[TOS Reading Group]: Discuss Prime Directive Here!

[Darkwing]

Well, it may not be sentient, but it sure developed a pretty sophisticated neo-sentient behavior that is clearly inimical to sentient species. It lives by committing genocide. Perhaps I anthropormorphise too much in calling it a rabid dog. We don't feel guilty for using antibiotics and antiseptics to kill germs and viruses.

I grew up in Colorado, and when I was becoming an adult, we started seeing a surge in mountain lions ranging into the fringes of town, eating pets and attacking joggers.
The ethic I learned there is that we may be at fault for displacing their habitat, but once a specific animal goes after a person, they've lost fear of us and may have acquired a taste for us. Therefore, that animal has to be put down. Not it's species, necessarily, but that particular one. In this case, it's a unique species with a population of one. But it's gone after a sentient race and attempted to wipe it out, developing increasingly sophisticated yechniques to achieve that aim.

And that's as far as I wish to debate that aspect. What do you think of my interpretation of Kirk's promotion? Or any other aspect of the book?

 

[Rush Limborg]

A really good read. Dark, disturbing, and altogether gripping.

The first scene was pretty hard to swallow....
I felt a little cheated that they didn't bring the Tellarite (and her employees) back in the end. They treated Kirk like DIRT--after he saved their lives!!!

As for the end...while I had little real problem with the "alien" thing, I felt the scenario ended far too abrubtly. One minute, they're facing down "The One"--and then, part break...followed by the epilogue, with a BRIEF mention of how Starfleet's dealing with the aliens....

I'd have perferred that they keep the story going a bit longer--enough so that we see a resolution being made with the aliens.

I actually like the Sulu/Chekov arc--a lot! I can just imagine those two--they'd be RIGHT at home on a pirate ship!