There's a nice bit about this in a novel (Cast No Shadows, I think, which takes place after Kirk seemingly dies at the beginning of Generations), in which Valeris is talking to Spock basically saying something along these lines, and Spock gives a touching testament to his late (as far as he knows) friend, saying basically if they expected him to start a war because of his personal issues, they really didn't understand him at all.
Exactly, not to mention that Kirk should have been the last person to send in a mission where they supposedly had to collaborate with the Klingon, what with the “there will be no peace” thing and so on. Oh, and the admiral loses his bet: the Klingon government doesn’t seem to care, only a renegade commander shows up. Yes, but the conspirators might have dodged Spock towards the idea of volunteering the enterprise. In fact they might have involved Spock in the process exactly because they thought he would propose Kirk. Yes, but that was almost a decade earlier. Also, Kirk was an old commander on the verge of retirement, maybe they justified killing him “for the greater good” because he would be remembered as a martyr. I’m also sure they had nothing personal against the Federation president, it’s only that he had to die.
Let's say they can't "Massively Replicate" entire StarShips. You can only replicate Parts up to ___ size. My Replicator has a __ size limit of whatever due to whatever limits. It was shown in ST:ENT during the episode "Pitstop" in Season 2 that the Alien Repair Station could have automated working arms that beamed in parts that were replicated elsewhere and assemble the ship in far less time then humans can. Kind of like Automated Car manufacturing that we have today. Imagine pumping out StarShips at the speeds we pump out cars today for a FAR larger StarFleet.
One good reason to do ships in parts would be economy: if something goes wrong with one part (say, every 1,234,567th atom is of the wrong sort), you ditch/dereplicate just that one, rather than the entire ship complete with the potted plants. Well, having him humiliated is a more realistic goal, and certainly achievable in the context. This would simply presume that Kirk is resigned to his fate already: whenever Bob shows up, it's another attempt to discredit Jim, and Starfleet is just being extra sadistic by using Jim's supposed friend as the messenger. Any attempt at trying to be rational about it would simply mean more trouble for poor Bob. This double jeopardy would be required to explain away the smiles as sad ones. The rest would then click in place easily enough. This assuming that there was something unexpected about Spock choosing Kirk; or that there was free will involved in any fashion. Spock vouched for Kirk, and quoted the Nixon platitude. Doesn't mean (or sound like) Spock chose Kirk - he merely okayed somebody else's secretly malicious choice, a choice presumably facing opposition before Spock did the vouching. And the choice probably did not need Spock's okay anyway, but it made the conspirators do the "Exxxxxellent!" finger-spire-gesture when it did transpire. It would be a balance issue, yes. All we need is pissed enough. Timo Saloniemi
I do. He made their prisoner security look bad, he made their security measures at Spacedock look bad, he made their presence at Genesis look bad. Kirk and the Enterprise didn't seem to be in Starfleet's plans at all, except as an emergency contingency. All we have to do is look at modern America to see folks willing to cripple themselves to get back at someone or group.
Sorry, but the whole idea of Starfleet being pissed off at Kirk and trying whatever they can to discredit/humiliate/kill him is just ridiculous. All they had to do was force him into early retirement if they wanted to get rid of him so bad. Which, also looking at modern America, is a far more realistic scenario to get someone out of your hair than sending someone on a mission in order to intentionally get him killed.
I don’t think they were “pissed” at him, just not willing to give him a top of the line ship and the most important missions. Regarding STVI, he was just the right man for the job in the conspirators’ eyes: a hero that also happened to have every reason for hating Klingons and who would likely help start a war.
Now that I can see, although I got the feeling in Generations that Starfleet seemed to be more focused on giving younger captains the better commands in general, rather than just trying to punish Kirk specifically. True, he was the right man in the conspirators’ eyes, but I have to wonder if they would have independently come up with the idea to use Kirk if Spock hadn’t vouched for him in the first place.
He had what was essentially a pardon from the Federation president in hand. No way they were going to force him out, he was a hero who saved the planet twice.
So Admiral Bob and Admiral Cartwright decide to place him in a situation intentionally hoping he’ll get killed?
Those are definitely two phrases you don't want to hear in the same statement. Especially if you paid for the product.
Admiral Bon not necessarily: Nimbus II looked like a run of the mill hostage situation on an unimportant planet. Sure, there was a possibility the Klingon showed up, but it was unlikely they would do so with a powerful ship and it’s important to point out that weapons, propulsion and shields worked perfectly on the Enterprise, the transporter seemed to be the only major system to have problems.
But that’s one of the inherent flaws of the film: all a rescue ship had to do was beam the ambassadors aboard from orbit. It’s not like the planet had a shield or anything. But because the plot demanded that the Enterprise’s transporter not work, they were forced to use a shuttle to land with a rescue party. So again, there’s no logical reason why Kirk had to use the Enterprise for this mission. They were only rescuing three people. He could have used the 23rd century equivalent of a DS9 runabout for this. And unless Admiral Bob mentioned off-screen that Kirk absolutely needed to use the Enterprise-A, it smacks much more of incompetence by Kirk then Bob intentionally trying to give Kirk a mission where he’d get killed. Honestly, this film is so ridiculously stupid that it’s hard to use anything in it as evidence of anything.
Did they know already the transporters were offline, though? Also, to transport the ambassadors you need to locate them and that can only be done sending people on the planet...
I believe so, but I’ll have to check again. But I find it hard to believe that with all the other issues the ship had, that they wouldn’t at least have put a priority on the one piece of technology that would have helped to quickly and successfully complete the mission. There are instances where a ship can scan for specific lifesigns. Especially if those lifesigns happen to be the only Klingon, human and Romulan on the entire planet, and they’re all localized in the same place.
But they were not the only human, Klingon and Romulan on the planet: in fact, while unfortunately we don’t see other Romulans and Klingons, the planet is supposed to be a joint settlement of the three of them.
The impression I got, based on what was mentioned and seen in the film, was that instead of Nimbus III being populated by Klingons, Romulans and humans, it was instead populated by the poor and downtrodden of the galaxy, which was completely not the original intent for the planet. That’s why they constantly refer to the “Planet of Galactic Peace” in a derogatory way.
Indeed, it's difficult to spot a single good candidate for a Klingon or a Romulan in the riffraff that Sybok drafts for his scheme. Starfleet hating Kirk's guts but being unable to do anything about it smacks of fairly realistic politics. All sorts of damning-with-praise schemes would no doubt be devised to bring down the disgusting hero a peg or two; most might never get any sort of official blessing, but many would still proceed. The result: nothing clear-cut about it, but rather a series of half measures that might hurt Kirk's opponents more than they did the good Captain. "Brand new" and "lots of faults" still do tend to go hand in hand. It's rather hilarious that when the German Bundesmarine received its first brand new Baden-Württemberg frigate, the ship had a list to starboard that could not be corrected no matter what... But apparently every Western warship delivered within the past twenty years has been unseaworthy or at least uncombatworthy initially, and the East is unlikely to be better off. Timo Saloniemi
I wouldn't be surprised - almost every new appliance we've bought in the last few years required a service call to get working right - new fridge, TV, gas meter, water heater, dish washer... my new car had two recalls in its first year. Even a plumber had to make two visits to snake our kitchen sink properly. It's gotten so we just expect it now.