Yes, I have played the mission before. It's a good example of what was being discussed in this thread IMO. In the case of "Divide et Imperia", there is reason to "wrestle with one's conscience" when it comes to needlessly blowing away innocent Romulan scientists, especially as the mission unfolds and there is a complete lack of evidence found. Capturing Zelle would not have brought those people back.
It's a bit different when the Omega Directive is invoked.
Yes, and no. It's specifically stated that the facility was for production of Bio-weapons. Therefore certain types of medical supplies would be needed for that.
Sisko? Kirk? Now these guys were willing to do anything to keep their ships, crews, and Federation safe.
And not necessarily in that order. If keeping the Federation safe required sacrificing crew or ship, well, I think Commodore Decker showed where the line was on that one.
There is one mission early on in the Fed chain, you have to save somebody, and you kill 200 people (Klingons?) to save one person.
But at that point in the story, the Empire and the Federation are still at war. The cease-fire seems to occur shortly after you dispatch B'vat, who was keeping things stirred up as much as possible even after it became plain that both sides were being threatened by the Borg and Undine.
And not necessarily in that order. If keeping the Federation safe required sacrificing crew or ship, well, I think Commodore Decker showed where the line was on that one.
The Romulans hit the ship with a Tachyon pulse to force them to stop scanning. Data ordered the crew to fix it so they could resume looking for the Romulans immediately, even though it meant that all of the crew on three decks would get radiation poisoning. Heh, Data's actions were totally understandable IMO. It's not like the crew would die immediately, and the Sutherland did have the supplies they needed to keep it from actually hurting the crew.
and well, If the Sutherland hadn't found the Romulan fleet... It could have resulted in a full scale war between the Federation and the Klingons.
Are you talking about "Purity" and "Transwarp Trouble"? I haven't played "Purity", but "Transwarp Trouble" was great.
yes the purity missions IMO probably the best set of missions i've played yet. Transwarp came a close second.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
While I rarely have time to post (and really ought to be working on some Christmas cards to family instead of this), I thought it might be a good idea to inject some real-world input into this discussion on rules of engagement and so forth. If nothing else, hopefully it'll increase some civic awareness that might be useful when people here look at military situations in the news in real life.
Basing this on a US military perspective, the Omega Directive is basically a contingency plan (CONPLAN) that would be activated by various stated criteria and direct various stated responses. Among other things, it would likely promulgate some sort of reporting process that would go all the way up to the President of the Federation, though in the Voyager episode they obviously couldn't execute that part of the plan due to lack of ability to communicate.
My conjecture of what would realistically would have happened would first involve whatever Starfleet personnel (probably the Enterprise-F CO) reporting it up the operational chain of command. The intel would go to the equivalent of a combatant commander (COCOM), who's responsible for whatever area of space that the Enterprise-F came from or is considered to be "chopped to"; the COCOM would report that up to whoever is equivalent to the secretary of defense, who would bring it up to the president. (Note that Joint Chiefs of Staff are in the administrative chain of command, not the operational chain of command.) This could happen within minutes with the various subspace communications the seem to show in the various media. The order would probably be given back down to execute whatever response the chain of command deems best, with more detail being promulgated at lower levels, and this would involve a transition to wartime rules of engagement (ROE).
Now, when not in a designated combat zone, most military units operate under a self-defense posture. In what's known generally as international Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), it is recognized that all units have an inherent right to self-defense, and they are allowed to use deadly force in response to imminent threat of a hostile act. Without getting too much into the weeds, there are standards of response that must be adhered to, such as proportionality of response and due diligence in avoiding the possibility of harming noncombatants.
(As an aside, for the paratrooper vs. ejecting aircrew discussion, paratroopers are considered combatants while they are coming down and can be engaged. Aircrew are more complicated; for example, when a combat pilot is in a combat aircraft, he/she is considered a combatant, but if the person bails out they are considered "aircrew in distress" and a NONCOMBATANT while they are parachuting down and CANNOT be engaged, but once they reach the ground they are considered "evading personnel" and regain a combatant status...)
Once war is declared, wartime rules of engagement are usually much less restrictive on targeting of combatants, though ROE must be approved by Judge Advocate General (JAG) personnel to meet standards of LOAC. Often all military units of an enemy force may be designated as hostile and can be engaged at will, even if they are not a direct threat to friendly forces. For example, it would be considered normal during a declared state of war to attack enemy aircraft on the ground, an enemy supply depot, massed enemy ground forces, etc. even if those particular places/units are not (yet) involved in attacking friendly forces.
In this case, I haven't had a chance to play the mission yet, but if the shuttles are Voth military vessels with only military personnel aboard, they are legitimate targets under wartime rules of engagement, even if they are unarmed. The fact that they are carrying Omega particles may invoke specific procedures, but the shuttles would still be valid targets in a LOAC/ROE sense. (Think films from WWII of planes shooting at freight trains in Europe carrying military hardware.) Even if there were civilian personnel involved, the personnel generating the specific ROE for an Omega scenario would be likely to designate (while working with the JAG) collateral damage criteria that would deem some level of civilian casualties to be acceptable given the extreme danger that Omega particles could pose.
One important note is that people who disregard LOAC/ROE in a situation will likely to at least be relieved of command and potentially go to prison, etc., and the "just following orders" thing does NOT work if you're an officer. Under LOAC you MUST refuse to execute orders that violate LOAC/ROE; if someone gives you an order that seems not right to you, you're supposed to ask for clarification. If they still insist on telling you to execute an illegal order, you are supposed to reject it; if you follow it and commit a violation, you will be held responsible in addition to the people above who gave the order. This would have been applicable in the shooting Romulans with phasers situation that was discussed previously (e.g. someone suggested you just set the phasers to stun anyway).
Okay, that's my two cents for the moment. (I know it's pretty long, but in real life you do have to learn this stuff and know how to apply it.)
Comments
Because he has brains and he is not happy trigger douche who wanna kill everyone in universe.
As Spidermens uncle has said "With great power comes great responsibility"
My character Tsin'xing
But at that point in the story, the Empire and the Federation are still at war. The cease-fire seems to occur shortly after you dispatch B'vat, who was keeping things stirred up as much as possible even after it became plain that both sides were being threatened by the Borg and Undine.
The Romulans hit the ship with a Tachyon pulse to force them to stop scanning. Data ordered the crew to fix it so they could resume looking for the Romulans immediately, even though it meant that all of the crew on three decks would get radiation poisoning. Heh, Data's actions were totally understandable IMO. It's not like the crew would die immediately, and the Sutherland did have the supplies they needed to keep it from actually hurting the crew.
and well, If the Sutherland hadn't found the Romulan fleet... It could have resulted in a full scale war between the Federation and the Klingons.
My character Tsin'xing
yes the purity missions IMO probably the best set of missions i've played yet. Transwarp came a close second.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Basing this on a US military perspective, the Omega Directive is basically a contingency plan (CONPLAN) that would be activated by various stated criteria and direct various stated responses. Among other things, it would likely promulgate some sort of reporting process that would go all the way up to the President of the Federation, though in the Voyager episode they obviously couldn't execute that part of the plan due to lack of ability to communicate.
My conjecture of what would realistically would have happened would first involve whatever Starfleet personnel (probably the Enterprise-F CO) reporting it up the operational chain of command. The intel would go to the equivalent of a combatant commander (COCOM), who's responsible for whatever area of space that the Enterprise-F came from or is considered to be "chopped to"; the COCOM would report that up to whoever is equivalent to the secretary of defense, who would bring it up to the president. (Note that Joint Chiefs of Staff are in the administrative chain of command, not the operational chain of command.) This could happen within minutes with the various subspace communications the seem to show in the various media. The order would probably be given back down to execute whatever response the chain of command deems best, with more detail being promulgated at lower levels, and this would involve a transition to wartime rules of engagement (ROE).
Now, when not in a designated combat zone, most military units operate under a self-defense posture. In what's known generally as international Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), it is recognized that all units have an inherent right to self-defense, and they are allowed to use deadly force in response to imminent threat of a hostile act. Without getting too much into the weeds, there are standards of response that must be adhered to, such as proportionality of response and due diligence in avoiding the possibility of harming noncombatants.
(As an aside, for the paratrooper vs. ejecting aircrew discussion, paratroopers are considered combatants while they are coming down and can be engaged. Aircrew are more complicated; for example, when a combat pilot is in a combat aircraft, he/she is considered a combatant, but if the person bails out they are considered "aircrew in distress" and a NONCOMBATANT while they are parachuting down and CANNOT be engaged, but once they reach the ground they are considered "evading personnel" and regain a combatant status...)
Once war is declared, wartime rules of engagement are usually much less restrictive on targeting of combatants, though ROE must be approved by Judge Advocate General (JAG) personnel to meet standards of LOAC. Often all military units of an enemy force may be designated as hostile and can be engaged at will, even if they are not a direct threat to friendly forces. For example, it would be considered normal during a declared state of war to attack enemy aircraft on the ground, an enemy supply depot, massed enemy ground forces, etc. even if those particular places/units are not (yet) involved in attacking friendly forces.
In this case, I haven't had a chance to play the mission yet, but if the shuttles are Voth military vessels with only military personnel aboard, they are legitimate targets under wartime rules of engagement, even if they are unarmed. The fact that they are carrying Omega particles may invoke specific procedures, but the shuttles would still be valid targets in a LOAC/ROE sense. (Think films from WWII of planes shooting at freight trains in Europe carrying military hardware.) Even if there were civilian personnel involved, the personnel generating the specific ROE for an Omega scenario would be likely to designate (while working with the JAG) collateral damage criteria that would deem some level of civilian casualties to be acceptable given the extreme danger that Omega particles could pose.
One important note is that people who disregard LOAC/ROE in a situation will likely to at least be relieved of command and potentially go to prison, etc., and the "just following orders" thing does NOT work if you're an officer. Under LOAC you MUST refuse to execute orders that violate LOAC/ROE; if someone gives you an order that seems not right to you, you're supposed to ask for clarification. If they still insist on telling you to execute an illegal order, you are supposed to reject it; if you follow it and commit a violation, you will be held responsible in addition to the people above who gave the order. This would have been applicable in the shooting Romulans with phasers situation that was discussed previously (e.g. someone suggested you just set the phasers to stun anyway).
Okay, that's my two cents for the moment. (I know it's pretty long, but in real life you do have to learn this stuff and know how to apply it.)