Small-Universe Syndrome

^As Christopher pointed out, I think some of those were legitimate occurrences, as the Voth and the Borg drones were each looking Voyager, as was Lindsay Ballard.

I tend to think of occurrences such as Spock and Sybok bumping into each other--and being related--after several decades as being examples of small-universe syndrome.

The same is true of situations like the Reliant (the ship on which Chekov is serving) finding Khan; now, I can accept that part of the reason this happened was because Reliant was searching sparsely populated areas in order to find a test site for Genesis, but what are the odds that someone who happened to serve on the Enterprise would be the one to find Khan and his followers?

--Sran

 

I agree, but I also think making the list underscores how overused such occurrences were on a TV series that was about a ship trying to get home with all deliberate speed and therefore not trying to turn around or anything like that.

 

Meh, most other TV shows have these sort of coincidental occurrences just as frequently, if not moreso. It's quite common, and at times it is a storytelling necessity. A Completely 100% realistic show would end up being rather boring.

 

Isn't that an example of a larger universe? The fact that it took decades (and definitely not just 2 or 3 decades) to finally bump into each other? And they're brothers?

 

No, it isn't. Finding one's long-lost brother after several decades apart is a highly improbable occurrence. That it happened because Sybok happened to be the master-mind behind the trouble on Nimbus III suggests the universe is small, not big.

--Sran

 

Except it's not like they randomly stumbled across each other. Both of them ended up in positions where they did big, important things. Sybok became a cult leader and committed a terrorist act in order to draw a starship to him. Spock was the first officer of one of the most experienced and successful starship crews in the fleet, a crew that was hand-picked for the mission. It's plausible that two brothers would both have intelligence and leadership abilities on a comparable level and thus both end up in positions of importance and influence that might lead to their paths converging.

There's a difference between random processes and selective processes. When selection pressures come into play, they can direct people into the same circles and bring about meetings that would be far more unlikely in a completely random context.

 

Not quite the same thing, but relating to the same problem: Barclay and the Pathfinder Project were able to locate Voyager repeatedly even though some of those instances were tens of thousands of light-years apart (and Pathfinder didn't know about the jump).

 

I'll buy that it's certainly plausible, but I still have a problem with the circumstances of how the two of them found each other.

I can accept that the Enterprise would be chosen for such a mission given Kirk's experience--which happens to why the ship was chosen according to Admiral Bennett--and I can accept that Spock, having been something of an outcast himself (due to his human heritage) would have befriended someone who's beliefs were out of step with the vast majority of Vulcans. What I have a problem is the idea that Spock and Sybok could be related, and that Spock would never have even mentioned this to Kirk or McCoy--it reminds me too much of Luke and Leia finding out they're related in Return of the Jedi. If Spock and Sybok had turned out be former colleagues or friends, I'd have found the whole ordeal more believable than they're being half-brothers.

--Sran

 

Granted, the long-lost, never-mentioned sibling is kind of a cliche. But -- we know that Spock and Sarek went for eighteen years without acknowledging each other as father and son because of a disagreement over Spock's career choice. Which makes it a lot more plausible that they'd go decades without acknowledging Sybok, given that his transgressions were even more extreme by Vulcan standards.

 

Well in the case of TFF, they wanted Kirk specifcally as other starships where available. Which posses the question given the state of the Enterprise and the fac tthat other ships where available, why didn't they just give Kirk command of another ship for the duration of the mission.

 

That may have to do with something else that's been discussed on this board: Kirk's status relative to other command-level officers following TVH. It's possible that such a thing would not have been allowed--either because of another captain's unwillingness to turn his ship over to Kirk, or because another crew would not have been comfortable taking orders from him. What's more, I don't know that Kirk would have agreed to the assignment unless he could have ensured that Spock, McCoy and others were with him.

Kirk would not have been allowed to refuse to obey another officer's orders--especially not after the previous two films--but it's likely that taking Kirk off the Enterprise would have caused more problems than merely asking him to take his broken-down ship to Nimbus III.

--Sran

 

Look closely at the state of the Enterprise: every mission-critical system except the transporter was working just fine, and the transporter was marginal, with good reason to think it might be working by the time it was needed, and acceptable alternative methods were available if it weren't on hand.

It's embarrassing to have the doors be faulty and the Captain's Log iPad crashing, but none of that's important stuff.

 

^ Whoa-whoa-whoa there, Nebusj. The Captain's Log entry is one of the most important aspects of the adventure. Without THAT, how will the chroniclers know when the mission took place? Dude, haven't you ever READ "Voyages Of Imagination"?

 

That's too much of a coincidence. That bitch needs to be investigated.

 

If Kirk and his team were being sent to Nimbus to assess the situation and negotiate with terrorists, he wouldn't have had to of been in command of the starship that delivered them to the planet. Only in command of the mission.

Kirk just needed to be able to give commands to the starships's actual captain.

Chain of command

 

Though the skeleton crew might pose a problem, especially since the Klingons getting involved was a possibility.