Romulans were inept in The Enterprise Incident

[AndHand]

Just rewatching TOS, originally a childhood staple. The remastering of the ships are cool. One episode in particular, however, bugs me as to the credible threat -- the inept bad guys in The Enterprise Incident.

The surgically disguised Kirk was able to distract or fool more than one Romulan with the line that there was spy onboard (even though no one recgonized him). The new cloaking device was in a praticularly forlorn part of the Romulan ship, with one guard inside who only inspected the new strategic asset periodically, it seemed, wasn't all that competent in arresting someone (or any kind of physical confrontation at all). For that matter, the Romulans can pick up communication within their own ship, but couldn't detect Kirk transporting into their vessel. And the Romulan commander? One assumes that they get to their position by exercising good judgement rather than throwing caution to the wind, being needy, and trusting the enemy without cause. I still intend to enjoy the rest of the remastered TOS, but for some reason, there seemed to be an extreme degree of bad-guys-ineptitude in this particular episode.

 

[Spock's Barber]

You mean....like when the Romulan guard tells Kirk to drop his weapon, then he carelessly bends down to pick it up and then he gets double kicked by Kirk.

 

[CrazyMatt]

All I want to know is how the Romulans took the remaining pieces of Nomad (after it exploded) and used it to make a new cloaking device.

 

[Noname Given]

All I want to know is how the Romulans took the remaining pieces of Nomad (after it exploded) and used it to make a new cloaking device.

I want to know HOW the Federation knew that a Cloaking device could be simply disconnected (without any real tools needed whatsoever); and PHYSICALLY CARRIED OUT of the Romulan ship's Engineering room by ONE person.

 

[Push The Button]

I want to know HOW the Federation knew that a Cloaking device could be simply disconnected (without any real tools needed whatsoever); and PHYSICALLY CARRIED OUT of the Romulan ship's Engineering room by ONE person.

One of the things I try not to think about too much. It took Scotty longer to get a water pump working for the miners on Janus VI in The Devil in the Dark.

 

[Tenacity]

I want to know HOW the Federation knew that ...

That might have a part of the intelligence Starfleet acquired prior to green lighting the mission and assigning the Enterprise. If the cloaking device were several multi-tonne installations hardwired into the warp nacelles, Starfleet would have had to of come up with a different plan.

Starfleet doesn't take a dump without a plan.

inept

It's possible that the Romulans are just that, inept.

Look at their brilliant plan to conquer Vulcan, a relatively small number of troops on three ships, the political leadership of the Romulan Empire actually thought this would work.

 

[AndHand]

Gee, I thought I was the killjoy. Are you sure you're fans?

 

[CrazyMatt]

We are FANS!

(insert moving theme song here)

 

[Tenacity]

Are you sure you're fans?

I've never been a big fan of the Romulans.

 

[Push The Button]

I want to know HOW the Federation knew that a Cloaking device could be simply disconnected (without any real tools needed whatsoever); and PHYSICALLY CARRIED OUT of the Romulan ship's Engineering room by ONE person.

(section 31, of course)

 

[Nerys Myk]

All I want to know is how the Romulans took the remaining pieces of Nomad (after it exploded) and used it to make a new cloaking device.

Cloaking devices are powered by Sargonic energy.

 

[TheAdmiralty]

I wouldn't really expect them to guard the cloaking device on their own ship. There's all kinds of Starfleet technology that we don't see being guarded on starships because they're not expecting disguised enemies to steal it.

I still like the episode, but I agree with D.C. Fontana's criticism of her own episode (she blamed it on re-writes) where she says the Romulan Commander gets duped way too easily by Spock and it sort of takes the credibility away from the whole thing. It doesn't play as well watching it now as it did when I was younger for that reason.

 

[AndHand]

I'd have to say the new cloaking device differs form unguarded technology on starships. It's new, strategic, and the commander believes that the enterprise is there to steal the technology.
Thanks for the background on D.C. Fontana.

 

[Nebusj]

Starfleet doesn't take a dump without a plan.It's possible that the Romulans are just that, inept.

Look at their brilliant plan to conquer Vulcan, a relatively small number of troops on three ships, the political leadership of the Romulan Empire actually thought this would work.

Or perhaps the whole thing was a scam, a show put on so that the Romulans could ship technology to the Federation in exchange for --- we don't know, but there is the tantalizing evidence of a Romulan/Federation detente going into the movies era --- while maintaining deniability for whatever arrangement with the Klingons got them their D-7 designs.

(I don't buy this at all, but I am going to present it at the summer conference of The Timo Institute.)

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Incompetent villains are essential if TV heroes want to escape after being captured. The Pueblo incident may have inspired "The Enterprise Incident," but sadly it's a lot harder to escape from the North Koreans.

Or perhaps the whole thing was a scam, a show put on so that the Romulans could ship technology to the Federation in exchange for --- we don't know, but there is the tantalizing evidence of a Romulan/Federation detente going into the movies era --- while maintaining deniability for whatever arrangement with the Klingons got them their D-7 designs.

That would explain a lot, vis-a-vis the Romulans' seeming incompetence.

 

[Timo]

We could build a four-field out of this. Do Romulans fall harder upon the relatives of defectors or the relatives of inept losers? And did the Commander love or hate her husband? Perhaps mere defection would not have caused that bastard to suffer enough, but when the Commander in the reviewing of the logs turns out to be an idiot and an adulterer...?

Certainly there's more to the story than what we see - it's just the culmination of a spy drama that for the most part did not involve our heroes. The Feds want the cloak (and are aware of the later well-established Trek fact that cloaks are compact little devices that only require a compatible power source in order to render the ship and often also the device itself invisible). But the Romulans want the Enterprise. Did they know the Enterprise would be coming?

If not, they could be less prepared to deal with her presence than otherwise. If they just got advance warning of a starship on a mission of thievery, they might have expected to destroy her and be done with it. Now that they suddenly have to negotiate, there's a dozen things they are neglecting.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Galileo7]

You mean....like when the Romulan guard tells Kirk to drop his weapon, then he carelessly bends down to pick it up and then he gets double kicked by Kirk.

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[TREK_GOD_1]

Starfleet doesn't take a dump without a plan.It's possible that the Romulans are just that, inept.

Look at their brilliant plan to conquer Vulcan, a relatively small number of troops on three ships, the political leadership of the Romulan Empire actually thought this would work.

Quoted for truth.

 

[velour]

I still like the episode, but I agree with D.C. Fontana's criticism of her own episode (she blamed it on re-writes) where she says the Romulan Commander gets duped way too easily by Spock and it sort of takes the credibility away from the whole thing.

Was the Romulan commander really duped by Spock? Or were each one of them playing the other one for a fool -- without the other one aware of it at the time?

I have seen this episode a number of times, and I am still not sure what Spock meant when he (on board the Enterprise, near the end of the ep) told the Romulan commander, "It was the only choice possible. You would not respect any other." And the Romulan responded, "It will be our secret."

I was confused by that dialogue because Spock did tell the commander in that scene, "I hope that you and I exchanged something more permanent", implying that her seduction on him did work, to an extent.

I know that it may have been merely a secondary plot point, but who actually seduced whom?

Did the commander admit she was duped by Spock's phony romantic overtures, and therefore she was going to keep it a secret between them; or did Spock indeed develop a romantic interest for her, but in respect for Spock, they would keep it their secret? Maybe it was obvious, but it was vague to me.

 

[TheAdmiralty]

Was the Romulan commander really duped by Spock? Or were each one of them playing the other one for a fool -- without the other one aware of it at the time?

I have seen this episode a number of times, and I am still not sure what Spock meant when he (on board the Enterprise, near the end of the ep) told the Romulan commander, "It was the only choice possible. You would not respect any other." And the Romulan responded, "It will be our secret."

I was confused by that dialogue because Spock did tell the commander in that scene, "I hope that you and I exchanged something more permanent", implying that her seduction on him did work, to an extent.

I know that it may have been merely a secondary plot point, but who actually seduced whom?

Did the commander admit she was duped by Spock's romantic overtures, and therefore she was going to keep it a secret between them; or did Spock indeed develop a romantic interest for her, but since nothing could come of it, they would keep it their secret? Maybe it was obvious, but it was vague to me.

I think Spock did develop some feelings for her over the course of the episode. But she was the one who got played, not Spock, and she seemed pretty surprised/stung by Spock's betrayal, when really she shouldn't have been and in reality someone in her position (a Romulan of all people) would have been way more suspicious of him. The issue isn't so much that she was trying to seduce him, but that she assumed she had when she had no reason to assume that. I said earlier that Spock did have some feelings for her, but I don't think he considered genuinely becoming a traitor even for a second (after all, we all know who Spock's true love is, right?) I think it was a situation where they were both trying to play each other, while also having some genuine feeling for each other, but the difference was Spock knew that that was the situation, while she didn't appear to know that he was playing her. I think it could have crossed the line from a very good to great episode if it had been more of a chess match with them both "knowing the score" and it being a matter of who would make a move first, while also developing feelings for each other. But that would require some plot changes since there was no reason she'd give Spock the kind of access he had if she didn't genuinely trust him.