The Glaring Plot Hole of TWOK

[DonIago]

Even if Khan didn't have augmented intelligence, it's reasonable to assume that if you launch a phaser strike directly at a starship's unshielded hull where Main Engineering is located then you have better-than-average odds of taking out their warp drive at least in the short-term. The supporting evidence would, of course, be the fact that the Enterprise never goes to warp for the majority of the rest of the film, including when it's retreating from the impending Genesis detonation. Why wouldn't they go to warp then? To make Khan think he'd won?

Hell, Our Heroes are lucky he didn't target a nacelle instead.

 

[Kor]

Khan very thoroughly studied technical manuals for the Enterprise/Constitution type starship in his brief time aboard the ship in "Space Seed." And in those few days on the Reliant he probably got caught up on the refit specs (and learned a Klingon proverb while he was at it). That's how he "knew exactly where to hit" them.

Kor

 

[Timo]

He could even have asked Chekov pretty please. And the poor lad would have been motivated to give Khan not just the proper cues for crippling the Enterprise, as commanded, but also ones that would leave the ship otherwise intact, both because Khan would have commanded that, too, and because Chekov would have preferred that outcome even with Khan indifferent to the result. The two bugged officers did seem to have leeway with how exactly they executed the orders of their evil liege (say, when they invent excuses for Marcus or Kirk).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MacLeod]

The U.S.S. Reliant is a survey ship on loan for the Genesis Project, so the ship will obviously have sensors, as well as cartographers, planetary geologists, mathematicians, or at least someone who would know how to count planets from one to six and notice an issue with the system, to say nothing of the debris field an exploding planet would leave even after twenty years.

Don't know why this has just popped into my head, but its one of those things that once you realise you suddenly can't stop pondering over. It is possible the explosion of the planet caused a lot of radiation or other interference, the former might not be great for trying to create a brand new life-sustaining planet but the latter would definitely help keep it secret from the likes of the Klingons.

Any other theories to patch this hole? Or any other plot holes in the films no one really mentions?

I could think of a few possibilites,

Ceti Alpha VI didn't actually explode rather a part of it did for some r4eason which hit Ceti Alphs V, so a cursary sensor scan could have still detected the planet.

Ceti Alpha VI didn't explode at all and it was some other celstial body that exploded and Kahn assumed it was Ceti Alpha VI that had exploded.

But that still doesn't get around the different orbit's Ceti Alpha V and VI would have had, but perhaps they didn't have detailed sensor scans of the Ceti Alpha system and Ceti Alpha VI had an eliptical orbit on a slightly different plane which brought it inside the orbit of Ceti Alpha V at certain points. And the limited sensor scans they had of the system had the enviroment of Ceti Alpha VI being like the enviroment they found on Ceti Alpha V. As for why they missed a missing Class M planet, it could easily happen you've got a list of planets to scan to see if they are suitable you enter the system and head straight there you might not pay any attention to any othe other planets and just focuse on your target planet.

 

[oldtrekkie]

Given the hellhole that was Ceti Alpha V or VI or whatever... There was no reason for them to go there in person. They could have sent a robot, the kind we sent on Mars except a zillion times more sophisticated. The story assumes that in the future Starfleet will be teeming with incompetents. You'd think they'd only send people when robots can't do the job.

 

[Timo]

Which, supposedly, is about 100% of the time.

After all, here the machines explicitly failed: Chekov told Kyle to point powerful sensors at the planet to get to the bottom of it, and these wonderful devices could not.

Now, human eye would be able to see even less. But it would be connected to the brain that had the authority to make decisions. Why waste time with having the imagery run through the whitecoats operating some silly robot? It wasn't that bad down there, just a bit windy: the air was breathable and warm and all. And a machine took care of the rest, namely the spacesuit.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[publiusr]

OTOH, a ship supposedly not crippled by anything but the putch that Khan performed on her crew takes what looks like a couple of days to get from Ceti Alpha to Regula, so those two could be different locations. It's just that they shouldn't be so different as to make some location of interest X more proximal to Khan's home than Regula is, so that Terrell can legitimately be the first to visit.

("You can't defeat entropy"? Defeating entropy is what our very existence is based

Timo Saloniemi

On the second point, at phys.org there was an article about “anti-freezing” though it might be some equivalent of Euler’s disk.

As to the first…I posited in the “Mapping the Galaxy” thread about that maybe Reliant’s captain did know about Khan. A reduced Section 31 crew would be easier to strand…and explain his suicide better. Khan found out he was being liquidated, and it set him off.

Ironically, the events in ST II might have been for the best. (Unless Ceti Alpha V had been rejuvenated by Genesis).

Imagine this what if:

Kirk cuts Spock off and listens to Saavik…and raises the shields. No slashing of ship hulls, until the prefix code. If Reliant isn’t destroyed then (more on that in a bit) Khan hides in the Nebula if he can get away.

Kirk radios Starfleet Command.

I think Styles takes Excelsior out early. I think he is Section 31.

Grissom had to have been close as well…and I see Enterprise on one side of the Nebula, Excelsior on the other…and Grissom flying over the “top” of the Mutata Nebula pinging it with that lower towfish pod. Even with the Nebula’s interference, they triangulate Reliant’s general position. Now things get dicey. Styles barrels in (Excelsior might even have shields in the nebula with its level of sophistication.)

Provided it isn’t recalled with that young crew, Enterprise and perhaps Grissom follow. If Khan isn’t overthrown and his crew surrendering once surrounded, Reliant might get so hammered by phasers that the Genesis torpedo is set off…if the other three ships fire at it in unison.

Starfleet is now down FOUR ships with Kruge in the area perhaps.

I can just imagine Saavik on a shuttlecraft with David at Regula One…if it hasn’t also been engulfed…trying to take over for Kirk and Spock…the whale probe on its way…Praxis to set up its chaos. Kirk’s low key “don’t make this a big production” instinct was right after all, in retrospect. Had Grissom raised its shields though, Morrow might have let Kirk hitch a ride with Styles…pull rank and blow Kruge all to hell…and have room to put those whales. Getting them down now…

TWOK’s plot holes were lessons about complacency…and yet…the way things turned out wasn’t so bad. I can see this what if as a test.

There is an old saying where the optimist thinks we live in the best of all possible worlds…and the pessimist who fears that this indeed may be true.

 

[oldtrekkie]

Which, supposedly, is about 100% of the time....

More like zero percent of the time. Robots can deal with pretty much anything. Humans are only needed to create drama or some posturing maybe. A robot sent down there could have assessed the situation much better and faster than any human could and in case of capture it could disable itself and become a useless pile of metal, no such luck with a human being unless you're willing to treat your officers like the Japanese did their kamikaze pilots or outfit them with a hollow tooth containing poison.

 

[DonIago]

Given that we'd never seen Trek use robots in the past (that I recall) for such things, it seems a bit unfair to ding them for not using one here.

In any event, it's easy enough to assume that the hostile environment of CA5 would prevent robots from functioning reliably.

 

[fireproof78]

Given that we'd never seen Trek use robots in the past (that I recall) for such things, it seems a bit unfair to ding them for not using one here.

Yup. Robots and AI are largely limited in the Star Trek universe. So, expecting them to randomly start using them in the second film is odd.

 

[oldtrekkie]

Yup. Robots and AI are largely limited in the Star Trek universe. So, expecting them to randomly start using them in the second film is odd.

As shown in Discovery, Star Trek doesn't have clearly defined laws about the use of robots in any situation. It's ironic though that as has been widely accepted Sar Trek draws inspiration from "Forbidden Planet" and the most famous character of that movie is the robot.

 

[fireproof78]

As shown in Discovery, Star Trek doesn't have clearly defined laws about the use of robots in any situation. It's ironic though that as has been widely accepted Sar Trek draws inspiration from "Forbidden Planet" and the most famous character of that movie is the robot.

Probably because Trek was about humans. Also, Roddenberry was very hurt by another network hearing his pitch and then going on to make their own show without him. I think it was Lost in Space so that might have informed that.

 

[GNDN18]

As shown in Discovery, Star Trek doesn't have clearly defined laws about the use of robots in any situation. It's ironic though that as has been widely accepted Sar Trek draws inspiration from "Forbidden Planet" and the most famous character of that movie is the robot.

Robby was a primitive product of Krell technology as applied by Morbius, so it wasn’t reproducible even within the film’s framework. More than that, though, is that its purpose was more along the lines of comic relief—especially the scenes with Cookie. GR was clearly trying to avoid having a Tun dog on the show.

Roddenberry was very hurt by another network hearing his pitch and then going on to make their own show without him. I think it was Lost in Space so that might have informed that.

I’ve been brought up to believe that, too, from the first time I read TMoST. But, as with many “facts” about the franchise, this might not bear close examination.

 

[Pauln6]

Given that we'd never seen Trek use robots in the past (that I recall) for such things, it seems a bit unfair to ding them for not using one here.

In any event, it's easy enough to assume that the hostile environment of CA5 would prevent robots from functioning reliably.

Don't even need robots. Stargate uses MALPS that are piloted by people. Lots of disaster plots could have been mitigated by transporting down drones to map and scan areas for safety. Obviously, the prime directive is an issue but a drone disguised as a local insect would be enough in most cases.

 

[DonIago]

Also something we'd never seen used in Trek before.

Dinging the film for not coming up with a tech solution that would have been unprecedented within the franchise, to me, is just picking on it for the sake of picking on it.

 

[fireproof78]

I’ve been brought up to believe that, too, from the first time I read TMoST. But, as with many “facts” about the franchise, this might not bear close examination.

I mean I took it from Shatner and Nimoy's book but fair enough.

 

[MacLeod]

Too far away? Two crippled starships crawl at impulse from Regula to their destiny in a nebula that in the establishing shots seems to be all around the place to begin with. I doubt they ever got any appreciable distance away.


Timo Saloniemi

Well to be fair they only managed to get four thousand kilo's from Reliant in a few minutes or a little over 1000km/min. The speed of light is ~18 000 000 km/min. It took them about 3 mins to reach the nebula from Regula station. So if full impuse is .25c we have a potential distance of at least 13.5 million km.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Well to be fair they only managed to get four thousand kilo's from Reliant in a few minutes or a little over 1000km/min. The speed of light is ~18 000 000 km/min. It took them about 3 mins to reach the nebula from Regula station. So if full impuse is .25c we have a potential distance of at least 13.5 million km.

Which is nothing in terms of the distance needed to draw in enough matter from the nebula to create a planet. Given the speed at which the planet formed, the Genesis wave had to be drawing matter in from all parts of the nebula faster than light, and incidentally matter from much farther away than Regula could have been from the explosion. It makes zero sense. The only alternative is that the Genesis effect was literally creating matter on the spot.

 

[Timo]

Also something we'd never seen used in Trek before.

Dinging the film for not coming up with a tech solution that would have been unprecedented within the franchise, to me, is just picking on it for the sake of picking on it.

Also at the very root of Star Trek from the get-go: it's a possible rather than plausible future where certain choices were made, and those choices have resulted in a divergence in 2021 already.

Robots today are pieces of shit that can't work their way out of a wet paper bag without hundreds of man-hours spent on every robot-hour attempt at doing so. They are only utilized for repetitious tasks, or allowed to fumble themselves to gruesome death in situations where sending humans is considered risky. Pack the instruments of the Curiosity 'bot in the backpack of a live astronaut, and he'll get more geology and biology done in a day than the 'bot in a year.

Might be things improve eventually ITRW. Might be they never have the chance to improve before something much better comes along. In one universe, it might be teenagers in body augmentation rigs. In another, it might be remote sensing and effecting without clumsy mechanical presence. In Trek, transporters are game-changers: it's trivially easy to get people in and out of dangerous jams, so that they can do their thing in minutes instead of an army of operators achieving it via telepresence in hours or days.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[PhotoBoy]

Given that we'd never seen Trek use robots in the past (that I recall) for such things, it seems a bit unfair to ding them for not using one here.

In any event, it's easy enough to assume that the hostile environment of CA5 would prevent robots from functioning reliably.

The only two examples of robots in hostile environments I can think of are in TNG. There's the Exocomps in The Quality of Life and the season 7 episode, Interface, where Geordi remotely pilots a probe droid. Of course they're both 70-ish years after TWOK so I can forgive the Reliant crew for not using them.