No - you were *incompetent*
- Thread starter Mojomoe
- Start date
You know how this whole fuss could have been avoided?
If the writers just had McCoy state that he has very little medical experience dealing with Klingons. Otherwise, it does make at least some sense that Klingon medicine would not be a priority for 23rd century doctors.
If the writers just had McCoy state that he has very little medical experience dealing with Klingons. Otherwise, it does make at least some sense that Klingon medicine would not be a priority for 23rd century doctors.
McCoy seemed to struggle with Vulcans as well. Although he was able to pull off the surgery and blood transfusion with Sarek and Spock pretty well. I agree at times he didn't seem very knowledgeable.
Uhura not knowing Klingon is an embarrassment and just a dumb scene for them to put in. It speaks very poorly on her that when push comes to shove, an experienced communications officer can't speak a lick of Klingon without a dictionary.
Uhura not knowing Klingon is an embarrassment and just a dumb scene for them to put in. It speaks very poorly on her that when push comes to shove, an experienced communications officer can't speak a lick of Klingon without a dictionary.
It was more silly to have all those books in the scene. Exactly WHERE did they get them, and who stored them on the ship? And why did the Klingon outpost not have a system to detect the type of ship crossing into his space? Chang's ship had a grahpical interface that showed the type of ship on his screen. The Klingon Outpost couldn't even tell him it was a Federation transponder, let alone a graphical picture of the Enterprise?
Probably a case of, "I'll see what I can do."
Trying is probably better than not doing anything at all. And the pericardial thump was probably the best he could hope to do. As I recall the Klingon's own doctor was injured or killed in the attack so they'd probably take any help they could get.
Another thing to remember in this analogy is that Nixon was a conservative president. Nixon (or at least Nixon's party) already had a reputation of being tough on the "Commies." Part of the reason "Only Nixon could go to China" was because if a more liberal president had opened relations with a communist state, it would have been considered a sign of weakness by the more nationalist aspects of American society.
Similarly Kirk already has a reputation of protecting the Federation from the threat posed by the Klingon Empire. For him to be the one to extend the first olive branch forces even the more nationalistic, xenophobic aspects of 23rd century society to reconsider their position.
McCoy wasn't "incompetent". At this point in the grand ol Trek timeline, relations between the Federation and the Klingons were just becoming amicable. It's not like McCoy or any other Starfleet doctor had textbooks or disks to learn the anatomy of a former enemy off of.
If those books had been onboard Enterprise all along, it's clear that nobody read them before.
The main reason is, it was the movie's attempt at humor. The TUC novelization contains a similar scene with the books, but there's an actual reason for it - the UT wasn't available because the conspiracy members had sabotaged it and it wasn't fixed by the time they entered Klingon space. Personally I hate the movie version too.
As for Morska, it's described as being a backwater outpost with antiquated technology in the novelization. It can detect ships, its system is simply not as advanced as the one Chang had aboard the Dakronh.
The ship is as long as an aircraft carrier and had a great deal more internal volume. I suspect they may have gotten the books from the ship's library/libraries. And why was it silly? It's possible the books were the only form of translation material they had for the particular regional dialect required to talk to the listening post folks.
How do you know the outpost didn't have such a system? Enterprise probably switched her transponder off, thus requiring the listening post to hail them for identity confirmation. As for Chang's tactical sensors, he was -- what -- a few thousand kilometers from the Excelsior when she appeared on-site? In any event, he was likely much, much closer to his target than the listening post was to Enterprise, and therefore, his sensors were more able to determine the classes of ships in his scope.
You people drive me. All this picking, we know there are screwups...but when I see or watch ST its about the relationships of everyone there...along with whatever storyline their trying to convey. I don't expect to see Oscar performances. When I go see "The English Patient" I'm looking for something very different.
To add to the books nit...IRL, the Klingon Dictionary fits into one small paperback.
Where's Marc Okrand when you need him?
Where's Marc Okrand when you need him?
Hell SPANISH books, and other foreign language, books are fairly small. They're certainly not spread across many multiple tombs lie we see in that "funny" scene in VI.
And considering the more military aspects of the TOS ships I doubt they have libraries on board carrying large paperback books.
The books were a Nick Meyer conceit that went a bit over the line. I liked "A Tale of Two Cities" in TWoK but the translation scene was a bit much.
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