Yeah... Azetbur seemed to be passionate about the peace conference but also passionate about Kirk being held responsible for her father's death. Maybe she was motivated by agreeing with and loving her father. She wanted his dream of peace to be realized, and she wanted an facile bad guy to blame it on. It was easier to blame Kirk, who was infamous in the Klingon Empire, than to think it was henchmen working for a complicated conspiracy. So this might be another reason why they targeted the Federation president. For the cabal, Azetbur had bad and good traits. She wanted peace, but she believed a revered Federation officer murdered her father. If they killed her, even if they knew the next in line was a conservative, the new leader might be a follower of the Klingon Art of War and believe in waiting for an opportunity to drive the enemy to the battlefield on your own terms rather than responding to what the enemy does.
One wonders... Chang probably could guess there would be an assassination in the conference, even if it was all Cartwright's doing. And Chang was clearly interested in helping out with that, rather than letting Kirk through and then bombarding Camp Khitomer to bits. Did Chang know Cartwright was trying to frame the Klingons? Would he have minded, as long as the war got started? Chang would be in a position to assassinate, discriminately or indiscriminately, at least as much as Cartwright was - he would no doubt enjoy equal access to Khitomer security arrangements, be it against starship bombardment or insertion of a lone gunman. But he might not wish for Azetbur's death or the UFP Prez' survival any more than Cartwright did. A peacenik political leader would not be a problem for him - she'd get discredited and killed anyway as soon as Starfleet attacked. Cartwright might need to eliminate Ra'Ghoratrei if he wanted to launch an offensive war, though. Timo Saloniemi
I disagree, Kirk had to be the fall man for this conspiracy to work, so she definitely wasn't looking to recruit him but to find ways to frame him.
...Why should those two be in conflict? A man from your own ranks is the one the most easily maneuvered into being the fall guy. Timo Saloniemi
The ability to transport under cloak opens up many possibilities for hit and run attacks. Given that most ships do not have shields at full power all day long - and actually need to lower them for certain operations - it should be much easier to do a Harry Kim than to engage in combat.
A Harry Kim? You mean bringing aboard a sentient Weapon of Mass Destruction? Or is it (literally) glowing after sex? Or maybe drinking some horrible concoction on the advice of Neelix (of all people!)... There are so many possibilities...
Thanks! I just came up with it in my last post, but the idea is really growing on me. Great analysis and justifications! You're certainly convincing me! I have no idea if it's what Meyer and Denny Martin Flynn intended. Heck, I wonder if Meyer himself remembers himself at this point. Even if he didn't, he might just say "Sure, let's go with that," if you presented him with the theory. He has a story in his book about A View From Bridge about a fan justifying his anachronistic "bringing out the cannons" sequence in TWOK by the fact that the Enterprise was operating on only partial power at that point in the movie. Well, we know from Valeris' altering the logs that showed whether or not the Enterprise fired the torpedoes that she's a talented hacker. I think she just hacked into the Captain's Log to find incriminating excerpts to use against him in his trial. Oh, absolutely Kirk has figured everything out by that point. He has a look of surprise on his face as they play the "I've never trusted Klingons, and I never will" clip from his Log during his trial, not just over his own words being used against him, but because he's wondering how the hell Chang got his hands on it. And as you say, he had a lot of time to think while he was in prison. He narrowed down the possible suspects, and the only one who had both the means and opportunity was Valeris. He shared his suspicions with Spock, who agreed, "It's possible." And so the two of them decided to lay a trap to see if their suspicions were correct.
This made me think that they missed an opportunity with this character. Many on this board (myself included) have lamented that we couldn’t have Alley’s Saavik back as originally planned. However There was an opportunity for Valeris to have even greater impact to the story: instead of Valeris “volunteering” to fill a vacant position, Spock specifically “vouches” for her to assist with the escort mission. She could be some expert on Klingon culture or psychology. Before the conspiracy just happened around Kirk and Spock through no fault of their own. Having Spock makes the decision on his own to include her in the mission means the conspiracy to undermine the peace process a result of the conditions Spock created. Spock has to confront that his bias endangered his friends,his goal for peace and may start a protracted war with the Klingons. This would give more weight to his confession that he “was prejudiced by her accomplishments as a Vulcan.” Maybe this was what Denny Martin Flynn was trying to set up and it just got lost when the story was rewritten to scale down the budget. In the final film, Spock had little reason for his comment. it just seems like Valeris is just “there” and Spock didn’t have much to do with being there. Based on her qualifications and scoring, there was no reason not to approve her request, so why did Spock feel so bad? Did he bury applications from other officers for the position? It’s like they wanted Spock to also go through this character growth along with Kirk but it just didn’t quite come together.
I think Valeris was undoubtedly Spock's protege, just as Saavik was before her. I can't see what else we're supposed to take away from the scene of Valeris with Spock in his cabin. He's obviously known her for some time and trusts her enough to let her into his private world. But I think they just didn't think to, or didn't have time to, introduce her more carefully after they did a hasty search for "Saavik" and replaced it with "Valeris" throughout the script. I think that the intimacy with Spock would've worked better with the history already in place for Saavik, though. Valeris being a brand new character just didn't have the same resonance to it, and made it all the more obvious that she was the traitor. If it had been Saavik, people really wouldn't have been expecting her to be in cahoots with the Klingons.
Yes. It would have been awesome. It would have been surprising but totally make sense because she saw a Klingon murder David. So it would be set up for her and Kirk both to have reasons to hate Klingons but Kirk to rise above it with his synthesis of Spock's logic and McCoy's emotion. Saavik, OTOH, would suppress her emotions only to have them affect her reasoning subconsciously. The way they did it, though, everyone's kind of racist against Klingons. I heard the actors protested, and I understand why. Their casual racism just didn't fit with the characters I knew. I think having Saavik would have made the story better.
...In lieu of Saavik, it could have been Chekov, too. Both characters would be proteges of sorts, eager to please their masters in all the wrong ways. And both would fall in the "least expected" category, although Saavik would have the additional benefit of looking ah so unaffected by all this emotional turmoil. Or, if expressing passion, being excused for it as a Vulcan thing. Although Chekov could have pulled the "eagerness of youth" card as an excuse, even with Koenig at 55 or so. It was to be the grand finale to the TOS story and characters, after all. And Koenig was quoted with the desire to be part of "the ultimate BOO!", a serious bit of dark horror Trek. Going out in a blaze of infamy might have been fun. Oh, my. Timo Saloniemi
There's a traitor among the crew? Could it be Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Chekov, Sulu, Uhura or that new crewmember who only joined us for this mission? Most obvious whodunit ever
Re: Chekov, I don't think that audiences would've accepted one of the main seven being a traitor, particularly in their final movie together. Heck, Roddenberry thought that they wouldn't accept it with Saavik, and according to Meyer he didn't want her introduced in TWOK in the first place.
All the more reason to do it, then. Especially if they also introduced Valeris and made her look suspicious as all hell. Character assassination has always served Trek characters well. Worf is the main case in point, but a lot of Spock's popularity stemmed from his "unacceptable" character traits, too. Sisko got a big lift from every controversial decision he made as well. Chekov taking one for the team for all the wrong reasons would be tragic and touching and could be made all good again by simply martyring off the character at the very end... Timo Saloniemi
I'd hate to see the traitor turn out to be Chekov, but I'd certainly given TPTB points for having the stones to do that to one of the major characters. That would be an order of magnitude more ballsy than making Saavik the traitor. I agree with King Daniel that it's not a very good whodunit when you have your hero characters + one character we've never met before. Goblet of Fire, the film, pisses me off for the same reason; they trim out all the "unnecessary" subplots and characters, but in the process make it far too obvious who the audience should suspect.
I wonder what policies Atzebur created that got Klingon women banned from serving on the high council in the TNG era? JB
I would guess it had something to do with whatever delayed completion of the peace process for several decades.
Another thing about the "conspiracy" it seems to be wrapped up so neatly. And it was only about 7 people? It could have involved multiple ships and officers all around the StarFleet, this was practically a coup d etat when they decided to assassinate President Forman. Depending on how many other officers and ships they were on this could have been a Star Fleet civil war, but nope, Scooby Doo endings wrap everything up.
To be fair, TPTB hardly had the budget or inclination to go for that sort of scope, especially if they wanted to limit it to a single film.