Starship Troopers 7

Study Guide Questions for Chapter Seven

If you are looking for the beginning of the study of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers then you can go HERE for a brief introduction. At the bottom of the introduction you will find the links to each section of the study guide as it becomes available. If you would like to see the growing list of available book studies available for free on this site you can go HERE. Enjoy!

Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)

Recklessness, Shame, Prudence, Mercy

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What are the two reasons why the M.I. are called “Mobile” and not just “Infantry?”

2. What are some of the virtues (strengths) of the powered suits the M.I. use?

3. What did Johnnie say was the purpose of the M.I.?

4. What did Johnnie say was “the real genius in the design” of the powered suits?

5. What was the “supremely important” thing which powered suits enabled an M.I. soldier to do?

6. What was the “one thing” that a soldier couldn’t do in a powered suit?

7. How many different kinds of power suits are there, what are they called, and how are they different from one another?

8. What did Johnnie do during a training exercise which got him into serious trouble?

9. What was the consequence for Johnnie’s reckless actions?

10. What two “odd things” did Johnnie realize during his punishment?

11. What are the positives of “administrative punishment” over and against a court martial?

Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)

1. Why would a nation (or planet) want to utilize a group like the M.I. who make “war as personal as a punch in the nose?” 

2. Why is the primary goal of the powered suits’ design to make it so the soldier doesn’t have to think about the suit at all?

3. Why might the fact that the training drills are “simulated” be both good and bad for training purposes?

4. Why did Johnnie do the thing he did which got him into trouble?

5. Why did Sergeant Zim ask Johnnie, “How would you like to have Colonel Dubois see what you’ve done?”

6. How did Johnnie show he had at least learned some prudence from the incident with Ted Hendrick?

7. What can be implied from Zim’s instructions to Johnnie, “Bite on that…it helps. I know?”

8. Why might a flogging be harder to watch than to take?

9. What might be the reasoning behind getting a clean slate after boot camp with no record of any administrative discipline? 

Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)

1. Johnnie said, “Maybe they’ll be able to do without us someday. Maybe some mad genius with myopia, a bulging forehead, and a cybernetic mind will devise a weapon that can go down a hole, pick out the opposition, and force it to surrender or die -- without killing that gang of your own people they’ve got imprisoned down there. I wouldn’t know; I’m not a genius, I’m an M. I. In the meantime, until they build a machine to replace us, my mates can handle that job and I might be some help on it, too.” Do you think that we are reaching such a time, in our present day, with the usage of drones and other technology, where infantry type fighting is becoming obsolete? Why or why not? Additionally, do you think it would be a positive or negative, overall, to move away from infantry-style combat to that which is carried out remotely? Why or why not?

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read Job 22:4 and Proverbs 3:12 and relate these verses to our present reading.

2. Read Hebrews 8:12 and relate it to Johnnie’s experience in this chapter.