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From: leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper)
Newsgroups: net.startrek,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Followup to 'His was the most human...'
Message-ID: <1708@mtgzz.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Mar-86 17:05:46 EST
Article-I.D.: mtgzz.1708
Posted: Wed Mar  5 17:05:46 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Mar-86 00:33:02 EST
References: <1661@mtgzz.UUCP> <624@riccb.UUCP> <1687@mtgzz.UUCP> <12079@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
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Xref: lsuc net.startrek:1013 net.sf-lovers:6194


 >>>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.
 >>
 >>Someone must have pointed this out to her.  I am told that by the time
 >>the book came to print, it was Kirk who had given up on the game, not
 >>Spock.  I have not seen the book but this is a much more satisfying way
 >>of doing the scene.
 >
 >How about in Charlie X when Captain Kirk beats Spock. Spock says something
 >like "Your illogical manner of playing chess sometimes has it's advantages".
 >If that's not exactly right, which wouldn't surprise me, I'm sure the poster
 >will fix it. Anyway, Kirk beat him, so why couldn't McCoy beat him?

You are comparing apples and oranges.  In a whole game, someone who
plays illogically might on rare occasions be unpredictable enough to
have a minor advantage.  If it was more often than rare occasions and
if the advantage was significant, that would be a logical way to play,
probably using some randomizing element to create the unpredictability.
However in the Duane draft game the situation was that Spock could not
get his side out of check and when McCoy took over he could.  If a
logical mind cannot find a way out of check, it is unlikely that an
illogical mind would.  Nothing but logic will get you out of check.
Emotional approaches only come in if there are two or more ways out of
check and you have to choose between them.

 >There is logic in what Spock did, but if Spock was human, he
 >would have done the same. To me, that's what Kirk meant by saying  
 >"his was most human". Just think about that for a while.

How about thinking about this for a while.  We are all agreed that Kirk
meant the statment to be a compliment.  How it was intended is not the
issue.  What we are talking about is more the taste that Kirk used in
choosing this "compliment."  If the series actually has the point of
view that humans are superior to Vulcans then it fits perfectly into
that context, but the whole context if questionable.   I just don't
like having my science fiction say to me "Ain't it great that we are
human and not like that Vulcan."  I don't see that it is so much better
to be human if at all.  If the series is taking a more objective point
of view, it is just the Kirk eulogy that is in bad taste.

If possible I would like to stop beating this dead horse. :-)

				Mark Leeper
				...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper