What was the Admiral's plan?

[Timo]

No. As Orci's statement makes clear, Marcus intended the torpedoes to work, and he was in control of them by the time they were given to Kirk. He would know whether or not they were capable of performing their intended purpose.

Orci's statement can only be considered if it is not in conflict with what the movie itself establishes. But let's return to that.

this question becomes utterly nonsensical in the event that Kirk thinks the torpedoes don't actually have fuel.

Not really - as the warheads are still there. The lives would end when the torpedoes detonate; it would be irrelevant whether the torpedoes would move from A to B before detonation.

But the actual dialogue is "This fuel container's been removed from the torpedo and retrofitted to hide this cryotube."

Now that's interesting! (And a damn shame Chrissie refuses to do a transcript of ST:ID on her excellent page...) But one would suppose about 95% of the fuel would have to be gone anyway, as the cryotubes are later shown and are quite bulky - i.e. no way to fit fuel around the legs of the icemen, inside their body cavities etc. They must take up basically all the space provided by the original fuel tank, unless TARDIS tech is involved, or unless 95% of the original tank design was dedicated to something else besides fuel already.

It doesn't appear realistic that the torps could reach the Klingon planet, then.

I mean, Kirk was going to fire the weapons from their supposed greatest standoff range, right? Why go an inch closer to the Klingons? But the specs are wrong now, with most of the fuel gone. Or if the specs now match Khan's modifications, then all pretense of "long range" must be gone, yet Kirk never indicates he finds "long range" a misnomer for the specs.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DWF]

The fuel the torpedoes had was classified so I have little doubt that they could reach the target.

 

[Set Harth]

Orci's statement can only be considered if it is not in conflict with what the movie itself establishes.

And it isn't. ( This should not be considered especially surprising given that Orci's comments and the film both presumably reflect the intentions of the writers. )

The lives would end when the torpedoes detonate; it would be irrelevant whether the torpedoes would move from A to B before detonation.

But their ability to get from point A to point B is essential to Marcus' plan. They're intended to detonate on the surface of Kronos in order to provoke war with the Klingons. Detonating in space "at the edge of the Neutral Zone" wouldn't be likely to have the same effect. And it seems implied by Kirk's dialogue that when he says "fire them at the Klingons" he doesn't mean something like "eject them in the general direction of the Klingons with no fuel and just set them to detonate pointlessly".

 

[urbandefault]

I think Timo is overthinking, and missing the obvious.

Marcus' Plan A (preemptive strike to start the war that he thought he could finish) was subverted by Harrison and came up with Plan B (sending Kirk to start the war with the torps) on the fly. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

My opinion, mileage varies.

 

[Timo]

But Plan A already features Kirk's ship - she's the one with the dedicated tubes for 72 long range torpedoes. She's also the one with the sabotaged warp core, and getting the sabotage done takes some lead time.

Had Marcus originally intended to send Captain Pike to his death aboard that ship? Would the older and smarter man have been stupid enough? Or enraged enough?

It's already complicated enough when we assume it's a single well-prepared master plan unfolding, with two villains seemingly cooperating; expecting it to be done on the fly, by just one of the participants and against the will of the other, is asking for way too much.

But their ability to get from point A to point B is essential to Marcus' plan.

Not really. Marcus doesn't want to hurt Klingons - he wants Klingons to hurt the Federation, so that the war can start on the right foot. If he can accomplish that without first hurting the Klingons (or getting caught hurting them), that's what he's gonna do. Torps that fizzle would in fact be ideal...

This assuming that Marcus did in fact know the supermen were in the torps. It's actually more probable that he did not, because it would have made no sense for him to leave them there. They would detract from the mission of the torps; they would be an immense risk to the plan if released upon the unsuspecting Kirk; and as Marcus had already lost Khan, he would certainly be tempted to try again with one of the remaining 72!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Set Harth]

Marcus doesn't want to hurt Klingons - he wants Klingons to hurt the Federation, so that the war can start on the right foot.

Those things go hand in hand. The way to get Klingons to hurt the Federation is to hurt Klingons. I don't see why "torps that do nothing" somewhere in the Neutral Zone would be considered sufficient.

This assuming that Marcus did in fact know the supermen were in the torps.

Of course he knew; we can tell just from the nature of his reaction to Kirk that it isn't his first exposure to the idea that augments are in there. And he'd make a pretty terrible excuse for a villain if he didn't know all about what was going on with the torpedoes before handing them to Kirk. As for the assumption that he figures it out sometime between giving Kirk the torpedoes and showing up with Vengeance - why? What happens in the interim to provoke this sudden flash of insight? There's nothing. The truth is that Khan's plan was discovered before the torpedoes were given to Kirk, just as CumberKhan says. And Orci says outright that Marcus intended to blow Khan up using weapons filled with his followers.

They would detract from the mission of the torps

That makes no sense at all. The torpedoes are intended to explode, and having augments in them doesn't detract from that in any way.

they would be an immense risk to the plan if released upon the unsuspecting Kirk

Something which would never happen in the event that Kirk followed his orders.

and as Marcus had already lost Khan, he would certainly be tempted to try again with one of the remaining 72!

Unless his experience with Khan gave him the impression that the augments were too dangerous.

 

[urbandefault]

Sometimes there is nothing between the lines.

 

[Timo]

Those things go hand in hand. The way to get Klingons to hurt the Federation is to hurt Klingons. I don't see why "torps that do nothing" somewhere in the Neutral Zone would be considered sufficient.

If Marcus just wanted to get the war started, he would fire a thousand torpedoes at the Klingons from fifty starships, destroying targets of strategic worth. The only possible reason for sending Kirk and nobody else is that Marcus wants the Klingons to look like the guilty part. And that won't work if the Klingon homeworld is aflame with Starfleet torpedo hits.

The truth is that Khan's plan was discovered before the torpedoes were given to Kirk, just as CumberKhan says.

What Khan says is that Marcus realized the superman wasn't loyal. Whether he means Marcus discovered the torpedo plot or something else, the dialogue mercifully doesn't establish.

And he'd make a pretty terrible excuse for a villain if he didn't know all about what was going on with the torpedoes before handing them to Kirk.

How so? That would simply make Khan look even more badass, which is a good thing because he needs all the dramatic help he can get (it ain't easy to create "clever" or "intelligent" characters, especially ones superhumanly so).

Obviously, Khan thought Marcus wouldn't discover the ploy. And Khan is supposedly smart. So there's nothing inherently wrong about Marcus not figuring it out.

The torpedoes are intended to explode, and having augments in them doesn't detract from that in any way.

Of course it does - as said, there's no way around the fact that the torpedoes lost most of their fuel. They can't get to their target without that fuel. So either Marcus is satisfied with them merely going boom in empty space (which is an exercise in sadism but, like you say, a less than certain way to get the attention of the Klingons, and that sends the wrong message about what sort of a villain Marcus is), or then he doesn't know they now lack the required range for attacking Qo'noS, because he knows nothing about the frozen innards.

Something which would never happen in the event that Kirk followed his orders.

All it takes is one Augment thawed. This could happen by accident, or because Khan made it happen. After that, all hell is loose. Marcus just can't trust he hasn't missed a dozen backdoors to the torpedo systems and their programming, installed by Khan to create instant mutiny at command or on timer or other cue.

Unless his experience with Khan gave him the impression that the augments were too dangerous.

In which case he should just have pulled the plug on all of them and watched them die.

Then he could sail to the Klingon Neutral Zone and tell Khan that his men were in those torps, alive and well but only as long as Marcus allowed them to be.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[drt]

I'm with Timo on the idea was that the ultimate idea was to make it look like the Klingons destroyed Enterprise in an unprovoked, which would give him the political capital to push the Federation into war.

I believe that Khan's original plan was to smuggle his people onto Vengeance using the torpedoes, then take over the ship and crew it with augments (which is why it was designed to operate with such a small crew).

I'm not as clear what Marcus' original plan was prior to Kirk presenting himself as a patsy. The London attack likely ruined those whatever those plans were and accelerated the timelines, particularly with Khan ending up on Kronos.

 

[Set Harth]

Of course it does - as said, there's no way around the fact that the torpedoes lost most of their fuel. They can't get to their target without that fuel.

They have enough fuel to get to their target, as Orci makes clear. You're still acting as if the retrofitting reference in the script didn't happen. But it wouldn't matter on this point even if they didn't have fuel, because you said they still have warheads. And you said that not being able to get from point A to point B doesn't matter to Marcus' plan. So you're trying to have it both ways. If allegedly not having fuel wouldn't detract from their usefulness to Marcus' plan, then having augments in them wouldn't interfere with their purpose as alleged.

How so?

For one thing, Scotty isn't even permitted by Starfleet to know what's in the torpedoes. There's a reason for that, and I think the implication is fairly clear.

All it takes is one Augment thawed. This could happen by accident

Hardly.

or because Khan made it happen.

Again, this is something that doesn't have a chance to take place if Kirk follows his orders. Khan isn't supposed to be in a position to do any such thing.

 

[Nebusj]

I'm with Timo on the idea was that the ultimate idea was to make it look like the Klingons destroyed Enterprise in an unprovoked, which would give him the political capital to push the Federation into war.

For what it's worth, that's what I had taken Marcus's plan to be: send the Enterprise to the edge of Klingon space and fire long-range --- and cloaked, apparently, according to the fine print --- missiles at Kronos, where they'd explode to great effect. The Klingons, not being idiots, would take it to be the Enterprise's doing and destroy the (sabotaged) ship.

In the aftermath, Marcus would be able to present sensor data showing the Enterprise did nothing but look at Kronos from within Federation space --- cloaked missiles, after all --- and assert that the Klingons were blaming another Praxis-style accident on the Federation, and used their own natural disaster as an excuse to destroy the ship that had just months earlier saved the Earth from being sucked into a black hole.

With that apparent story it'd be hard for the most dovish members of the Federation to resist the call to war.

The pre-London-attack plan I'm not sure about but I would imagine it to have a roughly similar outline, with a suicide agent (a robot, perhaps? Has Roger Korby been sent to Exo III in the New Timeline?) attacking some Federation target and ``fleeing'' to Kronos once ``discovered''.

(Of course, then, why would Khan go to Kronos, other than that maybe the Interstellar Surfboard Transwarp Teleporter only had those coordinates set in it?)

 

[Timo]

They have enough fuel to get to their target, as Orci makes clear.

This simply isn't plausible, as we see with our own eyes how much of the fuel volume was replaced. Why would the torpedo originally have 95% excess fuel? Especially since it's supposed to be a long range weapon, i.e. to be fired at its most extreme range.

You're still acting as if the retrofitting reference in the script didn't happen.

It's a cool touch, but not a particularly effective way to cover up for the problems.

But it wouldn't matter on this point even if they didn't have fuel, because you said they still have warheads. And you said that not being able to get from point A to point B doesn't matter to Marcus' plan. So you're trying to have it both ways.

Well, yes, I am, quite explicitly: I enumerated two different scenarios, one of which basically requires the torps to reach their targets, while the other doesn't.

All it takes is one Augment thawed. This could happen by accident or because Khan made it happen.

Again, this is something that doesn't have a chance to take place if Kirk follows his orders. Khan isn't supposed to be in a position to do any such thing.

So Marcus is going to rely on two of his worst enemies doing his bidding?

Kirk following orders is unlikely - indeed, it doesn't happen. And Khan doing what he's supposed to do is a definite non-starter!

Marcus knows very well that his one and only handle on Khan is the crew. It would be criminally self-destructive of him not to keep that crew under lock and crew.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

(Of course, then, why would Khan go to Kronos, other than that maybe the Interstellar Surfboard Transwarp Teleporter only had those coordinates set in it?)

And where did he get that transporter? Surveillance footage shows him packing it in his vehicle after the explosion of the S31 arsenal - but it's highly unlikely the machine would come from those ruins. There was this city-block-leveling explosion, after all... (Which for some reason only killed 42 people?!? Did Federation medicine sew together and resurrect the other 500-5,000?)

It seems the footage is just part of the setup, and Khan got the teleporter by other means. From which it sort of follows that Marcus gave that machine to Khan. If Khan just stole it on his own, Marcus wouldn't be able to fake that footage as he wouldn't know of the theft - and Khan wouldn't have a motivation to fake the footage / flaunt his crime, unless it was part of a plan to get Kirk to follow him.

Summa summarum, having it all be part of a joint plan makes things easier for the two co-/contra-conspirators. Fewer complications, fewer issues on where their two opposite goals would result in everything stalling.

As for Khan volunteering to sit at Ground Zero... Well, he would be doing so right next to an interstellar teleporter! (Naturally, Marcus would have rigged it to fail the second time around, and Khan would have guessed as much. )

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Can anybody please explain to me how the Admiral's plan was to have played out. It seems like a bit of a mess to me, though I still enjoyed the film.

No one ever believes me on this, but I am 99% sure that Marcus was still working with Khan right up until the moment he found out Khan was on the Enterprise and not on Kronos where he was supposed to be.

Kirk was supposed to fire the torpedoes and then get killed by the Klingon retaliation. The torpedoes were supposed to soft-land in Ketha province, Khan thaws out his people, divvies out the arsenal of weapons he is apparently sitting on and takes his platoon of super soldiers on a terrorist campaign to undermine the Klingon Empire (Bay of Pigs, Star Trek style). There's also the unmarked, undeclared and otherwise unrecognizable USS Vengeance, flown by a crew that doesn't wear Starfleet uniforms or even uses standard Starfleet weapons, which is probably intended to be flown repeatedly into the heart of Klingon space to ambush their ships/outposts/space stations while Khan and his people are wreaking havoc all over Kronos.

The plan went screwy when Khan realized that the hapless sucker Marcus had picked to deliver the rest of his crew wasn't playing along like he was supposed to and saw an opportunity to spin the situation to his advantage.

 

[Timo]

A plan worthy of the two "I'm so clever, I can even outwit myself!" supervillains, certainly. The one major objection would be that Marcus should be well aware from the get-go that he cannot trust Khan. It wouldn't be consistent for this supervillain to allow a competitor to run amok, or even share the throne until a preselected moment of backstabbing; rather, Marcus would make sure that the threat on Khan's crew remained constant.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Set Harth]

This simply isn't plausible, as we see with our own eyes how much of the fuel volume was replaced.

You're acting as if you know all about the fuel in question, the nature of the retrofitting and how much is needed to get a certain distance. Unfortunately you don't.

Why would the torpedo originally have 95% excess fuel?

Excess according to what definition? We don't know the maximum range in the original concept.

So Marcus is going to rely on two of his worst enemies doing his bidding?

That fails to make sense in several ways. First, Kirk is in no way Marcus' "worst enemy" at any point where Marcus intends to rely on him. Also, Marcus is not relying on Khan doing his bidding.

Kirk following orders is unlikely - indeed, it doesn't happen.

Due to the position Kirk is put into by the Nibiru affair, I would say the prospect of Kirk following orders probably seemed likely from Marcus' point of view, and understandably so. And we should not discount the influence of Spock on Kirk's decison.

Marcus knows very well that his one and only handle on Khan is the crew. It would be criminally self-destructive of him not to keep that crew under lock and crew.

Not if he blows up Khan with said crew.

 

[DWF]

I'm sure that until Kirk failed to Khan that it was all a part of Marcus' plan. Khan's attack on Starfleet headquarters seemed to be rather random given how accurate he was on the Klingon homeworld. The plan has some holes in it and I do think that's the reason for the debate.

 

[Timo]

You're acting as if you know all about the fuel in question, the nature of the retrofitting and how much is needed to get a certain distance. Unfortunately you don't.

That doesn't make much of a difference. The movie says the fuel was taken out and replaced by a sleeper. We see the sleeper later on, and in any case already know how large a human being is. If there's some tomfoolery about how fuel formerly taking X amount of space now takes just 0.1 X amount, it runs completely counter to what we see and what we expect.

It's theoretically possible, but that's about it. And it doesn't make any sense. If fuel could be packed that tight to begin with, why isn't it? How come nobody working on those torps says "Hey, you're making the fuel tank ten times too big!", or is Khan building all of them alone in his own little workshop?

We don't know the maximum range in the original concept.

Sure we do. It's the range Kirk uses (doesn't!) these torps from. There's no excuse for him to select a shorter range, after all.

First, Kirk is in no way Marcus' "worst enemy" at any point where Marcus intends to rely on him. Also, Marcus is not relying on Khan doing his bidding.

Completely disagreed on both counts. Kirk is the one man the plan heavily relies on, and the plan runs counter to the Starfleet ideals and youthful idealism that characterize Kirk. And if Khan really is rogue enough to go to the Klingon homeworld on his own, after performing two audacious acts of terrorism on his own, Marcus would be a fool to expect him not to go to the Enterprise at the earliest opportunity and liberate his crew. Khan has the will, the means, the meanness, and all the opportunity and gear he needs.

The sleepers are not safe on Earth, where Khan already fooled around with them and where he demonstrated his access to Starfleet's most secret assets. But they are wide open for Khan to collect if they leave Earth.

Due to the position Kirk is put into by the Nibiru affair, I would say the prospect of Kirk following orders probably seemed likely from Marcus' point of view, and understandably so.

Kirk disobeys orders -> Kirk is likely to follow orders? Doesn't compute! Kirk expected to be rewarded for the Nibiru affair. And he damn near was.

Not if he blows up Khan with said crew.

Better blow up Khan (or try to - he has failed a couple of times already, unless it was part of the plan) without said crew. That way he can continue to use the blackmail if the blowing up fails, and kill the crew with 100% rate of success, safety and security when he pleases, back home where there are more layers of starships and redshirts between him and Khan.

Khan's attack on Starfleet headquarters seemed to be rather random given how accurate he was on the Klingon homeworld.

That's indeed quite telling. Also, if he just wanted the Starfleet brass dead, why bother with "machine gun fire" in the first place? Why not lob a single bomb that gets the work done? Surely it was all for show...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kelthaz]

My rule has always been to never put more thought into the plot than the writers did. You're breaking that rule now.

Khan's and Marcus' actions simply do not make sense and the plot was poorly constructed. You might be able to come up with some explanation that mostly makes sense, but it wasn't in the film.

 

[Timo]

My rule has always been to never put more thought into the plot than the writers did.

I don't get it - if you put in less, you put in nothing, as you're only treading the same ground the writers already covered. Where's the fun in that?

it wasn't in the film

And? The film is only a fairly small part of the viewing experience (for STXI, my angle was hard liquor and girls dressed as Vulcans. In TOS uniforms, not TNG.).

Timo Saloniemi