How was USS Grissom destroyed so easily?

[Marsden]

I thought the OP was an interesting question and started thinking about an answer. Unfortunately for me, I came to the realization that every person that wasn't the "gang" except Sarek and Saavik, were a jerk or ass, especially every other officer in Starfleet. So why was the Grissom destroyed easily, because everyone in Starfleet is an idiot but the Enterprise crew. Estaban, dumb ass. Commander of Starfleet, smug dumb ass. Capt. Styles, arrogant dumb ass. The guy with Uhura at the transporter, dumb ass. The guard outside Dr. McCoy's cell, mean dumb ass. Excelsior can't move without it's fuses and Grissom is made of Kleenex.

How the F! has the Federation survived this long? No wonder Enterprise is the only ship in the area, the others have all blown up or crashed.
I don't think I like this movie anymore.

 

[publiusr]

Regardless of how old Grissom was* it certainly was a small and badly armed science vessel.

That's your answer. They referred to the Enterprise as a Battle Cruiser after all.

Grissom looked to get hit right in the impulse eshaust--Enterprise, a glancing blow off the saucer skimming to the nacelle

As I posted once before--the bow weapon of that first BoP reminded me of a disruptor bolt.

Enterprise was hardened--Grissom wasn't

 

[Avro Arrow]

I...think?...Timo was being tongue-in-cheek?

Oh, if so, then I missed the subtext. If that's the case, then nevermind, and my apologies.

 

[BillJ]

Enterprise was hardened--Grissom wasn't

 

[f14peter]

I came to the realization that every person that wasn't the "gang" except Sarek and Saavik, were a jerk or ass, especially every other officer in Starfleet. So why was the Grissom destroyed easily, because everyone in Starfleet is an idiot but the Enterprise crew. Estaban, dumb ass. Commander of Starfleet, smug dumb ass. Capt. Styles, arrogant dumb ass. The guy with Uhura at the transporter, dumb ass. The guard outside Dr. McCoy's cell, mean dumb ass. .

Late 20th century cab driver ... double dumb ass

 

[Timo]

Oh, if so, then I missed the subtext. If that's the case, then nevermind, and my apologies.

Umm, no need for that - I stand behind my plain meaning.

"Warrior honor" is the code of a group of people who do despicable things for a profession; it exists both to regulate and channel this doing into something beneficial for X, and to excuse the doing if Y starts asking questions or making accusations.

Honor as such is deliberately ill-defined, as the only use of this concept is as a blunt instrument ("Dishonorable scum!") and it therefore needs to be flexible to make thing Z good when you do it and bad when he does it. Say, it might appear supremely honorable for a warrior today to graciously accept the surrender of an enemy - but for many cultures in Earth history, that is, the ones from which the Klingons are derived, the act of surrendering deprives the opponent of all honor and justifies him being treated like the scum he now is.

Observe, say, Kruge in action: he not only kills the defenseless, but assumes that they will face their death with certain degree of gratitude, praising the honor of their slayers with their last utterances. Valkris manages that much; David dies a honorless coward. This is a code of honor in action - it just happens to be one that Kruge and his ilk subscribe to.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tomalak]

David doesn't die a coward, he's trying to protect Saavik and foetus-Spock. It's an honourable death of a sort?

 

[Timo]

From the human point of view, certainly. We just don't know the Klingon point of view there. If nothing is more honorable than victory, then David certainly doesn't qualify! Perhaps even a futile attempt does count for something, though (Worf was always one for brave gestures of that sort) - but the Klingons never indicate as much here.

FWIW, the end result coincides with the Klingon goals: it was an execution of one of the captives, and it apparently didn't matter which one. So David's resisting might not even have registered. An execution victim struggled a bit - so what?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

Here's the thing about Klingons: They're aliens. Hence they may have a concept of honor that is alien to a human's concept of honor.

Now with that said, it's clear just by viewing how they act that TOS Klingons/STIII Klingons are very different from TNG Klingons, although there are some of that race that still aren't averse to "dishonorable" actions. But the way the entire race was portrayed in TOS, they were just stock Snively Whiplash villains who didn't have a lick of honor and no qualms about resorting to devious and underhanded means to get what they wanted. And STIII was even worse. Kruge and his crew came off as nothing more than space thugs who just flew around unchecked looking for perceived "threats" to their race, and whose actions (even cold-blooded murder) were even backed up by their government based on the remarks made by the Klingon ambassador in STIV.

 

[Tomalak]

Though Kruge is very explicitly acting without authorisation, against the wishes of the Klingon government, which he says contemptuously is "negotiating for peace".

He's got wind of Genesis and sees an opportunity. The Ambassador is simply trying to use a diplomatic farrago to his advantage, leveraging public opinion against the Federation apparently secretly designing a superweapon, inevitably to be used against the Klingon people! He's got a useful Federation "renegade", who just happens to be a high-ranking admiral, on whom to pin the blame too.

 

[publiusr]

Rad hardened...

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

How was USS Grissom destroyed so easily?

I guess it was a lucky shot from the Klingons. Or the USS Grissom had one serious weakspot.

 

[Spot261]

It wasn't, it went into a temporal anomaly, altering a timeline where they would have fought the BoP to a standstill, gained Kruge's respect who later became Chancellor and pioneered Klingon policy, ushering in a new era of peace, only to be betrayed by a conspiracy of SF/Klingon personnel, oh, wait