History Headscratchers / StarTrekVItheUndiscoveredCountry

** The Enterprise is only "one reference point" if all of its sensors are in the exact same place. But if sensors are scattered all over the hull then you can (in theory at least) triagulate the positions of whatever you're sensing. So presumably it's the second explanation.

* Both the President of the United Federation of Planets and Chancellor of the KLingon Empire are on Khitomer. As well as a huge number of their advisors and senior officers and all that. And it wasn't top secret - Enterprise didn't know because she had essentially gone rogue, but Sulu certainly knew so it presumably was knowledge at least to Federation captians. There is NO Federation starship on station in orbit - the people on the ground were even seemingly utterly BLIND to the fact that a full scale space battle was going on over their heads and even Kirk and his party beaming in didn't get so much as a raised eyebrow, let alone security! It would seem that both sides put themselves 100% at the mercy of ANY bad actor. Even if Chang and his Bird of Prey were nominally around to provide security in an offical capacity, it still seems utterly inconceivable that the Federation delegation wouldn't insist on at least one of their own starships in-system to watch over things, or at least provide transport for their delegation or ''something''.

** If you look closely at the suits that the assassins wear, you'll notice that they appear to just be slightly modified versions of the protective suits that engineers wear throughout the movie era. They seem to be standard-issue PPE that everyone attached to the engineering department probably has a set of. They're likely made pretty freely available to anyone who needs them. We've never seen the helmet or boots before, but I would’t be surprised if they could be found in every damage control locker aboard ''Enterprise''. They seem tailor-made for engineering applications where the normal life support systems aren't reliable.

** If you look closely at the suits that the assassins wear, you'll notice that they appear to just be slightly modified versions of the protective suits that engineers wear throughout the movie era. They seem to be standard-issue PPE that everyone attached to the engineering department probably has a set of. They're likely made pretty freely available to anyone who needs them. We've never seen the helmet or boots before, but I would’t be surprised if they could be found in every damage control locker aboard ''Enterprise''; they seem tailor-made for engineering applications where the normal life support systems aren't reliable.

** If you look closely at the suits that the assassins wear, you'll notice that they appear to just be slightly modified versions of the protective suits that engineers wear throughout the movie era. They seem to be standard-issue PPE that everyone attached to the engineering department probably has a set of. They're likely made pretty freely available to anyone who needs them. We've never seen the helmet or boots before, but I would’t be surprised if they could be found in every damage control locker aboard ‘’Enterprise’'; they seem tailor-made for engineering applications where the normal life support systems aren't reliable.

** The phasers, however, a harder to justify — in fact, there ''is'' already a discussion of the crew’s immediate and apparently unrestricted access to armed phaser pistols, and the wisdom of that policy elsewhere on this page. Suffice to say, however, this film shows that there is an unlocked cabinet full of loaded pistols located in the ''galley'' of all places, and it’s rather telling that the investigation focuses almost entirely on locating the ''suits'' used in the assassination, with no mention of any attempt to track down the ''actual murder weapons''.

[[ folder: About those dudes who shot the chancellor.. ]]

** IIRC, there's a brief shot of a computer graphic showing Kirk's signal when they leave the magnetic field that sort of suggests that the field also disrupted sensors to some degree -- ''Enterprise'' didn't seem to actually get a fix on Kirk's signal until he had physically left the security parameter. The Klingons might have wanted to let Starfleet long-range sensors (and ''Enterprise'', herself) to get a good, clean recording of the "escape attempt." Something they could point to and say, "See? Kirk and Bones weren't assassinated! They were just gunned down by guards while trying to escape their slightly slower deaths in our forced labor camp!" Come to think of it, that would also explain why they let Kirk keep the tracking device: To give Federation surveillance networks a signal to focus on.

[[folder: How could McCoy be so sure that shapeshifter was killed and not the real Kirk?]]

* When the Enterprise beamed McCoy and Bones off the prison world, why was McCoy so sure it was the shapeshifting alien who was killed as opposed to the real Kirk? Wouldn't he insist on performing an exam on Kirk to ensure it was the real Kirk who survived?

** It is possible that the Klingons themselves could not track Kirk and Bones without sensors. They are in the middle of a frozen wasteland prone to frequent white-outs and Marta didend up having to deploy a beacon. Plus, Star Trek IV through VI seems to imply that Kirk has a fierce reputation among the Klingons; almost as if he could be considered the human reincarnation of Kahless. Makes you wonder if they deliberately decided to attack a freezing and starving Kirk as opposed to one who might still be quite healthy. I think it says a lot that Marta chose to shapeshift into Kirk to fight Kirk as opposed to one of the 10 foot tall blue aliens from earlier. As long as she [[GroinAttack guarded her knees better]] than the previous guy then she would have killed Kirk in twenty seconds flat.

*** Something interesting to note about the scene where the assassins beam aboard Gorkon's ship is that they materialize ''on'' the Klingon transporter pad in a cascade of red energy--the visual effect used for ''Klingon'' transporters. This means that the transport was initialized by ''Enterprise'', and then handed off to the Klingon system to complete. ''Qo'noS One'' most likely has a complete record of the two systems communicating with each other during the transport cycle; and thus, incontrovertible proof that the assassins beamed aboard from ''Enterprise.''

*** I'll point out that the bird-or-prey from ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock'' and ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'' was seen to operate its transporter several times while cloaked. There's no reason for the heroes to assume that Chang's bird-of-prey wouldn't have the same capability.

*** Something interesting to note about the scene where the assassins beam aboard Gorkon's ship is that they materialize on the Klingon transporter pad in a cascade of red energy--the visual effect used for ''Klingon'' transporters. This means that the transport was initialized by ''Enterprise'', and then handed off to the Klingon system to complete. ''Qo'noS One'' most likely has a complete record of the two systems communicating with each other during the transport cycle; and thus, incontrovertible proof that the assassins beamed aboard from ''Enterprise.''

*** I'll point out that the bird-or-prey from ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock'' and ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome'' was seen to operate its transporter several times while cloaked. There's no reason for the heroes to assume that Chang's bird-of-prey wouldn't have the same capability.

[[folder: Valeris Makes No Sense]]
* Unless she was supposed to be Saavik, her whole arc makes no sense. If she had been Saavik, then all her actions can be justified from her point of view and tied into the history of the films, and her scenes with Spock and subsequent betrayal would have had the appropriate impact and substance. Otherwise, she's just some random Vulcan chick who showed up out of nowhere, wrecked havoc and made Spock look like a fool for trusting her so much.
** Yeah, that sums it up pretty well. And the irony is that there is no reason why they couldn't have recast Saavik given how they already have once before. You can argue it might have been a bit silly to have three actresses playing the role but it would have served the plot better.
[[/folder]]

* Both the President of the United Federation of Planets and Chancellor of the KLingon Empire are on Khitomer. As well as a huge number of their advisors and senior officers and all that. And it wasn't top secret - Enterprise didn't know because she had essentially gone rogue, but Sulu certinally knew so it presumably was knowedlge at least to Federation captians. There is NO Federation starship on station in orbit - the people on the ground were even seemingly utterly BLIND to the fact that a full scale space battle was going on over their heads and even Kirk and his party beaming in didn't get so much as a raised eyebrow, let alone security! It would seem that both sides put themselves 100% at the mercy of ANY bad actor. Even if Chang and his Bird of Prey were nominally around to provide security in an offical capacity, it still seems utterly inconceivable that the Federation delegation wouldn't insist on at least one of their own starships in-system to watch over things, or at least provide transport for their delegation or ''something''.

* Unless she was supposed to be Saavik, her whole arc makes no sense. If she had been Saavik, then all her actions can be justified from her point of view and tie into the history of the films, and her scenes with Spock and subsequent betrayal would have had the appropriate impact and substance. Otherwise, she's just some random Vulcan chick who showed up out of nowhere, wrecked havoc and made Spock look like a fool for trusting her so much.
** Yeah, that sums it up pretty well. And the irony is that there is no reason why they couldn't have recasted Saavik given how they already have once before. You can argue it might have been a bit silly to have three actresses playing the role but it would have served the plot better.

* Unless she was Saavik, her whole arc makes no sense. If she had been Saavik, then all her actions can be justified from her point of view and tie into the history of the films, and her scenes with Spock and subsequent betrayal would have had the appropriate impact and substance. Otherwise, she's just some random Vulcan chick who showed up out of nowhere, wrecked havoc and made Spock look like a fool for trusting her so much.

[[//folder]]