The following is the result of a discussion where I pointed out that while Robert Heinlein's excellent novel "Starship Troopers" is eminently filmable, it has one flaw. In chapter eight, a recruit in boot camp is executed for deserting and then kidnapping and murdering a baby girl. In a discussion of what to do with such people, and how to prevent people from growing up to become criminals in general, Heinlein compares raising humans with raising dogs, and presents the flawed argument that it's ok to hit a dog just because one argues the dog is doing wrong, just as it's ok to assault a child just because one argues that the child is doing wrong. From my experience, if this is not handled with excruciating care, this can be a perfect loophole for sociopaths who think that child abuse can not only be defended, but is required. This is clearly an indefensible and outright lie, because children are to be raised, not beaten, and it is such two legged animals who would argue otherwise who are themselves the ones who require receiving the flogging so enthusiastically prescribed by Heinlein. After making the observation that the chapter needed to be reenforced, and not at all discarded, I decided whatthehell, and the following is the resulting first draft screenplay adaptation of Chapter Eight of Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers". Temujin Felix MacAvity Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers: Chapter Eight Temujin Felix MacAvity Adapted from the novel Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein Disclaimer THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENT IS A SCRIPT ADAPTATION BY TEMUJIN FELIX MacAVITY, OF THE BOOK Starship Troopers, BY Robert A. Heinlein, AND EXISTS SOLELY FOR THE PURPOSE OF THE PROFITLESS ENTERTAINMENT AND SAMPLE SCRIPTING EXPERIENCE OF MR. MacAVITY. ALL RIGHTS AND OWNERSHIP OF THE SCRIPT ITSELF ALONE ARE RETAINED BY MR. MacAVITY, AND ANY INTEREST MAY BE EXPRESSED ONLY TO MR. MacAVITY. MR. MacAVITY DOES NOT HAVE ANY CLAIM TO ANY OWNERSHIP OR RIGHTS RELATING TO THE BOOK FROM WHICH THIS SCRIPT WAS CREATED AND ALL SUCH CLAIMS MUST BE DIRECTED TO Robert A. Heinlein OR HIS REPRESENTATIVES AND NOT MR. MacAVITY. BLACK (This is an excerpt, and as such, no attempt has been made with regards to the rule of thumb of a page of script per minute of movie. Given an adaptation of the entire book, this certainly could, and would be adhered to . . . Once the entire book was adapted . . . T.F. MacAvity) RICO (Voice Over, V.O.) Once, they erected gallows. ZIM (V.O.) Ten HUT! FADE IN EXT. CAMP BARRACKS --- LATE AFTERNOON The regiment snaps to attention, Rico Very prominent among the others. All are dressed in full M.I. Dress uniform. RICO (V.O.) Now, get this straight. This case didn't really have anything to do with the Army. NCOs start ISSUING ORDERS for parade. The regiment forms up in parade formation as the band forms up in the lead. RICO (Cont., V.O.) The crime didn't take place at Camp Currie and the placement officer who accepted this boy for M.I.. should turn in his suit. He deserted, only two days after we arrived at Currie. Ridiculous, of course, but nothing about the case made sense---why didn't he resign? Desertion, naturally, is one of the "thirty-one crash landings" but the Army doesn't invoke the death penalty for it unless there are special circumstances, such as "in the face of the enemy" or something else that turns it from a highly informal way of resigning into something that can't be ignored. The regiment begins to march, the band PLAYING "Dirge for the unmourned", all marching at 60 beats a minute. RICO (Cont., V.O.) The Army makes no effort to find deserters and bring them back. This makes the hardest kind of sense. We're all volunteers; we're M.I.. because we want to be, we're proud to be M.I.. and the M.I.. is proud of us. If a man doesn't feel that way about it, from his callused feet to his hairy ears, I don't want him on my flank when trouble starts. If I buy a piece of it, I want men around me who will pick me up because they're M.I.. and I'm M.I.. and my skin means as much to then as their own. EXT. CAMP PARADE GROUNDS --- LATE AFTERNOON The regiment arrives at the parade grounds, and amidst CALLED OUT ORDERS from the NCOs, start forming up in a three sided enclosure, facing in. RICO (Cont., V.O.) I don't want any ersatz soldiers, dragging their tails and ducking out when the party gets rough. It's a whole lot safer to have a blank file on your flank than to have an alleged soldier who is nursing the "conscript" syndrome. So if they run, let 'em run; it's a waste of time and money to fetch then back. Of course most of them do come back, though it may take them years---in which case the Army tiredly lets them have their fifty lashes instead of hanging them, and turns them loose. RICO (Cont., V.O.) A small group is off to the side, waiting for the formation to get set. RICO (Cont., V.O.) I suppose it must wear on a man's nerves when everybody else is either a citizen or a legal resident, even when the police aren't trying to find him. "The wicked flee when no man pursueth." The temptation to turn yourself in, take your lumps, and breathe easily again must get to be overpowering. The group on the side marches out to the middle of the formation. DILLINGER is in the middle, shackled, very obviously under guard. RICO (Cont., V.O.) But this boy didn't turn himself in. He was gone for four months and I doubt if his own company remembered him, since he had been with them only a couple of days; he was probably just a name without a face, the "Dillinger, N.L." who had to be reported, day after day, as absent without leave on the morning muster. Dillinger is stopped in the center of the formation, facing it. RICO (Cont., V.O.) Then he killed a baby girl. As the band PLAYS DANNY DEEVER, Dillinger's escort starts to strip his uniform of every trace of insignia, finishing with buttons and the cap. RICO (Cont., V.O.) He was tried and convicted by a local tribunal but identity check showed that he was an undischarged soldier; the Department had to be notified and our commanding general at once intervened. Dillinger was returned to us, since military law and jurisdiction take precedence over civil code. Why did the general bother? Why didn't he let the local sheriff do the job? In order to "teach us a lesson"? Not at all. I'm quite sure that our general did not think that any of his boys needed to be nauseated in order not to kill any baby girls. By now I believe that he would have spared us the sight--- had it been possible. As the escort finishes stripping the uniform, the guards form up again. Dillinger is marched around to his rear. RICO (Cont., V.O.) We did learn a lesson, though nobody mentioned it at the time and it is one that takes a long time to sink in until it becomes second nature: The M.I.. take care of their own--- no matter what. At the focus of the regimental formation is a set of steps, and Dillinger is marched to them and up them to a waiting noose. RICO (Cont., V.O.) Dillinger belonged to us, he was still on our rolls. Even though we didn't want him, even though we should never have had him, even though we would have been happy to disclaim him, he was a member of our regiment. We couldn't brush him off and let a sheriff a thousand miles away handle it. On the gallows platform, the noose is put around Dillinger's neck and the band DRUMS PLAY A SUSTAINED ROLL. RICO (Cont., V.O.) If it has to be done, a man---a real man---shoots his own dog himself; he doesn't hire a proxy who may bungle it. The regimental records said that Dillinger was ours, so taking care of him was our duty. The trap is sprung, and Dillinger drops. The drums stop. An order is given and the regiment gets back into parade formation. As the officers stand in review, the regiment marches off the parade grounds and back to the barracks at a fast trot. RICO (Cont., V.O.) We passed in review and on home at a fast trot. I don't think anybody fainted and I don't think anybody got quite sick, even though most of us didn't eat much dinner that night and I've never heard the mess tent quite so quiet. As the regiment marches, all the flags are draped in black. RICO (Cont., V.O.) But, grisly as it was (it was the first time I had seen death, first time for most of us), it was not the shock that Ted Hendrick's flogging was---I mean, you couldn't put yourself in Dillinger's place; you didn't have any feeling of: "It could have been Me." Not counting the technical matter of desertion, Dillinger had committed at least four capital crimes; If his victim had lived, he would have still danced Danny Deever for any one of the other three---kidnapping, demand of ransom, criminal neglect, etc. INT. MESS TENT---EVENING Everything is slow, the recruits are moving like automatons, the NCOs are on the sides, but watching with Very close attention. RICO (Cont., V.O.) I had no sympathy for him and still haven't. That old saw about "to understand all is to forgive all" is a lot of tripe. Some things, the more you understand them, the more you loathe them. My sympathy is reserved for Barbara Anne Enthwaite whom I had never met, and for her parents, who would never again see their little girl. INT. MESS TENT---EVENING Several of the recruits look quite distracted. RICO (Cont., V.O.) As the band put away their instruments that night we started thirty days of mourning for Barbara and of disgrace for us, with our colors draped in black, no music at parade, no singing on route march. Only once did I hear anybody complain and another boot promptly asked him how he would like a full set of lumps? Certainly it hadn't been our fault---but our job was to guard little girls, not kill them. Our regiment had been dishonored; we had to clean it. We were disgraced and we Felt disgraced. INT. BARRACKS---NIGHT Rico is on his cot, in bed, but quite awake. RICO (Cont., V.O.) That night I tried to figure out how such things could be kept from happening. Of course, they hardly ever do nowadays---but even once is 'way too many. I never did reach an answer that satisfied me. EXT. PARADE GROUNDS---LATE AFTERNOON Slowly, the group on the side marches out to the middle of the formation. DILLINGER is very prominent in the middle, shackled, very obviously under guard. RICO (Cont., V.O.) This Dillinger---he looked like anybody else, and his behavior and record couldn't have been too odd or he would have never reached Camp in the first place. I suppose he was one of those pathological personalities you read about---no way to spot them. In silence, Dillinger has the noose around his neck. RICO (Cont., V.O.) Well, if there was no way to keep it from happening once, there was only one sure way to keep it from happening twice. Which we had used. The trap is sprung, and Dillinger drops. RICO (Cont., V.O.) If Dillinger had understood what he was doing, (which seems incredible) then he got what was coming to him . . . The regiment is standing at attention. RICO (Cont., V.O.) except that it seemed a shame that he hadn't suffered as much as had little Barbara Anne---he practically hadn't suffered at all. EXT. CAMP BARRACKS---NIGHT Guards are moving slowly in patrols. RICO (Cont., V.O.) But suppose, as seemed more likely, that he was so crazy that he had never been aware that he was doing anything wrong? What then? Well, we shoot mad dogs, don't we? Yes, but being crazy that way is a sickness--- I couldn't see but two possibilities. INT. CAMP BARRACKS---NIGHT Some recruits are asleep, some are staring into space, Rico is still awake. RICO (Cont., V.O.) Either he couldn't be made well--- in which case he was better dead for his own sake and for the safety of others---or he could be treated and made sane. In which case (it seemed to me) if he ever became sane enough for civilized society . . . and thought over what he had done while he was "sick"---what could be left for him but suicide? How could he Live with himself? EXT. CAMP PARADE GROUND---LATE AFTERNOON The regiment is standing in formation, at attention, and under RICO'S VOICE, the execution order is BEING READ. RICO (Cont., V.O.) And suppose he escaped Before he was cured and did the same thing again? And maybe Again? How do you explain That to bereaved parents? In view of his record? I couldn't see but one answer. I found myself mulling over a discussion in our class in History and Moral Philosophy. Mr. Dubois was talking about the disorders that preceded the breakup of the North American republic, back in the XXth century. INT. DUBOIS' CLASSROOM---DAY DUBOIS is wandering around, lecturing. The students, including Rico, are sitting at their desks, watching. RICO (Cont., V.O.) According to him, there was a time just before they went down the drain when such crimes as Dillinger's were as common as dogfights. The Terror had not been just in North America---Russia and the British Isles had it too, as well as other places. But it reached its peak in North America shortly before things went to pieces. DUBOIS Law abiding people hardly dared go into a public park at night. To do so was to risk attack by wolf packs of children, armed with chains, knives, home-made guns, bludgeons . . . to be hurt at least, robbed most certainly, injured for life probably---or even killed. Rico is looking perturbed. DUBOIS (Cont.) This went on for years, right up to the war between the Russo-Anglo- American alliance and the Chines Hegemony. Murder, drug addiction, larceny, assault, and vandalism were commonplace. Nor were parks the only places---these things happened also on the streets in daylight, on school grounds, even inside school buildings. But parks were so notoriously unsafe that honest people stayed clear of them after dark. RICO Mr. Dubois, didn't they have police? Or courts? DUBOIS They had many more police than we have. And more courts. All overworked. RICO I guess I don't get it . . . Well if a boy in our city had done anything half that bad . . . well he and his father would have been flogged side by side. But such things just don't happen. DUBOIS Define a "juvenile delinquent". RICO Uh, one of those kids---the ones who used to beat up people. DUBOIS Wrong. RICO Huh? But the book said--- DUBOIS My apologies. Your textbook does so state. But calling a tail a leg does not make the name fit. "Juvenile delinquent" is a contradiction in terms, one which gives a clue to their problem and their failure to solve it. Have you ever raised a puppy? RICO Yes, sir. DUBOIS Did you housebreak him? RICO Err . . . yes, sir. Eventually. DUBOIS Ah, yes. When your puppy made mistakes, were you angry? RICO What? Why, he didn't know better; he's just a puppy. DUBOIS What did you do? RICO Why, I scolded him and rubbed his nose in it. DUBOIS Surely he could not understand your words? RICO No, but he could tell I was sore at him! DUBOIS But you just said you were not angry. RICO No, but I had to make him Think I was. He had to learn didn't he? DUBOIS Conceded. But you said that the poor beastie didn't know that he was doing wrong, that he did not understand you. Justify yourself! Or are you a sadist? RICO Mr. Dubois, you Have to! You scold him so that he knows he's in trouble, you rub his nose in it so that he will know what trouble you mean, so that he darn well won't do it again---and you have to do it right away! It doesn't do a bit of good to punish him later; you'll just confuse him. Even so, he won't learn from one lesson, so you watch and catch him at it again and pretty soon he learns. But it's a waste of breath just to scold him. I guess you've never raised pups. DUBOIS Many. I'm raising a dachshund right now---by your methods. Let's get back to those juvenile criminals. The most vicious averaged somewhat younger than you here in this class . . . and they often started their lawless careers much younger. Let us never forget that puppy. These children were often caught; police arrested batches each day. Were they scolded? Yes, often scathingly. Were their noses rubbed in it? Rarely. News organs and officials usually kept their names secret--- in many places the law so required for criminals under eighteen. Were they flogged? Indeed not! Flogging was lawful as sentence of court only in one small province, Delaware, and there for only a few crimes, and rarely invoked; it was regarded as "cruel and unusual punishment.' Dubois pauses. DUBOIS (Cont.) I do not understand objections to "cruel and unusual" punishment. While a judge should be benevolent in purpose, his awards should cause the criminal to suffer, else there is no punishment---and pain is the basic mechanism built into us by millions of years of evolution which safeguards us by warning when something threatens our survival. Why should society refuse to use such a highly perfected survival mechanism? However, that period was loaded with pre-scientific pseudo-psychological nonsense. As for "unusual', punishment Must be unusual or it serves no purpose. Dubois points his stump at a BOY. DUBOIS (Cont.) What would happen if a puppy were spanked every hour? BOY Uh . . . probably drive him crazy! DUBOIS Probably. It certainly will not teach him anything. How long has it been since the principle of this school last had to switch a pupil? BOY Uh, I'm not sure About two years. The kid that swiped--- DUBOIS Never mind. Long enough. It means that such punishment is so unusual as to be significant, to deter, to instruct. Back to these young criminals---they certainly were not flogged for their crimes. The usual sequence was; for the first offence, a warning---a scolding, often without trial. After several offences, a sentence of confinement, but with the youngster placed on probation. A boy might be arrested many times and convicted several times before he was punished---and then it would merely be confinement, with others like him from whom he learned still more criminal habits. If he kept out of major trouble while confined, he could usually evade most of even that mild punishment, be given probation---"paroled" in the jargon of the times. This incredible sequence could go on for years while his crimes increased in frequency and viciousness, with no punishment whatever save rare dull-but- comfortable confinements. Then suddenly, usually by law on his eighteenth birthday, this so called "juvenile delinquent" becomes an adult criminal---and sometimes would up in only weeks or months in a death cell awaiting execution for murder. Dubois points at Rico. DUBOIS (Cont.) You---Suppose you merely scolded your puppy, never punished him, let him go on making messes in the house . . . and occasionally locked him up on an outbuilding but soon let him back into the house with a warning not to do it again. Then one day you notice that he is now a grown dog and Still not housebroken---whereupon you whip out a gun and shoot him dead. Comment, please? RICO Why . . . that's the craziest way to raise a dog I ever heard of! DUBOIS I agree. Or a child. Whose fault would it be? RICO Uh . . . why, mine, I guess. DUBOIS Again, I agree. But I'm not guessing. A GIRL blurts out a question GIRL Mr. Dubois, but why? Why didn't they flog any of the kids who deserved it---the sort of lesson they wouldn't forget! I mean ones who did things Really bad. Why not? DUBOIS I don't know. Except that the time-tested method of instilling social virtue and respect for law in the minds of the young did not appeal to a pre-scientific pseudo- professional class who called themselves "social workers" or sometimes "child psychologists". It was too simple for them, apparently, since anybody could do it, using only the patience and firmness needed in training a puppy. I have sometimes wondered if they cherished a vested interest in disorder---but that is highly unlikely; adults must always act from conscious "highest motives" no matter what their behavior. GIRL But---Good heavens! I don't ever expect to be hauled up in front of a judge and sentenced to a flogging; you behave yourself and things don't happen. I don't see what's wrong with our system; it's a lot better than not being able to walk outdoors for fear of your life---why, that's Horrible! DUBOIS I agree. Young lady, the tragic wrongness of what those well- meaning people did, contrasted with what they Thought they were doing, goes very deep. They had no scientific theory of morals. They did have a theory of morals and they tried to live by it (I should not have sneered at their motives), but their theory was wrong---half of it fuzzy headed wishful thinking, half of it rationalized charlatanry. The more earnest they were, the further it led them astray. You see, the assumed that Man has a moral instinct. GIRL Sir? I thought---But he does! *I* have. DUBOIS No, my dear, you have a cultivated conscience, a most carefully trained one. Man has No Moral Instinct. He is not born with a moral sense. You were not born with it, I was not---and a puppy has none. We Acquire moral sense, when we do, through training, experience, and hard sweat of the mind. These unfortunate juvenile criminals were born with none, even as you and I, and they had no chance to acquire any; their experiences did not permit it. What is "moral sense'? It is an elaboration of the instinct to survive. The instinct to survive is human nature itself, and every aspect of our personalities derives from it. Anything that conflicts with the survival instinct acts sooner or later to eliminate the individual and thereby fails to show up in future generations. This truth is mathematically demonstrable, everywhere verifiable, it is the single eternal imperative controlling everything we do. But the instinct to survive can be cultivated into motivations more subtle and much more complex than the blind, brute urge of the individual to stay alive. Young lady, what you miscalled your "moral instinct" was the instiling in you by your elders of he truth that survival can have more imperatives than that of your own personal survival. Survival of you family, for example. Of your children, when you have them. Of your nation, if you struggle that high up the scale. And so on up. A scientifically verifiable theory of morals must be rooted in the individual's instinct to survive--- And Nowhere Else!---and must correctly describe the hierarchy of survival, note the motivations at each level, and resolve all conflicts. We have such a theory now; we can solve any moral problem, on any level. Self-interest, love of family, duty to country, responsibility toward the human race---we are even developing an exact ethic for extra-human relations. But all moral problems can be illustrated by just one misquotation: "Grater love hath no man than a mother cat dying to defend her kittens." Once you understand the problem facing that cat and how she solved it, you will then be ready to examine yourself and learn how high up the moral ladder you are capable of climbing. These juvenile criminals hit a low level. Born with only the instinct for survival, the highest morality they achieved was a shaky loyalty to a peer group, a street gang. But the do-gooders attempted to "appeal to their better natures', to "reach them', to "spark their moral sense." Tosh!! they Had no "better natures'; experience taught them that what they were doing was the way to survive. The puppy never got his punishment, therefore what he did with pleasure and success must be "moral". The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to a group that self interest has to individual. Nobody preached duty to these kids in a way that they could understand---that is, with punishment, with flogging if need be. But the society they were in told them endlessly about their "rights". The results should have been predictable, since a human being has No Natural Rights Of Any Nature." The boy from before takes the bait BOY Sir? how about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" DUBOIS Ah, yes, the "unalienable rights". Each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry. Life? What "right" to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not harken to his cries. What "right" to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of "right"? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is "unalienable"? And is it "right"? As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to Buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is Never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it Always vanishes. Of all the so called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is Never free of cost. The third "right"?---the "pursuit of happiness"? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can "pursue happiness" as long as my brain lives---but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it. Dubois then turns to Rico. DUBOIS (Cont.) I told you that "juvenile delinquent" is a contradiction in terms. "Delinquent" means "failing in duty". But Duty is an Adult virtue---indeed a juvenile becomes an adult when, and only when, he acquires a knowledge of duty and embraces it as dearer than the self-love he was born with. EXT. CAMP---NIGHT Guards are making patrols. DUBOIS (Cont., V.O.) There never was, there cannot be, a "juvenile delinquent". But for every juvenile criminal there are always one or two more adult delinquents---people of mature years who either do not know their duty, or who, knowing it, fail. INT. CAMP BARRACKS---NIGHT Some of the recruits are still awake, most are asleep. DUBOIS (Cont., V.O.) And That was the soft spot which destroyed what was in many ways an admirable culture. The junior hoodlums who roamed their streets were symptoms of a greater sickness; their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of "rights". . . and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure. Rico is still awake, staring into the darkness. RICO (V.O.) I wondered how Colonel Dubois would have classified Dillinger. Was he a juvenile criminal who merited pity even though you had to get rid of him? Or was he an adult delinquent who deserved nothing but contempt? I didn't know, I would never know. The one thing I was sure of was that he would never again kill any little girls. That suited me. Among the rows of sleeping recruits, Rico is asleep. FADE OUT