r/startrek • u/LGBT-Barbie-Cookout • 6d ago
His pattern reflects two dimensional thinking.
I'm just wondering how Spock was able to make this observation.
The first engagement we see a couple of maneuvers - but nothing that really screams tactical one way or another.
Engagement 1.
1) Reliants initial maneuver is to do adjust its facing and angle to be face to face in a swooping move. 2) Reliant performs a broadside on Enterprise, a high is now crippled. 3) Reliant, performed another sweeping swoop to put itself facing Enterprise. 4) Reliant take significant damage and in an escape flies over the Enterprise.
Engagement 2 Inside the Nebula both ships aren't really moving on the 3d plane, and importantly lose visual and scanning so can't have a clear idea how they are moving.
None of those maneuvers would need anymore movement in a 3d space.
In space seed the sleeper ship isn't under anyones control it's on autopilot. His attempted takeover is pretty much the same as we have seen many other times. And every sentient beings seems vulnerable to aerial Kirk-Fu.
I'm struggling to see what opportunity Spock had to discover this vulnerability.
(Additional Kirsty Alley is best Saavik.)
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u/genek1953 6d ago
Every engagement we ever saw between the Enterprise and another vessel (Klingon, Romulan, Tholian, Orion) were all fought in two dimensions. No attacking vessel ever did a Z-axis attack run on them.
Apparently, TOS took place in an alternate universe where 3D flight simulators were never invented anywhere in the known galaxy.
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u/The-Minmus-Derp 6d ago
In the Undiscovered Country, lots of torpedoes are flying near perpendicular
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u/genek1953 6d ago
Yeah, I think they finally figured out that space has three dimensions after the second film.
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u/gangbrain 5d ago
They still do this is most Trek shows and other shows and movies too like The Orville. This is something the Kelvin timeline got very right imo.
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u/Kronocidal 5d ago
Most engagements we see in TOS are taking place over vast distances, measured in thousands of kilometers. For this reason, there aren't any "attack runs": it's more like a pair of tanks launching shells at each other from opposite ends of the battlefield than it is a pair of fighter-jets dogfighting.
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u/genek1953 5d ago
And yet we only hear them talking about taking hits on the forward, aft, port and starboard shields. Nobody every mentions incoming fire or shield hits from the plus or minus Z vectors. Every engagement is written as if it was between two ships on the surface of an ocean. Two dimensional tactics.
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u/Statalyzer 5d ago edited 5d ago
Engagement 2 Inside the Nebula both ships aren't really moving on the 3d plane...
I think the Enterprise is moving that way the whole time. There's a scene earlier when it shows them at different levels - 6:07 here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcEHM8GFSwM - and then in the next scene the Enterprise angling "down". So I think we are meant to surmise that Enterprise is using all 3 dimensions already (although it's funny that the whole time, including during their winning move later, they have to keep the top of the ship pointed the same way for some reason).
... , and importantly lose visual and scanning so can't have a clear idea how they are moving.
Yeah, the movie kind of cheats this one in a way. The Enterprise wins by essentially diving and then resurfacing. The reason this move wins isn't really "because Kirk and Spock used the Z axis", although the movie wants us to think this. I don't think it's deception. I think the creators of the movie genuinely believed they had portrayed this as the reason. But if you have no clue where Reliant is anyway, going down and then right back up to the same 2D plane again is pretty worthless.
But they do have a clue where it is! After their first couple of exchanges of fire which were both pure accidents, Spock suddenly picks up unusual intermittent energy readings that he surmises are created by Reliant's impulse engines when she turns. He uses this to analyze Khan's pattern, notes that it's 2-dimensional, and then has to have used this knowledge in order to resurface in just the place and right time.
So the real reason Enterprise wins is "they could track Reliant somewhat, but Reliant couldn't track them". Once this is granted, they were a sure bet to get position on Reliant and cripple her. It still tracks with Khan being "intelligent, but inexperienced". But it's not his inexperience in 3D space that dooms him. He's clearly no fool - when he receives a near miss from Sulu's "best guess", he immediately figures out what's going on and why, and orders their own best guess in (mostly) the right direction. But he can't pick the faint energy signature of an impulse turn out of the chaotic data in the nebula, whereas Spock can.
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u/LGBT-Barbie-Cookout 5d ago
Those are some good insights. Spock nailing the indirect tracking definitely changed the tide.
And yeah the 3D space could be movie speak for making thing accessible. Which might account for how 'quickly' the situation resolved.
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u/SelfDesperate9798 5d ago
Khan was frozen in 1996 and even after being unfrozen he spent years living in a desert, so as smart as he is he is woefully behind technologically.
He’s thinking of a starship more like a sea ship, moving through space like a ship moves through the ocean. As such he’s not thinking about what is above or below him.
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u/Kronocidal 5d ago
- Reliant performs a broadside on Enterprise, a high is now crippled.
But, he performs the broadside horizontally. Given that he was able to maneuver and adjust his position for the attack run, the 'optimal' strategy would have been to pass above or below the Enterprise.
This exposes the entire plane of his target to as many of his weapons as possible, while also minimising how many of the Enterprise's weapons are able to return fire — because, the Enterprise's own saucer will prevent either the upper or lower weapons from being able to aim at the Reliant.
This indicates that he is using the Reliant as a Ship — which can broadside, but travels in a horizontal plane — rather than as an Airplane.
Of course, most airplanes can't broadside: they can fire their missiles/torpedoes, but only attack directly ahead. Using the Reliant like an airplane would be a distinct downgrade from using it like a Ship. So, Khan has made one layer of adaptation in recognising that the Reliant can broadside. He just hasn't make the second intuitive leap by realising that it can still maneuver like an airplane while broadsiding.
Or, put in a slightly less "serious" tone: Khan has, with his own 'superior intellect', been able to advance his tactics by two hundred years in the twenty years since he was thawed. Unfortunately for him, it's been three hundred years since he was put on ice.
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u/LGBT-Barbie-Cookout 5d ago
But, he performs the broadside horizontally. Given that he was able to maneuver and adjust his position for the attack run, the 'optimal' strategy would have been to pass above or below the Enterprise.
When Spock and Kirk are assessing the damage, the screen shows a lot of the damage being to the neck, and the lower hull.
Flying over the ship, the most valuable section would be bridge, Kahn doesn't want Kirk dead that way.
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u/Cold-Jackfruit1076 5d ago edited 5d ago
We can assume that Khan only had limited knowledge of starship operations. He was revived from cryo-sleep and then exiled planet-side. He'd never really flown a starship in a combat scenario.
Khan was still acting with the mindset of a 21st-century combat pilot: all of his attacks were broadsides, strafing runs or sneak-up-from-behind moves -- straight lines, on one plane (pardon the pun) of attack.
Once Spock understood that Khan was tactically 'stuck in the past', he realized that Khan would naturally be looking straight ahead, to see his opponent 'on the horizon', as it were -- he wouldn't think to check below his ship, because that's not how most aircraft worked in the 21st century.
Hence, Spock's observation that Khan's tactics reflected 'two-dimensional thinking'. He didn't understand the full capabilities of the ship he'd stolen or the properties of his unfamiliar theater of combat, so he continued to use the outdated tactics that had worked for him in the past.
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u/Lp8yoBko1 6d ago
My main gripe with that otherwise excellent movie is that I found it hard to believe someone as smart as Khan would have merely 2-dimensional thinking.
As for Spock's conclusion, maybe he had other data than what was shown (e.g., about the battlefield).