History Headscratchers / StarTrekVITheUndiscoveredCountry

** It's a ShoutOut to something said to the [[DirtyCommunists Russian ambassador]] by the [[{{Eagleland}} American ambassador]] during the UsefulNotes/CubanMissileCrisis. It made as little sense in RealLife as it did in Franchise/StarTrek.
*** Actually, it made a kind of sense if you read the subtext as, "Don't use waiting for the translation as a way to stall for thinking time that you shouldn't need to answer a question that you should know the answer to. . . only if I say all that (and all this) I'll have given you exactly what you wanted, a stall for time, so I'll just tell you not to wait for the translation and then shut up so you can be on the spot in front of everyone."
*** Except neither Kirk nor [=McCoy=] speak Klingon, and what we're hearing is TranslationConvention. Why couldn't they use universal translators? They wouldn't even know he said "Don't wait for the translation" until they heard it in English. Same with the Russian ambassador. It was just a political trick to make it seem as if the other person is stalling.
*** The Russian ambassador in real life probably did understand English just fine. He was an ambassador, understanding one of the most-used languages in the world (Japanese sailors had to learn it during [=WW2=] because a lot of their charts and machine manuals were printed in English) would have been necessary for his job. Kirk and [=McCoy=] aren't ambassadors, so in Chang's case it ''was'' purely grandstanding (instead of only partly).
** The TranslationConvention is ambiguous enough that Chang could have been questioning Kirk (and [=McCoy=]) in English while addressing the court in Klingon. The dinner on ''Enterprise'' indicates Chang speaks English and questioning the accused assassins in their native tongue may have been legally apropos.

*** Also, the ones who retired did so very recently, so they're proably still considered reserve officers.

I get the strong feeling we're not supposed to think about it too much, but there are valid questions here. Why in the world was Spock prepared to slap that device on Kirk's back? And how does Kirk know it's there? And why would prisoner Kirk and Bones be expected to wear the exact same clothes forever?

Valeris is the first Vulcan to graduate top of her class from Starfleet Academy. Based on what we've seen up to this point, Vulcans in Starfleet do seem relatively rare -- about four Vulcan characters onscreen, plus the crew of the ''Intrepid'' (RIP). But the ''Intrepid'' had four hundred crewmembers, so they can't exactly be ''vanishingly'' rare. Nonetheless, Vulcans seem to be friggin brainiacs, and the Academy has clearly been open for a while. (Memory Alpha says it opened in 2140 and has been teaching officers of Starfleet since 2161.) So it raises a question of why none of them have managed to graduate first in their class before, which I think leads to three potential main hypotheses:
* Few Vulcans choose to enroll in Starfleet Academy as a percentage of the population. (Well, it's pretty far from home...)
* There ''are'' few Vulcans by comparison to humans and other Federation member races. (That desert planet doesn't seem like it'd support a lot of people. And some people do believe they only mate every seven years...)
* Vulcans just do worse at Starfleet Academy than other species, for... reasons? (Humans? Or perhaps there's some little-seen brainiac species which is always wrecking the curve)

* Few Vulcans choose to enroll in Starfleet Academy as a percentage of the population
* There ''are'' few Vulcans by comparison to humans and other Federation member races
* Vulcans just do worse at Starfleet Academy than humans, for... reasons?

* Star Trek as a Franchise has a bad habit of this; Voyager was said to be 70,000 light years away from Earth (therefore 70 years away at maximum warp), yet space station DS9, on the edge of Federation Space, was said to be 8000 light years away, yet Nog was able to join Starfleet and be promoted to Lieutenent within 3 years.

*** If you look closely at Uhura's console, you'll notice that one or more screens are displaying the message 'Stand-By.' According to Michael Okuda's text commentary, this was intended to imply that there was some malfunction that was preventing the computer from displaying the translation--requiring them to use books. Apparently "Stand-By" is the Starfleet equivalent of the [=BSOD=].

* Why DOES Kirk and crew retire? Generations implies he very much didn't want to, and Relics implies the same for Scotty. It can't be because of age and mandatory retirement, as Sulu is around the same age as them and only recently became a Captain. Chekov is even younger than them, and McCoy would go on to rejoin Starfleet get promoted up to Admiral and still be serving past 120. Kirk is in his early 60s here, which is getting on it years but future medicine keeps people active longer. In TNG Picard is in his 50s when the show starts (which is the age Kirk is when the TOS movies start and he starts feeling "too old to be a Captain") and would remain in Starfleet till his 80s (and only left out of protest, not age). Doesn't really add up.

** He didn't. Spock was the one who said to contact Sulu. Earlier in the film, Sulu contacted the ''Enterprise'' and said "we stand ready to assist you." So it was a safe bet that Sulu would be ready with the info they needed. Presumably Sulu his security clearance as captain to find out where the conference was going to be. The peace conference wasn't a secret. It was publicly announced at Kirk and [=McCoy=]'s trial. So I don't imagine it was that hard for Sulu to get.

* To this day, one thing that doesn't make sense. Did the Enterprise not have like a quartermaster or at least a sign-out sheet for things like Envrionmental suits or phasers? You're telling me two random yeoman dudes just walked into the locker room or whatever, suited up, grabbed a couple of loaded phasers out of the gun lockers around the ship, and then beamed over and shot Gorkon and no one noticed it or logged the equipment?