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Expressed throughout the franchise by different uniforms, dispositions of the Admiralty, and cultural attiudes. Starfleet Command on the surface appears to be a schizophrenic organization riddled with "evil" admirals, etc.

My thought is that Starfleet Command as a service branch is divided into seperate MAJCOMs, each having their own cultural atitudes and influencing said attitudes on the service at large. Starfleet in my opinion has two senior MAJCOMs, The "Exploration Command (EXCOM)" and The "Defense Command (DEFCOM)."

Of course entities such as Starfleet Inteligence [Command] (SFIC) are subordinate MAJCOMs.

EXCOM is charged with the "Boldy Go" mission, charting a heraldry from Archer and the NX-01. The "Exploration Mafia" is of the mind that 'military' roles are a distant second parsecs behind 'seek out new life' and over time grow a heavy disdain for 'military' culture (Picard's, "Starfleet is NOT a military organization.")

DEFCOM is charged with the defense of the Federation and it's citizens, charting a heraldry from the Earth-Romulan War. The "Defense Mafia" has a harsh view on the imperativeness of their job, Cartwright, Pressmen, and Leyton topping the short list. They view that downsizing 'military' responsibilities is reckless...and they have merit, Earth was caught flatfooted with the Xindi, the Federation was completely helpless with V'Ger, the Blue Gill infestation, Wolf359....

I'd go on to speculate that during TOS, both cultures were in relative balance with Admiralty from DEFCOM heading Starfleet...but a sizable and growing EXCOM influence. (Most of the E-Nil's missions were 'military' in nature.) When TMP came around the EXCOM Admiralty were able to make a power play for control of Starfleet. Possibly the Organian treaty preventing war with the Klingons, as well as likely blowback from 'The 'Enterpise Incident', etc. leading to the DEFCOM admiralty falling into political disfavor.

V'ger left a steaming pile of p...lasma on the budding EXCOM dynasty, their sharply reformed Starfleet could only marshal a barely operational Enterprise (the little warp drive/wormhole..."glitch".) The Federation looked harshly on the failure, swept out most of the EXCOM Admiralty, installing a very dominate DEFCOM Admiralty. New uniforms sharp 'military' mindsets...then Khitomer.

The prospect of lasting peace with the Klingons lead to an almost paranoid fear by the DEFCOM bred brass, the possibility another EXCOM failing like V'ger was something they wished to sincerely avoid. This was highlighted in the briefing Kirk & Co. attended, "mothballing the Starfleet"..."Exploration programs unaffected", etc.

The Conspiracy was outed with massive blowback against the 'Defense Mafia', new EXCOM bred brass learned from past mistakes and to a degree took to heart some of the "concerns" DEFCOM had. The 'Khitomer Conpiracy' gift wrapped Chief of Starfleet operations to EXCOM pedegree in perpetuity...they weren't going to screw it up. Hence why in part the "Service Red" uniform was in use for another +40 years.

By TNG, the 'Exploration Mafia' all but snuffed out DEFCOM (only having a vestigial function) and EXCOM's "Not military" Starfleet was complete, the spandex uniform was the cherry on top, the department color shift was a vestige of the "Service Red", being the longest in use uniform the color red became more associated with command, supplanting gold (which shifted to Ops.)

Then...the Blue Gill had to muck up paradise, DEFCOM (because of the at the time vestigial priority) was one of the few sources of new Admirals free of infestation. Hence why the "evil admirals" starting coming out of the wood work, EXCOM lost the bulk of it's Admiralty, this lead to officers in the "Defense Mafia" to rise back into positions that EXCOM had spent 70 years starving them out of, Wolf359 accelerated things into high gear, prior to that there was enough EXCOM culture and admirals left to balance things out, afterwards however the Borg curbstomp exemplified that EXCOM was not the horse to keep betting on. Officers like Leyton and Pressmen were fast tracked, DEFCOM 'took back' Starfleet.

Inside of a decade, newer robust designs, Akira's replacing Excelsior's...and supplanting Nebula's in firepower, the Galaxy Class gets uparmored (more weapon hardpoints and a reinforced neck spine) and becomes Starfleet's new workhorse (the "wings" employed against the Dominion....6 hulls from TNG into the 'clouds' in DS9), and the new flagship is the Sovereign...a dedicated battleship.

So Starfleet isn't so much a nonsensical pajama club in denial over what it's job is, it's an organization mired by cultural infighting and whiplashing philosophies born from changing political environments.

The "evil Admirals" aren't malevolent, just passionate in a 'well intentioned extremest' sense, they come from a service culture different from Picard's. They see vulnerabilities that the Blue Gill...The Borg...the Cardassians, etc., not might, not may, but HAVE exploited, and Starfleet has to do anything/everything regardless of morals or rules or laws. Because that Blue Gill infested Admiral was a dear friend and ex-Academy bunkmate, those corpses ringing Wolf359 were family, those PTSD'd Cardassian border vets were ex-shipmates.

That's a plausible idea, and more plausible than any large organisation being monolithic

I think similar notions have been proposed before, though without accounting for the 'evil admiral' phenomenon. It sounds good enough to me. Any large organization is going to have distinct currents and divisions within itself.

I like it, but one of the things i think should be added is Council oversight. When it comes to fulfilling it's role, just about any government organization is being influenced by funding from the government, as well as government directives.

After the Xindi, Earth gave new directives for Starfleet. Weapon use, bring MACOs, work more on making our neighbors allies instead of just exploring. Earth seemed to want a much safer local space, and so put more into defense and diplomacy than exploration. This is why most of season 4 of Enterprise is about the Enterprise, after the Xindi threat is over, seems to be Archer and company helping build the Coalition of Planets and preventing wars from sprouting.

This model seemed to follow them for the Klingon cold war as well. Klingons are enemies? Well make allies and new members everywhere you go. Sometimes to the point where Kirk and Spock are rolling their eyes at the civilian government orders.

After Khitomer, with a looming war with the Klingons or the Romulans off the table. The Federation Council probably found that it's Starfleet budget could go to research and public works programs, Replicators, medicine, and holodecks all became rather widespread technologies. A sensor dress for blind people could now be a visor and have much greater capabilities. Starfleet made do and had jack of all trades become the model for most ships, as they lacked funding for making new ships.

The UFP could also be picky about who they let in too. Starfleet recruitment standards went higher, and so did UFP requirements for membership. Both of these attitudes quickly changed after the Borg and Dominion. Nog goes to full Ensign without finishing at the academy, and the UFP accepts new Federation members who arent yet ready for membership.(compare Bajor's slow admittance and aid compared to the race from the beginning of Insurrection).

Another example is Wesley's entrance exam, where only one of four was going to be accepted to Nog rising through the ranks. It's also mentioned that Bajorans were given leniency in their standards for admittance, as mentioned in the Voyager episode "Lost Shepherd".

Imagine being the Starfleet Admiral who has to accept a bunch of washouts due to Federation Council politics.

I think the Council's politics, domestic and foreign, certainly affected Starfleet's standards, both positive and negative.

FedRebel wrote:Expressed throughout the franchise by different uniforms, dispositions of the Admiralty, and cultural attiudes. Starfleet Command on the surface appears to be a schizophrenic organization riddled with "evil" admirals, etc.

My thought is that Starfleet Command as a service branch is divided into seperate MAJCOMs, each having their own cultural atitudes and influencing said attitudes on the service at large. Starfleet in my opinion has two senior MAJCOMs, The "Exploration Command (EXCOM)" and The "Defense Command (DEFCOM)."

I'm not seeing much evidence for this. Nobody ever talks about it, ever, there is literally no sign of such a division in force structure.

DEFCOM is charged with the defense of the Federation and it's citizens, charting a heraldry from the Earth-Romulan War. The "Defense Mafia" has a harsh view on the imperativeness of their job, Cartwright, Pressmen, and Leyton topping the short list. They view that downsizing 'military' responsibilities is reckless...and they have merit, Earth was caught flatfooted with the Xindi, the Federation was completely helpless with V'Ger, the Blue Gill infestation, Wolf359....

V'Ger wasn't a problem military firepower could solve; starships go 'splat' against it. The Bluegills weren't either, because they were an infiltration of mind control parasites. And you will note that both of these issues, and many others, were resolved by 'exploratory' techniques: science, diplomacy, intricate understanding of the strangeness of the forces you're dealing with.

Wolf 359 WAS a problem firepower could have solved, and you will note that this was the point where Starfleet started ramping up its firepower.

I'd go on to speculate that during TOS, both cultures were in relative balance with Admiralty from DEFCOM heading Starfleet...but a sizable and growing EXCOM influence. (Most of the E-Nil's missions were 'military' in nature.)

No they weren't. Enterprise spent a huge amount of time surveying, moving goods from one place to another, and engaging in diplomatic tasks. While Kirk's ship was more of a warlike vessel than in Picard's day, the differences in mission weren't that significant. Especially when you consider that Picard personally was an experienced diplomat and Starfleet probably assigned him to diplomatic missions for that very reason, whereas it takes a special kind of crazy to order Kirk into a diplomatic mission if you've got anyone else to send.

V'ger left a steaming pile of p...lasma on the budding EXCOM dynasty, their sharply reformed Starfleet could only marshal a barely operational Enterprise (the little warp drive/wormhole..."glitch".) The Federation looked harshly on the failure, swept out most of the EXCOM Admiralty, installing a very dominate DEFCOM Admiralty. New uniforms sharp 'military' mindsets...then Khitomer.

Shooting at V'Ger wouldn't have helped; the problem was simply that there weren't lots of ships available in Sol system at the time.

Then...the Blue Gill had to muck up paradise, DEFCOM (because of the at the time vestigial priority) was one of the few sources of new Admirals free of infestation. Hence why the "evil admirals" starting coming out of the wood work, EXCOM lost the bulk of it's Admiralty, this lead to officers in the "Defense Mafia" to rise back into positions that EXCOM had spent 70 years starving them out of, Wolf359 accelerated things into high gear, prior to that there was enough EXCOM culture and admirals left to balance things out, afterwards however the Borg curbstomp exemplified that EXCOM was not the horse to keep betting on. Officers like Leyton and Pressmen were fast tracked, DEFCOM 'took back' Starfleet.

So Starfleet isn't so much a nonsensical pajama club in denial over what it's job is, it's an organization mired by cultural infighting and whiplashing philosophies born from changing political environments.

Now see THAT I can believe.

I accept your idea that there is an informal division within Starfleet culture of 'exploratory' versus 'combat' officers, although I'm sure the combat officers know how to explore and I'm damn sure the exploratory officers know how to fight.

I just don't buy the part where there's a formal division in the command structure. Because that would definitely have come up at some point. The closest we have to any indication of that is that in the TOS era, the Enterprise is associated with something called the "United Earth Space Probe Agency." and I suspect that's simply an Earth-specific entity comparable in nature to the Vulcan Science Academy- a subordinate 'local' planetary body that has enough clout to operate some of its own ships.

Also how many "insane" or "evil" admirals are there really, I can think of only 3 of hand Nora Satie (the one from "the Drumhead"), Adm. Leyton from DS9 and amd. Doughherty from Insurrection. The ones infested with Bluegills don't count as they were under alien mindcontrol.

The Admiral who was in on the conspiracy in The Undiscovered Country.

Janeway in Nemesis if you subscribe to the evil Janeway theory (though that doubtless wasn't the writers' intent).

Not an Admiral, but Commadore Decker in "The Doomsday Machine" in TOS.

Just off the top of my head.

Decker wasn't really crazy though. He acted a bit after the planet killer om-nomed up his crew but that was just PTSD more or less. There was really no evidence of him actually being nutso before hand. I could see Kirk acting the same way if his crew all got killed.

On topic, there are probably divisions within Starfleet but nothing really official, no separate service branches. There are some officers who feel Starfleet should take on a more military role while others might feel Starfleet should be purely exploratory and probably some that feel somewhere in between. There are probably cliques of such officers but thats nothing new, like minded individuals will congregate together.

Like any groups of like minded individuals there will at times be a drive to be more pure. Squeeze out anyone on the fence, any outside voice, an echo chamber telling each other how right they are, people competing to be more ideologically focused. This will breed extremists.

Of course this is probably something that happened with both groups, both the explorers and militarists. Some of the explorers took their message of pacifistic exploration to extremes and probably got in power in the years between TOS and TNG. Why we see the disgust for anything military, why ships seem far less military in function and layout, why the uniform changes to the spandex onsie more causal like original TOS uniform compared to the "proper" military uniform of the movie era. When the borg and Dominion show up they drop the PJs in favor of something more military.

Presumably the military inclined officers were in charge during the movie era and again after the borg kicked their shit in.

I'd think it is a good thing Starfleet can change it spots so easily, transition from a military force to a peace time exploration fleet and back again. No doubt there are problems with that like trying to defend themselves with their peace time fleet when they are caught unaware and trying to explore with warships and military officers after the end of conflicts. But its still got promise and certainly is not the cause of the evil Admirals.

Every organization had rotten apples, Starfleet is no different. Its just the fact we get to see the evil Admirals because we are getting one slice of the Federation that is more conflict-y because that the nature of the show we watch despite Roddenberry trying his damnedest to make it not that way.

Most Admirals both explorer or military minded aren't extremists and because of that don't get in the gun sights of the Feddie flagship and her crew or any other tv show crew.

Oh those only that Romulan Republic mentioned Cartwright would really be only I'd say is crazy or evil in the traditional sense and even he is questionble. Decker and Janeway seemed more like they were mentally broken by the situation they were thrust into, that's not really Starfleet's fault though as the situations of what happend to the Constellation or the Voyager were far from normal.

Even so that's 6 from organization that has hundreds if not thousands of flag officers, hardly a repesentive sample.

I'm honestly not sure you can count Dougherty in the list of crazy or evil, he's written to be the secondary villain of the piece...but what does he actually do that is evil or crazy? Especially since the whole plan is approved by people more senior to him (apparently at least) and he avoids causing injury or suffering wherever possible, and as SFDebris pointed out, from a moral standpoint he is arguably in the right and Picard and co wrong.

Hell, he even tries to stop the Son'a when things go too far and is murdered for it.

So yeah, Cartwright, Leyton, Pressman and Satie. Satie was retired and quite possibly going wacko, no evidence of evil/insanity while actually serving. Pressman and Leyton probably fall under "Well intentioned extremist" rather than evil or crazy.

Yeah, Leyton staged a coup and overthrew the government, but for fairly understandable reasons, he honestly believed the Federation needed a more military mindset to fight off the Dominion...which was largely proved correct, and AFAIK he didn't cause any deaths either, right up until ordering the Lakota to fire on the Defiant.

Pressman...again, I doubt you can call him evil or crazy, he was a Captain at the time of the original experiments, someone higher-up must have authorised the project. The accident, well, we have no way of knowing if it was his fault or not.

Cartwright and Colonel West (from the extended version on my DVD at least) is about the only outright evil Admiral I can think of. And even they had sort-of understandable reasons.

Pressman...again, I doubt you can call him evil or crazy, he was a Captain at the time of the original experiments, someone higher-up must have authorised the project. The accident, well, we have no way of knowing if it was his fault or not.

And even then you could argue that his actions were fairly understandable. He believed that the Federation was being ridiculously stupid for not developing cloak tech when their opponents already have it, especially considering that both the Klingons and the Romulans were trying to develop phase cloaks of their own.

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Yeah, Leyton staged a coup and overthrew the government, but for fairly understandable reasons, he honestly believed the Federation needed a more military mindset to fight off the Dominion...which was largely proved correct, and AFAIK he didn't cause any deaths either, right up until ordering the Lakota to fire on the Defiant.

A lot of evil people honestly believed that they were doing the right thing. Hell, I expect a lot of Daesh recruits who enslave, murder, torture, and rape honestly believe they are doing the right thing. Ditto Nazi concentration camp guards, or any other obvious example you'd care to name.

Leyton tried to supplant the lawful government of his country by force, risking lives in the process, for what? Not because of some great injustice or crime by those in power, but simply because they didn't adhere to his personal political beliefs? That's an attitude which directly undermines any attempt at a stable or even functional society, and is even more unforgivable in a military officer.

And its not as though the rest of the Federation would be likely to just roll over for his coup. The likeliest outcome, I suspect, was a counter-coup and/or civil war that would have forced him to become increasingly despotic to remain power and left the Federation less able to resist the Dominion.

Leyton was, intentions aside, criminally idiotic.

Edit: I mean, if a US admiral attempted to seize Washington DC during mid-late 30s, depose the President, and make himself President by force, and tried to justify it by saying that the President wasn't doing enough to prepare for war with the Axis, would you defend it?

Did you completely miss the point where I said he could fall under Well-Intentioned Extremist? I never said he was right in his method (merely that the Federation needing a more military mindset was born out) or that he was not criminal, stupid etc.

I said that you would be hard-pressed to call him evil or crazy. Bringing up Nazis and Daesh is a total bloody red herring.

The Romulan Republic wrote:

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Yeah, Leyton staged a coup and overthrew the government, but for fairly understandable reasons, he honestly believed the Federation needed a more military mindset to fight off the Dominion...which was largely proved correct, and AFAIK he didn't cause any deaths either, right up until ordering the Lakota to fire on the Defiant.

A lot of evil people honestly believed that they were doing the right thing. Hell, I expect a lot of Daesh recruits who enslave, murder, torture, and rape honestly believe they are doing the right thing. Ditto Nazi concentration camp guards, or any other obvious example you'd care to name.

Leyton tried to supplant the lawful government of his country by force, risking lives in the process, for what? Not because of some great injustice or crime by those in power, but simply because they didn't adhere to his personal political beliefs? That's an attitude which directly undermines any attempt at a stable or even functional society, and is even more unforgivable in a military officer.

And its not as though the rest of the Federation would be likely to just roll over for his coup. The likeliest outcome, I suspect, was a counter-coup and/or civil war that would have forced him to become increasingly despotic to remain power and left the Federation less able to resist the Dominion.

Leyton was, intentions aside, criminally idiotic.

Edit: I mean, if a US admiral attempted to seize Washington DC during mid-late 30s, depose the President, and make himself President by force, and tried to justify it by saying that the President wasn't doing enough to prepare for war with the Axis, would you defend it?

Depends. I'm not being flippant, but if Leyton took over, readied the fleet and had an equal or easier time with the Dominion war to include to sneak attack on earth by the Breen, then turned over power at the end; yes I think historically people would think he was a good thing. Pretty much every American thinks George Washington was pretty shit hot, and while not a perfect analogy, he is close enough.

Oh, and not that I would condone such a coup now, just saying that history tends to be the judge of such things.

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Did you completely miss the point where I said he could fall under Well-Intentioned Extremist? I never said he was right in his method (merely that the Federation needing a more military mindset was born out) or that he was not criminal, stupid etc.

I said that you would be hard-pressed to call him evil or crazy. Bringing up Nazis and Daesh is a total bloody red herring.

My point, as should be quite obvious based on what I actually wrote, is not that Leyton was morally equivalent to Nazis or Daesh. Rather, that believing you're doing the right thing doesn't mean you are't a bad guy, which I illustrated using two of the more obvious examples, for simplicity's sake.

The Romulan Republic wrote:

Eternal_Freedom wrote:Did you completely miss the point where I said he could fall under Well-Intentioned Extremist? I never said he was right in his method (merely that the Federation needing a more military mindset was born out) or that he was not criminal, stupid etc.

I said that you would be hard-pressed to call him evil or crazy. Bringing up Nazis and Daesh is a total bloody red herring.

My point, as should be quite obvious based on what I actually wrote, is not that Leyton was morally equivalent to Nazis or Daesh. Rather, that believing you're doing the right thing doesn't mean you are't a bad guy, which I illustrated using two of the more obvious examples, for simplicity's sake.

Again, I never said he wasn't a bad guy, he's clearly written as the villain. I'm saying you can't outright say he is evil or crazy. He's quite definitely not crazy, as his plan and acting are far too good to be crazy.

He is also not evil, because unlike the examples you cited, he doesn't kill anyone up until the point where things go totally off the wagon and the Lakota attacks the Defiant.

EDIT: On the wider point, I think the reason the "Evil/Crazy Admiral" trope is so commonplace in people's minds is that, with the exception of giving orders on a viewscreen, Admirals (and even other Captains) are almost always there to be the villain or at least an antagonist, eg Maxwell, Ransom, that Vulcan from DS9's baseball episode, Jellicoe, Nechayev, Commodore Stone from "Court Martial," the presiding Admiral at Wesley's hearing for that FUBAR in "The First Duty."

Hell, the only time I can recall a fellow Captain being a significant non-antagonistic presence in an episode was Commodore Wesley in TOS's "The Ultimate Computer." The only non-antagonistic Admiral who played a major role I can recall was Admiral Ross.

So somehow overthrowing the legitimate government and instituting a police state based solely on your own idea of what is right isn't evil?

Crazedwraith wrote:So somehow overthrowing the legitimate government and instituting a police state based solely on your own idea of what is right isn't evil?

I would argue that a) he wasn't planning on instituting a police state and b) he actually had mostly-reasonable reasons for his actions. He was correct that security wasn't enough to stop Changeling infiltrators, as evidenced by the bombing in Antwerp and the Leyton-impersonator and the O'Brien impersonator in Starfleet HQ. He was correct that the civilian government was unwilling to take sufficient measures. He was correct in that the Dominion intended to continue infiltrating and weakening the AQ powers prior to an all-out invasion. He was correct that Starfleet needed a more military, willing to try anything approach to survive the war.

As for the "police state" bit...well, I'll remind you that all of his policies of blood tests/phaser sweeps etc came from Sisko and Odo's experience on DS9.

Yes, he's the villain of the piece. Yes, he's a bad person. But...I honestly don't believe you could call him evil, like you could with Cartwright or Section 31. This is why "Well-intentioned extremist" exists as a concept. And finally, it clearly wasn't just his idea of what the government should be doing, given how many other Admirals/Captains etc were apparently involved.

Crazedwraith wrote:So somehow overthrowing the legitimate government and instituting a police state based solely on your own idea of what is right isn't evil?

Again, in our own world, it depends on how it turned out. If they fail or if they gain power and then fuck shit up, they are looked at as 'evil'. If they succeed and make things better, they are heroes and founding fathers.

Knife wrote:Again, in our own world, it depends on how it turned out. If they fail or if they gain power and then fuck shit up, they are looked at as 'evil'. If they succeed and make things better, they are heroes and founding fathers.

Or both. Look at King Ollie - the founder of modern parliamentary democracy or the butcher of Drogheda, depending on who you speak to.

Eternal_Freedom wrote:

Crazedwraith wrote:So somehow overthrowing the legitimate government and instituting a police state based solely on your own idea of what is right isn't evil?

I would argue that a) he wasn't planning on instituting a police state and b) he actually had mostly-reasonable reasons for his actions. He was correct that security wasn't enough to stop Changeling infiltrators, as evidenced by the bombing in Antwerp and the Leyton-impersonator and the O'Brien impersonator in Starfleet HQ. He was correct that the civilian government was unwilling to take sufficient measures. He was correct in that the Dominion intended to continue infiltrating and weakening the AQ powers prior to an all-out invasion. He was correct that Starfleet needed a more military, willing to try anything approach to survive the war.

1)

As for the "police state" bit...well, I'll remind you that all of his policies of blood tests/phaser sweeps etc came from Sisko and Odo's experience on DS9.

Yes, he's the villain of the piece. Yes, he's a bad person. But...I honestly don't believe you could call him evil, like you could with Cartwright or Section 31. This is why "Well-intentioned extremist" exists as a concept. And finally, it clearly wasn't just his idea of what the government should be doing, given how many other Admirals/Captains etc were apparently involved.

"Well-intentioned extremist" in no way means you're not evil. It just means you think you have a good reason for your evilness. That doesn't excuse it.

As for police state. He was replacing the elected government with himself, an Admiral and maintaining power with his personal control of loyal Starfleet assets. He was putting troops on the streets to maintain order. In what way is this not a military junta/police state?

What line does Leyton have to cross before becoming evil? He defrauds people, scams his way into power, tramples over civil liberties and orders murder to cover up his scheme. Just because it's not option one doesn't mean it's not evil. People die because of Leyton, he was happy for the Defiant to be destroyed. He only gives up when it's clear his followers are not as extreme as him and Sisko has him at phaser point.

To counter specific points; Those techniques were developed by Sisko and co yes. And they were previously used only when necessarily on military ships and installations (Defiant/Ds9) im drills/when there was cause. Not 'hey i think we should check everyone just to be sure'.

Following Paradise and the return of the legitimate Government was there a big problem with changing infiltration? I could easily wrong but the only one I recall was Bashir in S5. Do you recall the Changling O'Brien in Paradise Lost? He was worried about Leyton. He was happy. Leyton's causing infighting was exactly what they wanted.

So all those necessary measures meant jack and squat and the Federation won anyway.

The guy's pulling off a military coup and you're there saying 'he's not an evil man he's just a naughty boy who means well'. So to loop around to the start. When does he become evil if military coups and murder don't qualify?

My problem is you are equating automatically that military coups are evil by definition and I'm not sure that is always right. As a literary device, sure I understand the symbolism to tyranny but literary devices are not always right.

Knife wrote:My problem is you are equating automatically that military coups are evil by definition and I'm not sure that is always right. As a literary device, sure I understand the symbolism to tyranny but literary devices are not always right.

I've not really been responding to your posts because well I hadn't read any of them until after finishing my last reply to E_F.

I do take your point that history will remember if you were good or bad based on results but I don't think that means you were actually good or bad. Does that make sense? I mean if Jimmy Saville hadn't been found out after his death he would have been remembered as a good person. That doesn't mean he was actually a good person. (I know that's not a great comparison because it's not the same actions being remember. So breaking godwin's law. Take Hitler, If he'd won WWII, the holocaust might be remembered as good. It wouldn't actually have been good)

As to military coups. Leyton was replacing a peaceful, democratic, while not perfect basically decent government and society with him as a military commander, as I say ignoring people's right and basically doing whatever he personally considered necessary. I don't think it's really the same as revolution with popular support.

It's possibly not all military coups are bad. But this one was. I'll concede we know this mostly because it's a TV show. But Leyton's coup did not save the Federation and would not have saved the Federation, all of his preparations would have been naught assuming he doesn't have Sisko in place at DS( and acting close enough to canon that 'Sacrifice of Angels' goes the same way. So this talk of 'it was necessary' seems well wrong to me.

Knife wrote:

Crazedwraith wrote:So somehow overthrowing the legitimate government and instituting a police state based solely on your own idea of what is right isn't evil?

Again, in our own world, it depends on how it turned out. If they fail or if they gain power and then fuck shit up, they are looked at as 'evil'. If they succeed and make things better, they are heroes and founding fathers.

People who set up nations using trickery and police state tactics tend to wind up being abusive fathers to their nations.

Crazedwraith wrote:

Knife wrote:My problem is you are equating automatically that military coups are evil by definition and I'm not sure that is always right. As a literary device, sure I understand the symbolism to tyranny but literary devices are not always right.

I've not really been responding to your posts because well I hadn't read any of them until after finishing my last reply to E_F.

I do take your point that history will remember if you were good or bad based on results but I don't think that means you were actually good or bad. Does that make sense? I mean if Jimmy Saville hadn't been found out after his death he would have been remembered as a good person. That doesn't mean he was actually a good person. (I know that's not a great comparison because it's not the same actions being remember. So breaking godwin's law. Take Hitler, If he'd won WWII, the holocaust might be remembered as good. It wouldn't actually have been good)

Indeed, like I said, as a literary device, the coups is symbolic of tyranny and thus almost always in a story is considered bad and their architects evil protagonists. And since it is a story, characters only have the backstory they have. So usually when you put Admiral Adolph in charge of a military coups against the peaceful Noobians, he is a bad guy. Historically it is more complicated. Caeser, Thanas can correct me if I'm wrong, was extremely popular with the people because he made their life both better and easier. The old power structure hated him. Had he lived longer, who knows what would have happened. The Glorious Revolution, as I understand, set the stage for British parliament. Of course the American Revolution as I've alluded to before. Sure, plenty went bad or worse. Not sure if the Russian revolution made things better or worse, the rise of the Reich was bad. So forth and so on.

As to military coups. Leyton was replacing a peaceful, democratic, while not perfect basically decent government and society with him as a military commander, as I say ignoring people's right and basically doing whatever he personally considered necessary. I don't think it's really the same as revolution with popular support.

I guess if you frame it that way. You could also frame it that Leyton was trying to wrestle control from a bumbling, bureaucratic, blind government that didn't see a major war coming for them that they couldn't dodge. It's the very old theme of security v freedom. Makes good stories, bit more complicated in real life.

It's possibly not all military coups are bad. But this one was. I'll concede we know this mostly because it's a TV show. But Leyton's coup did not save the Federation and would not have saved the Federation, all of his preparations would have been naught assuming he doesn't have Sisko in place at DS( and acting close enough to canon that 'Sacrifice of Angels' goes the same way. So this talk of 'it was necessary' seems well wrong to me.

We have no way of knowing. It was a plot and thus runs off of writers fiat. We have no way of knowing if Leyton would have fared better than the show depicted the war. We have no way of knowing if the humans fell into the machinations of the shape sifters or if the changelings did a total Palpatine and had his plan shit on and decided he could work with it.