NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DammitVictor" data-source="post: 9083217" data-attributes="member: 6750908">Thing is... as much as this episode interrogated that trope, I think it rejected and rebuked it as fiercely as anything else Star Trek has ever done.M'Benga killed three Klingon officers with a knife. They were enemy combatants and war criminals in a declared war zone, his actions saved millions of civilian lives and thousands of his comrades, and he is haunted by them nevertheless.Starfleet Intelligence somehow got their filthy meathooks on Dak'Rah, and between them they cooked up a story about his "crisis of conscience" and his defection to the Federation. They made him an ambassador in both the formal and informal capacities. If his remorse for his atrocities was genuine, what better way to atone for war crimes than to work to prevent more wars? If he's just a coward and a hypocrite, his work for the Federation is still saving countless Federation and Klingon lives. And even if he's a double agent for the Empire... the work he's doing to maintain his cover is still advancing the cause of peace more than the cause of war.Starfleet isn't killing millions of people for "the greater good". They're not murdering Klingon civilians or their own civilians in the name of peace. Dak'Rah has probably, in legitimate self defense and/or military necessity, killed a handful of people since his defection... but nowhere near as many and nowhere near as innocent as beforehand. He was a monster, but whether or not he's still a monster, Starfleet has neutralized him and found a noble use for him.With the same knife, M'Benga and/or Chapel killed a single Klingon ambassador, out of an admirable sense of duty and justice; time will tell whether that knifework will eventually cost the Federation (and the Empire) more lives than M'Benga's original knifework saved. Many, many people in the Federation will sleep easier knowing the Butcher of J'Gal is dead; the families of the Klingons that M'Benga killed will sleep easier knowing-- however falsely-- that their deaths were avenged. No Klingon will mourn Dak'Rah's death.And Pike has his duty to Starfleet, his duty to the Federation, his duty to truth and justice, and his duty to his crew. He suspects the truth, and knows what he'll have to do if he knows the truth, and has to weigh his duties in deciding how hard he wants to press to find out.Everyone (except possibly Dak'Rah) is a good person here, and everyone was acting on morally good impulses-- but their actions all had consequences, they all had price tags and toe tags attached, and the episode ends with Captain Pike having to make the same kind of decision knowing it'll have the same kind of consequences.It's the opposite of HARD MEN, and the fact that we-- the audience-- are discouraged from cheering for any of them drives that point home.</blockquote>

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