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Something about ST3

Well we don't know the reason Starfleet had the Mutara sector restricted, but travel was still permitted with permits.

McCoy didn't buy that, and neither do I. Captain Big-Ears was asking for a bribe, pure and simple, and "permits" was a fig-leaf. "There aren't going to be any damn permits! How can you get a permit to do a damn illegal thing?"
 
^ If we take it as face value, travel to the Mutara sector was permitted with permits, except for Genesis.
 
^ Which is in direct conflict with TWOK, where Kirk tells Saavik 'Klingons don't take prisoners."

Two reasons: Proves what a beserker Kruge was, doing things that no one expected, not even his crew, and...

In the original script treatment, Kruge was a Romulan pirate.

My love for you is like a truck, Berserker!
Would you like some making fuck, Berserker!

Did he say 'making fuck?'
 
^ Which is in direct conflict with TWOK, where Kirk tells Saavik 'Klingons don't take prisoners."

Which itself is in conflict with the TV series. (A people that doesn't take prisoners would have little use for a Mind Sifter.)

The Kobayashi Maru scenario should have featured Romulans rather than Klingons, but they decided to go with Klingons because they're more familiar. (As if to drive the point home, my spellchecker recognizes "Klingons" but not "Romulans.")

Though Romulans might have been a better choice for that dialog, it's more likely they went with the Klingons because they had usable effects shots. Also at the time of filming, Saavik was supposedly understood to actually be half Romulan, so that might have seemed a little redundant.

I agree with Morpheus 02 that Klingons will do whatever serves their purposes, and with Maestro that it was probably classic tongue-in-cheek grain-of-salt Kirk talking to Starfleet puppies.
 
Though Romulans might have been a better choice for that dialog, it's more likely they went with the Klingons because they had usable effects shots. Also at the time of filming, Saavik was supposedly understood to actually be half Romulan, so that might have seemed a little redundant.

Since TOS had established that the Romulans used Klingon vessels, the use of stock TMP footage wasn't a problem. The script called the new vessel a "bird of prey" - a Romulan designation from TOS - and it had a "cloaking device", also a Romulan trait.

The main reason they went with Klingons in ST III was to make the movie have broader audience appeal. The general movie-goers would have been thoroughly confused if the film was about searching for a dead Vulcan, on orders by the dead Vulcan's father, and featuring a young female Vulcan - and then the bad guys turn out to look exactly the same: pointed ears, slanted brows. To use Romulans successfully, the script would require lots of explanations about the origins of the Vulcan/Romulan split.

Also, for cost-saving, they could recycle the Klingon leather armour made for TMP. Only Kruge's shirt and cloak, and Valkris's outfit, are new. The other Klingons wear TMP hand-me-downs.
 
I would think it was. It posted a science outpost there without any ships posted there. Reliant was only there to perform survey missions on planets, which makes me think of another question: Why would they use a heavy frigate to perform planetary surveys instead of a science ship?

It was crazy-wacky opposite day when those orders were issued.
 
On the issue of Klingons not taking prisoners, it's probably a bit of outdated propaganda (Klingon or Starfleet) for our ST2 heroes, used tongue-in-cheek by Kirk to lighten up the mood of the simulation.

However, in TNG "Heart of Glory" we meet two Klingons who actually believe in that propaganda! It seems that those who take their Kahless too seriously are actually obliged to go without hostages or other captives... It's the "honorable" thing to do, and even though Kahless himself would probably have laughed derisively at the idea, his followers might well have codified it into their set of rules-that-keep-bored-warriors-at-bay-and-properly-obeying-the-priests.

On the issue of having a military presence at Genesis... What for? It's not as if anybody could come and steal the planet. Or that anybody would benefit from bombarding it. It's not capturable technology, it's just the detritus from using the tech. An invader would have to spend months painstakingly analyzing the place to even begin to divine the secrets of how it was made; not something one could achieve by barging in with a warship.

Kruge's attack made no sense, and would not have given him the "secret of Genesis", which was wherever Carol Marcus was, thus (probably) not in the Mutara Sector. Preparing against such an attack would have made no sense, either.

Timo Saloniemi
 
It would be a safe assumption that the science team studying Genesis would know "the secret", whether or not Carol Marcus was there. And how would Kruge know if she was on the team or not?
 
Not so sure about that bet. If the Russians had sent a commando team to New Mexico in WWII to capture a party sent to survey the aftermath of the first A-bomb test, they'd only have caught a few guys who knew which knobs to turn in a Geiger counter; they'd have had to hit the detonation moment itself to capture Oppenheimer and pals. And for Kruge, the counterpart to that moment had already passed: Carol Marcus had moved on, and the guy he mistook for the military supervisor of the project, Kirk, would not have been expected to be anywhere near, either.

It just doesn't sound that likely that Planet Genesis could ever have been reverse-engineered into Project Genesis. The enemy, any enemy, might have made recce runs all right, but kidnap runs? A bit unlikely IMHO. Kruge ought to have taken what he already had from Valkris and run with that.

Timo Saloniemi
 
Why was the Grissom the only ship there?

Why, obviously, it was the only ship in the quadrant!
 
I do remember reading somewhere that Kruge was classed as "Barbaric, even for Klingon standards" and a "Fierce Klingon Warlord". In the film its also mentioned by Kruge that the Klingon Ambassadors were negotiating peace with the Federation. I'd assume that the Klingon Ambassadors may have been aware of the Genesis situation, but were content when the Federation made such assurances as only sending one ship and declaring the Sector and discussion of it, off limits.

As for Kruge, he probably figured something was going on, perhaps he had someone on the inside. Then he used his resources (Valkris) to gather information. Kruge figured the Federation were experimenting with WMD's in order to annihilate the Klingon People. So he decided to steal the secrets for himself and use it against them.
 
"Share this with no one!" - Kruge was explicitly acting on his own in TSFS. Of course, the Federation had no way of knowing that come TVH, explaining the political posturing in that particular movie.
 
It just doesn't sound that likely that Planet Genesis could ever have been reverse-engineered into Project Genesis. The enemy, any enemy, might have made recce runs all right, but kidnap runs? A bit unlikely IMHO. Kruge ought to have taken what he already had from Valkris and run with that.

Timo Saloniemi

I think Kruge made a lot of assumptions from a Klingon mindset.

The Genesis 'torpedo', the team that developed the Federation 'doomsday weapon', even his crew referred to Enterprise as a battlecruiser.

He just assumed Genesis was a weapons test, and Grissom was packed withe the development team checking their handiwork.
 
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