Plot hole in Wrath of Khan, or am I thinking wrong?

[matthunter]

Well, that was during various operational sorties, where different rules to keeping shuttles at hot standby might apply.

We really don't know what is involved in prepping a TOS or TNG era shuttle for flight: usually, our heroes give plenty of lead time to the deck workers to do their unseen magic before they themselves board the craft. Sometimes in TNG, there is smoke involved (for reasons better left unmentioned); perhaps shuttles on occasion need to be filled with cryogenics, or then merely washed? Sometimes we see cables lying about, or tooling (mainly in matte paintings, though, not on sets).

Cases where we can be certain there were no deckhands around to help the immediate preflight preps include "Mudd's Passion" and a few of the VOY shuttle hijack hijinks. But in TOS, we could in theory argue that the villains coerced the shuttles out of the hands of the personnel working on them, by false authority or superior powers or whatnot, as there were no visuals associated with that part of the hijack.

Timo Saloniemi

TNG tech manual refers to various "within X minutes of launch readiness" for various alert statuses, with Red Alert being about 5 minutes. Longest was about 30 minutes for a regular situation. But I'm happy to imagine a lot of that is standard preflight checks that could be skipped in an emergency or if you didn't care. Check out the preflight procedure for light aircraft these days - tyre pressure? It's the sort of thing you're meant to check on your car as well when going on a long trip... But in a modern vehicle the chances of your oil being low etc are minimal.

 

[Timo]

Shuttles might need to be stowed "secured" rather than "primed", as they are subject to greater dangers and strains aboard a starship than a car is in the average garage. (Although we know that McCoy's glassware requires no special protection even when the starship is rattling from enemy hits, so shuttles might be safe "primed" as well...)

In any case, it would take much more than four minutes to get the shuttles going even if they could launch within five seconds of being crewed. Just the "getting crewed" part would require minutes; then there would be the flight over to the enemy ship; and then a search for a way into this hostile and sealed-up vessel. Only transporters could work in the limited time window, and we don't know whether they would work at all.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Scout101]

Maybe it would have caused DIFFERENT bad things, but would have thought destroying it would have been worth a shot too. If the device actually DOES something, then destroying it before the big release/action would seem to be of value. But maybe it just would have meant bigger explosion, so don't try it...

Look at it this way: If they'd destroyed the Reliant in the last moments before Genesis went off, then Spock would still have died... and he wouldn't have come back. Talk about the Law of Unintended Consequences...

I'd have to rewatch scene by scene to see exactly when David said there was no way to stop it, but didn't Spock go down to the engine room to sacrifice himself AFTER they said it was fix the engines or die? If destroying the genesis device would somehow stop the reaction, seems unlikely that he'd have gone down to do that in the first place.

Like I said, I have to imagine that the technobabble answer is that destroying the device would have just resulted in an uncontrolled release of the energy and killed them anyway, but maybe not. Device has to do SOMETHING, otherwise why's there a countdown and buildup anyway? If it didn't ramp up, it would be more of an on/off type of event.

Get that you can't shut it down once it started, but it seems like 'what happens if we destroy it' could have been mentioned, as weapons were pretty much the only thing they had going for them at the time.

 

[Christopher]

^Hmm, I reviewed the transcript, and you seem to be right -- they'd just blown up one of Reliant's nacelles with a torpedo, and there was no mention of further weapons damage, but they never suggested the "blow it up" option. Well, just one more of the many ways in which the TWOK script makes no damn sense and falls completely to pieces if you apply any critical thought.

 

[DonIago]

It may be a somewhat weak rationalization, but we could assume that if David thought blowing Reliant up would have improved matters he would have suggested it.

 

[Timo]

I for one am happy that the script was true enough to Star Trek not to suggest "blowing stuff up" as the solution to the problem!

Shooting at the big bomb that was Genesis would intuitively seem to be a very poor idea. Kirk had risked it already, in order to stop Khan from being a direct threat to the Enterprise, and ironically enough had managed to render Khan harmless to all universe except the hero ship. Risking it further would really not improve matters, not according to the terms and conditions already spelled out in the script...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Scout101]

True enough to Trek? They phasered plenty of the problems out of existence over the course of the show. They couldn't logic it into destroying it, Kirk couldn't effectively seduce it, phasers were usually next on the list That was a big part of the solution to ST3, 5, and 6; Vaal, Lazarus, Doomsday Machine, Obsession cloud, Salt Vampire, Space Amoeba, Trelane (or at least his power source), and I'm sure a few others all say Hi!

The bomb was 'inert' (I assume) when they shot at Reliant before. Presumably Khan arming it is what made it a bad idea to shoot further. And fine with "it'll make it blow up uncontrollably and kill you anyway" as the reason not to torpedo it, but it did seem to be missing those two seconds of dialogue. Just needed a "beam over and stop it? Cant. Destroy it? Explosion will still get us. How do we stop it? Can't"

Fine with uncontrolled explosion being just as bad as planned detonation, just seemed like since it was obviously building up to the big event, someone should have asked whether destroying it before it got there would have helped...

 

[Christopher]

Come to think of it, maybe I was being too harsh before. The visuals showed the ships as being at point-blank range, and though one usually has to take that as a visual contrivance (especially when the dialogue explicitly says the ships are thousands of kilometers apart), in this case it was probably meant quite literally, given that the improbable density of the nebula and the interference it created pretty much required the ships to be virtually in throwing distance.

So that's all the explanation we need for why they couldn't blow up Reliant. In a nebula that dense (and real nebulae are nowhere near that dense, but this is the stipulation), the shock of a nearby explosion would be transmitted and would probably be sufficient to destroy the wounded Enterprise. Maybe that didn't need to be explained in dialogue because it was implicit in the visuals.

Although I'm not sure that entirely explains why they couldn't get to a safe blast distance at impulse in the three-plus minutes they had.

 

[Scout101]

it's a minor nit at best, just felt like it needed the extra 2 seconds of dialogue I suggested to help take the obvious option off the table...

 

[Timo]

Regarding point blank range, that's the very range at which Picard scuttles the near-identical USS Lantree using one of those dreaded photon torpedoes... But Picard might have had his shields up in "Unnatural Selection", and his ship certainly wasn't damaged or inside a nebula. Although one'd think the latter would just help contain the effects of the scuttling, arresting debris and radiation and whatnot.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

When running away, Kirk asks for distance after time. Chekov give I think 4,000 km around the three minute mark. Where Sulu more or less says the aren't going to make it.

When Spock first scanned Genesis he said it was a energy wave of a type he's never encountered. David says it is the Genesis wave. It is on a buildup to detonation. They have four minutes (less actually). They can't stop it once started. Spock doesn't know what will happen if they destroy it or try to use the transporters on it...it is an unknown to him. But if it on a buildup to detonation, I would think any sort of energy interference would just blow it up and take out Enterprise with it.

It wouldn't have been hard to beam it out, as it was on Reliant's transporter pad. But it may not be possible to do so without killing everyone within at least the radius of a planet from Reliant.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Regarding point blank range, that's the very range at which Picard scuttles the near-identical USS Lantree using one of those dreaded photon torpedoes... But Picard might have had his shields up in "Unnatural Selection", and his ship certainly wasn't damaged or inside a nebula. Although one'd think the latter would just help contain the effects of the scuttling, arresting debris and radiation and whatnot.

Timo Saloniemi

Yes, but TWOK was before the warheads in photon torpedoes were actually described as far as their working mechanisms. It's also far from clear (and unlikely, IMO) that the FX crews knew that the torpedoes were being depicted as physical projectile-type weapons and now the "Glowing blobs of scariness" that they had been up to this point. In the latter paradigm, given the "submarines in space!" theme that predominates in the Mutara Nebula, they probably would have gone with a special effect more similar to "depth charge and shock wave" than "cannonball." The initial Genesis detonation, for example, uses that effect, as does the detonation when Reliant finally explodes. I think the ILM guys were just not made fully aware that a subtle but important change had been made in the universe's technical background and no one has bothered to correct that oversight still, thirty years later.

In universe: TOS-era torpedoes probably didn't use antimatter warheads. I'd be willing to bet they're mainly kinetic kill weapons that are really good at penetrating starship armor and/or shields but otherwise don't pack that much of a punch. In that context, the torpedoes would be useless at demolishing the Genesis device: they'd have to land a direct hit right on the transporter room and hope the device doesn't prematurely detonate on impact.

 

[Christopher]

When running away, Kirk asks for distance after time. Chekov give I think 4,000 km around the three minute mark.

Which really should be enough to avoid the effects of a starship explosion. Any shock wave would be unlikely to propagate that far, and the radiation would be pretty well blocked by the absurdly dense nebula. But as I said, given the sensor interference, they probably needed to be at point-blank range to use weapons effectively. Although they could've dropped a torpedo on a time delay and then moved away.

It wouldn't have been hard to beam it out, as it was on Reliant's transporter pad.

Again, the nebula's interference might've precluded a transporter lock.

 

[Scout101]

yeah, the transporter excuse seems an easy one. Pretty clear from looking at it that it's putting out some stuff that might interfere with things. Plus sensors not working well in the nebula, so targeting may not work for the transporters, etc. That never felt missing as an option. Doesn't take much to get the transporters to flake out.

Destroying it before it finished doing it's thing did, though. It wasn't on a timer, it was clearly DOING something, and building up a reaction. Stopping that early may have been bad, but should have at least gotten a head shake from David.

 

[Mytran]

As was mentioned upthread, Kirk seems quite happy to beam over and stop the Genesis Device countdown (before being informed by David that he can't) and just moments earlier was preparing a boarding action onto Reliant. Kirk may know squat about the Genesis Wave, but he ought to be familiar enough with nebulae and their effect on Transporter systems, so I give that one a pass.

As for why they didn't just use the Transporter on the Genesis Torpedo itself, I'm content enough to thin

Regarding Enterprise's absurdly slow escape time from impending doom, I'd not considered that it might be down to the gloopiness of the "nebula", so thanks, guys! After all, 0.00007% of light is hardly emergency speed. Previously, I did wonder if the mass-reduction driver of the Impulse Engines might have been damaged (or rendered inoperative by the Mutara effect), so what we were in fact witnessing was the pure newtonian thrust of the Impulse Engines. IOW, not very fast!

 

[Timo]

Umm, did Kirk even have impulse available, in any form? "Best speed possible!" was never specified to be impulse.

And Kirk certainly had not covered any significant distances after last being hurt by Khan. To the contrary, he remained at spitting distance of the Reliant, enabling the "pop-up" maneuver. And conversely, the Reliant never went far, but that could be Khan realizing he had knocked out Kirk's impulse drive for good and therefore limiting his own maneuvers accordingly.

Doing 4,000 kilometers in 4 minutes by Newtonian maneuvering thrusters only might be the most consistent interpretation here. Impulse would be out because the impulse drive itself had been damaged (the next time we hear it used is when Kirk escapes spacedock Earth in ST3); warp would be out because of power failure.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lord Manitou]

I don't think Kirk thought it adviseable to let Genesis evolve into a world based on a cloud location. They also wanted to give Genesis a chance in outer space where it was suppose to happen.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

The Mutara Nebula interfered with sensors and weapons lock, so transporters would probably be just as inaccurate.

 

[Timo]

They also wanted to give Genesis a chance in outer space where it was suppose to happen.

We know that the first detonation happened underground, and the second was scheduled to happen on the surface of a lifeless world (either at impact of the "Genesis Torpedo", or after this device had soft-landed and done the final checks, the simplified graphic representation doesn't really tell). "Outer space" doesn't seem to be a requirement.

Where the device did detonate may not have met the requirements, hence the failure to create a stable planet let alone a stable ecosystem. But we don't know what other factors contributed to the failure - nor do we know the real origins of the "Genesis Planet". For all we know, it was formerly known as the planetoid Regula...

But Kirk probably had little or nothing to do with (and little say in) where Genesis would be tested or used. We don't even know whether he really supervised the Genesis project in any sense - the only things connecting Genesis to Kirk are the distressed pleas of Carol Marcus and an evil lie told by the possessed Chekov. (Well, those, and the video being played for the Council in ST4:TVH, but that was probably made after the fact.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DonIago]

Yeah, I'm under the impression that prior to Khan dragging Kirk into events in TWoK, Kirk may have had some knowledge of the project but his actual involvement was either minimal or non-existent. His obvious reluctance to get involved with Carol Marcus again certainly suggests that he wouldn't have willingly involved himself with Genesis.