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Why Didn't the Organians Prevent the Battle in "Elaan of Troyius"?

Knight Templar

Knight Templar

Commodore
In "Errand of Mercy" it seemed to be established that the Organians would prevent any future conflict between the Federation and Klingons by immobilizing one or both sides military forces.

Yet, in Elaan of Troyius" there was a full fledged ship to ship battle between the Enterprise and a Klingon cruiser.

Where were the Organians?

I think you could explain away the conflict in "Day of the Dove" as it is obvious the entity feeding on hatred had immense powers (it was capable of instantly transmuting matter, altering memories, and completely disabling starships) and could've nullified the influence of the Organians.
 
In the years since the episode was produced, many fans have concluded the Organians just didn't want the "meat bags" fighting on their "doorstep" (on or close to their planet). When one factors in the other stories, we get the impression they don't really care if humans and klingons tear apart each other past a certain radius of Organia.

Sincerely,

Bill
 
The Organians brokered a treaty to end the war of Errand of Mercy, that was all.

The treaty (but not the Organian's participation) was mention in The Trouble with Tribbles.

My interpretation is that the Organians simply wanted to be left alone.

:)
 
Redfern said:
In the years since the episode was produced, many fans have concluded the Organians just didn't want the "meat bags" fighting on their "doorstep" (on or close to their planet). When one factors in the other stories, we get the impression they don't really care if humans and klingons tear apart each other past a certain radius of Organia.
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Pretty much this.
 
Redfern said:
In the years since the episode was produced, many fans have concluded the Organians just didn't want the "meat bags" fighting on their "doorstep" (on or close to their planet). When one factors in the other stories, we get the impression they don't really care if humans and klingons tear apart each other past a certain radius of Organia.

Sincerely,

Bill
Click to expand...

I thought about this, but didn't the Organian (the temporary head of the council Ayeborne IIRC) who did most of the speaking say specifically when speaking to Kor and Kirk that while he stood before them he also stood on Earth and the Klingon homeworld. Thus implying a galactic reach for their power and edicts?

And how did Starfleet and the Klingons determine how far the Organians "no fighting edict" reached?

Did Starfleet and the Klingons start sending out single ships or small groups of ships at various ranges from Organia to determine their "radius of action"?
 
Knight Templar said:
In "Errand of Mercy" it seemed to be established that the Organians would prevent any future conflict between the Federation and Klingons by immobilizing one or both sides military forces.
Click to expand...

That's not really true. What Ayelborne actually said was:
Unless both sides agree to an immediate cessation of hostilities, all your armed forces, wherever they may be, will be immediately immobilised.
Click to expand...

His ultimatum only applied to the immediate conflict, and he never said anything about intervening in future conflicts.

Remember, the Organians made it repeatedly clear that they couldn't tolerate the presence of corporeal beings, that it made them very uncomfortable to have anything to do with us. They only intervened in the war with the greatest of reluctance because it was happening on their homeworld and causing them great discomfort. Basically their intervention in the war was a cosmic-level version of "Hey, you noisy kids, get off our lawn!"

Keep in mind that in '60s TV, the ideal was to avoid continuity, to have each episode stand completely on its own. All those lines about the Organians loathing any interaction or intervention with mortal affairs were put there specifically to make it clear that their intervention in this case would be a one-time thing, a plot twist that would resolve the crisis in that particular episode but have no impact on future adventures. So this notion held by many fans (and some novelists) that the Organians were an activist power that actively policed all Federation-Klingon interactions and cracked down at the first sign of trouble just doesn't track with what the episode itself established about them. To all indications, the Organians would have no interest or desire to intervene in anything that didn't directly involve Organia itself -- and even there they were extremely slow to take any action at all.

Based on that portrayal of the Organians, I think it likely that the "Organian Peace Treaty" (which actually wasn't first mentioned until "The Trouble With Tribbles") is actually a treaty worked out between, and enforced by, the UFP and Klingon governments, rather than one imposed and monitored by the Organians themselves. It's probably called the Organian Treaty because it was signed there (like all the various Treaties of Paris over the centuries) or because it was in response to the Organians' intervention.
 
Redfern said:
In the years since the episode was produced, many fans have concluded the Organians just didn't want the "meat bags" fighting on their "doorstep" (on or close to their planet).
Click to expand...

True. I re-watched this episode not long ago for the first time in ages and the Organian attitude surprised me. In my mind they'd become benevolent saviours enforcing peace from noble intent. But their comments in the episode made it clear they found the presence of corporeal life to be unpleasant.

The implication was that they didn't really care about anyone else. They just didn't want all these biological beings starting a ruckuss near their planet. Oh, they weren't callous about it, they weren't going to wipe everyone out just for the quiet life, but they certainly weren't doing it for the benefit of Federation or Empire.
 
Christopher said:
Basically their intervention in the war was a cosmic-level version of "Hey, you noisy kids, get off our lawn!"
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Funny, after I wrote my comment about "fighting upon their doorsteps," that very scenario popped into my head. I'm glad someone caught the analogy. ;)

Sincerely,

Bill
 
Or it might just be that while they wouldn't allow full scale war, they had no problem with minor skermishes.
 
...didn't the Organian who did most of the speaking say specifically when speaking to Kor and Kirk that while he stood before them he also stood on Earth and the Klingon homeworld. Thus implying a galactic reach for their power and edicts?
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Sure. That's what's called disproportionate response: "If you don't stop entering my star system, I will terminate both your species. Or perhaps not, but see, I certainly have the ability, and I don't think highly enough of either of you to consider you worth an ounce of mercy." Seems to have worked, as apparently nobody wants to bother the Organians over the "Organian peace treaty"!

Timo Saloniemi
 
Christopher said:
What Ayelborne actually said was:
Unless both sides agree to an immediate cessation of hostilities, all your armed forces, wherever they may be, will be immediately immobilised.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
And there's a implied threat for outside the immediate area of Organia. For Starfleet and the federation, it wasn't just the forces they had opposite the Klingons, it was the outposts along the Romulan neutral zone, normal patrols, supply runs, peacekeeping missions, and lone exploring starships on the far side of the federation too, suddenly dead in the water. The Organian wouldn't have to actually destroy them.

How long would the federation (or the empire) exist without it's armed forces?

:)
 
^Maybe, but the point is, he never said it would be a continuing practice. It was something the Organians were doing to stop the current conflict, but he never actually said the Organians would do anything to prevent future conflicts, and the episode made a point of showing how reluctant the Organians were to intervene at all. So assuming that the Organians would've been policing all future Federation-Klingon interactions is misreading the text.
 
Certainly, the Organians seem pretty hands-off in all subsequent Trek episodes and movies.

Sounds to me like they got the ball rolling on the Organian Peace Treaty, more or less by dragging both sides to the table, but then faded back into the woodwork.

It may be that, for a few years afterwards, the possibility of the Organians raising their glowy heads again was enough to put a damper on things, but by the time you get into the movie era--and the subsequent spinoff series--nobody seems to be expecting the Organians to intervene. As I recall, the Organians are not even mentioned in The Undiscovered Country, despite Chang's attempts to provoke a new war between the Klingons and the Federation.
 
^I posited in my novel Ex Machina that the Klingon government during TOS had been overthrown and replaced by a new one (which was the reason why the smooth-headed Klingons disappeared from the military). If the treaty really was between the governments rather than directly imposed by the Organians, that would mean that once the government that had signed the treaty was ousted, it would no longer have been binding on the new government. And that's my explanation for why we never heard the treaty referenced in the movie era or after.
 
So that bit where the Organians intervened in one of John Bryne's IDW comics when the Federation and the Klingon Empire were going to war again probably wasn't necessary?

(Nazi guy from Laugh-In voice) Verrrry Interesting......
 
It wouldn't be the first time that a tie-in has interpreted the Organians in a more activist light. James Blish's Spock Must Die!, the first original adult Trek novel, portrayed the Organians as very interventionist, though that was in retaliation for a Klingon attack on Organia itself. The novel Timetrap by David Dvorkin and others I can't recall offhand have assumed that Organians would directly intervene to halt any Federation-Klingon violence. And the first storyline in DC's Trek comic by Mike Barr featured the Organians choosing to depart the galaxy and leave the UFP and KE to take responsibility for themselves, which implies that they'd been more controlling until that point. So a number of authors have interpreted them that way, but I don't believe that's entirely consistent with "Errand of Mercy" itself.
 
Of course, any thread about "Errand of Mercy" deserves a little replay of this:
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;)
 
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Christopher said:
It wouldn't be the first time that a tie-in has interpreted the Organians in a more activist light. James Blish's Spock Must Die!, the first original adult Trek novel, portrayed the Organians as very interventionist, though that was in retaliation for a Klingon attack on Organia itself. The novel Timetrap by David Dvorkin and others I can't recall offhand have assumed that Organians would directly intervene to halt any Federation-Klingon violence. And the first storyline in DC's Trek comic by Mike Barr featured the Organians choosing to depart the galaxy and leave the UFP and KE to take responsibility for themselves, which implies that they'd been more controlling until that point. So a number of authors have interpreted them that way, but I don't believe that's entirely consistent with "Errand of Mercy" itself.
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Actually IIRC, the Mike Barr story featured the Excalbians (The Savage Curtain) overpowering and isolating the Organians so they can play "G vs. E" on a galactic scale.

In the end, Kirk convinces them to fight the Organians themselves for a true test. Both sides then disappear.
 
^But that's just it -- the Excalbians wanted to provoke a war between the UFP and the Klingons, and the comic states outright (issue 4, p. 5) that they first had to "nullify" the Organians so they couldn't enforce the treaty. So the story does assume that the Organians were actively preventing the two sides from fighting anywhere, not just Organia.
 
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