This article discusses genocide and includes spoilers for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4, Episode 8, “Orders of Magnitude.”
Some episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series come up in conversation far more than others. “Mirror, Mirror,” for example, marked the first time the franchise visited the iconic Mirror Universe. “The City on the Edge of Forever” is still held up as one of the greatest Star Trek episodes of all time, if not one of the best in the history of sci-fi. However, certain Original Series installments only return to prominence when the lore they introduce is revisited in new Star Trek stories. That very phenomenon has just occurred again with Strange New Worlds Season 4’s latest effort.
Strange New Worlds, despite being set before The Original Series, often finds ways to make what essentially feel like legacy sequels to the franchise’s oldest efforts. Let’s call this particular category of Strange New Worlds episodes “legacy prequels” instead. The arrival of Admiral Simon Reeger (Joe Morton) in “Orders of Magnitude” isn’t enough to make the episode feel like a legacy prequel, given that he’s a new character who never appeared in The Original Series. However, as “Orders of Magnitude” progresses, it becomes very clear which Original Series storyline is being used as a powerful reference point.
“Orders of Magnitude” Borrows the Rarely-Mentioned General Order 24 Introduced in “A Taste of Armageddon”
Starfleet has a long list of General Orders in the 23rd century, the most well-known of which is General Order 1 – later rebranded as the Prime Directive. While the Prime Directive forbids influencing the progression of a pre-Warp society, General Order 24 could be the closest thing Starfleet has to the exact opposite of that. First mentioned in Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1’s “A Taste of Armageddon,” General Order 24 is the order a ship’s commanding officer can give to devastate the entire surface of a planet, killing everyone and destroying everything. Given that Starfleet is not a military organization and abhors violence unless absolutely necessary, General Order 24 is almost never considered a viable or acceptable option.
Both episodes are also a stark reminder of the true destructive power of a Starfleet vessel.
“A Taste of Armageddon” is a rare instance where it’s called into play. Held hostage on a pre-Warp planet called Eminiar VII (although the inhabitants are at war with a neighboring world), Captain Kirk (William Shatner) uses his brief access to a communications array to order Scotty (James Doohan) to carry out General Order 24 if Kirk and the other hostages aren’t freed. He provides a two-hour deadline, and Scotty sets the clock ticking. The matter of whether General Order 24 would actually do what Kirk claims has been a topic of much discussion for decades. It’s not exactly on-brand for Starfleet, so some argue it’s merely a pre-organized bluff that would never actually lead to genocide. Kirk cancels General Order 24 when he’s freed, so we never actually find out.
‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Confirms General Order 24 Is Real
Admiral Reeger sets General Order 24 in motion in “Orders of Magnitude,” targeting a planet where a ship they’re just about managing to track is hiding. His argument is that the ship has already proven how fearsomely destructive it is, and therefore the risk of it slipping away undetected is too great. Furthermore, he names the planet’s inhabitants the enemy, believing them to be collaborating with the elusive vessel. Neither the planet nor the other ship knows that the Enterprise is there, and no effort is made to inform them that their cooperation will result in General Order 24 being canceled.
So, if it’s a bluff, then Reeger really needs to work on his bluffing skills. The only explanation is that General Order 24 is 100% real, and that Captain Kirk’s decision to set it in motion in “A Taste of Armageddon” was not just a mind game to free himself and the landing party. General Order 24’s authenticity is cemented even further by the understandable unease of the Enterprise crew in “Orders of Magnitude.” The mutiny would have been pointless if Reeger was just enacting some fake measure designed only to intimidate.
What’s even more unsettling is that “Orders of Magnitude” goes some way to justifying the existence of General Order 24. Although it would have killed thousands on the planet’s surface, Reeger’s point about their sacrifice potentially saving millions more does have a certain dark logic to it. Maybe if he weren’t so emotionally hung up on justice for his family, the crew would have followed his orders and accepted them as a depressingly viable way forward. As it stood, Paul Wesley’s Kirk managed to prove that Reeger’s judgment was far too clouded to be considered objective.
“Orders of Magnitude” Transforms Captain Kirk’s Decision in “A Taste of Armageddon”
Promoted to the Enterprise’s Acting First Officer under Admiral Reeger, Paul Wesley’s James T. Kirk seems to be the only one unable to stomach the thought of carrying out General Order 24 in “Orders of Magnitude.” The rest of the crew doesn’t seem elated about it, but everyone else at least follows the Admiral’s orders due to the respect they have for him. It’s Kirk’s mutiny that ultimately results in General Order 24 being canceled, which could make him look like a hypocrite in “A Taste of Armageddon.”
Although it could once have been believed that Kirk’s threat to kill everyone on Eminiar VII was nothing more than a hollow threat, the reveal that General Order 24 is a terrifyingly genuine last resort means Kirk probably would have let the clock run down to zero if his demands weren’t met. So, does that make Kirk a hypocrite? No, I don’t think it does. Instead, I think it’s more accurate to say that he has ruminated on Reeger’s actions for years and ultimately decided that there was at least a kernel of merit to them. Reeger’s logic was that General Order 24 would ultimately save more lives than it initially took.
That’s pretty much beat-for-beat what Kirk is thinking while on Eminiar VII. With the planet’s civilization in a computer-simulated war (with real casualties), Kirk quite convincingly argues that both sides have rid themselves of all the ancillary unpleasantries of more traditional combat. The war with the Vendikar has been accepted as a fact of life for both civilizations, folding the ritualistic, computer-dictated sacrifice of countless lives into their respective cultures for centuries. Kirk explains that the horrors of war are what make it a thing to be avoided, but that Eminiar VII and the Vendikar have made it too “clean” and too palatable.
The deaths, chosen by relatively arbitrary simulations, would have carried on indefinitely. So, General Order 24 would have killed everyone on Eminiar VII, but it would have ended the centuries-long war, and at the very least stopped the Vendikar from sending their own people to the slaughter to meet some macabre wartime quota. “Peace or utter destruction,” Kirk offers, “it’s up to you.” I’m not saying it’s a morally black-and-white decision that Kirk makes, but Star Trek: Strange New Worlds does at least make his thought process easier to follow by showing his enthralling encounter with Admiral Reeger.
