Synopsis: The Enterprise is sent to Eminiar VII to open diplomatic relations only to become embroiled in a five-hundred-year-old computerized war.
This episode seems to ask viewers to consider whether or not they would volunteer to give up their lives to maintain a virtual war to avoid a real one. And while no doubt when this was broadcasted in the 1960s it was a message against the Vietnam War, in our current political climate another interpretation of it is as an indictment of the institutions of a society that has lost touch to the realities of what life is really like – in all its inequities. However, “A Taste of Armageddon” can also be seen as a metaphor of the choice between the ego’s wanting to retain a conscious status quo or daring to venture into the unconscious to further expand one’s psyche.
In “A Taste of Armageddon” the Enterprise orbits a planet that has been involved in a bloodless war with another planet, Vendikar, for five hundred years. To avoid destroying their respective civilizations and cultures by actual war, the battles are waged virtually, with citizens of both planets agreeing to report to a disintegration chamber, if a computer-generated printout of a casualty list indicates that they were killed. The Logos inclined Mr. Spock understands this reasoning of this course of action, yet even he does not approve of it.
When the Enterprise is placed on a casualty list, Captain James T. Kirk, against orders, is driven to interfere with the antiseptic war and destroys a disintegration chamber. Dis-integration a very apt term, because much as the ego tries to protect itself from integrating with the unconscious – and the shadow and other messy contents contained therein, the use of the disintegration chambers allow the citizens of Eminiar VII and Vendikar from being exposed to the messy business of actual physical war. Kirk disrupts the equilibrium of a society he considers dysfunctional and invites change, much as he did in “The Return of the Archons.” And just as Kirk did on Beta III in that earlier episode, Kirk destroys the computer that has held the culture unchanged. Kirk also has another pithy line as he leaves the planet to its own non-disintegrating devices: “I give you the horrors of war. If I were you, I’d start making bombs.” Fortunately, for the citizens of Eminiar VII the ambassador that came to start diplomatic relations between the Federation and that planet, he offers his assistance to work on a peaceful resolution to the differences between Eminiar VII and Vendikar.
Original post created 28 January 2021
mydailysoultrek 