another thought. kahn and his people just beamed over to regula 1. why didnt the station raise its shields to prevent them from beaming over? i guess you could say the shields were lowered in order to beam genesis to the planetoid, but why do that in the first place if you could just keep the shields up?
Why wasn't there security/starships @ Regula station?
- Thread starter Cadet49
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They thought Starfleet was after Genesis and decided to hide it from them as they knew how it could be perverted into a weapon. Marcus' plan would be wait until Kirk arrived to sort it out on the assumption he would fall on her side either not believing he gave the order or could be reasoned with.
Why would they raise shields they would be expecting a Starfleet crew to question the remaining staff to the where abouts of Genesis not a lunatic who tortured them to death for the fun of it.
Why would they raise shields they would be expecting a Starfleet crew to question the remaining staff to the where abouts of Genesis not a lunatic who tortured them to death for the fun of it.
Quite so. This part would indeed be just a coincidence, which David mistakenly takes for proof of a nefarious plan.
Exactly. He was chafing at the bit as it was, and now that his friends had arranged for this birthday cruise, he was certain to make the most of it.
But it's still quite a coincidence for him to be anywhere near Regula as the result of Sulu's random course choice. This regardless of whether Regula is in the same neglected region of space as the spot where Khan was found or where he was marooned, or somewhere else altogether.
Then again, we can hardly expect Khan to have sailed to Regula at a speed higher than "emergency warp", which means he was just as close to the lab as Kirk was since both of them reached the location at the same time. (In fact, Khan got there a tad earlier.) We'd have to assume Starfleet never received a "we're here" announcement from Terrell when he reached Ceti Alpha, then, because the way the movie was cut, the trip from Ceti Alpha to Regula did not take weeks - it took only about the three days Chekov speaks of.
Kirk would thus necessarily have incorrect information about the Reliant's whereabouts - but whether because Terrell couldn't be bothered to report, or was told not to report, we're not told. I just feel the latter would fit the evidence rather nicely.
...It even explains why our heroes don't go all "They are in our sector, even in the same quadrant - while they should currently be somewhere near Ceti Alpha or Dolphinus Beta according to this flight plan" when the ship makes the surprise appearance. If there's no official flight plan, there'd be a need to speculate on why that is - but this speculation could wait because the rendezvous would probably provide the answer ASAP. If there's a plan, though, then there's no obvious "mystery about to be unrevealed" but rather just an annoying discrepancy.
Nuances, I know. But the pieces can be made to fit without too much force.
Since Genesis appears so portable, it's even possible the Marcuses beamed down with it only after Khan popped up and started slaughtering people.
Or then all the Genesis hardware was already down at the heart of the Regula rock, and all the Marcuses did was hit "delete" on the files on the lab computers and beam down themselves. Having a "scuttling command" prepared for the files is something I could see them doing in order to stall a Starfleet takeover attempt; hauling the entire experimental hardware away would probably not be worth the hassle, because a legitimate Starfleet crew would know about the cave.
I mean, I trust that Terrell and Chekov knew about it, too. But Khan just wasn't clever enough to ask. (Nor Kirk, for that matter. It wouldn't occur for him to interrogate his still badly dazed old dimwit friend or his CO on dark secrets like this.)
That'd depend on there being records about the Ceti Alpha system, and on our bored-out-of-their-skulls heroes paying attention.
In "The Doomsday Machine", our heroes observe the destruction of the entire system when reaching "the limits of the system", but that's when they come prepared for something dangerous, as they are responding to an SOS. In this movie, our heroes are simply going through a number of desert worlds in the hopes of finding one that would match the exacting parameters of the Marcus team, so they aren't going to have a second or even a first look at the non-desert ones. When they spot a desert world at roughly the same orbit where there's supposed to be one, they go for it and start assessing whether to study it or abandon it and quickly move to the next potential system.
Missing a missing planet does sound like something an intrepid team of space explorers shouldn't do. But we have to remember that these aren't Flash Gordons or Dan Dares staring at the wonders of the sky with bright blue eyes - they are hard-working space laborers who have a job to do and little patience for idle stargazing. If there's existing data on how the system should look, then the Reliant posse won't look by themselves because that job is already done!
Timo Saloniemi
And yet even though the entire purpose of their mission was to determine if the planet was completely and totally lifeless, they failed to detect the presence of not one, not two, but an entire group of humans down on the planet's surface. Somehow this manages to be read as such an indeterminate reading that Chekov speculates it could be a particle of pre-animate matter, whatever that is. Yet we hear no dialog saying that there's any special interference or other problems interfering with sensors.
The planet was portrayed as a sandstorm-hidden hellhole. Chekov even seemed to believe they couldn't call the ship or beam up without scrambling out of Khan's hut first, suggesting very bad reception...
Clearly, the sensors were being blocked by this extreme weather or related phenomena - but we can't expect our heroes to have been aware of what was being blocked, or even that something was being blocked. It just so happened that a group of supermen read as lichen when seen through that storm, which resulted in the heroes beaming down unprepared.
That's well-founded plot logic rather than oversight or omission, IMHO.
Timo Saloniemi
Clearly, the sensors were being blocked by this extreme weather or related phenomena - but we can't expect our heroes to have been aware of what was being blocked, or even that something was being blocked. It just so happened that a group of supermen read as lichen when seen through that storm, which resulted in the heroes beaming down unprepared.
That's well-founded plot logic rather than oversight or omission, IMHO.
Timo Saloniemi
Khan manipulated things to get Kirk involved. He had Chekov tell Carol that Kirk ordered the confiscation of Genesis. Chekov then tells Khan that she will attempt to contact Kirk and confirm the order. Khan just smiles and nods.
i never thought that kahn was feeding chekov the information until now. i always took it as chekov "ad-libed" that part and it was a happy accident for kahn. i originally took it as kahn had a plan to get genesis and then take out kirk someway but then his thirst for vengeance after getting out maneuvered took over.
iirc its never really indicated when kahn gets to regula 1 and tortures the people there. terrels line of "he slit their throats, but he was late. he had to get back to reliant in order to blow you to bits" always led me to believe that he stopped at regula 1, didnt find genesis (maybe even though kirk beat him there), left for the first encounter with kirk, fled, repaired, then headed back to regula 1.
This sounds like a plausible chain of events. When Chekov says "we'll be there in three days", he's quite possibly lying as per Khan's instructions, and the ship reaches the station sooner - meaning we can't tell exactly how long it took for Khan or Kirk to arrive, despite seeming verbal cues. But the sequence of events seems clear enough.
Carol being lured into calling Kirk is fine and well. But Kirk actually being the closest help when the misguided SOS goes out (or even third-closest but best-motivated), rather than being somewhere far, far away and unable to respond at all... Now that does sound like a coincidence.
Unless we speculate that Khan studied Starfleet non-confidential records to find out what Kirk was doing, and only went after Genesis when he had also hatched a plan to get Kirk as well. Perhaps the Reliant had a bridge display rigged to show a blip labeled "Enterprise", and Khan timed all his actions so that he'd be close to Kirk when it mattered. Except he wrote too tight a timetable for himself, and failed to find Genesis in the allotted time.
Timo Saloniemi
Carol being lured into calling Kirk is fine and well. But Kirk actually being the closest help when the misguided SOS goes out (or even third-closest but best-motivated), rather than being somewhere far, far away and unable to respond at all... Now that does sound like a coincidence.
Unless we speculate that Khan studied Starfleet non-confidential records to find out what Kirk was doing, and only went after Genesis when he had also hatched a plan to get Kirk as well. Perhaps the Reliant had a bridge display rigged to show a blip labeled "Enterprise", and Khan timed all his actions so that he'd be close to Kirk when it mattered. Except he wrote too tight a timetable for himself, and failed to find Genesis in the allotted time.
Timo Saloniemi
That wouldn't quite suffice, though, as there would typically be other ships close to Earth as well - including fully operational frontline ones that would take precedence when help to Regula was being considered.
What Chekov could of course specifically have told Khan is that Kirk would be having a birthday cruise in a few days. It's something he could have discussed with Sulu over subspace in the past weeks; he might even know the course Sulu would be taking. Just about the only thing we can rule out is a planned meeting between Kirk's ship and Chekov's...
Timo Saloniemi
What Chekov could of course specifically have told Khan is that Kirk would be having a birthday cruise in a few days. It's something he could have discussed with Sulu over subspace in the past weeks; he might even know the course Sulu would be taking. Just about the only thing we can rule out is a planned meeting between Kirk's ship and Chekov's...
Timo Saloniemi
Who knows? As for Kahn knowing how to operate Genesis, maybe, contrary to Terrel's saying, one or more of the scientists Khan tortured did talk on the device worked. When you are being tortured, you'll start talking fo the torture to stop....but then again, torurers these days pretty much only are happy when they hear what they WANT to hear. And as for knowing about Genesis, he probably got Chekov to hack into classified Starfleet files, or just asked him what he was up to, since he had those worms in his brain.
As for the question posted in the thread, I'm thinking of a real life example that mimics the Regula business.
I used to work down the road from an Army Corps lab facility. They had a fence and a guard in the security booth as you drove in, but no apparent military presence so to speak.
Kind of like Regula One. Technically it was affiliated with Starfleet but was not at all a military installation.
I've personally done work at 6-7 VA hospitals and a couple at the equivalent state level. Again, there's a connection, but they are not military facilities.
I used to work down the road from an Army Corps lab facility. They had a fence and a guard in the security booth as you drove in, but no apparent military presence so to speak.
Kind of like Regula One. Technically it was affiliated with Starfleet but was not at all a military installation.
I've personally done work at 6-7 VA hospitals and a couple at the equivalent state level. Again, there's a connection, but they are not military facilities.
I think the problem in this context is that the Regula lab was located in the middle of a vast roadless desert where bandit gangs armed to overpower an average Foreign Legion fortress may or may not have roamed - and help would take days to arrive at the fastest camel or jeep available. So should there have been a tank parked next to the building or not?
It chiefly depends on whether the borders of the UFP leaked or not. And many an episode and movie indeed shows them leaking badly enough to let in entire invasion fleets. But that could count as a "calculated risk", as no location within UFP borders would really be safe then, and stealth would be as valid a defense for this facility as any other.
Timo Saloniemi
Was Regula 1 really in the middle of nowhere, with bandits roaming the space ways ? The Enterprise is the only ship in the quadrant, but it had only recently launched from Earth. So how far from the core of the UFP could the ship had traveled in that time? If Regula 1 is near the Ceti Alpha system and there for near where the Botany Bay was discovered, its in a region of space mapped and explored long ago.
Spock's in Space Seed seems to indicate an area of liitle interest to Earth.
But known
Spock's in Space Seed seems to indicate an area of liitle interest to Earth.
Space Seed said:
But known
The issue here is that the latter does not necessarily require the former. Evil agents could engage in wrongdoing quite close to home, too. The steady and settled world of Deneva could fall silent and would have to wait for a full year before Starfleet would find out what was going on ("Operation: Annihilate!"). Or a colony on Earth's very moon could go to panic because it observed something it thought was an invasion ("Descent")! So a facility in the immediate neighborhood of major UFP assets might still be unprotected against destruction or theft unless assigned its very own starship.
Timo Saloniemi
How'd that work put for Regula 1?
