Damage - Spoilers Inside!

[Derek]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Speaking of avatars, I noticed we can supersize our avatars.

<- It just looks wrong being so big.[/colorost_uid0]

[Nan]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I like it! I can use the Hawkgirl icon that my friend made me this way. [/colorost_uid0]

[Nan]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Plus, a Mace of Smiting is much better than a Naginata.[/colorost_uid0]

[mudshark]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0="Derek"]Speaking of avatars, I noticed we can supersize our avatars.[/quoteost_uid0]
Oh, [iost_uid0]that's[/iost_uid0] what it is. Mine just started doing it all by itself yesterday. Doesn't quite have the resolution to be that large, does it?

Edit: Yeah, looks better in the smaller size.[/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I agree. You can do much more with this size.

<-- Line of Sea Cats.[/colorost_uid0]

[sweetclover]

[quoteost_uid0="mudshark"][color=#000000ost_uid0]Didn't recognize you without your Kes avatar.[/colorost_uid0][/quoteost_uid0]
[color=#000000ost_uid0]Better? [/colorost_uid0]

[Zeke]

[quoteost_uid0="Kira"][color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0="Zeke"]Excuse me? Need I remind you who was the [iost_uid0]last[/iost_uid0] Starfleet captain to make a daring mission to steal some kind of warp coil?[/quoteost_uid0]

Pfft, from the Borg.[/colorost_uid0][/quoteost_uid0]
[color=#000000ost_uid0]I agree, but it's worth noting that by the same reasoning, it's fine to rob banks -- they gouge customers with high interest rates and they have plenty of money anyway. [/colorost_uid0]

[Kira]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][iost_uid0]We are the Bank of Montreal. You will be assessed a service fee. Resistance is futile.[/iost_uid0][/colorost_uid0]

[Gatac]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Actual similarities to banks I know withstanding...

Standard diplomatic protocols don't really count with the Borg. You blow them up or they get you, and they can not be reasoned with. (Unless you're Kathryn Janeway, but in that case, stop reading this thread and get some more coffee, you look tired.) The Federation and pretty much the rest of the galaxy is involved in an undeclared war with them. Under such circumstances, raiding (if possible) is reasonable, even to b expected. It's Guerilla tactics, because, compared to the Borg, the Federation's not really all that strong in a direct confrontation.

Now, Archer's victims...that's first strike policy. Archer effectively reduces himself to a pirate there, and it's not even September 19th. They have not engaged in any hostile acts, they are not dangerous, they have not (as far as we know) done something that would justify an assault. Archer's the aggressor here, and he knows it, which gives him the blues.

The Bank example falls flat because the sheer size and material wealth of the Borg collective does not justify stealing from them. Their attitude and the inability to enter negotiations with them does. If I were to declare a state of war on the Bank of Montreal (me as head of my own little nation) after failing to have any meaningful negotiations with them, and that would follow them sending a few bankers and accountants around to kidnap my family and brainwash them into working for them, it would be justifiable for me, upon conquering their bank safe Rambo-style, to loot their cash - as far as I am aware, that's not a war crime. It would look bad if I specifically robbed the lockers of private customers of their valuables instead of merely targetting the catch-all money reserves, but we're not doing that with the Borg - they're basically *all* money reserves.

Sure, it's not normally legal, but we're in a state of war. A lot of things are justifiable when you're eating a machinegun sandwich. It's ugly, sure, but you're already in some deep slag when you're doing it - nicking some money is the least you could do.

So, in conclusion, the Borg example still doesn't count for me.

Gatac[/colorost_uid0]

[Marc]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]

A number of Trek episodes -- such as "Damage," "In the Pale Moonlight," "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges," "Equinox," and "The Void" -- explore variants of the same tough moral question. Simply stated, that question is: When you face a situation in which the only apparent way to survive is to do something immoral, should you sacrifice your principles for the sake of survival, or should you stay true to your principles even if it means that you might not survive?

Trek has sometimes ducked around this question by offering a "third way out" -- for instance in "The Void," in which the Voyager crew manages to escape the Void *by* observing the principles of the Federation. (This episode reminded me of Kirk's great reply to Mara in "Day of the Dove," in which she argues that the Klingon Empire must expand by conquest in order to survive: "There's another way to survive: mutual trust and cooperation.") It's interesting to note, however, that Janeway's position in that episode is to put principle ahead of survival ("If we're only going to live for a week, let's do so as a Starfleet crew," or words to that effect).

Janeway's position parallels the absolutist ethical statement made in the movie "Judgment at Nuremberg" by the tribunal's presiding judge (played by Spencer Tracy) when he delivers his verdict. In his verdict, he makes reference to the political pressure to acquit the defendants brought onto him by the U.S. authorities, who want the West Germans as allies against the Russians and who feel that you don't get people on your side by sentencing their leaders to prison terms. Tracy's character says that in times of crisis, when a nation is threatened by an enemy, people sometimes feel that adopting the methods of the enemy is the only possible means of survival. He then says sharply, "The question becomes, Survival as *what*?" He argues that a nation "is what it stands for; it's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult, when it's tempting to look the other way, to do what is expedient rather than what is right."

What makes episodes like "Damage" and "In the Pale Moonlight" ethically difficult is that they explore the question of whether there is a point at which a moral wrong *can* justify a larger good. How small does the wrong have to be (say, stealing someone's warp coil?) and how large does the good have to be (say, saving billions of people?) before one is justified in taking that action? (To paraphrase Picard's comment in "Insurrection": How many does it take before it becomes *right*?)

"Damage" and "In the Pale Moonlight" are not episodes about whether such actions are right or wrong, because they clearly acknowledge that they are wrong. Rather, they are about whether these actions are *justifiable*. Both Archer and Sisko conclude that their actions are necessary ("Because I have no choice!"), but it is left up to the viewer to wrestle with the question of whether they made the right choice. What is clear in all these episodes, however, is that such choices should be made in full awareness of the excruciating ethical issues that they involve. It is unquestionably wrong to take unethical actions without remorse or hesitation, and the episodes are all clear on at least this point.

[/colorost_uid0]