The Apple

[Vandervecken]

<Takes the bows>

(Robin Hood: "Hey! Hey, you!")

The thing is, at that point of the adventure, Kirk doesn't have a pressing need to C his own A yet. OTOH, if he is dictating the log at the conclusion of the adventure (as often seems to be the case), rather than during it, he should probably be doing an even more thorough job. Kirk comes off as a tad hypocritical without appearing heroic or victorious - and to boot, he also drags home Tracey himself, along with the adversary's version of the events.



If not, why does the PD exist? If Starfleet wants results, then what it wants is interference in alien affairs. It will do no good to present dishonest "regulations" to the armchair critics back home when said critics will also be able to observe the actual results obtained...

I do enjoy your posts. Always food for thought, even if I don't agree.

Laws exist but are broken, doesn't make them bad laws. I would much rather have the PD than not. And I may have gone a little far in emphasizing organizational politics over principle for the Federation and Starfleet. I don't think there's a whole lot of give in the PD, really--except where a ship and crew are concerned. There I think that, in practice, we might as well say this is carve-out/exception. I can't believe the Federation would think the PD is worth sacrificing a ship and crew. In truth observing the PD should be easy in most cases and its violation unjustifiable, as most situations where the PD might come into play require nothing more of a captain than leaving.

Confused about something, sorry--How does Kirk look hypocritical in OG? Do you mean considered in just the ep, not relative to other eps?

 

[UnknownSample]

The end of The Apple is actually consistent with the general position of the show, that people and societies need hard challenges, or they lose vitality and atrophy. This actually over-rides the PD, or it does to Kirk, anyway. They take that attitude so much that even they started to question it, as many of the viewers were I'm sure, since I did as a kid too....you actually see Trek making fun of itself over that, in I Mudd, with... Scotty was it?... going on about humans having to suffer and die in horrible pain... "Only this way can we be happy!"

 

[locutus101]

The end of The Apple is actually consistent with the general position of the show, that people and societies need hard challenges, or they lose vitality and atrophy. This actually over-rides the PD, or it does to Kirk, anyway. They take that attitude so much that even they started to question it, as many of the viewers were I'm sure, since I did as a kid too....you actually see Trek making fun of itself over that, in I Mudd, with... Scotty was it?... going on about humans having to suffer and die in horrible pain... "Only this way can we be happy!"

They make the same arrogant assumption in Errand Of Mercy. Spock says that they haven't changed in tens of millennia. Yet, they're the ones being given a lesson in the end.

 

[Spock's Barber]

They make the same arrogant assumption in Errand Of Mercy. Spock says that they haven't changed in tens of millennia. Yet, they're the ones being given a lesson in the end.

Sometimes Kirk reminds me of Lt. Frank Dreban of 'The Naked Gun'....he enters a situation bold as brass, totally screws it up and walks away saying 'What other good deeds can I do today?'

 

[UnknownSample]

One great thing about TOS is how they can come down on both sides of an issue, showing how both sides have merit, and how neither is actually "right". If there's any one thing we need today more than any other, that's it, an awareness that both sides can be right. And wrong.

They're actually right, when they say societies lose vitality and creativity and will when they are made too comfortable.
ST is also right when they stop to question this, and say "Would it have killed us to gather a few laurel leaves?"
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They go back and forth in the same way about Vulcans and emotion. As Spock and McCoy go back and forth on this, sometimes Spock is clearly right, sometimes McCoy is. We respect both of them, even if they don't always respect each other. I can only speak for myself, but I always was left with a 50/50 sense that Vulcans and humans were equally right and equally wrong. It's a wonderful mess, actually. What better way to form a young mind than this? (I was ages 8-12.)