Is Kirk incompetent or just rusty?
- Thread starter Shikarnov
- Start date
Yes, but he did it for a very specific reason. He even states his reasoning to Decker. He doesn't want to do anything that could be misinterpreted as being hostile. He's afraid raising shields will be misinterpreted and provoke V'Ger into a response.
In TWOK, there's no such risk. As I said upthread, if he's wrong and everything is hunky-dory aboard the Reliant, they're not going to suddenly start firing because Kirk raised the shields. Terrell would understand why he did it.
There's simply no downside to Kirk's raising the shields. It makes no sense.
They actually didn't know how many Klingons were beaming over, so they could easily have been beaming into a bad situation (outnumbered) either way. But at least on the planet, they wouldn't be exactly where Kruge could use his ship to contain them.
I do think Kirk's priority was to rescue Saavik and Spock during the chaos caused by the destruction of the Enterprise. I think he also knew Klingons well enough that Kruge would come down to the planet after him (and sure enough, he did). Kirk was also banking on Kruge wanting to take him and his crew as prisoners to obtain the secrets of Genesis. Kirk was undeniably taking a risk with the Klingons, but then Kirk has often taken risks that perhaps no one else would have been crazy enough to even consider.
But the precedent is clear and indeed basically unanimous that Starfleet does not deal with unfamiliar ships that way. Raising of shields is a bad move, something all captains avoid like plague, for some unknown but obviously pressing reason. So, it's not difficult to swallow if you haven't seen Star Trek before - but it's about as alien to that show as sneaking up to a criminal with your cruiser's sirens wailing and lights flashing would be in a cop show.
Well, the obvious assumption here would be that these fellow Starfleeters are in trouble. In which case raised shields might prevent Kirk from helping them.
How would that make fellow Starfleet vessels suspect?
From the fact that Kirk didn't raise them when war was declared in "Errand of Mercy"?
Sisko never sailed with his shields up during the Dominion War, either, until the very last minute, typically when unpleasantries had already been exchanged with the enemy commander.
That's just an urban myth. We have no idea what the regulation called for, and we thus have no idea whether Kirk followed the regulation or not.
The entire dialogue referring to that regulation is here:
For all we know, GO12 calls for keeping on trying to hail the vessel. And if anything, Kirk overreacted by sounding yellow alert.
Timo Saloniemi
OK, you can keep pretending that raising shields is something that we almost never see on Star Trek if it amuses you.
None of your examples applies, though. Of course ships wouldn't travel from sector to sector with their shields up, it'd be a power drain even in times of war. They'd wait until they saw a potential threat in range. No one was suggesting Kirk should have been travelling with shields up, merely that he should have raised them when contact with Reliant wasn't established.
Once again, there's NO downside to raising shields there. If there's no trouble, Kirk just ends up looking sensibly cautious. It's just a poorly written scene.
As much as it pains me to say because I love the character of Kirk and TWoK is my favorite Trek movie in spite of its flaws, Kirk was grossly incompetent in the film and would have been court-martialed, likely lost his command, and possibly even be imprisoned for negligent homicide for his actions (although the Feds are usually pretty forgiving in criminal sentencing, so maybe he'd just spend some time gardening in New Zealand).
Here's what information Kirk had preceding the battle with the Reliant:
- He should have suspected that a Federation craft and crew was responsible for taking Genesis since Dr. Marcus clearly implied as much by asking Kirk if he gave the order to take Genesis. She didn't say it was stolen by pirates or hostile aliens, she said it was taken by someone in the Starfleet chain of command.
- Uhura had told him that Dr. Marcus' transmission was "jammed at the source," implying a hostile presence there.
- Kirk was informed that the Enterprise was the "only ship in the quadrant." As ridiculous as that cliche may be, it should have made him immediately suspicious when another Starfleet vessel was right there near Regula 1, especially given the first two pieces of information.
- Uhura told Kirk that there was no longer any jamming and that there were no signals of any kind coming from Regula 1, which implies that the situation has changed since their last communication and the hostile could still be in the area after having killed or captured the crew of Regula 1.
- Now, the Reliant approaches without establishing communications. Saavik quotes regulations which Admiral Kirk are "well aware of" and implies even though it does not outright say that shields should be raised on the approach of any vessel without established communications. A sensible precaution, regardless of any precedent for not raising shields (perhaps that stupid practice of not raising shields in the past in potentially dangerous situations is what prompted the regulation in the first place - clearly it's there for a reason).
- Somehow, even though their communications are supposedly down, the Reliant sends a message to Enterprise saying "their chambers coils are overloading their comms systems." So, already a lie right there, unless there's some reason they couldn't go into greater detail about their situation and presence there via text message. This is followed up by another lie when Spock mentions that their "coil emissions are normal."
- Now, Kirk already knew something was off right from the start (and not because he heard the dramatic music start up), which is why he had Spock double checking what they said with his own scans. So by the time he says "this is damned peculiar" after having been quoted regulations by Saavik, he already looks really bad for only going to Yellow Alert and "energizing defense fields."
- It could have been a lot quicker in ship time than what we saw on screen, but either way, the Reliant raised shields and locked phasers on target before Kirk ever gave the order to raise shields himself, so that makes him look pretty slow on the uptake. And by then, that's all she wrote, Reliant had dealt Enterprise a crippling blow.
Let's also not forget that while this shouldn't make much of a difference in real space combat where the ships would likely never even be in visual range, but from the old school style naval fighting in Trek, Kirk's decision to approach Reliant directly but offset to starboard and above a bit presented a large target profile to Reliant that allowed them to nail the vulnerable length of the neck (and apparently the underside of the saucer and one other location --I believe a nacelle-- that happened off screen). He does the same later in the nebula when Reliant appears directly in front of Enterprise and Kirk orders a slow rotation to starboard in place instead of going vertical and below Reliant with the smallest target profile while keeping his phasers and torpedos in play and taking Reliant's weapons wing thingie (technical term) out of play. So, it would appear that Kirk can be just as guilty of "two-dimensional thinking" as Khan was, only he doesn't have the excuse of being inexperienced.
Plus, like a douche, he overrode the turbolift and forced Scotty to bring his severely wounded nephew up to the bridge instead of sickbay where he could have been saved with seconds to spare (I kid, I kid).
Kirk (and Spock) did use a lot of ingenuity after the initial battle with the prefix code, the comms deception, and evening the odds by taking the battle into the Mutara Nebula, but that doesn't overcome his initial incredibly negligent blunder which flies in the face of the regulations.
Also, do they thank Saavik for knowing her shit and doing her job competently? Nope, Kirk and Spock spend the rest of the movie mocking her for it like dicks. They hurt her so bad she was practically a different person by the next movie.
PS: Don't get me started on ST:VI where Kirk and Sulu both think "now we've given them something else to shoot at" is a competent strategy instead of firing a torpedo/phaser spread at the point of origin of the BoP's torpedoes. Riker does the same thing in Generations, though, also waiting for the technobabble solution instead of just firing an isometric fuckton of torpedoes and phasers at the BoP and blowing it away. The Enterprise-D should still have won easily even with its shields down, because at least Riker could see the target.
Here's what information Kirk had preceding the battle with the Reliant:
- He should have suspected that a Federation craft and crew was responsible for taking Genesis since Dr. Marcus clearly implied as much by asking Kirk if he gave the order to take Genesis. She didn't say it was stolen by pirates or hostile aliens, she said it was taken by someone in the Starfleet chain of command.
- Uhura had told him that Dr. Marcus' transmission was "jammed at the source," implying a hostile presence there.
- Kirk was informed that the Enterprise was the "only ship in the quadrant." As ridiculous as that cliche may be, it should have made him immediately suspicious when another Starfleet vessel was right there near Regula 1, especially given the first two pieces of information.
- Uhura told Kirk that there was no longer any jamming and that there were no signals of any kind coming from Regula 1, which implies that the situation has changed since their last communication and the hostile could still be in the area after having killed or captured the crew of Regula 1.
- Now, the Reliant approaches without establishing communications. Saavik quotes regulations which Admiral Kirk are "well aware of" and implies even though it does not outright say that shields should be raised on the approach of any vessel without established communications. A sensible precaution, regardless of any precedent for not raising shields (perhaps that stupid practice of not raising shields in the past in potentially dangerous situations is what prompted the regulation in the first place - clearly it's there for a reason).
- Somehow, even though their communications are supposedly down, the Reliant sends a message to Enterprise saying "their chambers coils are overloading their comms systems." So, already a lie right there, unless there's some reason they couldn't go into greater detail about their situation and presence there via text message. This is followed up by another lie when Spock mentions that their "coil emissions are normal."
- Now, Kirk already knew something was off right from the start (and not because he heard the dramatic music start up), which is why he had Spock double checking what they said with his own scans. So by the time he says "this is damned peculiar" after having been quoted regulations by Saavik, he already looks really bad for only going to Yellow Alert and "energizing defense fields."
- It could have been a lot quicker in ship time than what we saw on screen, but either way, the Reliant raised shields and locked phasers on target before Kirk ever gave the order to raise shields himself, so that makes him look pretty slow on the uptake. And by then, that's all she wrote, Reliant had dealt Enterprise a crippling blow.
Let's also not forget that while this shouldn't make much of a difference in real space combat where the ships would likely never even be in visual range, but from the old school style naval fighting in Trek, Kirk's decision to approach Reliant directly but offset to starboard and above a bit presented a large target profile to Reliant that allowed them to nail the vulnerable length of the neck (and apparently the underside of the saucer and one other location --I believe a nacelle-- that happened off screen). He does the same later in the nebula when Reliant appears directly in front of Enterprise and Kirk orders a slow rotation to starboard in place instead of going vertical and below Reliant with the smallest target profile while keeping his phasers and torpedos in play and taking Reliant's weapons wing thingie (technical term) out of play. So, it would appear that Kirk can be just as guilty of "two-dimensional thinking" as Khan was, only he doesn't have the excuse of being inexperienced.
Plus, like a douche, he overrode the turbolift and forced Scotty to bring his severely wounded nephew up to the bridge instead of sickbay where he could have been saved with seconds to spare (I kid, I kid).
Kirk (and Spock) did use a lot of ingenuity after the initial battle with the prefix code, the comms deception, and evening the odds by taking the battle into the Mutara Nebula, but that doesn't overcome his initial incredibly negligent blunder which flies in the face of the regulations.
Also, do they thank Saavik for knowing her shit and doing her job competently? Nope, Kirk and Spock spend the rest of the movie mocking her for it like dicks. They hurt her so bad she was practically a different person by the next movie.
PS: Don't get me started on ST:VI where Kirk and Sulu both think "now we've given them something else to shoot at" is a competent strategy instead of firing a torpedo/phaser spread at the point of origin of the BoP's torpedoes. Riker does the same thing in Generations, though, also waiting for the technobabble solution instead of just firing an isometric fuckton of torpedoes and phasers at the BoP and blowing it away. The Enterprise-D should still have won easily even with its shields down, because at least Riker could see the target.
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Ian Keldon
Fleet Captain
I think what makes it seem that way is the inter-cutting between scenes on the two ships. It makes it seem like it takes longer for Kirk to react than it does, when actually it's all happening at once.
He made the big mistake when he didn't raise his shields. The rest happened in the space of only a few seconds.
I see what you're saying, but I still disagree. Even if the passage of time is shorter than what we perceive it as on-screen, Kirk could have ordered shields raised the moment Spock determined Reliant was lying. He could have ordered shields raised the moment Spock finished his sentence reporting that Reliant's shields were going up. He didn't. He waited until after the report that phasers were being locked.
Why keep doing this circular reasoning? The contents of the regulation were unknown and remain unknown. Starfleet keeps on not raising shields long after this incident (Picard doesn't treat the Lantree or the Brattain with any greater caution in this respect). And Kirk is never considered to have violated either regulations or Starfleet good practices - he just chides himself for not having had his usual extra edge.
Not raising shields was a wrong decision here. There's no reason to think it was a violation of regulations, though. And there's fairly little reason to think it was a violation of common sense, either, as the idea of a hostile Starfleet vessel would be utterly absurd at this point of Starfleet history. Things like that just don't happen in Kirk's universe.
Timo Saloniemi
I see STII as rusty. Kirk was slow to react. I think that he should have raised shields. I mean they were investigating the communication problem, it could have been anything and going in with shields down was a unnecessary risk. He seemed just unwilling to admit this was a problem. He did not even want to take command, perhaps that whole feeling old thing was playing out. I would say that it seems more like rust because as the fight goes on he gets more and more clever. The message in code and the 15000 meter drop and pop up from behind move along with the nebula battle were all brilliant. If I could critic anything about late STII Kirk, why not finish off the Reliant or beam over right away. Did he honestly think that Khan was going to surrender? "Ok Kirk you win again." That was never going to happen. If Khan did not have the genesis device he would have likely attempted to ramp the Enterprise to take her with him.
STIII, I am not sure what Kirk was thinking. Its not like he was not prone to finish the Klingons of in the past. 15 years ago that BoP would have been rubble and the Enterprise would have ended up in the 20th Century for a second time. I disagree with the whole Kirk was wondering if there was Prisoners on the BoP too. He said it in STII "prayer, the Klingons don't take prisoners." Kurge was unusual, I think that was why his gunner shot to kill. Kirk must have figured that the crew of the Grisom was all dead. I would hope that they shot till they ran out of pre-loaded Photon torpedoes and they the automated systems failed them, wherein he could not raise shields or fire phasers.
STIII, I am not sure what Kirk was thinking. Its not like he was not prone to finish the Klingons of in the past. 15 years ago that BoP would have been rubble and the Enterprise would have ended up in the 20th Century for a second time. I disagree with the whole Kirk was wondering if there was Prisoners on the BoP too. He said it in STII "prayer, the Klingons don't take prisoners." Kurge was unusual, I think that was why his gunner shot to kill. Kirk must have figured that the crew of the Grisom was all dead. I would hope that they shot till they ran out of pre-loaded Photon torpedoes and they the automated systems failed them, wherein he could not raise shields or fire phasers.
They make it a point to show that Kirk is thinking about how many are coming over to board, and what the strategy is. And just because the writers chose to have Kruge come down to the surface doesn't mean, objectively, that it was some intuition that Kirk had that he would, and that he would speak enough Klingon to say 'beam me up' to Maltz.
Look, I know what you are saying, and it makes for a fun movie, I love III, but going to the Klingon ship was the smarter move.
Oh, I disagree with that. I definitely think Kirk was banking on the Klingons acting a certain way. Part of it was indeed his intuition, while part of it was also luck--but then Kirk tends to rely on both.
And I thought Kirk knowing how to say "beam me up" in Klingon was a result of him hearing Kruge say it earlier when he had McCoy, Spock, etc, beamed up.
I actually don't think they would have gotten very far on the Klingon ship. If I was Kruge, the moment Kirk and the gang were detected (which I think would have been instantly if there was an intruder alert system), I'd seal off the bulkheads and cut off life support to their location.
That was probably the writer intention, yes. And it's rather funny that later Klingon dialogue has used Marc Okrand's make-believe language, or at least some sort of a pidgin version thereof, in which "Beam me up!" or "Energize!" do not sound the slightest bit like what Kruge was saying. Apparently, Kirk caught a phrase that went more like "It's a wrap, haul away!" or "What's keeping you?" or "Light my fire, big guy!" and was unique to Kruge...
Timo Saloniemi
It's not circular reasoning, it's a supposition based on the (albeit limited) available facts.
Your supposition that General Order 12 might just mean "On the approach of any vessel, when communications have not been established... keep on trying to hail the vessel" is completely redundant, ridiculous, and would be considered at best patronizing or a joke to actual professionals who would know that already.
If GO12 involved going to Yellow Alert under those circumstances, why would Kirk allow Spock to admonish Saavik only to give the order seconds later himself instead of just doing it then?
If it didn't involve raising the shields, why did Kirk kick himself for his complacency in "getting caught with his britches down" after the battle, when the only reasonable preventative measure he could have taken (apart from fleeing the scene, which would be dereliction of duty) would be to raise the shields?
The Lantree and the Braittain both sent out distress signals before the Enterprise-D went out to find them. Both were found adrift with no or limited life signs aboard.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_Lantree
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/USS_Brattain
Those situations are not comparable to Reliant's in the slightest, for the reasons I outlined here:
http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=6940867&postcount=47
Reliant was lying about its communications status, was somewhere it shouldn't have been, was under power and would have had a large number of life signs, did not send out a distress signal, was taking an aggressive posture, and should have logically been suspect as a Starfleet vessel near Regula 1 given the content of Carol Marcus' message to Kirk. A more cautious approach was called for.
How do you know Kirk was never considered in violation of regulations? By the time he returns to Starfleet they're grateful to him for preventing the theft of Genesis and they're putting his ship out to pasture, so they probably didn't want to give a hearing to a hero who was losing his ship and likely going back to his desk job at that point anyway.
Absurd except when Carol Marcus said it was Starfleet trying to take Genesis away from them. Except when Starfleet says Kirk's ship is the only one in the quadrant and yet when he shows up at Regula Reliant is there too. Except when the Reliant sends voice messages about their communications being down and lies about the reason they are down.
Kirk has no reason to expect a Starfleet ship could be taken over? What about the M-5 computer? What about Garth's attempt to take over his ship? Or Khan's earlier attempt, for that matter? What if Kirk's evil twin had seized control of the ship? Or if Gary Mitchell had tried? Kirk had personally experienced numerous scenarios where a hostile person, force, or entity could have taken over a Starfleet vessel, so the possibility shouldn't have been so alien or unheard of to him as you suggest.
He hears the same thing we in the audience do. If he couldn't put two-and-two together from that it doesn't exactly bolster the idea that he was firing on all cylinders during that mission.
Who else would Kirk "give the order" to take Genesis to? Civilians? Orion Pirates? The Romulans? It was a highly classified project, and Carol relayed to Kirk that someone in the chain of command was coming for it by asking if he "gave the order."
Who else would Kirk "give the order" to take Genesis to? Civilians? Orion Pirates? The Romulans? It was a highly classified project, and Carol relayed to Kirk that someone in the chain of command was coming for it by asking if he "gave the order."
Ian Keldon
Fleet Captain
And I'm agreeing with you. His mistake was not raising shields in the first place, instead of just ordering Yellow Alert.
By the time that Spock reported the coil emissions, it was too late, by the way I see the timeline (each pair of events happens simultaneously, with at most a second between pairs):
1)Enterprise: Spock scans for coil emissions.
Reliant: Joachim reports Enterprise shields are still down.
2) Reliant: Khan orders shields raised.
Enterprise: Spock reports coil emissions normal.
2) Enterprise: Spock reports shields on Reliant going up.
Reliant: Khan orders phaser lock
3) Enterprise: Spock reports phaser lock, Kirk orders shields raised.
Reliant: Khan orders "Fire!"
Ian Keldon
Fleet Captain
Once again your...unique...view of how things are/should be rears its head. The fact remains that Saavik quoted the General Order and Kirk ignored it.
That was against regulations.
