Re: TOS
It looks you overlooked it a bit - the Enterprise was just simply telling them it was going to show how war *really is* - not just a computer calculating casualties and booths to disintegrate people "cleanly" to make war socially acceptable instead of peace (even if the real reason was Kirk didn't like the idea of disintegrating young charming women before he had a chance to seduce them - <G>). And of course it was a bluff. Very different from "gunboat diplomacy" - more an exploration on how far could a ruling class go in sacrificing its people to keep power instead of really facing and resolve the actual issues - very actual, indeed.
