The Fate of Admiral Leyton

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2003-12-11 08:51pm

Obviously, at the end of the Homefront-Paradise Lost episode duology, the Starfleet Admiral is now out of a job and a traitor to the Federation. Do you think he is in Federation custody or lying low? I'm asking because of the possibility that I might include the ex-Admiral in my Star Trek/Star Wars crossover and I just want a second opinion.

Publius · Post by **Publius** » 2003-12-11 09:34pm

If Starfleet is remotely competent in judicial matters, VADM Leyton ought to have been tried for a number of criminal offences (insurrection, sabotage, &c., &c.), convicted, and incarcerated for life; capital punishment is evidently no longer practiced (vide "Justice"). The other possibility is that the affair was covered up and VADM Leyton obligated to "retire" and be remanded to a psychiatric institution for "mental breakdown" (i.e., obligated to accept a "soft" incarceration).

PUBLIUS

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2003-12-11 10:10pm

Sadly, the Federation seem about as competent at jurisprudential matters as they are at military strategy and engineering. Layton, plain and simple, is a traitor who was conspiring to overthrow the Federation government. The least punishment he should have drawn was life imprisonment. Sadly, however, the concept of hard punishment for serious, nevermind capital, crimes seems to be unknown in the Federation. Consider how lightly Wesley Crusher and the rest of his Nova Squad mates got off when they should have been prosecuted for criminally negligent homicide in the death of the one cadet who was killed while they were performing a banned stunt manoervre.

To put it bluntly, the Federation doesn't understand why the punishment of lawbreakers is necessary for the stability of law and order and the security of a free democratic society. The wonder is that there aren't more potential traitors in the ranks like Layton, not fewer.

Jason von Evil · Post by **Jason von Evil** » 2003-12-12 12:18am

What I find ironic is that they'll put people to death for going to Talos IV.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-12-12 12:21am

Except that they don't put anyone to death at all.

Damn inconsistant bastards...

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-12-12 12:29am

I bet the writers assumed that since they went to Talos for a good reason, they could be excluded from execution.

Yeah sure, that's how laws work...

Jason von Evil · Post by **Jason von Evil** » 2003-12-12 12:49am

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:I bet the writers assumed that since they went to Talos for a good reason, they could be excluded from execution.

Yeah sure, that's how laws work...

Kirk and Co. never went to Talos, I think. That episode was confusing.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2003-12-12 01:24am

Aya wrote:Kirk and Co. never went to Talos, I think. That episode was confusing.

They never landed on Talos, which I suppose would be worse than orbiting it.

I think it was confusing because it was essentially a clip show which tried to fit a plot around another plot, and not really successfully. Spock commits blatant mutiny in that two-parter (I'm talking about "Menagerie") and by next week he's obviously been exonerated and the entire matter dropped, never to be referred to again. Utterly amazing.

As to Admiral Leyton, I'm sure he's languishing in utter and complete despair, rotting in the Federation's gulag at sunny New Zealand. There's something wrong with a society which punishes it's unlawful citizens by imprisoning them on a beach resort (which is called a "penal colony"). Remember the good old days of TOS when penal colonies were hostile and uninhabitable planets where the inmates were stuck underground behind forcefields ("Dagger of the Mind" and that one with Captain Garth "Whom Gods Destroy" I think was the title.)? They couldn't really escape because they had nowhere to go.

JME2 wrote:Obviously, at the end of the Homefront-Paradise Lost episode duology, the Starfleet Admiral is now out of a job and a traitor to the Federation. Do you think he is in Federation custody or lying low? I'm asking because of the possibility that I might include the ex-Admiral in my Star Trek/Star Wars crossover and I just want a second opinion.

Depends on what you want to do with him. But to be honest, I really think that he's either in New Zealand or some equivalent sunny utopia prison, or under some form of house arrest.

On the other hand, it's not like Sisko actually escorted the fucker to the brig - meaning that Admiral Leyton could conceivably beam to a shuttle and warp out of the system. However, that's a massive stretch. I can only believe it because Sisko is the fuckhead who never bothered arresting Leyton with a security detachment, nor was he ever escorted or seen being escorted to holding cell or prison.

CDiehl · Post by **CDiehl** » 2003-12-12 01:16pm

If you watch a lot of Star Trek, in all its forms, it becomes clear that there is an undercurrent of authoritarianism in the Federation, and that Leyton is not the aberration they make him out to be. How much jailtime do you think Admiral Cartwright and some of the Starfleet brass got for conspiring to assassinate Chancellor Gorkon, or Admiral Pressman got for violating the Algeron treaty, or Admiral Dougherty got for helping the So'na conquer the Baku? I'd bet anything Starfleet hushed all that up, as they would Leyton's attempted coup against the Federation. I'm also sure not many Federation citizens know what became of the colonies ceded to the Cardassians.

About the death penalty for going anywhere near Talos IV, even if we leave aside situations where Starfleet officers bash the death penalty to members of cultures that still use it, it is very inconsistent to have such a penalty considering how the Prime Directive is punished. The Prime Directive is supposed to be the highest law there is in the Federation, such that a Starfleet officer is expected to sacrifice everything to uphold it, including his crew and his ship. If anything in the Federation merits capital punishment (murder and rape notwithstanding), it would be the Prime Directive. You can be killed for visiting this one planet noted mostly for incredibly powerful psionics, but not for screwing up an alien culture's development. You don't even get a reprimand for such an act, as far as I can see. That doesn't make sense, based on how the Prime Directive is presented.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2003-12-12 02:07pm

Uh, Doughtery didn't get jail-time; Ru'afo killed him, remember?

Tribun · Post by **Tribun** » 2003-12-12 02:11pm

JME2 wrote:Uh, Doughtery didn't get jail-time; Ru'afo killed him, remember?

Yeah.
Shreddered his face.....

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2003-12-12 02:47pm

Aya wrote:What I find ironic is that they'll put people to death for going to Talos IV.

This may have been changed by the 24th century, either for progressive purposes (i.e. "let's be able to say there's no death penalty anywhere in the Federation!") or due to some other event (i.e. the Talosians all bit it).

I bet the writers assumed that since they went to Talos for a good reason, they could be excluded from execution.

Yeah sure, that's how laws work...

I thought that at the end of the episode, the real Commodore messaged Enterprise and said the Talos restrictions were retroactively lifted for the duration of the incident.

Death from the Sea · Post by **Death from the Sea** » 2003-12-12 11:38pm

Where was the Federation Correctional Facility that Janeway got Paris from? New Zealand I think.

CDiehl · Post by **CDiehl** » 2003-12-13 12:44am

I saw a little of Insurrection, but I think I missed the bit where Dougherty croaked. Had he survived, I can imagine Starfleet hushing up the whole sordid incident and having him retire to avoid a messy public hearing. By the same token, I imagine Leyton is living pretty well, maybe for one of the news networks as a talking head during the Dominion War.

Death from the Sea · Post by **Death from the Sea** » 2003-12-13 01:58am

CDiehl wrote:I saw a little of Insurrection, but I think I missed the bit where Dougherty croaked. Had he survived, I can imagine Starfleet hushing up the whole sordid incident and having him retire to avoid a messy public hearing. By the same token, I imagine Leyton is living pretty well, maybe for one of the news networks as a talking head during the Dominion War.

I sincerely doubt that. We are talking about a man who staged a coup to take over the Starfleet and the Federation, at the least he would be in a Federation Rehab Facility.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2003-12-13 02:05am

Death from the Sea wrote:I sincerely doubt that. We are talking about a man who staged a coup to take over the Starfleet and the Federation, at the least he would be in a Federation Rehab Facility.

Busy getting a tan, don't forget.

Joe Momma · Post by **Joe Momma** » 2003-12-13 05:59am

Stofsk wrote:
Death from the Sea wrote:I sincerely doubt that. We are talking about a man who staged a coup to take over the Starfleet and the Federation, at the least he would be in a Federation Rehab Facility.
Busy getting a tan, don't forget.

At least until Section 31 springs him to continue his work, 'cause he's their kinda guy!

-- Joe Momma

Enola Straight · Post by **Enola Straight** » 2003-12-13 01:39pm

YEAH!

Him, the guy who started work on the Federation phase-cloak, and that rogue captain who was blowing up Cardassian ships and tried to make Picard scan one for weapons.

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2003-12-13 04:42pm

You mean Grand Admiral Pressman, the man who can destroy SSD's simply by bending over and farting at them?

Publius · Post by **Publius** » 2003-12-14 12:40am

Now that you mention it, gentlemen, VADM Leyton, VADM Pressman, and CAPT Maxwell genuinely are Section 31's kind of people. It's a pity that this was never explored in Deep Space Nine.

PUBLIUS

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2003-12-14 01:08am

CDiehl wrote:I saw a little of Insurrection, but I think I missed the bit where Dougherty croaked. Had he survived, I can imagine Starfleet hushing up the whole sordid incident and having him retire to avoid a messy public hearing. By the same token, I imagine Leyton is living pretty well, maybe for one of the news networks as a talking head during the Dominion War.

The Deep Space Nine Section 31 novel, 'Abyss' had an interesting bit about this, that Section 31 was behind the attempted Ba'ku relocation, that they built the holoship, that Doughtery's death saved their asses because it put the blame soley on him, and that they would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids...

Opps.

Kidding!