I was thinking bout this the other day. Did Soren plan on putting a camera in Geordis visor? I mean how did all that work so well?
Maybe Soran had some miniature cameras he was using to spy on Lursa and B'etor while they were showering?
Maybe it was Geordi's idea and he planned on accidentally leaving it in Beverly's quarters. "Oh Geordi left one of his visors here when he fixed my shower--I return it after i take a long hot shower." Oh yeah.
Soran was the one who came up with the camera when he suggested "Let's give Mr LaForge his sight back' when Lursa and B'Etor complained they couldn't take out the Enterprise. Really it's just more sloppy writing. There was really no point to kidnapping Geordi beyond it would make a convenient plot point later on. He interrogates Geordi about trilithium but that makes no sense either... he already has the sun destroying rockets. Keeping him hostage as a bargaining chip makes no sense being at the time there was no reasonable way to assume that Picard could figure out where they where. Heck kidnapping a Starfleet officer would increase the chances of them being followed. It's just as likely they might write the incident off if Soran beamed back alone. They certainly weren't in any hurry to go after the Romulans that attacked Amargosa to begin with. The only purposes kidnapping and torturing Geordi serve is to remind us Soran is the bad guy(just in case we hadn't figured that out yet) and to conveniently hand him back with a spycam in his VISOR to let the old Bird of Prey stand a chance.
Only too true. However, Soran may be a tech wizard, capable of whipping up a superweapon or a superdefense at a moment's notice - but he is not a soldier or even a seasoned thief. Kidnapping LaForge is something that might have sounded like a good idea to him at the time, as he would not be thinking in terms of what the military will do next. He got into all the trouble in the first place because he failed to consider what the Romulan military would do, after all. It should be noted, though, that it's not as if Soran really kidnapped LaForge. What he did was enter in a firefight with Starfleet, after he had rendered two of their officers harmless. In the fight, he wisely kept close to one of them - at which point Klingons came in and beamed out Soran and the person next to him. Quite possibly by accident, that is, just in order to make sure Soran was among those they grabbed. Timo Saloniemi
You make some valid points. Soran was definitely not a soldier. He was a pretty poor shot with that disruptor thing of his. Even if that's the only hand weapon in the history of Trek with visible destructive power. With the dampening field, I suppose it is possible the Klingons just scooped up everyone in a given area. They did ask Soran for coordinates. Still, that doesn't explain why Soran's torturing Geordi for information he already has. Unless Soran just gets off on torturing people, but that seems out of character. "There was a time when I wouldn't hurt a fly" going to casually letting people die still don't translate to sadism. It's possible, Soran just made that goof like you said not thinking things through on a military level, but I don't think the writers were that far ahead and it's just a coincidence. Soran really could have been an interesting villain if things were written better. But the whole Nexus plot is just doomed to not make sense.
Actually, I think that the tiny little bit of the interrogation scene that was left in the movie makes sense from Soran's tactical point of view. The only question we hear him ask is "tell me about trilithium". Well, he knows that Starfleet knows about Amargosa having trilithium for some reason - he overheard Data and LaForge discuss it. He himself knows he uses trilithium for killing stars in order to shepherd the Nexus. But nothing he has overheard or done would tell him whether Starfleet knows what the trilithium is for. To ask LaForge "Do you know why I need trilithium?" would be telling the officer that he does. Soran doesn't want to give information - he wants to get it. And by asking about trilithium in general, he will learn if Starfleet has put the pieces together and will follow Soran to the next point of detonation. Of course, LaForge doesn't know that Data elsewhere has done the necessary brainwork, so Soran, too, is left ill informed of Starfleet's true knowledge. But Soran still made a sensible effort to find out! Timo Saloniemi