The Mark of Gideon?
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Of course, that's overlooking the other big problems with the episode...
...Basically, the show is trying to get us to agree with the Gideon leaders in wanting to basically kill off hoards of their own people just because of overpopulation...
...And it never occurs to them that instead of killing people, they could just make REAL Starships and forcibly resettle them elsewhere!
...Basically, the show is trying to get us to agree with the Gideon leaders in wanting to basically kill off hoards of their own people just because of overpopulation...
...And it never occurs to them that instead of killing people, they could just make REAL Starships and forcibly resettle them elsewhere!
I didn't get that at all from the episode. They just weren't looking down their noses at the Gideons like Picard would have.
It might have occurred to them, but you really, really can't use transportation-by-starship to depopulate a planet. The math just doesn't work out.
Well I'm not sure we were meant to agree but Kirk sure didn't do anything about it. Usually Kirk would do something like grab Odona and keep her to prevent the Gideons from committing mass suicide.
This episode was trying to be some sort of allegory about over population but it was done badly. The whole idea of killing off most of your population so that the lucky few can live in luxury sounds horrific to me.
There are obviously other options available to the Gideons that are unavailable to the people in overpopulated countries like China and India. They're presumably rich enough to settle other planets. As they have something the federation wants.
So I don't have great empathy for the Gideons and their quest
Well, they, too, abandon options because they "sound horrific" to them. That's alien scum for ya - they sometimes have different ideas about right and wrong.
And yes, using starships to depopulate a planet only works if you equip the starships with heavy phasers.
Timo Saloniemi
And yes, using starships to depopulate a planet only works if you equip the starships with heavy phasers.
Timo Saloniemi
But clearly there are less murderous approaches like relocating.
Like using condoms. Like better writing...
Depending on the population, they could be pumping out more kids than they are capable of moving off planet at any given time.
I think the Gideons were looking for a quick solution to their problem. The virus Kirk had kills in 24 hours if left untreated.
There are people on this planet who would be ready to murder you for daring to suggest such a murderous thing. Which is sorta scary, but nowhere as scary as thinking about people who are like that but also desperate.
We could estimate Starfleet being able to provide transportation for ten thousand people a day (shipments of fifty thousand, divided across five large ships or fifty smaller ones, taking five days each to reach some viable offloading point), which would be less than one quarter of the number of people added to Earth's population daily nowadays. To cope with Gideon, this might have to be hiked up by one order of magnitude at least. It might be doable, with major Starfleet resources tied down. But it wouldn't decrease the total population of Gideon in any noticeable way.
Umm, it's not quite that simple. The virus will kill Odona, but only because Odona has chosen to commit symbolic suicide. A "serum" extracted from her blood will then make lifespans shorter for the rest of the population, spearheaded by further young volunteers motivated by Odona's suicide into taking the serum and shortening their lives - but not into 24 hours, merely into shorter than eternity.
Hodin made it clear that mass murder was no more palatable an option for them than the others Kirk was pushing for. The death of Odona was considered necessary for symbolic reasons, but when Kirk escaped, the use of Odona as a blood donor was apparently the alternate path chosen, and nobody was killed as such.
Timo Saloniemi
I thought they were going to knock off people.
Odona's Dad was talking about an immediate solution. Odona only survived because she had treatment. The idea is to get people to die today so that Gideon can return to paradise tomorrow.
And yes there are places on Earth that will not use 'protection' but Gideon is suggested as a sophisticated Federation-potential planet. And of course (now not the 60s) there are probably a dozen more contraceptive methods that would work on Gideon natives.
Contraception combined with evacuation might help Gideon.
But a faster method of course would be to kill themselves via virus or a fully loaded phaser bank.
It doesn't seem the bar for Federation membership is as high in the 23rd century as it is in the 24th. Nor is there as much scrutiny of potential members.
We just don't know that. Gideon is shown as a planet that is desperate to solve its problems and it is highly likely that Hodin may only be one piece of the puzzle and that other elements of the government could go ahead with the plan.
But the one plan we learned of always seemed to feature only one immediate death.
First we have the part where Odona stops pretending, sort of.
So people will die. But not immediately, not necessarily - because the big change is that people will have the option of dying, while previously they were practically immortal. And apparently the morally crucial thing is that it will be a lottery where everybody is guaranteed to lose. It's not a mass execution (which the Gideonites won't tolerate) but a new world order that introduces universal death.
Then Kirk finds out:
The disease kills people like Kirk in a day. But only Odona has it, and we don't know how it is transmitted. Transmission of the disease is not part of the plan - making of serum out of the blood of the infected, and then distributing that, is.
This is how Hodin feels about killing:
Re-adjust the life cycle, yes. Confess to mass murder, apparently not. And the spin-doctoring wouldn't be possible if every victim were to die like Odona, gruesomely, in a day - that wouldn't be an adjustment of a life cycle, only a temporary culling without cyclic results.
Timo Saloniemi
First we have the part where Odona stops pretending, sort of.
So people will die. But not immediately, not necessarily - because the big change is that people will have the option of dying, while previously they were practically immortal. And apparently the morally crucial thing is that it will be a lottery where everybody is guaranteed to lose. It's not a mass execution (which the Gideonites won't tolerate) but a new world order that introduces universal death.
Then Kirk finds out:
The disease kills people like Kirk in a day. But only Odona has it, and we don't know how it is transmitted. Transmission of the disease is not part of the plan - making of serum out of the blood of the infected, and then distributing that, is.
This is how Hodin feels about killing:
Re-adjust the life cycle, yes. Confess to mass murder, apparently not. And the spin-doctoring wouldn't be possible if every victim were to die like Odona, gruesomely, in a day - that wouldn't be an adjustment of a life cycle, only a temporary culling without cyclic results.
Timo Saloniemi
The duplicate Enterprise usually gets most of the attention regarding this episode, but I like the overpopulation issue in the story. The idea has real meat on its bones, and I really like the Kirk/Hodin debate on the issue.
Maybe Kirk should introduce Hodin to Anon Seven. I believe the government of Eminiar might have some interesting closet-like devices that might help solve Gideon's problem.
So all those people pressed against the window Kirk looks out of are mole people? Or miners who helped dig the hole?
As discussed in a previous thread, those people aren't exactly pressed or anything: they are standing on a set of platforms apparently intended to provide a good view of the "exterior" of the "ship", and staring intensely ahead.
So, spectators? But the curious thing is, they aren't looking at Kirk and Odona. They are just staring ahead! Even those people at the edge of the window that Kirk opens aren't turning their heads to look through the window - they look straight ahead, as if the walls of the fake ship were transparent from the outside and there was something in there that was more exciting than Kirk (say, all that fantastically empty space?).
Or then they aren't spectating, but rather making an appearance intended to unnerve Kirk, as a weird element in the plan. Or standing by to rush in and provide medical assistance. Or whatever. But they do seem to be part of the "starship" plan, rather than people shoved to an available space. (Or perhaps the starship structure doubles as a movie theater, with the other side of the wall being used as a silver screen?)
Timo Saloniemi
So, spectators? But the curious thing is, they aren't looking at Kirk and Odona. They are just staring ahead! Even those people at the edge of the window that Kirk opens aren't turning their heads to look through the window - they look straight ahead, as if the walls of the fake ship were transparent from the outside and there was something in there that was more exciting than Kirk (say, all that fantastically empty space?).
Or then they aren't spectating, but rather making an appearance intended to unnerve Kirk, as a weird element in the plan. Or standing by to rush in and provide medical assistance. Or whatever. But they do seem to be part of the "starship" plan, rather than people shoved to an available space. (Or perhaps the starship structure doubles as a movie theater, with the other side of the wall being used as a silver screen?)
Timo Saloniemi
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