I believe M'Benga that it was self defense. If you think about how Dak'Rah was goading him it was obvious that he wanted to suss out what our good doctor knew about what happened in J'Gal. Remember, as M'Benga was killing his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in command he was fleeing and knew there was someone out there who knows the truth of what happened. Given the large number of casualties, he most likely is on high alert when he comes across anyone who "was there". He figures Ortegas and Chapel don't have it in them to assassinate 3 Klingons so that leaves M'Benga who (upon rewatch) has this dark edgy energy, so... maybe? When he finally gets the truth out of M'Benga he has no choice but to kill the person who can disrupt his new cushy life.
Thinking about it, either M'Benga dies or he dies. Let's say M'Benga spares his life and exposes him for the coward that he is. He tried to kill civilians! His own people too! The Federation could never allow him to continue his cushy life and his fellow Klingons would never allow him to live after finding out. To not make that attempt to kill M'Benga first would be an illogical choice.
Also other questions to consider:
Did M'Benga hold back during the sparring so as not to give away his abilities?
How threatening was Rah? What if Rah had just said something like "I'm going to make sure no one knows the real story" and M'Benga takes that to mean Rah will kill him at the first justifiable opportunity? So might as well defend himself now?
M'Benga would have to know exactly where to stab so that the 2nd Klingon heart doesn't keep him alive. Otherwise what are the chances of hitting that right spot by luck?
The characterization of Dak'Rah subverted my expectations. I was expecting him to continue to be portrayed as Legate Ghemor was - truly remorseful and wanting to do better to change his society. I was reminded throughout the episode of the one in DS9 where Kira had to listen to the dying Cardassian's life story. She got pretty angry at lives lost that he was culpable for but ultimately was able to forgive him.
Juxtaposed with this episode, the reveal that Rah is antithesis of honour and a huge coward turns the story from the trope of forgiveness is for the victim to "do some people just deserve to die for the evil they've done?"
Hey man, I like your creativity.
Same! The only thing missing was a cigar in his hands!
My partner describes it as like TNG with the weak episodes taken out. They're great, good, or neutral.
The way I read the scene was that he was so high off his power that he thought with the tables turned and Pike having no power that he would have the upper hand. But Pike managed to subdue him and High Lord Zacarias was all of a sudden staring down the barrel of a phaser rifle and all of a sudden wasn't so confident that the Pike he knew, who would lower the weapon once the combatant was subdued, was still there. I think the sudden switch was just an "OH shit, what have I done?" moment.
One thought just occurred to me... let's say "Khan Noonien Singh" as a real person was made up because Roddenberry just didn't want to let the execs win. Why would he then name Dr. Soong what he did in TNG? He couldn't have liked those strings of syllables that much...?
Wow, can I just add all the communities from mander.xyz and then filter out what I don't want? I like the content but I'm starting to try to consolidate my testing IDs into one instance. It's a feature that I have to purposely go add other communities on other instances and the only "defaults" I get are the ones on my local instance?
I wonder if there is a way to have a feed that is startrek.website + mander.xyz but exclude other non-sciencey discourse from ala .world or .ml. "All" right now does not options to filter those out...
Which 3 did you like?
It probably boils down to Boimler being a sad sack who still isn't confident enough to stand up for himself.