Watched STVI the other night

[The_Baroness]

For the first time in a long time, and it remains one of the Trek films I've seen, and therefore remember the least.

when watching it, I noticed for the first time that when Kirk is in Rura Penthe, and has the fight with the alien with nuts-for-knees, that alien looks remarkably like a blue Jem'Hadar.

Given the presence of a shape-shifter too has anyone, as far as anyone knows, ever tried to ret-con this to make this into an early encounter with members of the Dominion?

amusingly, there's also a Lt. Dax in this film - no way you could pretend he's a trill, and therefore a previous Dax host though - shame really, you could have pretended it was Curzon!

 

[FormerLurker]

The shape-shifter was established as a Chameloid, a type of hominid-only shifter that Kirk had heard of. In fact, you should be able to tell by the name that her species can only look like other hominid species, and not like anything at all.

 

[Dukhat]

Given the presence of a shape-shifter too has anyone, as far as anyone knows, ever tried to ret-con this to make this into an early encounter with members of the Dominion?

Nope, the shape-shifter was not a Founder/Changeling. And if it was, that would have meant the Dominion had Founders running around the Alpha Quadrant 80 years before first contact in DS9. Doesn't compute.

Amusingly, there's also a Lt. Dax in this film - no way you could pretend he's a trill, and therefore a previous Dax host though - shame really, you could have pretended it was Curzon!

Curzon was never in Starfleet. He was the Trill ambassador to the Federation. If anything, he would have been on Khitomer with all the other ambassadors at the time, not a Starfleet cadet serving on the Enterprise.

 

[Timo]

The shape-shifter was established as a Chameloid, a type of hominid-only shifter that Kirk had heard of. In fact, you should be able to tell by the name that her species can only look like other hominid species, and not like anything at all.

Doesn't sound likely. After all, we saw Martia assume drastically different sizes and shapes and textures; there's no good reason why such extreme shapeshifting abilities couldn't be put to more imaginative use, such as imitating five-legged or winged species or rusty hand carts or small pools of mercury.

Martia was definitely a "true" shapeshifter and not just some sort of Mandrake the Magician who'd fool us into thinking she (?) had changed shape. After all, she managed to wriggle out of that leg iron by virtue of changing her size - not an illusion but a physical feat. Unless she was really small in her natural state to begin with, and only pretended to be larger - but then it would have been a bit unlikely that she could have wrestled so successfully with Kirk. Or been killed by a disruptor blast that hit her where only her illusory chest was...

Martia wasn't all that different from Odo in the end. Or if there were differences, they could have been due to Odo being a child of the species and Martia being an adult, less likely to revert to amber-glowing goo between transformational steps etc.

And if it was, that would have meant the Dominion had Founders running around the Alpha Quadrant 80 years before first contact in DS9. Doesn't compute.

Why not? We were explicitly told that the Founders sent members of their species into outer space a long time ago. Odo was one of them, Laas was another. Why couldn't Martia have been one? She just happened to lack what Odo considered his inborn desire for justice - or she had it manifest a bit differently, because in the end Odo's desire turned out to be nothing but inborn racism channeled in an unusual manner.

I wouldn't see equating Martia with Changelings a symptom of the small-universe syndrome at all. Rather, it'd be consistency with other elements of Trek. And it would actually help plausibility, by eliminating yet another distinct species of shapeshifters; our heroes from the various eras seem surprised by such species whenever they are encountered, so they can't be all that common.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pauln6]

More likely she was an Antosian - but then they aren't exactly beings of myth are they, since Garth landed on their planet and was 'taught' to alter his shape by them (most likely with the aid of genetic manipulation and the process did drive him insane, but even so).

 

[FormerLurker]

Timo, I wonder about you. Every time I say something my sources say is in any way definitive, you contradict me to the nth degree. Can't I be right about anything?

 

[Timo]

I'm really, really sorry. It's not about you. It's about you choosing to rely on sources. There's always room for an argument when sources are brought to play.

Really, if Memory Alpha could be trusted, then why should TrekBBS exist at all?

More likely she was an Antosian - but then they aren't exactly beings of myth are they, since Garth landed on their planet and was 'taught' to alter his shape by them (most likely with the aid of genetic manipulation and the process did drive him insane, but even so).

It is an interesting question - can Antosians change their shape/looks? Or do they merely have the knowhow to teach that ability to those in need, including some but by no means all of their own species?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captrek]

Miscellaneous thoughts and questions.



In the briefing, the C in C tells Kirk he’s being sent because “They’ll think twice about attacking the Enterprise under you command.” In TFF, the Enterprise under Kirk’s command was a very attractive target for glory-seeking Klingons. Has something changed since then?


Kirk didn’t want to go but did because Spock “personally vouched” for him. What does that mean?


What’s with the mini-ridges on the Klingons? Are they recovering Augments? Is this what Kor looks like?


You’d think they’d know better than to get wasted at this dinner. Did Valeris perhaps spike the ale so they got drunk faster?


Why did Chang accept the Enterprise’s surrender? Chekov said that if Kronos One fired on the Enterprise with the shields down, the Enterprise wouldn’t be able to respond.


I’m not following Spock’s logic on this one:

CHEKOV: I do not understand. If there was a ship underneath us, surely the assassins beamed aboard from that wessel, not Enterprise.
SPOCK: You're forgetting something, Mister Chekov. According to our data banks this ship fired those torpedoes. If we did, the killers are here, if we did not, whoever altered the data banks is here. In either case, what we are looking for is here.
CHEKOV: What are we looking for, sir?
SPOCK: Lieutenant?
VALERIS: Two pairs of gravity boots.

Chekov says he thinks it would have made more sense for the assassins to have beamed aboard from the cloaked BOP. Spock responds that somebody had to be on the Enterprise to hack the data banks. What does that have to do with which ship the assassins beamed over from?


I’m having trouble understanding the conspirators’ plan to kill Kirk and McCoy.

“Martia, first verify that Kirk and McCoy have a way to beam off the surface. Then, using that as your excuse for helping them, lead them out of the mines and out of the beaming shield and light a flare. We’ll come along a few minutes later, kill Kirk and McCoy, and send you on your way with a full pardon. What could possibly go wrong?”

As McCoy might say, what the hell kind of a plan is that?

Now hear this. Now hear this. Court Recorder to sick bay. Code Blue, urgent! Statements to be taken at once from Yeomen Burke and Samno. Repeat. Court Recorder to sick bay. Code Blue, urgent! Statements to be taken. Repeat. Statements to be taken from Yeomen Burke and Samno.

They don’t generally summon individual personnel over public address. And with two victims of murder attempts, it wouldn’t make any sense to announce to the whole ship that they are still alive and then leave them unguarded. Valeris was taken in by this?

SPOCK: Gas. ...Gas, Captain. Under impulse power she expends fuel like any other vessel. We call it 'plasma' but whatever the Klingon designation is, it is merely ionised gas.
UHURA: Well, what about all that equipment we're carrying to catalogue gaseous anomalies? ...Well, the thing's got to have a tail pipe.
SPOCK: Doctor, would you care to assist me in performing surgery on a torpedo?

Is there something particular to the invisiBOP that makes it vulnerable to this tactic? Or is this a tactic that would have worked against any cloaked vessel and nobody thought of it until this moment?

 

[Timo]

In the briefing, the C in C tells Kirk he’s being sent because “They’ll think twice about attacking the Enterprise under you command.” In TFF, the Enterprise under Kirk’s command was a very attractive target for glory-seeking Klingons. Has something changed since then?

Supposedly, the last encounter ended in a détente. Surely Klingons wouldn't risk that happening again!

Kirk didn’t want to go but did because Spock “personally vouched” for him. What does that mean?

I'd argue Spock alleviated Starfleet concerns about Kirk being an ultraconservative old racist by personally vouching that he'd behave (that is, that Spock would make sure his friend behaved). Thus, if Kirk refused to go after all this, Spock would have embarrassingly wasted political capital. A good argument for making Kirk agree to going, between friends...

What’s with the mini-ridges on the Klingons? Are they recovering Augments? Is this what Kor looks like?

It's not what Kang looked like in "Flashback"...

I'd argue, based on the changing ridge styles in all the TOS movies, that Klingons crewing a particular ship tend to come from the same clan and to have the same ridge patterns. Gorkon just happened to sail on a ship from a House that wasn't all that well endowed.

You’d think they’d know better than to get wasted at this dinner. Did Valeris perhaps spike the ale so they got drunk faster?

Kirk doesn't exactly spit in the glass when meeting Khan, either. I wouldn't expect him to be extra careful here - he doesn't really have all that much to lose, after all. He's being forced to mingle with his enemy, and alcohol might make that a bit more tolerable; OTOH, he knows he has the drop on these bastards now, what with the idiots having blown up their own moon and now crawling to beg for mercy.

Why did Chang accept the Enterprise’s surrender? Chekov said that if Kronos One fired on the Enterprise with the shields down, the Enterprise wouldn’t be able to respond.

Chang would have needed witnesses. If he destroyed the Starfleet ship, the UFP government would have to rely on his word on what happened. If he let Kirk live, he could milk on forced confessions in the best case, or enjoy the ignorant embarrassment of the Enterprise crew trying to explain themselves in the worst.

I’m not following Spock’s logic on this one:

Chekov says he thinks it would have made more sense for the assassins to have beamed aboard from the cloaked BOP. Spock responds that somebody had to be on the Enterprise to hack the data banks. What does that have to do with which ship the assassins beamed over from?

I'd tend to agree with Spock: the enemy has made a great effort in making it look like the Enterprise was the guilty party. Why would they stop halfway, and have the assassins come from the wrong ship?

I’m having trouble understanding the conspirators’ plan to kill Kirk and McCoy.

“Martia, first verify that Kirk and McCoy have a way to beam off the surface. Then, using that as your excuse for helping them, lead them out of the mines and out of the beaming shield and light a flare. We’ll come along a few minutes later, kill Kirk and McCoy, and send you on your way with a full pardon. What could possibly go wrong?”

As McCoy might say, what the hell kind of a plan is that?

It really is the classic "shot while escaping" plan. In general, it does look better in public than the "shot while sleeping" one... And given that this was Rura Penthe, the escape itself had to be relatively elaborate - no half-assed "they somehow got keys to their leg irons and made a run for it" would convince the public here.

I don't really see what could have gone wrong, save for the idea of an enemy warship settling in orbit with impunity. And I don't think the prison manager should have been counting on that happening...

They don’t generally summon individual personnel over public address.

How would we know that? We haven't spent all that much time aboard these ships.

Valeris was taken in by this?

Probably not. But she had no real choice. If her cover was blown, she had nothing to lose; if it wasn't, she still had something to win. She was in the cabal, yes, but she wasn't suicidal; she wouldn't have tried a final sally where she would have gone down taking Kirk and Spock with him (even though Chang would probably have expected that of her). But she would have done everything in her power to save her own skin, and her options for that would have been very limited when locked into a starship in deep space.

Is there something particular to the invisiBOP that makes it vulnerable to this tactic? Or is this a tactic that would have worked against any cloaked vessel and nobody thought of it until this moment?

Difficult to tell - but we could argue, keeping with the International Year of Geophysics analogue, that the "equipment to study gaseous anomalies" was brand new and top-notch (and had military applications built in), and that the whole concept of a tracking torpedo would have been theoretical in any prior engagement.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captrek]

Chang would have needed witnesses. If he destroyed the Starfleet ship, the UFP government would have to rely on his word on what happened.

All the survivors on Kronos One and the ship’s log are witnesses.

The UFP might consider the possibility that all the witness are conspiring together to lie and the ship’s log was tampered with, and thus refuse to believe that events occurred as the witnesses claim. But Klingons would undoubtedly see Chang’s attack on the Enterprise as justifiable if not obligatory revenge for the Enterprise’s presumed attack on Kronos One.

So what if the UFP doesn’t believe it? If the UFP pulls the old “There shall be no peace as long as Chang lives,” and the Klingons don’t extradite, then mission accomplished. The conspiracy’s ultimate objective is to foment anger and distrust between the two powers in order to instigate a war, right? If, on the other hand, the new Chancellor does take the very un-Klingon step of extraditing a Klingon to the UFP for the very Klingon act of avenging the attack that killed Gorkon, that would seem to be a deathblow to the political capital of the doves within the government and give power to the dreaded “more conservative elements,” again helping to instigate war.

I’m not following Spock’s logic on this one:

Chekov says he thinks it would have made more sense for the assassins to have beamed aboard from the cloaked BOP. Spock responds that somebody had to be on the Enterprise to hack the data banks. What does that have to do with which ship the assassins beamed over from?

I'd tend to agree with Spock: the enemy has made a great effort in making it look like the Enterprise was the guilty party. Why would they stop halfway, and have the assassins come from the wrong ship?

If you’ll forgive the pedantry, agreeing with his conclusion is not the same thing as following his logic. There may well be valid reasons to believe or suspect that the assassins beamed over from the Enterprise, but “somebody had to be here to tamper with the data banks” isn’t one of them. It’s an irrelevant consideration.

It really is the classic "shot while escaping" plan. In general, it does look better in public than the "shot while sleeping" one... And given that this was Rura Penthe, the escape itself had to be relatively elaborate - no half-assed "they somehow got keys to their leg irons and made a run for it" would convince the public here.

I don't really see what could have gone wrong, save for the idea of an enemy warship settling in orbit with impunity.

Making sure that Kirk and McCoy had a way of beaming off the surface is part of the plan. Unless it was actually “Make sure they think they have a way of beaming off the surface but assume they’re wrong.”

And I don't think the prison manager should have been counting on that happening...

Speaking of which, how did the Enterprise get there? Audio-only broken Klingon in an American accent fooled the sentinels? What’s the point of having sentinels if they don’t regard unknown ships with at least some degree of suspicion?

They don’t generally summon individual personnel over public address.

How would we know that? We haven't spent all that much time aboard these ships.

OK I can accept that “Court Reporter to sickbay” might go over the PA, and even “statements to be taken (so bring the appropriate equipment)” could possibly go over PA. But identifying the source of the statements to be taken?

 

[Timo]

I'd argue that Chang wanted a casus belli but didn't want an immediate war. After all, we soon learned that the surviving leadership of the Empire was unwilling to go to war: had the Enterprise been destroyed, the Feds would in all likelihood have launched an immediate war which the Klingons would have lost hands down. By saving Kirk's life and having him brought to justice, Chang made the UFP hesitate, perhaps even consider the possibility that punishing the Klingons for the UFP's own crimes would not be smart policy.

There may well be valid reasons to believe or suspect that the assassins beamed over from the Enterprise, but “somebody had to be here to tamper with the data banks” isn’t one of them. It’s an irrelevant consideration.

Again, I say Spock just reminded Chekov that the plot was an extensive and elaborate one, by using this relevant example. As a consequence, it would make no sense to have the conspirators skimp on such detail as sending the assassins to attack Gorkon from the wrong starship.

Making sure that Kirk and McCoy had a way of beaming off the surface is part of the plan. Unless it was actually “Make sure they think they have a way of beaming off the surface but assume they’re wrong.”

Ah, true enough. But that assumption would still be fair. After all, the only way for them to beam to safety would be if a Starfleet vessel penetrated the defenses of the Empire - and the loyal servants of that Empire would not dare think that such a thing would be possible.

I mean, Chang would have loved it if Starfleet tried to send ships to help Kirk but failed worse than Operation Eagle Claw did. And Chang was an Empire man through and through, trusting his personal fate on the ability of the Klingon war machine to clean the human chronometers. He was sorely disappointed by the performance of the Morska station, but he probably couldn't have anticipated that happening.

Speaking of which, how did the Enterprise get there? Audio-only broken Klingon in an American accent fooled the sentinels? What’s the point of having sentinels if they don’t regard unknown ships with at least some degree of suspicion?

A fitting plot twist: the crumbling Empire spectacularly fails to defend itself exactly because it's crumbling.

Although in the "original version", Matthias Rust got through to the Red Square because the Soviet border guards were victims of authoritarianism and did not dare act when their commanders did not tell them to, the public perception of that incident was that they were simply too drunk and lazy to do their job. These Klingons just happened to really be drunk and lazy... Proving that Chang was a deluded villain, his grandiose plans crumbling in the face of reality.

But identifying the source of the statements to be taken?

We really don't know what sort of detail a typical Enterprise PA gives. We've only explicitly heard about three or four of them - one by Pike in "The Cage", one or two by Kirk in TOS (including his big speech in "Where No Man"), and one by Chekov in STXI. Yet somehow the crew of the ship seems relatively well informed of the twists and turns of the adventure of the week. "Now hear this" might be a phrase often heard on those corridors, even if we never hear it.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SeerSGB]

As for the whole "Assasians have to be on the 1701-A", 2 possible reasons:

1) The transporters don't work with a cloak (can't recall if this is a case or not in past 'Trek tech). So decloaking to beam folks back and forth would blow their cover

2) The transporter beam would have set off alerts on one or both ships and would be easier to trace back to its source than the torp.

Now here's one that bugs from STVI: How can they not know the launch didn't happen from the 1701-A. Surely scanners and computers on both ships can figure out that the shot was out of line with the Enterprise's firing plan at that time. Or noticed that the torp just appeared under or in front of the ship with no noticeable launch cycle on the launchers.

 

[Timo]

Transporters do seem to work just fine with cloaks in the TOS era. Or at least our heroes freely transport in, out and around when their BoP is cloaked in that San Francisco park. It also seems that Kruge originally was able to transport to and from the Genesis planet without his ship having to drop cloak. And in the TNG era, a Klingon BoP manages to insert Picard and Data to Romulus at the heart of the Romulan Star Empire, suggesting the vessel never had to drop cloak.

DS9 gives us some examples of the Defiant dropping cloak before transporting, but that might be due to equipment shortcomings specific to the jury-rigged Romulan cloak, or to a more cautious, Romulan-style operating policy where transporting is considered to create so much "noise" already that it's better to just drop cloak if one's going to transport. Many Romulan vessels, as well as the ship from ST:GEN operated by the Romulan-minded Duras sisters, drop cloak during transport as a rule. Our TOS movie heroes would not be likely to consider such things - they would be intimately familiar with Klingon technology and doctrines that do allow for transporting while cloaked.

Now here's one that bugs from STVI: How can they not know the launch didn't happen from the 1701-A. Surely scanners and computes on both ships can figure out that the shot was out of line with the Enterprise's firing plan at that time. Or noticed that the torp just appeared under or in front of the ship with no noticeable launch cycle on the launchers.

The flight path of the torpedoes would not be a straight line, so a firing from the vicinity of the E-A launchers could still be plausibly framed as having come from those very launchers. The big question would be, were there recording sensors aimed at the launchers at the time of launch?

And the big answer would seem to be, nope. Notice how the torpedoes slam onto the underbelly of the Klingon cruiser, heavily suggesting that the firing vessel had been below the target vessel. If the E-A was indeed below the Klingon cruiser at the moment of the attack, her saucer would very nicely keep the Klingons from seeing who really fired the torpedoes.

Of course, Chang could and would have sabotaged the Klingon logs to further hide the details of the attack...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[FormerLurker]

Just as Valeris had sabotaged the Enterprise logs, which we are shown as she does it...

 

[Data Holmes]

Guys, remember that there was more to Spock's line of reasoning.

The use of Kirk's personal log at his trial. Someone was actively feeding the "bad guys" information. Spock was using the search for the boots for two things. One to serve as a focus for the crew's nervous energy. Second the search was like a team of hounds leading the fox to the hunters. To make the conspirators nervous, to force them to make a mistake.

 

[Timo]

...A clever ruse as such. Spock indicated he wanted to find gravity boots. So the conspirators bent over backwards to provide him with some, as the boots obviously wouldn't be helpful in tracking down the assassins. But the very act of providing Spock with the boots helped track down, not the assassins, but the forces helping them...

Timo Saloniemi