In times of war, the law falls silent.

The Cicero quote that titles this journal entry came up in an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine I just watched (spoilers ahead) and I found it to be a particularly timely piece of fiction to intersect with.

“Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges” (In Times Of War, The Law Falls Silent) – in other words, war comes around, anything goes.

I was just talking about the potential dangers the country faces, Biden and Trump just debated and everyone’s panicking over Biden, saying he should drop out, and we may be facing an extremist Trump administration let loose with the full fledged insurrectionist vision that has no further qualms about pretending to respect the constitution.

But that’s what the episode was about, how the constitution, or in the instance of Star Trek —obeying Starfleet regulations — don’t mean all that much at the breaking point. Not if you’re looking at a losing war with the superior forces of the dominion, and facing down the complete takeover of the Alpha quadrant and death of everyone and everything you love by the shapeshifting Founders and Jem’Hadar soldiers (who are literally bred for war and fed on Ketracel-white to keep them belligerent, besides their subservience to their masters who provide it.)

Episode 16 of season 7 of Deep Space Nine, titled as this journal entry is with the cicero quote… in a roundabout way brings you inside a secret faction of Starfleet that operates outside of the law. And an operative of that faction tries enlisting Dr. Bashir of the crew of Deep Space Nine to be a pawn in a funny game of false diplomacy at a conference of the allies fighting a war against the Dominion, for the fate of the quadrant. Sparing you the ins and outs of what he has Dr. Bashir do; in the end it turns out it was all false premise, and the only reason they chose him, was because they knew he would do the right thing by his conscience. Because, as the operative tells him, that’s what THEY are there for, to protect good men. They maneuver on the outside of the law and do the terrible things they do so men like him can be safe in a universe which actually doesn’t care anything about good or evil.

Dr. Bashir asks sarcastically essentially “Should I weep for your heroic sacrifice on my behalf?”

And the operative smiles and says only, “It is truly an honor to know you, doctor.”

And you think Bashir remains resolute… but when he calls station security to follow the trail in case they can catch the operative before he disappears without a trace, this time, he tells security, “Never mind.” Either meaning, don’t bother, you won’t find them. Or… don’t hassle them, they’re doing good work?

But that’s rather spurious. Because thinking it through, Julian’s first impression holds true. After all, what if these secret operatives trying to control the universe beyond the confines of what we normies consider “good” should GET IT WRONG? They’re playing with our fates, with zero legitimate authority based on representation or accountability. This is every superhero movie where they don’t show the civilians dying in the fight outs between the ‘main characters’ and cleaning up their ruined homes and city after the ‘heroic’ fight scene fades.

There’s a lot of that going around these days. Everyone wanting to play big guy hero with their face everywhere and no one wanting to put in the work of cleaning the dishes.

Heroism is overrated. Unless you define it as being a human being, decent and kind. Fuck these unhinged ubermenchen right in their twittering zeitgeists.

And what happens to the little mom and pop ubermensch when these big chain ubermenchens try to move in and put us out of business? Soon you have a ‘beyond good and evil’ coffee on every corner and they’re all the same! Beating you up and breaking your windows cause you’re not the right kind of tightrope walker.

Anyway, “The world needs bad men, we keep the other bad men from the door.”

Of course, law is overrated too.

And what’s all this crap I’ve been hearing about tolerance?: