I'm not saying whether Droxine is dumb, but I think Spock would have found her fascinating regardless.
The Cloud Minders & The Federation
- Thread starter Methuselah Flint
- Start date
We'd need to know a) how high Federation standards for admission are and b) how unjust is Ardanan society.
The episode presents Adana as unjust, but I wonder if we dug deeper if it would be more complicated. Are the Statos dwellers systematically denying the Troglytes human rights? The Troglytes are struggling due to the effects of the zenite gas, which was unknown to the Troglytes and Stratos city dwellers. I suspect Droxine was correct, that the surface was violent. Stratos dwellers may have thought they were doing the best they can. (Clearly the episode disagrees.) Statos dwellers would point out that they took in Troglytes and educated them. Stratos may have provided some law enforcement, not to break up a union or something; except for the Disrupters, the Troglytes never attempted to organize. Most crime was Troglyte on Troglyte. Stratos city dwellers cannot be expected, they'd say, to solve all Troglyte social problems. They would tell you that the Disrupters didn't have a clear program to fix Ardana's social problems. They committed vandalism out of envy.
Clearly the episode is saying there were simple reforms Stratos could make. It was saying the Stratos made it a policy to torture Troglyte suspects. But I'm not clear if it was saying this was a widespread and obvious problem. I wonder if it's analogous to a foreigner coming to my part of the world and following the case of workers who were subjected to unknown toxins on the job. They're members of a racial minority. Some people in the criminal justice system are racists and wrongly see the lot of them as losers. Then you meet me and my family living an affluent life. You see even some top national leaders shamelessly flirt with open racism and are slow to disavow hardcore hate groups. You think why would anyone have anything to do with people like this. But it turns out it's not that simple. Many people participate in efforts to address our social problems. When you look at earth's history, you find my time and place is actually pretty good about respecting everyone's rights. It's very simplistic to say people living an affluent life in the world are causing the problems. Many of the privileged people donate time and money to fixing the social problems. If there were reforms that would fix the problems, most people, affluent and middle class, would support the reforms.
I think this is what happened in the Cloud Minders. Kirk stumbled upon a particular bad example of Ardana's injustice. The problems are presented, probably for the purposes of a 50 min TV show, as having obvious solutions that the Statos city dwellers could have discovered if they cared and put some research into it, but in the story having an underclass worked for them. That allegory is prodding people who live an affluent life to ask if there's anything they could be doing more, if maybe they don't somehow benefit from having an underclass at all similar to the Troglytes.
I think the writers of this show know the world isn't that simple. That's why I imagine Ardana can be part of the UFP despite its social problems and failure to respect basic rights. It's because it's complicated. The episode knows this but still has the viewer side with Troglytes. "Are you afraid the masks will work?"
Just like poor places of the world today where marginalized groups live, I think the Troglyte areas did have a high rate of violent crime. I think Droxine was correct on this point.
I wonder if the caste system seemed fair. Anyone would be eligible to apply for elite jobs on Stratos, but the zenite gas made the Troglytes incapable.
As for the torture, I'm not sure what the episode was trying to say. It certainly brought things to a head, with Kirk categorically standing up to Plasus. It's not abstract, like separate and unequal educational opportunities for Troglyles. Rather it was a clear example of Plasus showing us he's unequivocal the bad guy, which I think TV shows of that era needed.
I also wonder if it wasn't intended to be fascinating on a prurient level. They conduct it in a public area, with Vanna wearing revealing clothes and with Droxine and passers-by watching.
Then they jail her, and put her in prison unform more revealing than night clothes.
OTOH, she keeps wearing it even after she has the upper hand. So maybe it doesn't mean anything, just a sexy outfit but not implying anything about abuse in the Statos jail system.
I actually think the point was to keep it simple and eye-catching for anyone flipping channels or walking through the room with the TV on: The wild west caravan travels through a town with a crooked gov't. Kirk talks about getting distant gov't authorities involved, but an urgent need of some other town pushes Kirk to solve their problems quickly by taking the law into his own hands.
Aka being in luv.
Nothing to say this wouldn't be the standard way of Vulcan men to woo women. Spock is now single again and free to act upon his impulses. Droxine is clever (say, she already knows about pon farr, unlike that dumb Jim Kirk sap he's usually forced to hang out with) and pretty (at least by Spock's half-human standards) and well positioned (talk about being high up!), thus a logical catch; so Spock proceeds.
His methods are pretty much what one would expect of a logician: he's the master of single-endendres, cutting straight to the point even if managing to flatter in the process. Remember that he's the one reminding Jim of the ticking clock; he knows very well that there's no time to waste there.
That he'd be distracted by the process goes without saying. Why, he can't even hear there's a pretty noisy assassination going on next door!
Timo Saloniemi
Maybe Stratos had had dealings with Vulcan many times in the past long before the Federation? 
JB
JB
Vanna was brought to Stratos to be a servant. If this was initially done when Vanna was still a child, she might not have been in the production sections of the mines yet and would have had less gas exposure.
The torture might have been a response to the activities of the Disruptors combined with the pressure to deliver the zenite.
Kirk: "... the disruptors ... they've outwitted a highly organized, scientific culture for months."
Months.
And maybe Kirk as a human succumbed much quicker to the gas than a Troglodyte?
JB
JB
I also wonder if it wasn't intended to be fascinating on a prurient level. They conduct it in a public area, with Vanna wearing revealing clothes and with Droxine and passers-by watching.
Then they jail her, and put her in prison unform more revealing than night clothes.
OTOH, she keeps wearing it even after she has the upper hand. So maybe it doesn't mean anything, just a sexy outfit but not implying anything about abuse in the Statos jail system.
I don't think it was intentional. The blue outfit follows the Theiss Titillation Principle (it has other names, all involving WW Theiss), and is similar to the outfit Droxine wears. As such, it's meant to be seen as daring, while not actually being so. The prison uniform is a simple shift, cut following viewer understanding of RL fashion (IE a sleeveless miniskirt). A lot of it is a marketing ploy, but overt prurience was frowned upon by the censors of the day, both network and social science. The idea was to draw attention, but not censure. Anyone that thought it was too much was either ignored, or considered a voice in the wilderness.
As far as whether it was meant to be seen as part of the Stratos jail system, the blue outfit was Vanna's disguise to gain access to Kirk, and was thus standard wear for the women of Stratos. Vanna having the upper hand later didn't afford her the time to change clothes. Kirk just had she, Plasus, and himself beamed directly to the mines.
She had to look like she belonged on Statos, to move around freely.
I wonder how much transporter traffic there is in and out of the city? Vanna apparently made no effort to disguise her appearance beyond the clothing and hair, The transporter operator (if such) didn't recognize her from the nearby post bulletin.
One servant per household would not yet result in a rush hour, but if there's to be maintenance personnel, cleaning gents and whatnot in addition... This could be a challenge to security measures, especially if troglyte uprisings are a very recent phenomenon and the commuting system - and indeed the society - was originally not built with tight security in mind. (Or, to put a different spin to it, perhaps troglyte uprisings have always been the norm, but the idea of a clever troglyte who might attempt infiltration has always been utterly unthinkable.)
Do the Stratosians use transporters for the purpose in the first place? Or is commuting by vehicles, where one can get in by briefly covering one's face at one of the doorways under the pretext of sneezing?
Do Stratosians use transporters, period? If they do, then when Kirk kidnapped the leader, why wasn't Plasus immediately beamed back, either by the Stratosian authorities, or then by his personal assets (which may well be the same thing)? Having transporters would imply having matching sensors, readily available operating controls (say, in Plasus' pocket, uhh, some other convenient place within that toga) and so forth.
Timo Saloniemi
Do the Stratosians use transporters for the purpose in the first place? Or is commuting by vehicles, where one can get in by briefly covering one's face at one of the doorways under the pretext of sneezing?
Do Stratosians use transporters, period? If they do, then when Kirk kidnapped the leader, why wasn't Plasus immediately beamed back, either by the Stratosian authorities, or then by his personal assets (which may well be the same thing)? Having transporters would imply having matching sensors, readily available operating controls (say, in Plasus' pocket, uhh, some other convenient place within that toga) and so forth.
Timo Saloniemi
If they are UFP citizens, which they are, then they are allowed to go to UFP Wallmart.
If the top is corrupt however, they may have wanted to keep new "advanced" tech away from the trogs so that they will continue to mine.
John Henry was a steel driving man.
The Federation certainly has better tech to strip a planet, than twelve idiots with pickaxes.
Federation mining tech is shit compared to a Horta.
The Trogs are UFP citizens.
They can just leave.
Get Jim to requisition a Colony ship.
A month later there are no Trogs on Ardona, and the UFP still wants their Zenite shipments.
(EDIT)
I was playing Scrabble on my phone tonight.
Coincidence?
If the top is corrupt however, they may have wanted to keep new "advanced" tech away from the trogs so that they will continue to mine.
John Henry was a steel driving man.
The Federation certainly has better tech to strip a planet, than twelve idiots with pickaxes.
Federation mining tech is shit compared to a Horta.
The Trogs are UFP citizens.
They can just leave.
Get Jim to requisition a Colony ship.
A month later there are no Trogs on Ardona, and the UFP still wants their Zenite shipments.
(EDIT)
I was playing Scrabble on my phone tonight.
Coincidence?
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Like father, like son. This is similar as with Spock's parents. Sarek becomes single. He is attracted to human, Amanda who is both pretty and smart. They had time to continue a romance and get married. If Spock was on a longer term assignment on Ardana, for example, we may be going to a wedding.
We see and hear of them using transporters.
So why don't they use them?
They are great for beaming down to the mine entrance. They are used for countering a troglyte act of violence. Are they inferior to Kirk's transporters, then, as they aren't used for rescuing Plasus?
Or is it just that the Stratosian authorities are paralyzed when Plasus goes missing? Because Plasus is the only one authorized to act? Because he's the only one capable of decisionmaking? Because nobody on Stratos really finds anything objectionable in him going missing, hopefully permanently...?
Timo Saloniemi
They are great for beaming down to the mine entrance. They are used for countering a troglyte act of violence. Are they inferior to Kirk's transporters, then, as they aren't used for rescuing Plasus?
Or is it just that the Stratosian authorities are paralyzed when Plasus goes missing? Because Plasus is the only one authorized to act? Because he's the only one capable of decisionmaking? Because nobody on Stratos really finds anything objectionable in him going missing, hopefully permanently...?
Timo Saloniemi
They didn't immediately realize he was gone?
This might sort of work if not for the situation where a number of fugitives are loose and Plasus is supposed to be the guy making decisions on that. Spock thinks Plasus is likely to execute Kirk for returning to Stratos, and Plasus has just been informed that Kirk indeed did return and busted Vanna out of jail to boot. Shouldn't there be security folks knocking on Plasus' door no matter whether he's suspiciously quiet or not? (Or, if they aren't to bother him, shouldn't they then already be under orders to act on the invasion and the escape on their own?)
But perhaps scanning the tunnels for specific fugitives isn't easy, and Stratosian security isn't in the habit of risking a tunnel raid, even if their transporters are just as good as Kirk's and could penetrate to the same locations.
Timo Saloniemi
But perhaps scanning the tunnels for specific fugitives isn't easy, and Stratosian security isn't in the habit of risking a tunnel raid, even if their transporters are just as good as Kirk's and could penetrate to the same locations.
Timo Saloniemi
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I
I see full frontal belly button! And this used to be such a nice forum.....
On a different note, WTH is that thing? Does a super peaceful utopian society have ready built torture/interrogation devices all around?
On the Troglyte who jumped to his death; you'd think that there would be safety procedures in place to detect and "catch" anyone from falling off Stratos. Warning: Sensors detect a falling man! Emergency Transporter engage. Falling man is safe in transporter chamber. I guess they thought that no one would ever fall off the city...from balconies...to see the beautiful views...which are used as transporter pads...etc.
