Why Did Scotty do that? (ST II)

[Unicron]

According to the novelization, Scotty carried Peter to the bridge because the engineering section had taken serious damage and he could not get his nephew to sickbay. The TFF novelization also had a scene with Sybok "healing" Scotty, who felt significant guilt after Peter's death in TWOK.

 

[Timo]

Socially awkward???

Scotty? Well, yes.

In TOS, Scotty interacted socially something like three times. At Argelius, he murdered a bunch of women. At DS K-7, he started an interstellar incident over his fetish with a piece of machinery. And when Mira Romaine came aboard, he began to act like he were twelve and abandoned his post. He clearly has limited capability for coping with things other than warp engines, military discipline and booze. Or in other words, he is a sensitive individual who isn't afraid to display emotion and in fact has trouble keeping it locked in.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nerys Myk]

Didnt he almost get himself killed when a God started hitting on his girlfriend?

 

[Timo]

Ah, that, too. "Excitable repairman" indeed...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[RyanKCR]

Socially awkward???

Scotty? Well, yes.

In TOS, Scotty interacted socially something like three times. At Argelius, he murdered a bunch of women. At DS K-7, he started an interstellar incident over his fetish with a piece of machinery. And when Mira Romaine came aboard, he began to act like he were twelve and abandoned his post. He clearly has limited capability for coping with things other than warp engines, military discipline and booze. Or in other words, he is a sensitive individual who isn't afraid to display emotion and in fact has trouble keeping it locked in.

Timo Saloniemi

Scotty did not kill any women on Argelius. Where did you get that idea? It was Redjack.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Socially awkward???

Scotty? Well, yes.

In TOS, Scotty interacted socially something like three times. At Argelius, he murdered a bunch of women. At DS K-7, he started an interstellar incident over his fetish with a piece of machinery. And when Mira Romaine came aboard, he began to act like he were twelve and abandoned his post. He clearly has limited capability for coping with things other than warp engines, military discipline and booze. Or in other words, he is a sensitive individual who isn't afraid to display emotion and in fact has trouble keeping it locked in.

Timo Saloniemi

Scotty did not kill any women on Argelius. Where did you get that idea? It was Redjack.

This is correct. The writers clearly did not intend that Scotty's body was used by Redjack, as some people have claimed. Suits and audiences of the day wouldn't have allowed it.
As for Scotty's actual behavior in that scene, Scotty was quite charming toward the dancing girl.
Scotty had Doohan's natural charm toward the ladies.
McCoy, on the other hand, always seemed a little creepy when hitting on women.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I dunno, he seemed a bit possesive, perhaps overly so.

 

[dougkeenan]

I dunno, he seemed a bit possesive, perhaps overly so.

Yes. Always "my bairns," not "our bairns"

 

[Cyke101]

He always seemed so awkward around the opposite sex in TOS. Even Spock got some occasionally. And I think it's also worth noting that despite the fact that he was part of the ship's upper command, despite the fact that Kirk relied on him as much as, or sometimes more than, Spock and McCoy, he didn't really gel with the rest of the crew. Which makes sense if you think about it, the guy's a tinkerer, not a social butterfly. When he gets confined to quarters, he catches up on work. Recreational reading for him is a bunch of tech manuals. Nobody's as dedicated to their job as good ol' Scotty, but that takes away from a social life.

McCoy, on the other hand, always seemed a little creepy when hitting on women.

Pfft, he had the hands of a surgeon. And we know that from Dax, thank you very much.

 

[A beaker full of death]

...he didn't really gel with the rest of the crew.

I don't see that at all. I think most of the crew saw him as something of a father figure. Even though he was an officer, he often seemed to fill the role of chief of the boat.

 

[Cyke101]

...he didn't really gel with the rest of the crew.

I don't see that at all. I think most of the crew saw him as something of a father figure. Even though he was an officer, he often seemed to fill the role of chief of the boat.

I'm pretty sure Kirk was still Big Poppa Bear to the rest of the crew. Scotty got along fine on a professional level, but at say, a diplomatic function or even at dinner? Different story, I'd say. The only thing he and Kirk really had in common was a love of the ship.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I think Scotty was in emotional shock at the time.

Agreed: Scotty had to have been out of his mind.

It doesn't make the character weak for that to happen. It proves how much he loved his nephew.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Scotty usually acts like a fawning, gibbering schoolboy whenever he's around a women he likes. The only exception was when he thought he might get some Argelian nooky. And you know what they say about Argelian girls.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I thought that was Orion women...

 

[A beaker full of death]

The only thing he and Kirk really had in common was a love of the ship.

No, there was one other very important thing - both were military men through and through. That's something later series never understood. There's a certain type of man who becomes a soldier.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Having known a few military men and women, most of them "lifers", I haven't noticed any particular "type" that joins up. I would imagine Scott and Kirk had very different reasons for joining and staying in Starfleet.

 

[Cyke101]

Having known a few military men and women, most of them "lifers", I haven't noticed any particular "type" that joins up. I would imagine Scott and Kirk had very different reasons for joining and staying in Starfleet.

I'd have to agree with that. Scotty would never blow up the Enterprise. On the other hand, Kirk was probably aware that he made a mistake whereas Scotty didn't, as Kirk left captaincy and missed his key passion, while Scotty remained a tinkerer through and through. I'm pretty sure Scotty could've been an admiral at anytime like McCoy, but he stayed behind to stay with machines. But that's not a knock on Scotty at all. Doing what you love to do as a career and doing it well into your twilight years is the ideal way to live one's life, I think.

Was Scotty a soldier? I doubt it. He was a scrapper indeed and a fine commander whenever the situation called for it, but he wasn't a soldier. He certainly wasn't as strict or rigid as one. I don't think anyone in TOS would qualify for that kind of mindset the way someone like, say, Kira does. If Scotty were a soldier, we wouldn't have seen some deep character moments from him when Preston died. He'd be sad, sure, but he wouldn't be vulnerable.

 

[Timo]

We do have to factor in that the things that happened in ST2 were "unnecessary" in so many ways. This wasn't a combat mission where Peter Preston had sworn to die for king and country (or whatever their equivalents in the late 23rd century). This was a joyride to celebrate Kirk's birthday, turned into mayhem after Kirk took the ship to a personal diversion of the personal diversion, one that resulted in battle against his personal nemesis with an ill-prepared crew, without proper precautions. Even if Scotty didn't quite yet know who was doing the attacking, he would have a pretty good idea that Kirk was to blame for a great many things.

Scotty probably wasn't really an active frontline officer, either, but rather an instructor who was exploiting Starfleet's need for a training ship machinist to stay with his favorite hobby-job. A soldier once, perhaps, but not any longer, not that day. The fatalities would come as a really harsh surprise in those conditions.

This is correct. The writers clearly did not intend that Scotty's body was used by Redjack, as some people have claimed. Suits and audiences of the day wouldn't have allowed it.

Nevertheless, the end result leaves little possibility but that Scotty's hand was the one that stabbed the second victim.

It would rather naturally follow that his was also the hand that ended the lives of the first and third victims. Although Hengist's hand might have committed the first crime equally well, and out of our heroes, McCoy is physically a likelier candidate to have reached the back of the third victim, it would seem odd for Redjac to go to the extra complication when it would be so much neater to have every bit of physical evidence point to the same scapegoat.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[dougkeenan]

Scott "always held a sneaking admiration" for Khan. I'm guessing that admiration wasn't helped by the loss of his nephew.

 

[Brian]

Well, it was clearly established in Star Trek V that the Enterprise has at least 78 decks and the numbers increase as you go up.

The original series established that Sickbay is on deck 7.

Engineering is in the secondary hull, so...

Maybe the turbolift got confused with which canon to follow?

Or maybe the Bridge is on the way to Sickbay and Scotty didn't have the credentials to prevent a lift stop on the way, when the turbolift was called for by Admiral Kirk. That's the ticket.