WTF moments in TOS...
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
When McCoy uses cordrazine on Sulu. Kirk says '... tricky stuff' and then he just goes ahead and shoots up Sulu. Guess it worked! Then of course he falls on his own needle, haha, and jumps off onto his crazy adventure through time with Edith Keeler. The carelessness displayed is just hilarious.
He's some what excitable in those early episodes.
That's very true. Still seemed somehow out of place in that episode. Not sure why.
The Indians did have a legitimate society and government. Argument invalid.
It's possible that Spock with his fine vulcan brain realize, perhaps subconsciously, that there was mind malnipulation acurring onboard. Something was wrong and it was upsetting him. When Spock saw 'nancy for the first time and said "thats not nancy!", was he seeing the salt vampire in it's true form because it had no effect on his mind?
Many Indians had formed large nation/states and complex societys and were just as "legitimate" as equal sized european nations. But to be fair some indian tribes had not. The nomadic plains Indians could not claim the entirety of the midwest as theirs.
^Actually the nomadic Plains lifestyle was one that emerged after European colonization, made possible by the introduction of the horse. And it's a prejudice of sedentary civilizations to define nomadism as an absence of complex society. That's completely false. Nomads are not more primitive than sedentary societies; on the contrary, nomadic societies, whether of the American Plains or the Central Asian steppes or the Sahara, arose when formerly sedentary agrarian or herding societies acquired riding animals/beasts of burden (horses or camels) that enabled them to exploit a new environment in a way that others could not.
And in fact horse nomads are extremely effective at defending their territories. The Mongols built the largest land empire in the history of the pre-industrial world. And the Sioux were able to build an empire that spread across the Plains and held its own against United States territorial expansion for nearly a century.
As for other migratory Native American populations, it's a misunderstanding to assume they had no roots just because they had a different subsistence method from European civilization. They weren't just wandering aimlessly; they migrated among a consistent set of seasonal sites, and they developed the land in ways that sustained a sizeable population. They had well-organized societies and economies and were just as "legitimate" as the ones who lived in cities on a permanent basis.
The problem is, European settlers' diseases propagated well ahead of them along the Native Americans' well-developed and populous trading networks. The resultant epidemics killed off up to 95% of the population of the Americas before English or French settlers expanded much past the East Coast. So those settlers and explorers came upon bare wilderness with a few scattered communities here and there and assumed it had always been like that, that the continent was "virgin" land ripe for the taking, when in fact the wilderness had only grown back in the few decades since the collapse of the former thriving population.
And in fact horse nomads are extremely effective at defending their territories. The Mongols built the largest land empire in the history of the pre-industrial world. And the Sioux were able to build an empire that spread across the Plains and held its own against United States territorial expansion for nearly a century.
As for other migratory Native American populations, it's a misunderstanding to assume they had no roots just because they had a different subsistence method from European civilization. They weren't just wandering aimlessly; they migrated among a consistent set of seasonal sites, and they developed the land in ways that sustained a sizeable population. They had well-organized societies and economies and were just as "legitimate" as the ones who lived in cities on a permanent basis.
The problem is, European settlers' diseases propagated well ahead of them along the Native Americans' well-developed and populous trading networks. The resultant epidemics killed off up to 95% of the population of the Americas before English or French settlers expanded much past the East Coast. So those settlers and explorers came upon bare wilderness with a few scattered communities here and there and assumed it had always been like that, that the continent was "virgin" land ripe for the taking, when in fact the wilderness had only grown back in the few decades since the collapse of the former thriving population.
The notion that the Federation should just march onto the planet and take it over just because there's no "adults" around is absurd, offensive and against everything we're led to believe that the Federation, and future humans, stand-for.
The Federation would be far more likely to, and better people to, simply educate and/or "guide" the children to run their planet and then stay out of the way.
WTF moments in TOS:
That you can control a person using a small remote with a handful of buttons on it. I mean, I didn't see one marked "stand up, walk across the room, and knock the guy out."
The Federation would be far more likely to, and better people to, simply educate and/or "guide" the children to run their planet and then stay out of the way.
WTF moments in TOS:
That you can control a person using a small remote with a handful of buttons on it. I mean, I didn't see one marked "stand up, walk across the room, and knock the guy out."
^Well, how does a video game controller with a similar number of buttons allow you to instruct game characters to perform complicated fight moves? Presumably because each button is assigned to trigger a certain preprogrammed set of responses, which can be quite complex. The command sent by each button is probably more like a macro than a single instruction.
As the children could not claim their world (Miri's "Earth") as *theirs*. Their claim to the planet would be worthless without the might to back it up.
I'm sure the UFP would support and defend that claim. There's the "might".
I was talking about colonists *from* the Federation, but you're right. There's so many available worlds that no one would ever just walk in like that and set up shop. They'd watch over the kids until such time as *they* could take formal control.
By that logic a 98 pound weakling has no right in home ownership because he lacks the might to back it up.
By that logic a minor child has no right to inherit his parents estate. After all, they're just children and underage.
Logic must give way to legal interpretation of human law.
Alien law must give way to legal interpretation of human law.
Again corrected the spelling.
"Injuns" may have had governments and laws, but the point is that these were not recognized. I'd dearly hope that the Feds know how to behave better than that.
However, they do seem to continue to disregard alien law. If the Dominion decrees that wormhole travel is illegal, they jump in and say "It's illegal to say it's illegal, our law always wins, nyah nyah!"... This even when alien law very clearly mirrors human law, and isn't all that alien after all.
I wouldn't wonder much, then, if the "Miri" children were indeed deposed and denied any part in their parents' world in the aftermath of the TOS episode. Although the impression one got was that this second Earth was so out in the sticks that few colonists would probably bother...
Timo Saloniemi
The alpha quadrant end of the wormhole is in the Bajor system, allies of the Federation. The gamma quadrant end of the wormhole is in open space many tens of lightyears from the nearest edge of Dominion space. If the Dominion decrees that wormhole travel is illegal, the legal basis of of their decree would be what?
In reality, Bajor is closer to the far end of the wormhole than the Founders are.
.
According to UFP law, none. But that's the point - UFP law should be irrelevant, because it's the Dominion's turf.
The Dominion never agreed to following the barbaric "the entire universe belongs to us and must obey our rules" laws of some upstart "civilization" from the other side of the galaxy. They have their own laws. They are better laws than those of the foreign barbarians (everybody's laws are always that). And they are unlikely to include the nonsensical clause "if somebody loiters into empty space we don't care much about, and declares it theirs, it's theirs".
Clauses like that come naturally to the UFP, which is the direct descendant of the conquest cultures of Europe. UFP laws no doubt support flag-planting as a legal basis for claiming something as the planter's own. Such symbolic-superstitious nonsense is probably very human, but there's no need for nonhumans to find any merit in it.
The Dominion cuts to the chase. Might makes right, in their realm just as much in today's real world, and that right is the one that gets written into laws. There is no higher authority to mediate. There are no common rules, no mutually signed pieces of paper or flimsiplast. By natural right, Dominion controls the Gamma end of the wormhole, and their word is the law. Lawbreakers may of course act as they please, but they will then have to face the consequences.
Come on: the Gamma end was mere weeks away from Dominion assets, and a military presence could be sent there whenever the Dominion pleased. That defines Dominion territory, even if there isn't a flag planted there according to some completely obscure alien tradition. If aliens/Russkies/point men of the Second Coming landed 120 miles northwest of North Platte, Nebraska, and the police were slow in arriving, that wouldn't be much legal basis for them to claim Nebraska as their property, and the rest of the United States as an area where they can freely roam as long as they don't step on any lawns.
Timo Saloniemi
So by that logic, and I'm not trying to be confrontational, but by that logic we could get troops into Quebec in a matter of hours. Does that mean we own Quebec? No. The Dominion boarders on the other hand don't include the wormhole. Not at first anyway. Granted, inter stellar boarders are a bit sketchy at times, and not over well defined, but as it seems to me the immediate vicinity of the GQ end would initially "belong" to the Bajorans.
The US and Canada are both descendants of old European conquest powers, and agree to similar laws. More importantly, they have already tried to bludgeon each other to death, have failed, and have agreed to a draw and signed the appropriate treaties. The US and New Mexico did the same, only New Mexico got conquered and couldn't sign anything afterwards.
Perhaps even more importantly, both nations mortally fear upsetting a set of treaties that hang the world powers in precarious balance. This to the degree that both have agreed to respecting "international" law, and pretending that there exists a power above either of them.
None of this would apply to the UFP/Dominion relationship.
By what right? It's insane to think that anybody would have the right to traipse to location X and declare it their own. This is only possible if said anybody is a military power, capable of acting with impunity, at least until meeting with a greater military power.
Bajor demanding the Gamma end is no different from the Dominion demanding it. Both no doubt have laws saying they can do it. Neither has the greater right, except of course in their own greedy eyes.
Timo Saloniemi
Perhaps even more importantly, both nations mortally fear upsetting a set of treaties that hang the world powers in precarious balance. This to the degree that both have agreed to respecting "international" law, and pretending that there exists a power above either of them.
None of this would apply to the UFP/Dominion relationship.
By what right? It's insane to think that anybody would have the right to traipse to location X and declare it their own. This is only possible if said anybody is a military power, capable of acting with impunity, at least until meeting with a greater military power.
Bajor demanding the Gamma end is no different from the Dominion demanding it. Both no doubt have laws saying they can do it. Neither has the greater right, except of course in their own greedy eyes.
Timo Saloniemi
There is a difference. And this may be simplifying it a little much, but if I had some sort of tunnel that led from my basement to some location down the street, I'd want to control the other end.
Now, it's been a while since I watched DS9, and alas my dvd's are currently in storage. However, iirc, Bajor did establish a colony on the GQ side in previously unclaimed space. Now, weather you see that as flag planting or not, that does establish a Bajoran presence on the GQ side. That area would then be considered Bajoran space. Then come the Dominion, with their Bigger is Better point of view, and destroys the colony.
Now, it's been a while since I watched DS9, and alas my dvd's are currently in storage. However, iirc, Bajor did establish a colony on the GQ side in previously unclaimed space. Now, weather you see that as flag planting or not, that does establish a Bajoran presence on the GQ side. That area would then be considered Bajoran space. Then come the Dominion, with their Bigger is Better point of view, and destroys the colony.
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