TOS Scotty is a rare engineering officer in Star Trek Fleet Command. He’s an extremely functional officer that’s going to help you finish a great number of missions.
Captain’s Maneuver
A Garbage Scow!! – +4 to warp range for Explorers.
As you’d expect with Scotty, it’s a straightforward functional ability. TOS Montgomery Scott will give you a warp range bonus of 4 on your Explorers, and since it’s a captain’s maneuver, you can use synergy to increase this bonus even further, up to as much as 10.
But you’re going to get the highest range from putting Cadet Scotty on in place of one of the synergy officers, which would get the bonus up to 12. This can be extremely useful on your USS Discovery, which is an explorer, and help you get ships much further out through summoning.
The name of this maneuver comes from the TOS episode, the Trouble with Tribbles, when a Klingon calls the Enterprise, a “garbage scow.” And Scotty won’t hear anyone talking about his lady that way.
By the way, the Klingon who calls the Enterprise in The Trouble with Tribbles is called Korax, and he was played by actor Michael Pataki. Pataki was one of several TOS actors who make appearances on The Next Generation, appearing in the TNG season one episode, Too Short a Season. And when footage of Korax was used in the Deep Space Nine episode, Trials and Tribble-ations, he became a three-series actor.
Officer Ability
She’ll launch on time – +(10% 20% 30% 40% 50%) to repair cost efficiency.
Again, nothing flashy here – just a straightforward reduction in repair costs. But to be honest, I’ve never used an officer for repair cost reductions, ever. The trouble is that you’re going to be taking the place of another officer who could give you some sort of survivability bonus, and make it more likely that you’re going to need to repair your ship in the first place.
“She’ll launch on time” is a reference to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, when Scotty is taking Kirk out on his inspection. Kirk tells Scotty that he got the ship back, and Scotty promises Kirk that “she’ll launch on time, and she’ll be ready.”
As an aside, this was a really impressive effects shot in 1979, and is still beautiful to look at today. And the makers of Star Trek II liked it so much that they used a shortened version of the same effects footage. Here it is for comparison.
My Top 7 TOS Scotty Moments
There are lots of great Scotty moments throughout TOS and the films, plus TNG. Here are seven of my favorites, and ones I was able to find video for that I could share with you. Enjoy!
#7 I know this ship like the back of my hand
The worst Star Trek movie still has some fun moments. And Scotty knocking himself out on a bulkhead on the new Enterprise-A in Star Trek V is probably the funniest moment in the film.
#6 The screens stay up!
This one’s from the TOS episode, A Taste of Armageddon. One of the constants in both TOS and TNG was that ambassadors, commodores, and admirals were just about always wrong. So when this ambassador tells Scotty to lower the Enterprise’s shields, he refuses. It was the right decision, and I won’t spoil it any further, because this is one of the TOS episodes you really need to see.
#5 It’s Green
From the season 2 TOS episode, By Any Other Name, Scotty manages to defeat an alien from outside our galaxy by out- drinking him. Really. By the way, this scene was later called back to in the TNG episode Relics. It’s the origins of Data’s callback line, “It is green.“
#4 Scotty Doesn’t Back Down.
From “The Enterprise Incident,” when Kirk and Spock are captured by the Romulans, Scotty is placed in command. The Romulan Commander, Charvanek, asks for the surrender of the Enterprise. Like Scotty would ever surrender.
#3 Aye Sir, I’m working on it.
The Stealing the Enterprise scene from Star Trek III is gold all the way around. From James Horner’s perfect goosebump-inspring score to some of the best solo scenes for each of the TOS cast, it’s Trek perfection. And in something that really only Star Trek could do, it’s a battle scene… with no shots fired, and no battle.
Scotty’s lines in this scene are some of the most quotable in the franchise. From “up your shaft” to the Excelsior’s turbolift (voiced by the way, by Leonard Nimoy), to “a chimpanzee and two trainees could run her,” “I’d be grateful admiral, if you’d give the word,” and “Aye sir, I’m working on it.”
#2 “Computer… Hello Computer?”
This one’s like the rest of Star Trek IV, it’s just fun. Nothing about this scene really makes sense, there’s no way that Scotty’s hunting and pecking on that keyboard are making the computer do what it does on the screen. No way.
But it doesn’t matter. How many times has a computer frozen on you, and you’ve said to it, “Computer… hello computer.”
How many times have you done it while Star Trek Fleet Command is loading. Just saying.
#1 No bloody A, B, C, or D
Odd that my favorite Scotty scene would be from a Next Generation episode (“Relics.”)
But this scene strikes a cord for me, and really gives Doohan some real meat to work with. At the time, seeing the bridge of the original Enterprise in the holodeck was mind-boggling, and emotional. It’s a great, if brief, character study.
“Here’s to you, lads.”
You can watch the second part of the video here.
Bonus Jimmy Doohan!
So here’s a bonus for you. Sometimes I come across things in my research that don’t really fit anywhere, and this is one of them. It’s an episode of the game show Super Password from 1987. The two celebrities appearing that day are James Doohan and Michael Dorn. Doohan’s just coming off Star Trek IV, and Dorn’s in the middle of season one of TNG.
Now, these are two of my favorite Trek actors, but this just wasn’t there day on Password.