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

[Timo]

That he smugly invites Spock to share in the knowledge of Genesis does not mean that he himself had any previous knowledge of the project, either. He could have googled it himself right after hearing the novel and unfamiliar name in Marcus' SOS.

It is equally possible that he knew, though. Perhaps it was knowledge available to flag officers but not starship captains? Perhaps he indeed was involved in some fashion? Perhaps he and Carol still had a thing going, and she leaked state secrets at tender moments, or when trying to impress Jim? The simplest assumption is that Kirk didn't know, though. But perhaps that's not the dramatically most pleasing one.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[137th Gebirg]

In TSFS, Kruge referred to him as "The Genesis Commander Himself". This would imply that the Klingons not only knew about the existence of Genesis, but that Kirk was more heavily involved than anyone realized and made him a primary target of opportunity. When Carol Marcus' call to Kirk in TWOK was accusing Kirk of "taking Genesis from them", he never said "what's Genesis?", but "who's taking Genesis?", as if he already knew what it was. Additionally, Carol's likeness was replaced by Kirk's in the Genesis briefing that Valkris delivered while Enterprise was still on her way home from the Mutara Sector. In essence, her operation to capture the intel for the Klingons would have been going on during, possibly prior to, the course of events in TWOK. Kirk would never have had time to re-tape the whole thing and send it back into the archives in time for Valkris to steal post mortem. Ergo, Kirk was involved prior to the events in TWOK all along. Perhaps Carol's version was "A Proposal to the Federation" and Kirk's version, co-opted or not, was "A Proposal to Starfleet", in an effort to weaponize Genesis, just as the Klingons feared.

 

[Scout101]

He was pretty heavily involved, he was there and directly involved in creation of the planet. Doesn't mean he was running the show ahead of time. When the dust cleared, his ship and a planet were both there, and he likely stayed there a short while afterwards while they figured out what to do. Obviously first on the scene, and would factor heavily into the reports...

 

[Christopher]

In TSFS, Kruge referred to him as "The Genesis Commander Himself". This would imply that the Klingons not only knew about the existence of Genesis, but that Kirk was more heavily involved than anyone realized.

I always took it to be just because Kirk had been the one involved in the recent catastrophe involving the Genesis Device. Remember, Morrow said to Kirk, "In your absence, Genesis has become a galactic controversy." The events of TWOK were a well-known scandal, at least to the major governments. And Kirk was at the heart of those events. That would've made him "the Genesis commander" in the eyes of the galaxy even if he'd had no previous involvement.

Carol Marcus' likeness was replaced by Kirk's in the Genesis briefing that Valkris delivered while Enterprise was still on her way home from Genesis. Kirk would never have had time to re-tape the whole thing and send it back into the archives in time for Valkris to steal. Ergo, Kirk was involved prior to the events in TWOK.

We don't actually know how much time elapsed between TWOK and TSFS. The Enterprise was badly damaged and needed time to limp home -- not to mention dropping off Carol and rescuing the stranded Reliant crew. (Not to mention that Saavik apparently graduated in the interim, since she went from a cadet red turtleneck in TWOK to command white in TSFS.) Vonda McIntyre's novelization made the interval only three days, but it could easily have been weeks. He would've had plenty of time. It is part of his job to send regular reports to Starfleet, after all.

And of course, the only reason the briefing was redone with Kirk is because the filmmakers didn't want to pay Bibi Besch for the reuse of her image and voice. So I tend not to read too much into that.

 

[Timo]

And how long would it take to re-tape? All of two minutes? Kirk definitely had the time, and nothing better to do, plus it was a matter of some urgency to him to get things sorted out by proxy when he himself was stranded aboard a limping starship.

When Carol Marcus' call to Kirk in TWOK was accusing Kirk of "taking Genesis from them", he never said "what's Genesis?", but "who's taking Genesis?", as if he already knew what it was.

Well, the "who's the villain?" thing is generally factually more significant than the "what is he stealing?" bit. The object of theft can be trivially determined after the villain is caught, after all.

Carol and Jim are not holding a conversation there. They are trying to make some sort of sense of what the other might be saying, with no real success. When getting to the "Who's taking Genesis?" bit, Kirk is just trying to grab one of the many loose ends of the octopial monster that is Carol's SOS.

Not to mention that Saavik apparently graduated in the interim, since she went from a cadet red turtleneck in TWOK to command white in TSFS.

Saavik was never called cadet, and already wore commissioned rank when we first saw her in TWoK. Heck, we don't even know, in-universe, if red should be associated with cadets or the Academy in any particular way! There are many contradictions to that, and few points of support.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

A question for that would be, when does one take the Kobayashi Maru Test?

 

[Timo]

When one does one's Command studies, presumably. Kirk did those as an undergraduate (in both timelines). Saavik was a postgrad. Spock never bothered, and neither did McCoy.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Christopher]

A question for that would be, when does one take the Kobayashi Maru Test?

Well, Saavik evidently took it shortly before graduation, and so did Kirk in the 2009 film. And according to the script of said film, I think, Kirk held lieutenant's rank by that point, just as Saavik did. (Apparently it's possible to earn officer's rank before Academy graduation. That's how the Star Trek Chronology interprets Kirk Prime's career, putting his service as an ensign aboard Republic before his graduation, since "Obsession" says he was a lieutenant aboard Farragut on his first deep-space assignment.)

 

[Ithekro]

That makes one wonder if Ensign Chekov was still a cadet of sorts (like Kirk had been on Republic), and after his years of Enterprise would go back to finish his term, get a promotion to lieutenant and take his Kobayashi Maru Test, as he was command track.

 

[Timo]

All that sounds like completely unnecessary speculation. We see that Saavik is a commissioned Lieutenant. That she is shown studying for command is no reason to think that she would not have graduated already, as the very movie explicitly tells that many of the main heroes have managed to graduate without dabbling in such studies.

Why should Kirk's first deep space assignment be interpreted as his first post-graduation mission? Deep space assignments may be a rarity in Starfleet, really. And we know for a fact that Kirk remained in the Academy at the rank of Lieutenant - but in circumstances that would seem to make him an instructor rather than a student ("in his class you think or sink").

As regards STXI, Kirk is never stated to hold rank at the Academy: that rank only appears after the cadets are pushed to emergency duty. OTOH, many people at SF Academy in red uniform are several years Kirk's senior (in studies if not in biological terms) and are shown holding relatively high rank from the get-go. And the red uniform stays on Kirk (and on all others) at the conclusion of the episode, suggesting that graduation is no obstacle to wearing the uniform - but not establishing that it denotes any specific state of graduation.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nerys Myk]

As regards STXI, Kirk is never stated to hold rank at the Academy: that rank only appears after the cadets are pushed to emergency duty. OTOH, many people at SF Academy in red uniform are several years Kirk's senior (in studies if not in biological terms) and are shown holding relatively high rank from the get-go. And the red uniform stays on Kirk (and on all others) at the conclusion of the episode, suggesting that graduation is no obstacle to wearing the uniform - but not establishing that it denotes any specific state of graduation.

Wasn't Kirk exclude from that duty? That might indicate it was his rank at the Academy,

 

[Timo]

Well, again, the rank only appears after Kirk has firmly been established as part of Pike's crew - indeed, after he has become Spock's First Officer! It is never mentioned in dialogue, and when it's seen in a computer display, it's the display of the transporter that saves XO Kirk (and Sulu) from splattering against Vulcan's surface.

If Pike had the power to issue a field assignment to such an exalted position, he may well have had the power to brevet raw Cadet Kirk to Lieutenant or even full Commander for all we know...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

That makes one wonder if Ensign Chekov was still a cadet of sorts (like Kirk had been on Republic), and after his years of Enterprise would go back to finish his term, get a promotion to lieutenant and take his Kobayashi Maru Test, as he was command track.

That's basically what they did with Wesley Crusher, who was essentially a full ensign at the time of "Best of Both Worlds" despite having never attended the academy.

 

[Christopher]

As regards STXI, Kirk is never stated to hold rank at the Academy...

Not in the final cut, no. I did specify it was from the script.

 

[Noname Given]

^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.

^^^
This. I mean hell, for the story to progress to the point we saw, the audience already had to buy that Chekov (or whomever was reading the Reliant's sensors) missed the fact that the Ceti Alpha star system had lost a planet (and gained a new debris/asteroid field); and further that they failed to notice the orbit of some planets in the system had changed/shifted.

All the above had to happen so that Chekov and Terell would beam down not knowing they were transporting to what remained of ceti Alpha V before kahn captured and revealed they were on Ceti Alpha VI.

 

[Timo]

It appears people never stop to think about this so-called "plot hole" of theirs...

How does one know that a planet is V or VI? Planets aren't labeled. Except of course they are - Ceti Alpha V carried the label "harsh but habitable", while Ceti Alpha VI carried the label "a desert hellhole". So Terrell homed in on the exact right label, as he should.

Orbital parameters? Nonsense. In Trek, those are about as stable as the weather back home. Kirk was dealing with moving planets all the time in his TOS years. And if the records say X about orbital parameters, but the sensors say Y, only the mentally ill would favor the records over the reality.

Odds are Kirk picked the Ceti A system for marooning Khan exactly because it was poorly known by the Federation, and would never be visited in Khan's lifetime. Starfleet had no interest in this region of space as such: nobody flew through it at that time and age, except perhaps starships on unusual errands that required rare shortcuts. Records would be imprecise and out of date. And we know for a fact that Starfleet or the Federation doesn't (and apparently cannot) observe the fates of distant star systems in real time.

The sidekicks mixing up two planets is intuitively reasonable (professional drivers in Europe can mix up two cities in completely different countries when trusting their navigators!), and nothing about the established Trek way of doing things should change that. Perhaps some variant of the 23rd century would see practices and phenomena that would make the mix-up impossible. The Trek variant isn't one of those.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Scout101]

Well, the planets were NUMBERED so if there was one missing, should have been easy to figure out and maybe trigger a more in depth look.

 

[Ithekro]

Only if you bother to look, which wasn't necessary to do their assigned task. They were not there to survey the system, just check out if Ceti Alpha VI really had no life on it so it could get blownup and rebuilt into a proper M-class planet. By that point in time, the crew of Reliant seemed bored and tired of the mission and just wanted it over. They even started to try to make the planet work regardless of what their scanners said about it. They just wanted to be done with this whole Genesis Project business and go back to some more interesting assignments.

 

[Trekkin]

When did they tell us VI was a 'desert hell hole'? From what we saw, they just assumed there was no life. For all we know, it was an ocean planet, a volcanic pit, or an arctic waste.

Admittedly an arctic waste would be a desert, but you know what I mean.

 

[Christopher]

Only if you bother to look, which wasn't necessary to do their assigned task. They were not there to survey the system, just check out if Ceti Alpha VI really had no life on it so it could get blownup and rebuilt into a proper M-class planet.

That makes no sense, because it's not exactly something you'd have to go out of your way to spot. Even today, we can detect planetary systems around stars thousands of light-years away. And we know that Starfleet has faster-than-light sensors. An event as massive as the destruction of an entire planet would've been detected by Federation scientists almost as soon as it happened. Even if they hadn't spotted it, even if they were limited to speed-of-light sensors, then the Reliant's sensors would undoubtedly have detected the explosion as soon as they passed within 15 light-years of the system.

Not to mention that in order to reach a planet in the first place, you need to know exactly where it is and what its orbital parameters are, because -- despite the tendency of a lot of mass-media sci-fi to forget this -- planets are constantly moving. And it's a physical absurdity to suggest that the explosion of the sixth planet would somehow cause the fifth planet to move outward into a new orbit that exactly replicated all six defining orbital parameters of the sixth planet's orbit. There is simply no realistic way they could mistake one planet for the other, even if, by some incredible coincidence, they had the exact same mass. It's a completely stupid premise in a movie full of stupid and nonsensical ideas.