Did Riker murder her?

bwleon7 · September 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPFp5tAlIB8

She needed to touch the guy to kill him but her touch was harmless to anyone else. Stun was working. She was hurt by it. WHy didn't Riker just stun her a couple more times while Picard jumped up and subdued her? He really didn't need to kill her.

marcusdkane · September 2016

Justifiable homicide = Not Murder

alexraptorr · September 2016

Clearly you weren't paying attention, Stun was "not" working. Every time he fired he raised the setting, most likely judging from what we see the phaser was set to "kill" on the second to last shot, and he just pushed it to maximum setting. In addition she was also about to "throw" herself, presumably to give her enough momentum even if she got knocked over by a stun.

eiledon · September 2016

The most disturbing thing about this whole scene is the apparent lack of reaction of the background actors in the wide shots - while this is a limitation brought about due to production reasons/decisions presumably to ease SFX compositing - it seems totally out of place, especially for Picard but also for what we know of the volatile nature of the aliens. I know Riker told them not to move, but I don't think he meant "don't even raise an eyebrow"!

I was impressed by Lisa Wilcox (Yuta) performance here, and in the whole episode.

angrytarg · September 2016

eiledon wrote: »

The most disturbing thing about this whole scene is the apparent lack of reaction of the background actors in the wide shots - while this is a limitation brought about due to production reasons/decisions presumably to ease SFX compositing - it seems totally out of place, especially for Picard but also for what we know of the volatile nature of the aliens. I know Riker told them not to move, but I don't think he meant "don't even raise an eyebrow"!

I was impressed by Lisa Wilcox (Yuta) performance here, and in the whole episode.

This is the whole problem with the scene. It shows exactly what it's supposed to, what the characters went through. But the fact nobody during the lengthy dialogue just tackled her, even if Picard just grabbed her from behind the desk, if they just beamed out the assasin's target, all of that would have worked but the way the scene was set up for some reason (to copy in the phaser effect probably) required the actors to not move. And that doesn't work at all, it should have been staged differently.

Unknown · September 2016

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angrytarg · September 2016

crashdragon wrote: »

She was genetically altered, and we have seen one being break out of a transporter beam, the soldier who was trying to get justice for what his government did, when they tried to beam him from the Enterprise brig, he manged to break from the beam, she may of done the same.

Tackling, bad idea, she may still get to him. Also she may be stronger.

Beaming her target, not her. The genetic modifications and probably increased strength is a good point, but there had been alternatives. Some of those are just viable in hindsight of course, but Picard would be smart enough to quickly come up with a plan while Riker stalls Yuta with his speech and/or phaser bursts.

But I'm not blaming it. For me the scene works as intented and it's fine, but I can see that it looks a bit weird if you really dig into it

Unknown · September 2016

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ryan218 · September 2016

Either way, Riker shooting her dead because no one in a position to execute an alternative did so =/= Riker committing murder. Riker is responsible only for his actions, not the inaction of others, and there wasn't realistically an alternative for Riker under the circumstances. Even kill had failed to incapacitate her and she was about to lunge at her target. Even if RIker fired on the same setting, she could have reached her target before he could fire again. Using the disintegration setting was the only option left to him which safeguarded the life of her target.

Unknown · September 2016

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sevenofnine13141 · September 2016

In the end, Riker, had no choice but to use the disintegration setting. Believe me, no Starfleet Officer wants to kill, but sometimes they have to. As @coldnapalm said, Riker had to do what he did based on his point of view of the situation. As a person from another galaxy once said; "Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view." What we view on a situation differs with each person's point of view. From Riker's point of view, he saw a situation that was going to get bad very quickly, and he had to act fast before she could take out her target.

jonsills · September 2016

For all that he played Action Hero in Nemesis, Jean-Luc Picard is an older human. You were expecting him to leap across that (rather large) table with the terminals on it, and tackle a physically-fit young female before she could dash across the intervening space between herself and her target? The only person in that room in position to "tackle" her was the one man who dared not touch her.

markhawkman · September 2016

I always wondered why Chorgan didn't try to get away....

bwleon7 · September 2016

I still think he could have held the beam on her longer. They have held phaser beams on this for longer sustained shoots. And both shots stopped her if only for a couple seconds when he shot her. She just recovered quickly after he stopped shooting. shooting her at the lower level with a sustained beam should have been like getting hit by a tazer. She wouldn't be knocked unconscious like a normal stun but she would be on the ground twitching and writhing in pain unable to hurt anyone.

rekurzion · September 2016

because that's how it was written in the script

ashrod63 · September 2016

Diplomatic immunity... or something.

theraven2378 · September 2016

Riker did what an officer is trained to do, lethal force should only be applied if all other options have been exhausted. In this case Riker did the right thing though he hated doing it

captainchaos66 · September 2016

^^^^^^ What they said. Yes, the targeted person COULD have tried to run away, YES, they could have beamed out said targeted person. Sure, they COULD have done many things differently. But from a story point of view, Riker was the PERFECT person to end Yuta. He had relations with her, and like really cared about her, in that " trek" sort of way.
One other thing to consider is the show had a time limit. If they had written it to beam the target away, they would have had to had some kind of follow up to that. Does Yuta get taken into custody, does she try to follow the target, etc etc. All of that would have added time to the episode. To the original question: Did Riker Murder Yuta? No. As a Starfleet officer one of his duties is to help and defend people who can't defend themselves. It was a tense quickly changing situation. Not to mention he gave her PLLEEEEEENNNNTTTY of chances to stand down. This has been seen in Star Trek before, and will likely be seen again.

evilmark444 · September 2016

ashrod63 wrote: »

Diplomatic immunity... or something.

TBH, this scene does bother me, you can clearly see that Riker had plenty more settings to try but he just pushed it all the way to vaporize anyway

marcusdkane · September 2016

evilmark444 wrote: »

ashrod63 wrote: »

Diplomatic immunity... or something.

TBH, this scene does bother me, you can clearly see that Riker had plenty more settings to try but he just pushed it all the way to vaporize anyway

Plenty more?!? How many times did he tab the control to nudge the phaser to maximum? Seriously, count it in the clip... To get to maximum with so few control tabs, it must have initially been on what had to be a heavy stun (possibly even kill setting) already... He gave two warning shots, which didn't stop her, she clearly wasn't going to stand down, so he had no choice but to use deadly force... As I said above: Justifiable homicide...

markhawkman · September 2016

Not homicide. Homicide would be if you kill someone who is not attempting to kill someone, but getting ready to. Yuta was stopped in the act of trying to commit murder.

Unknown · September 2016

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evilmark444 · September 2016

markhawkman wrote: »

Not homicide. Homicide would be if you kill someone who is not attempting to kill someone, but getting ready to. Yuta was stopped in the act of trying to commit murder.

Dictionary.com wrote:

Homicide
[hom-uh-sahyd, hoh-muh-]
noun
1. the killing of one human being by another.

Many probably don't know this, but the term homicide applies to any killing, from self-defense to premeditated murder.

lilchibiclari · September 2016

crashdragon wrote: »

Also he saved the peace talks for a entire planet.

Chorgan said afterward "I am in your debt", so he certainly believed that Riker had done the right thing in killing Yuta when she refused to stop and stunning her proved impossible.

marcusdkane · September 2016

markhawkman wrote: »

Not homicide. Homicide would be if you kill someone who is not attempting to kill someone, but getting ready to. Yuta was stopped in the act of trying to commit murder.

As evilmark pointed out... That's why the term is 'justifiable homicide'... It's still a homicide, it's just that there're extenuating circumstwnces which make it necessary and legally permitted, such as to prevent a r*pe or a murder taking place etc...

brian334 · September 2016

None of the people in the background were aware that her ability to kill by touch was limited to a specific genetic lineage. Riker's warning was uninformative, and everyone had to assume that a trained assassin was capable of killing any of them.

lilchibiclari · September 2016

That certainly explains why nobody at the table attempted to tackle her, especially her employer, the Sovereign. Still, I think that there should have been a clearer indication that the second-to-last shot was already at a setting high enough that she should be dead.

Did Riker murder her?

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