Star Trek III: The Search for Spock directed by Leonard Nimoy (1984)

Starfleet’s Deadliest Posting: Science Edition!

Oberth-class starships have a high failure rate when seen on various Star Treks, only occasionally involved in combat situations (where a single torpedo might be enough to kill it). As pictured above your ship could be destroyed by a rogue Klingon, or sacrificed to give another ship a few more seconds (don’t worry, you’re long dead after a variation of the Psi-2000 virus swept through your ship), wrecked in a black cluster (for science!), trapped in a plasma streamer (However, you might survive inside a transporter matter stream as a snake), called in to boost up a fleet at Wolf 359 (ha. ahhahahahah!), or just half stuck inside an asteroid when an experimental phasing cloak failed.

Transporter Effects Day 2: Classic Movies Edition

TMP: As this is a brand new transporter room and effect, and as there was a mishap (we made a pile of sentient goo!) a hour before they’re being extra careful with it. which is why it take fifteen seconds to beam in. You won’t be catching anyone unaware with that. It’s like watching a kaleidoscope 

Wrath of Khan: This is better but it still takes an ungodly amount of time to beam in. The two big columns of light that ensures everyone within 10km knows where you beamed in. The columns of light would stay incorporated throughout the rest of the movies, although here it’s horizontal. Sparkles are back.

Search for Spock: Big Bright Columns, less sparkles. 

Voyage Home: The only no Starfleet transporter in the bunch. multiple columns, some sparkles.

Final Frontier: We cheaped out on the sfx company and budget so very cheezy looking sparkles and instead of columns we have….ovals?

Undiscovered Country: Back to basics, the columns have returned and minimal sparkles. 

Suggested by @thecaptainoutoftime, Kirk and Picard going to Starfleet and their responsibilities for their respective deceased friend’s souls. 

Captain Styles: Captain, U.S.S. Excelsior. Oversaw the final stages of trial runs in 2285. Pursued the Enterprise when Kirk stole her out of spacedock. Unbeknownst to him is Chief Engineer had sabotaged both the transwarp drive and tractor beam. When he attempted to pursue the Enterprise in transwarp, the ship suffered debilitating failures, stranding them in Earth orbit and allowing the Enterprise to escape. Styles was reassigned shortly afterwards.

Appeared in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Captain Montgomery “Scotty” Scott : In his fifty plus years of Starfleet service Montgomery Scott served on eleven ships including freighters, cruisers and starships. He made captain in 2285 after the Genesis Incident and assigned to the U.S.S. Excelsior as Captain of Engineering under Captain Styles. Scotty sabotaged the Excelsior’s prototype transwarp drive and tractor beam prior to help Kirk steal the decommissioned Enterprise out of spacedock, correctly assessing that Styles would be eager to use it to pursue them. The command staff of the Enterprise, along with Lt. Saavik, successfully rescued a regenerated Captain Spock from the self destructing Genesis planet at the cost of Admiral Kirk’s son David and the Enterprise herself, taking over the Klingon Bird-of-Prey that had destroyed it (and Grissom). 

The next few months were spent in exile on Vulcan until they were all ready to face Federation justice for their actions. Their return coincided with an alien probe’s attack on Earth. After realizing the probe’s message was meant for a extinct species called humpback whales and travelling back in time to procure some, Scotty was tasked with building a tank in the ship’s cargo back large enough to hold a pair of them. Along with Dr. McCoy, Scotty visited an industrial company and “aided” Dr. Nichols in the breakthrough of transparent aluminium (see DTI files labelled 1986 temporal violation) in exchange for supplying Scotty the necessary materials to build their tank. Post-return, their actions in averting a global crisis with the probe, the senior staff was cleared of all charges, save one, which was solely on Admiral Kirk’s shoulders and resulted in his demotion to Captain. Starfleet kept the senior officers together for their next assignment: The Enterprise-A.

The newest Constitution-class Enterprise was plagued with technological problems from the get go, forcing months of drydock time, stretching into 2287, and keeping Captain Scott and the engineering team busy. The Admiralty dispatched Kirk and the Enterprise to Nimbus III to resolve a hostage situation. The endeavour led them to the centre of the galaxy, piloted by the fanatical half-brother of Spock, believing God resided beyond the energy barrier. Scotty kept making repairs during this period, hampered by a pursuing Bird-of-Prey. 

In 2293 during his final months of service, Starfleet Command - with Spock’s voucher - sent Kirk and the Enterprise to meet with the Klingon Chancellor’s flagship to escort him to Earth for peace overtures. They were caught in a conspiracy that resulted in the death of the Klingon Chancellor at the apparent hands of Starfleet and the Enterprise, Kirk and McCoy were arrested on the Klingon ship when they were unable to save the Chancellor. Scotty ran a manual inventory count that showed they were still fully loaded and that they didn’t fire on the chancellor’s ship. During the Rura Penthe rescue mission he scrambled the Enterprise’s readings long enough for them to get in and out of Klingon space without appearing to be a Federation ship. He also located the assassin’s grav suits in an air duct in the conference room. The whole senior staff beamed down in the middle of the Kithomer Conference intent on disrupting an assassination attempt on the President. Kirk saved the president from the assassin’s beam while Scotty killed the assassin. Despite the severe damage inflicted by Chang’s Bird of Prey, with Scotty’s repairs they were operational enough to return home on their own power.

Later that year Scotty was present for the launch of the Enterprise-B with Captain Kirk and Commander Chekov. The launch turned into a disastrous rescue mission of two civilian ships carrying El-Aurian refugees. The Enterprise was ill equipped for a rescue operation and became trapped in the same energy ribbon that had snared the two ships. With limited options Scotty devised a way to use the ship’s deflector to free themselves from the ribbon, but the required changes needed to be done from deflector control. Kirk volunteered for the duty and made the necessary changes. The modified deflector pulse freed them from the ribbon but an energy tendril ripped through several forward engineering decks, including deflector control. Kirk was presumed killed.

In 2294, Scotty boarded the U.S.S. Jenolan bound for the Norpin V Retirement Colony. The ship’s plasma transfer conduits overloaded and they dropped out of warp near an uncharted Dyson Sphere. The ship’s captain called on Scotty’s experience to assist them in the charting of the sphere and repairs to the ships. They attempted to hail one of the hundreds of the comm arrays they’d located on the sphere’s surface causing the sphere to lock onto them with a powerful tractor beam. The beam proved too powerful and overloaded most of the ship’s systems. The Jenolan crashed on the sphere’s surface, killing all but Scotty and Matt Franklin, an engineer. With no hope of quick rescue and no options Scotty rigged the transporter array to keep them in a sort of stasis. The Jenolan and the Dyson Sphere would go undiscovered for another seventy-five years until the Enterprise-D picked up their distress call in 2369. The away team was able to rescue Scotty but Franklin’s pattern had degraded too much to be saved. Scotty and Chief Engineer Geordi LaForge were on the Jenolan trying to salvage the sensor logs while the Enterprise got snared in the same circumstances that crashed the Jenolan, only they made it inside the sphere. Scotty and LaForge did what they could to get the Jenolan off the sphere’s surface and followed the Enterprise‘s ion trail to massive space doors leading to the inside of the sphere, sensor readings confirmed the Enterprise didn’t go in willingly. They tricked the sphere to open the door for them without getting caught in its tractor beams, then flew in and kept the doors open with their shields long enough to allow the Enterprise to escape. 

Scotty was loaned one of the Enterprise-D’s shuttles as he adjusted to the 24th Century.

* * *

Scotty first appeared in Star Trek’s “Where No Man Has Gone Before” but his rank was not established until The “Corbomite Maneuver” as a Lt. Cmdr. By The Motion Picture he was a Commander and promoted to Captain in Star Trek III. The closing scenes of Star Trek IV had Scotty with a Commander’s rank insignia but was back to a Captain by the beginning of Star Trek V.

The novels have placed Scotty as head of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers in the 24th Century, as well as being called on for consultant work from time to time. He was last seen in the novel Indistinguishable From Magic, set in 2383 where he is presumed killed aboard the U.S.S. Challenger.