If 1701 survived Star Trek III...

[publiusr]

Here’s the thing—we are assuming the Enterprise came all the way down during re-entry.

Looks can be deceiving:

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Here, a videographer is directly in line with a rocket trajectory. Staging made it look like it hit the “firmament” and fell. The early R-7 cores flew over the horizon being stage-and-a-half…and looked like they were also falling, as per James Oberg.

For your consideration…the Great Daylight Fireball of 1972 stayed in Earth’s atmosphere for 1,500 km before skipping back out to space.

The Genesis planet had unstable fields due to protomatter and detonating inside a nebula composed of who knows what exotic elements. This allowed Spock’s torpedo casket to soft-land.

Possible scenario:

Khan is dying on what is left of Reliant’s bridge, as per ST: II.

As he sinks…the picture becomes snowy…and hands drag him away…”my lord!”

A killer bee streaks away, the Genesis Wave revives Khan.

Kirk and crew turn away, not seeing the wreck of the Enterprise skip back out into space.

The Killer Bee moves towards it…Khan’s rescuer killed during repairs of an ad hoc stasis chamber.

Full circle.

Drifting with planetary debris, like Constellation before her…waiting to be discovered….Cartwright and Morrow knew Kruge was in the area…knew what Kirk was about to do, and let Enterprise be stolen…knowing Styles was an overconfident fool.

Even then, the conspiracy to provoke a war was in effect.

Right to the point of asking Kirk to voice over the Genesis data in place of Carol Marcus…to sweeten the pot.

I say Cartwright handed Valkris the data module personally.

With Khan building toward a new Vengeance, and Praxis the first target perhaps?

I always wondered just who built the Yamato from KLINGON ACADEMY…

 

[CorporalCaptain]

...how might the film series been different?

The Enterprise couldn't have landed in TVH, so the crew would have had to beam down while hiding the ship from 20th century detection. That would have made for some additional complexity in terms of getting the transparent aluminum aboard.

No, the transparent aluminum subplot would not have even been needed. As already discussed, finding a suitable compartment for the whales inside the starship would not have been an issue.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Here’s the thing—we are assuming the Enterprise came all the way down during re-entry.

Now that you say that... she probably shouldn't have hit the atmosphere at all. If the Enteprrise were in orbit of the planet, the debris would generally continue in orbit.

Same with the D's saucer. There's no reason the shock wave from the engineering hull should have forced the saucer down toward the planet. It also raises the question of what the shock wave was propagating through that it would have an effect on the saucer like that.

 

[FredH]

Yeah, this is ridiculous to me. I like a good underdog story, and certainly TWOK made that work pretty well. But the lack of teeth to the ENTERPRISE against a "Kia of Prey"* in these films is crazy.


*Credit to SF DEBRIS.

For TSFS, keep in mind that the Enterprise still had most of its battle damage from TWOK, and Starfleet had decided not to repair it. So Enterprise operating even as well as she was was down to Scotty’s jury-rigging (“I wasna expecting to take her into combat, you know!”), and the Klingons are initially surprised that the Enterprise doesn’t just blow them away when she gets a chance.

 

[publiusr]

Now that you say that... she probably shouldn't have hit the atmosphere at all. If the Enteprrise were in orbit of the planet, the debris would generally continue in orbit.

Starships don't have to orbit...lose power and they can drop fast. That impartial destruct gave the ship remains a pretty good slap.

This is why I forgive the battle of Coruscant as ships at station keeping rather than true orbit.

Had to twist my spine in a pretzel for that one

 

[The Wormhole]

I've never understood why they didn't use a Vor'Cha class.

In addition to the stuff already mentioned about there not being a film-worthy model of the Vor'cha or the reliance on stock footage, a Vor'cha also wouldn't make that much sense in-universe, where at this stage the Vor'cha class is still the Klingon Empire's tier-one warship. It makes no sense renegades like the Duras sisters would have one for their own personal use. Especially since in all previous appearances their ship was a BoP anyway.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Starships don't have to orbit...lose power and they can drop fast. That impartial destruct gave the ship remains a pretty good slap.

That's fair, I guess. There's no indication in the film that the Enterprise is in orbit over Genesis. All we know is that when Sulu says they've entered "Genesis sector," Kirk orders impulse power, and then the Klingons close on them. They're obviously close enough to Genesis that they are able to beam to the planet's surface, but they might well still be on a course toward the planet when the ship detonates.

 

[Riley]

No, the transparent aluminum subplot would not have even been needed. As already discussed, finding a suitable compartment for the whales inside the starship would not have been an issue.

That's a good point, and another reason I'd have preferred the Enterprise. The transparent aluminum subplot has some funny moments, but it creates more problems than it's worth.

 

[DonIago]

That's fair, I guess. There's no indication in the film that the Enterprise is in orbit over Genesis. All we know is that when Sulu says they've entered "Genesis sector," Kirk orders impulse power, and then the Klingons close on them. They're obviously close enough to Genesis that they are able to beam to the planet's surface, but they might well still be on a course toward the planet when the ship detonates.

I could have sworn the Enterprise is shown with Genesis beneath it at some point, strongly suggesting they were in orbit at that point, but I could be wrong!

 

[Allyn Gibson]

If Kirk ever orders Sulu to enter Genesis orbit, it happens offscreen. Given the way things play out, I'm not sure he ever does.

 

[DonIago]

If Kirk ever orders Sulu to enter Genesis orbit, it happens offscreen. Given the way things play out, I'm not sure he ever does.

Wouldn't be the first time we could assume an order was given and executed offscreen. I'm not saying that was the case here though. I've always just assumed the explosion knocked the E's wreckage into a decaying orbit over Genesis and never felt the need to analyze it more carefully.

 

[Ssosmcin]

For TSFS, keep in mind that the Enterprise still had most of its battle damage from TWOK, and Starfleet had decided not to repair it. So Enterprise operating even as well as she was was down to Scotty’s jury-rigging (“I wasna expecting to take her into combat, you know!”), and the Klingons are initially surprised that the Enterprise doesn’t just blow them away when she gets a chance.

This times ten. Bennet went out of his way to make the Enterprise realistically unable to fight back. And Kruge's reaction was just right. He was counting on the element of surprise, which, if the Enterprise were operating at its peak, would have been a monumental backfire. Bennet was the kind of writer to come up with a climax and work his way backwards. The film has some holes, mostly due to later editing choices, but he did the work.

Now Generations...I love the movie. It occupies a special place for me. But that damned battle was just there to destroy the Enterprise D . Fine, "they've found a way top penetrate our shields!" I expected Data, with his newly installed emotion chip to respond "no shit, ya think!!!?" Beyond that, there was nothing wrong with the damned weapons. Fire more than one shot. Use the freaking torpedoes. Even if they don't have any effect, put up a fight.

And don't get me started on consoles that blow up and send guys flying without ripping Worf's back to pieces.

And yeah, yeah, modulate the shield frequencies and if they fails, eject the damned core before it blows.

I'm surprised Riker survived on the Titan on his own with those combat skills. Must have been all supply runs.

 

[Maurice]

That's fair, I guess. There's no indication in the film that the Enterprise is in orbit over Genesis. All we know is that when Sulu says they've entered "Genesis sector," Kirk orders impulse power, and then the Klingons close on them. They're obviously close enough to Genesis that they are able to beam to the planet's surface, but they might well still be on a course toward the planet when the ship detonates.

 

[Dukhat]

Kinda was, yeah.

1. Five old men steal a barely functional ship with almost all systems automated, with hardly any defensive capabilities.

2. Kruge has a warship and combat crew, and while he thinks the Enterprise outguns him ten to one, that is in fact not remotely correct and he has the upper hand.

3. Once the Enterprise is crippled and Kruge threatens to kill the rest of the landing party after already killing David, Kirk has absolutely no choice but to either surrender to Kruge’s boarding party, or destroy the ship so Kruge can’t possess it and take some of Kruge’s men with it to even the odds.

So no, the reasoning to destroy the ship was not flawed.

I agree, I think that is probably the reason they didn't use the Vor'cha specifically, since it was built for TV. But why not use the K't'inga model from TMP that was definitely usable for a feature film? They had used it in TUC. Heck, maybe they could have even found a few stock shots from TMP and TUC they could use to save some money.

Every prior time we saw the Duras sisters, they had a BoP. So it stands to reason that the ship they had in GEN was the same one we always saw. The only issue was the use of stock footage from the previous film of it getting blown up. The ship wasn’t the problem; the use of stock footage was.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

An image of the ship near the planet is not conclusive evidence that the ship is in orbit of the planet. An asteroid passing by the Earth would look the same, but the asteroid is not in orbit.

Yes, I realize that trying to apply physics and celestial motion to Star Trek is a fool's errand. Yes, the intention likely was that the ship was in orbit. The ship hit the atmosphere for some reason.

I'm more bothered now by the D crash.

 

[DonIago]

I'm more bothered now by the D crash.

Because there are so many reasons why it shouldn't have happened in the first place?

 

[Sketcher]

I think I'm more confused how Scotty didn't expect them to be facing combat. They were effectively fugitives that could have had any number of Starfleet or non-Starfleet ships after them once they stole the Enterprise. Kirk even speculates that Grissom might fire upon them when they meet. Were they just planning on shields holdings and taking the beatings if any of that happened?

 

[CoveTom]

1. Five old men steal a barely functional ship with almost all systems automated, with hardly any defensive capabilities.

Five old men? Please. Shatner was 53, Koenig was 48, Takei was 47. Even Kelley and Doohan, the oldest of the group, were in their 60's and hardly over the hill.

Also, what is the evidence that the ship is "barely functional"? In his opening log entry, Kirk says that almost all of their battle damage has been repaired. Scotty says the ship will only need two weeks of refit time to be back to 100%. That doesn't seem like a barely functional ship to me.

And why would the Enterprise have hardly any defensive capabilities? At the end of TWOK, their phasers and photon torpedoes were still functioning just fine, as we see when they deal the crippling blows with both to the Reliant.

 

[publiusr]

Seeing whales in a ST V style shuttlebay would have been nice.

I didn’t like the wide open secondary hull of TMP

 

[Mage]

Five old men? Please. Shatner was 53, Koenig was 48, Takei was 47. Even Kelley and Doohan, the oldest of the group, were in their 60's and hardly over the hill.

Also, what is the evidence that the ship is "barely functional"? In his opening log entry, Kirk says that almost all of their battle damage has been repaired. Scotty says the ship will only need two weeks of refit time to be back to 100%. That doesn't seem like a barely functional ship to me.

And why would the Enterprise have hardly any defensive capabilities? At the end of TWOK, their phasers and photon torpedoes were still functioning just fine, as we see when they deal the crippling blows with both to the Reliant.

It is never really made clear how long the ship was in Spacedock before they steal it, right? I mean, enough time has passed for David and Saavik to be transferred to Grissom. So perhaps some dismanteling of systems had already begun.
I'm not saying that's what happened, just playing devil's advocate here.

To me, it was always implied during TSFS that Enterprise was definitely not in a great state, and Kruge simply saw a Constitution class starship in front him, a ship that he assumed was in prime state and certainly much more powerful than his BoP.