Personal Log - RAdm Errrika BluRox

[STSF_BluRox 0]

**Computer, open personal log, Rear Admiral Errrika BluRox. Authorization code :: types in the code::

 

Weights and balances....how do we measure out what is fair and right, and what goes against all we've been sworn and trained to uphold and protect? And now....I've had to take an action, that once again, goes against those very principles that we hold to be right and just. The Prime Directive. It has definitive reasons for it's being, but it also holds within it's very own intrinsic nature, that which so easily can trap us within it's very rigid rules. Though one might look at the very first part of General Order Number One, that there be no interference with a "pre Warp" culture, and easily note that the very fact that the people of Portalis operate a very functional space port which would qualify them as 'not being' a pre Warp culture, it is the other 47 subsections which hold various other rules and regulations that also bind us.

 

It is against one of these very rules, that I myself am now guilty of breaking. My decision was not taken lightly, and I took quite a bit of time justifying to myself to take this action. I looked long and deep into Federation Law and History while Kawalas and Kwai were down on the planet, looking at previous examples of very similar situations to that which I had just taken by other Star Fleet captains and admirals, and the resulting rulings by the Federation Council upon their return.

 

One in particular of note is that of when Captain Picard violated the Prime Directive circa stardate 41255 when he prevented the Edo of Rubicun III from executing a the son of his ship's doctor, for having unwittingly broken one of their laws. Why the boy had been allowed down on an away mission to a new species is another matter, it was in due course, the deciding issue that created the problem. The result however is what we are now looking at. The justification given when presented to the Star Fleet review board was that Picard felt that absolutely enforced law can never result in true justice. I feel we have much the same situation here. There is no options given, no discussion of a fair or equivocalness, no room for any type of alternative punishment or even extradition to our our own justice system to deal with them. They were given an absolute punishment, before the trail was even officially held. If one could call it a trial. It was more a show to read the charges, and have the guilty confess. That it was an accident, took no precedence, nor lent itself to any sort of remorse or way to make restitution. I believe there was an old term on Terra for such a trial... a Kangaroo court, used to describe judicial proceedings that deny due process rights in the name of expediency. The outcome of a trial by "kangaroo court" is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of providing a conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or by allowing no defense at all.

 

While we can also understand that what has happened violated one of their most basic tenants and laws, I could not in good conscious leave my crew members to be killed by the Portalis, without having a good reason to explain to their families, and our own people. I wish that there could have been some way to prevent this from having happened, or some way to make up for it. Perhaps I should have offered myself to them as I am responsible for the actions of my crew. Perhaps by the time the Federation council is done with me this time, I may have wished I had just walked into their disintegration booth of my own volition. Stars.....I've already violated this order several times, and have been more or less told, to make sure it never happened again.

 

And now...as we attempt to escape from Portalis with our retrieved crewmen...the ship had come to an abrupt halt, with all forwards progress impeded.....I only fear that it somehow is being perpetrated by the Portalis and that they make make the entire ship pay the penalty for my rescue or...jailbreak...of our crewmen.

Now...we wait to see.... Computer, end log.**

 

Somebody get me views of all external sensors...I want to know what stopped us. Now!