So name a Star Trek moment that you just didn't "get".

[CoveTom]

^ Kirk was probably waiting until the last minute to raise shields because he had a hard time conceiving that a fellow Starfleet vessel like the Reliant would ever open fire on the Enterprise.

As for Spock, maybe he's being extra strict with Saavik because she is a fellow Vulcan and should know even better (than most cadets) not to interrupt.

To me, the fact that it's another Federation ship makes it even stranger.

This isn't an alien entity like V'Ger that might get the wrong idea if you raise shields. This is a Federation starship commanded by (we think) a fellow captain who knows the regulations. If it's all some big misunderstanding, he's going to understand why you raised the shields. And if something really is wrong (as there was), then you've protected yourself.

There really was no good reason for Kirk to leave the shields down.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^The novelization actually touches on this idea, as Kirk and Spock speculate as to why Reliant would be on an apparent intercept course for no reason. Spock reminds Kirk that Chekov is aboard Reliant, and that the vessel is commanded by Clark Terrell, a highly-respected officer unlikely to either go berserk or fall victim to a mutiny.

As you've suggested, Terrell would almost certainly have understood (had he still been in command) had Kirk raised the shields; I wonder what Khan would have done had Enterprise raised shields first.

--Sran

 

[Dick_Valentine]

^THE Enterprise, THE Reliant.

Also in Wrath of Kahn, not sure how overdone this moment is in trekdom or if it's been mentioned here already (long thread, sorry )

Scotty sees his nephew has been terribly wounded and decided to carry him to the BRIDGE to show off how badly he's been hurt instead of getting him straight to sickbay.

Unless there was a line I missed about the turbolifts malfunctioning and he was headed that way anyway, I'm not sure, but it just seems like a giant waste of time in a crucial life or death situation.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^Maybe I'm wrong, but I remember seeing starship names used without accompanying articles.

In any case, I've always attributed Scotty bringing Peter to the bridge to his shock over what happened. It doesn't make sense in light of his Starfleet training, but neither did Kirk waiting for Reliant to lock weapons before ordering the shields raised.

--Sran

 

[Gary Mitchell]

^THE Enterprise, THE Reliant.

.

Enterprise and Reliant are just fine. No need for "THE".

 

[eyeresist]

Scotty sees his nephew has been terribly wounded and decided to carry him to the BRIDGE to show off how badly he's been hurt instead of getting him straight to sickbay.

That always seemed odd to me.

 

[Cyke101]

^THE Enterprise, THE Reliant.

The TOS movies seemed to alternate between using and omitting the article. "Reliant is on approach," or "I'd prefer to supervise the refit of Enterprise, sir" are in the dialogue for TWOK and TSFS. I want to say the JJ movies also alternate between THE or no article.

After the TOS movies, Voyager eventually implemented no articles, but only because it sounds weird saying, "The Voyager" for the first few episodes.

ENT omitted "the" because the real world US Navy (and NASA?) tends to omit them as well, so ships were referenced without it: Enterprise, Columbia, etc.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

Does the entirety of VOY count as a "moment"?

Well, based on the whole "Year Of Hell" thing, I'd have to say

maybebutwhothefuckcaresit'svoyagerffs?

 

[enterprisecvn65]

^The novelization actually touches on this idea, as Kirk and Spock speculate as to why Reliant would be on an apparent intercept course for no reason. Spock reminds Kirk that Chekov is aboard Reliant, and that the vessel is commanded by Clark Terrell, a highly-respected officer unlikely to either go berserk or fall victim to a mutiny.

As you've suggested, Terrell would almost certainly have understood (had he still been in command) had Kirk raised the shields; I wonder what Khan would have done had Enterprise raised shields first.

--Sran

You have good points and I would agree with all of them BUT for the fact that Kirk called the situation "damn peculiar" ordered yellow alert which included powering up the ship's main weapons.

Whenever you have your weapon(s) at the ready, whether it be something as simple as cops having their guns drawn when entering a strange building, or a whole warship bringing all of its various weapon systems on-line, you are acknowledging that, no matter how big or small, that there is a POSSIBILITY the current situation will become hostile to the point where you will have to either open or return fire.

So when Kirk had the Enterprise's weapons powered up he thought, even though it was an extremely remote possibility, he may have to use them.

The big problem though is that Kirk wouldn't fire on Reliant unless he knew for certain that the Reliant was going to do something to threaten the safety of the Enterprise and her crew. He is not going to give the order to fire on another starship just based on some odd events and uneasy feelings

There are really only two realistic ways Kirk would know for sure that Reliant had hostile intent. One is if Khan came on the screen to taunt Kirk in some way before he fired and the other is if the Reliant actually fired unannounced.

As cocky as Khan could be it is extremely unlikely he'd be dumb enough to announce his presence as some kind of taunt before he fired. So that leaves the only way Kirk would know beyond any doubt Reliant's intent would be when she fired on Enterprise.

If the shields are up then Enterprise can respond with her weapons, which were already powered up for that possibility. With no shields the likelihood of taking damage that leaves you in a position to return fire effectively is pretty high.

Imagine this as a scenario involving 2 WWII era US battleships. One is manned by a navy crew and the second one has been hijacked. As the two ships approach each other the captain of the navy ship can't get a response from the first one and the whole situation seems fishy so he orders the main guns loaded........If the captain is competent at all he would also order all protective measures to be activated which would include all openings sealed to protect vital areas of the ship and make as watertight as possible and other systems that would reduce the chance of any hits causing serious damage or destroying the ship completely.

This way when the hijacked battleship fires first hopefully the protective measures are enough to allow the other ship to absorb damage to the point where she can return fire. If the captain orders all guns loaded but doesn't set protective measures there's a good chance when the other ship shoots first the shots are going to rip right through large parts of her target and damage vital systems like the engines, guns, fire control etc....to the point where they will be essentially unable to return fire with any kind of effect. If they're really unlucky the ship might get hit in a magazine that wasn't sealed and be completely destroyed.

So that's the crux of it to me. If you're suspicious enough to order weapons readied, then it's only logical to order defensive measures, like shields, to be activated too or you may not even have a chance to use your weapons after taking the first hits. Especially when the only way you can be SURE you're not firing on a friendly vessel is for them to fire first.

The Princess Bride not withstanding it's like life. Either you're alive or dead, you're not "mostly dead". When you sense enough danger that you believe you may have to use your weapons you also make the ship as protected as possible. You don't just "kind of" prepare the ship for action by taking some measures but not others.

 

[TheGoodStuff]

I'll be somewhat controvertial here [and I admit I have no desire for a huge discussion on this]:

'Equinox'.

I love the episode and, I'm not sure if she is my favourite, but I love Janeway as captain.

The whole episode though doesn't achieve much for me. I find myself entirely sympathising with Janeway and her actions. I even find the writing is so...undecided. They begin to portray Janeway as losing it...then back away from that. As if the writers themselves cannot entirely commit to calling her 'wrong' in the episode.

When I try and picture myself in her situation...I understand her rage, her sense of betrayal, her disgust as their actions. The crew of the Equinox are literally throwing bodies into their warp engines because they burn well. I just see it as genocide.

So I totally see why she was willing to turn the ship around to stop them. I understand why she was willing to fire on, or even destroy the Equinox to stop them. And I understand her decision to lock the crewman in the cargobay and allow the aliens their own justice. If Sisko can justify killing an innocent Romulan, I can see how Janeway can justify her own actions to halt a slaughter of innocents.

So as much as I love the episode, I always felt like it tries to push a 'Janeway is losing it' angle, but never fully commits to this angle. And thus I just dont 'get' that vibe properly [in comparison to many other ST episodes where we can properly see a character breaking down and can thus logically call them out on it].

 

[eyeresist]

So that's the crux of it to me. If you're suspicious enough to order weapons readied, then it's only logical to order defensive measures, like shields, to be activated too or you may not even have a chance to use your weapons after taking the first hits.

I agree. Raising shields would not be a "rude" gesture if weapons weren't powered up. OTOH, readying weapons without raising shields is just asking for trouble. It's a punk move, to use the vernacular.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

So that's the crux of it to me. If you're suspicious enough to order weapons readied, then it's only logical to order defensive measures, like shields, to be activated too or you may not even have a chance to use your weapons after taking the first hits.

I agree. Raising shields would not be a "rude" gesture if weapons weren't powered up. OTOH, readying weapons without raising shields is just asking for trouble. It's a punk move, to use the vernacular.

Well and what if the Reliant was just having communication problems and that was all? I'm assuming Reliant and it's regular crew could monitor Enterprise's systems and Kirk has the weapons powered up Terrell might by like "Oh shit.....they're powering up their weapons, something must be wrong on the Enterprise" So he raises his shields and/or powers up his weapons and there could be an exchange of friendly fire between two starships.

OTOH if Enterprise just raises the shields and doesn't power up weapons, Terrell is likely to think "We haven't been able to raise them, so he's just following standard safety protocols, nothing to get worried about"

 

[mos6507]

So, why it was such a problem? It seems he just needed some vigorous physical activity. And mind meld with someone.

Google the correlation between a proliferation of young males (i.e. a woman shortage) and violence. I think you'll find that being horny and not having an outlet can do that. I guess Vulcan porn is in short supply in the 23rd century.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

One I never quite got was when Red Foreman...I mean the Federation President opens the conference and says.....

"Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing it does not necessarily follow that we must do that thing"

I remember thinking "And......." but he never elaborated on what that meant exactly.

First of all what meaning was he "redefining" progress from. Basically progress means to move forward or to improve, weren't the two sides trying to move forward from their past and improve their relationship? Seems to me the accepted definition of progress fit just fine.

Second, and maybe I'm just reading this wrong, but it sound to me like he's saying "Just because we CAN make peace and help you survive doesn't mean we MUST do so"

That sounds more like a veiled threat to me than some moving message to show how sincere the Federation was for this process to happen.

 

[Kor]

One I never quite got was when Red Foreman...I mean the Federation President opens the conference and says.....

"Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing it does not necessarily follow that we must do that thing"

I remember thinking "And......." but he never elaborated on what that meant exactly.

First of all what meaning was he "redefining" progress from. Basically progress means to move forward or to improve, weren't the two sides trying to move forward from their past and improve their relationship? Seems to me the accepted definition of progress fit just fine.

Second, and maybe I'm just reading this wrong, but it sound to me like he's saying "Just because we CAN make peace and help you survive doesn't mean we MUST do so"

That sounds more like a veiled threat to me than some moving message to show how sincere the Federation was for this process to happen.

That movie has so many editing issues that you can get a headache trying to make sense of some of the dialog scenes.

Kor

 

[Cyke101]

One I never quite got was when Red Foreman...I mean the Federation President opens the conference and says.....

"Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing it does not necessarily follow that we must do that thing"

I remember thinking "And......." but he never elaborated on what that meant exactly.

First of all what meaning was he "redefining" progress from. Basically progress means to move forward or to improve, weren't the two sides trying to move forward from their past and improve their relationship? Seems to me the accepted definition of progress fit just fine.

Having worked with policy makers and researchers for a few years now, I can tell you that in the real world, you can probably assign any sort of meaning to it, in that vague language tends to be used to avoid specifics, and you wouldn't necessarily be wrong (at least, at first).

The thing with progress is that there should be ways to measure it, in terms of goals, milestones, and shared objectives. One side moving forward in one sense, but does so at the cost of the other side, isn't progress (I feel like Russia's a good example, since TUC uses the US/Russia for inspiration; yeah, there's no communism, and citizens definitely have more choices and opportunities for upward mobiilty, but gov't corruption and cheap manufacturing skyrocketed. So one step forward, one step back).

Second, and maybe I'm just reading this wrong, but it sound to me like he's saying "Just because we CAN make peace and help you survive doesn't mean we MUST do so"

That sounds more like a veiled threat to me than some moving message to show how sincere the Federation was for this process to happen.

Not necessarily. He's still going on about what progress should look like (again, albeit vaguely). But the core thing is, "we're not trying to help you because of obligation for there is none, we're going to help you because we want to, and because we like you, and because we want peace." And that's important to point out since the movie makes it quite clear that thanks to Praxis, the Federation is now the superior power, and they're the ones capable of war but are extending a hand of friendship as a show of good faith.

There's historical precedence in US/Japan relations. Japan was certainly horribly ravaged and the US came out on top, but a major reason why Japan is so advanced today is because of post-war reconstruction efforts led by the US to help jump start redevelopment. Indeed, the US faced very little on-the-ground resistance because the Japanese population (even before the war) believed their government got them into this mess. If you can get the people to your side, reconstruction efforts are much easier in the spirit of cooperation. Get the people on your side and the government (eventually) follows suit. And Japan's rebirth and rate of reconstruction after the war is still pretty legendary.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

One I never quite got was when Red Foreman...I mean the Federation President opens the conference and says.....

"Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing it does not necessarily follow that we must do that thing"

I remember thinking "And......." but he never elaborated on what that meant exactly.

First of all what meaning was he "redefining" progress from. Basically progress means to move forward or to improve, weren't the two sides trying to move forward from their past and improve their relationship? Seems to me the accepted definition of progress fit just fine.

Second, and maybe I'm just reading this wrong, but it sound to me like he's saying "Just because we CAN make peace and help you survive doesn't mean we MUST do so"

That sounds more like a veiled threat to me than some moving message to show how sincere the Federation was for this process to happen.

That movie has so many editing issues that you can get a headache trying to make sense of some of the dialog scenes.

Kor

Agreed and unfortunately it's those little more things like that I've noticed over time that have diminished my opinion of the movie somewhat.

It's still good but it's a film that has flaws you may have missed the first time or two but become obvious with repeated viewings

 

[enterprisecvn65]

One I never quite got was when Red Foreman...I mean the Federation President opens the conference and says.....

"Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing it does not necessarily follow that we must do that thing"

I remember thinking "And......." but he never elaborated on what that meant exactly.

First of all what meaning was he "redefining" progress from. Basically progress means to move forward or to improve, weren't the two sides trying to move forward from their past and improve their relationship? Seems to me the accepted definition of progress fit just fine.

Having worked with policy makers and researchers for a few years now, I can tell you that in the real world, you can probably assign any sort of meaning to it, in that vague language tends to be used to avoid specifics, and you wouldn't necessarily be wrong (at least, at first).

The thing with progress is that there should be ways to measure it, in terms of goals, milestones, and shared objectives. One side moving forward in one sense, but does so at the cost of the other side, isn't progress (I feel like Russia's a good example, since TUC uses the US/Russia for inspiration; yeah, there's no communism, and citizens definitely have more choices and opportunities for upward mobiilty, but gov't corruption and cheap manufacturing skyrocketed. So one step forward, one step back).

Second, and maybe I'm just reading this wrong, but it sound to me like he's saying "Just because we CAN make peace and help you survive doesn't mean we MUST do so"

That sounds more like a veiled threat to me than some moving message to show how sincere the Federation was for this process to happen.

Not necessarily. He's still going on about what progress should look like (again, albeit vaguely). But the core thing is, "we're not trying to help you because of obligation for there is none, we're going to help you because we want to, and because we like you, and because we want peace." And that's important to point out since the movie makes it quite clear that thanks to Praxis, the Federation is now the superior power, and they're the ones capable of war but are extending a hand of friendship as a show of good faith.

There's historical precedence in US/Japan relations. Japan was certainly horribly ravaged and the US came out on top, but a major reason why Japan is so advanced today is because of post-war reconstruction efforts led by the US to help jump start redevelopment. Indeed, the US faced very little on-the-ground resistance because the Japanese population (even before the war) believed their government got them into this mess. If you can get the people to your side, reconstruction efforts are much easier in the spirit of cooperation. Get the people on your side and the government (eventually) follows suit. And Japan's rebirth and rate of reconstruction after the war is still pretty legendary.

Informative response.

I can see what you're talking about where you're saying that line could be read as "We're helping you because we genuinely want to, not because we have to." Which would be a significant
sentiment to get across.

He just phrases it in such an awkward way that, to me at least, it almost sounds like he's saying the opposite.

It's like if I was in debt and needed to borrow a fair sum of money from a friend or relative and he agrees to loan the money. If, when he's giving me the money, he says "You know just because I CAN give you this money, it doesn't mean that I HAVE to give you this money"

To me that sounds like kind of a not so subtle reminder saying "Don't forget pal that I'm not under any obligation to do this and I'm doing you a BIG favor by helping you out......So let's not forget who is in the position of power here and be sure you show the proper appreciation for what I'm doing, or I might just reconsider."

Again I see your take on where it could be seen as the opposite, but it just sounded like the President was essentially telling the Klingons "You need us a whole lot more than we need you in this matter and we can get on just fine if it all falls apart. So let's be sure you understand the dynamics of it and respond with the proper respect and appreciation to our gracious offer."

I still have no idea how that statement redefines "progress" or why progress would need to be redefined at all, seeing as it's a word that carries pretty much nothing but positive connotations with it.

If he said something like "Let us redefine the relationship between the Federation and Klingon Empire from one of mistrust and hostility to one of peaceful blah blah blah....." OK that I understand.......but "progress"? Don't get it.

 

[Cyke101]

He just phrases it in such an awkward way that, to me at least, it almost sounds like he's saying the opposite.

--
To me that sounds like kind of a not so subtle reminder saying "Don't forget pal that I'm not under any obligation to do this and I'm doing you a BIG favor by helping you out......So let's not forget who is in the position of power here and be sure you show the proper appreciation for what I'm doing, or I might just reconsider."

--
I still have no idea how that statement redefines "progress" or why progress would need to be redefined at all, seeing as it's a word that carries pretty much nothing but positive connotations with it.

If he said something like "Let us redefine the relationship between the Federation and Klingon Empire from one of mistrust and hostility to one of peaceful blah blah blah....." OK that I understand.......but "progress"? Don't get it.

Yeah, agreed, and it doesn't help that the movie switches back and forth between speech and action (indeed, when he begins to outline specific steps, we cut away!). Maybe those steps would have defined a more concrete vision of progress, maybe it means an invitation to the Empire to join the Federation (fat chance, but again, who knows), or maybe it means sending Federation aid to Qo'nos, what have you. But that's all conjecture on my part.

But to your second point, I feel like that's what the Klingon conspirators were afraid of in the first place, without perhaps giving the president and Gorkon any credit. The proud warrior culture wasn't going to be subservient to anyone but the Empire, and they feared that the Federation would force them into that role. Perhaps it's the president's way of acknowledging that fear, as the first step to calming fear is to acknowledge it... or again, it could be, "Take it or leave it, suckers," because we didn't hear the speech.

 

[Nebusj]

One I never quite got was when Red Foreman...I mean the Federation President opens the conference and says.....

"Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing it does not necessarily follow that we must do that thing"

I remember thinking "And......." but he never elaborated on what that meant exactly.

It's almost as though it's of no particular importance to the scene what he's saying, and that all that matters is that he's on stage in a spot where a sniper could shoot him.

Second, and maybe I'm just reading this wrong, but it sound to me like he's saying "Just because we CAN make peace and help you survive doesn't mean we MUST do so"

That sounds more like a veiled threat to me than some moving message to show how sincere the Federation was for this process to happen.

I think you're reading it wrong. I think you have to bring to the scene the uncharitable interpretation that the President is trying to make a veiled threat to conclude that he is making a veiled threat. All that the text presents is that the President is laying out the fact that there are multiple options for the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans, and that they should decide to reject at least one of those options.