Khitomer Conspiracy Plot Hole

[JME2]

With the 20th anniversary of TUC coming up, the film's been on my mind -- as well as a plot hole that's been bugging me for a while.

As we know, the Khitomer Conspiracy's plan hinged on using the experimental BOP to frame Kirk for the attack on Kronos One. The hope was that it would derail the peace talks and resume business.

Now, there's a serious problem here.

Cartwright, West, and the others knew that Chang had developed a BOP that could fire while cloaked. This constitutes a serious threat to Federation security -- not to mention Romulan security. There would be nothing to stop Chang from getting trigger happy and targeting any number of vital targets -- or starting a mass-production of the line.

How exactly were they planning on dealing with this if the conspiracy succeeded?

[DatBurnTho11]

I don't understand how this is a plot hole.

Wasn't the idea of the conspiracy to derail the peace talks in the first place? From how I understood this, those involved in this conspiracy wanted the conflict between the Federation and Klingon Empire to continue. It would seem that once the peace talks had been sufficiently sabotaged, those involved would resume fighting. One side might have an experimental BoP, but the other side has an industrial advantage from not having been devastated by a subspace-wank explosion. Remember all the quotes in the beginning of the episode about the relative weakness of the Klingon empire. Besides that, this experimental BoP cloak didn't seem all that perfect (Spock designed the gas-tracking torpedo).

Anyway, from that same logic, wouldn't you say that the whole plan - to provoke a conflict between these two powerful militaries - poses a substantial risk to Federation security? I'd say it's obvious that their desire to keep fighting overwhelmed any qualms they had about compromised security.

Also, what would you have the Federation conspirators do? That BoP was very important for their plan. If they tried to destroy it or steal it from the Klingons - they would lose their special opportunity to frame Kirk.

The actions of the conspirators certainly aren't rational, but I'd say they make sense if you consider the powerful emotions a decades long conflict entails. So I'd say no plot hole - I really liked ST6

[Darth Fanboy]

Considering that it took Spock and McCoy not very long to improvise an effective counter I don't think this is something the Federation would have to worry about in a prolonged conflict. Especially given the advantages enjoyed after the Praxis explosion, and given that the cloaked BoP loses some of its advantages by virtue of the Federation knowing that such a weapon exists. We don't know how expensive the technology was to produce, or if there were any exotic or unique parts used either.

Hell, part of the conspiracy could have been elements within the Federation providing the technology to make such a weapon possible.

[VF5SS]

Yeah the special torpedo was one of the sillier things about the movie. Like hey, track an enemy by his exhaust! You just figured out 1950's missile technology! gj

Did they ever address why you can't do that post TOS or did they just forget about it?

[Iroscato]

Yeah the special torpedo was one of the sillier things about the movie. Like hey, track an enemy by his exhaust! You just figured out 1950's missile technology! gj

Did they ever address why you can't do that post TOS or did they just forget about it?

Ummm, weren't they still able to kind-of track BOPs when they were cloaked in TOS, so didn't need to use the exhaust-tracking method? I dunno, I don't really watch TOS much

[JME2]

The actions of the conspirators certainly aren't rational, but I'd say they make sense if you consider the powerful emotions a decades long conflict entails. So I'd say no plot hole - I really liked ST6

Fair enough.

Plot hole was the wrong choice of words. If anything, it's a brain bug.

[Uraniun235]

There would be nothing to stop Chang from getting trigger happy and targeting any number of vital targets -- or starting a mass-production of the line.

How exactly were they planning on dealing with this if the conspiracy succeeded?

With a single Bird of Prey... well, it's only got so many torpedoes. "Mass production" would still require substantial time to spin up, my impression of the era is that starships were still considered relatively slow to build.

The vibe I got was that the conspirators basically knew they were precipitating a 'final' Federation-Klingon war. The Klingons knew they would not be able to sustain an expansive military for very long in the immediate aftermath of Praxis, and Cartwright himself advocated bringing the Klingons "to their knees" and them dictating terms to them. What the conspirators shared in common was the conviction that neither side could ever trust the other, so better to end it now while each believed there might never be a better time.

So with that in mind, I suspect that if you'd asked Cartwright "what about the new Bird of Prey", he might have said "we'll just destroy all its resupply bases". Presumably the Federation conspirators had something of a General Buck Turgidson attitude going on.

Ummm, weren't they still able to kind-of track BOPs when they were cloaked in TOS, so didn't need to use the exhaust-tracking method? I dunno, I don't really watch TOS much

The Klingons weren't shown to use a cloak until Star Trek 3, and the Bird of Prey was even originally going to be a Romulan ship that had been hijacked by the Klingons. That said, TOS suggested a continuing escalation of technology; the original cloak in Balance of Terror was trackable by "motion sensor", but a couple of seasons later, the Federation sent Kirk into Romulan space to steal a new-model cloak which was able to utterly defeat Federation (and Romulan) sensors.

In TNG, aside from the oft-quoted tachyon net in Redemption pt2, we're told in Face of the Enemy that the Federation uses gravitic sensor nets along the Neutral Zone to detect cloaked ships, and that the Romulans consider it dangerously effective. We also learn in Tin Man that a Warbird running fast enough will render its cloak less effective.

[JME2]

The vibe I got was that the conspirators basically knew they were precipitating a 'final' Federation-Klingon war. The Klingons knew they would not be able to sustain an expansive military for very long in the immediate aftermath of Praxis, and Cartwright himself advocated bringing the Klingons "to their knees" and them dictating terms to them. What the conspirators shared in common was the conviction that neither side could ever trust the other, so better to end it now while each believed there might never be a better time.

So with that in mind, I suspect that if you'd asked Cartwright "what about the new Bird of Prey", he might have said "we'll just destroy all its resupply bases". Presumably the Federation conspirators had something of a General Buck Turgidson attitude going on.

That works for me; good thought.

In TNG, aside from the oft-quoted tachyon net in Redemption pt2, we're told in Face of the Enemy that the Federation uses gravitic sensor nets along the Neutral Zone to detect cloaked ships, and that the Romulans consider it dangerously effective. We also learn in Tin Man that a Warbird running fast enough will render its cloak less effective.

I would still love to see the Novel-verse tackle the issue of where the hell Shinzon got his cloak from.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Perhaps the Klingons having this super-BOP was part of the long-term plan. That way, not only can you fuck up the peace talks and get frame Kirk, you also have a dangerous enemy weapons system for propoganda purposes.

"Oh noes! We're heading for a war and the enemy have at least one ship that can fire while cloaked. We've got to go all-out and take them down before those BOP's do too much damage."

Also, if they wanted a war, why frame Kirk? He was one of their best officers, and had plenty of experience fighting Klingons. Unless of course they wanted to get rid of Spock instead (as he was advocating peace), but Kirk fucked things over by going aboard Kronos 1 himself.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Shit doublepost. Mods, please delete.

[DatBurnTho11]

Also, if they wanted a war, why frame Kirk? He was one of their best officers, and had plenty of experience fighting Klingons. Unless of course they wanted to get rid of Spock instead (as he was advocating peace), but Kirk fucked things over by going aboard Kronos 1 himself.

I'd guess that it would be more believable to the Klingons if Kirk was involved in such an attack because of his prior history with Klingons. Remember that the evidence presented in the court scene largely focused on Kirk's unique prejudice against the Klingons.

Also, having the Federations finest officer decide to go on the offensive might be a more powerful rallying cry to Federation citizens / officers rather than some random officer that might just be considered a lone nut.

Also note, that the movie repeatedly claimed the Federation would have no problem wiping out the Klingon Empire in its weakened state. Losing Kirk would likely not affect the outcome of the war.

[Metahive]

How exactly were they planning on dealing with this if the conspiracy succeeded?

Wasn't it that Praxis' destruction greatly curtailed the industrial output of the klingon economy? Spock does say something about Praxis being responsible for 80% of klingon energy production and the sorry state of the klingon economy in the beginning of TUC IIRC. In this case mass-production or retrofitting of BOP+'s would have been a negligible threat as opposed to a bumrush of the rest of the klingon military.

[StarSword]

In TNG, aside from the oft-quoted tachyon net in Redemption pt2, we're told in Face of the Enemy that the Federation uses gravitic sensor nets along the Neutral Zone to detect cloaked ships, and that the Romulans consider it dangerously effective.

It would be TNG where the Feddies figure out the single sure-fire way to pick up a cloaked ship: its mass signature. Even with a perfect cloak (a la the wanked-out Reman warbird of Nemesis), a cloaked vessel is still physically present.

[StarSword]

That won't necessarily work because a cloaked ship might be in some other dimension (subspace) or use techniques to hide the gravity - either technobabble, or hiding out the little force on the sensor.

Uh, I don't understand the last part of that post ("hiding out the little force on the sensor"). What were you trying to say?

Phase cloaks might be able to hide from a mass detector, but I doubt they'd make the ship completely undetectable to such a sensor since the ship is only partly out of phase. The incident where a Romulan phase cloak made Geordi and Ro Laren invisible comes to mind. Sure, they couldn't be seen, but they could see, objects such as the Enterprise's floor still affected them, and they didn't suffocate.

So, my bet is, the effect of a phase cloak on a mass detector would be similar to modern-day stealth technology against radar: it would minimize the signature to the point where it can be mistaken for a glitch in the hardware or a piece of debris. A non-phasing cloak (I believe the Klingon variant is such, but I could be wrong) would have absolutely no effect on a mass detector.

The idea of using a mass detector to reveal cloaked ships isn't one I came up with on my own, by the way. I got it from the SW EU: the crystal gravfield trap, or CGT array, is exactly such a device.

[DatBurnTho11]

I dunno - this whole area with mass becomes kind of fuzzy in Star Trek once you bring in fictional concepts like "subspace" and "mass-lightening fields". It's really hard to gauge what capacities Star Trek races may have in terms of throwing off gravitational sensors...

[Darth Fanboy]

That won't necessarily work because a cloaked ship might be in some other dimension (subspace) or use techniques to hide the gravity - either technobabble, or hiding out the little force on the sensor.

The gravity of a ship would be ridiculously small, so it's hard to see in the first place, and if you throw in noise forces it can make getting a solid confirmaton very difficult.

I don't know how likely that is given the way the BoP landed and left an imprint in ST IV. Am I mistaken?

[Multiverse]

I haven't seen TUC in a while but I really enjoyed the movie. I remember a line where Kirk says something like "Let them die" in relation to the Klingons. This attitude seems overly callous for a society supposedly committed to peaceful coexistence among diverse species. To a certain extent the problem is not limited to TUC. Star Trek has a bit of a history of "looking for" the next "evil" alien race be it the Klingons, Ferengi, Borg, Dominion, or Q Continuum. Of course, my take on TUC is biased a bit by my ideas of what I would do if I had control over the Star Trek franchise.

[DatBurnTho11]

I don't know if that necessarily disproves it Fanboy.

It's possible that the BoP has subspace technology that it can use to lower it's mass signature or scramble it in some way. In ST4, the crew likely didn't have these jamming features activated as it was not necessary.

[Stofsk]

I haven't seen TUC in a while but I really enjoyed the movie. I remember a line where Kirk says something like "Let them die" in relation to the Klingons. This attitude seems overly callous for a society supposedly committed to peaceful coexistence among diverse species.

Yeah but the klingons aren't nice people, and Kirk has a personal grudge against them. In any case, it's an important part of his character arc to go from that at the start of the film, to where he ends up at the end.

TUC was good because it showed that the Federation and Starfleet weren't the paragons of virtue they often claim to be. Guys like Kirk are only human, but he realises it in time and overcomes his callousness or vindictiveness and becomes the better man for it. That's pretty much the essence of Star Trek in my opinion.

[Batman]

Gravity is great, I mean think about what the universe would be like without it

For detecting things, at least below the asteroid mass threshold (low end)/ barring technobabble systems that completely ignore how gravity actually works, it's the next best thing to useless. Compared to celestial objects, starships (at least on the Trek level) weigh nothing.
Their mass is going to be completely drowned out by the background gravity. You filter that out, chances are you're filtering out the ship as well.
But assuming you somehow manage to do that. You now know that some time in the past, at some unknown point along that axis, there was a ship. Gravitons travel at c and unless you have a way to tell how far they've come, you have no idea how old they are and consequently, how far they've traveled. Even if we still presume you can filter out the gravity of a (at worst) multimillion ton ship (and did the prints the Bounty left in the park look like a multimillion ton ship to you? ) against things like stars, planets and the like, directly between you and which the ship conveniently happened to be parked you now know that, along that trajectory, during the time it would take light to travel from the backdrop you miraculously managed to filter out to you, there once was a cloaked ship. Unless they patiently sat there to be found or the distance is ridiculously short that information isn't worth bantha poodoo. Even if they []did[/i] sit still you'd likely have to triangulate from several positions to get a real fix.

If you ask me, stick with the tachyon grid.

[aussiemuscle308]

So do they ever explain how they (cloaked ships) can get momentum without actually emitting anything? RCS works by expelling gas to create an opposite force to move the ship?

[StarSword]

@D13 re: mass-based detection of cloaked ships: Can't argue with most of it (and based on The Last Command, an reasonable estimate for the lower limit for CGT array's detection range is orbital distances of an Earth-like planet), but I'm not sure about this bit:

e) Any magnetic fields nearby would have a much huger effect than gravity. Detecting a cloaked ship by magnets is also much better than gravity for this reason.

Unless I'm missing something, this would only work if the ship is made of magnetic materials.