Jarroc: The Admiral and Father :: Star Trek Defector Essays Papers

Jarroc: The Admiral and Father During the episode of Star Trek, "The Defector", Jarroc clearly shows that he is not a traitor. He does not properly fit the definition of a traitor and while it can be argued that he was one, his inner motives must be taken into account. It is these motives which make all the difference. The Webster's dictionary from the On-line Library defines a traitor as, "one who betrays another's trust or is false to an obligation or duty: one who commits treason."(gop). As an admiral, Jarroc was privileged to see many top secret documents. Some of these were accounts of the space station on Nelvana 3. The supposed betrayal of trust occurred when he took this information and gave it to the Federation. We were told that since the birth of his daughter Jarroc had become less inclined to the idea of a war with the Federation. He began to question the decisions of his superiors. He didn't do this out of anger but out of a concern for the future of his world and of his family. Even though he was an admiral and a past war hero, he disobeyed his orders and went over to the Federation space and gave them his secrets. Without looking at his reasons, it would be easy to call him a traitor. But there are always two sides to every story, and the question must be raised of to whom was Jarroc being loyal when he decided to leave the Romulan sector. He could have been responding to his own feelings, possibly to his own government as a spy, or he could have been acting for the future of his worlds. After doing a little research on the web I discovered a few pages devoted to Romulan history. One of the more pertinent facts was that they had a government with a Senate which elected their chain of high command(www.tos...). This implies a type of democratic government, which even further implies a sense of the government being responsible to the people. This is the way things are supposed to work over here anyway. What this meant was that the government owed a responsibility to keep their people safe. Jarroc clearly saw what a war could do to his people. Even though the government was willing to forsake their people for war, Jarroc was not willing to let that happen.