What Was Scotty Doing There?

[Captain Clark Terrell]

When Kirk first appears in TMP, he arrives at Starfleet Headquarters for a brief meeting with Admiral Nogura to get the Enterprise back. After the meeting, he beams to the floating orbital office adjacent to Enterprise because the vessel's transporters aren't working and takes a travel pod to the ship.

But why is Scotty there waiting for him? He didn't know that Kirk had been named as Decker's replacement until the latter told him. And as the Enterprise was in a rush to be ready for her mission, it's not as though he didn't have anything more important to do. So why was he in the office standing around? Was an officer told to greet Kirk but not given a reason? Did Kirk message Scotty before coming to Starfleet HQ so that they could meet there before going to Enterprise? Even if Scotty didn't know about the change in Kirk's assignment, it's still possible Kirk told him he wanted to see the ship, and Scotty thought he meant that he'd be inspecting the vessel before its voyage.

Does the TMP novelization expand on what Scotty was doing there? Is there additional dialogue that's not in the film? Thanks!

--Sran

 

[MacLeod]

It could be a case of that the Enterprise was informed to expect a visit by Admiral Kirk and Scotty was sent to pick him up.

In terms of getting the Enterprise ready to launch it makes litte sense to send Scotty who should have been overseeing trying to get the ship ready to launch. Sulu would have been a better choice.

So perhaps Scotty had been on the station/Earth for some reason.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

So perhaps Scotty had been on the station/Earth for some reason.

I suppose he could have been using the space as an office to coordinate everything having to do with the refit instead of cluttering up the engine room on the ship itself, but that still doesn't fully explain why he'd be there when the ship was near completion, and he needed to run final system diagnostics and fix the transporters before launch. I agree that someone was probably sent to meet Kirk and bring him over, but you're right that someone besides Scotty would have made more sense. Why not Chekov? As security chief, he would have made the most sense as an escort for Kirk.

--Sran

 

[C.E. Evans]

Personally, I've always viewed that facility as being the main office of the San Francisco Fleet Yards, or at least its orbital component overseeing the actual work on the ships in the drydocks.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Personally, I've always viewed that facility as being the main office of the San Francisco Fleet Yards, or at least its orbital component overseeing the actual work on the ships in the drydocks.

Was Utopia Planitia around then? Because that's where most of the 24th century ships were assembled. The only time we saw the San Francisco drydock used was in Nemesis. Earth Station McKinley was used after "The Best of Both Worlds."

--Sran

 

[shapeshifter]

And why doesn't the space-dock have a transporter facility on site? Needing to beam to a separate trailing facility then shuttling over to the dock, and vice versa, is really, really, really silly.

At 2:29 in the following clip a gantry, (similar to these becomes visible which would be a logical place to house a transporter.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi9wFGxSDYc[/yt]

[/thread hijack]

Scotty was there waiting for him for the same reason as my complaint above - to give Scotty a reason to take Kirk, (and us) on a fly around tour of the new design. And to a lesser degree, so they could have their little talk.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

^Is that a gantry or merely a support beam holding the ship in place? It's definitely big enough.

--Sran

 

[C.E. Evans]

Personally, I've always viewed that facility as being the main office of the San Francisco Fleet Yards, or at least its orbital component overseeing the actual work on the ships in the drydocks.

Was Utopia Planitia around then? Because that's where most of the 24th century ships were assembled.

No way of knowing.

The only time we saw the San Francisco drydock used was in Nemesis.

Presumably the Enterprise-B was christened there too in Generations.

Aside from the original Enterprise and the Enterprise-E, the dedication plaques of the starships Enterprise-A, Excelsior, Stargazer, and Sutherland also list the San Francisco Yards as where they originated from.

Earth Station McKinley was used after "The Best of Both Worlds."

The Voyager was supposedly built at Utopia Planitia as well, but commissioned at McKinley Station.

With that train of thought, the nuEnterprise may have been built at Riverside, but commissioned at the San Francisco Yards (it's still listed on her dedication plaque).
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/_...s/b/bc/Enterprise_dedication_plaque_(alt).jpg

 

[BillJ]

Because we don't want to watch a red shirt give Kirk the ten-minute tour.

 

[Tralfaz]

When an Admiral is coming aboard the ship, apparently for the first time, you aren't going to want to send a grunt for the tour. For the half hour or so for the whole tour, Scotty wouldn't have really been missed on the Enterprise. Also, it was a neat way of bringing Scotty back into the movie.

 

[Christopher]

Does the TMP novelization expand on what Scotty was doing there? Is there additional dialogue that's not in the film?

The one thing it adds is that Scott is talking with "a group at an engineering computer."

But I think the reason Scotty's there is clear enough from the timing of events in the film. Consider: Kirk tells Sonak that he's going to a meeting with Nogura that he expects to last mere minutes, that he intends to be on the Enterprise following the meeting, and that Sonak is to beam aboard in an hour. Then, in the next scene, he materializes aboard the office complex, where Scotty complains about the new departure orders. It's about another six minutes before they reach the ship, then Kirk spends a couple of minutes on the bridge, then he goes to engineering to talk with Decker for a few minutes, and then the transporter accident happens when Sonak beams aboard.

That means that Kirk's arrival on the office complex was no more than about 40 minutes after his meeting with Nogura, unless that meeting took significantly longer than the three minutes Kirk estimated, which seems likely. So it stands to reason that when Kirk arrived in the office complex, Scotty had only gotten the revised departure orders less than half an hour before. He would've had to rework the whole refit schedule in an awful hurry, and where would you do such an administrative task from? The office complex. He probably had to meet with the other top people who had offices in the orbital complex and talk with them about how to fulfill the orders. When Kirk arrived, Scotty hadn't yet had time to get to the ship and begin implementing the new plan that he'd been hashing out in the offices.

 

[SeerSGB]

Maybe Kirk asked for him to meet him?

As for why no transporters in the dock: Security? I never understood why they just couldn't relay Kirk via transporter to the Enterprise. Beam up to the office complex, then beam over to the ship

 

[Christopher]

Why waste transporter power beaming such a short distance? The travel pod is probably more efficient at that range.

 

[Maurice]

The space office complex was also a parts manufacturing facility as designed by Mr. Probert. That's what the lower section is for. It's entirely possible Scotty was there to oversee some parts being rushed out to finish up some bit of the ship's systems.

 

[Green Shirt]

the nuEnterprise may have been built at Riverside, but commissioned at the San Francisco Yards (it's still listed on her dedication plaque).
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/_...s/b/bc/Enterprise_dedication_plaque_(alt).jpg

I haven't seen the plaque until now. I'm glad they used the correct "Starship Class" designation.

 

[starburst]

Scotty could easily have just returned from Earth himself and when he found out Kirk was beaming up shortly waited... Or when receiving the revised launch orders and that the Admiral would be visiting the ship he left the work in his Engineering teams capable hands to meet his former Captain.

In the grand scheme if Kirk, McCoy and Spock are Star Treks 'big three' then Scotty in my mind is the groups fourth Musketeer.

 

[Christopher]

The point I tried to get across before is that the office complex is the natural default place you'd expect to find the project supervisor. Granted, Scotty's a hands-on type, but if you're in charge of the project and have to do administrative work, it stands to reason that you'd spend a lot of time in the offices. So as a rule, I don't think Scotty being in the office complex is any stranger than Kirk being on the bridge in a typical TOS episode, or Sisko being in Ops on DS9; it's the home base for the person in charge of the whole operation, so it's not a surprise to find them there.

So there would've been a pretty good chance that Scotty would be there at any given time, and since he would've gotten the revised departure orders just minutes before Kirk arrived and would've had to scramble to respond to those new orders by working up a new strategy, he probably wouldn't have had time to finish up there and go anywhere else before Kirk arrived.

 

[Timo]

I agree with Christopher that Scotty would probably be most often found at that space station, rather than getting his hands dirty and thus preventing skilled workers from doing their job aboard the ship.

But I think people here are misunderstanding the reason Kirk beamed up to the station. He didn't go up there in order to access the Enterprise - he could always have beamed directly to the ship from a Starfleet transporter platform planetside, or taken a shuttle, or whatnot. No, he beamed up to the station in order to meet Mr. Scott: to complain about the transporters, to annoy the engineer into working faster, to give Scotty a chance to insert a few words of his own.

Flying from the station to the ship was just a sightseeing tour Kirk took because he could easily afford to. He was in no hurry to get to the ship, because he knew better than anybody that the ship wasn't really ready for him quite yet. Scotty would probably have taken that ride in any case, Kirk or no Kirk, as his job would entail sightseeing, uh, overseeing every now and then, and this was a very good choice for a "now"!

Scotty wasn't there to receive Kirk. Scotty wasn't there to carry Kirk to the ship. Rather, Kirk was there to speak with Scotty, in a move that took both parties by surprise (as both would have expected Kirk to beam directly to the ship).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shat Happens]

Could be spacedock has the best haggis in the entire sector. Anyone with the bluray can see if there is a napkin somewhere in the scene?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Could be spacedock has the best haggis in the entire sector. Anyone with the bluray can see if there is a napkin somewhere in the scene?

Just zoom in on Scotty's moustache