Caught Marshal

You'll See

How clever I am, what with that title.  'Caught', in the sense of being arrested or stopped, especially that first verb, and 'Marshal' in the sense as defined in my 'Collins Concise Dictionary' (O most noble companion!) as "To guide or lead, especially in a ceremonious way".  There will be ceremony indeed; not 'cerements' as those are burial clothes, just so you know, although the prospect of career burial is a very real one, as you'll find out later on.  Art!

Conrad unsure if that's how you hold a gun in real life

     How d'you like my 'treatment' for a new television program?  It's called 'Gudbrund Godmansdottir, Police Doctor At Law', and follows the title character down the mean streets of Reykjavik, where he shoots criminals, then patches them up in order to prosecute them, all to a soundtrack composed by Bjork and played by Siggur Ros.

     A man can dream.

     What I'm getting at here is the INCESSANT CRUSHING REPETITION of television programs on both sides of The Pond, which feature shows about police, lawyers or doctors, or various nuances thereof.  Art!

                               

     This is the excellent, if little-known, sci-fi thriller series 'Undermind', featuring Jeremy Wilkin and the perfectly delicious Rosemary Nichols.  Jeremy plays, not a detective or pathologist or solicitor*, but a - waitforitwaitforit - Personnel Officer.  Why can't scriptwriters be a bit more creative?

     ANYWAY we are back on the subject of the 'Starry Trekkers', who might have chosen a better title, as 'Trek' is from the Boer, whom were not known for enlightened harmony and the brotherhood of races.  The episode I'm looking at now is 'Court Martial' so you can see how cleverrrrr I am with today's title.  This is where the scriptwriters use the sci-fi setting to utilise the trope of a brace of lawyers arguing in front of a judge.  

     The bafunes on Netflix who compose the synopses for programs certainly dropped a 120 decibel clanger with this one.  BEWARE SPOILERS!  Art?

     SPOILER ALERT GAP FOR THOSE NOT ENTIRELY SURE

     EXTRA GAP FOR THOSE WHO IGNORE WARNINGS AND LIKE TO LIVE DANGEROUSLY

     <sigh> 

Ignore the reflections!  Ignore the reflections!

     This is Starbase 11, where a damaged 'Enterprise' has come for repairs, and another of Albert Whitlock's excellent matte works, which cost so much they couldn't afford many.  Philistines!  You cannot put a price on art.  Art!

     Conrad is pretty sure this is an updated CGI version of the original from 1968, because if you look closer you can see Captain Kirk meeting Commodore Stone.  Art!

                                            

     We eavesdrop on a conversation between the Captain and the Commodore, where even those unfamiliar with the contemporary terrestrial equivalents understand that a Commodore outranks a mere Captain considerably.  Conrad, instead of paying attention to the example of Star Fleet meritocracy on display, focuses on a bit of background prop work, the Registry & Repair List.  Art!

     Not the best of illos but I'm going to leave it in so we have the Commodore in shot.  If you want a precisely delineated picture with better clarity - O you do? Ah.  Okay then.  Art!

     One assumed the 'NCC 1700' is the 'Slugbot', an automated garbage scow.

     ANYWAY AGAIN, Captain Kirk is up for a court martial, which involves putting his entire career at risk, thanks to an alleged heinous act, which we the audience cannot believe him capable of BUT THE COMPUTER! insists otherwise.  Art!

     This is the point where Conrad, a cynical observer of both the human condition and steamed ginger puddings, begins to wonder about professional ethics, recusement and how one sits for the bar in the 22nd century.  The young lady above is giving Jim chapter and verse on how the prosecution will handle the court martial, what avenue of attack they will take, and she even recommends an attorney for him.  

     Whom do we see in the prosecutor's role next day?  Art!

Cleans up well, doesn't she?

     SURELY she was transgressing and exhibiting a conflict of interest and at the very least not being professional?

     'Kirk needs a love interest', explain the scriptwriters.  'Plus, she shows a lot of leg in that Star Fleet uniform, the dads will like it.'

     Hmmmm.

     Well, let's have the 'Ceremonial' bit that I mentioned earlier.  Art!

     Nice to see that a few people in the far distant future still retain a fondness for books, and props to the props people for getting in tomes that look legal in nature.  Art!

     In the future, Abebooks and Turner & Donovan will still exist, for which Conrad is truly grateful.

     Captain Kirk is later found guilty and sentenced to hang from the highest yard-arm on Titan un - no, sorry, that's "Red Dwarf", isn't it?  I mean he is SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER O come on, it was broadcast 57 years ago, you've surely realised he is completely exonerated by now?  Or the series would have ended after 14 episodes.


A Technical But Fascinating Insight

Or perhaps I am watching too much of Mister Spock.  

     ANYWAY ANYWAY I came across a mention on 'Jake Broe''s Youtube vlog about courts in Mordorvia handing down decisions, which had been worked into an article by 'Euromaidan'.  Art!

                               

     From what Conrad can interpolate from the actual news-site, Ruffian manufacturers who were contracted to produce weapons and equipment for their military have been failing miserably at their task.

     In the West, this would possibly lead to receivership, the appointment of administrators, creating a list of creditors and proceeding to try and remedy the situation.

     In Modern-day Mordor, you the manufacturer can end up in prison for failing to deliver.

     This is where their Arbitration Courts come into play.  These are legal entities which will sit in judgement on the manufacturer and their end product, and deem whether they are in breach of contract or whether the circumstances permit them to remain at liberty.  Art!

                                  

     In one case examined, Zaslon JSC had received a batch of microchips from another Ruffian company, because they weren't able to source from pre-war sanctioned suppliers.  These chips were deemed unusable, and exhibited signs of 'Reballing'.  This is where a microchip has it's solder replaced after continuous usage has caused the soldering to fail.  In other words, these were recycled chips, NOT new ones.  The arbitration court upheld Zaslon's claim and dismissed any claims made by the supplier.  That's a big 'Phew!' from Zaslon - but the contracted equipment was not made.  Art!

                                    

     They have their sticky fingers in all sorts of technical pies, so it's not known what equipment was unable to be built, but from their profile Conrad suspects radars.

You What?

Conrad's roving eye caught sight of this bizarre item, and if I prod Art hard enough with this electrified fish-fork - 

         

     None of these people are Franz Kafka, because they're all smiling.  Also, he's been dead about one hundred years.  Are they talking about the preservation of his written works in the cloud, rather than on discrete physical media?  Or am I missing the point entirely?  Allow me to dig a little - 

     That helps not one whit.  Unless 'Kafka' is a software entity for data storage.  Bear with me.  Art!

                          

"Apache Kafka is a distributed, fault-tolerant, high-throughput, and low-latency platform for building real-time data pipelines and streaming applications"

     Now they have Native Americans involved?  I think I'll leave this well alone.

A High-Decibel Blast From The Past

Conrad has no idea why this cropped up on the news feed, things might be fraught but they're nowhere near the levels of the Eighties.  Art!

     

     Bend over and kiss your bottom goodbye?  The idea for this public information film was that the audience would have paid attention to the 'Protect and Survive' pamphlets being distributed, all about getting in food and water and a portable toilet and makeshift body-bags made out of bin-liners.  The British public was highly resistant to such ideas, much preferring that a nuclear attack not take place in the first instance.

     Just so you know, the Sinisters had a rather bleak joke that circulated from the Sixties onwards on this very same subject.

Q.  What do you do if you hear a nuclear attack warning?

A.  Wrap yourself in a shroud and proceed slowly to the nearest cemetery.

Q.  Why slowly?

A. To prevent panic.

     Given the appallingly poor standards of maintenance, storage and repair, it's highly likely 50% of Ruffian nukes would fail to launch.  Of course, there's no saying which 50% will launch ,,,,,

Failure to launch, and then some

                             

*  'Cop, surgeon or attorney' for our South Canadian cousins.