OEG: Tapestry & In The Pale Moonlight

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

The line "The list of reasons I'm awesome is so long the only surface large enough to write them all down on is my dick," cracked me right the fuck up.

[tezunegari]

Wow.
Inter arma enim silent leges just always struck me as more moving - because in here, the Federation screws over a dedicated, patriotic individual who has done nothing wrong and is not a condescending jackass. Without half the need as in "The Pale Moonlight".

I have to disagree. While "Inter arma enim silent leges" followed a comparable story it was in all essence different.

"Inter arma" was a Bashir-centric story that ultimately had Bashirs' personality and, dare I sayy naivety, being used to discredit a Romulan who was open for negotiations. Admiral Ross / Sloan have given quite a good reason for removing her: If she is open-minded towards the Federation and willing to negotiate with them she might be willing to negotiate with the Dominion while the hardliner they put in her position was willing to work with the Federation because they had a common enemy.

In the end Bashir was left standing with accusing others of doing the lesser evil while he himself only had the guilt of following his own principles and by doing so helping them along.

And that is where "In the pale moonlight" actually surpasses "Inter arma".
Sisko goes against his principles and at the end of the episode comes to the conclusion that, though it might have put a huge dent into his self-respect, he would do it again because it was the lesser evil.

Both episodes are really good pieces of Trek but "Inter arma" doesn't reach the impact of "pale moonlight" as Bashir is actually duped into doing the lesser evil while Sisko actually decides to do it.

But if they actually had revealed Bashir in the end to have conciously decided to go along witht the plan to oust the Senator than the whole acting nice of Bashir would have shown a terrifying depth to his character. (the nice doctor actually deceiving someone).

[Stofsk]

Yeah, but that would not work because his character was never like that. Bashir has always been someone who has principles and bases his decisions on what is right. Inter Arma works better as a story of Bashir's naivete being used to manipulate him by an immoral deceiver like Sloan, and for Admiral Ross to go along with it tells a similar story to Sisko's in this episode. Ross is complicit in what happened in "Inter Arma", in fact he's the one who quotes that latin to Bashir as justification for his actions or inaction in preventing Sloan's plan.

They're two different stories of course.

[Crom]

I found your case for tolerance very compelling. It really made me stop and think. You've reminded me of one of my favorite STNG episodes and I'm glad to see it's held up over the years. I've also never watched much of DS9 but now I might.

Thanks!

[Covenant]

Note, if you want to knock the pops out of your audio, stretch something over the front of the microphone, something like cheesecloth or nylon, ideally two-thick or so with a quarter inch between them!

But glad to see these up, I'm a big fan of DS9 not for the darkness of the series, but because putting it in a rougher, darker neighborhood makes the Star Trek ethos work harder, the way it sometimes did on TOS. And this episode definately ranks as one of the best ones.

I don't even think it boils down to an issue of tolerance though. In blunt terms, we're shown many times that those negative aspects are core to humanity and essential to being a whole person--Kirk, when divested of his evil, aggressive half, became a weak and incapable leader and comes to realize that he needs both. Jealousy, Anger, Love and other unreasonable emotions were what, in TOS, turned the out-of-Galaxy hitchhikers into humans in a very literal sense. At the core Trek was an optimistic view of human society not because the humans were superior to us, but because they just worked a lot harder to be more well behaved. The Federation's humanity was written as having a dark past--in many ways it was very pessimistic about where we the viewers are headed, with Eugenics Wars and all kinds of terribleness looming before the gilded age. The theme wasn't utopia, and the crew of the Enterprise never spent much time on any colony that wasn't so far from Earth that the people were crazy, violent, or at their limit. You don't define an optimistic future by saying "it's all nice now" but by showing what it was and why it's hard, so hard that some of the defenders don't even get to enjoy it. It's closer to a kinder retelling of A Few Good Men than people admit.

And that's where I think it got back to a point I'd say I do agree with, that Sisko is showing agony of a good Federation optimist having to make a choice, one which shows not the death of the Star Trek "rosey picture," but the honest fact that being optimistic about the future and being unreasonably unrealistic about it aren't the same. Sisko's moral quandry isn't something you'd see on Battlestar Galactica or another darker vision of a pragmatist's march to the sea. It's a speech I'd like to hear from a Kirk or a Picard, and if it had been given by them, I think people would have seen it as a reminder that Star Trek's vision of an enlightened humanity was never meant to be unhitched from the internal stuggle.

Of all Trek series, The Next Generation is the only series to ever achieve the candy-coated heights mentioned, and Picard was a paragon of humanity that hated children, junior officers, and occasionally himself. Like we saw in Tapestry, and like we saw in Chain of Command, Picard was not always happy with himself, or his choices, and he knew people had limits--and also as Chain of Command shows, Starfleet is not run by carebears, and people do have problems with each other, sometimes serious issues. Tasha Yar's colony certainly was a bit more depressing look at humanity than our capacity to kill a romulan senator. If these themes are evident at the beginning of Trek's run, during the TOS movies, and at the best of The Next Generation, how are these themes antithetical only when on DS9?

Aaanyway, this board probably isn't likely to erupt into flames over the episode, but I do feel that it probably wasn't necessary to speak so long about the tolerance of opinion. It's not that Sisko disagrees with Federation policy, but that he can't see how following it will lead to anything but more evil--so it's just a message for us, rather than about the controversy itself. But I think there's nothing wrong with being a viewer with an opinion a little longer, and just admitting that the Federation, outside of Earth, has never actually been shown as a utopian society, and that this doesn't weaken the message one bit.

[Imperial Overlord]

"In the Pale Moonlight" being controversial for "straying" from Rodenberry's image is news to me. The original series had its own brushes with the lessers of two evils. "A Private Little War" had Kirk bending the Prime Directive to arm the Hill People with flintlocks, "serpents for the Garden of Eden." It's clear that everyone thinks this is terrible, but they don't have any better ideas. "In the Pale Moonlight" isn't quite the same thing, but it has antecedents in the original series.

[Steve]

In the original series Roddenberry had a bit of a leash on him. If you want to see Roddenberry's "true" vision for Star Trek, watch the first seasons of TNG.

[Big Orange]

I won't fall exactly into line, I personally think that "Tapestry" is the strongest of the two very strong episodes, and I rate "In the Pale Moonlight" 9/10 - still a great and important episode, but I found DS9's "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" a bit better plotted and Alexander Siddig is a stronger actor than Brooks. The infamous 'It's a faaaiiiiiiiiKE!!' line is a popular Internet meme because it was unintentionally funny high camp, up there with Kirk's 'KHAAAAN!!!', Vader's 'NOOOO!!!', and Leonidus' 'This! Is! SPAARTAA!!!'. However "ItPM" certainly was one of Elim Garak's finest and darkest hours - it was really his own story all along. He most certainly crossed the line, but at the same time he did these horrific crimes for "the greater good", for "the team", and not for his own selfish aggrandizement (like a true villain such as Gul Dukat). Which is in some ways all the more terrifying and uncomfortable, but realistic.

"Tapestry" is more memorable in my mind and illuminates in stark relief how average ("True Q") and awful ("Hide & Q") most Q episodes actually are, even though John de Lancie is one of the strongest and most liked reoccurring guest actors. An uplifting episode that leaves a better taste in the mouth than the high quality but bleakly cynical "In the Pale Moonlight", but without inducing a sugar overload like many of the weaker TNG/VOY episodes.

[Teleros]

Excellent reviews of two excellent episodes - very nice work there Chuck, and hope I was able to help a little .

[Imperial Overlord]

In the original series Roddenberry had a bit of a leash on him. If you want to see Roddenberry's "true" vision for Star Trek, watch the first seasons of TNG.

That was his "true vision" twenty years later, certainly not at the height of his health and creative powers, and a few years away from death. It doesn't invalidate my point that "do the crappy lesser of two evils to prevent greater horror" has antecedents in original Trek. "The City at the Edge of Forever" is another example.

[Steve]

In the original series Roddenberry had a bit of a leash on him. If you want to see Roddenberry's "true" vision for Star Trek, watch the first seasons of TNG.

That was his "true vision" twenty years later, certainly not at the height of his health and creative powers, and a few years away from death. It doesn't invalidate my point that "do the crappy lesser of two evils to prevent greater horror" has antecedents in original Trek. "The City at the Edge of Forever" is another example.

Point. And that's a particularly awesome example to make.

[Sonnenburg]

Excellent reviews of two excellent episodes - very nice work there Chuck, and hope I was able to help a little .

Thanks again for your support. Sorry I didn't reply sooner.