It could have been Klingons inside these suits. No one would ever have known.
Plot holes.
- Thread starter Swedish Borg
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It could have been Klingons inside these suits. No one would ever have known.
Would have been less believable if they came from within and there was no record of the transporter. Then it would have just been Klingon in-fighting and the war would not continue.
While it could be plausible that the magic Klingon ship they just speculated into existence might, in addition to being able to fire while cloaked, also carry stolen Starfleet uniforms and weapons* (assuming that we're assuming we're still in one of the epochs where cloaked ships can use their transporters), once you've concluded that there must be at least one conspirator aboard the Enterprise, it seems eminently logical that the Starfleet conspirator also provided the Starfleet equipment for the assassination. If the database hadn't been altered, it would've been more plausible that the entire thing was orchestrated by the second ship, but the fake entry proves the Enterprise was already compromised.
Remember, they were all supposed to be dead or on a severely damaged ship. Kirk wasn't expected to surrender, he was supposed to defend himself (or so he'd think) and leave both ships destroyed or crippled, where incomplete and contradictory evidence wouldn't matter as much. The setup required each side to believe the other one had started the war. If either one thought their own people had gone renegade and tried to derail the peace treaty, they'd try to make up for it and keep the peace process going, so there couldn't be any weird loose ends like the assassins being found on the Bird of Prey that rode in like the cavalry to save the Chancellor from Federation treachery, or there not being any reason at all for the Enterprise to think they actually had, somehow, fired (because if they were so sure they didn't fire, Kirk might do something wacky, like surrender and hope the truth would set him free).
Which is all a pretty long walk to get to, "No, I don't think there's a good reason Spock should've just given up and assumed the assassins must've beamed over to a ship they weren't sure actually existed and that they were totally screwed."
*And, yes, I know, the Bird of Prey used red Starfleet torpedos instead of green Klingon ones, and there was the cut subplot revealing that Federation torpedo manufacturers were in on the conspiracy.
Not within. The cloaked Klingon ship. Don't tell me you've forgotten it?
Klingon transporter would have been recognized.
They already had Starfleet torpedoes (on the Klingon ship) why not a Starfleet transporter as well? The conspirators had months to prepare.
As well as a Klingon disruptor.
Then where would they have come from? What other ship was there in the area that Spock knew about, except the Enterprise? If the Enterprise had indeed fired the torpedoes, then that would prove that she had been subverted by conspirators who had committed to killing Klingons. With no other ship in the area, assuming the assassins who beamed over hadn't been on the Klingon ship to begin with, and their being on the Klingon ship would have required an explanation for their possession of Federation equipment, then they must have come from Enterprise.
In any case, the fact that the data bank had been altered proved there were at least some conspirators onboard. That's the point of what Spock was saying.
But the boots were the only thing they had!! If they were on the Klingon ship, Spock would have been left with zip.
Well, that falls under the category of the Enterprise not having fired the torpedo. Doesn't it? Spock covered that base in the dialog I quoted: there are still conspirators aboard. Again, it was Valeris, not Spock, who said they should be looking for gravity boots, while glossing over the possibility that the Enterprise hadn't fired (a possibility which she knew in fact to be the truth).
Why do you keep forgetting that there was ANOTHER cloaked Klingon ship? The assassins could have beamed there.
They still need to frame the Enterprise. And Valeris was to tie up the loose ends on that side. So, why install equipment that would raise suspicions on their experimental ship when the Enterprise can be blamed just as easily? Especially with Starfleet insiders to take care of the other side. They were counting on a number of things to happen, without raising suspicion. Starfleet transporter on a Klingon ship would be suspicious. Starfleet torpedoes could have been captured during fighting and used again.
Without the assassins beaming onboard Enterprise and beaming on the cloaked Klingon ship instead, Spock would have nothing to go on.
Those are great points.
That doesn't make any sense. The cloaked ship was obviously a secret plus they already had Starfleet torpedoes on it so a Starfleet transported as well would have made much of a difference. It's unlikely that the Chancellor even knew that that ship existed.
Whether Spock would have anything to go on in that case is irrelevant to whether his reasoning was "inept" as you put it.
Whether Spock would be able to identify conspirators in that hypothetical case is a whole other issue.
That changes nothing to the fact that Spock's reasoning would have meant nothing if not for the mistake of beaming the assassins onto the Enterprise. He was just lucky and he was lucky because the writers stacked the deck in his favor.
Just as Valeris is likely cold-blooded and level-headed and she would have known that the two guys were dead and not fall for the obvious trap set by Spock and Kirk.
If the assassins had beamed aboard the cloaked ship Valeris could have sent them on a wild goose chase they would have sought these boots for a long time to no avail.
Not with the attitude of Klingons, conspiracy or no.
As @David cgc pointed out, the conspirators were interested in having the Klingons believe that the assassins were Starfleet, so there was every reason for the conspirators to use Enterprise equipment and personnel for that part of the operation.
The evident reason that the cloaked ship was needed was because the conspirators could not engineer the Enterprise to actually fire unprovoked on the Klingon ship. That would have required penetrating too much security. So, the plan was for the cloaked ship to get the ball rolling and then for mistrust and feelings of betrayal to take over on both ships, do the rest, and start the war that the conspirators wanted.
But that is about how the conspiracy was set up. At the point in the story when Valeris said they should be looking for gravity boots, Spock still didn't know that there was a third, cloaked ship that had fired the torpedoes.
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