Sometimes a feeling is all we have

It always seems amazing how people in the past – when popular science fiction was still in its infancy, so to speak – thought of humanity’s relationship to technology in the future. Sometimes we are dominated by it, it itself becomes our greatest enemy, and sometimes it is an instrument that serves our own progress. The hopes and fears reflected in it are almost as numerous as the stars in our sky. This ambivalence is expressed in a strikingly witty way in the series “Star Trek: The Original Series”, if nothing else.

The episode “A Taste Of Armageddon” seems particularly remarkable. The setting of the episode is actually very simple: with Ambassador Robert Fox on board, the Enterprise is sent to the planet Eminiar VII to establish diplomatic relations. However, the mission turns out to be more difficult than expected. After the Enterprise receives (and ignores) a warning and a landing party including Kirk and Spock beams down to the planet’s surface, it turns out that this world has been at war with the third planet in the system, Vendikar, for over 500 years.

But this war is unlike any the humans have known – it is fought with the help of two interconnected computers. Attacks are merely simulated, no weapons are used. In this way, resources are conserved and infrastructures and cultures as a whole are preserved.

However, the losses are real, because the fatalities are also calculated by the computers. Those affected are then forced into disintegration chambers where they are executed in the shortest possible time. And no one fights back for fear of an actual military counter-attack by the other world, which leads to even more victims.

It becomes personal for Captain Kirk, however, when the Enterprise is “destroyed” in a simulated attack on Eminiar VII. The Prime Minister, Anan 7, demands that Kirk have the crew beamed down to execute them. Long story short: Kirk refuses and the landing party is arrested. But of course, thanks to Spock’s abilities, escape is possible and so the landing party sets out to settle the conflict Kirk-style. On the way they destroy several disintegration chambers and finally capture the government and destroy the computers of Eminiar VII. Anan 7 now fears a real war, but Kirk makes it clear to him that he should seek peace with Vendikar instead. This way Robert Fox, the diplomat, also comes into play: he becomes the official mediator between the worlds and peace negotiations can begin. Kirk and his people can finally return to the Enterprise.

There, Spock remarks that Kirk has taken a big gamble. The intervention could just as well have led to a real war with destruction on an unknown scale. But Kirk remains calm, he had to take this chance because he had the “feeling” that Eminiar would choose peace. Spock remains sceptical, he believes that following feelings in such matters is too risky. But Kirk replies:

“Sometimes a feeling, Mister Spock, is all we humans have to go on.”

Captain Kirk in “A Taste Of Armageddon”

I think this episode is a good representation of the humanistic spirit that Gene Roddenberry breathed into his Star Trek universe. The episode begins, admittedly, with the observation of a war – just as we have experienced it again and again on Earth over the millennia – albeit by futuristic means. Technology, which in Star Trek actually always promises possibilities in a positive sense, such as the possibility of travelling to the stars and discovering worlds that no human has ever seen before, has here become a tool of war. Although death and destruction could be limited by the simulations, it was only possible to wage this war for over 500 years in this way.

“They’ve been killing three million people a year. It had been going on for five hundred years. An actual attack wouldn’t have killed any more people than one of their computer attacks, but it would have ended their ability to make war. The fighting would have been over permanently.”

Captain Kirk

But Captain Kirk is now the one in the conflict who takes technology out of the equation and puts the human (or the Eminian) back into focus. His sense that humans want to choose peace over suffering is correct. And that’s what makes this episode such a hopeful one: the war and the bloodshed end.

So when Kirk says that sometimes feelings are the only thing people can rely on, it means that rules and orders can’t always be the measure of things. We have this voice inside us that tells us our own courses of action, that helps us recognise unjust actions and structures and rise up against them. Be it instinct, reason or a seventh sense, in Star Trek this inner voice always aims for peace as the ultimate goal. Is this just fiction? World history will show us.