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From: rjnoe@riccb.UUCP (Roger J. Noe)
Newsgroups: net.startrek,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Followup to 'His was the most human...'
Message-ID: <624@riccb.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Feb-86 18:15:16 EST
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Posted: Wed Feb 12 18:15:16 1986
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	Various rebuttals to "... his was the most human."
			by Roger J. Noe

Mark Leeper recently wanted to know where he could get a license for
criticizing Star Trek.  It is in fact carefully regulated.  Licenses
can be obtained by sending subspace requests to Starfleet Headquarters,
San Francisco, California, North America, Sol III.  Now on with the
important stuff . . .

> In STAR TREK III McCoy even comments on all those arguments that Spock
> lost.  Now since argument should be an exercise in logic . . . [Spock]
> should not lose an argument.

He never did.  That's McCoy's opinion, that Spock lost arguments.
Regarding Spock's decisions at the end of "The Galileo Seven":

> I would have thought that what Spock did was the only logical thing to
> do, but the script has Spock accept it as an emotional action.

Not at all.  Spock says it was logical to take an illogical action.

About Diane Duane and the screwed-up chess scene with McCoy and Spock:
If Spock says he cannot find a way out of check, then any conclusion
Duane writes which has McCoy winning the game is STUPID.  This only
proves that Diane Duane is a particularly bad writer, especially when
it comes to Star Trek.

> STAR TREK says emotion is better than logic;

On the contrary, Star Trek says they are different, neither is superior.
Accept both as useful in their own circumstances.  IDIC.

> Spock, as he is in the TV series is pretty close to an ideal . . .
> It is McCoy and occasionally Kirk who seem to have problems . . .
> Spock seems comfortable with his origins when there isn't someone else
> trying to rub his nose in them.

I agree 95 per cent.  Spock wasn't comfortable until the end of
"Star Trek: The Motion Picture".

The half-white, half-AmerIndian analogy only applies if the person had
tried to suppress his white half for years and only recently came to
terms with the fact that his white half is valuable; he is not a whole
person as long as he suppresses half of himself.  That's what ALL of
the first Star Trek movie is about.

> Spock denied being human (he does so in ST3).

Context, please?

> [the eulogy] was a comment that . . . Spock, if he were alive, would
> have denied . . .

I disagree strongly.  He would have said, "Why, thank you, Captain."

> It would have been much better to say he represented the best that was
> human and the best that was Vulcan.

Absolutely.
--
"Listen, in order to maintain airspeed velocity a swallow needs to beat
 its wings forty-three times every second.  Right?"
	Roger Noe			ihnp4!riccb!rjnoe