Star Trek VI: another couple of questions

[Shat Happens]

(didn't want to hijack the other thread, where they are talking about the mind rape, so I made another one)

What was the conspirators' plan A?

1) a Bird of Prey that can fire while cloaked - check
2) one agent aboard the Enterprise plus two minions - check
3) fire one torpedo from the Bird of Prey, agent transports the minions from the Enterprise, kill the Ambassador - check.
4) Chang takes command of the Klingon cruiser - check

Then Kirk did the unforeseen: he surrendered. Chang was compelled by Interstellar Law to arrest him and not destroy the Enterprise. The plan was fucked, from then it's improvisation from both sides.

But what WAS the plan? to destroy the Enterprise? Was Valeris on a suicide mission? and didn't she know that? Spock would have died too (that might be part of the plan since he was "Federation Special Envoy" with the Klingon High Council), did she agree with that?

IF that was the plan, was Chang 100% sure the Kronos One could destroy the Enterprise? and what if not? The cloaked ship could join the battle and assure a victory but then others would know of the secret.

The Starfleet Commander said "The Klingons will think twice about attacking the Enterprise under your command" indicating he hoped they wouldn't. But by Chang's actions they would have. What would he do then? recommend The President to declare war? he didn't even attend to the meeting at the "Oval Office". (They also had an agent there - the Romulan - but he did nothing.)

Was Chang's plan to have both the Enterprise and the Kronos One destroyed? he could have escaped in the Bird of Prey, but again at the cost of the secret.

I am trying to think like a Klingon conspirator but I can't. Apparently they're too smart for me.

 

[Ithekro]

Perhaps the battle between Kronos One and Enterprise was not expected to go to the death. Just them firing on each other would have been enough to keep the Cold War going, if not start a full on war.

Chang would be happy anyway. If the game Klingon Academy shows us his motives, Chang was a believer that the Federation was the "true enemy" and that Kirk was the worthiest of opponents. If he died on Kronos One, he would die happy that he faced Kirk, and that the Empire would be fighting its true enemy. If he won, he'd be just as happy as he's have defeated Kirk and now could begin the war he'd been planning against the Federation.

The Cloaked ship could have done nothing else and the situation would suit Chang's interests. That Kirk surrendered was the one thing they had not expected (unless there was a backup plan for that...probably from the Romulans, since they might expect that outcome).

They (Klingons) did have someone on the inside of Ruura Pente waiting for Kirk to show up and a plan for him to be killed attempting escape. But they (Federation side) also seem to have had a plan to get him out by military force, which would also start a war. They didn't count on the President telling them "no" to the rescue of a Federation hero.

Not sure if the assassination plot on the Federation president was also in the original plan, but it might have been a backup plan, since they had the prosthetics, uniform, and sniper weapon to pass off West as a Klingon assassin. Or it was part of the plan if their was no opportunity to enact the planned assassination on Kronos One.

 

[cgervasi]

They (Klingons) did have someone on the inside of Ruura Pente waiting for Kirk to show up and a plan for him to be killed attempting escape. But they (Federation side) also seem to have had a plan to get him out by military force, which would also start a war. They didn't count on the President telling them "no" to the rescue of a Federation hero.

Neither one of these were part of the original plan. They all came up after Kirk was arrested and jailed in the Klingon Empire. Kirk surrendering wasn't in their plan, so they had to find new ways to incite an armed conflict.

I still don't understand why Kirk said in jail they must escape b/c whoever killed Gorkon was bound to make another attempt. As someone on this board said, it didn't take a genius to figure that out. So why was it so important to for Kirk to get out of jail, besides the fact he didn't want to be in jail for crime he didn't commit?

 

[Timo]

I guess Kirk thought he was the only one who realized that the murderous cabal extended to Starfleet and involved Kirk's own bosses. Klingons were always assassinating each other anyway, at least in general UFP opinion, so the attack against Gorkon would not result in a massive investigation that could compromise the Starfleet involvement in the crimes.

As for the "original plan", I don't see the need for one. It would be a win-win situation for both those Klingons who wanted a war and those Starfleeters who wanted a war. Blood would be spilled, accusations would be flung, and in the end, it wouldn't matter which starship survived the confrontation. One of them was bound to: the odds of both perishing in Pyrrhic victory would have been low indeed.

Chang could be aboard the surviving Klingon ship, or beam to the safety of the invisible vessel in case of Klingon defeat. Cartwright would not be in personal danger in either case. Burke and Samno would be pawns who could be promised all sorts of untrue things.

And Valeris, while clearly not suicidal (she opted not to die for the cause in the end, after all!), could also be misled as to what would happen after the assassination: either she would be promised evacuation, which could be easily arranged (she could drop the shields of the Enterprise whenever she chose and be beamed to safety) and possibly even actually performed as promised, or then she would be promised that the Klingons under the command of Chang would not destroy the Enterprise (she could cripple the Starfleet vessel and allow her to be humiliatingly captured instead).

A detailed plan would add nothing of value to the events. Chaos and confusion would best suit the plans of the conspirators, so why plan too carefully ahead? With such well-positioned conspirators, the provocations and assassinations could continue ad bellum, there being an endless supply of Plans B, C, D etc.

I don't really see Kirk's surrender being a major blow to Chang, either. Quite to the contrary, it would provide for a more public and drawn-out controversy, all the better for igniting the war. The surrender would be a threat to Cartwright, who would risk exposure and would prefer a swift start to the war, but Chang and Cartwright were enemies anyway, and the former wouldn't need to make things easier for the latter.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[drt]

I enjoy TUC quite a bit, but a lot of the plot breaks down if you think about it too much.

It probably would have been better if it were a one-sided Klingon plot that Kirk foiled. As it seems the reason for Federation involvement was so the rest of the crew could play whodunit while Kirk and McCoy were imprisoned.

 

[Silvercrest]

Yeah, the whole idea behind the conspiracy is a little strange. The militaries of the various empires are threatened by the peace accords. They don't like each other, don't trust each other, and don't understand each other. They want to be allowed to go to war. So to make that happen ... they cooperate with each other. Excuse me?

 

[Melakon]

Maybe this is why Gene didn't like it. Besides it not having Spock shoot Kennedy.

 

[Silvercrest]

Apropos of nothing except the name, but I just couldn't resist.
"I knew Jim Kirk. Jim Kirk was a friend of mine. Logically, senator, you are no Jim Kirk."

 

[drt]

Yeah, the whole idea behind the conspiracy is a little strange. The militaries of the various empires are threatened by the peace accords. They don't like each other, don't trust each other, and don't understand each other. They want to be allowed to go to war. So to make that happen ... they cooperate with each other. Excuse me?

Exactly, Cartwright didn't come across as a war-monger (like Marcus in STID), he just didn't trust Klingons and thought that the idea of disarmament was a bad idea. So he engages in a conspiracy that requires trust and likely sets the Federation on a course for war (since that's really Chang's only option - to strike before the reverberations of the Praxis disaster have a chance to weaken the Empire).

 

[Silvercrest]

Ah. So he disapproved of an alliance based on trust between the groups. To undermine that, he set up ... a different alliance based on trust between the same groups.

Okay then. As long as we're clear.

 

[Ithekro]

Or perhaps he just thinks that Starfleet needs to remain strong. Trust is not the issue, it is mutual self interest.

Cartwright gets to maintain the Starfleet and likely blunt the weakened Klingon fleets at the border. This serves his purposes as it maintains the Starfleet, and functionally ends the dire threat of the Klingon Empire on Federation terms (though it also loses the "dream of the Federation" of Archer's making).

Chang wants his war with his enemy, the Federation. He's willing to deal with Cartwright to get it. Or both the Federation and Klingons are working through the Romulans (who Chang also does not like). Either way, he gets to do what he was trained to do and what he's been training the very best of the Klingon ship captains to do for year...invade and destroy the Federation.

 

[Franklin]

Yeah, the whole idea behind the conspiracy is a little strange. The militaries of the various empires are threatened by the peace accords. They don't like each other, don't trust each other, and don't understand each other. They want to be allowed to go to war. So to make that happen ... they cooperate with each other. Excuse me?

It doesn't have to make perfect sense (it's not the strongest plot to analyze, after all), but there were probably parts of Starfleet and a large portion of the Klingon empire who preferred eventually settling things between themselves by war. Chancellor Gorkon became a threat to that destiny in his response to the Praxis disaster (to an extent, so did the Federation President in accepting the olive branch). Cooperating to eliminate them in a way that at least perpetuated the cold war or even amped it up to the final, deciding hot war was fortuitous to both sides. Kirk's surrender didn't really change much, he'd just have to be taken out. His surrender just meant that instead of a hot war possibly coming from Gorkon's death, the assassination of the Federation President would now be the lynchpin to war.

As General Chang said to Kirk, "Oh, now be honest, captain, warrior to warrior. You do prefer it this way, don't you, as it was meant to be? No peace in our time. Once more unto the breach, dear friends." I'd think Cartwright actually felt that way, too. The sides wouldn't want to coexist. Each lived thinking it would outlive the other. During the movie, Kirk realized that wasn't the way to think, any more. The cooperation of the conspirators is logical in the same context as Hitler and Stalin entering a non-aggression pact in 1939 was, except the 1939 pact was putting off the inevitable war between Germany and the USSR. Cartwright and Chang were trying to stop the peace and move up the war both thought was inevitable and the only way anything could really be decided between the two sides.

 

[Hypaspist]

Colonel West simply suffered from Evil Admiral syndrome. Maybe he thought a new war would get him promoted so he could be an evil admiral. Or maybe an evil general? What exactly would a general do in the Federation?

Most likely, the writers wanted to be snide about Oliver North and just ran with it. Whatever. The plot really isn't that good in Trek 6. It's a good movie but you shouldn't think about it too much.

 

[Mytran]

Valeris does address the oddity of the Fed/Klingon conspiracy:

Klingons cannot be trusted. Sir, ...you said so yourself....And you were right. They conspired with us to assassinate their own Chancellor. How trustworthy can they be?

If both sides have the same low opinion of one another, each would think they had the moral and intellectual superiority and be willing to cooperate, at least temporarily

 

[Timo]

Maybe he thought a new war would get him promoted so he could be an evil admiral.

...Is that why he wore a Vice Admiral's insignia?

I still prefer to think the Admiral's name simply was Cornell West.

If both sides have the same low opinion of one another, each would think they had the moral and intellectual superiority and be willing to cooperate, at least temporarily

...What is there to lose? Klingons want war quickly because they know they are headed downhill fast, what with the Praxis disaster. Feds want war quickly because they like to fight quick wars - those aren't as bloody, and the Klingons aren't quite as desperate yet as they would be in a few years. Both sides also believe in the mirror image: that the UFP would suffer from the Klingons starting quickly, and correspondingly that the Empire would suffer from the UFP striking fast. And they know how the opposition thinks, and obviously also believe that the opposition is wrong there, and stupid, and ugly and smelly to boot.

The conspiracy makes good sense. Note that neither side is using it as a means of gaining personal or ideological power: in terms of explicit references, Chang is satisfied with being a good general, and Cartwright doesn't want a military coup even if one dead President will expedite his plans. It's just "a little push" that each side is going to give to his beloved homeland to ensure victory.

Of course, behind the curtains, the Romulans are pulling the strings, ushering the two sides against each other in hopes of weakening both. But that is the big mystery in the conspiracy... The Feds would happily go to war if Romulus promised to be on their side or at least stand aside (and the presence of the Romulan Ambassador in secret strategic meetings suggests Romulus is indeed making such promises); the Klingons would do the same if the Romulans told them the same lies. But if one side learned of what the Romulans were promising the other side... Sure, Nanclus could claim he was lying to the other side only, but that should still ring an alarm or two! Yet we know that at least Valeris was aware of the Romulan involvement in the plot.

Okay, both the Feds and the Klingons could believe that the Romulans can scheme to their heart's content and still not win anything. They would already know that the other side will betray them in a heartbeat, so why worry about the third party also doing the same? Betrayal was built into the deal, and would have been of no real consequence.

Timo Saloniemi