Bad Judgement at Starfleet

I thought Starfleet was all about peaceful exploration. Then again that's exactly the kind of propaganda a militaristic organization would use to cover their true intentions.

That would make their science vessels reconassaince, to study their enemies? They seem awfully proactive about defending themselves. I suppose the best defense is a good offense. The Klingons and Cardassians would probably agree.

I'm flashing back to the conclusion drawn by the antagonist in TOS episode Balance of Terror: there's no difference between good and evil because their methods are the same.

That was "The Savage Curtain" from season 3. Kirk had an answer to that.

Oops, been a while since I've watched those. Netflix dropped them! 😧 I'll have to rewatch Kirk's speech, but my takeaway was that ruling out self-bias requires going to an impartial source...in this case the alien. Otherwise he-said cancels out she-said and you end up with one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. What is good? Depends on who's doing the answering.

I suppose remorse factors into the punishment as well, and that helps distinguish "good" from "evil".

I kind of lost the plot of the original post. Oh well.