The chain of command is a foundational element of Starfleet despite its explicitly non-military nature.
However, the “just following orders” excuse sits no better in the 23rd century than it did at Nuremberg.
Whether it’s subverting a Bad-miral with a grudge, or sabotaging an Andorian smuggler, Starfleet values consider the means as well as the ends.
(Jan Thijs/Paramount+)Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 8, “Orders of Magnitude,” delivers several epic moments of courage, fervor, apprehension, and righteousness. Read on for our selection of the most quotable lines.
Bad-miral Simon ReegerA visiting admiral always shakes things up. Admiral Reeger wears the added glamor of being a legendary war hero.
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It’s such a weird coincidence that he arrives to commandeer the Enterprise just when both Captain Pike and First Officer Chin-Reilly are incommunicado on an away mission and the next highest-ranking officer isn’t even a crew member.
But rank is rank. Even when it isn’t quite logical.
Spock: Congratulations on this assignment. First officer under Admiral Reeger is a coveted position.
Jim Kirk: Thank you.
Spock: Of course, the logical choice would’ve been to promote an officer with experience on Enterprise.
Jim Kirk: But I’ve had more command experience. Not all of it welcome. Don’t worry, Spock. I’m sure one day you’ll get to aim that logical mind of yours at some lucky captain.
Jim Kirk’s been XO on the USS Farragut for a while at this point. However, according to Reeger, he’s still got a lot to learn.
Reeger: Let me offer you a small piece of advice. As my first officer, you shouldn’t have questioned my decision to leave orbit. On the bridge, you and I need to speak with one voice. Mine.
Of course, it’s also been more than a minute since Reeger’s commanded a starship.
(Jan Thijs/Paramount+) The Family ConnectionWhenever Jim’s on board the Enterprise or its shuttle (or taking a coincidental shore leave on a resort planet), it’s an opportunity for the Kirk boys to reconnect.
Reeger: George is a good man. A good officer. We shared many pots of coffee during those early campaigns. Do you know why he never got his own ship?
Jim Kirk: No, sir. We never talked about it.
Reeger: Your father is the most fair-minded and diplomatic person I have ever met, but when it came to warfare, it was clear combat was not his strength.
This time, Reeger’s comments about their father send Jim to seek a sounding board in Sam.
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Get More of Our Coverage!Their shared memories of George Kirk aren’t exactly warm and fuzzy.
Jim Kirk: Why was Dad reassigned?
Sam Kirk: I don’t know. Does it matter?
Jim Kirk: It should matter to us, Sam.
Sam Kirk: Why? And don’t say “because he’s our father.” He never acted like it. I’ve heard stories about Dad. Fear was never a part of them.
Like the hallucinated exchange with Sam on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode 2, “The Griffin Incident,” Jim takes cold comfort in being his father’s son.
(Jan Thijs/Paramount+) General Order 24Despite Reeger’s caution about the party line, Jim cannot endorse the admiral’s extreme approach to destroying the enemy craft.
Jim Kirk: Admiral, all I’m saying is that there must be a middle ground.
Reeger: If war has taught me anything, it’s taught me that the middle ground is where most people die. Maybe you should go and think about that. Dismissed.
In the future, on Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1 Episode 23, “A Taste of Armageddon,” Kirk himself issues General Order 24 on the planet Eminiar VII.
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Jim Kirk: Admiral, as you know, General Order 24 is a directive of last resort.
Reeger: This isn’t an easy decision. Without knowing the precise location of that invisible ship, it is the only choice. My order stands!
Since Reeger doesn’t even try to reach out to the planet’s residents, bluffing isn’t his plan.
(Jan Thijs/Paramount+)He remembers to take a moment to acknowledge his crew, praising them for their willingness to follow orders in difficult times.
Reeger: I know what we are about to do is hard. I just want to say how impressed I am by this crew. Captain Pike has assembled a starship that is more than worthy of the Federation flag.
Initially, Ortegas is about as fan-girl as can be over Reeger’s presence on the ship.
Reeger: Engineering, I want to increase phaser power by routing it through the warp core. A little trick I learned during the war.
Scotty: Aye, sir. Right away.
Ortegas: Using the engine to supercharge the phasers. That’s great! Sir, is that how you defeated the Klingons at Reticuli? One starship against four D-7s. I don’t want to relive the war; I just wish I’d seen that.
Reeger: In those moments, you have to think fast. Improvise. That is the job.
She’s the first to report the population of the planet he plans on exterminating.
Reeger: How many life signs on the surface?
Ortegas: 5000 souls, sir.
Reeger: And who knows how many shielded enemy ships and combatants? 5000 to save a thousand times that many. A math no one should ever have to do. The math of command with which we are charged.
But, as the reality of the situation sinks in, even she exhibits unease at the idea of commiting genocide.
Jim Kirk: Spock, what’s the planet’s population?
Spock: 5,321
Jim Kirk: That’s how many people you’re about to kill, Admiral.
Ortegas: There’s no other way to do this?
Reeger: The enemy needs to know that their aggression will not go unanswered. We need to hit them hard. We need to make them bleed! That’s called military deterrence.
As Jim continues to challenge his orders, revealing that Reeger has an ulterior motive for pursuing the phantom ship, Reeger doubles down on the justifiable basis for plan.
Reeger: This mission is not about avenging the dead: It’s about safeguarding the living. That is our duty as Starfleet officers. Something I think it seems you have forgotten.
When the direct method fails, Jim must innovate and risk a lot more.
(Jan Thijs/Paramount+) Starfleet Order 104, Section CWhen things first start to go sideways, Jim seeks out M’Benga’s counsel, knowing the doctor served with Reeger during the Klingon War.
When M’Benga admits that he knows the phantom ship killed Reeger’s family in their attack, Jim insists he utilize the CMO’s power to remove an unfit flag officer from command.
Jim Kirk: If this mission is about revenge, then you need to declare him unfit.
M’Benga: That would be true, but I assume you’re familiar with Starfleet’s Code of Conduct on this subject.
Jim Kirk: A captain’s actions must make him unable to perform the duties of command. This must be documented, witnessed, and medically verifiable.
Realizing that he’s not only up against the admiral but against a system of checks and balances, Jim asks for advice on how to take on this challenge.
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M’Benga is canny with his answers. He suggests a lot, but says nothing definitively.
Jim Kirk: I need to know who I’m dealing with here.
M’Benga: You are dealing with a man for whom the mission is everything. After the war, Starfleet made him an Admiral. Some say it was to acknowledge his service. Others, that is was to move him off the bridge of a ship.
Jim Kirk: And what do you say?
M’Benga: Proceed with caution, James.
With that in mind, it’s up to Jim to manufacture the circumstances by which M’Benga can legitimately remove Reeger from command.
(Jan Thijs/Paramount+) Going RogueAll the pieces of Jim’s plan are expertly seeded throughout “Orders of Magnitude.”
When he comes aboard the Enterprise, M’Benga treats him with cordrazine, a relatively new drug that will become ubiquitous to medical care by the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Reeger shares his preference for real brewed coffee over its synthesized version when they meet in the captain’s ready room.
Reeger: I know it’s a luxury, but I cannot stomach the reconstituted crap from synthesizers. I like real coffee. Freshly brewed. Rank has its privileges. Besides, isn’t it the little things that provide one with a sense of stability?
Jim picks Scotty’s brain for a way to circumvent the ship’s phaser controls when Reeger sends him to check on Scotty.
Scotty, bless his heart, is an open book when anyone asks anything about the ship.
Jim Kirk: Tell me, Scotty, is it possible that increasing power through the warp core could burn out the phaser couplings?
Scotty: Oh, not likely. This ship has more redundancies than the lights on my granny’s Christmas tree.
Jim Kirk: What if bridge controls are damaged? Can the phasers be controlled from another location?
Scotty: Two places. Engineering, naturally. And the phaser power junction. But with me rerouting phasers, power junction’s a veritable sauna. That is, if you had a sauna filled with energized vidium particles. Radioactive. Bad for your skin. Actually, not a good sauna at all.
And with that intel, Jim’s set.
(Jan Thijs/Paramount+)He gets Reeger to kick him off the bridge by clumsily trying to send a message to Starfleet Command. Reeger orders La’an to take him to the brig.
Once he’s alone with La’an, he makes a plea for her assistance.
Jim Kirk: Look, the power of a starship makes it too easy to destroy. Believe me, I know. The weapons that we have here are dispassionate. They don’t get hurt or scared or want revenge, but we do.
When La’an’s call to duty clearly outweighs her need to help him, he take decisive action, albeit reluctantly.
Jim Kirk: Sorry. But you did stab me. [stuns La’an with her own weapon]
He enlists Sam’s help in running the security team in circles, giving him time to get to the power junction.
However, Sam plays by London Rules: Cover Your Butt
Sam Kirk: I want plausible deniability. Like when we were kids.
Jim Kirk: Don’t tempt me with a good time.
So by the time La’an transports Jim out of the power junction, crispy and charred, Reeger wants him held in custody in his ready room instead of the med bay for treatment or in the brig.
(Jan Thijs/Paramount+) Check MateBlink and you’ll miss it, but Jim slips the cordrazine into Reeger’s mug the second he falls onto the conference table.
As M’Benga predicts, too much cordrazine induces paranoia and Reeger’s loses his calm soon after returning to the bridge with Jim.
Jim Kirk: Wanting a solution to be right doesn’t make it right.
Jim restates the moral issue at stake.
Jim Kirk: I understand the importance of the chain of command, but there’s duty, there’s following orders, and there’s right and wrong. And killing an entire planet is wrong.
It falls on deaf ears and he bluffs his Hail Mary move, warning that firing the phasers will destroy the Enterprise because he changed the power distribution codes.
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He then ramps things up, bringing up the fact that his father actually won the battle of Zeta Reticuli, not Reeger.
Reeger: Give me those codes, or I will burn a hole through your skull.
Jim Kirk: You said, in the chair, there’s no hiding who you are.
Roofied with the cordrazine, Reeger goes into full rage mode, threatening Jim with a phaser to the head.
Reeger: I don’t give a damn what anyone says. I’m killing those bastards who murdered my family.
Once he says the quiet part out loud, M’Benga has all the evidence he needs to relieve him of command.
(Jan Thijs/Paramount+) Away Team Adventures with AndoriansThe convenient absence of the Enterprise’s two top ranking officers occurs because of a distress signal detected in the caves on a crystalline-rich planet.
When La’an doesn’t join the away team, Ortegas makes some assumptions.
Ortegas: I thought you were headed down to the planet. You love caves.
La’an: I like caves. And Una needed some time off-ship so…
Ortegas: Thought maybe you were staying because, you know…
La’an: No, I do not know.
Ortegas: Jim Kirk’s on the ship. Thought maybe he forgot something.
La’an: [chews food silently]
Ortegas: Maybe I read this wrong. Thought you enjoyed seeing him.
La’an: Wish I’d gone down to the cave. [leaves]
Ortegas: This is why I stay in my quarters.
Mind you, Ortegas isn’t wrong. Later, La’an chooses to wear the watch she saved from her time travel adventure with alternate timeline Kirk, calling it her “lucky charm.”
On the planet, Uhura’s hoping to spark some enthusiasm in Cadet A’Sha with the away mission.
Uhura: You must be excited to be in your very first landing party. I personally requested that you join the mission.
A’Sha: I have done dozens of training missions. This one is no more interesting than any other.
Chapel: [whispering to Uhura] She’s so adorable.
No detectable spark.
(Jan Thijs/Paramount+) True Blue VillainyGraham Currie made a phenomenal Andorian antagonist. Clearly valuing actions over words, he quickly assesses what will motivate a Starfleet officer to betray their codes fastest and stabs A’Sha with a poisonous crystal shard.
Andorian: I suggest you work fast. Your comrade’s turning blue. And not in a good way.
He’s got a grudge as big as Reeger’s driving his plan.
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Hatred for humans pushes him to reject a financial windfall in favor of forcing them to behave as he expects.
Andorian: Starfleet officers are easily betrayed by their savior complex.
And, like any good baddie, he talks a lot.
Andorian: I have no love for Vulcans, but I do respect their devotion to logic. My issue with humans is your hypocrisy. Take Starfleet. You believe that reason, cooperation, understanding, and intelligence are the path to progress, but at your core, one simple truth still drives you. Your fear of death. You fear it so much, you’ll betray your beliefs, your promises, and your sacred oaths. Just as you’re doing now.
Eventually, Uhura susses out the root of his anti-human sentiment.
Andorian: I was dishonorably discharged for insubordination. By my human commander.
Uhura: That’s why you hate humans.
Andorian: I am indifferent to humans. However, I do feel that the galaxy wouldn’t miss your species.
Dishonorable. Insubordinate. Indifferent. This is one Andorian with a wealth of labels.
(Jan Thijs/Paramount+) It Comes Back to FamilyBrothers are a dilemma. Best friends and lifelong adversaries. With Ortegas’s annoying sibling gone, the Kirk brothers are our best example of family that tolerates and loves each other in equal measure.
Sam Kirk: You know what this means, though? You owe me now.
Jim Kirk: Feel like we’re even.
Sam Kirk: Not even close.
Jim Kirk: Agree to disagree.
Sam Kirk: Nope. I’m right, and you’re… whatever you are.
Without being in the room, or even the ship, George Kirk’s presence has been palpable this season.
With Reeger’s manipulations exposed, Sam and Jim find a new perspective on their father’s alleged neglect.
Sam Kirk: You’re gonna learn a thing, now that you’ve got a kid.
Jim Kirk: Oh, yeah? What’s that?
Sam Kirk: Fathers are never what we think they are. Not entirely, anyway.
Jim Kirk: When did you get so smar