TMP Klingons: what were they thinking?

[Boxyno1]

Psion wrote:

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I don't believe so, although the engines and navigational deflectors do provide non-dialog clues.

My problem with this, and I am setting myself up for a potential bashing here, is that the engines and navigational deflectors being lit up may have not been on purpose, but simply a mistake in the visual department

[Maurice]

To clarify:

The V'ger cloud is heading towards Earth at warp speed. In the very first shot of the film you see stars moving behind the cloud. It has to be at warp, anyway, cause otherwise it couldn't get from Klingon space to Earth in a matter of days.

There are consistency problems, however, as this isn't the case in subsequent shots of the cloud.

If the cloud is at warp, the Klingons must also be at warp in order to engage it, otherwise they're sitting still or cruising at impulse and allowing it to come towards them.

The VFX guys at Apogee, add to the confusion by having the impulse engines lit on the Klingon ships.

As I stated in an earlier post, on-screen evidence suggests that the Enterprise is at warp right up until the time it gets grabbed by the tractor beam. The nacelles are lit and the deflector is blue. The moment they "disengage all main drive systems" the nacelle glow vanishes and the deflector idles down to that amber color seen in all shots at sublight speed.

As to the 12th power energy field, I think the point is it's a gigantic/shocking/terrifying level of energy. Albeit not canon, Roddenberry's novelization indicates that the "cloud" is the glow of annihilated atoms hitting this powerfield. The cloud itself may be mostly harmless, but the very fact of its existence points out that whatever is making it is probably not something to be trifled with...going back to the "stupid Klingons" question.

Finally, once again to the Warp Point 5 question, here's what I said about it in another thread a while back:

DS9Sega wrote:

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The evidence for warp .5 is right on the screen in TMP. Kirk's orders and Captain's logs make it plain.

Kirk's first Captain's log occurs after the ship flies by Jupiter and in it he says, "...1.8 hours from launch...", during which time the ship has been traveling warp .5.

At its farthest from Earth, Jupiter is about 3,220 light seconds away, or about 54 light minutes distance. At half light speed, it's 108 minutes away. 108 minutes = 1.8 hours. Ergo, if Jupiter were its maximum distance from Earth when the Enterprise launched, at half lightspeed the ship would get there in exactly the 1.8 hours Kirk cites, which is too on-the-nose to be an accident.

But, for the sake of argument... At closest approach, Jupiter is 1972 seconds/32.87 minutes away at light speed. To over that distance in 1.8 hours at warp .5 would put the ship at .30c (just shy of 1/3rd light speed).

So, is TMP is any guide, warp .5 is somewhere between 30% and 50% of light speed, with 50% being the more likely intention.

[Mr Silver]

DS9Sega wrote:

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As to the 12th power energy field, I think the point is it's a gigantic/shocking/terrifying level of energy. Albeit not canon, Roddenberry's novelization indicates that the "cloud" is the glow of annihilated atoms hitting this powerfield. The cloud itself may be mostly harmless, but the very fact of its existence points out that whatever is making it is probably not something to be trifled with...going back to the "stupid Klingons" question.

You see i've always assumed that the "12th Power Energy" thing was essentially whatever the maximum output of the Ent was to the power of 12

Spock says "The Cloud is creating an energy field, greater than the Radiation of Earth's Sun" which suggests that 12th Power Energy is somewhere in that ball park

One thing that I still find fascinating is Kirk's order to self destruct (not included in all versions), what was he thinking exactly? The Ent blowing up would have very little effect, although they were in close proximity to V'Ger itself, whats to stopping V'Ger from enveloping the Ent with a forcefield and containing the explosion?

Its a wonder the Borg never assimilated/attempted to assimilate V'Ger, considering its abilities, or perhaps they did try but were nearly obliterated, which took them until the 24th century to make contact with Humans...

[Captrek]

DS9Sega wrote:

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1.8 hours works out on-the-nose if you assume a beeline trajectory from Earth to Jupiter when Jupiter is farthest from Earth. If I’m not mistaken, such a trajectory would pass through or very close to the Sun.

[Maurice]

Kirk's idea was to catch V'ger off guard and blow its brains out, hoping to take out the part controlling the orbiting devices that were gonna fry Earth.

[blssdwlf]

The other thing to consider is that V'ger isn't the first "big thing" that has been shown. There was that 10,000 mile long space amoeba that projected an energy distortion field far enough away to affect the Enterprise's communication while still far away in "The Immunity Syndrome" and kill an entire star system. That would give an energy field quite massive and probably as big as V'ger's.

Perhaps these big things occur fairly frequently and the Klingons didn't think anything was amiss in attacking V'ger?

[blssdwlf]

madmatthias wrote:

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You see i've always assumed that the "12th Power Energy" thing was essentially whatever the maximum output of the Ent was to the power of 12

Spock says "The Cloud is creating an energy field, greater than the Radiation of Earth's Sun" which suggests that 12th Power Energy is somewhere in that ball park

One thing that I still find fascinating is Kirk's order to self destruct (not included in all versions), what was he thinking exactly? The Ent blowing up would have very little effect, although they were in close proximity to V'Ger itself, whats to stopping V'Ger from enveloping the Ent with a forcefield and containing the explosion?

It was probably him feeling lucky. Antimatter explosion seems to be the go-to weapon when dealing with giant things like space amoebas, etc, so blowing the Enterprise up while within V'ger seemed like a reasonable gamble. Also, TOS has always treated antimatter as much more powerful than what we understand it to be today

[Captrek]

blssdwlf wrote:

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It was probably him feeling lucky. Antimatter explosion seems to be the go-to weapon when dealing with giant things like space amoebas, etc, so blowing the Enterprise up while within V'ger seemed like a reasonable gamble. Also, TOS has always treated antimatter as much more powerful than what we understand it to be today

Kirk would have to get very lucky for that to work. As madmatthias points out, he’s hoping that Vejur won’t be able to react quickly enough to contain the explosion.

Another thing is that it’s not clear how the destruction of the Voyager probe would affect Vejur. The Voyager probe doesn’t have the intelligence that controls the patternizers or Vejur’s other powers. Spock said, “All of this is Vejur. We are inside a living machine.” The Voyager probe’s apparent role is to give Vejur a sense of purpose. If the Voyager probe is destroyed, Vejur will have no reason to cleanse the infestation from the Creator’s home planet... but will also have no reason not to, and might simply continue on its current course of behavior. Spock and Kirk have speculated that depriving Vejur of purpose would be a knockout blow that would effectively pull out the plug, but there’s really no way to know.

[Timo]

If I’m not mistaken, such a trajectory would pass through or very close to the Sun.

Which would nicely match the visuals: Kirk departs Earth with the planet's sunny side receding in the viewscreen.

Timo Saloniemi

[Maurice]

Timo wrote:

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Which would nicely match the visuals: Kirk departs Earth with the planet's sunny side receding in the viewscreen.

Timo Saloniemi

No exactly. In the original edit the planet is partly in shadow (http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/a.../tmphd0760.jpg), and in the DE it's mostly in shadow (http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/a...icture0420.jpg). In either case, the direction is wrong for heading too close to the sun.

Then again, as neither planet's orbit is perfectly circular, and their aphelions aren't aligned, maximum distance between them isn't centered right on the sun. You'd fly near it, but not necessarily super close or through it.

[Timo]

Let's remember that the ship starts out from LEO on a tangential path where the sunrise is behind her. That's not the trajectory she follows moments later... She's probably still in the previously established process of turning towards the sun in that reverse view scene, then, making it possible she's heading very close to the sun after all.

Timo Saloniemi

[USS Triumphant]

I've kinda always figured the Klingons that were investigating V'Ger were Klingon Defense Force ships, and sort of the equivalent of the poor bastards in the helicopters with the signal lights in the movie Independence Day. They weren't there because they wanted to attack, or were looking for treasure, or anything else. They were there because the Klingon government said, "go find out what that is and if it poses a threat or can be turned to our use" and so they followed orders.

[Joshuavance1701]

Here's a discussion you don't quite see everyday. Fan of this great film and related media materials.

The visuals and depiction during these scenes are somewhat ambiguous, however I believe the intention was definitely that the Klingons as well as Enterprise encountered/confronted the Vejur cloud at warp velocities.

Kirk indicates to Scotty that the Vejur cloud is "less than 3 days away from this planet" at the time of Epsilon 9's data transmissions alerting Starfleet of the approaching cloud. It would not be possible for Vejur to reach Earth from the Klingon/Federation border at sub-light velocities.

The novel though not official canon, elaborates greatly on the notion of how the Klingons and Enterprise achieved approaching the "intruder" cloud. The cloud was stated as traveling at Warp 7 in the novel if memory serves. At that velocity the cloud passed through Klingon space so rapidly, that particular formation of cruisers were the only ships available to intercept. They simply happened to be on patrol of the border. I believe the intention was that the cloud did not traverse the entirety of Klingon space but rather popped in from another region and skirted the Klingons frontier sectors.
The Klingons and Enterprise would have overtaken the cloud from behind as it traveled at warp velocities. This would infact give the appearance as they approached of both objects traveling at sublight velocities as they maintained a constant velocity relative to each other. Its entirely possible though no evidence to suggest, that the cloud was of such enormous power it would have been possible to infact disengage warp once the power field was penetrated and still be "carried" along with the vessel at warp velocities, much as our own heliosphere around our solar system acts as its own self contained enviroment from instellar space.
The Klingons of course possessed the same scanning technology as Epsilon 9 and the Enterprise. They simply reacted with hubris to the violation of their space by an unknown "intruder." Being a war-like species this hubris blinded them to the threat a mere "cloud" could pose. Once their weapons were rendered ineffective and the first cruiser was "digitized", the Klingons then retreated. One could argue they simply could have dropped out of warp and immediately been millions upon millions of miles away from harm as the cloud and plasma energy weapon discharges sped away at warp velocities. No doubt there was a certain amount of panic involved when the first cruiser was reduced to data. It should be noted it is a true testament to the Enteprise technology and shields to survive even one direct impact of the plasma bolt. The Klingon starships are built for combat and warfare and their deflector screens could not absorb the plasma energy. It was said Vejur has knowledge that spans the entire universe, and Spock witnessed not only Epsilon 9, but planets, moons, stars, even entire galaxies that had been digitized and reduced to data by Vejur. In the novel, it indicates Vejurs curiosity was piqued when the Enterprise wasn't initially digitized by the offending plasma bolt. Poor Epsilon 9 didn't know what hit it.

[Maurice]

Joshuavance1701 wrote:

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Here's a discussion you don't quite see everyday. Fan of this great film and related media materials...

Just FYI it's considered bad form to resuscitate long dead topics like this one. If it's old and long-inactive it's preferred that you start a new post on the topic. But welcome.

[inflatabledalek]

Whilst I get the logic flaws, I love the Klingon scene in TMP. It's probably my favourite "straight" (ie, I enjoy it as intended rather than because it's inadvertently quite funny like the "PHOOOOTON TORPEDOOOOOOESSSSSS AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY" scene) bit of the film, nice and tense and looks gorgeous. Odd how the Enterprise in the same situation later in the film can't muster up any of the same tension.