7 Times Someone Caught The Idiot Ball In Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan

7. The Reliant Doesn't Scan The Ceti Alpha System

By Wrath of Khan Star Trek’s palette of future technology and what it could achieve fairly well established. In a number of Original Series episodes the ship’s sensors were fully capable of scanning the configuration of a whole solar system. In Doomsday Machine, for instance, the Enterprise can tell several planets are missing from a system before even entering it.

Despite this, the Reliant can’t tell Ceti Alpha VI has been turned to rubble and Ceti Alpha V is actually the planet they are orbiting. Even if you were counting the planets with your fingers Ceti Alpha V is still the fifth planet. Ceti Alpha VII is now the sixth. A lot of people, including the science officer, the navigator, Captain Terrell, and First Officer Chekov, have to ignore a ton of sensor info to make a mistake this big.

To compound things, there’s no way Ceti Alpha V, even with its decimated ecosystem, would be identical to Ceti Alpha VI in size, mass, topography, and atmospheric makeup. I’m pretty sure our modern astronomers could make the differentiation with a ground telescope. Why can’t 23rd century super-science?