Star Trek: TNG Rewatch: 4x12 "The Wounded"
- Thread starter Trekker4747
- Start date
The episode took great pains to demonstrate the loyalty of Maxwell's crews. Whether that's enough explanation is up to you.
Yeah, still I'm not sure how much that explains everything we see in the episode. Consider that the Nebula-class probably has half as many people on them as is on the enterprise (Memory Alpha says 750) that's a lot of officers who have to take Maxwell at his word that "something" is up and then assume thats enough to fire first on non-threatening vessels containing supposed allies.
Odd that we never see any of the Phoenix crew, not even a glimpse. Shots of Maxwell on the viewscreen are tight closeups, and all we see of the ship is his ready room (I guess?), complete with a seemingly anachronistic cushy leather couch. So no one stopped O'Brien after he beamed aboard?
TNG seems to be liberal with the placement of the dedication plaques. Sometimes they're on the bridge, sometimes in ready rooms (Phoenix), and sometimes in random corridors (Tsiolkovsky).
TNG seems to be liberal with the placement of the dedication plaques. Sometimes they're on the bridge, sometimes in ready rooms (Phoenix), and sometimes in random corridors (Tsiolkovsky).
It's been awhile since I've seen this, but perhaps O'Brien (as a former shipmate of Maxwell) was understood to be the captain's friend and thus was given free rein to go aboard it if he wanted. Maybe some of the rest of Phoenix's crew were also former crewmates of theirs and thus recognized him?
Or O'Brien simply used technical wizardry to enable himself to be beamed aboard.
He already had used technological wizardry in order to beam onto the ship during a shift in its shield cycle. (Though the "gap" between cycles was a fraction of a second, not nearly long enough for an entire transport sequence.) It's likely O'Brien beamed himself onto the ship at a place where he could get to Maxwell easily without being too noticed, like in a hallway between the bridge and the ready room or wherever Maxwell was supposed to have been. Still off that the ship's sensors or crew never noticed something was up or someone had just beamed aboard.
It's possible placement of the plaque is up to discretion of the commanding officer. Most probably opt to leave it in the "default" position on the bridge but some may decide to move to somewhere different.... Like in a computer vestibule off a corridor.
It's possible that the fraction of a second was just the window for getting through a particular part of the transporter cycle...O'Brien just had to be good enough to time it perfectly.
Had anyone else seen O'Brien come aboard, they at least would have told Maxwell. His pulling a phaser as a reaction to somebody walking into his ready room was another detail that made it feel like he was the only one on the ship.
Had anyone else seen O'Brien come aboard, they at least would have told Maxwell. His pulling a phaser as a reaction to somebody walking into his ready room was another detail that made it feel like he was the only one on the ship.
It doesnt seem impossible to me to suggest officers keeping lower ranked crewmembers "in line", at least for a limited time. The other element is indoctrination or mindset, ie: if the crew were convinced the attacks were against a treaty-breaking, war-minded enemy and that by revealing this, the could stop further conflict. Maxwell may also have introduced a large number of like-minded war veterans in his crew.
Two tidbits for your perusal:
1. The workprint: http://www.patchou.com/trek/the-wounded-peters-cut/
2. The Ex Astris Scientia comparison. Note the difference in the sensor data, with higher resolution and elaborated data:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/observations/thewounded.htm
1. The workprint: http://www.patchou.com/trek/the-wounded-peters-cut/
2. The Ex Astris Scientia comparison. Note the difference in the sensor data, with higher resolution and elaborated data:
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/observations/thewounded.htm
Or then he would be prepared against his own crew finally deciding that enough is enough...
How much do crews know, anyway? Kirk's announcements never were particularly informative. "We appear to be fighting somebody" would be obvious to most, and "We are blowing up Cardassians" to the tactical teams at least. But "Where the heck are we?" would be unanswerable without tapping into the shipboard datanet. Whether Kirk's ship even had such a feature available to the crew, we don't know. Maxwell's ship no doubt had the same corridor and cabin LCARS panels as Picard's, but some data on those might be under lock and key even in routine operations, let alone when at alert.
Timo Saloniemi
I'd imagine the rumor mill would be flying at warp speed once the Phoenix started dishing out photon torpedoes. I think it would be near impossible to hide those types of actions from the crew for long.
I would think at the very least the command staff would know what was going on and, no matter how loyal they were to Maxwell, I would think they would have problems opening fire on seemingly defenseless ships. It's very, very rare for a Starfleet/Federation vessel to make the aggressive first move.
When did Maxwell fire on "defenseless" vessels? He destroyed a transport that was in practice escorted by two top-of-the-line Cardassian warships (at too great a distance, though), and stopped but did not threaten to destroy another so that he could convince Picard.
Gul Macet believed the two parties were at open war now. Maxwell's officers might have been in agreement...
Timo Saloniemi
Gul Macet believed the two parties were at open war now. Maxwell's officers might have been in agreement...
Timo Saloniemi
Well, he destroyed the transport ship which was said to not have any armaments, or at least was unmatched to the Phoenix, and regardless of the warships or the types of armaments the ships had he still opened fire on, and destroyed, vessels that had not fired on him.
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