"Rules of Engagement" Made NO Sense

[Dayton3]

This was the episode where Worf was put on trial and accused of killing several hundred Klingon civilians when he ordered the Defiant to fire at what he thought was a Klingon Bird of Prey decloaking.

It turned out to be a setup. A propaganda ploy by the Klingons.

The problem is.................it DOES NOT WORK the way it was shown in the episode.

The setup is wholly dependent on the Klingons knowing FOR CERTAIN when Worf will figure out the pattern of the Bird of Prey firing, cloaking, and decloaking.

If Worf had figured out the pattern one step earlier, the Defiant would've destroyed the Klingon Bird of Prey as they had planned.

If Word had NOT figured out the pattern when he did, the Klingon cargo ship would've decloaked in the middle of the battle for all to see.

And the Klingon setup would've been fully revealed.

The figuring out of the pattern took place ENTIRELY in Worf's head. There was no way for the Klingons to know when he had caught on. Thus they had no way of knowing when to put the Klingon cargo ship in position.

Thus, the entire scenario for "Rules of Engagement" is fatally flawed.

I'm surprised no one say this when it was written.

 

[TeutonicNights]

Maybe the required attack by Defiant would need positioning the ship in a certain way so it would have been given away.
Worf does order a certain course after he sees the pattern.

 

[ialfan]

The episode makes no sense to me because the two governments are at war. What say should the Klingons have in how the Federation does battle with them? It's ridiculous that they actually considered giving Worf over to the Klingons.

 

[Dayton3]

Maybe the required attack by Defiant would need positioning the ship in a certain way so it would have been given away.
Worf does order a certain course after he sees the pattern.

A more realistic approach would be if one of the ships in the convoy had detected the BOPs engine trail or sensor emissions and transmitted that information to the Defiant.

Then the Klingons could intercept the transmission and slip the cargo vessel into place.

But it couldn't work as shown in the episode.

 

[TeutonicNights]

But it couldn't work as shown in the episode.

why?

1) the Klingons choose a pattern that upon detection would force Defiant in a certain position to counteract it.
2) Worf detects pattern, orders a course change
3) Klingons detect specific course change, realize Worf has taken the bait
4) Klingons issue orders to the transport to come in decloaking

It's just a matter of how eleborately that trap was set up.
There are many parameters we don't know so we imo cannot make a guess whether it makes sense or not.
Also, O'Brien might have remembered it incompletely.
And finally, the Klingons might have used an attack pattern that was somehow "typical" of Klingons or well-known by Worf from his days in the Klingon forces, so it would be probable that Worf, and Worf only, was able to see that Pattern (while O'Brien obviously hadn't).

What I didn't like about the episode is: Odo investigating off screen and finding out right in time. That is just lame.

 

[Rhodan]

The episode makes no sense to me because the two governments are at war. What say should the Klingons have in how the Federation does battle with them? It's ridiculous that they actually considered giving Worf over to the Klingons.

No, they weren´t at war until the end of the season.

 

[Solariabsg25]

The episode makes no sense to me because the two governments are at war. What say should the Klingons have in how the Federation does battle with them? It's ridiculous that they actually considered giving Worf over to the Klingons.

No, they weren´t at war until the end of the season.

The Federation and Klingons were certainly not at formal war (as confirmed by Ch'Pok's comments on the Fed-Klingon relationship).

However, incidents certainly seem to have been getting more frequent, and with Gowron's rhetoric at the end of the season, it definately seems that the Klingons were poised for all-out war, the Founders hoping to set up Sisko and Odo to kill him and be the final straw.

 

[Timo]

For Klingons, being at war doesn't seem to require any particular effort or agreement. They probably feel they are constantly at war with everybody anyway. Doesn't stop them from negotiating or forming alliances or doing other such stuff, though.

But yeah, this seemed to be a propaganda maneuver that was merely laying the groundwork for Gowron's eventual declaration of war in "Broken Link". And as such, it wouldn't matter to the Klingons whether Worf got extradited or not. If not, all the better - they could say the cowardly traitor was being given protection by the traitorous cowards of the Federation. Or they could even have invented a novel insult for the purpose, although that might have been either cowardly or traitorous.

So I wouldn't worry about the legal aspects of the charade. It was never important to the Klingons which side would win or lose, as the ultimate propaganda victory would go to the Empire no matter what. (Too bad it couldn't be milked to the full effect as Sisko learned of the droneship trick a bit too soon and could have embarrassed the Klingons.)

I also agree the Klingons could simply have been watching Worf's maneuvering to decide where and when to expose the droneship. Certainly the moment when Worf went from flying blind to stalking his prey would stand out - what other reason would the Defiant have for making a sharp turn if not that she was anticipating an enemy move?

The Klingons need not truly second-guess Worf's guesses, either: they could wait for Worf to make his guess, right or wrong, then send the droneship to where Worf's phasers were pointing, essentially doing all the work for him.

For me, the weakness of the episode is in the failure of our heroes to ask the obvious questions from Ch'Pok himself. Why did a Klingon transport fly cloaked, and in a war zone? Why did the Klingons suddenly show concern for civilian lives when those lives were lost but not before? Why is Ch'Pok so keen on prosecuting when he has no real case?

Probably all these questions could have been answered even if this weren't a Klingon charade. At least it's easy to think of rationalizations: say, Klingons could habitually cloak all their logistics movements, which would be strategically even more important than cloaking their warships. But Sisko never even asked, except rhetorically from his friends.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[cwalrus2]

I agree it wasn't the best episode of the season. Indeed, was probably the least ds9-like episode of the season since the whole oficer on trial thing had been done before many times over on TNG (Measure of a Man, The Drumhead, and most similarly in Matter of Perspective). I suppose it might have been seen as a means to draw in more of TNG's audience with an episode that at least stylically resembled TNG. When it first aired, I liked this episode, but as many have pointed out, it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

The characters speaking directly to the camera was the only thing that set this episode apart from the other court-room trek dramas. Otherwise, it's not really original at all. According to Memory Alpha:

Despite the interesting structural devices in place, the producers were less than thrilled with the finished product. Ira Steven Behr laments, "We got totally focused on structure, and how it was gonna work, all the nuts and bolts. Big mistake, but it happened, and now it's a show that just didn't work. We did a show that is based on the intent of the defendant, just as the American legal system is, but we left the defendant out of the show. Worf just sits there, staring into space. It's clever on a certain level, but ultimately, it's pretty hollow as drama. When we watched the final cut, our collective jaws just dropped. Our basic response was, 'So what?'." Ronald D. Moore agrees, "We got blinded. I was really intrigued by the writer's device. What went by the wayside was Worf: Worf doesn't speak for chunks of the show. The guy on trial is barely in the episode." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion)