Pikes Bar Arrival ??

The military recruiters I've known, ( including my uncle) weren't exactly corporate "HR" types. My guess is Pike was temporarily assigned to recruiting while between command assignments.

 

Perhaps. That would explain the Cupcake problem.

However we saw him at the academy (some three years later) so it seemed more than temporary. Otherwise we are forced to assume he "conveniently" managed to fit in one or more command assignments in between.

 

He was also the commander of the Enterprise by then. His XO was also there over seeing a test he programmed. My guess, like Decker in TMP, he was overseeing the construction (and staffing) of the Enterprise. How long did Picard drive a desk between the Stargazer and the Enterprise?

 

I believe the short answer is we don't know what Picard was doing but apparently there is an implication he had another unnamed command, which would make sense to me. Why let good officers get rusty or despondent? Presumably Pike had a command some time before meeting Kirk but is that a certainty? He definitely had the rank of course.

Pike's move from the academy to the Enterprise just seems disjointed, not to say overly pat to me. The more-so if he had been sidetracked to recruitment for years beforehand.

 

As I said his assignment, might have been like Decker's, overseeing the building of the Enterprise, which could include training and recruitment. His command for those three years between the bar and the launch would have been Enterprise.

 

Here we might see a mingling of Navy and NASA conceptual approaches, something that's endemic to Star Trek elsewhere. When an important new ship is being prepared for a showcase mission (TMP, STXI, perhaps also Picard's mission beyond Deneb), the preparation may well include an intensive multi-year training of an integrated crew. The Navy doesn't do anything like that, as its missions are brief and its pool of employers does not need to be all that highly trained or specialized for the needs of a single vessel; NASA in turn did that almost exclusively back before the shuttle.

So, Starfleet picks a dream team for the newest flagship, and then waits for that ship to be launched. It doesn't want the dream team to be expended on other assignments, it wants it welded together into a unit, so it shanghais the team to Starfleet Academy or somesuch and keeps it doing safe desk jobs when it's not training for the mission.

...That is, if we assume that Pike and Spock really were part of the NCC-1701 team. It's equally possible that Earth simply had a really acute shortage of veteran Captains at the time. I mean, if it could run out of menial labor and was forced to augment/replace that with cadets, surely the more precious and less numerous commissioned officer resources would also be depleted?

It did sound as if the entire operational force of starships anywhere near Earth was sent to Laurentius (perhaps as a response to Nero's antics thereabouts?), and the ships left at Earth were all more or less non-operational - in the middle of repairs or construction or post-mission teardown or whatever. For all we know, the uncompleted NCC-1701 was among the least capable ships in the remaining force, and thus did not receive the most capable and suited CO available in the small pool, but was stuck with Pike (and his "XO" from the Recruitment Office or Academy, Spock)?

Timo Saloniemi

 

I'm not sure Decker did that for three plus years but I agree it would seem to make sense for Pike to oversee some preparation if he was the planned new CO.

However Pike's dossier states "Servers as Executive Officer in Starfleet's recruiting division.". That sounds more substantial and permanent to me. Up-thread its suggested he even goes on recruiting tours. It doesn't sound like he is spending most of his time on preparing the Enterprise, not for three years or more.

Now I admit to not know much about what other options might be available to Pike between commands, but recruiting sounds like a strange choice, perhaps just there to support his pep-talk to Kirk as mentioned by M'Sharak.

Well with a new (or rebuilt) ship there may be some time where the CO and crew could be helping with final fit-out (as we saw with Decker and Co) but it seems to me NASA did long parallel building/training because they were experimental and single mission oriented. I think SF would be more mature and therefore follow the navy system most of the time.

Leaving Earth so poorly defended (or at least with such a poor reserve force if Earth had adequate static defences) is another issue of course but it doesn't fit well with the idea that SF were building larger more capable ships in response to the "Kelvin incident" twenty five years earlier. The idea they wouldn't have crews for the few ships they had left seems even more ludicrous to me (what if there was a surprise attack and they didn't have time to drag in academy cadets?). I would accept that these sorts of things aren't major problems individually, but they do add up.

 

Thank you. I am shocked by the amnesia of the supposed Trekkies around here.

 

Why? Surely Starfleet would be inclined to choose a great public hero both for its recruiting needs and for commanding a prominent starship. We only need to assume that Pike was such a hero in this universe. It would then follow that Starfleet would send him to recruiting tours whenever they could spare him from operational tasks.

We have no reason to think that Starfleet was reacting to the "Kelvin incident" in any way. When the Narada is encountered the second time, nobody comes prepared for the encounter, either in terms of hardware or in psychological terms. A resurgence of this threat appears unthinkable for all of our heroes, even Pike who studied the very incident - until Kirk comes along with his rather monomaniacal ideas that derive largely from personal involvement. It's damn good luck that he happens to be right...

Laurentius was clearly considered important by Starfleet. And in naval warfare (of the WWI style, which Star Trek closely resembles), the side that leaves behind reserves chooses to lose. Reserves mean voluntary lack of firepower, and lack of firepower means defeat, in any battle fought with roughly equal weapons of short range (and this describes all conventional Star Trek battles). If Starfleet thought Laurentius was going to be a conventional engagement with another fleet, they'd not leave behind any defenses at all, because those would serve no role: they'd contribute to defeat in the first battle, and would be too little to do anything in the second battle where the victorious enemy would reach Earth. "Splitting forces" is synonymous with "defeat in detail" in this type of fighting.

Starfleet would have to resign to being unable to fight on two fronts if Laurentius appeared to be bad enough. It would do no good to choose defeat at Laurentius if another threat was directed at Earth from elsewhere: the only course of action then would be to stay at Earth with the full force and let Laurentius fall, whatever that meant.

Of course, the movie insists, implicitly and explicitly, that everybody was where he or she was because Kirk was there. It's all about predestination, or a string of favorable coincidences, however one wants to call it.

But if Pike consciously came looking for Kirk, he must subsequently have lied to him. Although given Pike's specific expertise on the Kelvin matter, it would be a bit implausible if he didn't already know that the son of George Kirk Sr. would in all likelihood be found in Riverside, Iowa!

Timo Saloniemi

 

Because it takes him away from what he does best and we shouldn't just assume that recruitment is something that doesn't require much skill or effort. As mentioned, Pike's dossier makes it look like he is pretty committed to it.

Yeah, what's one or two more assumptions? However at least one is contradicted by Pike's dossier. His main activity isn't listed as "operational tasks". And we have no reason I'm aware of to believe he is any type of hero. Another genius type, sure.

Everyone who came up with, or supported the idea that the increased size of the Enterprise was due to records taken from Nero's incursion would seem to disagree with you. It is reasonable however to believe that after 25 years no-one will automatically assume every strange event is due to Nero, but implementing policies to counter his original threat seem reasonable. Heck, you may have even been one of those who thought so (until now)!

The fact that Starfleet left even seven (or eight?) apparently operational ships behind argues against your all or nothing approach to warfare (which is itself based on some decent sized assumptions ). The fact they didn't have crews for them is another issue of course. If the Laurentius sitiuation was something to do with Nero then they should have been more curious in approaching Vulcan (probably should have been anyway). If not then we have yet another massive co-incindence. Not just when it happened but, according to your theory, the fact it would require everything they had to overcome it. If they had reason to believe the situation was less serious, then committing all their forces would be very reckless indeed.

 

Since the dossier is just a piece of promo material for the movie it doesn't count for much. Other than giving Kirk a pep talk, Pike doesn't do any recruiting in the movie. All the the movie tells is he shuttled a bunch of cadets from the academy to Riverside and back again. While there he picked up two Starfleet recruits who were in the neighborhood. Three years later he was the CO of the Enterprise.

 

Oh yes, it's not "canon" as they say. I didn't really question that situation when I first saw the movie, but has McCoy's appearance been explained? I guess we have to assume he knew a shuttle was there and it happened to be more convenient to catch it than making his own way to the academy or some other more central Starfleet location.

 

Based on what I've seen at recruitment centers and ROTC command, many recruiters were highly decorated veterans that can put a highly polished perception on military service. They wear their dress-blues/class-A's with the full tossed-salad of campaign, service and commendation ribbons which adds to the allure of accomplishment, adventure and glory, representing the very model of military professionalism. If Pike was a decorated ship captain and possible combat veteran (we know little of his back-story at present), and if Starfleet follows similar protocols to today's military in any way, it would make perfect sense that he would be highly-placed in the recruitment infrastructure.

I don't think they pulled Pike out of recruitment to command Enterprise, I think they put him back in the center seat for a critical mission when all hands were needed, as he was the only one they would have had confidence in to work an untried ship and crew.

 

I can buy what you are saying about recruiters often being veteran’s etc, but do many of them jump back into command roles after presumably committing to a more desk-oriented job? I can also see that a current captain might get involved in promotional work for a while too, but that doesn't seem like Pike in ST09.

Also in your last paragraph, it seems like you are saying they "... pulled Pike out of recruitment to command Enterprise" effectively. As I think Timo said, it only makes sense for me to see Pike on the Enterprise if that had be Starfleet's plan all along. They must have had a fairly experienced officer lined up for that gig after-all (OK, given Kirk I am not quite so sure of that).

 

I can only speak to what I had seen while in Army ROTC many years ago. When Gulf War I broke out under Bush Sr., yes, there were reassignments and rotations out to the sandbox after having been in recruitment and/or ROTC division. In the case of Pike, it is certainly possible, particularly considering the massive importance of the mission that was being embarked on at the time.

Entirely possible as well. It's been a while since I read the novelization, so I can't recall as to Starfleets intentions of Pike and Enterprise. It is possible that recruitment was TDY for him until they finished the new ship for him to command. In TOS, he was referred to as a "Fleet Captain", IIRC. I could easily see where he would have been in charge of a new flagship, or even a combat group.

 

FWIW, Pike's braid in STXI was the same as Kirk's in TOS. Which may mean that Kirk was a Fleet Captain all along, too.

Intriguingly, Pike's braid at the conclusion of STXI is that of TOS Vice Admiral, which is quite a jump from O-6. Perhaps the "Fleet" part in Fleet Captain is something that doesn't show up in braid, but puts you as the very first among equals anyway. Basically, you're already Flag, only there isn't a Flag position open for you so you have to wait and grind your teeth. And if you are forced to wait long enough, you have in effect reached Commodore, Rear Admiral and then Vice Admiral while being denied the braid, and when your opening does come, your sleeves feel a lot heavier all of a sudden...

Either that, or then Starfleet gives out promotions instead of medals, and three steps up is the going rate for Saving Earth From Destruction With Gallantry and Panache, for everybody but 'em dirty half-Vulcans.

Timo Saloniemi

 

OK, fair enough.

(who did the real work as well!) Yup, that's seems to be the go in the nuVerse alright.

 

I doubt it. There were other captains who wore the same stripes as Kirk.

 

I assumed Pike and Spock were teaching at the academy while waiting for the Enterprise to be completed - much like Sulu and Chekov taught at the academy while awaiting completion of the Excelsior's refit in the old Starfleet Academy novel and videogame.

 

And all of them might have been Fleet Captains. The short form of address for this rank would simply be Captain, just like the short form of Lieutenant Commander is Commander.

Looking at Kirk's sleeve, we don't see what we would expect from the pattern of the Royal Navy or the United States Navy. That is, every one of the lower ranks is like its RN or USN counterpart minus one solid braid, but Kirk isn't ||| but rather |:| which looks like he's half a rank below RN/USN Captain. Perhaps that's where Starfleet places Fleet Captain, the last step before you reach full Captain? The people making full Captain and getting the ||| braid might all be assigned to larger starships we never get to see in TOS or the movies, or to desk jobs (which is why they are no longer considered "Fleet" Captains...).

This makes one wonder why they didn't serve on some other starship in the meantime. The Academy assignment might allow them to get rusty at their primary job...

But Starfleet would quite plausibly need the services of experienced frontier heroes in teaching and recruiting jobs. Rather than assign any hero this sort of work full time, they'd rotate people who happened to be between assignments anyway. We get the impression that Spock was at the Academy full time, but Pike might have been in deep space for most of Kirk's training. I mean, if he weren't, and he was taking a special interest in Kirk, why didn't he get more involved in this Kobayashi Maru head-banging business before it got out of hand?

Timo Saloniemi