TFF: Where were the Romulans?

Again, when one actually picks apart the logic of this movie, it's clear that Sybok didn't even need to stage this kidnapping in order to get a ship. Klaa's POS bird-of-prey made it to the "center of the galaxy" just as easily as the Enterprise. Clearly Sybok was resourceful enough that he could have gotten any ship and any crew to take him where he wanted to go. He probably could have just flown there himself.

Imagine if STV's editors had simply eliminated the whole Sybok/ShaKaRee/God nonsense and actually focused on the kidnapping/hostage situation as the main plot of this film, with three opposing governments trying to rescue their respective ambassadors in their own ways, and the "villain" of the movie was an actual sadistic villain instead of a misled, prone-to-unnecessary-smiling-and-laughing, heretofore-unknown member of the Spock family.

 

Obviously, they couldn't afford to put a Romulan ship in and include a whole new dynamic to the movie.

In-universe, I like to think that they would've rather had the Federation go in, at least first, to either do their work for them or soften up Sybok's forces so that, when a Romulan rescue force went in, they wouldn't experience so much resistance.

 

Or, since they don't have warp drive ("simple impulse", according to Balance of Terror), when they finally arrived, Sybok and the hostages and the Enterprise and the Klingons already had left Nimbus with no trace.

 

Pretty sure whatever they were lacking tech-wise was made up for in the great Klingon Garage Sale of '68.

 

But Sybok himself would not have known that. Even Kirk believed that Sybok was right (as in "logical", not as in "justified") in drafting the services of a top-of-the-line starship - although according to conventional wisdom, even that wouldn't be enough to get past the Barrier.

Why, then, did the Barrier prove to be no barrier at all? It must have swallowed up probes and possibly ships, or bounced them back, or else our heroes and villains would not be so convinced of its powers. Did it stop doing that all of a sudden?

The novelization offers the idea that Sybok had found a new technology capable of penetrating the Barrier, and the Klingons copied that. But a possibly more appealing idea is that the Barrier was at least partially under the control of God - and when He managed to lure in a telepath whose mind He could sense and influence, He knew exactly when to exert His powers and make the Barrier momentarily weaker (that is, when Sybok's mind registered next to the Barrier).

Or then the Barrier was under the control of God's jailors, and those decided that Sybok was accessory to God's crimes by virtue of his telepathic contact, and therefore briefly opened the Barrier to imprison Sybok, too. When the issue became moot with Sybok's death, the Barrier was flung open again to let innocent bystanders leave.

It's also possible that the Barrier always did exactly what we saw: it let ships through, propelled them to Sha Ka Ree perhaps using some sort of a high speed conduit, and never let them return - not because the Barrier would be one-way, but because God lurked in the center. During the course of history, He might have tried to capture dozens or perhaps thousands of ships in like manner, only to be thwarted on the outward leg by His captors every time - and thus He tried harder, sending telepathic lies to His victims to convince them that stronger and stronger ships were needed. Any old tub could get in, but only a strong ship could get out if and when God was aboard and attempting escape. Or then a ship whose resourceful skipper managed to escape the clutches of God, and Kirk was the first, returning to tell the story and don the T-shirt.

Timo Saloniemi

 

They probably could have gotten away with having a Romulan ship in the film, had they decided to keep the original idea from Star Trek III, in that the Bird of Prey was a stolen or copy of a Romulan design. Thus the Romulan group would arrive in the Bird of Prey, while the Klingons would arrive in a Battlecruiser from TMP.

 

But in this case, the Klingon ship captain couldn't have been a young and inexperienced guy like Klaa...and the Enterprise-A was too undermanned and in bad shape to fight a big damn K't'inga.

 

It would be good if we have had one or more appearances of the KTinga model in the Star Trek movies.

 

The movie explained it, though: the Barrier was a reflection of the fears and the dread of those venturing into its unknown depths, turning that back on those reckless enough to venture in. After Sybok's brainwashing of the crew, they were all at peace with who they were and what they were doing and in need of venturing through the Barrier. Even the un-washed Kirk's fears was overwhelmed by, as Sybok noted, his need to know what was past the Great Barrier. Thanks to Sybok's intervention the Great Barrier could not hurt the Enterprise.

The Klingons, of course, in hot pursuit were confident and with the evidence of the Enterprise being just fine had no fears of the Great Barrier, and were thus also unharmed.

(I confess I do not understand how an unmanned probe could have the sorts of dread which would doom it, but, unmanned probes in the Trek universe are either useless or get uplifted to sentience, and presumably the ability to fear the unknown, all the time anyway.)

 

Hmm. Hadn't thought of taking Sybok so literally. But it's a good interpretation and a sound concept (insofar as Trek anomalies and their characterizations go).

Yet I can't really imagine Klingons being any less confident than Klaa when facing phenomena like this. Or Vulcans. Klingons and Vulcans would have fears, lots of them, but both would have mechanisms for keeping those from stopping them, or even from ever entering the level of conscious thought; Sybok's mesmerism would simply be another such mechanism.

Kirk's objection to trying to penetrate the Barrier is that no ship has ever done it, and no probe has ever returned. This could be taken to mean that no ship (that Kirk knows of) has ever dared attempt it, because no probe has ever returned. The Barrier could be a sham, then, not harmful or impenetrable at all, but merely opaque, keeping the Feds from seeing what is really eating their probes.

Timo Saloniemi

 

True, but Sybok is, after all, a Vulcan. He should have logically thought his plan out better. Before instigating an interstellar incident and possibly getting himself killed in the process, why didn't he just try to get to ShakaRee by himself? (see below)

And any of those options are all fine and dandy...except there's no indication in the actual movie that any of the above was the case.

Or conversely, that the Romulans could have used a KTinga with a new paint job. But preferably I'd rather have had a new Romulan ship model, but with the already-reduced VFX budget this film had, that would have been an impossibility.

Which, again, makes me wonder why Sybok just didn't go there himself. If he would have been able to penetrate the barrier with no problems, then why did he need the Enterprise?

I honestly don't think that was the reason why the Klingons were able to breach the barrier (or at least the film definitely didn't intimate this as the reason). They breached the barrier because the plot required them to, simple as that.

 

Getting hold of an interstellar transport doesn't appear complicated in Star Trek, especially not in the movie era. Say, in ST3, it appeared that shady characters aplenty would serve this particular market, except in the rare case of Genesis (and even Mr Ears there would no doubt have done the gig after Sybok's trademark persuasion!).

But remember that Sybok was going to Sha Ka Ree to meet God in God's terms. And God had told him to get there in a starship! Sure, Sybok could have visited Him on his own just to say hello and yes, I'm at it, Your chariot will soon be here, too - but that would be a bit irreverent, now wouldn't it? Sybok was under a spell, that much is obvious. And while the spell would not completely cloud his judgement, or be obvious to fellow Vulcans, it would certainly affect how he pursued his lifelong goal...

...Which he may well have chosen in the first place only because God spoke to him. With the established interstellar range of Vulcan-to-powerful-alien telepathic contact, it's a wonder they don't go mad more often.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I would assume speed. Or implied power to get though the barrier (from the inside).

 

[/QUOTE]The Romulans knew how shitty this movie was and wisely stayed out of it, even going so far as to dub over their ambassador's lines.[/QUOTE]

This was so funny I just sprayed coffee over my key board!

Look, at least their ambassador was smoking hot. Even with the "we can't afford the make up costs to give her ears " head piece.

Did they really dub her lines? I guess I never noticed.

This whole movie just defies logic. I can't imagine what shatner was trying to do.

 

Consul #1: "A renegade Vulcan has taken our ambassador hostage!"

Consul #2: "The one who walks around with the phallus on the back of her head like nothing's going on?"

Consul #1: "Yep."

Consul #2: "Let him keep her."

 

But "God" didn't tell Sybok to kidnap three ambassadors in order to lure a Starfleet vessel to some backwater planet, and oh, by the way my new disciple, that ship just happens to have your half-brother as the XO.

I have a hard time believing that Sybok, while under some sort of influence from "God," yes, was so clouded in his judgment that he couldn't have come up with a better idea to acquire a starship.

 

How can you tell? It's not as if Sybok would appear surprised at any stage of his supposed plan. Divine knowledge or at least divine approval of plans might well be part of it all.

What was wrong with this one? He got a starship without the baggage of a full crew, he got it within easy sailing of his destination, and he got it without the rest of Starfleet giving chase. That's way better than most scenarios...

Timo Saloniemi

 

Because Sybok never said, "God told me to kidnap you in order to steal your ship," which he would have said if that was the case, as most religious zealots usually use "God's word" as their justification for their actions.

Because at any point in his plan, he could easily have been killed because he put himself and others in danger. Plus there were weapons involved. If he'd just hired a ship to go to ShaKaRee (or just stolen one himself without anyone else being involved) there would have been no danger to himself or others. The fact that he still got away with his plan by no means equates that his plan was a good one.