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From: markb@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Mark Biggar)
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re: Court-Martial
Message-ID: <2195@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Jul-85 17:43:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.2195
Posted: Thu Jul 25 17:43:31 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 31-Jul-85 02:23:04 EDT
References: <3012@hplabsb.UUCP>
Reply-To: markb@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Mark Biggar)
Distribution: net
Organization: System Development Corp. R+D, Santa Monica
Lines: 29
Summary: 

In article <3012@hplabsb.UUCP> morrell@hplabsb.UUCP writes:
>I just saw Court-Martial last night and got confused.
>I would think a distinction could be made between a Red alert situation
>occurring and the Red alert actually being sounded.
>The question in the episode should have been "Was the Enterprise in a
>Red Alert situation when Kirk jettisoned the pod containing Lt. Cmdr. Finney?"
>and not worry about whether Kirk had the chance to press the Red alert button
>or not!
>
>Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Starfleet like any other military origanization has a "book" which is the
standards, policies and procedures by which military personel are expected
is to conduct themselves.  The "book" probably says that a ship is not in
"red alert" unless and until the captain (or maybe the officer with the
comm) declares it to be so.  In any courtmartial you can always be
convicted of not following the "book", even if what you did turns out to
have been the best possible outcome.  There is a case recorded in the
british navy of a third lieutenant who during the course of a battle pulled
the captain (who had been shot) below decks, came back up and descovered
that all other officers had been killed, took over control of the ship and
won the battle.  But, because he had not been given permission to help the
captain, was tried for "desertion of command while under fire" and hung.
Note that even though in all probability going below saved his life which
enabled him to save the battle, he was still found guilty because he
violated the "book".

Mark Biggar
{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,akgua,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!markb