Broadcast? Chekov was only speaking to the crew. The 'broadcast' was only done inside the ship.
major plot hole about lightning storms in space
- Thread starter Flying Spaghetti Monster
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Broadcast? Chekov was only speaking to the crew. The 'broadcast' was only done inside the ship.
If I remember correctly, the Lightning Storm in Space was reported near Vulcan.
And how was Chekov speaking to the crew?
PIKE: Begin ship wide mission broadcast.
The the reasoning behind my question "Why the heck would you broadcast something like that?"
PIKE: Begin ship wide mission broadcast.
Um...so the crew knows what's going on.
It's not a plot hole by any reasonable definition, and way to cherry-pick a three-month-old post (in which I was responding to this question and explaining how Chekov didn't actually say what the questioner thought he was saying.)
- Well it was preceded by "Our gravitational sensors are going crazy here, you should see this. That covers the techobabble quotent.
I see no reason why a trained Starfleet officer would't or couldn't use colloquial language in conversation. It doesnt always have to be veriton pulses and chroniton particles.
And if you watch the sequence where the "Lightning Storm" dialog is spoken, it does look like a lighting storm with flashing electrical discharges visible.
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Fair enough, and if it were just that (the scene on the Kelvin), it wouldn't be a problem.Well it was preceded by "Our gravitational sensors are going crazy here, you should see this. That covers the techobabble quotent.
It's the fact that a crucial plot development hangs on that "colloquial language" being duplicated elsewhere, reported and remembered 25 years later that defies credulity.
It's a ridiculously slender reed on which to hang Kirk's intuitive leap, especially when that leap was technically wrong (the second "storm" wasn't actually what he thought it was) yet conveniently saved the ship anyway.
You know what the funny part about that sequence is? The Kelvin is so close to the anomaly that the lightning actually gets reflected off the hull. So it makes sense that the lines "You should see this! It looks like a lightning storm!" is spoken. However, when we cut to the bridge, an officer says "Still out of visual range".
?
Still out of visual range? You could see the lightning storm with your eyes closed at that range.
Fair enough, and if it were just that (the scene on the Kelvin), it wouldn't be a problem.Well it was preceded by "Our gravitational sensors are going crazy here, you should see this. That covers the techobabble quotent.
It's the fact that a crucial plot development hangs on that "colloquial language" being duplicated elsewhere, reported and remembered 25 years later that defies credulity.
It's a ridiculously slender reed on which to hang Kirk's intuitive leap, especially when that leap was technically wrong (the second "storm" wasn't actually what he thought it was) yet conveniently saved the ship anyway.
If I see a square, I'll describe it as a square. So would anyone else.
It LOOKS like X, so it'll be more than likely described as looking like X.
If the speakers share a common cultural, geographic and linguistic background why would they use the same or similar phrases to describe the same phenomena? Kirk's dad was killed by this Romulan related "Lightning storm" so why wouldn't it stick in his mind? So in Kirks head lightning storm plus romulans equal trouble. The illogical part is that its somehow related to whats happening on Vulcan. Lucky break.Fair enough, and if it were just that (the scene on the Kelvin), it wouldn't be a problem.Well it was preceded by "Our gravitational sensors are going crazy here, you should see this. That covers the techobabble quotent.
It's the fact that a crucial plot development hangs on that "colloquial language" being duplicated elsewhere, reported and remembered 25 years later that defies credulity.
It's a ridiculously slender reed on which to hang Kirk's intuitive leap, especially when that leap was technically wrong (the second "storm" wasn't actually what he thought it was) yet conveniently saved the ship anyway.
Sorry, but I think you guys are really stretching to rationalize this. First of all, "lightning storm in space" is just not an intuitive way to describe an astronomical phenomenon, especially not for people who actually work in space. Describing something by "what it looks like" is not what they're trained to do.
Second, even assuming two separate people 25 years apart hit on the same notion of what an anomaly "looks like," it's still a completely ambiguous phrase, so what are the odds that in a universe full of spacetime anomalies (which the Trekverse certainly is), that the similar description would really describe related events?
Third, why was it included in Chekov's report at all, since it happened in the Neutral Zone, nowhere near Vulcan?
It's still just a coincidence of phrasing he's seizing on, nothing more reliable. Moreover, in terms of recognizing that coincidence, why wouldn't the guy who wrote the dissertation in which Kirk read about it (i.e., Pike) remember it himself without being reminded?
Actually, that touches on another problem. How did anyone know the attack on the Kelvin was by Romulans? At that point in time, no one in the Federation had ever seen Romulans. Nero and his crew never self-identified as such in their brief communication with the Kelvin. Certainly the Narada bore no resemblance to any past Romulan ship. So where did that crucial nugget of information come from?
(And seriously: even given that info, why would Kirk connect an attack by Romulans in Klingon space, with a "lightning storm" in the Neutral Zone, with a reported seismic event on Vulcan? These things are all many, many light years apart... not that you'd know it from the casual way the film treats time and distance.)
Certainly an illogical part, yes... and just one "lucky break" among many on which this story relies.
. Why not? It's frame of reference many humans would share. Do astronauts talk in technical terms and jargon in every communication?
Not seeing why they wouldn't. It's space and the anomaly is giving off what looks like lightning in clouds. ( thats the visual) That two people would hit upon those as descriptive references doesnt seem far fetched.
Good question. I've no answer.
For Kirk its personal. For Pike it was an assignment he did years ago.
Language. Nero spoke to the Kelvin. The computer would recognise it as the same language used by the Romulans during the Romulan War. (they used sub-space communication to negotiate the peace treaty)
Thats what I said.
Time and distance treated casually in Star Trek????? Well! I've never heard of such a thing!!!!!
See Deep Space Nine and its ever changing distance from Earth. (for one)Yep.
lawman,
RE: Lightning Storm in Space.
1. The on-screen evidence is that it does resemble a swirling storm with lightning, therefore, without actually knowing what it is and having a term for it, it would probably be called what it looks like.
2. Nobody actually knew for sure it was an attack, but when those indipendend pieces of data became known to and individual who knew of another instance of the same combination, and what it meant the first time, is not that unusual.
So lets sum up what Kirk knew when he flipped:
- There was an attack by a massive ship the night before that destroyed 47 Klingon ships.
- Vulcan reported seeing what looked like a Lightning Storm in space shortly before sending a distress call involving seismic activity.
- A large Romulan ship, on the edge of Klingon space killed his father on the day of his birth, after the Kelvin observed a Lightning Storm in space.
So Kirk's instincts kicked in, and he believed the Lightning Storm in space and the large ship were linked.
To make sure, he saught out Uhura to confirm whether the massive ship in the attack was Romulan, which she confirmed.
He then dragged Uhura to the Bridge and postulated tha this was the case, and since all contact with Vulcan and the Fleet was lost, there were too many things happening for it to be a coincidence.
Thus, red alert and shields up.
RE: Lightning Storm in Space.
1. The on-screen evidence is that it does resemble a swirling storm with lightning, therefore, without actually knowing what it is and having a term for it, it would probably be called what it looks like.
2. Nobody actually knew for sure it was an attack, but when those indipendend pieces of data became known to and individual who knew of another instance of the same combination, and what it meant the first time, is not that unusual.
So lets sum up what Kirk knew when he flipped:
- There was an attack by a massive ship the night before that destroyed 47 Klingon ships.
- Vulcan reported seeing what looked like a Lightning Storm in space shortly before sending a distress call involving seismic activity.
- A large Romulan ship, on the edge of Klingon space killed his father on the day of his birth, after the Kelvin observed a Lightning Storm in space.
So Kirk's instincts kicked in, and he believed the Lightning Storm in space and the large ship were linked.
To make sure, he saught out Uhura to confirm whether the massive ship in the attack was Romulan, which she confirmed.
He then dragged Uhura to the Bridge and postulated tha this was the case, and since all contact with Vulcan and the Fleet was lost, there were too many things happening for it to be a coincidence.
Thus, red alert and shields up.
And what do the shields do?!.......nothing.
Were they immediately under fire by the Narada when they arrived at Vulcan?!......no.
Maybe you wouldn't hear the phrase "Lightning Storm in Space" in the time of TNG but in the unknown time of Kirk there was no other way to explain it. The "Storm" happened in the same exact spot as the first. which was located around the neutral zone. Nero is from a time even after the enterprise E and are extremely advanced. I'm sure they have the tech to determine the time Spock would arrive. Lastly, If your a writer then by al means rip the plot to pieces, but if your a Star Trek fan, just leave it alone, lol you'll ruin it for yourself trying to explain every single minute detail.
No. Perhaps you haven't read the whole thread, but Chekov's actual dialogue said the "lightning storm" was reported in the Neutral Zone. That is nowhere near Vulcan.
For the sake of argument, let's set aside for the moment the issue of the silly and vague terminology. Let's also ignore the unexplained identification of the Romulans (even though I don't really buy the "translator" idea; remember, pre-TOS Starfleet knew almost zip about the Roms, including whether anybody else out there might use a similar language, on top of which the Kelvin's translation records presumably went down (up?) with the ship). Granting all that, Kirk might plausibly have linked the new "lightning storm" with the Romulan attack on a Klingon fleet (notwithstanding the different locations). However, what on earth would make him connect either event to the distress call from Vulcan?OneBuckFilms said:
Space is very, very big, after all, and different problems can arise at the same time without being connected. (Except, of course, when the writers want to make life easier for the characters by connecting everything.)
Yeah, lotta good those shields did, judging by how the debris field scraped up the Enterprise. (Yet another minor glitch to add to the list...)
No, it didn't. The attack on the Kelvin was near Klingon space, not Romulan space. That's why Robau's crew initially suspected Klingons, remember?
(And never mind TNG; I never heard that kind of terminology in TOS, either. What, the Kelvin didn't have sensors that could identify what they were detecting a little more precisely?)
Why? They were miners, not scientists. Moreover, it appears that even Spock and the Federation weren't quite sure how the Red Matter would work (a point which other defenders of the film have brought up to defend the fact that it worked in radically inconsistent ways). On top of which, even if it could theoretically be calculated by someone in possession of all the data on exactly when and how both ships entered, Nero didn't have that data, since his ship went in first.
I'm not ruining anything for myself; the writers did it for me.
My girlfriend has an old newspaper panel cartoon stuck to our refrigerator, showing a theater full of people looking at a screen reading "Caution: Applying logic and plausibility to summer movies will only annoy you and those around you. Just let it go." A woman is saying to her husband, "I think it's their way of telling you to shut up, dear." I can relate to the guy in that cartoon. I expect a story that works without me having to disengage my brain. Simple as that.
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