Trek 09 Starfleet weapons, organization, etc. [Spoilers]

[Questor]

I don't think he was necessarily qualified to serve so much as they were desperately trying to fill out the crew requirements of any ships they had in the area with people who knew the functions well enough. Especially since they only thought of the mission to Vulcan as a humanitarian crisis.

Didn't they also refer to Chekov as an ensign?

He was also 17. And I never go the impression that he was a cadet. My initial read was that he had graduated from Starfleet Academy or some kind of OCS, after thinking about it more, I have no idea what was going on with him.

Another question is about the uniforms. We only see the classic "color" uniforms aboard ship. There is another uniform being used at the academy by everyone. Perhaps red just means "junior officer," black means "line officer." I can't remember what type of uniform the admirals wore at the beginning of the movie, but I do recall that Pike's admiral's uniform looked a whole lot like Kirk's in TMP.

[Erik von Nein]

He was also 17. And I never go the impression that he was a cadet. My initial read was that he had graduated from Starfleet Academy or some kind of OCS, after thinking about it more, I have no idea what was going on with him.

Yeah, true. I forgot his age.

Hmm, yeah. Chekov is a bad example of anything. It's kind of difficult to tell what anyone is, though. It was all kind of vague and thrown together.

[tim31]

Another question is about the uniforms. We only see the classic "color" uniforms aboard ship. There is another uniform being used at the academy by everyone. Perhaps red just means "junior officer," black means "line officer." I can't remember what type of uniform the admirals wore at the beginning of the movie, but I do recall that Pike's admiral's uniform looked a whole lot like Kirk's in TMP.

Red suits = cadet uniform, not junior officer.

Admirals earlier in the film wore a grey knit-pattern jacket that looked like automotive seat trim from the mid 80's.

[Darth Wong]

I guess my question is, would Kirk's promotion make more sense if he was already an officer (implied by the fact that he was considered qualified to serve on a starship) and the Kobiyashi Maru was part of some kind of post-graduate education for a rising star?

Doesn't it actually say "THREE YEARS LATER" onscreen, to begin Kirk's post-Academy career? From the sounds of it, he makes Captain roughly three years after enlisting, which is just ... well, it's just not acceptable.

For that matter, the entire scene in which Captain Pike suddenly promotes him to first officer with no explanation screams "the writer just didn't know how to get from point A to point B, so he said "fuck it" and wrote this shit."

[Darwin]

For that matter, the entire scene in which Captain Pike suddenly promotes him to first officer with no explanation screams "the writer just didn't know how to get from point A to point B, so he said "fuck it" and wrote this shit."

No kidding. even if this DID happen in the modern military (Some cadet has an O-6 doing Everything In His Power and a few things that aren't to fast-track said cadet) That O-6 would be facing a board of inquiry asking him, "What the hell, man?"

[Darth Wong]

That was actually the biggest WTF moment in the film for me, and there were many of those moments. In many ways, Captain Kirk and Crew are a bit like quasi-religious figures. Just as Christians are incredibly lenient about inconsistencies or other bad writing in the Bible, a lot of people are incredibly lenient about the unbelievable way the writers made things happen for our beloved Enterprise crew in the new movie.

I honestly believe that if something that arbitrary (seriously, it just comes out of nowhere) was used to advance the life story of any other central character in any other kind of movie, the critics would jump all over it with bloodthirsty glee. But they let it go, because everyone wants Kirk to become Captain, and they're willing to forgive any writing, no matter how atrocious, if it gets them there.

Even Conan The Barbarian had better writing than that. If the writers of Conan had the King drop by, take pity on him because he admired his father, and suddenly say "Hey guess what, you're now the heir to the throne", people would have walked out of the theatre.

[Patrick Degan]

I think a lot of this clumsiness came about because somebody at Parmount had the bright idea to incorporate the proposed "Starfleet Academy" storyline into the script for this movie, using it as a ready-made "origins" piece to snap into the script template.

There still could have been a fucked-up Kirk in the early part of this movie. But instead of Mr. Badass Rebel-Without-A-Cause Kirk, they could have reached into the continuity bucket for another way to fuck up the young Lt. Kirk —by having him coming to the Enterprise as the still partially-traumatised survivor of the Farragut disaster. The mechanism doesn't have to be the vampire-cloud but some sort of incident that resulted in half the crew being killed for which Kirk blames himself for not being good/fast/alert enough at that one moment, even though he was the one who rallied the survivors and saved the ship when the captain and all the other senior officers were killed. Makes James Kirk a much more grounded character than what we get in this movie. The mission aboard the Enterprise becomes make-or-break for Lt. Kirk and he takes it and comes out captain material at the end, being determined not to let the Farragut disaster happen again to the Enterprise.

[Questor]

Red suits = cadet uniform, not junior officer.

Then why was Uhura addressed as Lieutenant? It might make sense if there were no ensigns, but Checkov blows that theory out of the water.

Admirals earlier in the film wore a grey knit-pattern jacket that looked like automotive seat trim from the mid 80's.

That's what I thought. I wonder why Pike's was different?

Doesn't it actually say "THREE YEARS LATER" onscreen, to begin Kirk's post-Academy career? From the sounds of it, he makes Captain roughly three years after enlisting, which is just ... well, it's just not acceptable.

Agreed, which is why I attempted to rationalize it by creating a way for him to have at least a little experience.

I think everyone can agree that he is promoted absurdly fast, but if he were in some kind of commanding officers school, rather than the academy, it might make a little more sense.

Here is what I am proposing, with the full knowledge that the evidence I am using is either inadmissible (Saavik in TWoK), or very, very thin (Uhura being called Lieutenant, McCoy being the second ranking medical officer aboard, Chekov's rank and age), and the whole thing is based on my understanding that Kirk was about 25 in the movie, and is hugely conjectural.

Kirk
Age 21 - Gets some kind of degree from a university, probably not worth a lot, but an undergraduate degree none the less.
21-22 - hangs around bars, doing whatever.
22 - Enlists in starfleet, goes to OCS
23-24 - Promoted to lieutenant, sent to command school, where he meets McCoy and Uhura again. (Uhura may be doing some kind of Post-grad work in intelligence/communications, or may be in command school as well, and McCoy could be doing something to become qualified as chief medical officer)
25 - Kirk takes Kobiyashi Maru.

I am going to admit right here and now that this does not fit what is implied in the movie, but I cannot think of anything that would outright contradict it, other than Pike saying he could graduate in four years, but would Pike have known if Kirk had a degree already? I honestly don't remember every word of dialog in the movie, though.

[Themightytom]

Not a horrible idea, but you are using events internal to kirk's life to justify what is obviously writer laziness. it might be easier to use external events to justify what we saw.

The idea was raised in the Star trek Review thread that kirk could next discover he is a meaningless poster child, promoted as a PR stunt in the wake of the tragedy at Vulcan, and starfleet, while acknowledging his role in saving Earth, really didn't intend to give him any significant responsibility until he'd earned it.

Starfleet DID have a bunch of brand new/ extra ships lying around in Earth orbit waiting for new cadets. They could be either replacing lots of downed ships, or more likely about to embark on a new age of expansion, in which the experienced veteran ships do the exploring and the new cadets cut their teeth in the relative safety of federation space.

Obvious problem with this explanation being, who would give a bunch of trainees a brand new Virginia class submarine and have them F around in the harbor...

[Questor]

The idea was raised in the Star trek Review thread that kirk could next discover he is a meaningless poster child, promoted as a PR stunt in the wake of the tragedy at Vulcan, and starfleet, while acknowledging his role in saving Earth, really didn't intend to give him any significant responsibility until he'd earned it.

I must have missed that, in that rather large thread.

I did say something similar over in the size thread though, on a tangent about the word "flagship"

That could even help explain giving such a junior officer command of the Enterprise. Politics may have dictated he be rewarded that way, but he is only captain in the sense that Spock was the captain of the Enterprise in TWoK. Perhaps Pike is coming along.

I found some more evidence, McCoy is apparently a Lt. Commander! (Based on his uniform)

[tim31]

My uncle entered the Royal Australian Navy as a Lieutenant Commander. He already had skills that allowed him direct entry as an officer, as long as he passed basic. In his case this is as a chaplain, but McCoy was already a physician/surgeon before joining Starfleet. While he had to go through the academy, his qualifications demanded the rank in active duty. A civilian doctor outranks nurses(even if they might know better), so too must a military doctor.

Red suits = cadet uniform, not junior officer.

Then why was Uhura addressed as Lieutenant? It might make sense if there were no ensigns, but Checkov blows that theory out of the water.

Admirals earlier in the film wore a grey knit-pattern jacket that looked like automotive seat trim from the mid 80's.

That's what I thought. I wonder why Pike's was different?

Did you know that in the real military officers can have a variety of uniforms for various occasions? And re: the red uniforms, I thought you were talking about the academy. What if they were all 'temporarily' commissioned in order to place them in the chain of command? Someone's probably already suggested this.

[Worlds Spanner]

On some thread or another someone remarked on the absurdity of the Kelvin and Enterprise both being able to use phasers to intercept missiles fired at other ships but not themselves. Obviously any way you slice it fine targeting is required (basically hitting a bullet with a bullet), but I wonder if this is indicative of slow(er) computer targeting: when a missile is closing directly on the ship the computer can't keep up.

[tim31]

Smacks of bullshit to me. Modern warships have dedicated direct and indirect fire systems to see off incoming ordinance at supersonic speeds using radar guidance. Surely Starfleet's point defence systems can do the same?

[Darwin]

Smacks of bullshit to me. Modern warships have dedicated direct and indirect fire systems to see off incoming ordinance at supersonic speeds using radar guidance. Surely Starfleet's point defence systems can do the same?

Could this be due to generationally more advanced directional jamming/ecm from the firing vessel or the missiles themselves?

[Samuel]

Smacks of bullshit to me. Modern warships have dedicated direct and indirect fire systems to see off incoming ordinance at supersonic speeds using radar guidance. Surely Starfleet's point defence systems can do the same?

Could this be due to generationally more advanced directional jamming/ecm from the firing vessel or the missiles themselves?

Mining vessel, remember? If there is one thing the Narada will not have, it is jamming.

[Questor]

My uncle entered the Royal Australian Navy as a Lieutenant Commander. He already had skills that allowed him direct entry as an officer, as long as he passed basic. In his case this is as a chaplain, but McCoy was already a physician/surgeon before joining Starfleet. While he had to go through the academy, his qualifications demanded the rank in active duty. A civilian doctor outranks nurses(even if they might know better), so too must a military doctor.

I didn't know that, I thought everyone started at the bottom of the food chain.

Did you know that in the real military officers can have a variety of uniforms for various occasions?

Yes, I did. I was under the impression that they all wore the same type of uniform at they same time. Pike wore the TMP style at the same time as Kirk was getting the medal from the admiral wearing the black uniform.

And re: the red uniforms, I thought you were talking about the academy. What if they were all 'temporarily' commissioned in order to place them in the chain of command? Someone's probably already suggested this.

I didn't know that was possible.

[Darth Wong]

On some thread or another someone remarked on the absurdity of the Kelvin and Enterprise both being able to use phasers to intercept missiles fired at other ships but not themselves. Obviously any way you slice it fine targeting is required (basically hitting a bullet with a bullet), but I wonder if this is indicative of slow(er) computer targeting: when a missile is closing directly on the ship the computer can't keep up.

Why would it be more difficult to track an incoming missile than one which is attempting to follow a third party which, itself, is conducting evasive maneuvers?

[Ryan Thunder]

On some thread or another someone remarked on the absurdity of the Kelvin and Enterprise both being able to use phasers to intercept missiles fired at other ships but not themselves. Obviously any way you slice it fine targeting is required (basically hitting a bullet with a bullet), but I wonder if this is indicative of slow(er) computer targeting: when a missile is closing directly on the ship the computer can't keep up.

Why would it be more difficult to track an incoming missile than one which is attempting to follow a third party which, itself, is conducting evasive maneuvers?

Those big green trails are alot easier to see if its moving laterally relative to you.

Perhaps their systems are reliant on exhaust emissions for detection? I know, its stupid, and it wouldn't work for external initial impulse projectiles without engines, but its a thought.

[erik_t]

If the Romulan torpedo-things are indeed mining systems, they may have shield-based rock penetration aids over the frontal arc that render them more resistant to counterbattery fire over said arc than from the side.

I admit it's a bit of a stretch, but it's better than assuming a target moving in one dimension is harder to hit than one moving in two or three dimensions.

[Lord Revan]

btw have you considered that the ships (the Kelvin and the Enterprise in this case) can put themselves closer to missiles when attacking warheads aimed at another ship since a miss won't mean impact to the shields/hull if you intercept the missiles far enough from their targets (aka when protecting another target they get more shots on the warheads).

[Worlds Spanner]

btw have you considered that the ships (the Kelvin and the Enterprise in this case) can put themselves closer to missiles when attacking warheads aimed at another ship since a miss won't mean impact to the shields/hull if you intercept the missiles far enough from their targets (aka when protecting another target they get more shots on the warheads).

If targeting was better at close range we would assume them to be able to hit the missiles before they *reached* the ship.

[Lord Revan]

btw have you considered that the ships (the Kelvin and the Enterprise in this case) can put themselves closer to missiles when attacking warheads aimed at another ship since a miss won't mean impact to the shields/hull if you intercept the missiles far enough from their targets (aka when protecting another target they get more shots on the warheads).

If targeting was better at close range we would assume them to be able to hit the missiles before they *reached* the ship.

well 60% chance of hitting the target is till better then 30% but both could let missles hit theirs target, after all the targeting system is probably not perfect.

most modern warships try to fire imcoming missles as far as possible from the ship due the fact that missile-countermessuares can fail (miss or hit poorly) so you get another shot (maybe with a different system) before the warhead hits your ship, I see no reason why federation ships would be different in this regard.

a single torpedo or phaser blast can be dangerous if it hits the wrong (or right depeding on your POV) so it's better to design the system so that it doesn't rely on everything working perfectly.

the question isn't if they can stop a missile (and I seem to remember that some warheads launched at the ships didn't make it due to the defenses) but stopping them all.

[Stark]

So you're saying it makes sense that Enterprise can wipe out a massive barrage in a few brief shots but allow a single hit to strike itself because of PROBABILITY? Get fucked. It casually shot the barrage out of the sky. Why couldn't it handle a much smaller attack? Kelvin was heavily damaged by the first shot, but was still able to cover the shuttle's escape - but she didn't fire at the shots until they'd been in flight for some time. Kelvin's weapons could reach Narada herself, and the defensive fire for the shuttles appeared to be at even longer range. Your explanation sucks and use the fucking shift key.

[tim31]

I also don't like the explanations of 'easier to shoot targets not heading heading straight for you.' If this is common knowledge to Starfleet crews, why the fuck didn't the fleet cover each other upon arrival at Vulcan?

I know it was dramatic for the Enterprise to arrive in a debris field but they could have had that and still had a pitched battle going, the balance of which Pike and Pals weren't able to tip.

[Aaron]

Then why was Uhura addressed as Lieutenant? It might make sense if there were no ensigns, but Checkov blows that theory out of the water.

*sigh* In some militaries you are granted your rank after you do Basic Officer Training, which can be at virtually any point between your signing up and graduating from your school.

Mining vessel, remember? If there is one thing the Narada will not have, it is jamming.

A jammer can be as simple as just pressing the PTT key on a radio and transmitting white noise. In fact any power source can be used as a jammer if you shove it close enough to what you want to jam. It doesn't break my SoD to believe that Nero's ship could have had something that could be used as a jammer, it would break it if the Big E couldn't have overcome or worked around it.

I didn't know that, I thought everyone started at the bottom of the food chain.

Like tim mentions, depending on the trade/education you can enter at a certain rank. MO's are automatically Captains (Army) while RN's are Lt's. They require the rank to do their job. Likewise if you enlist as an electrician and your already a Journeyman, you'll be a Cpl after basic.

I didn't know that was possible.

It's called a brevet promotion, in essence a temporary promotion that can be either revoked or confirmed at a later date. It was more common during the Victorian Era then it is now.