it would be expanded upon further in the episode.
Things for me picked up with Pike's arrival on the Enterprise. We now have a mission, and one involving a pre-warp civilization and the Prime Directive no less. We are introduced to the crew in a natural feeling way, after all this isn't Pike's crew first rodeo, this is just another day on the job. It gives the entire episode a kinda of "slice of life" feel, like The Original Series, where we never saw the first mission of the Enterprise under Kirk (at least with the bridge crew composition we know and love) but with the 5-year mission already in progress.
The alien civilization, with its very obvious 20th/21st century Western civilization qualities, was great. Yes its cheesy and unrealistic, but its the sort of thing I would expect from TOS (and Enterprise during its first two seasons), and I love that. It allowed Pike's speech at the end about Earth's history to serve as warning not to the aliens, but to the audience as well. Very reminiscent of the kind of moralizing in "classic" Star Trek, and that's not a bad thing, especially in these times. Hell, it may be more necessary now than it was in the past.
Other thoughts:
Some new ship designs. The archer with it's very Franz Joseph Saladin/Hermes look. Ugly as sin, but glad to see the design canonized in some way. (Only three crew members needed to operate, really?)
At the Drydock, I recognize some ship designs from Discovery season 1 and 2, but there also appears to be something like a TOS (well maybe more Discoprise) version of the Miranda to the Enterprise's left. Anyone got screencaps? Am I seeing this thing correctly?
The look of most things, from Starbases to Ships to Shuttles to Uniforms and Tools definitely feel more like a updated TOS look than Discovery. Everything (aside from empty space thankfully) seems more colorful, and it resonates with the (hopefully) more upbeat tone of the show nicely.
One character who I found particularly notable was Chapel, who admittedly isn't much like Majel Barrett's version of the character, but still seems like a fun person. I think she's also made an impression on Spock...
The only thing I wonder about is that at one point, I swear that M'Benga refers to her as doctor. If she's a doctor, why did she serve as a nurse in TOS?
On his approach to the Enterprise, Pike is reading up on La'an Singh life. It seems to mention her capture by the Gorn, but still states something to effect of "Existance Unconfirmed". I don't know, La'an's story and the missing people would seem to definitely confirm their existence...
A major quibble I had with the story was the idea that this civilization would somehow develop matter/anti-matter reactors by merely observing the space battle from the end of Discovery season 2. How would you be able to do that without looking at the internals of a warp capable spacecraft? A warp core is supposed to be a very sophisticated piece of technology in Star Trek. Are we really supposed to believe that these folks could have conceived and developed, as well as weaponize, one by merely looking at starships from telescopes. That would suggest these aliens must have more advanced scanning technology for scanning space than what is capable by humans in the real world today. Well they did find the Archer and the Enterprise, so maybe they are more advanced than what Starfleet believed, even before this antimatter bomb business.
My thoughts:
I initially wasn't liking what I was seeing. Despite a pretty cool teaser, the beginning scenes with grizzly Pike and Spock on Vulcan felt like filler. I don't care that these two are smooth pimp-daddies. Pike's continuing struggle with the knowledge of his fate at least gave these scenes a little something to work with, and it would be expanded upon further in the episode.
Things for me picked up with Pike's arrival on the Enterprise. We now have a mission, and one involving a pre-warp civilization and the Prime Directive no less. We are introduced to the crew in a natural feeling way, after all this isn't Pike's crew first rodeo, this is just another day on the job. It gives the entire episode a kinda of "slice of life" feel, like The Original Series, where we never saw the first mission of the Enterprise under Kirk (at least with the bridge crew composition we know and love) but with the 5-year mission already in progress.
The alien civilization, with its very obvious 20th/21st century Western civilization qualities, was great. Yes its cheesy and unrealistic, but its the sort of thing I would expect from TOS (and Enterprise during its first two seasons), and I love that. It allowed Pike's speech at the end about Earth's history to serve as warning not to the aliens, but to the audience as well. Very reminiscent of the kind of moralizing in "classic" Star Trek, and that's not a bad thing, especially in these times. Hell, it may be more necessary now than it was in the past.
Other thoughts:
Some new ship designs. The archer with it's very Franz Joseph Saladin/Hermes look. Ugly as sin, but glad to see the design canonized in some way. (Only three crew members needed to operate, really?)
At the Drydock, I recognize some ship designs from Discovery season 1 and 2, but there also appears to be something like a TOS (well maybe more Discoprise) version of the Miranda to the Enterprise's left. Anyone got screencaps? Am I seeing this thing correctly?
The look of most things, from Starbases to Ships to Shuttles to Uniforms and Tools definitely feel more like a updated TOS look than Discovery. Everything (aside from empty space thankfully) seems more colorful, and it resonates with the (hopefully) more upbeat tone of the show nicely.
One character who I found particularly notable was Chapel, who admittedly isn't much like Majel Barrett's version of the character, but still seems like a fun person. I think she's also made an impression on Spock...
The only thing I wonder about is that at one point, I swear that M'Benga refers to her as doctor. If she's a doctor, why did she serve as a nurse in TOS?
On his approach to the Enterprise, Pike is reading up on La'an Singh life. It seems to mention her capture by the Gorn, but still states something to effect of "Existance Unconfirmed". I don't know, La'an's story and the missing people would seem to definitely confirm their existence...
A major quibble I had with the story was the idea that this civilization would somehow develop matter/anti-matter reactors by merely observing the space battle from the end of Discovery season 2. How would you be able to do that without looking at the internals of a warp capable spacecraft? A warp core is supposed to be a very sophisticated piece of technology in Star Trek. Are we really supposed to believe that these folks could have conceived and developed, as well as weaponize, one by merely looking at starships from telescopes. That would suggest these aliens must have more advanced scanning technology for scanning space than what is capable by humans in the real world today. Well they did find the Archer and the Enterprise, so maybe they are more advanced than what Starfleet believed, even before this antimatter bomb business.
Who's they if not the leaders, then? That seems to be moving the goalposts. Again, actual history shows that they didn't want to surrender without conditions unacceptable to the allies. Even after Manchuria, Hiroshima AND Nagasaki. The Emperor had to step in and even then they wanted to fight on. This is the kind of ideological zeal that the allies had to contend with, and break. The atom bomb, warts and all, provided that. It's not pretty. It's not nice or good or desirable, but it was the path with the fewer deaths for all sides.
They = the emperor, many of the generals. Not sure why that's hard to understand.
No doubt some of the generals believed the propaganda that the rest of the public had been given, believing that surrender would mean the end of Japan's existence. But as with any idea, there are other ways to combat it than with nukes. Do you see some ideologies around the world that require having a nuke dropped, where that's the only solution, or do you think there are other ways?
War in general isn't pretty, and should, in general, be avoided at all cost, because most of the time, it never really works out for the aggressor or the victim.
Sadly a war usually doesn't effect the upper echelon, presidents, generals, etc. but has a high cost on the basically kids they send to war.
One of the few things that Trump did that I liked ( not much mind you, but this i did) they wanted to hit some site in Iran after they antagonized us some how ( I forget) the generals were for it, but Trump called it off because it would just be killing regular solders that had nothing to do with, well anything. Basically, the grunts on the ground aren't responsible for the big picture, the higher ups are.
EDIT:
a nuke was going to be drop during war eventually, someone, us, russia, would have eventually dropped one on a city to see what it did. There were only guesses, ideas, hell Trinity some thought it would light the whole atmosphere on fire.
And.. The fire bombing of Tokyo did more damage, and killed more people than Hiroshima did. I'm happy the Emperor said Enough.
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An absolutely amazing episode. I have a few nitpicks, but nothing that stops this from being the single best episode of live action Star Trek post Enterprise (and it would rank highly to me even compared to the old era). I'm really hoping it can keep this up, it would be nice to have another Star Trek show besides Lower Decks to be excited about (I like Picard well enough, but it has too many problems for me to call it a legitimately good show).
Pike was the best part of DSC Season 2, and he's great here. Spock I think is probably only the third best Spock (with Nimoy obviously being #1 and Quinto at #2), but he's fine. Number One is good but we don't get much with her this episode. The bits we get with the new characters were all good, although I don't buy Uhura or Chapel as actually being the characters from TOS at all, they should just have different names because they are obviously 100% original characters. But they're good original characters so far, so it doesn't bug me too much. The Security Chief seems pretty decent, but she really doesn't need the Khan connection, and M'Benga was fine but we didn't get enough with him for me to form much of an opinion.
One big compliment I can give to the show is that I generally don't like Trek episodes where the crew is infiltrating a random planet in disguise, so the fact that I liked this episode so much regardless of that is a very good sign. I really hope that this is going to be what the show is, and if it can keep up this level of quality I think it will be a hit.
The only really negative thing I have to say is that the Spock/T'Pring stuff was stupid, Amok Time should be the first time they've seen each other since they were kids, and Vulcans in general should not be having casual sex. I don't think they have to wait until Pon Farr, especially if they're trying to have a kid or something, but I do not buy the interaction Spock had in tbhis episode, it was as unVulcan as Kelvinverse Spock having that stupid ongoing couples argument with Uhura in Into Darkness. It didn't ruin the show at all, but it was a reminder that the people making the show don't quite have everything right when it comes to Trek, I just hope it stays in that subplot and doesn't lead to other, more annoying things.
Pike was the best part of DSC Season 2, and he's great here. Spock I think is probably only the third best Spock (with Nimoy obviously being #1 and Quinto at #2), but he's fine. Number One is good but we don't get much with her this episode. The bits we get with the new characters were all good, although I don't buy Uhura or Chapel as actually being the characters from TOS at all, they should just have different names because they are obviously 100% original characters. But they're good original characters so far, so it doesn't bug me too much. The Security Chief seems pretty decent, but she really doesn't need the Khan connection, and M'Benga was fine but we didn't get enough with him for me to form much of an opinion.
One big compliment I can give to the show is that I generally don't like Trek episodes where the crew is infiltrating a random planet in disguise, so the fact that I liked this episode so much regardless of that is a very good sign. I really hope that this is going to be what the show is, and if it can keep up this level of quality I think it will be a hit.
The only really negative thing I have to say is that the Spock/T'Pring stuff was stupid, Amok Time should be the first time they've seen each other since they were kids, and Vulcans in general should not be having casual sex. I don't think they have to wait until Pon Farr, especially if they're trying to have a kid or something, but I do not buy the interaction Spock had in tbhis episode, it was as unVulcan as Kelvinverse Spock having that stupid ongoing couples argument with Uhura in Into Darkness. It didn't ruin the show at all, but it was a reminder that the people making the show don't quite have everything right when it comes to Trek, I just hope it stays in that subplot and doesn't lead to other, more annoying things.
why does that episode suddenly feel so relevant?
What makes it hard to understand is you not specifying, since we, presumably, were talking about the government in general. This is a discussion, and sometimes what you think is clear to you isn't to others.
But the Emperor ALSO wanted terms that the allies would not accept.
My favorite line from that episode: "There was a time when our weapons grew faster than our wisdom and we almost destroyed ourselves."
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