Headscratchers / Star Trek S3 E12 "The Empath"

• The purpose of the test was to prove Gem's people worthy of learning "compassion for another" and an "instinct for self-sacrifice" which they supposedly did not natively possess. How did they evolve the ability to literally experience and absorb another person's injuries without those traits? Surely many have come near death while healing grievous injuries or illness. Perhaps they work in teams so nobody gets too damaged. Her outfit suggests a pretty sophisticated culture. They must have given considerable thought to how these abilities are best used.
  • What's more, you don't learn instincts - they're innate by definition. Books have been written on biological altruism, but sacrificing one's own life for (unrelated) another's is pretty stupid from evolutional point of view. It is, however, sometimes required by morality, which is not something the Vians seem to possess in great quantities - they treat the whole thing more like proof of a fascinating concept than like a dilemma. Fitting, because most ethical dilemmas (the thought experiments, not real-life ones) are artificial situations of exactly this sort, in which every sane sentient's first reaction is to look for the third option, and Gem doesn't.
  • It's clearly implied, when we first see Thann and Lal hovering over an unconscious (or sedated) Gem and fiddling with their devices, that they may have artificially provided Gem with her empathic powers (as part of the experiment).
• This is, interestingly, Trolley Problem - the Episode. Four times over (not only is Gem required to choose between her own life and the good doctor's, but Kirk's supposed to pick either a world of hurt topped with a highly probable death for McCoy or a world of hurt and highly probable madness, which would likely be a Fate Worse than Death for Spock, and both the officers decide to sacrifice themselves rather than hurt Jim's psyche). So far, so (not!) good. But - who gave these Übermensch Vians the right to cherry-pick who bloomin' lives and dies? They lack resources to relocate more than one planet, okay - but why not ask for outside help? From the Federation, if other Enlightened Space Elves are too busy contemplating their belly-buttons. They act highly immoral in treating the entire star system as their own personal playground-cum-lab, and that's a fact. Maybe the other inhabitants (Gem's people included) would even be able to rescue themselves, given a little technological prod a hundred or so years before (it's not like stars just blow up all of a sudden). Or maybe it's just too difficult to keep them under control afterwards, eh? What have the Vians been doing for the last couple of milennia?
• Once Kirk, Spock and Gem reach the Vians' lab and McCoy is released from his restraints, Kirk and Spock stand around for quite a while talking about McCoy's imminent death and other things. Why didn't Kirk order Spock to use the Vians' device to transport all four of them to the Enterprise so McCoy could get emergency medical attention in the ship's sickbay? Or (since Spock is more intelligent than Kirk), why didn't Spock either do so or at least suggest to Kirk that they do so? If Spock had tried and failed, that would have been acceptable since he had already suggested it could happen. Of course, if they had tried to do so, either the device would have failed or the Vians would have shown up to stop the attempt, but for them both to not even try to do so was extremely foolish.

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