Coup de Grace

Star Trek TOS Fanfiction
Title:	Coup de Grace
Author(s):	Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Date(s):	1974
Length:
Genre:	gen
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Original Series
External Links:
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Coup de Grace is a Star Trek: TOS story by Jacqueline Lichtenberg.

It was published in Kraith Collected #3.

Lichtenberg wrote that "'Coup de Grace' is the single most embarrassing story I've entered into the Kraith chronology."

A responsefic is Ruth Berman's Coup de Partie.

Summary

When a crewman is infected with kye-fi-par -- the Vulcan version of rabies -- on a specimen-gathering mission, Spock knows a mercy killing is the only logical recourse.

An Editorial Comment

Carol Lee, the editor of Kraith Collected, also wrote about this story in her editorial, and agreed the story was bad:

On page 44 of this volume, Jacqueline has an open letter criticising her story "Coup de Grace". She lists its faults and ends by calling it the "worst Kraith story ever written". I take exception to that. In my opinion that dubious honor goes to another story in this volume called "The Obligation/Through Time and Tears".

Lichtenberg's Comments About "Coup de Grace" and "Coup de Partie"

Let me start by saying that "Coup de Grace" is the single most embarrassing story I’ve entered into the Kraith chronology. I prefaced that story with some deep misgivings about it and since its first publication, I’ve had those misgivings reinforced ten ways from Sunday. When it came time to put together Kraith Collected, I was very reluctant to even consider it. I still consider that story a total failure. In some ways I wish I’d never written it; yet it does serve a purpose of sorts.

Ruth Berman was one of the first to put in words some of the many things wrong with "Coup de Grace." She’s the first to come up with a fictional statement of some of those arguments. Her story, "Coup de Partie," makes "Coup de Grace" worth publishing, if only to open debate on this area of thought.

Her story opened up some new thoughts for me and I hope it will do the same for you. The ease with which Ruth has dispensed with some of my arguments in "Coup de Grace" only serves to illustrate how flimsy my arguments were. If "Coup de Grace" had been properly structured, Ruth’s story would be invalid. As it is, Ruth’s story is not only valid but important.

I am most thoroughly unsatisfied with the disease "Vulcan rabies" or kye-fi-par. If it had been properly invented, it would be genuinely incurable. Ruth cured it brilliantly. So much for that.

The point of "Coup de Grace" was to illustrate the cultural gulf between human and Vulcan. It didn’t do that. It would have been enough if the story had actually backed Spock into a corner where he would have to kill a sentient creature in order to save it from undue suffering. It didn’t do that very well. Perhaps the reason the story didn’t come off too well is that I, myself, haven’t figured out where the Kraith Vulcans stand on mercy killing. This, as you know, is one of the hottest issues in medicine today. We can already prolong life long beyond logical limits of usefulness or even consciousness. We’ve begun to discuss "the right to die" -- and I am not altogether certain exactly where I stand on all sides of this issue. If "Coup de Grace" had discussed this problem intelligently, displaying some unique Vulcan solution to this problem, then it would have been worthy of publication in the Kraith Series. It didn’t do that either.

Ruth’s objections -- that life should be prolonged even at risk to others on the chance that a cure might be found, or a ‘miracle’ occur (a given individual displaying some unique resistance that might lead to the discovery of a cure, for example), happen to be in tune with my own opinion. I think the Kraith Vulcans would be apt to take such risks, I think they’d approve of McCoy’s isolation chamber approach to the problem. They could have used a shuttlecraft in like manner in "Coup de Grace" if somebody had wished to risk their life with the patient’s.

Basically, it’s the __characterization__ that is all wrong in "Coup de Grace." Spock just wouldn’t react to a disease in that fashion, not even so deadly a disease. Ruth has brought this out on the last pages of "Coup de Partie." If Spock had acted as he did in "Coup de Grace," then he would have to learn from his errors however painful the lesson.

This is, perhaps, the only claim to validity in the Kraith series that these two stories have. Spock does make an error -- or a series of errors -- in judgment based on his assessment of human nature. In "Coup de Partie," he lives to face those errors and to correct them.

One of the most often leveled objections to the Kraith Series is that the Kraith Spock is too "superhuman," too unerring. This was not an intentional implication of the characterization. The Kraith Spock is fumbling his way, trail-and-error, through a complex situation which had never before been encountered, analysed and dealt with before he came on the scene -- namely the human/Vulcan cultural interface; the impact of the emotional cultures of other sentients of the Federation on Vulcan’s emotionless culture.

"Coup de Grace" and "Coup de Partie" together depict one of Spock’s errors, and the correcting forces. Unfortunately, that was not one of the original purposes in writing "Coup de Grace." And the background of these stories is still subtly "wrong."

Nevertheless, I think they should be retained in the Series because they do attempt to deal with an area of discussion which is topical and undeniably important. By retaining this pair of stories, I hope we will stimulate others to tackle this subject matter, perhaps doing a better job at it than I have.

Reactions and Reviews

'Coup de Grace' and 'Coup de Patrie' [sic] are the exploration of Vulcan and human reactions to Spock's deliberate killing of a sick crewmam who is dying of an infection which could wipe out the entire crew of the Enterprise. 'Coup de Patrie' is in the form of a fictional rebuttal of the first story. For my part I think both McCoy and Kirk behave like idiots, but there will be people who feel equally strongly the other way.