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The Crystal Entity; Where do we draw the line?
Topic Started: Aug 16 2005, 05:53 AM (213 Views)
Franko
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As Q points out occasionally, there's some bad stuff out there.


You must admit, the Crystal Entity was bad news. Living beings was it's favourite snack.

That Armus dude that killed Yar was pretty grotesque. Then there are the predator species. The Borg, the alien creatures in "Conspiracy". There's likely all sorts of species and life forms out there that just don't really "share our sense of right and wrong", as Sloan would say.

Riker once remarked that he believed that "everything in the Universe has a right to exist.". I pondered that one for quite sometime. It sounds good at first glance, but I'm not sure that as a morally driven being that I wouldn't at some stage impose limits to that kind of a philosophy.

Is there really such a difference between the Crystal Entity and the Doomsday Machine? Sure, one possesses artificial intelligence that has run amok, and the former is a product of nature, or so we are led to believe.

Personally, I'd put most of them out of their misery. The Crystal Entity (which eventually did buy it), that Armus guy (I think they still call it MURDER) and a few other entities that might irk me if I were supreme commander of a powerful warship.

As for the species that I dissaprove of, I would of course apply my own degree of judgement depending upon the scope of atrocities that it was in their nature to commit. I once read a SF novel about some worlds that were plundered by a high-tech cannibal race that would enslave them all and eat them. It was really quite horrifying. Once you got into it, nobody was really arguing "philosophy". It boiled down to one of the victimized worlds making a treaty with another powerful race that could protect it. However the only way to resolve it was to wipe out the distasteful cannibal race. Which was done. And everybody lived happily ever after.

If you've read this far, I think you know what I'm driving at here. I believe that the Federation should inflict it's values upon the Cosmos. Oh, I'm sorry. I meant to say Human.


Alright. Let me have it.



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DEFIANT
Commodore
Everything has a right to exist unless they don't have warp drive (TNG's Homeward).

I'm not sure about an actual line being drawn....it's good to have precidents and rules to help make captains and others fair but I also think that each case should be looked at individualy.
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Hoss
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
Species only have the rights that they claim and defend. If the dinosaurs had a right to exist and the universe killed them, then the universe is seriously flawed.
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Fesarius
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Admiral
Quote:
 
Riker once remarked that he believed that "everything in the Universe has a right to exist.". I pondered that one for quite sometime. It sounds good at first glance, but I'm not sure that as a morally driven being that I wouldn't at some stage impose limits to that kind of a philosophy.

Franko,

That's an intriguing thing to ponder. I too would impose limits, somehow interwoven with what is morally absolute. (I know moral absolutes exist, it's just that these are difficult to define.) I believe that Yarnek (The Savage Curtain) would agree with this. His line (below) about having the same right as that which brought Kirk et al. to the planet is quite thought-provoking:

Do you have an explanation?
You established the methods and the goals.
For you to use as you chose.
What did you offer the others if they won?
What they wanted most-- power.
You offered me the lives of my crew.
I perceive you have won their lives.
How many others have you done this to?
What gives you the right to hand out life and death?
The same right that brought you here--
the need to know new things.
- We came in peace. - And you may go in peace.
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8247
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Apparently we look like this now
Franko, How could you say such things? The Crystal Entity had a RIGHT TO SURVIVE! The Federation believes that every creature is sacred. Even the most tiny and insignificant little cricket. They would have been able to talk to the entity if that crazy mother hadnt killed it. I'm ASTOUNDED at your insensitivity in this matter. The Federation could have worked hard to find an alternative food source for it, but I guess people like you would rather shoot first and ask questions later. :realmad:


:whistle:
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Franko
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^^^^^^


Now that's more like it.


I think I'll cover myself in honey now and offer myself to the nearest hungary grizzly bear.


I mean, let NATURE rule, right?


;)


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8247
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Apparently we look like this now
^^^

Thats RIGHT! Every animal's right to exist supercedes a human because they're so cute and cuddly. :lol:
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HistoryDude
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Shaken, not stirred...
Great question! And exactly the types of issues that Star Trek meant to bring up! :yes:

Some points I have based on what you all have written--

First off, obviously the attitude is completely different in Star Trek than today and the whole principal of Rodenberry's vision is that peace and complete toleration is totally achievable. Even in his utopic vision, however, it was not necessarily always attained.

I think the attitude that every living thing has the right to exist is a completely appropriate philosophy for Riker and others in the Federation, especially Starfleet, to espouse. No conflict on Earth. No poverty. No starvation. Technology that makes the mind boggle. I mean, they don't even need to rely on slaughtering livestock for meat! That philosophy, despite PETA's wishes, is more difficult to concur with today. In my Christian view, I feel it is okay to kill cows for steak and chickens to eat and so forth. I believe God created them for that purpose. This does not mean we can slaughter animals wholesale for no good reason, mis-treat them or be inhumane, nor kill them for one object such as the elephant or rhino merely for their ivory husks/horns. God has given us these animals for our use, but we are to be good stewards of those blessings and preserve them for future generations. Now a Christian living in the 24th Century that can replace killing a cow with nutritionally replicated meat that has no side effects and serves the same purpose as the real thing can now let all cows live! However, even then, one could argue that some traditional purists would still eat real steak, sort of like Picard's brother still making wine in the traditional fashion and won't touch synthahol.

Another point to keep in mind is that although Riker says everything has the right to exist, that right implies that the thing existing respect the rights of others! In the case of Armus, if they could destroy it, they would have done so and it would have been to save members of the crew. This would mean, then, a peaceful coexistence. So although the Federation tried to communicate and negotiate with the Borg, they had no interest in such, and so war it is. Same with any conflict the Federation would have engaged in the Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans, whatever.

In the case of the crystaline entity, Picard raised an interesting thought about the way it exists. He compared it possibly to the sperm whale that goes about the oceans swallowing millions of plankton along its way and that's just the way it exists. All arguments about humans being able to reason aside, putting humans on the same scale of the food chain as plankton was thought-provoking to me, to say the least! :P But again, his reasoning that perhaps there was another way to provide food to this thing and thus try to communicate with it.

Again, though, some people aren't interested in communicating...
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Swidden
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Adm. Gadfly-at-large; Provisional wRench-fly at large
At some point, as in the case of the Crystal Entity, it's right to survive interferes with the rights of others to survive. Now admittedly, in the CE's case a single individual made the decision to destroy the creature. What we do not know is whether any understanding would have been possible. If it was simply an "animal" incapable of reasoning then there would have been two possible solutions: Containment or "putting it down."

A TOS comparison might be the Cloud creature from "Obsession". Apparently this one was intelligent. As was Armus. Still there was no reasoning apparently possible with either the Cloud or Armus. At that point it becomes a question of "kill or be killed". If you allow the blatantly hostile entity to survive many more will die. Neither is a pleasant choice.
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Franko
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HistoryDude
Aug 24 2005, 12:22 PM

In the case of the crystaline entity, Picard raised an interesting thought about the way it exists. He compared it possibly to the sperm whale that goes about the oceans swallowing millions of plankton along its way and that's just the way it exists. All arguments about humans being able to reason aside, putting humans on the same scale of the food chain as plankton was thought-provoking to me, to say the least! :P But again, his reasoning that perhaps there was another way to provide food to this thing and thus try to communicate with it.

Again, though, some people aren't interested in communicating...



Good commentary, HD and Swidden.


I guess there would be certain situations we would encounter in the kind of world that Star Trek portrays that sometimes would have no perfect moral solution.

The destruction of the Crystal Entity was an act of personal revenge; as opposed to the idea of applied justice. I think it was appropriate for Picard to use every effort to communicate with it and try and understand it. Who knows, maybe we could have directed it change it's diet.

I think it would have been interesting sometimes in some of the Star Trek series to have episodes where we make some bad mistakes; I thought sometimes that there were resolutions and endings to certain situations that were a little too "perfect." That is not usually how the real world or nature works. However, we do want to be rewarded for our values and ethics most of the time.

At any right, I'll see you at the next Tribble Hunt. :lol:


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