1x23 A Taste of Armageddon

[8.5/10] One of the things that I love about Star Trek as a franchise is that across so many different series, it offers episodes that combine an interesting moral or political though experiment with adventure and creative problem solving. “Taste of Armageddon” is not the first episode of TOS to follow this tack, but it’s one of the best embodiments of this recurring blueprint throughout the Trek universe.

The thematic element of the episode (I wouldn’t dare call it subtext given Kirk’s speech at the end) is the old chestnut about whether there can ever be a truly “civil” war. In an attempt to open diplomatic relations between the Federation and the Eminians, Kirk and company discovery that this planet has devised a bizarre form of warfare with another planet in the system. They fight their battles with computers, rather than bombs, essentially playing a gigantic game of Battleship, with the catch being that any people who are in the “blast radius” of the map on the computer screen are required by their own government to go to a disintegration chamber and become a “casualty” of the strike (though nobody seems to need to be coerced, with all seemingly viewing it as a duty). That way, the Eminians and their enemies can continue this war that they’ve been having for 500 years, without the property damage or other harm to their infrastructure and way of life.

It’s a classic sci-fi premise, one that takes a futuristic version of a current day practice and tries to expose the absurdity or unexamined foundation of the real life practice in the process. The episode succeeds with it on two fronts. The first is the most basic – it makes the delivery of this information interesting, which could be difficult given the exposition necessary. By dropping our heroes into the Eminian control room (replete with the Star Trek Babe of the Week, because of course), and not explaining anything when this “battle” is going on, the show allows the audience to share the confusion of the members of Starfleet down on the planet. It creates a sense of intrigue about what exactly is going on here that makes you want to stick around to find out.

But it also gives the Eminians, as Spock notes, a strange sort of logic to their actions. It may seem bizarre to us to fight what amounts to a video game war where people willingly walk to their deaths when their on-screen equivalents have been felled, but these people have a point. There’s a great deal of talk in the episode about war being inevitable, about conflict being inevitable, and that this was devised as a way for the Emenians and their enemies to face this reality, while allowing their civilizations to continue, their buildings to stand, their crops to grow. They may get lectured about the folly of their way of life, but “Taste of Armageddon” creates a legitimate rationale for the Emenians as a whole and Anan-7 in particular. It is, as Mike Ehrmantraut might say, a half-measure, but one that has allowed the Emenians to stomach war and avoid greater devastation in the process.

That, however, is presented as the problem. There’s a very interesting notion in “Armageddon” that it is the very bloodlessness, the clean and neat qualities of this endless battle between planets, that has allowed the war to continue. The episode’s biggest flaw is the time it devotes to Kirk delivering this message from on high and condescending to the Emenians with both haughtiness and hammy acting. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting idea – that by making war tolerable, so that the devastation that comes with it is muted and organized, you also make it endless, something that never gets bad enough to where peace becomes a preferable alternative. Deep down, “Armageddon” is an episode about incentives, a might even work as a great illustration of the concept of moral hazard. But what gives it force is the sense that there’s merits to both sides of the point.

Even throwing out the interesting thematic side of the episode though, “Armageddon” simply offers a great story. Kirk, Spock, and a coterie of redshirts running around an alien world, trying to regain their weapons and stop the madness makes for some classic Star Trek sneaking around and saving the day. The concept of the “disintegration chambers” (hello Futurama’s suicide booths!) is a chilling one, and seeing Kirk and Spock disrupt these procedures and secure the tools necessary to contact the Enterprise and escape are a thrill. In particular, the scene where Spock uses his telepathic abilities to persuade the guard behind the door to open up is some straight up Jedi business, and the way the episode cuts back and forth between Spock running his fingers along the door and the guard registers a note of mild distress is masterful.

It also gives us a chance to see some unexpected mettle from Scotty as temporary commander of the Enterprise. The way he immediately sniffs out the Emenians’ deception about changing Kirk’s voice, responds at the ready to “General Order 24,” and stands up Ambassador Fox about not lowering the shields despite the implied threat of court martial shows that Scotty may not just be an engineering whiz, but a dependable leader as well. Ambassador Fox is the latest in a long line of jerkish, seemingly callous Starfleet muckity-mucks, and seeing his foolhardiness punished, but then allowing him to be a vital part of the peace process, is a nice way to use that archetype.

At its best, Star Trek finds the balance between its high-minded thought experiment side and its on the ground action and adventure side. “Armageddon” fits the bill. Whether it’s Anan 7 making the case of losing a few million lives to save a hundred million (and giving a good, layered performance in the process), or Spock bursting in to save Kirk only to find that he’s already saved himself, or Scotty standing up to authority, Armageddon has both the heady social commentary that the series became famous for, and the rough and tumble fun that made it more than a lecture on civilization. You need both sides, and when they work in sync, the result is something great.