Plot hole city: Part 3!
- Thread starter William Wallace
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Why would you need to use transwarp beaming if neither the Narada or Enterprise is at warp? The clue is in the name!
Scotty's dialogue is where the inconsistency comes in. Either it's normal beaming at long distances (contradicting future technology) assisted by transwarp calculations to beam at warp or its modified subspace beaming equipment (consistent with future technology but inconsistent without a receiver signal to lock onto and inconsistent with the Enterprise transporters later).
If the Enterprise uses normal beaming from Titan to Earth this represents a distance of millions of kilometres onto a ship that, for some reason is approaching Earth with its shields down, leaving itself open to transporter intrusions from Mars and Earth. I think they delibberately forgot to mention the shields issue because they had not come up with a plausible explanation to justify their absence.
If the ship is using subspace beaming this could bypass Narada's shields AND cover the distance but there is no dialogue to state that Enterprise's transporters were modified and it would take longer to beam, increasing the risk of Narada activating the drill and blocking the transport.
Actually, that could have been an exciting scene, similar but far preferable to the beaming while skydiving scene. The kissing scene took all the urgency out of it. Very silly.
On balance I've been won over to the side that this was subspace beaming - unreliable, dangerous, slow, energy intensive and not suitable for everyday use but worth trying in a desperate attempt to save a planet.
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It's all about how the information is presented in the film.
Spock says something like: "You are the Mr. Scott who postulated the theory of trans-warp beaming."
Scotty then goes on about why he's on Delta Vega, involving planet-to-planet beaming which his instructor disputed and which was apparently unsuccessful in the case of the dog. He says nothing about a ship at warp at this point.
Spock then tells him his theory of transwarp beaming is correct.
This seems to imply that the equation for transwarp beaming provided by Spock ( and future Prime Scotty ) is also the key to fixing planet-to-planet beaming.
Spock says something like: "You are the Mr. Scott who postulated the theory of trans-warp beaming."
Scotty then goes on about why he's on Delta Vega, involving planet-to-planet beaming which his instructor disputed and which was apparently unsuccessful in the case of the dog. He says nothing about a ship at warp at this point.
Spock then tells him his theory of transwarp beaming is correct.
This seems to imply that the equation for transwarp beaming provided by Spock ( and future Prime Scotty ) is also the key to fixing planet-to-planet beaming.
Ah ok. I read that as Spock being two steps ahead of everybody else. Scotty starts to tell him about his most recent (subspace) experiments and Spock just jumps in and solves the transwarp issue for him. You can read it either way but your way means that NuTranswarp beaming is different from TNG transwarp beaming (short range beaming to or from ships at warp). That's not a plot hole but it is yet another inconsistency.
Saquist
Commodore
Ok so you didn't actually read my earlier post then...
Well they would need their shields up to stop the enemy from beaming across a boarding party before they actually activate the drill. I think that 24th century Romulans can still die from 23rd century weapons and the Earth has hundreds of transporters and millions of pesky humans armed with such weapons spoiling for a fight who also have an outpost on Mars and who possess transporters that can send people millions of kilometres in times of crisis.
Now that I think about it, approaching the Sol system with shields down would be just about the dumbest thing Nero could have done (unless he had a cloaking device) as it gives away his only advantage.
I suppose Nero went down in history alongside Grand Moff Tarkin.
That's true but did they establish that the shields could block transporters.
Oh look, a new thread...
Is this going to go on until the next movie comes out? Will that thread be started even before it debuts?
Is this going to go on until the next movie comes out? Will that thread be started even before it debuts?
I tend to see it as an issue of potentially conflicting terminology/nomenclature.
LOL! Part four is going to use Klingon numerals. Maybe you are shifting through quantum realities like Worf?
Yes, there's no doubt that the TNG term 'transwarp beaming' was used to refer to standard transporters beaming onto and/or off an object travelling at warp speed. Given that Spock Prime is from that universe, he should really have got the terminology correct though. Mind you, given the incongruities with black holes and the supernova recycling the term transwarp beaming seems like a minor transgression.
Actually, the plot would make a bit more (but not complete) sense and be more consistent with established Trek if:
1. Scotty was using subspace beaming (a long-distance method still unsafe at the time of TNG) modified by an algorithm to make transwarp beaming possible (albeit incredibly dangerous).
2. Nero can cloak but his cloak was damaged in the fight at Vulcan thus he travels to Earth slowly to give him time to repair it while also interrogating Pike just in case he can't.
3. Nero approaches Earth while cloaked thus preventing the Feds from fighting him or beaming anybody on board his ship until he uncloaks. He would be able to disable Earth's automated defences (assuming the Feds are so incompetent that they have no back up plan to pre-fix codes) while cloaked. The Enterprise was waiting for the Narada to uncloak and is thus ready to pounce. This explains why no other ships have the chance to attack him on approach.
This is tenuous in some ways though as Nero would have to uncloak to unleash the drill and the ships protecting the Earth should then engage him; was he attacked by any other vessels? Surely somebody thought to warn Earth (escaping Vulcans, Keenser, or the Enterprise) of Nero's approach so its defences should also be primed and ready, waiting for Nero to appear? Plus if Enterprise is hiding behind Titan in a sensor blind spot, the only way she would know that Nero has uncloaked would be via Fed communications, which would give them very little time to beam on board before drill activation - this is exactly how the strategy plays out on screen but it looks like a hugely risky strategy.
OR
Nero was unable to repair his cloak and approached with shields up, destroying/disabling ships and defences off camera on approach. Since Scotty has modified the Enterprise's transporters to sub-space beaming, only the Enterprise can beam anybody on board through the shields and only before the drill activates.
This has tenuous logic too but if Nero was unable to detect Enterprise due to Titan logic dictates that they would be unable to detect him. Their first clue would be the chatter (most likely from Mars) when the Narada is first detected. However, if Nero is approaching openly, the Enterprise should have plenty of time to beam more than just Kirk and Spock on board in this scenario. Several armed landing parties would have made much more sense but for that matter so would keeping a primed sub-space transporter on every TNG ship for emergency boarding parties).
No, a two-man stealth attack (which is what Kirk and Spock were going for until they materialized in the command centre) makes a lot more sense against much a massive foe.
In what way is it a stealth mission? They know that any transport will be detected as soon as they're on board (their own 23rd century technology does this). They know that Nero will be able to beam a security team to that location almost immediately. A two man team is likely to be overwhelmed in mere moments.
A proper stealth mission would have to beam on an armed boarding party in as a distraction while the 'real' stealth mission takes place elsewhere.
The ship may be massive but we see no evidence that it is manned by a large crew. Most of its interior could be for storing ore. Spock Prime can give Kirk an idea about how many crew he saw on board, assuming that their own sensors didn't already give them that information during their first encounter.
Scotty's logic that engineering is likely to be deserted is also odd. Engineering is likely to be one of the busiest sections on any starship particularly one that is about to engage in an attack. Where else does he think the crew are going to be? The recreation lounge? Low priority ore storage areas were more likely to be deserted. Very odd.
On the Enterprise. Just because one ship can do it, doesn't mean every ship can - remember "The Enterprise Incident"? You saw the state Narada was in, a fully funtional internal security system is a pretty big assumption when the medical bay was flooded.
Since this didn't happen, maybe your assumptions are incorrect.
Except they didn't even know Enterprise was in the area, remember?
Look closely, there are little Romulans scuttling about on the lower (CG extention) levels and in the gigantic hangar. And how are their sensors supposed to give them detailed information when the drill is jamming the solar system?
Scotty thought they were being beamed to a cargo hold, not engineering.
My bad on the cargo hold. I've only watched the movie twice and the last time was months ago. I thought Scotty was making assumptions about where he was beaming Kirk based on the amount of space. Badly designed cargo hold though - what exactly are the little criss-cross bridges taking up all that storage space for? Very odd.
They could have used their sensors after the drill platform was destroyed?
Be careful not to credit the characters with knowledge that you as a viewer have though. It may be a bad assumption for us to think they have a functional security system; I find it astonishing to suggest that the heroes should assume the opposite. It may be correct (although I doubt it) but knowing that the ship is from 100 years in the future, having seen its advanced technology in action, you are suggesting that our heroes should ASSUME it has less advanced security than their inferior ship when, should that assumption prove to be wrong, their entire mission may fail (subject to dramatic licence where they succeed no matter how bad their plan).
We know that Kirk and Spock were spotted immediately. Despite the size of the ship, Nero also ends up in the fight almost immediately. We may not see anybody beaming in but those Romulans didn't run all the way there along their tiny little bridges. The ship is huge.
Generally, I think the plot here is very silly. The Romulans didn't even seem to have CCTV to track intruders on their ship or sensors on doorways, particularly the door leading to the hangar with the Jellyfish. This is technology that we have today. If Nero's crew wasn't tiny then they were really, really, incompetent. We know these things with hindsight but it was foolish for Kirk to make the assumption that this would be the case. His plan was pretty terrible. Spock uploading a virus to jam their security system could have dealt with the point I suppose.
The Romulans may not have known that the Enterprise was waiting for them but that does not mean that they would have been moving in on the Federation homeworld while having a nap. Some sort of (futile) resistance would have been expected and that could certainly have included attempts at boarding his vessel. The Enterprise wasn't expecting Kirk and Scotty to beam on board while they were at warp but it was still flagged up immediately.
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I just watched this movie again last night for the first time since 2009. I could not find a single plot hole.
How, exactly, could a super-powerful computer like V'aal, capable of controlling the weather on an entire planet and pulling starships out of orbit, be critically disabled by not feeding it a few pounds of fruit for a couple of days?
Plot hole city.
Plot hole city.
number6
Vice Admiral
Of course there are plotholes. They're in every film ever made. It's just that the points brought up here aren't. They're just overly nitpicky things that could be easily explained by anyone who watched the film.
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