"Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" (Latin for "In times of war, laws fall silent") continues the theme introduced in “In the Pale Moonlight” of questioning exactly how far would you be willing to violate your general principles in order for those principles to survive? Would their survival matter anymore at that point, anyway?Like “In the Pale Moonlight,” the story centers on the Federation’s shaky alliance with the Romulans, which it must maintain in order to survive. That is not obvious from the beginning, however. At first, Sloan approaches Bashir yet again to serve as a spy during a conference on Romulus. Sloan want Bashir to get a first hand diagnosis of the secret police (Tal Shiar) head named Koval. He is suspected of having a degenerative condition Sloan hints they would like to speed up real accidental-lie.
Bashir conspires with Adm. Ross to contain Sloan, but when ross takes ill, Bashir is all alone. He opts to contact Cretak, the senator who was posted on DS9 earlier and a friend to the alliance with the Federation for help. Bashir has jumped to the conclusion Sloan has a Romulan accomplice since he has so much inside intelligence. He requests she steal a ist of Koval’s close associates to see if he can guess who the potential assassin might be.
Unfortunately, Bashir, Cretak, and Sloan are all captured by Koval. Sloan is killed, Cretak is arrested as a traitor, and Bashir is set free.
The resolution bugs him, probably because he has read the novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. In that film, a disgraced British spy used to prop up the sadistic head of the east German secret police at the expense of many iocent lives because he is a valuable double agent. Because that is exactly what happened here.
Bashir confronts the now ‘healed” Ross who reveals the plot: Koval is a Section 31 operative. They used a plot to kill him in order to set up Cretak, who is feared to know be pushing a separate peace with the Dominion. They needed to get her out of the way to preserve the alliance and knew Bashir’s high moral sense would bring her into the conspiracy rather than let the ’assassination” of Koval go forward. Sloan’s death was faked to make things all the more convincing.
The story is interesting, though contrived. Just how likely is such a convoluted plan to work? But I can accept that aspect. What bugs me and puts this episode a few notches below “In the Pale Moonlight,’ is that Bashir never gets his hands dirty.
He never once sees the value of sacrificing Cretak in order to save the Federation. Bashir keeps his high and mighty principles, even ranting towards Ross about them in the end. The episode is diminished because he never considers that the moral action to take might not be the right action. He is just a pawn in a game played by nasty men.
You have to be a big Trek nut to care about this point, but a umber of Romulan characters featured in the episode have been seen before as TNG’s ’The Mind’s Eye” and “Unification I/II,” but every last one of them is played by a new actor. That includes Cetak, who had appeared as late as thirteen episodes ago. It takes some of the fan boy coolness out of it because there is hardly any familiarity with the characters when the only connection with their previous appearances is their name. It is a bit of a gyp.
In spite of its flaws, I like the episode overall. It continues the theme that Gene Roddenerry’s idealistic vision of the future cannot be realistically maintained under certain types of threat. It even goes so far as to admit the Romulans assassinated a Starfleet admiral last year in order to plant the seed the Federation may be creeping towards becoming like the Romulans themselves with Section 31’s covert acts.
Plus, I am a big fan of William Sadler. His portrayal of Sloan is one of the highlights of DS9.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
