A tortured trope in Star Trek – Strange New Worlds, “The Broken Circle”

June 30, 2023

(Spoilers ahead for SNW S2E1, “The Broken Circle”)

I mean we’ve all been there. You’re just about to take some time off work when you get a last-minute email from a coworker who asks you to steal the company car, help them infiltrate a shady criminal gang, and prevent an intra-galactic war. You know, a typical Friday afternoon.

Wait, we’re missing happy hour for this?

However, among the many highly relatable scenes in S2E1 of Strange New Worlds, one sequence was conspicuously out of place, both in the Star Trek universe and in the real world.

On the ore-rich planet of Cajitar IV, Dr M’Benga and Nurse Chapel are helping to care for several civilians who were poisoned during a mishap which likely had something to do with the activities of an unscrupulous mining syndicate. They’re then kidnapped by some Klingon members of the syndicate and brought to the group’s hideout deep within the mine. After jumping to conclusions carefully considering their options, M’Benga and Chapel agree that the only way they can escape and uncover the syndicate’s dastardly plans is to shoot up some super-soldier serum and absolutely wreck anyone who gets in their way.

During a brief pause in a well choreographed hallway fight, Beast-Mode-M’Benga finds a Klingon underling and proceeds to beat the ever-living daylights out of him in order to find out what his friends are up to. At some point during the interrogation, the surprised underling says “I know about your Federation rules against torture” and expects the beating to stop. M’Benga continues and the underling soon relents, conveniently giving the good doctor all the information he requested in a timely fashion. Chapel makes a few attempts to rein M’Benga in, but is otherwise a willing accomplice.

While it is debatable whether a Klingon would even be susceptible to torture (they might actually enjoy it – after all this is the culture that invented the Rite of Ascension), it nevertheless should be clear that torture is unethical and illegal, no matter the circumstance.

But you didn’t visit this blog for the TL;DR, so let’s break down how this situation relates to the law in real life!

The legal framework applicable to this situation depends on whether a situation of armed conflict existed at the time of the offence and whether M’Benga and Chapel were acting in an official capacity. If they were acting under orders during an armed conflict, then their actions would violate International Humanitarian Law and could amount to a war crime under the grave breaches regimes of the Geneva Conventions – or under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), if the ICC has jurisdiction.

But in this case, a situation of armed conflict does not (yet) exist. In peacetime, the prohibition of torture is covered by (among other treaties) the UN Convention Against Torture, under which States must put into place measures to ensure their officials do not commit torture. Under this treaty, “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture” (Article 2(2)).

One potential complication with applying anti-torture laws to this case is that it is debatable whether M’Benga and Chapel were actually acting as agents of Starfleet at the time M’Benga tortured the underling. Those who have seen the episode will recall that the crew stole the Enterprise from space-dock and did not have orders to be on their mission. Therefore, one could credibly argue that the duo were working completely outside of their official capacity at the time the incident occurred. That said, Starfleet did not pursue the Enterprise after it was stolen and Admiral April took no action against the crew upon their return for going rogue – he even seemed to allow Spock to negotiate a treaty with the Klingons on the Federation’s behalf while drunk! All this suggests that while the crew were acting outside their official capacity, they did so with the tacit approval of Starfleet and the Federation.

However, for the sake of argument, let’s say that M’Benga and Chapel were not undertaking any official Starfleet business (with either the actual or tacit approval of their chain of command), but instead were acting completely in their personal capacity. In real life, this would be akin to military personnel committing a crime while on leave or while AWOL (absent without leave). In many countries, the military justice system can prosecute service personnel even when they commit crimes in a personal capacity and even when they do so abroad. Assault and battery are crimes under military law just as they are under civilian law and if M’Benga and Chapel were members of the UK Armed Forces, there would be some further military-specific offences under the UK’s Armed Forces Act 2006 which could be relevant, including:

Unfitness or misconduct through alcohol or drugs (i.e. for taking the super-soldier serum)
Fighting or threatening behaviour
Disgraceful conduct of a cruel or indecent kind

So, even if they were not charged with torture, per se, military law could still come down hard on M’Benga and Chapel for their actions. In addition, they could face serious professional consequences for violating medical ethics. In many countries, medical professionals must be registered or licensed in order to practice medicine and when doctors or nurses do not meet the high ethical standards demanded of their profession, national regulatory bodies can suspend their registration/licence – or even bar them from practicing ever again.

Aside from being illegal and unethical, torture has been shown not to be effective and it can even cause psychological harm to the torturer. But despite all of the harmful effects of torture (to both the tortured and the torturer), depictions abound in popular culture where the hero is successfully able to get credible information from a bona fide Bad Dude after a few well-placed punches. This is a shame because such casual (and inaccurate) depictions of torture can erode popular support for its prohibition in all circumstances. Indeed, a fairly recent International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report found that among millennials, “41 per cent believe that torture is acceptable under some circumstances [and e]ven after having the UN Convention against Torture explained to them, 37 per cent still believe torture is acceptable under some circumstances.”

While this episode of Strange New Worlds may have missed the mark, Star Trek generally has a good track record of approaching the subject of torture in a well-considered way. Many fans will recall the deeply moving two-episode arc of Next Gen entitled “Chain of Command” (TNG S6E11 & S6E12), where Captain Picard is tortured to the point that he is about ready to accept any version of reality his torturer puts in front of him. Indeed, if you haven’t come across Sebastian De Tomas’ post over at startrek.com on how these episodes resonated with what he knew of people who suffered under military rule in Argentina, it is well worth a read.

Hopefully this season of Strange New Worlds will revisit what M’Benga and Chapel did on Cajitar IV – and perhaps they will indeed experience some negative consequences in future episodes for torturing the Klingon underling, regardless of how well things worked out at the end of this episode. However, considering Spock’s hangover was his only punishment for stealing Starfleet’s flagship, I fear neither of them will be facing a general court-martial anytime soon!

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are my own and do not necessarily represent the British Red Cross or the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

Secret Invasion Podcast Series

Josh Gilliland

June 27, 2023

Join us for our analysis of Secret Invasion.

The Mandalorian Season 3 Podcasts and Video Review

Josh Gilliland

March 16, 2023

Join us for our analysis of The Mandalorian, season three.

Star Trek Picard Season 3 Podcasts

Josh Gilliland

February 20, 2023

Join us for our legal analysis of Star Trek Picard season 3.

Dude Where’s My Omicron-class Attack Shuttle

Stephen Tollafield

February 16, 2023

In this week’s episode, the Bad Batch travels to a remote planet to secure a valuable mineral resource. Wrecker is charged with keeping watch for poachers while the rest of the crew is occupied with the delicate extraction of the volatile substance. However, a mysterious thief steals the clones’ ship, the Marauder, from under Wrecker’s nose, and fingers immediately start pointing.

Other than having to endure Tech’s blistering blame game, does Wrecker bear any legal responsibility to the other clones for the loss of the Marauder on his watch?

First, Tech has previously referred to the Marauder as “my ship” in Cornered, Season 1, Episode 4. Although Wrecker’s reaction in that episode strongly suggested that the Marauder was not actually Tech’s personal property, Tech might first argue that the Marauder belonged exclusively to him as its primary mechanic. Thus, Tech could try to characterize Wrecker’s failure to prevent the Marauder’s theft as a matter of contract.

Entrusting someone else with personal property creates a bailment contract between the owner and the bailee. These facts sound like the kind of bailment that exists between a car owner and the operator of a parking lot or garage. Usually, this kind of bailment is a bailment for hire where the arrangement benefits both parties, which means that the bailee has a duty of ordinary care to protect the value of the property. Beetson v. Hollywood Athletic Club, 109 Cal. App. 715, 718 (1930). Framing it as a bailment, Tech could argue that Wrecker’s failure to prevent the Marauder’s theft was sufficiently negligent to breach Wrecker’s duty of care as a bailee of the Marauder.

However, a more likely way of characterizing Wrecker’s potential liability would be as one of the vessel’s co-owners. Under California law, the clones’ co-ownership of a vessel like the Marauder would amount to a tenancy in common. Ferem v. Olson & Mahony, 176 Cal. 652, 655 (1917). Common tenancy creates a fiduciary relationship between the co-owners where each owner has a duty to preserve the value of the shared interest in the property.

Specifically, each owner may be entitled to recovery if another owner’s conduct amounts to “waste” of the property, which is defined as “an unlawful act or omission of duty on the part of a tenant which results in permanent injury.” Avalon Pac.-Santa Ana, L.P. v. HD Supply Repair & Remodel, LLC, 192 Cal. App. 4th 1183, 1214 (2011). Under California Code of Civil Procedure § 732, a party may sue for treble damages from a co-tenant whose conduct amounts to waste of the property. To recover these hefty damages, Tech, Hunter, and Omega could argue that Wrecker’s failure to adequately monitor the vessel when it was parked in a known high-crime area was an omission that resulted in the unlawful waste of the Marauder.

However, Wrecker himself asserted a strong defense to any breach-of-duty theory in the episode: because of a lack of “suitable landing zones,” Tech had docked the Marauder out of view from Wrecker’s watch post at the entrance of the mine. Wrecker could make a compelling argument that he could not be in two places at once, and protecting the clones’ safety superseded his duty to protect the Marauder.

And after all, while the value of the Marauder is certainly immense to the Bad Batch, Wrecker himself potentially suffered the greatest property loss of any of the clones with the ship’s theft: Lula.

Omega holds Lula, a black and red tooka plushie, up to Wrecker — Is Lula okay? Are they safe?

Under these tragic circumstances, burdening Wrecker with liability for the Marauder’s loss would be like kicking a clone while he’s down.

Did Thor Commit Child Endangerment by Empowering Kidnapped Children with the Power of Thor [for a limited time] to fight Gorr’s Shadow Monsters?

Josh Gilliland

February 15, 2023

Might_Thor_Thorsson_&_Associate_Feature — Image provided by Thorsson & Associates

There are many dilemmas superheroes face, but Thor Love and Thunder posed a new one: Do you empower kidnapped children to go full Ark of the Covenant on monsters hellbent on killing them? Does the act of empowering them to fight constitute child endangerment? If so, are there any defenses?

Child Endangerment to Fight Shadow Monsters

While Norse gods might have a different view of child endangerment, California defines the crime as follows:

“Any person who, under circumstances or conditions likely to produce great bodily harm or death, willfully causes or permits any child to suffer, or inflicts thereon unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering, or having the care or custody of any child, willfully causes or permits the person or health of that child to be injured, or willfully causes or permits that child to be placed in a situation where his or her person or health is endangered, shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, or in the state prison for two, four, or six years.”

Cal. Pen. Code § 273a

The events in Love and Thunder saw Gorr kidnap the children of New Asgard in his quest to kill all gods in the universe by going to the Gates of Eternity. Thor journeyed to where the children were falsely imprisoned and had a choice: take the children home, which would have let Gorr complete his genocidal plan or empower the children to also fight Shadow Monsters.

The legal issue is whether Thor willfully permitted the children to be placed in a situation where their health was endangered. The children were already kidnapped. If Thor took them from Gorr’s prison, the children would have been killed [along with every other Asgardian and other deity] by Gorr. However, powering up the children to effectively be child soldiers against Shadow Monsters meets the requirement for a child’s health to be endangered. While not a great choice, the empowered children were placed in danger. However, as soon as Thor liberated Stormbreaker, he gave it to Heimdall’s son Axl to return the children back to the safety of New Asgard.

The Necessity to Defense for Giving the Children the Power of Thor [Limited Time]

The purpose of the Necessity Defense is public policy not to punish individuals despite proof on all elements of a crime. People v. Beach, 194 Cal.App.3d 955, 973 (Cal. Ct. App. 1987)

In order to prove the Necessity Defense, the California Jury Instruction require the following:

1. Thor acted in an emergency to prevent a significant bodily harm or evil to the children;

2. Thor had no adequate legal alternative;

3. Thor’s acts did not create a greater danger than the one avoided;

4. When Thor acted, he actually believed that the act was necessary to prevent the threatened harm or evil;

5. A reasonable person would also have believed that the act was necessary under the circumstances; AND

6. Thor did not substantially contribute to the emergency.

CALCRIM No. 3403.

The arguments for each element are as follows:

1. Thor had to empower the children because there was insufficient time to return them to New Asgard before Gorr committed mass genocide;
2. Thor was no other option, because leaving with the children would have result in Gorr completing his mission to kill all gods, including the Asgardian children;
3. Thor’s actions kept Gorr for a mass killing and allowed the children to defend themselves;
4. Thor believed his actions were necessary to protect the children and lives of gods;
5. A reasonable person would agree there were no other actions; and
6. Thor did not contribute to the emergency, because the children had the power to defend themselves.

Thor really needs a jury to accept there was no other option other than empowering the children to fight the Shadow Monsters. Given the scope of the failure to do so, and the fact the children were saved (and had one heck of a therapy session destroying their kidnappers), the Necessity Defense should be successful.

Fire & Blood: Feminist legislation in the Seven Kingdoms

Juliette Rémond Tiedrez

January 26, 2023

Spoiler alert: Although this blog post will mainly focus on laws which are inconsequential to the plot of House of the Dragon, there are a few spoilers on what happens in the released episodes.

The first season of the new Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, is over and because I could not wait to know who would end up on the Iron Throne, I read the book Fire & Blood by G. R. R. Martin, on which the HBO series is based. As a nerdy international lawyer, I was pleased when Fire & Blood discussed the laws of realm and how they came into existence. What interested me the most however (from a legal perspective), was the enactment of laws to protect women and that such laws were only adopted by or thanks to women.

Legislations Protecting Women

Fire & Blood addresses a number of laws mainly on war, succession and taxes. Such topics are naturally part of the plot as the book retraces Targaryen history which is plagued by succession wars. Interestingly, two laws do not touch upon war-related issues but focus on the protection of women.

During King Aegon I’s rule, his sister-wife Queen Rhaenys had to adjudicate the case of a man who had beaten his wife to death with a rod because she had cheated on him. After consulting maesters (the kingdom’s academics) and septons (the kingdom’s priests) she considered that “an adulterous wife [gives] offense to the Seven, who [has] created women to be faithful and obedient to their husbands, and therefore must be chastised. As god has but seven faces, however, the punishment should consist of only six blows (for the seventh blow would be for the Stranger, and the Stranger is the face of death). Thus the six first blows the man had struck had been lawful … but the remaining ninety-four had been an offense against gods and men […] [The husband] was given ninety-four blows by the dead woman’s brothers”. From an Earthly-secular-21st-century perspective the “rule of six” is unacceptable. Domestic violence should not be tolerated, even if one or six blows, and women are not created to be obedient. From a 10-20 AC (after the Conquest) perspective, however, this is progress as a man cannot beat his wife – too much – and if he does, he will be held to account.

While Queen Rhaenys enacted a new “feminist” law, her granddaughter (hope I am getting the lineage right), Queen Alysanne, abolished a rapist one. In Westeros, powerful lords were allowed to “bestow [their] seed upon some maid on her wedding night” (read rape). When the lord is done, the wife could go back to her husband who, in the case brought up to Alysanne, rejected her, beat her until she left to a brothel. Appalled by this tradition, Alysanne managed to convince her husband-brother, King Jaehaerys I to abolish the “lord’s right to the first night” and label it a crime of rape. Guests witnessing the first sexual relation between husband and wife was still pretty much on the table however – to make sure the marriage was truly consummated.

Women Protecting Women

Participation of underrepresented groups (such as women) is important because without them there would not be change. It is also the case in Westeros. The two discussed laws originated from a woman, a privileged woman. Queen Rhaenys created the rule of six and Queen Alysanne abolished the lord’s right to the first night.

Although there is no mention of the King on the issue of the rule of six – Rhaenys did it all by herself, Alysanne had to ask King Jaehaerys I to abolish the lord’s right to the first night. Fire & Blood is a long book (613 pages on an e-reader) but covers a period of 157 years so G. R. R. Martin does not go into too much details on each event. However, Alysanne needed three pages and a half to convince the King and his small council (only men) to criminalise the tradition. She even needed to appeal to the survivor’s husband’s honour and make a comparison to her own wedding night with the King – totally excluding the survivor’s actual suffering from the equation – to persuade Jaehaerys who defended the practice because it was “an ancient one”. Even being a queen, the sister to the King and the most powerful woman of the realm (with a dragon) is not enough to change sexist and rapist laws. One still needs perseverance and a man’s – the King – ear. Women participation is a first step but unfortunately not enough until men are ready to listen.

Queen Alysanne’s law, as it became known among the smallfolk, would not have been enacted if it was not for a lower-class woman speaking up. Indeed, when visiting the North, and as usual, Alysanne held her women’s court. The Queen had started holding such sessions in King’s Landing but also in the other regions of her Kingdom when travelling so that she could listen to women’s problems. In the North, she was almost denied her women’s court as the Lord Commander told her there were only men at the Night’s Watch – and therefore no women in need. Upon Alysanne’s insistence, she managed to hold her court in Mole’s Town among “whores, strumpets and harlots”. It is in those circumstances that a 14-year-old blacksmith daughter told her about the lord’s right to the first night. The lord’s right to the first night seemed well-known and widespread among the lower classes but Alysanne imagined it was a thing of the past. Talking about sexual violence can be difficult for survivors, especially when assaulted by individuals with power. For them to feel comfortable speaking up, they need to be in the right, trusting environment, which was the case here since the 14-year-old testified at a women court where she felt safe, among her peers and with a Queen who was listening to her and going to act upon it.

Conclusion

This blog post is not intended to say that Fire & Blood and its televised sister House of the Dragon are feminist masterpieces. Afterall, female characters still live in a sexist world where women are only allowed to be Queen if they are the mother or wife of a King – that is what the series is all about. Women have to share their polygamist husband with other wives, still undergo virginity test, cannot train to be master at the citadel and the rule of six is still pretty unacceptably tolerant of domestic violence. In addition, although the writers had said they would crack down on sexual violence compared to the Game of Thrones series, the first episode of House of the Dragon portrays a forced c-section which constitutes shocking sexual violence (see Amanda Whiting’s article on the forced birth scene). In any case, however, it is interesting to see that the same lessons are learnt in the Seven Kingdoms: for actual change in favour of women’s rights, women of all background need to be able to participate in the political discussion and they need to be listened to.

The views expressed in this post are the author’s alone and do not represent any institutional position.

1 234...138 Page 3 of 138