NEW ONGOING STAR TREK SERIES FROM IDW!!!

[Christopher]

Well, yes, Kirk's dark side obviously attempted to rape Janice, but he didn't succeed. An attempted crime doesn't taint a fictional character as irrevocably as a completed crime does. There are a number of TOS episodes where characters were driven into a killing rage against their shipmates by some force or other -- "Amok Time," "Day of the Dove," "The Tholian Web," "All Our Yesterdays" -- but they didn't actually kill, so the attempt was excused. If they actually had succeeded in the attempt, though, that would be a lifechanging act and there'd be no going back from it.

[Nightowl1701]

I don't think (if it happens) that it's going to be anything like that. I drew the Tasha Yar parallel for a reason - I think (again, if it happens) that Janice will simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and suffer the fate of many a redshirt. Maybe she gets crushed to powder by Rojan of "By Any Other Name," for example, or joins "Cupcake" Hendorff as part of the security team casualties of "The Apple." It obviously won't bother our heroes quite as much as it would in the Prime Universe since they didn't really get a chance to know her (though Kirk will of course be mourning the death of "one of my crew"). But for us readers, and longtime Trekkers, it'll be one heck of a nasty blow.

[Pauln6]

Nightowl1701 wrote:

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I don't think (if it happens) that it's going to be anything like that. I drew the Tasha Yar parallel for a reason - I think (again, if it happens) that Janice will simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and suffer the fate of many a redshirt. Maybe she gets crushed to powder by Rojan of "By Any Other Name," for example, or joins "Cupcake" Hendorff as part of the security team casualties of "The Apple." It obviously won't bother our heroes quite as much as it would in the Prime Universe since they didn't really get a chance to know her (though Kirk will of course be mourning the death of "one of my crew"). But for us readers, and longtime Trekkers, it'll be one heck of a nasty blow.

It's difficult to know at this point. Hendorff may be scheduled for termination in the sequel so I think he's safe in the comic for now. The only other recurring characters so far are Rand, Boma, Zahra, and Keenser. I think they should give them all some more time to develop as individuals before killing any of them but that won't be easy in the limited space of the comics. I do think that the only way to start to establish Janice as more than a cipher is to portray her properly as Kirk's Yeoman with him and her on a landing party for some one-on-one dialogue.

[Christopher]

TOS precedent aside, is there any real reason for a yeoman -- essentially a secretary/clerk -- to be on a landing party? Well, come to think of it, I guess maybe so, since a yeoman would be the logical one to keep the logs and records of the mission, to handle regular check-ins with the ship, and stuff like that. Although unfortunately I don't think we ever really saw that in the show. The job duties of yeomen on landing parties in TOS seemed to be nebulous and limited mainly to being romantic interests or damsels in distress.

[Pauln6]

Christopher wrote:

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TOS precedent aside, is there any real reason for a yeoman -- essentially a secretary/clerk -- to be on a landing party? Well, come to think of it, I guess maybe so, since a yeoman would be the logical one to keep the logs and records of the mission, to handle regular check-ins with the ship, and stuff like that. Although unfortunately I don't think we ever really saw that in the show. The job duties of yeomen on landing parties in TOS seemed to be nebulous and limited mainly to being romantic interests or damsels in distress.

On diplomatic missions, I'd say yes. On general exploration missions it would make far more sense to have scientists in charge of recording data. I also expect every crewman goes on a landing duty rota so that everyone gets off the ship once in a while. If you look at it too closely, most of the crew on landing parties had no logical reason to be there - Kirk included!

[Christopher]

^Good point. Why the hell would they bring the navigator along on a landing party, except that Chekov was supposed to appeal to teenage girls in the audience? (Well, maybe that's not the best example, since he was initially introduced as an assistant science officer before settling in as navigator -- and interestingly enough, he seems to be a science officer in the Abrams universe as well. Or at least he was in the movie; I wouldn't be surprised if the comics are treating him more as a navigator, since they're mostly TOS episode remakes.)

[Drago-Kazov]

except that Chekov was supposed to appeal to teenage girls in the audienc

I tought that's why we had Kirk making out with the green chick.

[Pauln6]

Drago-Kazov wrote:

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I thought that's why we had Kirk making out with the green chick.

Lol - that was a funny scene but it's a shame that it was part of an overall dynamic that marginalised and trivialised the women's contribution to the story overall. It does look like they are taking some steps to resolve that in the sequel up to a point at least.

I think part of the problem in Trek is that every landing party should have an officer to be in charge and then more junior crew to undertake particular tasks, some of which will be qualified in a specialty (like biology, botany, or geology) and some of which will just be there to follow their lead and take relevant scans and samples. What you end up with, particularly in later Trek is a bunch of officers (most often with a a piloting or engineering background) plus some redshirts.

[Christopher]

I was talking about the reason the Chekov character was added to TOS in 1967. Roddenberry wanted to add a character similar to Davy Jones of The Monkees, a teen-idol type to boost ratings.

[datalogan]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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Huh?

They were supposed to save Nero (and his big, dangerous ship?) at the last minute and put him on trial?

Well, they (nuKirk and nuSpock, or anyone on the Enterprise) could have at least tried.

Or, since there was a black hole forming that was going to consume their starship soon, they could have just ran away to save their own ship, acknowledging that there was nothing they could do for the Nerada.

But instead of those options, they actual went out of their way to attack the Nerada, to help along its inevitable destruction. Talk about kicking a man while he's down.

No matter what crimes Nero and his crew were accused of / guilty of, the Nerada was not an imminent threat to the Enterprise at the time and they, therefore, had no right to fire on the ship. (I’m talking about after the creation of the black hole, when nuKirk and nuSpock were already back aboard Enterprise.)

nuKirk and nuSpock had taken it upon themselves to be summary judge and executioners, very much not in keeping with Starfleet ideas.

But this does happen from time to time in Star Trek movies. Remember the end of Star Trek: Insurrection? Picard and Ahdar Ru’afo were on the collector together. There’s about to be a massive explosion (or one already in progress, really). The EE swoops in and beams Picard off the collector just in time and Ru’afo dies in the explosion.
Why? Why didn’t the EE beam Ru’afo off the collector with Picard? Certainly it took more time to lock on to just the one specific lifesign. Picard wasn’t wearing a combadge or anything to lock onto, afterall. It would have been easier to just beam over all lifesigns within the area, both Picard and Ru’afo. So, do we think that the EE transporter operator went out of his/her way to select just Picard for beam-out? They really took the extra time? In the middle of an explosion? And under whose orders? Not only declaring themselves judge and executioner, but also risking Picard’s life more than necessary (in the extra time it took to ensure Ru’afo wasn’t beamed up), just to have the buy guy die instead of getting captured.
Because the Hollywood ending required the bad guy to die.

[To play devil’s advocate a little: Maybe Ru’afo was standing in a bad place where his lifesigns didn’t register or something; but he was only a few meters away from Picard, so that’s not likely. It’s never explained on screen.] Either way, Star Trek 2009 was worse.

[Christopher]

Well, this really isn't the place to debate the niceties of a 3-year-old movie for the 900th time. But I'll point out that the last time the Narada fell through a black hole, it went back in time and wrought extreme havoc. They couldn't be sure it wouldn't happen again. Nero still posed a potential threat to the timeline, and he'd made it clear he had no intention of backing down.

There's also the more immediate fact that only the Narada's shields were down; it was never clearly stated that their weapons were offline. Nero could've still posed an immediate threat to the Enterprise.

So while I'm not crazy about the way that scene was constructed and directed, I do have to disagree with the characterization of it as an "execution." I may not like it, but objectively, they were still in a combat situation and Kirk's action could be justified as a military necessity for the defense of his ship and perhaps of the whole timeline. The problem isn't so much with what Kirk did as with the flawed way the film presented it.

[Therin of Andor]

datalogan wrote:

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Well, they (nuKirk and nuSpock, or anyone on the Enterprise) could have at least tried.

They did. Their offer of assistance was rejected outright.

Christopher wrote:

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There's also the more immediate fact that only the Narada's shields were down; it was never clearly stated that their weapons were offline. Nero could've still posed an immediate threat to the Enterprise.

And is it any different to "I have had enough of you?": Kirk Prime offering Kruge a hand on the edge of an active volcano, then kicking him in the face (to his ultimate death) when the Klingon thanks that proffered hand by tugging on his leg?

[JD]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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They did. Their offer of assistance was rejected outright.

I was actually just about to point this out. I just watched the last 20 minutes or so when it was on TV yesterday, and they offered to beam him and his crew aboard, but he more or less told them to go to hell.

[Therin of Andor]

JD wrote:

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he more or less told them to go to hell.

Exactly, so he may well have been still fully-loaded and totally insane, with a new escape-route opening right beside him.

[Pauln6]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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Exactly, so he may well have been still fully-loaded and totally insane, with a new escape-route opening right beside him.

Lol - no. Nero had a singularity forming at the centre of his ship. If he'd fired his weapons they would have been sucked back in on him and THAT was the poetic way for him to die - his own hatred destroying him.

NERO rejected Kirk's help. There was no evidence in the characters' possession that indicated that every member of his crew shared his rejection. Like Maltz, you don't just kill someone because they ask.

I don't dispute that it was sensible to destroy his ship. I don't dispute that it was unlikely that transporters would be able to overcome the singularity (even if communications could). My problem is that the offer of assistance was reluctant, they didn't actually try to help, and the delivery of the sentence was made with more relish than was needed. The same result could have been achieved with minimal additional dialogue (just remove the crap where Spock questions Kirk's offer of assistance) without abusing Federation ideals.