Regarding the "only ship in the quadrant" issue, ST2 made it pretty explicit that quadrants are smaller subdivisions of sectors, and it's extremely unusual to have two starships in the same quadrant - Sulu nearly faints at the prospect, in terms of his expression range anyway.
In TMP, the term "quadrant" is not used at all. The Enterprise is the only starship in interception range, which of course doesn't mean she would be the only ship near Earth. There might be a dozen ships that are not starships (ST4 is the movie that makes explicit that there are ships that aren't starships), and as said, a couple of starships that aren't in intercept range because they are too slow.
It doesn't strike me as implausible at all that the adventures in these movies, and others, would take place well outside "interception range" from Earth. Sending a ship from the Sol system might do some good in a few days, but none of the movies features a crisis that could be put on hold for a few days.
As for ST5, it makes good sense to send Kirk in a poorly working ship. Everybody else seems to be sending their worst and dimmest, too, with high hopes of them failing and ceasing to be a pain in the ass. Remember that Kirk was given this lemon of a ship in the first place: somebody at Starfleet must really hate his guts. It need not be Admiral Bob, but it probably is every other flag officer out there; mutiny and theft of starships doesn't win you any brownie points.
What role Spacedock Earth could play in defending the planet is unclear. It's just one station, so the enemy could simply sneak in from the opposite side of the planet! But DS9 makes it clear that starships have little hope of doing damage against fortified planets (the Breen killed themselves in a purely symbolic attack that created four or five small holes in the ground around San Francisco and vandalized a landmark), and that defensive starships would just get in the way of those highly efficient fortifications - you defend with ships only if you have failed to build proper fortifications, or are otherwise in dire straits.
I'd say the second case is the one that should raise eyebrows. Where did all those ships come from? We never were given any indication that Earth had that many ships or friends... Let's also remember that if Earth recalled its entire fighting force for home defense in "The Expanse", perhaps 25% of it might have arrived by the time of "Zero Hour" - pre-NX-01 warp was that slow!
Timo Saloniemi
In TMP, the term "quadrant" is not used at all. The Enterprise is the only starship in interception range, which of course doesn't mean she would be the only ship near Earth. There might be a dozen ships that are not starships (ST4 is the movie that makes explicit that there are ships that aren't starships), and as said, a couple of starships that aren't in intercept range because they are too slow.
It doesn't strike me as implausible at all that the adventures in these movies, and others, would take place well outside "interception range" from Earth. Sending a ship from the Sol system might do some good in a few days, but none of the movies features a crisis that could be put on hold for a few days.
As for ST5, it makes good sense to send Kirk in a poorly working ship. Everybody else seems to be sending their worst and dimmest, too, with high hopes of them failing and ceasing to be a pain in the ass. Remember that Kirk was given this lemon of a ship in the first place: somebody at Starfleet must really hate his guts. It need not be Admiral Bob, but it probably is every other flag officer out there; mutiny and theft of starships doesn't win you any brownie points.
What role Spacedock Earth could play in defending the planet is unclear. It's just one station, so the enemy could simply sneak in from the opposite side of the planet! But DS9 makes it clear that starships have little hope of doing damage against fortified planets (the Breen killed themselves in a purely symbolic attack that created four or five small holes in the ground around San Francisco and vandalized a landmark), and that defensive starships would just get in the way of those highly efficient fortifications - you defend with ships only if you have failed to build proper fortifications, or are otherwise in dire straits.
I'd say the second case is the one that should raise eyebrows. Where did all those ships come from? We never were given any indication that Earth had that many ships or friends... Let's also remember that if Earth recalled its entire fighting force for home defense in "The Expanse", perhaps 25% of it might have arrived by the time of "Zero Hour" - pre-NX-01 warp was that slow!
Timo Saloniemi
