Plot hole city: Part 3!

[Saquist]

Nice to see the use of some good reasoning. Not only those this make it evident who knows what kinda work goes into a thesis but it's also takes the comparable from a picture to referenced and thoroughly researched project as the higher expectation.

So my thesis advisor, who came to my school from Yale and Berkley, is one of the leading minds in Asian American studies and literature in the country, who helped create an entire department based on that curriculum, and is, least of all, a tenured professor, has no idea what kind of work goes into a thesis because occasionally I have to remind him about what he wrote several books ago. Gotcha.

So he has Alzheimer?

 

[chardman]

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!! No, he's a typical human, most of whom don't have perfect recall. But thanks for playing!

 

[T'Girl]

Pike is the one with the mancrush on George and he missed the reference to the lightning storm while Kirk ...

While considering possibilities, there the possibility that "lightning storms in space," are a common event, and Pike would have pull no significance from this particular storm. No different than if there was (hypothetically) a ion storm when the Narada came through, and then Chekov reported a ion storm while on the way to Vulcan.

--------------------------

And in terms of a possible "plot holes," there's this ...

At twenty-two hundred hours, telemetry detected at an anomaly in the neutral zone. What appeared to be a lightning storm in space. Soon after, Starfleet received a distress signal from Vulcan High Command that their planet was experiencing seismic activity.

Now one of the definitions of a plot hole in wikipedia is "events happening for no apparent reason." Why was Chekov in the course of his ship's briefing concerning a rescue mission to nearby Vulcan, mentioning a light storm in the neutral zone? The lightning storm is important to the plot yes, it's one additionally piece that allows Kirk to assemble the puzzle. But it seemingly had nothing to do with the mission to Vulcan, so why in-universe did Chekov bring it up?

It would be like flying a rescue mission from America to Haiti, but the briefing included a weather report for greater Tokyo.

Plot hole?

 

[chardman]

While considering possibilities, there the possibility that "lightning storms in space," are a common event, and Pike would have pull no significance from this particular storm.

Excuse me, but if you listen to the radio chatter during the Kelvin scenes...

KELVIN COMM OFFICER: Our gravitational sensors are going crazy here, you should see this. It looks like a lightning storm.

FEMALE STARFLEET COMM OFFICER: What you sent us doesn't seem possible.

KELVIN COMM OFFICER: Yes, ma'am. I understand. That's why we sent it.

Sounds to me like a lightning storm in space isn't common, but so rare that it warrants informing Starfleet about it.

 

[Set Harth]

Why was Chekov in the course of his ship's briefing concerning a rescue mission to nearby Vulcan, mentioning a light storm in the neutral zone? The lightning storm is important to the plot yes, it's one additionally piece that allows Kirk to assemble the puzzle. But it seemingly had nothing to do with the mission to Vulcan, so why in-universe did Chekov bring it up?

It would be like flying a rescue mission from America to Haiti, but the briefing included a weather report for greater Tokyo.

In galactic terms, Vulcan and the Neutral Zone may be relatively close; this seems to be the implication of Unification in TNG. At the point in question, Starfleet may have assumed that the two events were linked as part of some kind of "natural" spatial anomaly affecting a wide area ( not an attack ).

 

[JB2005]

But given the size of the Federation and the apparent frequency of spatial anomalies, then it seems odd he would only mention that...why didn't he mention seismic activity on - say - Earth, Andor, Tellar, Betazed etc all of which we know are close to Vulcan and could be argued to have more significance than the "random" lightning storm in space"

 

[F. King Daniel]

What I got from the film was that it was a quiet night in space, and someone in Starfleet linked the lightning storm anomaly in the neutral zone with the seismic activity on Vulcan. We've seen several anomalies in Trek with galaxy-spanning effects ("The Alternative Factor", "We'll Always Have Paris"), so the (conjectural) distances between the zone and Vulcan are irrelevent.

 

[JB2005]

Did no one on the Bridge think to do a Google search? By the film's own admission, a lightning storm in space is an incredibly unlikely phenomenon, you'd think someone would have tapped into Memory Alpha "lightning storm in space" and got "USS Kelvin" as a hit...

 

[JarodRussell]

Did no one on the Bridge think to do a Google search? By the film's own admission, a lightning storm in space is an incredibly unlikely phenomenon, you'd think someone would have tapped into Memory Alpha "lightning storm in space" and got "USS Kelvin" as a hit...

Actually...

Let's say the Titanic didn't hit an ice berg but a very, very, very mysterious phenomenon. Everybody and his dog would know this story, even today.

Unless the Kelvin incident was some sort of secret, which it didn't seem to be.

 

[JB2005]

Then does this not qualify as a plot hole? Or at the very least a "huh" moment?

 

[Gojira]

Then does this not qualify as a plot hole? Or at the very least a "huh" moment?

I wouldn't call it a plot hole but having Kirk being the only one to associate the Lighting storm in space with Nero is more of a contrivance. If Pike had remembered it would have taken away one of Kirk's "hero" moments.

 

[JB2005]

Yeah, kinda harks back to ST:V Kirk, Spock and Scotty are the only competent people in the Federation...

 

[Shazam!]

Yeah, kinda harks back to ST:V Kirk, Spock and Scotty are the only competent people in the Federation...

In fairness, that's pretty much always been the case although McCoy has his moments.

 

[DrBashir]

They should have had the paper written by someone else and just had Pike recognize who Kirk was because of the sacrifice of his father. Show a sign reading "George Kirk Shipyard, Riverside, Iowa". Have Kirk say that HE wrote HIS dissertation on the subject. Don't make it look like Pike doesn't rememebr the story he jsut brought up a few minutes (our time) earlier.

Don't make your other characters look dumb when it's time to make your main character look smart.

 

[JB2005]

It's hardly a flaw that's limited to Star Trek though...

 

[DrBashir]

Of course it's not. More's the pity. Just because "everybody else is doing it" doesn't mean that you shouldn't at least try to make all your professional characters at least appear to be intelligent.

Same with Chekov's "I can do that" moment. That's what the people in the Transporter room are there for. Let Mr Kyle do his job and get back to the bridge where you're supposed to be in charge.

 

[JB2005]

This is a ship full of cadets who have been drafted early...Chekov may genuinely be the only person who can do that at this particular moment of time...

And hey, I'm not saying it's good either...but it's not a fault that's unique to star trek...

Now fucking lens flares, they're a different matter!

 

[Sharr Khan]

Same with Chekov's "I can do that" moment. That's what the people in the Transporter room are there for.

Sure, but the thing with fiction - you try to keep the spotlight on your heroes, not some random person occupying the set. That's just part of fiction. Its hardly a plot hole or even a flaw.

I mean, realistically (and Star Trek has never been realistic...) the Enterprise should not always be in the right place, at the right time - but in order to have a TV show, or movie its sort of called to always be the only ship to the rescue.

 

[DrBashir]

Why does it make it acceptable just because it's not unique to Star Trek?

At least Sulu was shown as making a mistake. The worst thing that happened to Chekov was the computer being unable to understand his accent. (Which is odd because I could understand him just fine. It appears that the Universal Translator doesn't exist in the nuUniverse (see Uhura & Romulan/Vulcan languages))

Sure, but the thing with fiction - you try to keep the spotlight on your heroes, not some random person occupying the set. That's just part of fiction. Its hardly a plot hole or even a flaw.

But you don't need the spotlight on every one of them all the time. By having Chekov be the only one that can save Kirk & Sulu you're essentially saying that the people that have been trained for that job are incapable of doing it. Chekov's the navigator, not an engineer. Even TOS used secondary characters to good effect. Kyle, Chapel, M'Benga. All shown as professionals and capable of doing their jobs withour someone from the bridge running in all the time.

The ship is bigger, the crew is larger. Why not let us see that, while they may be cadets, they're still competent? The focus can remain on the big 3 (+4) but you can shift the focus to the background every now and then. It adds depth.

 

[Set Harth]

But given the size of the Federation and the apparent frequency of spatial anomalies, then it seems odd he would only mention that...why didn't he mention seismic activity on - say - Earth, Andor, Tellar, Betazed etc all of which we know are close to Vulcan and could be argued to have more significance than the "random" lightning storm in space"

They presumably hadn't received reports of unusual seismic activity from any of those places, and certainly hadn't lost communication with them, including Earth.