History Headscratchers / StarTrektheOriginalSeries

*** It's the fact that his solution was one that could be abused to kill off anyone he didn't like and just claim they didn't meet his criteria.

Kirk and Spock seem to have entirely forgotten that they have already encountered a Romulan ship with a cloaking device. However it is mentioned it was new cloaking device.

* In "Spock's Brain," Bones uses The Teacher to get the smarts necessary to reinstall Spock's brain. Unfortunately, it wears off before he's finished, and using it again will kill him. So why didn't they bring down Nurse Chapel or Doctor M'Benga to take over, and have either one already standing by with The Teacher as soon as Bones started faltering?

*** Was it really the cruelest and worst option though? Kodos wasn't using eugenics to create master a race, he was using it in response to a potential extinction-level disaster in order to save as many lives as possible with a limited food supply that wasn't enough for everyone. The idea was that he crunched the numbers and determined the maximum number of people who could survive on their remaining food till the date of the scheduled supply ship delivery using the strictest rationing scheme possible. As for the idea that he acted too quickly, the situation kind of mandated quick action. Every day he failed to act was a day the food would continue to be consumed at an unsustainable rate, meaning he'd have to add more people to the execution list in order to make up for the additional food loss. As for the idea of volunteers or a lottery, the problem there needed to be some way to ensure enough mission-critical people would not be selected. Think about it. Suppose the colony only has 20 people who can maintain and repair the power grid. What if all 20 people get selected by the lottery? That means the colony would still get wiped out if their power grid suffers any malfunction, or it means they have to take those people off the list, which basically renders the entire lottery system illegitimate and it would need to be scrapped. If one accepts that some people must die for the colony to survive, then it's logical to accept that a system needs to be set up to ensure the people who aren't selected are the ones most qualified to ensure the colony would survive after losing half its workforce. I'm not saying what Kodos did was right, it just seems like it was a desperate choice motivated by cold logic rather than evilness. I could easily imagine a vulcan making the same choice. None of the other characters in the episode ever mentioned a viable alternative to Kodos' plan, which means either there were no other alternatives, or they never bothered to think of any, which leaves them in a poor position to judge what he did when they hadn't looked into the matter. Again, this seems why the writers had to include the part about the supply ships arriving early to render his plan unnecessary. It's like they wanted to make him evil, but accidentally failed to do so by creating a situaiton where he was motivated by pure desperation to save all as many people as he could save rather than evilness, and so they had to include the part with the early supply ships so that his evilness would not be in dispute. And that's a shame because they lost a chance for a story with profound ethical and pragmatic questions about what really was the right thing in that situations. As it stands, no one came up with a plan that would have had a greater chance of saving the most lives in the event that the supply ships didn't show up early. I agree it would have been better if the colonists had voted on the plan instead of him just carrying it out as a dictator, but that's simply an issue with the process for the plan, not the plan itself.

*** Was it really the cruelest and worst option though? Kodos wasn't using eugenics to create master a race, he was using it in response to a potential extinction-level disaster in order to save as many lives as possible with a limited food supply that wasn't enough for everyone. The idea was that he crunched the numbers and determined the maximum number of people who could survive on their remaining food till the date of the scheduled supply ship delivery using the strictest rationing scheme possible. As for the idea that he acted too quickly, the situation kind of mandated quick action. Every day he failed to act was a day the food would continue to be consumed at an unsustainable rate, meaning he'd have to add more people to the execution list in order to make up for the additional food loss. As for the idea of volunteers or a lottery, the problem there needed to be some way to ensure enough mission-critical people would not be selected. Think about it. Suppose the colony only has 20 people who can maintain and repair the power grid. What if all 20 people get selected by the lottery? That means the colony would still get wiped out if their power grid suffers any malfunction, or it means they have to take those people off the list, which basically renders the entire lottery system illegitimate and it would need to be scrapped. If one accepts that some people must die for the colony to survive, then it's logical to accept that a system needs to be set up to ensure the people who aren't selected are the ones most qualified to ensure the colony would survive after losing half its workforce. I'm not saying what Kodos did was right, it just seems like it was a desperate choice motivated by cold logic rather than evilness. I could easily imagine a vulcan making the same choice. None of the other characters in the episode ever mentioned a viable alternative to Kodos' plan, which means either there were no other alternatives, or they never bothered to think of any, which leaves them in a poor position to judge what he did when they hadn't looked into the matter. Again, this seems why the writers had to include the part about the supply ships arriving early to render his plan unnecessary. It's like they wanted to make him evil, but accidentally failed to do so by creating a situaiton where he was motivated by pure desperation to save all as many people as he could save rather than evilness, and so they had to include the part with the early supply ships so that his evilness would not be in dispute. And that's a shame because they lost a chance for a story with profound ethical and pragmatic questions about what really was the right thing in that situations. As it stands, no one came up with a plan that would have had a greater chance of saving the most lives in the event that the supply ships didn't show up early.

* In the episode "Conscience of the King", Kodos is naturally denounced as an abomination for what he did on Cygnia Minor. But that was made easy by the mere fact that it turned out killing all those people was unnecessary since the supply ships arrived early enough to save the colony before it ran out of food. But what if they hadn't? Suppose the supply ships didn't arrive early and there really wasn't enough food for the colony to survive unless they removed 4,000 people from it? With that criteria in mind, what was Kodos supposed to do? Let everyone die for the sake of morality? Heck even if that was his plan, chances are the colonists would decend into anarchy and start slaughtering each other for the last scraps of food well before that happened. So what was his alternative? Suppose Kirk was in charge instead of Kodos? What would Kirk have done? It's a shame none of the characters in the episode pondered this question, and didn't really have to since the mere fact that the supply ships arrived early made it moot.

[[/fodler]]

* On the bridge above the workstations around the walls there are squares displaying starfields. I always assumed they were computer screens/monitors but recently while rewatching the series it got me wondering if they were supposed to be windows and the reason they never changed was a budget one and/or because it was too difficult a special effect to pull off. Simarly, in some early episodes in the transporter room on the wall opposite the door next to the console is a large painting of a Star field and it got me wondering if that was supposed to be a painting or if it was actually meant to be a window.

** ''Enterprise'' was being harassed by an unknown hostile vessel, they had a assassin aboard, and Captain Kirk was wounded: this was a bona fide emergency. Spock made the right decision; his place really was on the bridge. You've got to remember that a ship is exponentially more handicapped with each link that is removed from its chain of command. With Kirk out of commission, Spock had to take his place, which meant that ''Enterprise'' was deprived of not only it's most experienced and talented officer in the command chair, but also of her best science/intelligence officer manning the sensors. If Scotty had to take Spock's place, ''Enterprise'' would then no longer have Starfleet's best engineer keeping the ship together if they found themselves in a firefight. Spock needs to focus on keeping the ship, its crew, and the ''entire diplomatic party'' alive. Also remember that if there's a battle, then there are going to be wounded, and then the entire medical situation changes. Treating Sarek is ''not'' going to be the top priority in a triage situation. Sarak was stable, so medical teams would focus on people who couldn't wait. If that unknown ship attacked in earnest, then there was a good chance the surgery wouldn't happen regardless of Spock's decision.

** If it was the intention of that episode to show that women shouldn't be in command then I think it failed (or maybe executive meddeling for good muddled the message). Kirk seems obviously sympathetic to the whole women can't command predictment. He outright says it isn't fair and the final line of the episode seems as if its suggesting her madness was brought about by the unfair system.

* This was one of the best episodes in season 1, but a few things stand out. The second half the episode is all about the landing party trying to get their communicators back so they can contact the Enterprise. But wouldn't the crew back on the Enterprise suspect something was wrong after going such a long time with no contact from the landing party and just beam down some more communicators? Also, was there ever any explanation for why the planet looked exactly like earth, and seemed to be set in the 1960s? It seemed like they just completely forgot about that issue right after bringing it up. Finally, how could the colony have been there for more than 300 years? The original series takes place in the 23rd century. 300 years before that, Earth didn't have the technology to be setting up colonies on other planets.

** Those are all good explanations. Very impressive. I just found it odd because I was under the impression that open space in Star Trek was a lot less regulated then real life airspace is on earth, at least within the federation. It's a shame the later episodes never really made a big deal about any of these issues again. I would have liked to see this examined a bit more closely: How open space can be regulated and rules are enforced.

So supposedly when Kodos the Executioner killed 4000 people, there were only 9 known witnesses who ever saw him. Then how in the hell do they have his picture on file? Why would they need any witness to identify him when his picture was in federation records and his crimes were public record? Even then how did the other 3991 survivors never see him? Surely a colony's senator declaring martial law is not only going to make himself public, but would've been seen long before he took power anyway. Furthermore, he could not be 100% identified from a charred body--sorry, but it's the 23rd century, do they not have DNA testing yet? No ability to check dental records? That's just ignoring the fact that cosmetic surgery is easy and common--if a Klingon can look human, why can't one man change his appearance just slightly to avoid such identification? He didn't alter his appearance in the least (this might make sense if only a few witnesses could ID him, but his photo is in the records!). Plus how would his daughter have ever found out unless his photo was in the records? Come the (BEEP) on here!

** In Corbomite Maneuver, Kirk is visibly annoyed by Rand's constant hovering, griping about the "headquarters genius" who assigned him a female yeoman. [=McCoy=] asks him if it's because Kirk doesn't trust himself with female yeomen around, to which he replies he already has a female to worry about, and her name is the Enterprise.

* Spock and [=McCoy=] are VitriolicBestBuds - we should note that Spock in the first place does not seem to be really offended by [=McCoy=]'s jibes, while reacting to slurs (by other characters, e.g. Evil!Kirk in The Enemy Within) which are really ''meant'' as such. Also - [=McCoy=] scores quite a lot of {{Insult Backfire}}s, as [[TheSpock Spock]] is actually ''glad'' to hear that he's "utterly emotionless and governed by logic alone".

*** Or he was trying to maintain the façade that Evil!Kirk was an imposter and not part of him.