When talking about humans, this is, of course, a philosophic problem with no easy answer - an utterly amoral person is worse or better than one that has morals, but breaks them?
When talking about Kevin, the answer is somewhat simpler:
It's irrelevant what human morals say about him; just as it would be irrelevant what hypothetical ant morals say about ants infestation professionals.
Kevin is one of the 'gods of night' while the federation are 'mere mortals' - and 'destiny', which you seem to like so much, Sci, made the difference between the two clear.
The only morals that matter to Kevin are the gods' morals - the caeliars', for example.
Uh, no, the entire point of
Destiny was that the "gods" are not gods, and in fact needed to adopt "mortal" (aka Federation) values in order to survive.
Destiny made it very clear that the Caeliar, though powerful, were stagnant and doomed because of their homogeneity. Only when they adopted the Federation value of heterogeneity, when they became a diverse, polyglot society, did they save themselves.
In other words: The idea that having more power than another culture means you're somehow fundamentally different from them is nonsense. The Caeliar are not gods of night; all are but mere mortals.
Sci, 'destiny' depicted the caeliar as on another level than humans
ProtoAvatar, is that you? What's with the new username?
Destiny did not such thing. It made it clear that the Caeliar are just folk. They have a mix of enlightened, admirable traits, and unenlightened, unadmirable traits -- a refusal to take life and a willingness to sacrifice themselves to save others, but also an extreme xenophobia and a tendency towards cultural stagnation. In the end, it took the Federation, in the person of Erika Hernandez, to teach the Caeliar to overcome their xenophobia, to bridge the gap between Federate and Caeliar and thereby save them both.
The Caeliar are not gods of night. They just have bigger guns and better hammers, that's all. And having bigger guns and better hammers doesn't mean that Humans cannot morally evaluate their behavior. Power does not elevate one above morality; might does not make right.
You can grasp at straws and come with an argument along the lines of 'Hernandez was once human, etc'.
But it is grasping at straws; Hernandez and the caeliar decided on their own to deal with the borg - humans were depicted as utterly unable to have a meaningful contribution on that level.
Once again
ProtoAvatar, I'm sorry to see that the thought of not having power bothers you so much that it makes you think that someone with smaller guns and inferior hammers is therefore somehow unworthy and unimportant. Needing help from other people is not a sign of inferiority or unworthiness to most people.
The federation is irrelevant/powerless on that level; Kevin is not for humans to imprison or otherwise punish (unless he wants it so).
You are confusing
power with
morality. A humanoid may not be able to punish a non-corporeal being that commits genocide, but that does not mean she is incapable of judging that non-corporeal being's behavior.
As said:
"Humans can only bicker about his actions or amuse the 'gods' with their speeches (as Picard does for Q)."
You just euphemistically replaced "bicker" with "judging".
On the gods' level, human morality is imply irrelevant, it has no jurisdiction - much like human actions.
Once again, you confuse power with morality. Might does not make right. A peasant living in 13th Century Europe may have no power to act against a tyrannical King, but this does not mean that his moral judgment of that King is wrong, or that the peasant is irrelevant. It just means that the King has more guns and hammers, that's all.
And in no way does having bigger guns and better hammers mean that the Federation cannot judge the morality of an entity's behavior. Kevin Uxbridge may be unbelievably powerful, but he also did a deeply immoral thing, and it would be completely fair and accurate for a Federation citizen to say so.
ETA:
Second - Hernandez convinced her own people - the caeliar - to help.
The federation had little to do with it.
She would never have tried to convince the Caeliar of anything had she not been raised with the values of pluralism, personal liberty, and egalitarianism on Earth that later formed the philosophical core of the Federation, or if she had not witnessed firsthand the Federation and its accomplishments when she came aboard the
Titan. She convinced the Caeliar to adopt the Human/Federation moral value of pluralism and to overcome their own xenophobia, thereby saving the Caeliar from inevitable extinction. If
Destiny is a deliverance story, it's a deliverance story for the Caeliar, too -- one in which Caeliar technology saves the Federation, and Federation values save the Caeliar.
I don't - buying the winning lottery ticket tells nothing about the competency of the buyer. And all the other deeds of humanity during 'destiny' paint them as utterly incompetent/pathetic on this level.
So life is only meaningful if you gain power by achieving an exterior objective? The Federation is only valuable if it has bigger guns and better hammers?
That's not a very enlightened or humanistic view of life. That's worshiping power above all else.
Plus, it is disaster/dying with dignity porn.
As such, 'destiny' is thematically unfit for the star trek universe. [/quote]
So you're saying that
Star Trek, which has never depicted humanity as achieving immortality, should not depict its heroes as having to confront their own mortality and the mortality of their society? That it should not depict its protagonists as having a problem they cannot solve and needing help from their neighbors? That a story about people who confront their own mortality yet refuse to abandon their moral principles even in the fact of certain death is unworthy of the Star Trek Universe?
Your idea of the Star Trek Universe must involve a lot more neo-colonialist power worship than mine.
BTW: If the Caeliar are gods, why didn't the Federation cower before them in supplication and submission? Part of the point of a divine deliverance story is that the person being delivered realizes he must submit to the god's/gods' will.
Nothing in
Destiny goes against Brin's contention that science fiction should depict a future where humanity can learn from its mistakes and improve on itself. If anything,
Destiny's depiction of a humanity that refuses to abandon the moral principles that let them overcome war, poverty, xenophobia, and discrimination, a refusal to say that survival is more important than moral decency,
affirms Brin's notion of science fiction as a revolutionary genre that challenges traditional power structures.
STAR TREK has never depicted a humanity that was beyond mortality. All DESTINY did was depict humanity looking mortality square in the eye and refusing to submit to fear by abandoning the morality that had defined its life -- and thereby inspire a neighbor with bigger guns and better hammers to help them out.
