In the trial of Captain Kirk, in the comic Star Trek vol 2 11# August, 1990, several witnesses were called in who had appeared in the TV show, Anan 7 ("A Taste of Armaggedon"), Bela Oxmyx ("A Piece of the Action") and Leonard James Akaar ("Friday's Child"). ("Let's Kill All the Lawyers" Star Trek 11# vol 2, DC Comic Event)
“Surely you can see that ours is a better way.” Women of Star Trek Blog Entry #13 “A Taste of Armageddon” Mea 3
Hello again, my dear readers, I’m back with my next blog entry in my series on women of Star Trek: the Original Series, and today I’ll be discussing Mea 3, from the episode “A Taste of Armageddon.” Since we don’t get much about Mea 3, I’ll be focused more on how she represents Eminian culture and the scenes she is featured in.
Mea 3 is from the Eminiar 7, a planet the Enterprise is ordered to contact in the hopes of establishing a Federation port in that strategic part of space. There’s just one problem: the Eminians don’t want any contact from the outside. They transmit code 710 to the Enterprising, telling them to under no circumstances approach them. Kirk wants to respect this order and move on, but Ambassador Fox, the Federation representative on board gives Kirk a direct order to violate the code and beam down a party. Kirk reluctantly agrees. Taking Spock and some redshirts, he beams down to the Eminian capital’s control division, where they are greeted by Mea 3 and two escorts. Their Eminian technology was somehow able to predict where the Enterprise contingent would beam down, indicating that the Eminians are very advanced technologically. Their fashion, however, leaves much to be desired.
Mea 3 is the only Eminian character who can pull off her own outfit. It’s very simple: black tights and shoes with this long, striped scarf thing wrapped around her upper body and secured with a broach. You’ve probably already noticed that Mea’s name is followed by the number 3. We learn soon enough that all Eminians have numbers instead of last name - this means they value precision and order in their society, to the point they assigned numbers to their names so as not to get people with the same names mixed up! (”Wait, do you mean Mea from work, or blonde Mea, or Mea from spin class?” There’s none of that.) They’re very efficient about stuff.
Mea 3 leads Kirk and his crew to the Capital’s council room, while she tells them they should not have come:
MEA: You were warned not to come here.
KIRK: I had orders to come here. Why did your people tell us to stay away? MEA: It was for your own safety, Captain.
KIRK: I see no danger here.
MEA: The danger exists. Nevertheless, you are here. It would be morally incorrect to do less than extend our hospitality.
She brings them to the Council room, and introduces them to High Counselor Anan 7. I should mention here that we don’t really know what Mea 3′s job is. Since she receives the Enterprise crew when they beam down, we might assume she’s some politician of high importance, but she doesn’t do anything once they arrive in the war room. Is she like their secretary or something? It’s a mystery.In the war room, Anan 7 echoes Mea 3′s sentiment that they should have heeded their warning. He explains that Eminiar has been engaged in a 500-year long war with it’s neighboring planet, Vendikar. The war casualties are enormous - one to three million dead each year. Coming to Eminiar therefore put the Enterprise in grave danger. Kirk and his crew are confused - the planet appeared quite peaceful when they entered orbit. They saw no signs of destruction, no signs of mass death. How could they be at war? Their questions are answered when an Vendikar launches an attack on the city. Anan 7 orders Mea 3 to “care for our guests” - honestly, what is her job, I don’t get it?? While Anan 7 and his board members work at some computer consoles, Mea 3 calmly explains the situation:
MEA: It will not last long.
KIRK: Don't you take shelter?
MEA: There is no shelter, Captain.
SPOCK: Are these attacks frequent?
MEA: Oh yes, and we will retaliate immediately.
She shows some signs of distress when she sees one explosion hit the city’s center, but she treats the situation quite normally. She’s like a person from California explaining earthquakes to an out-of-state visitor.
At this point Spock has figured out that there is in fact no “war” - at least, not one as they know it. The two planets are fighting a “virtual” war with computers simulating attacks and then calculated casualties. Hence, the lack of explosions, devastation and ruin. Instead, “casualties” are registered and those listed have 24 hours to report to a disintegration machine. Anan explains they’ve resorted to simulated fighting because the prolongation of the war would’ve destroyed their planets cultures and civilizations: “our people die, our culture goes on.” Unfortunately, Anan also tells Kirk that the Enterprise was targeted in the attack and therefore all on board must be disintegrated within 24 hours.
Kirk and his landing party are held prisoner in a nearby room. Mea 3 comes to see them again, saying she’s been sent to ask if they require anything. (Is she like, the public relations officer or something?) She and Kirk get into a heated conversation:
KIRK: We require a great deal. I wish to speak to Anan Seven.
MEA: He's busy co-ordinating casualty lists.
KIRK: He'll have more casualty lists than he knows what to do with if he doesn't get in here and talk to me.
MEA: Don't you understand? Our duty
KIRK: Your duty doesn't include stepping into a disintegrator and disappearing. MEA: I'm afraid mine does, Captain. I too have been declared a casualty. I must report to a disintegrator by noon tomorrow.
KIRK: Is that all it means to you? To report and die?
MEA: My life is as dear to me as yours is to you, Captain.
KIRK: Then how can you stand
MEA: Don't you see? If I refuse to report, and others refuse, then Vendikar would have no choice but to launch real weapons. We would have to do the same to defend ourselves. More than people would die then. A whole civilization would be destroyed. Surely you can see that ours is a better way.
KIRK: No, I don't see that at all.
MEA: It's been our way for almost five hundred years.
I like this conversation because we get to see how real people are affected by this “simulated” war, and how they feel about it. Mea 3 is not a lemming blindly going to her death. She doesn’t want to die, but she knows that the acting in self-preservation could result in mass devastation of her people.
She knows that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.
You didn’t think I’d go there, did you?
After Mea 3 leaves, Kirk and the others break out of their office lobby-like prison room and to find some weapons and get their communicators back to warn their ship. While searching the vast corridors of the building they find people lining up to die in front of a disintegration machine, and who do they see going to join the line? Mea 3, of course!
I know she’s there for plot convenience ultimately, but I think it’s interesting she’s reporting just a few hours after she was registered. This can’t be because she is eager to die - we already know she values her life - I think she had everything planned out in case this occurred. This is probably the standard in this super-orderly culture - when the chance of dying is so high, it would make sense to have a plan in mind in case one was registered. Otherwise, each time an attack occurred, thousands of people would panic and cause chaos during their last hours alive. Mea 3 probably just went home, got the note off the fridge that said, “What to do if you’ve been declared a casualty,” checked all the boxes and reported at a disintegration station. This is where Kirk and his crew stop her, much to her distress:KIRK: Mea. What do you think you're doing?
MEA: I'm going
KIRK: You're not going in there.
MEA: But I must. KIRK: No you're not.
MEA: Please. All right, don't worry about me.
Note that Kirk calls her Mea, not Mea 3. He sees her as a unique person, not a number on a casualty list.
Kirk then has Spock sneak over to the station and knock out the guard. Kirk destroys the station with a stolen disruptor, resulting in an almost unintentionally humorous exchange:
MEA: What are you doing?
KIRK: Throwing a monkey wrench into the machinery.
MEA: You can't do this.
KIRK: I've done it.
After destroying another station and stealing some weapons and uniforms, Kirk and crew retreat to their “prison” room to contact the ship, with Mea 3 reluctantly in tow. Once again, she objects, trying to explain herself:
MEA: Captain, you've got to let me go. My time is almost up.
KIRK: Are you that anxious to die?
MEA: You don't understand.
While Spock works on signaling the ship, Kirk tries to convince Mea 3 to not only change her mind about reporting, but also to help them stop the war:
KIRK: Mea, I want you to give me a complete layout of this building complex. How do I get to the War Room?
MEA: No!
KIRK: Now listen to me. I'm trying to help you. To save your life and the lives of millions like you. If you help me, maybe I can do it. If you don't, you'll die, we'll die, and the killing will go on. Or are you that fond of the war?
MEA: What are you going to do?
KIRK: We're going to try and stop the killing.
At this, Mea 3 looks at him as though he’s gone insane, but she says nothing. Kirk continues, more gently this time:
KIRK: We're trying to help. Believe me.
MEA: I believe you, but
KIRK: Tell me what I want to know. Please.
I’m not really sure what made her change her mind. Maybe it was Kirk’s trademarked shoulder-grab thing he does when he’s really trying to convince someone about something. Maybe she decided to take a chance on these savages from outer space - the Eminians clearly look down on the Federation and it’s representatives as “barbarians” as Anan 7 says - and help them to save her own life, which we know she values. Either way she chooses, she figures she’ll end up dying. What does she have to lose? Several scenes go by before we see Mea 3 again. When we do see her again, she’s still in the same room with Spock and the others.
Spock orders Yeoman Tamura to guard Mea 3: “you stay here and prevent this young lady from immolating herself. Knock her down and sit on her if necessary.”
That is…an oddly specific visual, Spock.
Spock leaves Tamura to guard Mea 3 in the room, and that’s…that’s it, folks. This always felt off to me – while Kirk and Spock destroy the computers and Fox offers his services as negotiator, we sort of forget about Mea 3. You expect her to have one more conversation or encounter with the crew, to bring her part of the story to a resolute end, but we don’t get it. Maybe a scene was written but it ended up getting edited out. I just feel that something is missing. What do you think?
That’s all I have for you today. Once again, thank you reading, and I hope you like it. Please like, share, or comment below!
Next time: This Side of Paradise!
BONUS ROUND!!! (Airhorn sounds)
That’s right! We’re not done just yet. We’ve got one more person to talk about who’s in this episode: Yeoman Tamura!
I want to talk about her because we rarely see Asian characters besides Sulu having speaking roles in the Original Series. Although she doesn’t get many speaking lines, Tamura warrants our attention because of her responsibilities. First, she is given the landing party’s tricorder, which is normally in Spock’s hands.
Later, when the landing party escapes she’s given one of the stolen disruptors and is ordered by Spock to guard Mea 3.
These different duties assigned to Tamura imply that she is a multi-talented and highly skilled officer. It would have been nice to see more of her in other episodes.
