A Taste of Armageddon

"A Taste of Armageddon"

"A Taste of Armageddon" is a first-season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. First broadcast on February 23, 1967 and repeated July 20, 1967, episode #23, production #23, and was written by Robert Hamner and Gene L. Coon, and directed by Joseph Pevney.

Overview: The crew of the Enterprise visits a planet whose people fight a computer simulated war with a neighboring enemy planet. The crew finds that although the war is fought via computer simulation, the citizens of each planet have to submit to real executions inside 'disintegration booths' based on the results of simulated attacks. The crew of the Enterprise is caught in the middle and are told to submit themselves voluntarily for execution after being 'killed' in an 'enemy attack'.

Plot

On stardate 3192.1, the starship USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, is en route to Eminiar VII, to open diplomatic relations with the inhabitants there. On board is Ambassador Robert Fox, who has been sent to lead the talks and to establish diplomatic relations with Eminiar VII and its sister planet, Vendikar.

Little is known about either world's people except that they have had intrasystem space travel for a few centuries, and when the cultures were first contacted, it was learned there was a longstanding war between them. Soon afterward, the Federation Starship USS Valiant mysteriously disappeared and was reported lost.

Nearing the Eminiar world, the Enterprise receives a priority signal not to approach the planet under any circumstances. Ambassador Fox orders Kirk to ignore the warning and investigate further. Kirk sends a landing party, which includes himself, Spock, and three other personnel, down to meet with Eminiar leaders. They are contacted by representatives, Mea 3 and Anan 7, who sternly remind Kirk and his landing team they should not have come because the city has just been hit by a Vendikar fusion bomb which has killed half a million people. Curiously, everything in the city seems intact and there is no visible evidence or sensor readings of such an attack ever occurring.

The landing party soon discovers that the entire war between the two planets is completely simulated by computers which launch wargame attacks and counterattacks, then calculate damage and select the dead. When a citizen is reported as "killed", they must submit themselves for termination by stepping inside a disintegration booth. Anan 7 informs Kirk that the simulated attacks and following executions is the agreed system of war decided by both sides in a treaty with Vendikar. A conventional war was deemed too destructive to the environments and societies of both planets.

Kirk is then informed that during the last Vendikar attack the Enterprise was destroyed by a tri-cobalt satellite, and the entire ship's crew must be terminated within 24 hours. Although the landing team is exempted from execution, they are arrested and held hostage until all Enterprise crew members report to the planet for execution. Mea 3 has also been reported as a casualty.

In an attempt to lure the Enterprise crew down, Anan 7 simulates Captain Kirk's voice and orders the crew to come down to celebrate the newly established diplomatic relations with the Eminiar people. Mr. Scott doesn't buy it and decides to have the Captain's voice analyzed. When the computer determines it's a fake, he realizes the landing party, and by extension the entire ship, must be in danger.

When Mr. Scott refuses the order, Anan orders the Enterprise to be destroyed, but the ship's shields easily repel the attack. Ambassador Fox declares that the attack was just a misunderstanding when he talks with Anan 7. Anan 7 lies and declares a sensor malfunctioned and it appeared the Enterprise was about to attack. Anan 7 apologizes and extends a warm invitation for the Ambassador to beam down and talk. Ambassador Fox accepts the invitation and orders Scotty to lower the shields.

To Fox's indignation, Scott, with Dr. McCoy's support, refuses the command, considering the planet's government has obviously captured the landing party, sent a fake message to lure them down, and had just fired on the ship. After threatening to bring Scott up on insubordination charges, Fox and his aide beam down, but are quickly taken into custody and sent to be terminated.

Meanwhile, Spock and Kirk manage to break out of their holding cell by overpowering a guard and stealing his weapon. Along the way out, they stop Mea 3 from reporting to die, destroying a disintegration chamber and disabling the operator. Kirk is then recaptured by Anan 7 while trying to locate the party's communicators.

Spock and the others disguise themselves as Eminians and rescue Ambassador Fox, destroying another disintegration booth in the process. A chastened Fox accepts that he was dangerously mistaken about the situation and volunteers to fight with the others.

With Captain Kirk in his presence, Anan 7 demands that Kirk order his ship's crew to beam down and accept their fate as determined by the wargame computers. In the background, Kirk yells out to Mr. Scott to follow General Order 24, a full attack on the planet, within two hours. Kirk informs Anan the Enterprise is more than capable of destroying everything on the planet. Anan still refuses and orders the Enterprise destroyed, but it has now moved out of range. Mr. Scott then contacts Anan 7 to say that the planet has been surveyed, and the Enterprise will destroy it by Kirk's deadline if the hostages are not released. In the prevailing state of agitation amongst the councilmen, Kirk manages to overpower the guards and take their disrupters. He orders the guards and the councilmen towards the door when Spock arrives with Ambassador Fox.

Kirk and Spock make their way to the wargame computers, and once there, Kirk destroys the entire system while Anan looks on in terror. He exclaims that the planet is doomed; with the treaty broken, the people of Vendikar will fire their conventional weapons again. Vendikar had in fact been in contact already to complain about Anan 7's government being slow to meet their treaty obligations created by Kirk's interference. Now, an immediate retaliation with real weaponry is imminent.

Kirk encourages Anan 7 to instead call a ceasefire so that the two planets, with the Federation's assistance, can learn to coexist in peace. A desperate Anan agrees, and Ambassador Fox immediately offers to lead the negotiations. As the Enterprise breaks orbit, Fox reports that the peace negotiations are going relatively well.

40th Anniversary remastering

This episode was remastered in 2006 and aired December 15, 2007 as part of the remastered Original Series. It was preceded a week earlier by the remastered version of "The Return of the Archons" and followed three weeks later by the remastered version of "Day of the Dove". Aside from remastered video and audio, and the all-CGI animation of the USS Enterprise that is standard among the revisions, specific changes to this episode also include:

• The planet Eminiar VII has been given a more realistic Earth-like appearance. Patterns of lights from densely populated areas can be seen on the dark side of the planet.
• The surface city backdrop has been digitally enhanced and appears more realistic. A moving tram and people walking in the background have been added to the scene.

Reception

During the final act of the episode, Captain Kirk delivers a speech insisting that war must be brutal and messy so that man knows that it is something to be avoided. "Destruction. Death. Disease. Horror. That's what war is all about."He concludes that the two planets have made war such a clean, sterile, and painless process that they no longer understand the true toll of warfare.

Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode a 'B+' rating. He described the story as "one of Trek's classic allegorically powerful, common sense implausible scenarios". Handlen criticised a premise that had "a few too many holes to sustain its attempts at profundity" but praised the story's ambition.

The episode is notable in that it envisions computer wargames between two players at vast distances, generations before the invention of the internet and multiplayer online strategy games.

Spinoffs

The DC Comics version of Star Trek had a storyline called The Trial of Captain Kirk, written by Peter David, which contained follow-ups to many TOS episodes. It was revealed therein that the peace talks broke down, and a nuclear war took place — completely obliterating Vendikar, and rendering a third of Eminiar a radioactive wasteland. This was further stated in some of the stories in the various "Strange New Worlds" anthologies, as well as the William Shatner novel Preserver, although these stories are not considered canon.

See also

Dulcie and Decorum

External links

• A Taste of Armageddon on StarTrek.com
• Review of the remastered version of A Taste of Armageddon at Trekmovie.com
• A Taste of Armageddon at Memory Alpha
• A Taste of Armageddon at IMDB