Star Trek TOS - Season 1 - Episode 23
Star Trek TOS - 1x23 - A Taste of Armageddon
Originally Aired: 1967-2-27
Synopsis:
The Enterprise is diverted by two planets fighting a computerized war. [Blu-ray] [DVD]
Problems
- Why do these aliens look exactly like humans?
- How can the Enterprise be attacked by "sonic" weapons through the vacuum of space, in which no sound can travel?
Factoids
- The USS Valiant was lost at this planet.
- This is the first episode to solidify the term "United Federation of Planets," a trend which I much enjoy as opposed to the often popular TOS term "United Earth" or just "Earth."
Remarkable Scenes
- The revelation that the war on this planet is a computer simulation and that people are executed on each side, like some sort of a lethal game.
- Spock: "Sir, there's a multilegged creature crawling on your shoulder."
- Scotty: "The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank."
- Scotty refusing the moron diplomat's orders.
- Kirk destroying the "war computer."
- Kirk: "I've given you back the horrors of war."
- Kirk convincing Anan to open peace talks with his enemy.
My Review
The premise of this episode, while interesting, is a bit incredible. I don't see how any sane civilization would just "volunteer" casualties like this. Though it's no more hard to believe than the fact that this completely alien race looks exactly like humans. They've had pretty good excuses so far, but not this time. Additionally, we once again have an annoying, completely useless high ranking Federation official as a guest on board the Enterprise who arrogantly attempts to call the shots. Despite the failings of the plot in this episode, the ending is true to the spirit of Star Trek. Kirk's actions are a bit shady in terms of violating the prime directive, but as Kirk said, "it was a calculated risk." In this case the ends seem to have justified the means.
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
Wow, so again I must dissent from the review and the average rating and say that I'm much more positive on this episode! (As with "Return of the Archons".)
I suppose as a more "causual viewer" of Star Trek and not a dedicated Fan, this might be expected as I'll not be bothered by some of the understandable Fannish concerns. I did guess that there would be some objection to Kirk and the crew's actions as regards the Prime Directive, but thought the objection from Fans would be stronger.
I'm not bothered by aliens looking like humans without further explanation, personally. I generally accept a sci-fi "parallel evolution", or perhaps "genetic seeding" conceit to explain this and I just apply that to Star Trek, but I suppose I'm learning here that this isn't the way it works for ST Fans in the ST Universe.
Also, I'm not bothered by the Prickly Federation Official (TM) as I think it sometimes makes more dramatic sense for the Enterprise crew to be more-or-less on the same page and for the opposing point of view and conflict to come from others in the Federation. Otherwise in order to explore issues and choices that come up in the plot, you can sometimes get contrived arguments between the crewmembers that aren't always consistent with their characterizations, IMO.
This is, however, the first time I was really bothered by the Useless Epilogue (TM) on the bridge, which is just insulting, IMO, even to 1960s audiences who were, I'm sure, perfectly capable of grasping the themes and motivations of the preceding story. This episode should have ended before the needless wrap-up and silly Spock-needling humor.
Dissenting from the review, I found the actions of the society plausible, especially if I consider a generation raised on this notion (as opposed to the first few generations who did this.) I would imagine that what we didn't see in the episode was periodic pockets of dissenters who don't go along with the program and are probably underground and controlled by strong police measures. If I just assume this exists but didn't play a role in the story, then the plausibility increases.
Not to be controversial here for the sake of it, but the parallel that comes up for me with our own society is in certain areas of modern welfare-state wealth redistribution. Bear with me and I'll explain.
Even those who support such things--just about everyone--do acknowledge when pressed that what's going on there is that property is taken coercively from some in order to give to others.
If someone comes up and hits you and grabs your wallet--we call it theft. But by having a "civilized" system of coercive taxation where some of the money is simply handed over to others, we don't tend to see it as "theft" in the same way (at least most do not) even though on an abstract level something is being taken forcibly by some and given to others.
People who think such "wealth redistribution" is a positive good (likely many ST Fans) often offer the practical argument: "Well, if we didn't do this, then the poor would rise up and just take what they want more directly. You'd have a rebellion of sorts by the 'underclass' and things would get really violent. By forceably redistributing wealth in this more 'civilized' fashion, we avoid that ugliness from taking place."
Ever heard that? I'm sure most have. Now, I realize that taking property forceably isn't as morally wrong or a violation of rights as killing--theft is a lesser crime than murder, obviously--but I think the principle here is similar to what we saw in the episode. Some view the above "practical" argument for wealth redistribution as basically advocating that rather than a government protect people from criminal theft, it should simply do the job of potential criminals for them. Some find that notion disturbing in the same way as the scenario here in the episode--just of a lesser degree.
I hope the similarity is clear. In that case, the government provides a surface-level "civilized" version of something which might otherwise normally take place in a more brutish, violent and ugly manner. To head off the one kind of "theft", you introduce the other. Is that really so different from what the society in this episode was doing as regards war?
Finally, what I loved about the episode was Kirk and crew taking a principled stand against all of this and taking positive steps--without debate--to end the horror of what was going on. Kirk's solution of acting the part of the violent "barbarian" to basically frighten the misguided leaders, and the notion that if one takes away the visceral horror and property and infrastructure damage of war then it becomes more "acceptable" and therefore prolonged, was quite thoughtful, IMO, and it was enjoyable to see Kirk playing all of this out with some style and even humor.
I found the whole crew to be displaying the kind of "heroics" acting from moral certainty I'd personally prefer more of in Star Trek, but I realize goes somewhat against the tone and "message" of the show and what Starfleet is supposed to stand for and so on--and that this is dear to the show's Fans, which I respect. So it makes sense that stories like this which appeal to me are few and far between, and maybe confined to TOS alone.
If I imagine this same scenario playing out in, say, Voyager, I realize there would be a whole business of Janeway or Chakotay or whoever trying to make a case for non-intervention into this horror, which would probably have me yelling at the screen!
Obviously I really loved this episode.
In answer to David (off-topic, I know) I have to say that taxation gives to all, to finance public institutions and infrastructures - it doesn't "take from some and give to others".
Either way, I find this episode very interesting. The irritating diplomat was, well, irritating, but he did provide a more complex plot than might otherwise have been the case. It could have been improved by a better defence of his side of the argument - someone on the crew siding with him, for instance - because otherwise it just turns out as "diplomacy is bad". Fox did have a point and although his blind trust was annoying, he was right (sort of) to try to find a peaceful solution. The problem is that as he's a complete idiot it's rather hard to see it.