When Spock and Khan were talking to each other on their bridges, and Khan said he would knock out life support and take back his crew, why didn't Spock just set the self-destruct for a short countdown (10 or 5 seconds), on pause, and say that if Khan didn't surrender the Vengeance immediately, he would destroy the Enterprise himself, along with Khan's crew? Khan had superior firepower, but the Enterprise still had shields, and it's unlikely Khan could damage them enough to completely disable them before Spock activated the countdown - Khan may have surrendered, given that threat to his own crew?
I agree. But then, there's all kind of things they overlooked. I always wondered at exactly what point Marcus and Khan stopped being allies. By extention, I wondered why Khan beamed to Kronos at all.. was he personally interested in having the Federation start a war with the Klingons? These two questions seem unconnected at first, but once you look at the plot, story, and details, you realized that certain plot elements were not worked out. Also, I know that 72 was the number that the writers had been handd on a silver platter from the original episode, but it's an ungainly number. It would require more torpedo launchers than the Enterprise has (until the CG people had aplaced a few on the side but not nearly enough) and it was too much for Spock to have people take out the cryo-tubes and install explosives. I watch the film for the performances.
I don't think Khan would surrender. It wasn't in his nature. Then there's the possibility that he calls Spock's bluff, destroys the Enterprise for the Hell of it and then is wondering the galaxy in a floating WMD platform that is three times faster than any other ship in the Fleet. I think Spock made the right call.
That's the impression I got. Otherwise, Carol would have noticed as soon as they pulled the access panel offf that the missiles were duds. Maybe the transwarp-transporter was coordinated locked for the Klingon Homeworld.
If Spock had played at that, Khan likely would've fired weapons, the vengeance probably had the capability of slicing the Enterprise into pieces, if so, he could've potentially separated the torpedo tubes from the primary hull of the ship, let them float into space, to be beamed to the Vengeance, there'd be catastrophic damage to the Enterprise and Spock would be out of options. The Torpedoes would likely have damaged the Vengeance, but the Enterprise would have been beyond repair and ended up crashing to Earth, possibly disintegrating en route given that this would've exposed the inner hull about half of the ship.
This is how I'm remembering those events: Admiral Marcus and Khan were never allies. Marcus was holding the other 72 Augments as hostages to ensure Khan's cooperation with him and Section 31. Khan found them, and tried to hide them by placing their cryotubes inside torpedo casings. But Marcus figured out what Khan was doing and he took the tubes. Khan went apeshit when he thought Marcus had killed his "family," and that's why, after his attack on Starfleet which resulted in Pike's death, yes, Khan went to Kronos to start something between the Klingons and the Federation. He changed his mind once he'd realized that the cryotubes were still inside the torpedo casings where he'd left them. Even if Marcus had gotten Khan to agree to help him without resorting to extortion, I expect that Khan would have betrayed Marcus anyway, just as soon as the usefulness of their faux alliance had run out. Not unlike what he does with Kirk later on.
Why would he set the self-destruct, when he already has a better plan in place? Now, Khan is extremely intelligent, so maybe he should have been suspicious of Spock not setting the self-destruct, however, I am not surprised given his two dimensional thinking. I mean, with the torpedoes Spock wins the engagement, with the self-destruct both parties are in a gridlock at best. Even the chance of it not working is better - Khan is more likely to take his people unsuspecting, than he is going to be willing to accept Spock's treat to use self-destruct. Also the self-destruct that blows all the people up is one of the ideas that I can hardly imagine ever seeing in real life. It might be a good idea sometimes, but no person today, much less in the bright utopian future, would ever sign under a document mandating one. Not seeing a self-destruct plot only makes the film slightly more realistic than what we've seen before. Not to mention than a bad guy getting his friends (not guilty of any present-day crime) back from the ship probably hardly justifies using it under Starfleet regulations.
Thanks for your responce. All I can say is.. it is confusing isn't it? - We don't know if they were allies, or if Khan knew from the start he was being used. Supposedly Khan is pretty smart. - We don't know why Khan went to Kronos. - We don't know how that many torpedoes can change hands so fast. - We don't know how Marcus found out that Khan placed the men in the torpedoes (but he did know about it)
I thought one reason Khan went to Kronos was specifically mentioned in the film: it was a place where Starfleet wasn't going to go after him (Khan's torpedoes notwithstanding).
Indeed, that is true. In fact every question I asked above does have a solid answer given in dialogue, but hthose answers have to be reevaluated given the twist in the story.