Okay, folks, here it is: the first episode of Trek I ever saw. And lucky for me it was one like this, otherwise my snotty 11 year old self may have just snubbed the whole Enterprise enterprise as just some dumb action show. In “A Taste of Armageddon” we see an enlightened nation’s policy thought out to its twisted, illogical end. A 500 year old war is fought by simulators, civilian casualties report to incinerators. The people die, but the culture lives on. If you’ve ever seen knucklehead Pat Buchanan on TV screaming “When a culture dies, a country dies!!!” you’ve seen the seed of this logic. Written as a protest to the Vietnam war, this is one of Trek’s finer moments. It also has some cool action sequences, aliens in funny hats and two of Spock’s greatest lines. When trying to get someone to turn their head, he dryly remarks, “Sir, there is a multilegged creature crawling on your shoulder.” And later, when he places the sexy blonde administrator (who was en route to suicide in a disintegration booth) under the guard of the sexy Asian ensign he commands, “‘Yeoman Tamara; you will stay here and prevent this young woman from immolating herself. Knock her down and sit on her if you have to.” I had to rewind that to make sure I heard it correctly. Lastly, could some super-Trekkie write me & tell me if this episode is in direct contradiction to the Prime Directive? It kinda feels like it might be, I think Kirk steps over the line of self-defense once he blows out Eminiar’s computers and forces them to talk peace.
No it does not violate the prime directive. The prime directive is for non space faring people. Or civilizations that are too behind in technology. In this one they are not that far behind. But Trek dumps all over the prime directive many times. Just not in this one.
Keep in mind that they had already destroyed one Federation ship and sent its crew into the disintegration chambers, and were preparing to do the same to the Enterprise. As soon as they undertook that action, the Prime Directive was null and void. The same with “The Apple.” As soon as Vaal attacked them directly and actively sought to destroy the Enterprise by tractoring her out of orbit, Kirk had no choice but to fight back and render Vaal harmless. “Return of the Archons” had a bit of this, as well. Landru’s society might well have been left alone, but destroying the Archon and “absorbing” its crew pretty much sealed Landru’s fate.
I agree with the two comments re: Prime Directive and I have to add that Scotty is MAGNIFICENT! “No sir, I won’t lower the screens.” Simply marvelous <3
Ynez,
What is with the <3 symbol?