Star Trek VI: Why did Valeris fall for the court-reporter ruse?

[cgervasi]

Why did Valeris go to sickbay with a gun after the announcement that the assassins were still alive?

I assume it's b/c she thought somehow both of them survived her exposing them to phaser stun at close range for an extended period. That means she would have mistaken BOTH of them for dead when they were alive.

So she thinks they're alive. Since Valeris betrayed them, they have every reason to tell the authorities that Valeris was behind the plot to murder the chancellor. Valeris meant to stop them. What was her plan? Was she going to stun the sickbay staff and court reporter from behind and then kill the two assassins. Okay, then the crew would know immediately that a conspirator was on board, although they wouldn't know who did it. Valeris would have walked into sickbay in the middle of an intense situation with many people present, possibly including security, and stunned everyone, so there's a good chance someone would figure out she did it.

Once she gets there and the lights are out, she should have known something was up. She should have holstered her weapon, turned on the lights, and said, "Where are the patients? I've been watching them for suspicious behavior, and now they're both in sickbay? Are the badly hurt?" The movie operates under the premise whoever went to sickbay was guilty or at least suspicious enough to merit a public mind-rape.

The only way I can explain it is she was hyped up on adrenaline after committing the murder and freaked out when she heard the announcement. She wasn't in her right mind.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Perhaps Valeris thought that if Burke and Samno were awake and aware, she could have made them look bad in front of the rest of the crew - deliberately framed them for carrying out the murders on their own.

Or perhaps she really was going to try to stun the sickbay crew (if there had been any) without them knowing. IIRC, the crew already knew there was a saboteur, didn't they?

 

[Timo]

I don't see her having any options. If Valeris killed the goons, she would have some limited hope of not being exposed immediately. If she did not, she would be doomed. So why not go to sickbay?

I mean, she did not want to die for the cause, that much was made amply clear. If she felt she was exposed already, she could just as well walk to sickbay and be captured. If she felt she still had hope, she should walk to sickbay and proceed with whatever impromptu action was possible.

Gunning down the killers would be one option, and Valeris might perform Vulcan calculations on how many others she might wish to slaughter in the process to ensure her personal safety, and where to stop and surrender because the blood spilled would be too much for her. Apparently, such calculations resulted in her not wanting to kill either Kirk or Spock.

If circumstances allowed, though, she could do something subtler and more elegant - poison the assassins, say, or meld with them to scramble their brains, or frame a third party. In all such cases, she would still immediately have to dash to Sickbay.

The only remaining option would be to blow up the ship. Two major obstacles there: the will to personally survive, and the unwillingness to kill Spock or Kirk.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[urbandefault]

Youthful arrogance and inexperience. In other words, she wasn't as smart as she thought she was.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ That's probably the most 'logical' explanation. Valeris, for all her Vulcan training, is arrogant and stubborn to a fault. Maybe she's an ancestor of Captain Solok...

 

[urbandefault]

^^Add to that her inability to resist Spock's mind meld interrogation (not rape), and you see the benefit of age and experience.

Never underestimate an old fart.

 

[Shon T'Hara]

Maybe she was planning to steal a shuttle and escape. At that point, the Enterprise was effectively a renegade ship -- if she reported to her higher ups in the conspiracy, they could've order other ships to intercept and destroy the Enterprise to cover everything up.

 

[Warped9]

^^Add to that her inability to resist Spock's mind meld interrogation (not rape), and you see the benefit of age and experience.

Never underestimate an old fart.

This bit is really iffy. It certainly violates the right to remain silent.


It stands to reason that her co-conspirators were meant to be found dead or else she could have just made them disappear with a phaser set on full. Of course earlier we saw that if a phaser were fired aboard an alarm would sound. That said why didn't an alarm sound when she phasered both men?

There is a lot in this movie that doesn't make sense.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Of course earlier we saw that if a phaser were fired aboard an alarm would sound. That said why didn't an alarm sound when she phasered both men?

She could have disabled the alarm.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Of course earlier we saw that if a phaser were fired aboard an alarm would sound. That said why didn't an alarm sound when she phasered both men?

She could have disabled the alarm.

Actually only a phaser set to kill/vaporize triggered the alarm.

 

[Hober Mallow]

Of course earlier we saw that if a phaser were fired aboard an alarm would sound. That said why didn't an alarm sound when she phasered both men?

She could have disabled the alarm.

Actually only a phaser set to kill/vaporize triggered the alarm.

Right, that's why she had to kill them with the stun setting at close range, and why we got the following exchange explaining it: "I wonder why they weren't vaporized?" "It would set off the alarm."

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Ah yes, forgot about that part.

But if Valeris didn't want to leave any evidence or witnesses, she still could have disabled the alarm and vaporized both men. Then she could claim self-defense, since the general consensus would probably be to believe the word of an officer (her) over two enlisted crewmen.

 

[Maurice]

^^Add to that her inability to resist Spock's mind meld interrogation (not rape), and you see the benefit of age and experience.

Never underestimate an old fart.

This bit is really iffy. It certainly violates the right to remain silent.

Assuming such a right exists in the star service. As with the modern western services, perhaps certain restrictions on the exercise of those rights is considered necessary and you agree to those terms? Probably not forcible mind probes.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

This bit is really iffy. It certainly violates the right to remain silent.

Assuming such a right exists in the star service.

Of course it would. It must. It's one of the most fundamental rights that has ever existed in any justice system.

(And in "The Drumhead," Simon Tarses actually does invoke that right. They call it the Seventh Guarantee.)

 

[Maurice]

That's why I said "assuming" it does.

 

[Amaris]

This bit is really iffy. It certainly violates the right to remain silent.

Assuming such a right exists in the star service.

Of course it would. It must. It's one of the most fundamental rights that has ever existed in any justice system.

(And in "The Drumhead," Simon Tarses actually does invoke that right. They call it the Seventh Guarantee.)

To be fair, that is a significant number of decades later, where Starfleet has become seemingly more open minded in how it approaches certain statutes and regulations. It's entirely possible that the Seventh Guarantee came about precisely because of situations like what we witnessed in the bridge scene in ST:VI.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ The 7th Guarantee is part of the Federation constitution, and has a very low number (meaning, it's not likely to have been added later) so I can only assume it was there from the get-go.

 

[urbandefault]

Valeris had already confessed. It was too late to "plead the fifth." The only thing missing was legal counsel.

 

[Green Shirt]

Never underestimate an old fart.

That's right. We're deadly dangerous.

 

[Amaris]

^ The 7th Guarantee is part of the Federation constitution, and has a very low number (meaning, it's not likely to have been added later) so I can only assume it was there from the get-go.

Then again, directive number one probably didn't exist from the very beginning. The Omega Directive, which has a directive number of 0, also likely didn't exist from the very beginning, since it deals with Omega particles. In short, the system of numbering probably has little to do with time of placement, but more of importance.