General order 24, were Kir kand Scotty bluffing?

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by JT Perfecthair, Aug 30, 2013.

  1. RPJOB

    RPJOB Commander Red Shirt

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    The Enterprise was violating their territory in spite being being explicitly told to stay away. As soon as they ignored that then everything they did was illegal. No amount of hiding behind orders and regulations can change the fact that Starfleet and the Federation were totally wrong.

    And what was Fox's justification? He wanted to establish a Treaty Port. Sounds innocent, doesn't it?

    Treaty ports are essentially ports opened to foreign trade against the wishes of the host country, usually by threat of attack by a stronger power. "We need/want a port here and you're going to give it to us regardless of your own wishes.."

    So much for the Federation and their much touted non-interferance policy.

    I would imagine that shortly after the Enterprise left that the war started up again, this time with real, as opposed to virtual, weapons.

    We may not understand how their virtual war worked but it was their system and the only casualties are those ships that ignored the code 7-10.
     
  2. BillJ

    BillJ Fleet Admiral Admiral

    The problem being that they didn't have some type of waiver system built into their war "treaty" to cover such an eventuality. Kirk would have happily left but was forced into settling their war for them because of it.
     
  3. Gov Kodos

    Gov Kodos Admiral Admiral

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    Bullshit. No one has to put up with being shot at. Emeniar and Vendikar could have left other worlds' ships out of their little war they chose not to. Once they started killing alien citizens they were taking the chance of adding new enemies to their war. The Federation has every right to defend their people. If Emeniar and Vendikar didn't want other people involved in the war they should have refrained from making them part of it.
     
  4. Grant

    Grant Commodore Commodore

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    I agree, the time scotty was prepared and ready to commit genocide was indded his finest hour!
     
  5. Melakon

    Melakon Admiral Admiral

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    The episode did give us one good blooper.

    Kirk: Do you mean to tell me. . .(Shatner goes blank). . .That was quite a thing you told me!
     
  6. Push The Button

    Push The Button Commodore Commodore

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    You are ignoring the big picture. Eminiar and Vendikar were committing genocide (ironically against their own people with those disintegration booths) for 500 years. Kirk's ordering of, and Scotty's implementation of General Order 24 would have ended it, once and for all.

    Scotty, being the man that he was, knew that Kirk had a really good reason to give that order, and that it wasn't given lightly or for a trivial reason. A lesser man may have second-guessed Kirk, or simply wimped out and refused to carry out such an order, but Scotty stood by his captain.

    A real-world parallel would be the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which ultimately saved lives in the long run by bringing WWII to an end in 1945, instead of allowing the fighting to continue for several more years.
     
  7. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer I am the modman, goo goo goo joob Moderator

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    A textbook example of 23rd century "cowboy diplomacy". :techman:
     
  8. Grant

    Grant Commodore Commodore

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    Look up the word genocide.

    What they were doing for 500 years was absolutely not genocide.

    1 to 3 million deaths a year is not genocide

    55 to 60 million people on earth were killed in WWII--that's 10 million a year and Earth population ingeneral wasn't anything close to being exterminated--in fact the earths overall population grew during that 6 year period.

    Spock himself said the solution had a certain logic to it---a planet commiting genocide would not fall into thaty category.

    Wars, famine and diseases kill a lot more people on earth every year than 3 million and we are not facing planetwide genocide or extermination.

    Scotty's statement "....in one hour the entire inhabited surface of your planet will be destroyed."

    IS genocide and I'm proud the writers had the guts to have the Ent crew willing to do it to save the lives of their hostages. if only we had the guts to commit genocide to prove to our adversaries how tough and badass we are!
     
  9. Push The Button

    Push The Button Commodore Commodore

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    Sorry Grant, incorrect use of the word genocide on my part.
     
  10. Gov Kodos

    Gov Kodos Admiral Admiral

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    Tough shit.
     
  11. Commishsleer

    Commishsleer Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Scotty knew in his heart of hearts that he wasn't going to have to carry out that order. He knew Kirk was going to resolve the situation. He knows Kirk's that awesome. Everyone should know that by now after 40 years.
     
  12. Gov Kodos

    Gov Kodos Admiral Admiral

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    I imagine he hoped so. The episode takes the MAD doctrine (mutually assured destruction) and turns it on its head here. The two planets were a danger to anyone who came near over the last centuries of their Gameboy war. They'd made the war manageable, perhaps even a grim population control system that kept off the burdens of overpopulation. We have no idea how fairly their system selected people for the disintegration booths so who knows whether they were doing some social culling through this process. Kirk and co. brought real war back to them and real planetary obliteration, whether from Enterprise within the hour or Vendikar down the road. Kirk assumed, and was born out right, that folks of any small sense would back down from letting such firepower loose.
     
  13. MarsWeeps

    MarsWeeps Fleet Captain Premium Member

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    I don't think General Order 24 was about destroying the entire inhabited surface of Eminiar 7. General Order 24 was about BLUFFING to destroy the entire inhabited surface.

    If time had run out, we would hear Scotty say "Well, they didn't fall for that bluff, now what?"
     
  14. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'm sure Starfleet has both sorts of orders: one for terminating a planet, another for bluffing on that. The second really needs the first in order to work...

    Whether GO24 is the one about bluffing or terminating, it's more difficult to tell. We never see or hear what Scotty does or discusses with the crew; all we see is his "public face", his threats to Anan 7.

    How did Fox beam down when shields were raised? Well, funnily enough, there's nothing in TOS about this being impossible! It's the beaming up that can't be done when shields are raised. One also has to wonder how Scotty could fire phasers without dropping shields - and perhaps the explanation is one and the same: shields only stop stuff from coming in, not from going out.

    How did he bypass alarms, then? Well, he did outrank Kirk, at least in his own opinion, and at least to a degree allowing him to transport down using Kirk's hardware. He could simply have told the transporter operator to bypass the alarms for him. Or then he or more probably his aide would have had the necessary skills for bypassing them.

    As for the illegality angle, this seems to be confusing "illegal" and "wrong", as well as "legal" and "right". All war is illegal: no nation's laws allow for armed intruders to come traipsing in. The Allies were breaking lots of German laws in opposing Hitler, the legal and sovereign ruler of not just his own country, but (after the fact) all those lands he had conquered. Doesn't mean the Allies were wrong.

    As for international law, we don't know if such exists in TOS. Even if it does, the one Kirk's people have signed would obviously contain clauses allowing for Kirk's people to do as they please in cases like this. If it didn't, Starfleet would just wipe its collective warp cores with the paper.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  15. jpv2000

    jpv2000 Captain Captain

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    That is the best kind of diplomacy there is. ;)
     
  16. GSchnitzer

    GSchnitzer Co-Executive Producer Moderator

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    Let us consult the Sacred Texts....

    In reviewing the Revised Final Draft shooting script for "A Taste of Armageddon," dated December 12, 1966 written by Robert Hamner and Gene L. Coon, just after Kirk orders General Order 24 and says "I didn't start it, Councilman. But I'm liable to finish it," there is actually another scene that didnt make it into the final cut of the episode:


    INT. BRIDGE

    Scott is sitting silently in the command seat. McCoy stands
    by, staring sympathetically at him. There is a long moment
    of silence.

    McCOY

    Are you going to do it?

    SCOTT

    You heard the captain. The order was clear.

    McCOY

    They'll die down there.

    SCOTT

    Blast you, McCoy! Don't you think I know that?

    McCoy stares at him, shakes his head, turns away and stands
    there silently, staring at nothing. The bridge is totally silent.


    It doesn't look like it was supposed to have been a bluff.
     
  17. BillJ

    BillJ Fleet Admiral Admiral

    I never thought it was suppose to be a bluff. I never understood people who watched the episode that thought it was a bluff. I think it was more wishful thinking because they didn't want their heroes to be making those types of decisions.
     
  18. MarsWeeps

    MarsWeeps Fleet Captain Premium Member

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    I actually never thought it was a bluff but this thread got me thinking and I allowed for the possibility of a bluff. In fact, the more I think about it, the more a bluff makes sense. A captain has to have 2 other officers agree to set the auto destruct on a Starship but a simple order from him is enough to exterminate an entire planet? I don't think so.

    If such an order actually exists, I would envision it coming from Starfleet with multiple methods of confirmation and cross checking and even then, it would require 2 other command officers to agree to it.
     
  19. The Old Mixer

    The Old Mixer I am the modman, goo goo goo joob Moderator

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    I think it was a bluff only in the sense that Kirk was confident that it wouldn't come to that. Call it leverage.

    Had the Eminians (?) made the wrong decision, and Scotty started the bombardment, I'm sure they would have quickly been begging for mercy. If Kirk and Spock were dead, accepting their surrender would be Scotty's call, as he'd be captain.
     
  20. RPJOB

    RPJOB Commander Red Shirt

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    Eminiar and Vendikar were not a threat to shipping. They posted a big "Do Not Enter. This Means You" sign in the form of Code 7-10, a code that is apparently an internationally know standard.

    Fox is looking for a port, presumably for search & rescue or emergency repairs as well as trade. A Treaty Port is also one that is imposed by a more powerful power against a lesser one, essentially giving them no choice but to accept.

    Kirk could have refused to follow Fox's order. It wouldn't be the first time and he'd be in the right.

    As further proof that Eminiar wasn't to blame for the loss of life in the quadrant let's look at this.

    They've never ventured beyond their own solar system. So they are not attacking anyone. We know that they are at war. Again, that does not involve the Federation. The Federation are the ones that ignore the warning and place themselves in a war that they know nothing about.

    Eminair and Vendikar are simply sitting in the own system, telling everyone else to stay out in no uncertain terms. It's their system. What they do there is none of our business. We may find it appalling but it's not for us to judge.

    Unless the Federation is going to take it upon themselves to stop every war that they come across then they have no business getting involved in this one.
     
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