A TASTE OF ARMAGEDDON
By the way, anyone who reads this blog and who can correctly guess the # of post titles that are the names of Star Trek episodes...... is my hero.
"A Taste of Armageddon" - is a classic episode from what is now known as "Classic Star Trek," or "The Original Series." This first season tale - which I first saw when I was about ten - was an exciting action/adventure yarn with some unmistakeable allegorical content - content that spoke so strongly and effectively - that it spoke to me (and not in a "I'm so bad I'm telling you to get out of the room! way) when I was about ten.
The plot is not terribly complicated (back in the day, storytellers realized that good allegories had to satisfy the threshold obligation of being minimally straightforward enough so as to allow the viewer to grasp the message).
The U.S.S. Enterprise is ordered to pick up Ambassador Robert Fox, who is headed to planet Eminiar VII on a diplomatic mission. Upon arriving at the planet, the ship is warned away. Naturally, Captain Kirk decides to beam down, precisely because the ship is warned to stay away.
Beaming to the surface with a landing party, Kirk and Spock are met by a young woman, Mea 3, who tells them that Eminiar VII has been at war with its neighboring planet, Vendikar, for over 500 years (notably, what the planets are, or were, fighting over, is never discussed in the episode; as far as the viewer knows, the Eminiams have no idea. Additionally, we never see a Vendikarian, and as the episode progresses, we get the sense that if we did, he or she could not provide details in this regard either. Curious).
Mea 3 takes them to the council chambers where they find banks of computers (what her incentive is to do this is not made clear).. Eminiar's head council leader, Anan 7, (played terrifically by David Otapashu - try saying THAT one ten times fast) informs Kirk and Spock them that the two planets have learned to avoid the complete devastation of war because computers are now used to fight the war. For how long they have been used, we do not know, but they have been used for quite some time, as is evidenced by the matter-of-fact description provided by Anan 7 of how the computerized "rules of engagement" work.
When a "hit" is scored by one of the planets (each planet's computers randomly pick an area of the other planet's population and designate the citizens of that area as "marked for destruction"), the people declared "dead" willingly walk into antimatter chambers and are vaporized. The Eminians are vaporized in their own planet's chambers; the Vendikarians in theirs. The planets jointly arrived at this arrangement and have never been anything less than satisfied with it; during its entire length of operation, no cries of "foul play" have accompanied a hit; no cries of "savagery!" have been made when one planet's computer decides that one day X, there shall be ten hits instead of five; no planet's population cries "unfair!" when a target area that is selected is composed primarily of, say, babies and toddlers. To cry foul, of course, would be to disrupt the system - and the reason why the system was created was because both sides became sick of the horrors that come from having waged a real war.
Anan 7 further tells Kirk that his ship and all the crew aboard her have been declared casualties (a targeted area automatically includes the atmosphere above that area and anything in orbit directly above that area; innocent passersby, of course, are given no notice of this) and will be sent to anti-matter chambers for vaporization. When Kirk flatly refuses, he and Spock are taken prisoners (it is never observed, by the way, whether the computerized system of warfare actually has produced any beneficial effects for either society. Has it lowered either society's crime rate? Enhanced either one's economy?)
The council members are unable to convince Scotty, temporarily in charge of the U.S.S. Enterprise, to lower shields without a direct order from Captain Kirk. Meanwhile, Ambassador Fox, a pompous blowhard, has beamed to Eminiar in the naive hopes that he can resolve the growing crisis, and is also taken prisoner, marked for death.
Kirk and Spock escape (they always do) and gain control of the council chambers where they destroy the computers. Kirk tells the council members that they have made this war too easy for themselves and that they will truly experience the horrors of war if they do not learn to make peace first. Ambassador Fox volunteers to stay behind and negotiate a peace between the neighboring planets.
William Shatner, as Kirk, gets to deliver, in his inimitable style, some classic speeches here - and the speeches have bite. Kirk tells Anan 7, as the disintegration chambers lay in ruins:
"Death...destruction, disease, horror...that's what war is all about, Anan. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided. You've made it neat and painless. So neat and painless,you've had no reason to stop it."
And then, after the chambers are no longer:
ANAN: You realize what you have done?
KIRK: Yes, I do.I've given you back the horrors of war. The Vendikarians now assume that you've broken your agreementand you're preparing to wage real war with real weapons. They'll do the same,only the next attack they launchwill do more than count up numbers in a computer. They'll destroy cities, devastate your planet. You'll want to retaliate. If I were you, I'd start making bombs. Yes, Councilman, you have a real war on your hands. You can either wage it with real weapons,or you might consider an alternative--Put an end to it.
Make peace.
ANAN: There can be no peace. Don't you see? We've admitted it to ourselves. We're a killer species. It's instinctive. It's the same with you... It's instinctive.
KIRK: The instinct can be fought. We're human beings, with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers,but we won't kill today. That's all it takes--knowing that we won't kill today. Contact Vendikar. I think you'll find that they're just as terrified, appalled, horrified as you are, that they'll do anything to avoid the alternative--peace or utter destruction. It's up to you.
And observe Anan's pitifully lame arguments in which he attempts to cast Kirk as the party who would be responsible for the slaughter of millions of people:
ANAN: Captain, surely you can see the position we are in. If your people do not report to our disintegration chambers,it is a violation of an agreementthat dates back 500 years.
KIRK: My people are not responsible for your agreements.
ANAN: You will be responsiblefor an escalation that will destroy everything. Millions of people horribly killed,complete destruction of our culture here and the culture on Vendikar, disaster, disease, starvation, horrible, lingering death, pain and anguish!
KIRK: That seems to frighten you.
ANAN: It would frighten any sane man.
KIRK: Yes. You're quite right.
ANAN: Don't you understand, Captain? We have done away with all that. Now you are threatening to bring it down on us again. [Is your crew] more important than the hundreds of millions of innocent peopleon Eminiar and Vendikar? What kind of monster are you?
KIRK: I'm a barbarian. You said it yourself.
ANAN: I had hoped I'd spoken only figuratively.
KIRK: Oh, no. You were quite accurate.
*********************************************************************************
Our government, in this "Iraq War," has gone to considerable lengths to indulge Anan 7's fantasy that a war can be fought with no consequences. While we are not barbaric enough (or perhaps we are too barbaric?) to fight a war Anan-7-style, and our current enemies are incapable of fighting one, our government has done its best to do what Anan 7's main purpose was anyway - that of anesthetizing war.
Flag draped coffins of soldiers cannot be seen by the American public - by law. The President has not attended the funeral of a single soldier killed in combat. Television conglomerates refuse to air programming that honors the dead by respectfully reading off their names. The media has been enthusiastically cowed (and has enthusiastically responded to such cowing) into not reporting atrocities committed by American soldiers - for fear that it might damage "the mission" - a mission we the people know nothing about, except as it is described in solemn, smarmy platitudes planted in supposedly free Iraqi newspapers, and "reported" in government-funded U.S. television stations. Barely a word is spoken of the thousands of soldiers whose limbs have been blown off, whose bodies have been disfigured, who have developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, treatment-resistant depression, and who have committed suicide. If these facts are mentioned at all, they are spoken of by the mentioner as if they were ever-so-slightly oddly morbid curiosities and knick-knacks. The President cannot even shore up morale at photo-oped events at which the audiences are required to applaud.
Delusional notions of patriotism, which marinate in brains that have been filleted to death by the rotten stove that is religion, require that citizens accept as reality this unreality that has been so lovingly created by our four estates. Our country demands that we sacrifice our hearts and minds for some noble and bleak cause it insists we never be allowed to see, but simultaneuosly demands that we shut these things off first, lest that which we are called upon to sacrifice become recognized, with the subsequent recognition of "the horror.... the horror."*
If we do not recognize the horror, we bring ourselves ever closer to "Armageddon."
* Final words of Apocalypse Now
"A Taste of Armageddon" - is a classic episode from what is now known as "Classic Star Trek," or "The Original Series." This first season tale - which I first saw when I was about ten - was an exciting action/adventure yarn with some unmistakeable allegorical content - content that spoke so strongly and effectively - that it spoke to me (and not in a "I'm so bad I'm telling you to get out of the room! way) when I was about ten.
The plot is not terribly complicated (back in the day, storytellers realized that good allegories had to satisfy the threshold obligation of being minimally straightforward enough so as to allow the viewer to grasp the message).
The U.S.S. Enterprise is ordered to pick up Ambassador Robert Fox, who is headed to planet Eminiar VII on a diplomatic mission. Upon arriving at the planet, the ship is warned away. Naturally, Captain Kirk decides to beam down, precisely because the ship is warned to stay away.
Beaming to the surface with a landing party, Kirk and Spock are met by a young woman, Mea 3, who tells them that Eminiar VII has been at war with its neighboring planet, Vendikar, for over 500 years (notably, what the planets are, or were, fighting over, is never discussed in the episode; as far as the viewer knows, the Eminiams have no idea. Additionally, we never see a Vendikarian, and as the episode progresses, we get the sense that if we did, he or she could not provide details in this regard either. Curious).
Mea 3 takes them to the council chambers where they find banks of computers (what her incentive is to do this is not made clear).. Eminiar's head council leader, Anan 7, (played terrifically by David Otapashu - try saying THAT one ten times fast) informs Kirk and Spock them that the two planets have learned to avoid the complete devastation of war because computers are now used to fight the war. For how long they have been used, we do not know, but they have been used for quite some time, as is evidenced by the matter-of-fact description provided by Anan 7 of how the computerized "rules of engagement" work.
When a "hit" is scored by one of the planets (each planet's computers randomly pick an area of the other planet's population and designate the citizens of that area as "marked for destruction"), the people declared "dead" willingly walk into antimatter chambers and are vaporized. The Eminians are vaporized in their own planet's chambers; the Vendikarians in theirs. The planets jointly arrived at this arrangement and have never been anything less than satisfied with it; during its entire length of operation, no cries of "foul play" have accompanied a hit; no cries of "savagery!" have been made when one planet's computer decides that one day X, there shall be ten hits instead of five; no planet's population cries "unfair!" when a target area that is selected is composed primarily of, say, babies and toddlers. To cry foul, of course, would be to disrupt the system - and the reason why the system was created was because both sides became sick of the horrors that come from having waged a real war.
Anan 7 further tells Kirk that his ship and all the crew aboard her have been declared casualties (a targeted area automatically includes the atmosphere above that area and anything in orbit directly above that area; innocent passersby, of course, are given no notice of this) and will be sent to anti-matter chambers for vaporization. When Kirk flatly refuses, he and Spock are taken prisoners (it is never observed, by the way, whether the computerized system of warfare actually has produced any beneficial effects for either society. Has it lowered either society's crime rate? Enhanced either one's economy?)
The council members are unable to convince Scotty, temporarily in charge of the U.S.S. Enterprise, to lower shields without a direct order from Captain Kirk. Meanwhile, Ambassador Fox, a pompous blowhard, has beamed to Eminiar in the naive hopes that he can resolve the growing crisis, and is also taken prisoner, marked for death.
Kirk and Spock escape (they always do) and gain control of the council chambers where they destroy the computers. Kirk tells the council members that they have made this war too easy for themselves and that they will truly experience the horrors of war if they do not learn to make peace first. Ambassador Fox volunteers to stay behind and negotiate a peace between the neighboring planets.
William Shatner, as Kirk, gets to deliver, in his inimitable style, some classic speeches here - and the speeches have bite. Kirk tells Anan 7, as the disintegration chambers lay in ruins:
"Death...destruction, disease, horror...that's what war is all about, Anan. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided. You've made it neat and painless. So neat and painless,you've had no reason to stop it."
And then, after the chambers are no longer:
ANAN: You realize what you have done?
KIRK: Yes, I do.I've given you back the horrors of war. The Vendikarians now assume that you've broken your agreementand you're preparing to wage real war with real weapons. They'll do the same,only the next attack they launchwill do more than count up numbers in a computer. They'll destroy cities, devastate your planet. You'll want to retaliate. If I were you, I'd start making bombs. Yes, Councilman, you have a real war on your hands. You can either wage it with real weapons,or you might consider an alternative--Put an end to it.
Make peace.
ANAN: There can be no peace. Don't you see? We've admitted it to ourselves. We're a killer species. It's instinctive. It's the same with you... It's instinctive.
KIRK: The instinct can be fought. We're human beings, with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we're killers,but we won't kill today. That's all it takes--knowing that we won't kill today. Contact Vendikar. I think you'll find that they're just as terrified, appalled, horrified as you are, that they'll do anything to avoid the alternative--peace or utter destruction. It's up to you.
And observe Anan's pitifully lame arguments in which he attempts to cast Kirk as the party who would be responsible for the slaughter of millions of people:
ANAN: Captain, surely you can see the position we are in. If your people do not report to our disintegration chambers,it is a violation of an agreementthat dates back 500 years.
KIRK: My people are not responsible for your agreements.
ANAN: You will be responsiblefor an escalation that will destroy everything. Millions of people horribly killed,complete destruction of our culture here and the culture on Vendikar, disaster, disease, starvation, horrible, lingering death, pain and anguish!
KIRK: That seems to frighten you.
ANAN: It would frighten any sane man.
KIRK: Yes. You're quite right.
ANAN: Don't you understand, Captain? We have done away with all that. Now you are threatening to bring it down on us again. [Is your crew] more important than the hundreds of millions of innocent peopleon Eminiar and Vendikar? What kind of monster are you?
KIRK: I'm a barbarian. You said it yourself.
ANAN: I had hoped I'd spoken only figuratively.
KIRK: Oh, no. You were quite accurate.
*********************************************************************************
Our government, in this "Iraq War," has gone to considerable lengths to indulge Anan 7's fantasy that a war can be fought with no consequences. While we are not barbaric enough (or perhaps we are too barbaric?) to fight a war Anan-7-style, and our current enemies are incapable of fighting one, our government has done its best to do what Anan 7's main purpose was anyway - that of anesthetizing war.
Flag draped coffins of soldiers cannot be seen by the American public - by law. The President has not attended the funeral of a single soldier killed in combat. Television conglomerates refuse to air programming that honors the dead by respectfully reading off their names. The media has been enthusiastically cowed (and has enthusiastically responded to such cowing) into not reporting atrocities committed by American soldiers - for fear that it might damage "the mission" - a mission we the people know nothing about, except as it is described in solemn, smarmy platitudes planted in supposedly free Iraqi newspapers, and "reported" in government-funded U.S. television stations. Barely a word is spoken of the thousands of soldiers whose limbs have been blown off, whose bodies have been disfigured, who have developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, treatment-resistant depression, and who have committed suicide. If these facts are mentioned at all, they are spoken of by the mentioner as if they were ever-so-slightly oddly morbid curiosities and knick-knacks. The President cannot even shore up morale at photo-oped events at which the audiences are required to applaud.
Delusional notions of patriotism, which marinate in brains that have been filleted to death by the rotten stove that is religion, require that citizens accept as reality this unreality that has been so lovingly created by our four estates. Our country demands that we sacrifice our hearts and minds for some noble and bleak cause it insists we never be allowed to see, but simultaneuosly demands that we shut these things off first, lest that which we are called upon to sacrifice become recognized, with the subsequent recognition of "the horror.... the horror."*
If we do not recognize the horror, we bring ourselves ever closer to "Armageddon."
* Final words of Apocalypse Now
posted by EnterCenter at 8:20 PM
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