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Teaos wrote:Infact I put it right in the same league as having your ship ripped across the universe, having the majority of your crew killed, absorbing former enemies into your crew so that it can function, and forgetting about a timer.

PMS, which basically means the same excuse as Khan's:
Madness...

The point remains unanswered: airplanes a very common things nowadays. Could you, Teaos, be reasonably expected to not only fly one, but win a dogfight against an ace air force pilot?

Achually I would be suprised if you could find a human alive who knows more about 3 dimensional space than Stephen Hawking...

So yeah, I'd expect him to... you know, think of the Z axis.

Yeah, bad example.

Still, I think you see my point. Being smart is only useful if the challenge you're up against is related to that knowledge.

But thats hardly the point, Khan had slightly more experience with war than Hawking.

True. Ground warfare. Not space.

The air battle, sub battle comparison was just to show that we use the Z axis a lot now a days and someone over looking it is space is retarded, pure and simple.

It's dumb, aye, you'll get no arguments from me on that score. Indicative that Khan was a total idiot? No. He was a general, not a sub or aircraft commander. His thinking would naturaly have been in 2-D.

Beat? Probably not, to look up and down? Yeah I would expect that.

You might be surprised. I'd imagine a lot of ground commanders wouldn't be aware of the sort of advantages that the Z-axis can confer to those who utilise it. We know all about it because we're fans of sci-fi, in which the Z-axis plays a major part. For those with no interest in the subject and whose experience has been purely two-dimensional, I can imagine most would overlook it.

Katefan got it right, he was going slightly mad at this stage, that is his excuse. And a damn good one considering all that happened to him.

Aye, he probably wasn't in the best state of mind. He'd been stranded on some forsaken rock for years, had his wife die, and was bent on revenge. Not the most rational of people in that state.

Doesnt stop it being f***ing stupid.

Infact I put it right in the same league as having your ship ripped across the universe, having the majority of your crew killed, absorbing former enemies into your crew so that it can function, and forgetting about a timer.

How so? All it means is that Khan was slightly mad, and was a pretty poor starship commander. That's hardly surprising. What is surprising is a supposedly highly competant and experienced captain forgetting both the basics of the Prime Directive and one of the most simple and obvious sollutions to her problem.

I think some people are over stating the value of the z axis in space combat when it comes to one-on-one action. If you are aware of your enemy then you can re-orient your ship to face it, thus changing the z axis at any moment. It is only when surprise is a factor that the z-axis comes into play. In almost every single Star Trek battle we have seen ships act on a face-to-face situation, it is only later in TNG's All Good Things and battles on DS9 where ultra-maneuverable ships like the Defiant are in play where the z-axis becomes a factor. And in All Good Things Riker used a cloaking device to surprise the Klingons.

So Kirk letting the z-axis slip could be forgiven as probably all his military career it simply was not a factor in tactical thinking when taking on an opponent one-on-one.