Was the Supercedence Challenge really fulfilled during episode "Code Of Honour"?

[marsh8472]

Lutan picked Tasha Yar as his First One which would have demoted Yareena to Number Two as I understand it. Yareena challenged Tasha Yar to the right of supercedence which is supposed to be a fight to the death, similar to the Vulcan Kal-if-fee challenge. Anyway at the end they claimed she died which dissolved the marriage and she got to keep her property and picked a different First One causing Lutan to lose her property.

PICARD: Exactly what do you find unfair, Lutan? They fought to the death. You saw the final blow. You know the effects of your poison.
...
LUTAN: She is not dead! There was no death combat. You violated our agreement. There will be no treaty, no vaccine!
PICARD: The challenge was carried out. She died, Lutan.
LUTAN: There was no challenge! She lives!
CRUSHER: I am a physician and saw her die. If you doubt this poison, why don't you test it on yourself?
PICARD: Lutan, we can provide you with records of her death and how Doctor Crusher brought her back.
YAREENA: And at the instant of death, Lutan, a mating agreement dissolves.
LUTAN: But this is witchcraft, Yareena. To discard a mate in this manner
YAREENA: Is less painful than the one you selected for me.

Lutan was not very skeptical about Yareena's death. Did she really die? Providing death records and surviving a poisoning that the Ligonians don't have a cure for is not technically proof of death. There's a difference between death and saving someone from the brink of death. Could the crew have been being deceptive about her death in order to get the vaccine?

My own idea of death occurs after the heart stops, brain death and there's no reasonable potential left to revive them. Given that they planned to treat Yareena immediately after being poisoned before that point of no return was reached, that didn't seem very dead to me.

http://www.livescience.com/46418-clinical-death-definitions.html

TNG "Where Silence Has Lease"

DATA: What is death?
PICARD: Oh, is that all? Well, Data, you're asking probably the most difficult of all questions. Some see it as a changing into an indestructible form, forever unchanging. They believe that the purpose of the entire universe is to then maintain that form in an Earth-like garden which will give delight and pleasure through all eternity. On the other hand, there are those who hold to the idea of our blinking into nothingness, with all our experiences, hopes and dreams merely a delusion.

Voyager "Mortal Coil"

PARIS: He's dead. No heart beat, no synaptic response, extensive cell damage to his brain.
CHAKOTAY: Try a cortical stimulator.
PARIS: It won't work. His neural pathways were disrupted by the protomatter.
CHAKOTAY: Set the stimulator for an autonomic bypass. At least we can get his vitals going.
PARIS: It's too late for that. The damage was too severe.
...
SEVEN: Then it's not too late to reactivate him.
PARIS: What are you saying? You can bring Neelix back to life?
SEVEN: That's precisely what I'm saying. The Borg have assimilated species with far greater medical knowledge than your own. We are capable of reactivating drones as much as seventy three hours after what you would call death.
CHAKOTAY: Neelix wasn't a Borg drone.
SEVEN: We will adapt.
EMH: What does this procedure involve?
SEVEN: Nanoprobes are used to reverse cellular necrosis, while the cerebral cortex is stimulated with a neuroelectric isopulse.
EMH: But there's nothing left to stimulate. His brain functions are gone.
SEVEN: By your narrow definition, perhaps, but not by mine.

TNG "Skin of Evil"

PICARD: What's Lieutenant Yar's condition? Doctor Crusher, report!
CRUSHER: She's dead.
CRUSHER: I need her in Sickbay now.

[Bridge]

PICARD: Go to Yellow Alert, Lieutenant Worf. I'll be in Sickbay.
WORF: Aye, sir.

[Sickbay]

PICARD: Status, Doctor?
CRUSHER: Unchanged.
PICARD: Can you bring her back?
CRUSHER: We'll see. Neural stimulator.
NURSE: Neural stimulator locked in.
CRUSHER: Interlock current feeds. Set sensitivity factor to four point four.
NURSE: Affirmative.
NURSE 2: Monitoring two point three, one point eight.
RIKER: You did it.
CRUSHER: No. I've got her on full support. There is no independent brain function.
NURSE 2: Current feeds operating.
NURSE: She's not responding, Doctor. Her synaptic network is breaking down.
CRUSHER: Inject norep.
NURSE: Neurons are beginning to depolarise.
CRUSHER: Let's go for direct reticular stimulation.
NURSE: Direct?
CRUSHER: Do it! (Tasha jerks from the shock) Increase to seventy microvolts.
(Tasha moves less this time)
CRUSHER: Eighty five microvolts. (nothing) Again. (still nothing) Ninety. Again. Again. She's gone.
PICARD: Gone?
CRUSHER: There was too much synaptic damage. That thing just sucked the life right out of her. There's nothing I can do.

Voyager "Coda"

CHAKOTAY: The Captain's dead. We have to get her back to sickbay. The Doctor may still be able to revive her.
TUVOK [OC]: The away team should be with you in minutes.
CHAKOTAY: Acknowledged.
JANEWAY: I know you can't see me or hear me. I don't know what's going on. But I am here, Chakotay. I am not dead.
CHAKOTAY: Kathryn, we're going to get you back.

[Sickbay]

(Chakotay is there while the EMH and Kes work on the dead Janeway. Janeway watches.)
EMH: Ten milligrammes cordrazine. We'll use it in conjunction with the cortical stimulator. Now!
KES: No pulse, no blood pressure. Minimum electrical activity in the midbrain. No measurable response in the cerebral cortex.
EMH: Again.
KES: Doctor, we're getting a thready pulse.
EMH: Quickly. Seventy five milligrammes inaprovaline. I'll begin direct synaptic stimulation.
KES: Pulse is weakening. We're losing her again.
EMH: Cortical stimulator. Now!
KES: No vital signs. No brain activity.
EMH: Again!
KES: No change.
EMH: Again!
KES: Doctor
EMH: Don't question me. Again! Make a note in the log. Death occurred at oh three twenty hours. Cause, massive cerebro-vascular collapse.

 

[cgervasi]

It seems like a technicality that the Ligonion legal authorities would reject on the grounds that death is permanent by the definition used for this rule.

 

[Timo]

Then again, the authorities would not want to reject it. They were at an impasse, driven into a diplomatic corner and facing a lose-lose situation (we know from later examples that Picard would have busted Yar out of the predicament, pious Prime Directive speeches notwithstanding). The technicality allowed them to turn that to win-win.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Triskelion]

Great question, marsh8472! It's a stumper!

IMO, this question lies within the Ligonian legal code as it defines medical death. Since Yareena died and met those conditions, presumably, and the marriage definition did not seem to extend beyond a resuscitation from that state, then it would have to be argued in court whether the marriage was still solvent or not - in an equivalent of a law suit. Until that time, the criteria for legal dissolution were satisfied - since the Enterprise medical staff could provide all records transparently, allowing for examination for fraud, etc.

The question, here well-crafted for in-universe philosophical terms, is not so much about whether it was capital-D Death if a subject could be resuscitated; that's for philosophers, and here, Ligonian lawyers to wrangle in a possible subsequent appeal or lawsuit. The question in this episode was small-d death - as a simple medical confirmation of the flatline death state - that was met and witnessed, all bona fide, stamped and sealed. That state from which, if you do nothing extraordinary, the patient remains dead for all of eternity. Yareena was pronounced dead by Ligonian legal definition; if the Enterprise required a local coroner to certify that fact, we can presume they met that need. Which gives me a great idea for a new Trek series: ST Law & Order, or ST: CSI. Alas, the show mostly focused on larger ethical dilemmas (should Wesley die for falling in a flower bed? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... I like it!) rather than the subtle legal wrangling of actual interplanetary diplomatic friction.

For now, her very real and medically confirmed death state was apparently sufficient to dissolve the marriage (which, let's face it, was predicated on a very iffy oral tradition and probably not a complex, circumscribed legal code in the first place). Ligonian culture doesn't strike me as one that suffers legal hair-splitting like arguing what the definition of "is" is. It was more based on their version of honor - which like Klingon culture, depends greatly upon popular perception. (For more about the rigid cultural implications of family honor-based cultures, SF Debris kicks it around properly in his review of the Worf discommodation episode, IIRC).

So a subsequent law suit would seem a less likely legal option than Lutan having to battle to the death for his own appeal, probably - if he even had any option at that point. A society that embraces a battle to the death for the right to divorce is a society that doesn't tolerate a lot of legal backpedaling after the fact.

In the end, Lutan seems to have accepted his limited legal footing. Though a good Ligonian lawyer or mêlée weapons-smith might want to take his case.

 

[Mojochi]

It really depends on local legalities I guess. Had Tasha been any other Ligonian, & had stuck that fatal blow, it certainly would've meant death. In the absence of anything like this condition being on the record, I can see it being litigated either way... not that they seem like a very litigious society, mind you, but the way that it happened doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility, for this unique circumstance

It's an interesting question, with an even more interesting consequence. Now that they know that a person might be brought back from a lifeless state, & this precedent has now been put into effect, something like this could drastically alter their whole socioeconomic landscape

 

[MAGolding]

Famed science fiction writer Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) was a biochemist with a PHD in biochemistry from Columbia University in 1948. Thus he should have been familiar with the usual medical definition of death in the 1940s.

I read an article by Asimov about his heart surgery. Asimov wrote how his doctor was describing the procedure:

"First we're going to stop your heart, and___" Asimov wrote how startling that was to him. He had been taught that the heart stopping was death, so it was like the doctor saying they were going to kill him, fix his heart, and bring him back to life. It was like suddenly realizing you are in a science fiction advanced future.

It is possible that the Ligonian definition of death is not as advanced as the Federation definition of death, and that Yareena was legally dead according to the Ligonian definition of death but not the Federation one. It is also possible that Yareena was legally dead according to both definitions of death before being revived.

in "The Neutral Zone":

CRUSHER: Right now, they are all sleeping. Each of them needed minor medical attention. Minor now, but then their conditions were obviously terminal. One had a heart problem, another had an advanced case of emphysema with extensive liver damage. You know the most surprising thing of all, is that each of them had been frozen after they died.
PICARD: After they died?

PICARD: Look, I am never critical of any member of my staff being curious, but it's just that the timing is so
DATA: I could not leave them there, Captain. The condition of their vehicle was deteriorating.
PICARD: But Data, they were already dead. I mean, what more could have happened to them?

CLARE: Excuse me, could someone please tell me what's going on here?
CRUSHER: About three hundred and seventy years ago, you died of a massive embolism.
CLARE: I don't remember anything about that.
CRUSHER: You and the others were frozen.
SONNY: Cryonics. You know, freeze you now and heal you later.
CLARE: Yeah, I've heard of it. I just never gave it much thought. How did we get here?

So in this episode Doctor Crusher can revive people who died according to the Federation definition over three hundred Earth years ago, who are not just merely dead but really most sincerely dead.

This makes her failure to save other persons when the plot demands it rather hard to explain, but if Crusher had the capabilities of "The Neutral Zone" in "Code of Honor" she could have brought Yareena back to life after she was dead as a door nail according to Federation standards, let alone our standards or Ligonian standards.