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Prometheus and warp cores?

I suppose those escape-pod-coffin things were not self-propelled but instead retained the warp-field of the ship for a short time in the same way the saucer section of the Enterprise-D kept going at warp after it detached.

Although a lot of things in that film didn't make much sense to me. Why jettison Kirk anyway and not throw him in the brig? Stranding him on an icy, hostile world home to these hideous monsters? Bit extreme...
 
I suppose those escape-pod-coffin things were not self-propelled but instead retained the warp-field of the ship for a short time in the same way the saucer section of the Enterprise-D kept going at warp after it detached.

Although a lot of things in that film didn't make much sense to me. Why jettison Kirk anyway and not throw him in the brig? Stranding him on an icy, hostile world home to these hideous monsters? Bit extreme...
That was explained in an earlier script draft. Spock figured Kirk would find a way to break out of the brig and cause trouble, so Spock figured stranding him would get rid of that problem.
 
Handcuff him, gag him and stick him behind a forcefield under guard and I can't see him escaping any time soon - stranding a person on a desolate ice planet populated by vicious monsters still seems a bit extreme to me.
 
Technically, at least a few decades prior to TOS. Or STXI would have been about JTK growing up to command Medical Shuttle 47:)
Which begs the question, why didn't they go to warp fairly quickly after leaving the flight deck of the Kelvin?

Instead of puttering along and allowing the Narada to take potshots at them? A minute
or more after their launch (and the Kelvin's ramming of the Narada), they were still to be seen at sublight speed.

A vessel design to be used to abandon ship under combat conditions, provided it had warp capabilities, would do so as soon as possible, to avoid presenting the enemy with a target.

The Kelvin's shuttles were sublight only.

:)
They were within spitting distance of a star. Remember TMP? And a few other random episodes where warping in s solar system is a no-no?
 
Well defiantly not recommened at least. But like you say it is possible that being that close to a star they couldn't form a warp field. Something like the Kelvin might have been able to but not a shuttle.
 
They were within spitting distance of a star. Remember TMP? And a few other random episodes where warping in s solar system is a no-no?
The Menagerie

"Mendez here. What is it?"
"Starship Enterprise, Commodore. It's warping out of orbit."

:)
 
Yeah, and I could quote a load of episodes and movies where they say warping in a solar system is extremely dangerous.

I think a case can be made that warping near to a star is more dangerous than near to a much smaller planet.
 
More dangerous than hanging around Nero?

The "load" of Trek events involving "dangers of warping" near stars seems to be two: ST:TMP where the risk involves activating untested engines, and DS9 "By Inferno's Light". In contrast, warping within a star (or its upper atmosphere, anyway) is a fairly standard Klingon military maneuver, as seen in TNG and DS9. And nobody has actually said that there would be any risk to warping next to a deep gravity well; on the contrary, all our heroes have warped, or attempted to warp, right next to a black hole or a comparable phenomenon!

When Spock jettisons Kirk, the illogic of the situation seems rational enough: Spock would have kept Kirk aboard, jailed, sedated, whatever, if not for the hothead's last act of defiance, which personally offended Spock. An excellent excuse for him to invoke the as such sound logic that Kirk had already trespassed twice, first sneaking aboard the ship and then getting from sickbay to bridge, and would be likely to do it again. If not by himself, then with the assistance of all those traitors who helped him out the first two times around. Marooning Kirk would not cost extra...

The interesting question is whether Spock intended Kirk to land in the middle of nowhere, or in the middle of the Starfleet installation. If the latter, if the desolate landing spot was due to a malfunction in the escape pod (or whatever that capsule was), then it is a bit odd that Spock didn't send a notification to the installation first. Or was Scotty so blind and deaf for reason X (equipment malfunction, intoxication, Nero's clever jamming) that he missed both Spock's message and the news of Vulcan being destroyed?

Timo Saloniemi
 
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