"A Taste of Armageddon" - Season 1, Episode 23
Star Trek ponders if there's too little of a bad thing.
In 2020, the CDC estimates that 350,831 people died due to COVID-19 infection. Doing rough math, taking the middle of March as the first relevant day, that’s around 1,209 people daily. Rougher still is that the initial number is conservative, in that it does not count the deaths of those with underlying conditions that were exacerbated by the virus, instead only counting those for which COVID-19 was the true underlying cause as determined by a certifying physician. To give some perspective, around 117 people died on average every day in car crashes in 2022. One of these numbers is “normal” and the other was extraordinary. One is priced in and the other exogenous. Somewhere between 117 and 1,209, we start noticing.
In “A Taste of Armageddon,” the Enterprise encounters a society that has normalized such high levels of violence and death as to be unimaginable. Conservatively, and on average, the conflict at the center of the episode kills 2,740 people daily, if Anan 7 is to be believed. And while the central plot takes a keen interest in the Cold War and offers a surprisingly full-throated endorsement of Mutually Assured Destruction, it’s the 2,740 that leaves the most lasting impression.
Kirk talks with Anan 7, the primary antagonist of the episode, played by David Opatoshu. Opatoshu had previously acted alongside Scotty actor James Doohan in an episode of The Twilight Zone and went on to win a Primetime Emmy for a guest spot in Gabriel’s Fire in 1991. His portrayal here is effective at drawing out sympathy for Anan 7, who is one of the most put-upon and pitiable antagonist the show has portrayed.
The Enterprise arrives on Eminar VII seeking to establish diplomatic relations with its people, under the temporary orders of the on-boarded Ambassador Fox. Fox has more than a little Commodore Perry in him though; relations are to be established at all costs, under the threat of retaliation, and with the objective of providing a safe port for Starfleet ships in Eminar VII’s corner of the galaxy. Kirk chafes under the man’s single-mindedness and lack of concern for the Enterprise’s crew, and while it’s odd to see Starfleet so explicitly colonial, it’s a nice reminder that the Enterprise is truly a war ship in construction, if not in operation. As Fox reminds them, it could subjugate the whole planet if necessary.
Once beaming down, Kirk and Spock are met by two Eminarians, Mea 3 and her father, Eminar VII’s head executive Anan 7. They explain that relations are impossible to establish due to the “war,” now five centuries developed, with their neighboring planet Vendikar. But despite their protestations, the war seems anything but raging. An “attack” comes in with no explosions or weapons detected by the Enterprise. Anan 7 then explains a mass psychosis with surprising lucidity. This war is not fought with weapons, it’s fought with computers. Imagine “Risk” with higher stakes than annoying your uncle right before dinner. Computers on both planets register and transmit attacks, calculate casualties, and order the populace to report to execution chambers if it wasn’t their lucky day. As Anan 7 says, “The people die, but our culture goes on.”
The crew observe an “incoming attack” from Vendikar. Vendikar is established to have been a breakaway colony of Eminar VII, now a mortal enemy locked in a 500 year long war with it’s parent planet.
The Eminarians and Vendikarians are quick to locate the source of “culture” in property and infrastructure rather than the people who actually use those things and make them valuable. Anan 7’s explanation gets a bit beefier later, when he notes that this method avoids disease and famine as well, but it seems clear that the two planets view “culture” as something akin to a score in a game of Sid Meier’s Civilization. It’s a collective accomplishment that lives outside the populace, embodied in physical objects of tradition. It’s not far off from how fascists talk of a "national spirit” that can be “reinvigorated” through war, a purging of undesirables, or both. The Hitler particles in this solar system register as elevated. As Anan 7 says, his people “have a high consciousness of duty.”
The episode itself quickly loses interest in the quasi-fascist myths it’s telling; in fact, it arguably endorses them. Kirk somewhat accepts the premise to argue against the planets’ conclusions. After typical “Trek” plot happenings, Kirk and Spock manage to destroy the computers running the war, an outcome that should cause the launch of real weapons from both sides. But Kirk tells them they have forgotten what war is. “You’ve made it neat and painless,” he says, but “the pain is what makes it a thing to be avoided.”
“I’ve given you back the horrors of war.”
Kirk moves to destroy a disintegration chamber while Mea 3, played by Barbara Babcock, attempts to stop him. Mea 3 is an intended casualty of the recent attack who argues strenuously for her right to die. This is one of Babcock’s earliest roles, who became a regular TV actor in the next few decades, landing a main part on Dallas and winning an Emmy for her work on Hill Street Blues.
I find it surprising that 2,470 deaths on average, daily, is not a horror. A society that could accept such loss would be nothing but a planet-spanning death cult. What the Eminarians and Vendikarians managed to do was eliminate the chaos of war, but not its horrors. Through computers they made those horrors controlled, managed, and orderly. Through disintegration chambers they made them unseen beyond their sheer scale. Through “a high consciousness of duty” they made them seem almost natural.
The destruction of the computers ends it all though; the fear of social breakdown sparks negotiation. Most prior criticism of the episode focuses on this end, how the threat of total destruction on both sides leads to an armistice and the end of a 500 year old war. Given the context of the time, it’s hard not to see this as arguing for the benefits of mutually assured destruction. Once the bomb exists, everyone needs to have it?
No. Not only is this unsatisfying it’s contradicted by the episode itself. The two planets already had weapons. They just negotiated the means by which they would not use them; their solution involved a genocidal game of risk. It was not that they discovered mutually assured destruction thanks to Kirk’s actions, it’s that they were forced to confront the problem directly instead of obliquely. It’s frankly telling that neither the cause nor aim of the war is ever explained. War simply must be a metaphor if the episode is to provide any sort of insight. Hence my interest in everything that happens before Kirk plays Teddy Roosevelt.
The matte painting of Eminar VII’s unnamed capital city, where much of the action takes place. This painting was done by Albert Whitlock, who created some of the most striking images in Star Trek’s original run with his work.
In a 1973 short story called “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” the science fiction writer Ursula K. LeGuin briefly describes the utopian city of Omelas on first morning of its Festival of Summer. There is no pain or struggle in Omelas. There is no famine or disease or war. “[L]et us do without soldiers. The joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and trivial.” It’s government is unknown. Much is vague, but as the narrator assures, “One thing I know there is none of in Omelas is guilt.”
The catch though, is that in a cellar there is a child. This child remembers warmth and happiness and their mother’s love. But the child is malnourished. Neglected. Abused. Afraid. All of Omelas knows of the child, and they know that their happiness depends on its misery. They are told when they too are children, and while they initially balk or panic, slowly, the logic comes to make sense. The child could not enjoy its life anyway. Freeing it would solve nothing and ruin anything. Why give up the happiness of so many for the unguaranteed relief of just one? So think those that stay. But there are those that leave too, who learn of the child and walk out of the city.
They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
The Eminarians decided, at some point, that 2,740 people dead a day from their “war” was necessary. Their “high consciousness of duty” demanded it. We accept 117 dead a day from car crashes. Granted, this is sleight of hand. It’s not truly about the numbers. Cars get us places, the Eminarian’s war did nothing beyond indulge its leaders in tactical ego games. But even if merely one person is miserable, it’s worth thinking of other possible worlds. It is possible they do not exist. But many seem to think they do, and it is possible they know where we should go.
Stray Thoughts
Spock demonstrates mild telepathic abilities in this episode and says they are latent in “all Vulcanians.” Interested to see if this comes up again, or is just an example of the episode’s fairly loose plotting. Kirk and Spock technically get “captured” but pretty much have full reign of the place they’re kept throughout. Overall, the episode’s work shows a bit too much in the moment-to-moment plotting, but it’s fascinating regardless.
I have not discussed it yet, but I love how the acting Captain always does the voice logs that lead back into the episode from commercial breaks. It makes them feel very immediate as a storytelling device. Here, Kirk is not around to do them, so Scotty records them as acting Captain.
While Ambassador Fox is an almost impossibly stupid person throughout the episode, I thought Gene Lyons did a good job embodying the man’s pompous, narrow attitude.
Photo Credits
Omelas artwork: https://bloodknife.com/omelas-je-taime/
Anan 7 and Kirk: https://powerpop.blog/2023/03/22/star-trek-a-taste-of-armageddon/
Incoming attack: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon_(episode)
Kirk and Mea 3: https://strekonline.com/2786/star-trek-the-original-series/season-1-tos/1-23-a-taste-of-armageddon
Eminar VII’s city: https://www.startrek.com/database_article/taste-of-armageddon