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Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Now we all know how Spock figures out that there's a Klingon BoP that's capable of firing while cloaked. But I'll repeat it anyway.

Someone fired on the Klingons.
The Enterprise did not fire on the Klingons.
The Klingons did not fire on themselves.
Therefore, a third ship must have fired on the Klingons.
No third ship was detected.
Thus, an undetected third ship fired on the Klingons.
Thus, a ship that can fire while cloaked.

Brilliant deduction, and a good job on the part of the writer to set that up. But here's my question: why did Spock automatically assume that it was a KLINGON ship? I probably would have guessed that the Romulans were up to something. Perhaps there was something going on with the Rommies that we've never heard about?

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Fraser: They were all wearing new boots, they were driving a Jeep Wrangler, and they carried big guns.
Pilot: Americans it is.
- "due South"

Posted by Teelie (Member # 280) on :

Good question. The Rommies would benefit as much as anyone else from a war between the Feds and Klingons.
My only guess is Spock was talking with the Romulans even then and knew they weren't plotting anything. Hard to believe that though.

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Where's the bathroom on this ship?

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Perhaps, for some reason, the Romulans were not using cloaks at that time. Some sort of treaty, or something. Which isn't to say they mightn't do it anyway, but Spock still would have immediately guessed Klingons, since they would be the only power using cloaks at the time, to his knowledge.

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-Yasir Arafat on religious wars

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

For that matter, why did not Spock assume one of three choices?

a) Klingons
b) Romulans
c) Federation

Of course, it does make logical sense for Spock to assume the Klingons above the other two options: he'd been in contact with the Chancellor, and the Chancellor probably kept him informed on the backlash to the proposed peace treaty ... so it would sorta make sense he might think Klingons right off the bat ...

Or at least, enough to make them the prime suspect among the possible alternatives.

Another possibility: the Enterprise and Quo'nos 1's rendezvous point was kept very secret, and was in fact coordinated between the two ships, so NO ONE else knew where they would be meeting ... and that would cut the Rommies right out of the equation.

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Another possibility: Spock used the information he had gained from sensor readings and viewscreen replay hints to determine that the attack matched the known "tech parameters" of a Klingon BoP. For all we know, the neutrino surge was something only Klingon ships of BoP class would display when cloaked. Romulan ships would leak myons, and Fed cloaks based on Romulan hardware would do the same.

What was clear was that there was a cloaked ship doing the firing. Also, 1) the ship was firing Federation torpedoes and 2) it was obviously the source of the leaking neutrinos. The first fact wouldn't rule out anybody, since of course Klingons and Romulans would have a reason to imitate Fed torps. The second fact could be the decisive one.

Also possibly 3) the ship *wasn't* detected by sensor X or scanner Y, ruling out certain larger or "noisier" ship types like Klingon battlecruisers or heavy dreadnoughts. Thus, the direct leap to Klingon BoP specifically.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

The cloaked BoP fired fed-torps on Kronos, but then fired green torps in the end of the movie, right? Kinda cool, with the launcher being modifiable...

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Actually I think at the time the Romulans and the Federation were friendly... Ambassador Nunclus... I'm sure they were Romulans in the Council Chambers in Star Trek: IV - they were the Women who looked like Vulcan's but who nodded when the Klingon Ambassador demanded that Kirk be properly dealt with. They - I assume weren't Vulcan ambassadors, since that was Sarek's job.

Andrew

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"I threw bitter tears at the ocean
But all that came back was the tide..." 'I Will Not Forget You' Sarah McLachlan

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Er, wasn't Ambassador Nuclus (or whatever) in on the conspiracy? If he was, I'm betting other Romulans were, and that it wouldn't have been that hard to get a cloaked Romulan Bird of Prey out there.

About the larger ships: at that point in the Trek timeline, the only ships that had ever cloaked had been the Birds of Prey (Klingon and Romulan). I'd bet that the larger Klingon Cruisers couldn't cloak, or at least couldn't cload as of TMP, otherwise they'd have used it to escape V'ger.

Y'know, maybe if the Enterprise and Kronos 1 had actually been warping to Earth, instead of crawling there on Impulse, the BOP wouldn't have got off such as easy shot...

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Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :

Did the Rommies have warp capability at the time? TOS said that they had sublight ships, so assuming that they have very limited warp capability, it would have been very difficult to intercept the two ships at the right time. Except when they were at impulse.

Also, be reminded that it was Valeris that suggested that it was a Klingon BOP. And Valeris was also a traitor.

Liam: The TNG tech manual states that the Enterprise-D can be pulled from warp for any reason whatsoever. Translation, ships are at warp only when they need to, to conserve fuel and stuff. That may have been the thing with the Enterprise-A and Kronos 1. After all, they warped to the rendezvous point.

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Psychiatrist: "Again."

[This message has been edited by Tahna Los (edited October 26, 2000).]

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Well, saving fuel is kinda pointless when it's gonna take you a few centuries to get where you're goin' otherwise.

Valeris didn't actually say that it was a Klingon ship. She said "A bird-of-prey." Rommies have those, too. IIRC, everyone just automatically assumed that it was a Klingon BoP. "Why would they assasinate their own chancellor," and such.

Posted by Teelie (Member # 280) on :

The secret wasn't all that secret. I can see the Romulans getting a spy there, afterall that is what happened partly.

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Where's the bathroom on this ship?

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Maybe, at this time, transporting at warp speeds wasn't possible yet, or still wasn't very "safe", so the two ships were at impulse while the Klingon staff dined on the Enterprise?

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Transporting at warp speeds isn't portrayed as a very smart idea in "modern" times either.

I'd agree with the suggestion that the assumption was that no one but the Klingons and the Federation would know the location of the meeting. Now, we later learn that elements of the Romulan Empire were in on it too, but no one knew that at the time.

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love's function is to fabricate unknownnness
--
E. E. Cummings
****
Read chapter one of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet"! And party everyday.

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

A couple of ocmments.

From the tech point of view, big ships *were* known to have a cloaking capability at that date. After all, we saw the Klingon/Romulan battlecruisers cloak in TOS "The Enterprise Incident". So if Spock/Chekov could immediately deduce that it was not just a Klingon ship, but a Klingon *BoP* specifically, then there's good reason to believe that they reached this conclusion based on "tech evidence" (e.g. what the cloakship was emitting and what it wasn't, and what weapons it used, etc.). So first they would deduce that it was a BoP, and only then they would go "Of course, this means that the assassins must be Klingons".

From the political point of view, Romulans were quite obviously buddy-buddy with the Feds at this time. Still, this shouldn't have stopped Spock from holding them as the prime suspects, since the crime was obviously aimed at igniting a Fed-Klingon war and Romulans would be the ones to benefit from that.

So apparently, there was another, stronger reason to suspect the Klingons themselves. Whether it was this tech thing (that is, the crew could immediately identify the assailant as a Klingon BoP because of some tech telltales) or perhaps inside info (e.g. Gorkon had told Spock that an assassination attempt by his kinsmen was imminent) or something else... I vote for the tech evidence theory.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

Excuse me, but the conclusion was that it was a Bird of Prey, right? I cannot remember that there was said that it was a Klingon BoP, just a Bop. Don't the Romulans have BoP's as well?

Also, I still believe BoP is a general name for a small scout/attack ship with a cloak.

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Giles: "I was beginning to suspect that was a myth."
- Buffy: The Vampire Slayer

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Uh, a good point. The assassins weren't specified as Klingons immediately, just as "BoP operators". The deductive leap to them being Klingons followed pretty soon thereafter, though.

Then again, Romulans do NOT have a Bird of Prey in the canonical universe. In TOS, they had ships with birds of prey painted on them, but the ships themselves were never referred to as Birds of Prey in the two relevant episodes ("Balance of Terror" and "The Deadly Years"). And the TNG vessels are known as Warbirds. In contrast, the Klingon ship was explicitly called a BoP when introduced. So perhaps saying "BoP" is identical with saying "Klingon small cloakship" after all?

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Or not so small, since the K'Vort is a BoP, too...

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

Let's keep THAT genie in its bottle for now, shall we?

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

"Canon to the right of them, canon to the left of them, canon in front of them volleyed and thundered."
- me

(Note: There are no spelling errors in the above quote)

Posted by Soontir_Fel on :

Isn't most of that quote from Bashir and O'Brien from a Season 7 DS9 episode?

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Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

You're new around here, aren't you?

It's a joke. CERTAIN people, who shall remain nameless, are obsessed with canon, that being those things which are considered "real" in the Trek universe. The quote (which is from "The Charge of the Light Brigade", in case you're wondering) was a reference to the Crimean war. Your mistake is to confuse "canon" the adjective with "cannon" the noun, which is a weapon.

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Am I the only one who thinks that the idea of the Romulans not having warp drive in TOS is 100% stupid?

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Didn't we have a thread about that a while back? I think we decided that they did...

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

The Romulans might have been using a different type of FTL drive - not Warp...

Andrew

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"I threw bitter tears at the ocean
But all that came back was the tide..." 'I Will Not Forget You' Sarah McLachlan

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

There was a thread about it? Okay, I won't bother starting another one then.

But what was the outcome? Did everyone think that they must have had warp (or some form of FTL drive), or that they must have just spent years travelling place to place, going "boo", and then spent years getting back?

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

I think we decided that they had to have warp, but just ran it off an inefficient power source.

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Like porridge?

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

You know, I always thought porridge tasted like jet fuel ...

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Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

That's because your taste-buds have been destroyed from drinking jet fuel, obviously.

Posted by Dukhat (Member # 341) on :

There was a novel way back when which stated that the Romulan "birds of prey" were not equipped with warp drive, but were shuttled from place to place aboard a larger carrier that was. (Yes, I know it's non-canon)

The 'pedia also mentions in the DS9 ep "Homefront" that the Romulan wars reached Earth, sorta like the Earth-Minbari War. First of all, I don't remember anyone in the show ever making that statement, and if the ships didn't have warp drive, then it would have been impossible anyway.

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

The "Homefront" mention was in regards to Earth not having been at such a state of emergency since the Romulan War. Whether or not it was attacked directly wasn't addressed, but obviously they thought the risk was there.

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love's function is to fabricate unknownnness
--
E. E. Cummings
****
Read chapter one of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet"! And party everyday.

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

OTOH, the Romulan war was probably the last time there had been a need to get the homefront to prepare for a war effort. The Borg and V'Ger and Whale Probe incursions were all so sudden and short that there *was* no homefront in these conflicts, even if they happened on Earth's backyard. The Klingon crisis in turn seemed to consist of minor clashes up until "Errand of Mercy", again something for which a homefron would not be established. And the Cardassian wars seemed to fall right into the same category. O'Brien spoke of them as "border wars", and people didn't seem to acknowledge them at all in early TNG even though a state of war apprently still existed until "The Wounded"!

So even if the Romulan conflict was fought far, far away from Earth (and *especially* if it was fought far away), a homefront would have been formed, supporting a lengthy war effort. This might be a rather unique occurrence in Federation history.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

Of course, that the Earth was a 'stand alone' planet since the Federation hadn't been formed or had just been in its infancy...

Andrew

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"I threw bitter tears at the ocean
But all that came back was the tide..." 'I Will Not Forget You' Sarah McLachlan

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Actually, the Cardassian "war" ended a year before "The Wounded", if I recall my dialogue correctly.

Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :

Another deduction:

Chekhov: "If there was another vessel, surely the attackers beamed aboard that vessel, not Enterprise."

Spock: "You are forgetting something, Chekhov. According to this log, this ship fired two torpedoes. If we did, then the assassins are here. If we did not, then whoever altered the databanks are here. That means whoever we are looking for is here."

Fine, but there exists a distinct possibility that there was one person responsible for altering the databanks, and the assassins could STILL board Kronos one from that BoP.

Comments?

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"My Name is Elmer Fudd, Millionaire. I own a Mansion and a Yacht."
Psychiatrist: "Again."

Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :

Chekov.

Ok, ok ... the assassins could have been aboard the BOP, and transporter aboard from the BOP, while it would only take one person aboard the ENTERPRISE to change the records ...

Well, Spock is still correct, there is still a member of the conspiracy aboard.

Why didn't the Conspiracy consider this and get two of the photon torpedoes off of the Enterprise? This way, a physical count would confirm what the computer was saying. Hell, why not just get someone to the torpedo room and fire two of the suckers off?!?!?!

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"Count yourself lucky." -- Connor

Highlander: The Element of Fire

Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :

I guess somebody did a little calculation:

X=the number of people who would smell a rat when Valeris expertly tampers with the computers
Y=the number of people who would ask awkward questions when Burke and Samno drag two photon torpedoes up the corridors to the transporter room
Z=the number of people finding something unusual in Burke, Samno or Valeris suddenly pressing the buttons that send a live torpedo or two towards the Klingons

X << Y < Z

=> go with X, so you have to eliminate fewer witnesses

What the conspirers really should have done would have been to tamper with Scotty's computer, the one that initially suggested the ship was still fully loaded. Then nobody would have gotten the crazy idea to manually count the remaining torpedoes. Clearly, Valeris wasn't quite the computer wizard she thought she was.

Timo Saloniemi

Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :

Perhaps the Torpedo room is under high security at all times. Along with the computer that makes the counts. Unfortunately, Burke and Samno were not security guards........

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"My Name is Elmer Fudd, Millionaire. I own a Mansion and a Yacht."
Psychiatrist: "Again."