The Hunt for Red October

[Meste17]

So I am watching The Hunt For Red October, with Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin. VERY interesting movie. Which makes me wonder how things would have played out in the Star Trek universe if this movie took place during then. I mean the Klingons have been, in Star Trek VI, compared to the USSR, with the Federation in the role of the United States. Maybe a new type of Klingon warship that has its captain defect to the Federation Starfleet?

[Graham Kennedy]

Hmmm, interesting idea!

A lot of it would translate quite easily. The big question would be how to make your Klingon ship an equivalent of the Red October.

The most obvious parallel of the caterpillar drive would be a cloaking device... but those have been used all over the place in Trek.

So maybe a new type of cloak? Like the Klingons have a new super powerful ship with a fully working phase cloak? Or something even better?

Be hard to picture a bunch of Klingon officers who want to defect to the Federation, though.

[Meste17]

Hmmm, interesting idea!

A lot of it would translate quite easily. The big question would be how to make your Klingon ship an equivalent of the Red October.

The most obvious parallel of the caterpillar drive would be a cloaking device... but those have been used all over the place in Trek.

So maybe a new type of cloak? Like the Klingons have a new super powerful ship with a fully working phase cloak? Or something even better?

Be hard to picture a bunch of Klingon officers who want to defect to the Federation, though.

Omg thank you! I think so too! Well maybe a phase cloak then? Like the one on the starship Pegasus, but more stable and totally reliable.

OOOH! Actually, what about a cloak like the Scimitar from Star Trek Nemesis?!

Well THAT last part I agree with you. So you got me there. Well, I had an idea. Maybe a Klingon, who, like Marko Ramius, would be disillusioned with the Klingons' idea of sneaking around like the Red October, so he selects a good portion of his own crew, like Ramius, and he defects to prevent a war between the Klingons and the Federation.

[Meste17]

Maybe it actually be the new prototype of the K'Tinga class? The Red October WAS a new variant, just on her first mission.

[Graham Kennedy]

Here's a thought.

Ra'mius (heh) is a noble warrior Klingon, one who believes in true honour - kind of like Worf. He's utterly disgusted with the modern trend of sneaky Klingon houses who talk the talk when it comes to honour, but are sneaky and underhand. Enterprise pretty much did the kind of thing I'm talking about with Judgment and Archer's lawyer.

He's kept quiet this long, but then his wife dies. The movie skipped it, but in the book Ramius's wife died because she was given medicine that was fake - because the Soviet system couldn't produce decent pharmaceuticals. It wasn't an accident but a systemic failure that proved to him that the whole Soviet model wasn't working and could no longer be supported. Make Ra'mius's wife's death a similar thing. Say she's killed by some Klingon who was too important to punish because he's the brother of Duras or something.

Ra'mius has a core of officers loyal to him, who agree to defect. They don't care for the Federation as such, they just want to deal the worst blow they can to the Klingons.

That could work.

[Meste17]

Here's a thought.

Ra'mius (heh) is a noble warrior Klingon, one who believes in true honour - kind of like Worf. He's utterly disgusted with the modern trend of sneaky Klingon houses who talk the talk when it comes to honour, but are sneaky and underhand. Enterprise pretty much did the kind of thing I'm talking about with Judgment and Archer's lawyer.

He's kept quiet this long, but then his wife dies. The movie skipped it, but in the book Ramius's wife died because she was given medicine that was fake - because the Soviet system couldn't produce decent pharmaceuticals. It wasn't an accident but a systemic failure that proved to him that the whole Soviet model wasn't working and could no longer be supported. Make Ra'mius's wife's death a similar thing. Say she's killed by some Klingon who was too important to punish because he's the brother of Duras or something.

Ra'mius has a core of officers loyal to him, who agree to defect. They don't care for the Federation as such, they just want to deal the worst blow they can to the Klingons.

That could work.

Omg YES! THANK YOU! I so totally agree! And, as a result, they take the new prototype, the IKC K't'inga (or IKV K'Tinga, however you want to think of it as), and its new phase cloak, and they bring it to the Federation because to quote Ra'mius (which I found hilarious btw lol), "there are those on the Klingon High Council who believe that we should attack the Federation first, settle everything in one moment. K't'inga was built for that purpose."

[Meste17]

I actually thought of an actual name, the Klingon twins Klosi and Krosi (Krosi commands the K't'inga ).

[Graham Kennedy]

If you want it to be the K'T'Inga then you'd have to set it shortly before The Motion Picture.

Here's a fun thought. Make the Enterprise the USS Dallas equivalent, and then in the battle with the Alpha class equivalent at the end, have the Enterprise badly damaged. Right?

Then your movie ends with "Well Kirk, you brought the defecting ship back safely. Wonderful job! You are promoted to Admiral! And now, the Enterprise is going to need a HUGE refit to repair all this damage..."

[Meste17]

If you want it to be the K'T'Inga then you'd have to set it shortly before The Motion Picture.

Here's a fun thought. Make the Enterprise the USS Dallas equivalent, and then in the battle with the Alpha class equivalent at the end, have the Enterprise badly damaged. Right?

Then your movie ends with "Well Kirk, you brought the defecting ship back safely. Wonderful job! You are promoted to Admiral! And now, the Enterprise is going to need a HUGE refit to repair all this damage..."

Omg YES! I love that idea! And thus, they decide that the Enterprise is the perfect candidate for the refit process because of what she's done!

[Bryan Moore]

Well done, Graham. You'll be promoted to Site Admin in no time!

[Bryan Moore]

I would actually think a defection of this sort would be quite easy in the 24th century. The sheer vastness of space would likely mean that a ship could probably out of reach for days or weeks, depending on the mission, and not be reported missing as such for quite some time. Even if Commander K'wiki'MarT told the high command about his intended defection, the expanse of space would probably make it infinitely easier to hide. Forget finding a submarine in the Atlantic, the size of the galaxy would be more like trying to find a cloaked grain of sand in the Atlantic.

Even without directly trying to mirror Red October's plot, I would be shocked if defections weren't something that didn't happen quite regularly, especially in smaller scout craft.

[Graham Kennedy]

Here's another thought. TMP is about when the smooth headed TOS version of the Klingons vanished and the bumps foreheads returned.

So one reason Ra'mius and his men might hate Klingons could be that they are bumpy head types, and are fed up of those sneaky smooth head types being all dishonourable. Then you say it was the humiliation of the smooth heads that led to the downfall of their government and the bumpy head Klingons returning to power.

[Meste17]

Here's another thought. TMP is about when the smooth headed TOS version of the Klingons vanished and the bumps foreheads returned.

So one reason Ra'mius and his men might hate Klingons could be that they are bumpy head types, and are fed up of those sneaky smooth head types being all dishonourable. Then you say it was the humiliation of the smooth heads that led to the downfall of their government and the bumpy head Klingons returning to power.

Oooh I like that idea. It makes sense, is planned out, and there's actual motive in it.

[Meste17]

I would actually think a defection of this sort would be quite easy in the 24th century. The sheer vastness of space would likely mean that a ship could probably out of reach for days or weeks, depending on the mission, and not be reported missing as such for quite some time. Even if Commander K'wiki'MarT told the high command about his intended defection, the expanse of space would probably make it infinitely easier to hide. Forget finding a submarine in the Atlantic, the size of the galaxy would be more like trying to find a cloaked grain of sand in the Atlantic.

Even without directly trying to mirror Red October's plot, I would be shocked if defections weren't something that didn't happen quite regularly, especially in smaller scout craft.

True, but several things to make note of: 1. The Romulans have done that multiple times in the 24th century, sans the TNG episodes. 2. Since the Klingons were, except for a brief time, Federation allies during that period, I would find it likely hard to believe that a bunch of Klingons would take a ship and head straight for Federation space because of their efforts to prevent a war.

[Graham Kennedy]

I would actually think a defection of this sort would be quite easy in the 24th century. The sheer vastness of space would likely mean that a ship could probably out of reach for days or weeks, depending on the mission, and not be reported missing as such for quite some time. Even if Commander K'wiki'MarT told the high command about his intended defection, the expanse of space would probably make it infinitely easier to hide.

As you say, Ra'mius actually sends a message to Fleet Command informing them of his intention. So they know his plan. Plus, they know where he started from, and roughly where he's going.

Forget finding a submarine in the Atlantic, the size of the galaxy would be more like trying to find a cloaked grain of sand in the Atlantic.

Sure, but their sensors are capable of finding ships at far longer ranges than our sonars are, right?

Trek varies a lot on this, but there are occasions when they scan ships that are a long, long way away even at warp. But I would argue that it must be the case that one ship can find another in space, because otherwise much of what we see on screen doesn't make sense. For instance, in Regeneration the NX-01 was a light century away from Earth, but they were able to find and intercept the Borgified ship without any great difficulty. Similarly, Epsilon IX and the Klingons were able to see V'Ger coming, the Saratoga saw the Cetacean probe coming, and on and on. I couldn't list all the times one ship has stumbled across another in Trek, but it's LOTS. To me, that says that the sensors they carry are up to the vastness of space, at least as much as our own ships and submarines are when searching for another on the ocean.

Even without directly trying to mirror Red October's plot, I would be shocked if defections weren't something that didn't happen quite regularly, especially in smaller scout craft.

I dunno. Picard said that a Romulan defector was almost a contradiction in terms, and yet I'd consider that more likely than a Klingon defector myself. With the Klingons you have to have personal reasons compelling enough for the "wolves to lie down with the sheep", as Klingons see it. I can't see defections from either one being common - and certainly not defections that are accompanied by "several billion dollars worth of Klingon state property", as the movie put it.