ALL SCI-FI Forum Index ALL SCI-FI
The place to “find your people”.
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

TOS episode #23 - A Taste of Armageddon
Goto page Previous  1, 2
 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    ALL SCI-FI Forum Index -> Star Trek on Television
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Gord Green
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 06 Oct 2014
Posts: 2940
Location: Buffalo, NY

PostPosted: Sun Jun 02, 2019 2:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Of course they used the terms most familiar to them. Phaser...disrupter….little difference in effect. There may have been differences in technical terms, but little difference in the effects they produced.
_________________
There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Bogmeister
Galactic Fleet Vice Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 574

PostPosted: Mon Jun 03, 2019 12:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

____________
______ Classic Star Trek: A Taste of Armageddon


__________


__

A somewhat clever science fiction concept, regarding the different manner in which another society may wage its wars: totally by computers.

In this supposed enlightened method, the buildings and the culture continue — the populace obediently reports to disintegration chambers to fulfill an agreement with the enemy planet after each computerized attack. So, the fine architecture, on display above, doesn't get touched. All you lose is an 'acceptable' percentage of the population.



This all sounds very clinical, very clean, if not a bit in the 'patriotism gone mad' spectrum — but it's probably the clinical aspect which outrages Kirk the most; that and the fact that his beloved starship is declared a target almost immediately.

I don't think he even remembers, at this point, that another Federation ship was lost 50 years earlier in this manner — one of the reasons the Enterprise is checking out this sector — it's his ship that counts.



To be fair to this society on Eminiar VII, they did warn the Enterprise to stay away from their system. But the problem here again is an annoying Federation bureaucrat, ambassador Fox (played by Gene Lyons; see also the previous The Galileo Seven for another such representative).

Fox places more value on a successful diplomatic mission than on the lives of all the crew and the ship. This does not endear him to Kirk, Scotty — or the audience, for that matter.



Speaking of Scotty, he had some of his best scenes of the first season right here. Placed in command of the Enterprise for most of the episode, he gets to shine in his confrontations with Fox and the 'mealy-mouthed' Anan-7 down on the planet.

My favorite scene takes place when Scotty informs Anan-7 that the Enterprise will destroy the surface of the planet in less than two hours. It sounds horrible as so described, but it's sort of a validation of a starship's power and, by extension, Starfleet.

Actor Doohan learned by this point how to infuse as much melodramatic impact on such pronouncements as possible. We secretly thrill to this opportunity Scotty has in throwing his starship's weight around — following Kirk's orders, of course.



For Kirk, it's his chance to play God once more (see the previous Return of the Archons), literally transforming an entire culture overnight — not in theory, but in practice!

To be fair to the captain, one can argue his hand was forced after his ship was targeted. But I, for one, get the sense he's really enjoying himself. Give him any excuse, he'll change the way a planet does things, maybe even as simply retribution for daring to threaten his ship. Kirk gets to show a very tough, even somewhat nasty side to his nature here — but war does tend to bring out the worst in people, doesn't it?



The depicted society of Eminiar VII does pose many questions and problems, despite the outward appearance of prosperity and technological comfort (another nice matte painting here, though not as successful as previous ones for Starbase 11 in The Menagerie and Court Martial).

Anan-7 (David Opatoshu in a nicely-layered performance) himself inadvertently suggests where the priorities of this so-called culture lie when he tells Kirk that he'll try to spare his starship, but that the human beings inside it are definitely goners. Things — material things — definitely take precedence over humanity here.

There's something inherently repulsive about living, thinking beings marching into oblivion at the 'suggestion' of computer results — another aspect making this similar to Return of the Archons — like so much programmed ants. I could understand Kirk's disgust and I noticed Spock was on his side all the way without even a word of debate about something called The Prime Directive.

BoG's Score: 7.5 out of 10



Extra Trek Trivia:

~ Apparently General Order 24 is Starfleet code for 'destroy the planet.' This does not present Starfleet or the Federation in the usual pacifistic light. However, this could be a code within the code, as in a bluff (a favorite tactic of Kirk's).

~ Guest actress Barbara Babcock turned up as another character in the 3rd season's Plato's Stepchildren; she also provided her voice in The Squire of Gothos.

_________________ Remastered version of cityscape:





BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17020
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Wed Jun 05, 2019 6:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

After posting Bogmeister's review of this episode, I became eager to watch it again.

And since Netflix allows me to stream any episode of ANY Star Trek series — any time I want, without even leaving my sofa — I just grabbed my remote and had that sucker playing on my big HD TV faster than you can say, "Beam me up, Scotty!"

God, I love living in the 21st Century! Very Happy

I quickly realized that BoG's rating of 7.5 for this episode short-changed it. The episode is packed with everything that true Trekkers love.
________________________________

Sidebar: A "Trekker" is an intelligent person who appreciates the imagination of this series and respects the fact that its stories are based on science. These are the people who admired Issac Asimov and Arthur C. Clark.

Conversely, a "Trekkie" is just a "groupie" — a young person from the 1960s who formed emotional attachments for the attractive stars, and who fantasized about romantic encounters!

Elvis and Shatner had groupies. Asimov and Clark have admirers.

I've always objected to the two terms being used without regard to the difference. Rolling Eyes
________________________________

Anyway, this episode offers so many of the elements which make TOS great.

The Enterprise encounters a new world with a society who could beome valuable members of the Federation . . . right after Kirk knocks some sense into their heads and stops them from killing their own people because they can't stand the idea that bombs would destroy their beautiful cities! Shocked

Meanwhile, Jim has to deal with a bureaucratic asshole who thinks he can ignore all the rules and boss around the folks on this new world. He eventually finds out that Kirk has more knowledge about how things work in the galaxy in his little finger than Mr. Diplomat does from his noggin down to his pinkie toe!

The episode clearly shows that Kirk didn't "play God" in situations like this . . . he simply offered the voice of Common Sense.

The Prime Directive didn't apply in this situation, because the "natural development" of this planet had been circumvented by the cowardice of it's leaders. They prevented the planet's populace from making a choice to either go to war with the other planet or surrender to them.

The same can be said for the other planet as well! In both cases, the governments chose to force their citizens to conform to a system that caused the unnecessary deaths of millions of people.

Captain Kirk simply broke the cycle of government tyranny and returned the populace to a situation in which they could chose a way to deal with the situation. To me, that conforms to the Prime Direct's basic principle better than just allowing these two planets to suffer under the cruel regimes which forced them to sacrifice themselves for no logical reason.

_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:10 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Pow
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 3400
Location: New York

PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2021 1:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"A Taste of Armageddon" Fun Facts.

SF author David Gerrold said that the Eminiar 7 war computers tallies were a statement about the network nightly newscasts that began to broadcast the death tolls from the Vietnam War.

Those death tolls on the news were one of the factors that eventually would turn the majority of the American public against the war.

But the powers-that-be learned an invaluable lesson from back then. Notice we rarely air what the death count in our overseas Middle East Wars are on any regular basis?

The Vietnam War came into our living rooms every single night with the news. Our Middle East Wars (two at the same time) were not regularly reported.

If ya don't show it all the time then people won't protest against it, will they?

This is the first episode to mention the full phrase United Federation of Planets.

Barbara Babcock who plays Mea 3 in this episode amassed quite a few ST:TOS credits.

She provided the voice for Trelane's mom on "The Squire of Gothos,"

She would also do the voice work for the Beta 5 computer and Isis on the spin-off pilot episode of ST:TOS "Assignment:Earth."

The voice of the alien on "The Lights of Zetar."

She would be the voice for the alien Tholian captain Loskene on "The Tholian Web."

She would appear on screen as the evil telekinetic Philana on the episode "Plato's Stepchildren."

Scriptwriter Robert Hamner penned this episode because he was fearful that if humanity would not change their ways regarding the buildup of nuclear weapons, Armageddon could be just around the corner for all of us.

Scotty says that he is unable to fire full phasers with the ship's shields up. But that he could "treat" the Eminians to a few dozen photon torpedoes.

So, photon torpedoes can penetrate the Enterprise's shield but phasers cannot?

Also, just how does Ambassador Fox & his aide beam down Eminiar 7 when the ship's shields are up?
The transporter wouldn't be able to penetrate the ship's shields.

Jimmy Doohan said that guest star Gene Lyons (Ambassador Fox) was completely discombobulated during filming. Lyons was a fine actor but he just did not "get" science fiction and the dialogue confused him.

Gene Lyons (1921~1974) is best remembered as part of the cast on "Ironside" where he played Police Commissioner
Dennis Randall.

Even if poor Mr.Lyons was unable to comprehend SF fully while performing in this episode, I thought he was marvelous as Ambassador Fox.

Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) was scripted to beam down with the Enterprise landing team to Eminiar 7.

Instead, Yeoman Tamula (Miko Mayama) would take Rand's palce.

Miko & Burt Reynolds lived together for four years.

David Opatoshu (Anan 7) was considered by Gene Roddenberry for the role of the Enterprise's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Boyce, in the first Star Trek pilot "The Cage."

David and William Shatner co-starred eight years earlier in the film "The Brothers Karamazov."

The gorgeous matte painting of the Eminiar city was done by the legendary Albert Whitlock. It would resurface to appear as the planet Scalos city in "Wink of an Eye."

A number of items seen on this episode would be recycled for other episodes.

The necked view screens used by the Eminiar Council had also shown up on the Enterprise itself in both the pilots "The Cage," and "Where No Man Has Gone Before."
As well as in Commodore Mendez's office on "The Menagerie."

The statue seen in Anan 7's apartment was also seen in Sam Kirk's lab in "Operation-Annihilate."

Ambassador Fox's aide's outfit would be seen on Arne Darvin in "The Trouble with Tribbles."

The emitters on the Eminiar hand gun would reappear as the three-headed scanner devices used on "The Ultimate Computer," and "The Doomsday Machine."

Mr. Spock refers to his race as Vulcanian in this episode. The term would also be used on "Mudd's Women," & "Court Martial" before it would disappear and only the word Vulcan was utilized from then on.

Eliminated from an early draft was a romance between Kirk & Mea 3.

Could call, a romance would have cluttered this complex script and taken away the focus from the eternal war theme.

The script also established Mea 3 as Anan 7's daughter.

Hmm, I don't recall that being mentioned on the episode that they were father & daughter.

Final cost for this episode was $196,486.

Interesting how this episode is about a planet that is in a state of perpetual war for centuries.

The United States has not been at war for centuries yet, but we do continue wars nonstop.

In the excellent book "Sorrows of the Empire" the author writes that this constant state of war that the US wages will ultimately be our undoing.

The billions poured into our perpetual futile wars are billions not going into space exploration, medical science, education, employment, infrastructure maintenance, repair, replacement, universal healthcare...you name it.

Former POTUS Jimmy Carter stated that this is why China is so far ahead of America in every measurable way.

Although China is a brutal dictatorship & maintains a large military force, they don't do two critical things the US does.

Their budget for the military is not nearly as enormous as ours is. And they have not been at war constantly.

Therefore, they can channel their resources into productive endeavors. We cannot.

We sacrifice the blood of young men and woman is these asinine wars. If they manage to return from a war they can have shattered bodies, shattered souls.

This episode of ST:TOS doesn't delve into Eminiar 7's perpetual wars as being profitable for that planet's bankers, arms dealers, politicians, and pure ego.

They could not really address those issues in an already complex story line that had only sixty-minutes of airtime to tell their tale. But those issues remain our realities.

As I watch this episode over the years, I can see just how it parallels our own nation. This episode becomes more and more powerful to me since the very first time I say it.

Endless, forever wars don't have to take place on alien worlds.

We got 'em right here & now with no end in sight.

No end except possibly our country.


Last edited by Pow on Sun Jun 13, 2021 11:45 am; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17020
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sun Jan 10, 2021 6:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

An impressive post, Mike! My freezer cup ran out of beer twice while reading it! Fortunately my fridge didn't suffer that mishap . . . . Cool





Keep 'em comin', sir. I promise I'll stay well stocked so that I can continue to enjoy your contributions to All Sci-Fi! Very Happy
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
johnnybear
Mission Specialist


Joined: 15 Jun 2016
Posts: 442

PostPosted: Sat Jan 16, 2021 9:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree, Pow! What is the point of it all? Greed is on behalf of our so called leaders and always has been! We elect them to take care of our daily lives and give us food, not to get us involved in a perpetual state of conflict every few years!

The suicide stations as named by Kirk and Spock in this episode remind me of the young men feeling so proud to serve their countries in times of strife and yet really they're serving governments, and when they are injured physically or mentally afterwards those same governments turn their backs on them!

A friend of mine, sadly RIP, told me once that during the first World War his grandfather was imprisoned for refusing to go and fight and he was incarcerated with lawyers, doctors, architects and authors. All the mentally upper classes who saw the futility of war and it's gruesome results!

My own grandfather fought in WW1 and I still think of him as a hero which he was, but he was blown up by his own side and spent most of his life in ill health riddled with shrapnel and discarded by the elite running the country!!!

I'm so glad I'm beyond the limit of military training, and even if I wasn't, I'd be looking forward to that cell with the equally clever people!
JB
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Pow
Galactic Ambassador


Joined: 27 Sep 2014
Posts: 3400
Location: New York

PostPosted: Sun Jun 13, 2021 1:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From The Nitpicker's Guide For Classic Star Trek.

As the Enterprise approaches the planet of Eminiar VII, the High Council sends a message for the star ship to stay away. Uhura reports that Eminiar VII is sending "Starfleet code 7-10."

It is established that the last contact made with Eminiar VII by the Federation of Planets was via the USS star ship Valiant fifty years earlier.

Starfleet codes must not have changed much in five decades.

Item: I don't really find this a plot flaw. Indeed, perhaps some Starfleet codes may not have changed in that length of time. If it ain't broke don't fix it might well apply here.

Bureaucracies can move at a snail's pace; even in the 23rd century.

And if the residents of the planet still retained the knowledge of Starfleet code 7-10 from their encounter with the Valiant centuries ago; wouldn't they use it to warn off another Federation vessel?

Perhaps the High Council is well aware that they have a very old code that may well be outdated but still decide to try it on the Enterprise. Why not gamble that the code could still be relevant for all they know? At least they tried to tell the star ship not to come to their planet in the hopes of saving them from the same doom that befell the Valiant earlier.

Captain Kirk and his landing party are not included in the casualties of the latest attack, yet a resident of Eminiar VII, Mea 3, who is a representative of the High Council, is declared deceased by the war computers.

Mea was standing right next to Kirk and his crew members when the attack took place.

The enemy utilizes fusion bombs which they then materialize over targets and then detonate...mathematically speaking of course.

Fusion bombs wouldn't discriminate.

The attack by Vendikar that would have killed Mea 3 would most certainly have also killed Kirk and company standing nearby her.

Item: We currently have weapons that are reported to be very precise & surgical in taking out enemy targets. Although none of 'em are perfect and civilian casualties still tragically remain.

However, could a case be made that with the astonishingly advanced (and horrific) war technology in the future era when Star Trek takes place, a planet could develop such exact weaponry? Would they be able to calculate such an exact target designation that would only kill one or more specific individuals standing in a crowd?

Could the fusion bomb be reduced in scope so as to kill one person among many?

Would an enemy planet go to such lengths and expense to achieve this even if they were able from a technological point?

Remember: Eminiar VII & Vendikar have been at war with one another for five hundred years. So each planet would only desire to murder the other planet's population in so far as to allow their insane war to continue for centuries.

Neither planet dares launch such a devastating attack upon a huge number of the populations that would end the war.

Perhaps they would create surgically precise weaponry so that they would not kill too much of the population; that way it would allow their planets to also go on with their natural order of life and commerce...and their ongoing idiotic war.

As the mob would say, wiping out too large a portion of the populace of the enemy planet would be bad for business.

Ruler of the High Council, Anan, orders an attack by Eminiar VII upon the Enterprise using the planetary disrupters.

Sulu reports the beams utilized by Eminiar VII to hit the Federation star ship use "extremely powerful sonic vibrations."

So these would be sound waves.

As the Enterprise remains in orbit well above Eminiar VII, how can sound waves impact the ship since sound waves do not travel in the vacuum of outer space?

This last point may have already been covered, so forgive me if I'm rehashing it again.

Ambassador Fox orders Scotty to drop the Enterprise's protective screens so that Fox and his aide can transport down to Eminiar VII, but Scotty refuses.

Later on, we see that Fox and his aide have indeed beamed down to the planet just fine. There's no scene or dialogue that establishes that Scotty relented to Fox's demand to lower the screens for the ambassador.

Doesn't the Enterprise, or any Federation star ship for that matter, need to lower their screens in order to be able to utilize the Transporters to materialize individuals onto a planet, another ship, or space station?

So if the ship's screens prevent a person from transporting through 'em, just how did Fox & company arrive upon the planet's surface since Scotty would not lower the screens in the first place?

Sophisticated technology that allows Anon's voice to sound just like Kirk. Sophisticated technology that allowed the Enterprise to realize it was not kirk's voice.

Something that I always wondered; did the High Council truly believe that a star ship captain would order his crew to beam down to a planet for shore leave, and that the resident's of the planet would transport up and man the Enterprise's stations in the absence of the crew?

Might have been cool to see an episode of Star Trek: TNG visit Eminiar VII & Vendikar. Both planets would now have been at peace with one another for seventy-five years now.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17020
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2021 8:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

An excellent analysis of this episode, Mike. Very Happy

The flaws you pointed out (the sonic weapon allegedly working in space, the shields that might have been lowered, etc.) are all spot on.

Concerning the fact that the lady was a "casualty" but the people around her were not is indeed a puzzle. I would suggest a simpler solution.

Since the casualties are all hypothetical, not actual deaths, perhaps the computer is programmed to designate a certain percentage of the people in a given area as casualties. And the names of the "kills" are selected by the computer at random from a list of people who normally reside within the kill zone.

The computer takes into account the fact that at any given moment there would people on the surface, people in the upper levels of buildings, and people in the basement levels. Therefore, some folks would survive, just based on where they happened to be.

The computer simply spares the statistical number of people who might survive, based on the various locations in the kill zone which are less vulnerable to the bombs.

In other words, the computer wasn't able to pinpoint the exact location of each individual citizen, and therefore it didn't take into account where each "victim" was actually located at the moment of the attack.

This would prevent people from deliberately spending most of their time in the "safer areas" to avoid being casualties! Shocked

As for the fact that the landing party was not selected when Mea 3 became a casualty, the computer used a list composed of living citizens of Eminiar VII. Kirk and company would not be on the list. They only got picked when the Enterprise was supposedly destroyed. That's why the landing party becomes casualties even though the attack was on the ship in orbit.

So, a victim's precise location is not a factor in their selection by the computer.

It's important to note that the city itself is not designed to withstand actually nuclear weapons being detonated above it. So, the "fake war" seems to be designed to simulate repeated "surprise attacks" on cities that are completely unprepared for war.








This crazy fake war allows the population to enjoy its advanced society and culture instead of living underground where they'd be safe from actual atomic bombs. All they have to do is . . . commit suicide when they're ordered to do so. Rolling Eyes

As you stated, the whole "war" is a dumb idea, and Kirk was right to stop it.

_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    ALL SCI-FI Forum Index -> Star Trek on Television All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2
Page 2 of 2

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group