Starfleet Penthouse Massacre: Khan's idea, or Marcus'?

[Romulan_spy]

A couple of additional points:
1. I think Khan put his augments into the torpedos as a means of smuggling them aboard Vengeance, with the plan being that once there, he would thaw them out and have his people take over and crew that ship.

I like this idea a lot. Makes perfect sense! It always seemed odd to me why Khan would put his beloved crew in armed torpedoes. After all, if someone fired them, his crew would die on impact.

 

[drt]

Hmm. Why would Marcus have ordered exactly 72 of the long range torpedoes? If he ordered a different number, and Khan only modified the significant 72, then knowing that Sulu is aiming 72 at him should be indication of nothing much.

Khan didn't know the number until Spock told him on Kronos. When Khan realized that Enterprise had some long-range torpedoes, he probably started to wonder if Marcus was panicking and trying to destroy all evidence of the augments

Also, the idea seems to be to let Kirk fire the shots, after which Kirk dies in the hands of the Klingons. Firing the shots from the Vengeance would be a bit less clever, as Marcus apparently wants to expend a Starfleet vessel so that it looks like the Klingons are the bad guys, and he certainly wouldn't want to expend his best warship!

I think Marcus just took the opportunity presented by Khan fleeing to Kronos to accelerate his plan, plus dispose of the torpedoes. I can't imagine the original plan was to sacrifice Vengeance attacking the Klingons.

I wanted to mention that the transwarp beaming device might only have been capable of sending someone to Kronos, using a bunch of relays specifically set up for that trip. My guess is that once he was there Khan planned on stealing a Klingon ship when the opportunity arose.

That's a clever one! (I guess the coordinates Scotty so conveniently finds in the wreckage ought to be to the relay chain rather than to the Klingon planet, then, though. I mean, they aren't just any techno-numbers, but something Scotty can identify as spatial coordinates and associate with Qo'noS.)

Yeah, I'd assume in this case the device was capable viewing the relays to be used to a final destination.

 

[Timby]

Hmm. Why would Marcus have ordered exactly 72 of the long range torpedoes? If he ordered a different number, and Khan only modified the significant 72, then knowing that Sulu is aiming 72 at him should be indication of nothing much.

Khan didn't know the number until Spock told him on Kronos. When Khan realized that Enterprise had some long-range torpedoes, he probably started to wonder if Marcus was panicking and trying to destroy all evidence of the augments

Also, the idea seems to be to let Kirk fire the shots, after which Kirk dies in the hands of the Klingons. Firing the shots from the Vengeance would be a bit less clever, as Marcus apparently wants to expend a Starfleet vessel so that it looks like the Klingons are the bad guys, and he certainly wouldn't want to expend his best warship!

I think Marcus just took the opportunity presented by Khan fleeing to Kronos to accelerate his plan, plus dispose of the torpedoes. I can't imagine the original plan was to sacrifice Vengeance attacking the Klingons.

Right. The ship's name, Vengeance, says it all.

Marcus was always going to find a way to get a patsy to start a war. He had no idea where Khan fucked off to after his (Khan's) torpedoes were discovered, and he certainly wasn't planning on Khan attacking a meeting of Starfleet's top brass.

That being said, after Pike's death (a happy accident for Marcus), it's the ultimate case of "right place, right time." By getting the Enterprise destroyed, he'd get the ultimate martyr -- the flagship annihilated by the Klingons (and the "experimental torpedoes" or whatever would be denied by Starfleet), which would lead to war. Khan's crew would be dead. Khan would be dead.

When Kirk reveals that he learned Khan's true identity, then Marcus flips to plan B -- remember, in his "official statement," he says that Kirk aided the fugitive John Harrison. So Vengeance attacks Enterprise, because Marcus is trying to create a story that Kirk and Harrison went rogue to try to start a war with the Klingons. (A plausible story, because the Enterprise went to the edge of the Neutral Zone, then had "Harrison" beamed aboard, and then they tried to commandeer Vengeance.)

That's the whole point of the ship being named Vengeance. It would be the flagship of the fleet leading the assault against the Klingons.

Orci and Kurtzman are terrible writers, but there are a lot of layers to Into Darkness' script and story.

 

[Runetouch]

Probably Khan

 

[beamMe]

Definitely Khan's idea.

 

[F. King Daniel]

They weren't working together at that point, the attack was Khan's alone. He thought Marcus had killed his crew after his plan to smuggle them out was discovered, and so he wanted to hurt Marcus and what was important to him, which was Starfleet.

Later, when he thinks Spock has killed his crew, Khan levels half of San Francisco. He went from "eye for an eye" to "eye for a village"

 

[USS Triumphant]

They weren't working together at that point, the attack was Khan's alone. He thought Marcus had killed his crew after his plan to smuggle them out was discovered, and so he wanted to hurt Marcus and what was important to him, which was Starfleet.

Later, when he thinks Spock has killed his crew, Khan levels half of San Francisco. He went from "eye for an eye" to "eye for a village"

To be fair, I think leveling half of SanFran was less a plan and more of a "well, so long as I'm here with a ginormous, damaged, and mostly out of control starship..."

 

[Nebusj]

They weren't working together at that point, the attack was Khan's alone. He thought Marcus had killed his crew after his plan to smuggle them out was discovered, and so he wanted to hurt Marcus and what was important to him, which was Starfleet.

More, if Marcus is trying to trigger a war, then he doesn't want dozens of Star Fleet's ships to lose their captains and first officers before the shooting even starts. The captains might oppose his plan to set off a war, but, when the shooting starts it's not like they'll defect and take their ships with them.

(Well, all right, there's no guessing what Star Fleet types will do in a crisis of conscience. But Marcus would expect experienced Star Fleet captains to fight on Star Fleet's side once the fighting started.)