ST6: Chang & Valeris

[Timo]

This is making the assumption that Valeris expected to survive.

But she did. She chose to stay alive when the entire conspiracy hinged on her sacrificing her life, either in a gunfight at Sickbay, or preferably down at Engineering, blowing up the ship now that she knew she had been exposed. She betrayed the conspiracy to save her own hide - why would she have been more oriented towards self-sacrifice earlier on?

It would be simple enough for Chang to promise to beam out Valeris at the last second in the starship fight where the Enterprise and Gorkon's ship would slug it out. And it would be even simpler for Chang to fail to deliver on that promise.

Cooperation on that scale requires trust.

Why should it? Both sides could be working on the assumption that when the backstabbing begins for real, they will be ahead in the game. Chang will have absolute command of the meanest war machine in known space, now boosted by a ship that can fire cloaked; Cartwright will have eliminated his own doves and will believe in Starfleet superiority just as much as his right-hand man.

Clearly, the conspiracy is not about maintaining status quo, despite possible appearances. If Chang did that, the Klingons would lose and die. If Cartwright did that, he would let slip the first chance in seventy years to kick the Klingons when they are down, and then keep on kicking until the last wrinklehead was phased-matter dust. It's all about taking advantage of an unique opportunity to make peace by going for the throat.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

This is making the assumption that Valeris expected to survive.

Given Kirk's record for taking on the Klingons with a fully crewed starship, logic suggests that Kirk will be either victorious, or at the least survive the fight with a single Klingon Battlecruiser. If the BoP gets into the mix, Kirk will either come up with something, or pull a retreat, as the lives of his crew and his ship take precedence over himself.

She was the main one calling for them to raise shields. Chekov's tone was more of in line with him expecting to hear the order to raise shields, and questioned why he wasn't hearing it, then voicing concern over getting shot with a torpedo without shields being up.

 

[Timo]

The thing is, for the conspiracy to work as the Klingons want it to work, the following should come out of the battle:

1) Records showing Kirk as the guilty party for Gorkon's death - records the Klingons will believe in
2) Elimination of evidence that Klingons were the actual killers
3) General evidence of UFP cowardice and malevolence

If Kronos 1 is destroyed, how can there be 1? Starfleet wouldn't volunteer the evidence that survives aboard the Enterprise, and Klingons wouldn't accept what Starfleet did present. And while half the evidence supporting Kirk's innocence would be lost with the Klingon ship and her records, the other half would survive, endangering 2. OTOH, having Kirk survive and Gorkon die would nicely provide 3.

What if the Enterprise blows up? Klingons might not trust Klingon records much, but when there's no competing evidence, 1 and 2 might still work. And if Kirk chooses to trade blows with a vessel "he" has already crippled with sneaky torpedo shots, that could be cowardice rather than warriorlike behavior, and Kirk's death in combat would not improve his public image.

Still, both ships surviving, if only barely, might be the best outcome. And Chang is in a position to create that outcome: if one side seems to be winning, the invisible ship can even the odds. And with little of the two visible ships surviving, evidence can be erased and manipulated at will.

Now, Chang is acting with the blessing of Cartwright here, and probably being provided with convincing Starfleet torpedoes by him as well. What outcome would Cartwright hope for, and demand as the price for his involvement? He wouldn't cry over the loss of the old garbage scow Enterprise and would revel in the loss of Kirk, a hated meddler and do-gooder but the perfect martyr for the cause. He wouldn't want Starfleet to look too bad, either - being at least partially victimized would be nice. So he might actually insist that the Enterprise be destroyed or at least that Kirk be killed.

Valeris should be aware of the implications, as she (inexplicably enough) is aware of all the details and major lines of the conspiracy... She shouldn't expect Kirk's ship to get away under the circumstances.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ This still hinges on the assumption that anyone expected either of those ships to actually destroy the other in combat. That's hardly a safe assumption here: the Constitution and K'Tinga class ships are supposed to be pretty evenly matched, so an exchange of fire would normally be pretty inconclusive and result in both ships in mutual retreat. But in this case, Chang's torpedoes have already done heavy damage to Kronos-1; they're no longer evenly matched, and the destruction of the Enterprise is a longshot at best.

Kirk, on the other hand, knows that destroying Kronos-1 would only make things worse, and given the weakened condition of his adversary he can afford to use restraint, using only careful phaser strikes to take down Kronos-1's weapons or else just retreat from the battle altogether. Each ship would return to its home base and tell stories of the other's treachery, and the war begins on schedule.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

If Chang is supposedly aboard Kronos One during the attack, why does Gorkon have to give an order to FIND him?

Because they don't know where he is.

Could have been in his quarters after dinner, could have been on the Krapper; maybe he had a habit of disappearing aboardship.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Chang was Gorkon's chief of staff. Gorkon was in a meeting when the attack took place; why wasn't Chang there? Any decent CoS would be.

 

[Ithekro]

He could have been on the bridge of Kronos One, which seems like the place he was when he called Enterprise.

 

[Timo]

What the commanders of the two legitimate starships would have chosen to do is thankfully a variable the conspirators don't have to take into account, thanks to having the game-deciding secret starship at their disposal. If the intent was to destroy at least one of the starships, Chang could do that and by the very act eliminate the evidence of how this happened.

Another thing working for the conspirators was that so many outcomes were satisfactory for them. Even when both ships did survive, there was enough evidence for propaganda and not enough for countering it.

It's not a particularly harebrained plot, or one that could backfire too badly even if something went horribly wrong. It's a rather plausible part of the movie, then.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kronos]

Chang doesn't need to be on the BOP, all they need to do is get close to the Enterprise and fire, pretty simple orders, Chang might actually need to be on Kronos One to make sure nobody notices the torpedoes coming from empty space.

 

[Tosk]

How?

Apart from him being missing during the attack, would he have done a distracting dance or something?

 

[Timo]

I trust Chang had plenty of his own men deployed aboard Gorkon's ship to sabotage the attempts at defending the Chancellor - but probably not at obvious key positions, where Gorkon would sensibly have made sure to have trusted men only.

Instead, Chang would position somebody to fumble the recording of the torpedo launch (and perhaps immediately die for his incompetence at the hands of an enraged Gorkon loyalist - Klingons could count on things like that). Or somebody to slip a data crystal with false sensor evidence into a loyalist sensor officer's console port, somebody to accidentally send the loyal bodyguards down the wrong corridor, etc.

OTOH, Chang would need an alibi of some sort, both to establish that he didn't kill Gorkon and to establish that his incompetence or cowardice didn't result in Gorkon's death. Sure, he'd like to be aboard the BoP where he had the most control over the events. But he might not be able to afford to.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

He could have been on the bridge of Kronos One, which seems like the place he was when he called Enterprise.

Yeah, that's probably where he was. I didn't even think to consider where he was supposed to be when he did the "Have you not a shred of decency in you" bit.

 

[Timo]

The thing is, Chang doesn't have a shred of decency in him. He uses hired assassins to do a cowardly kill, then blames others for it - in short, he's the clever sort of Klingon, not fooled by Imperial propaganda about self-sacrifice and fights to the death and other such nonsense.

It wouldn't be surprising for him to be aboard the BoP, then - from the start of the assassination run to the very finish, where he confronts Kirk from the safety of his invisible ship while pretending to be the victim.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

That doesn't sound like Chang though. Chang is a clever Klingon, but still one that is looking for an honorable death against his hated enemy (the Federation). What better way to find it than by being on Kronos One when if is about to go to war with the USS Enterprise? Being on the BoP in that instance would not be meaningful for Chang. He needs to be on Kronos One to be sure no one recorded where the torpedoes came from, and to be present enough to not be a suspect in Gorkon's death.

In the end, he still gets his honorable death, fighting Captain James T. Kirk.

 

[Timo]

Chang is a clever Klingon, but still one that is looking for an honorable death against his hated enemy (the Federation).

Is he? It doesn't look as if dying featured much on his plans. He might be a patriot willing to do his share of treason to save the Empire. He might be a control freak with delusions of omnipotence and the need to show that his Great Plan works. He might be on a personal quest to humiliate and then kill Kirk, even if this means igniting the Armageddon war on the side. But it's not as if he ever goes face to face in honorable combat or anything.

In the end, he still gets his honorable death, fighting Captain James T. Kirk.

Not that he would be seeking that death, though. There is no point in the action where Chang would actually be in mortal danger, until the surprise twist where Kirk invents the homing torpedo. What Chang wanted out of the fight was to give Kirk a death, never mind which sort. And he was making good progress there, despite being only armed with torps capable of knocking down the gravity of Gorkon's ship without risking blowing up that battle cruiser...

Chang loves to gloat. Gloating requires survival. But more than that, making sure that Kirk gets all the blame requires survival. So escaping to the BoP would sound necessary for Chang's plan to work. The events can go in unpredictable ways: covering all the bases, including the one where the battle cruiser blows up, only sounds prudent.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

How?

Apart from him being missing during the attack, would he have done a distracting dance or something?

"Science officer Mogh... your mother's so fat her ass is a treaty violation."

The ensuing fist fight is interrupted when the first torpedo hits the ship.

 

[Ithekro]

Again, he is a Klingon warrior. A good death is something important to them just as much as a good victory. Again I side with DC Fontana's writing of him in Klingon Academy to show his personality.

 

[Tosk]

That doesn't sound like Chang though. Chang is a clever Klingon, but still one that is looking for an honorable death against his hated enemy

He doesn't seem like someone looking for an honorable death to me.

He schemes, he plots, he collaborates with the enemy, he lies, and he arranges to have his own Chancellor assassinated. He attacks Enterprise under cover of invisibility, with no sign of ever revealing himself to them...and he looks pretty worried about being killed up until the last second when he finally accepts the inevitable death streaking toward him.

He's a petaQ.

 

[Kronos]

How?

Apart from him being missing during the attack, would he have done a distracting dance or something?

Start quoteing Shakespeare so everyone falls asleep from boredom.

 

[Tosk]

I'd give real money if he'd shut up.