[net.startrek] Court-Martial & "The Book"

adolph@ssc-vax.UUCP (Mark Adolph) (07/29/85)

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> 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.

It seems to me that the red alert was the signal to Finney to get out of
the pod because it was to be jetisonned in a few seconds.  Kirk even says
"Get ready to get out of there fast, Ben, I might have to go to red
alert." (paraphrase) and "After I went to red alert, I gave him those
seconds, and more" (also paraphrase).  The point seemed to be that Kirk
panicked and jetisonned the pod without giving Finney any warning, rather
than signalling red alert, waiting a few seconds for the man to get out of
there, then jetisoning the pod.

By the way, I never really understood the purpose of this pod.  Why would a 
starship carry around a thing that needed to be monitored that carefully
during an ion storm, and needed to be jetisonned on a moments notice because 
it was so dangerous to have around?

					-- Mark A.
					...{uw-beaver|fluke}!ssc-vax!adolph

	"1 + 1 = 1, for sufficiently small values of 1..."