"You keep wondering...and you keep signing on."

[LMFAOschwarz]

This comment of Kirk's to Joe Tormolen in The Naked Time was interesting. Were they envisioning it like the navy, where a guy would opt, or not, to re-up every so often? I can't believe everyone in starfleet would make an entire career out of it.

On the other hand, if one were out on a five year mission, it wouldn't necessarily be easy to suddenly decide that, say, two years was enough.

Any thoughts?

 

[Metryq]

From an early script, it's probably the sort of line that was written without too much detailed thought. Although all sorts of things could be read into it from hindsight.

Is Starfleet a mix of "military" personnel and "mission specialist" types, like those used by NASA? If so, many scientists might sign up for a "tour" aboard a starship without making Starfleet a career commitment. Also, the Enterprise's "five year mission" obviously did not mean out on the frontier for an unbroken 5-year stretch. We saw many episodes where the Enterprise was visiting known locations.

Perhaps Tormolen was one of those mission specialist/scientist ratings who signed up for a contractual stretch of time. One thing is for sure, he wasn't a medical specialist, to break isolation so casually. (I know, this has been debated before. The suits were not originally scripted as isolation suits, etc.)

 

[Timo]

We hear there's a duty roster for Ion Pod duty in "Court Martial". Perhaps Joe Tormolen keeps wondering, and nevertheless also keeps signing his name on the Landing Party duty roster, when he could just as well stay safely aboard the ship?

As for "isolation suits", even the final episode features no such thing. Spock and Tormolen beam down to what they know to be an extremely cold place, but they don't expect contamination (that idea only comes to Spock later on, and he then specifically tells Tormolen to avoid contamination - a wholly unnecessary remark if the suits already were supposed to take care of that!). Those suits could be purely for warmth, then. The point being, nothing in the events or the dialogue necessitates anything else.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Metryq]

a wholly unnecessary remark if the suits already were supposed to take care of that!

As already noted, this discussion was covered in another thread. The script said nothing about iso suits, although Spock and Tormolen go through decontamination in the transporter chamber—which would affect only the outside of iso suits anyway.

Since Spock did make such a big deal out of possible contamination ("Be certain we expose ourselves to nothing."), you'd think a properly trained crewman taken on such a mission might report to Spock, "Oh sh!t, I just took my glove off and touched the console. Afterward I felt something and detected a strange odor on my fingers when I held them right up to my face."

...

Then again, my sister is a surgical tech and tells an anecdote about one hapless med student in a surgery. Between navel and clavicle is the "sterile zone." If one is not actively doing something, it is advised to keep one's fingertips together in front, as though praying.

This med student was lazily leaning his masked face (unsterile) on one of his gloved hands (now no longer sterile). My sister grunted at him and reminded him about sterile practices... whereupon this med student then gasped in surprise, slapping his hands down on the draped patient (spreading the contamination from the glove).

At that point my sister—not to be trifled with in her operating theater—barked, "Just put the brain down on the floor and back away slowly!"

Perhaps Joe Tormolen keeps wondering, and nevertheless also keeps signing his name on the Landing Party duty roster

Possible, although I imagine ion pod duty and away team duty are not things one "signs up" for. Those are likely included in the package deal when one signs up for duty aboard a starship.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

You run into an ion storm maybe once, maybe never on a five year mission. That means the ion pod is probably used on the sly by couples who want some alone time. They aren't expecting Finney to yank the hatch open and gape at them because he needs to get in there and take some readings.

 

[Timo]

Since Spock did make such a big deal out of possible contamination ("Be certain we expose ourselves to nothing."), you'd think a properly trained crewman taken on such a mission might report to Spock, "Oh sh!t, I just took my glove off and touched the console. Afterward I felt something and detected a strange odor on my fingers when I held them right up to my face."

That depends on how quick-acting and potent the moonshine in that droplet was, I guess...

Possible, although I imagine ion pod duty and away team duty are not things one "signs up" for. Those are likely included in the package deal when one signs up for duty aboard a starship.

A few things to consider:

- Ion Pod duty seemed to have a fairly short roster, or else the odds of Finney being able to make use of an ion storm would have been too low; it already took him the better part of a decade to get the plan in motion!
- Then again, Finney probably rigged the roster, so that when a storm was encountered, the very act of Kirk looking at the roster would put Finney on top or something...
- Nevertheless, doing the Ion Pod thing apparently is not too menial for a Lieutenant Commander and one of the ship's leading eggheads, so possibly the job takes an expert? The court would get suspicious if a supposedly rare storm gave Kirk the chance to finish off his old enemy rather than somebody he had no feelings about - but not if the odds of this enemy being in a position to be victimized were high, i.e. the duty roster was expert-only and short.
- Yet if it was too short and volunteer-only, suspicions would again arise as to why Finney actually volunteered...

- In contrast, landing parties frequently feature "random extras" in addition to top officers and redshirts. Joe Tormolen in his blue shirt fits in nicely, but a comparable situation might have featured a redskirt "life support systems expert" or goldshirt "sampling specialist, third grade" or something else out of the left field as so often happens. It really smacks of people volunteering (if only to avoid having to volunteer for something else).
- Alas, we seldom hear whether Kirk hand-picks his team or just waits for the next name in the roster to get a face when stepping through the transporter room doors. When we do witness the process, it's when Kirk has special needs and asks for a female expert (uh, that probably sounded what it looked like and what the writers intended for it to look like); when there are no special needs involved, we don't witness the process.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Marsden]

This comment of Kirk's to Joe Tormolen in The Naked Time was interesting. Were they envisioning it like the navy, where a guy would opt, or not, to re-up every so often? I can't believe everyone in starfleet would make an entire career out of it.

On the other hand, if one were out on a five year mission, it wouldn't necessarily be easy to suddenly decide that, say, two years was enough.

Any thoughts?

I think it was just a simple way for Kirk to try to calm his doubts. Jim really does care about his people, no matter what some people might say, and he's just trying to help Joe see these doubts are not important otherwise Joe himself wouldn't be there to discuss them.

As for signing on, itself, I think it could just be an idiom or phrase like "coming along" or "back for more" without any deeper or technical meaning.

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

Jim really does care about his people, ...

Indeed he does. The scene that sold me on that was in Dagger of the Mind, when that transporter guy was having trouble beaming the box up from the Tantalus colony. Kirk reminded him that this was a penal colony, which triggered rememberance in the guy. Kirk watched him with an almost fatherly mentoring look, and was authoritative, but warm and encouraging as well. I got the impression that the transporter fellow wasn't all that experienced, and Kirk opted to lift him up rather than slap him down.

More bosses need to take this cue from Jim Kirk.

 

[J.T.B.]

I always figured "signing on" referred specifically to long-duration, deep space missions. It would make sense for something like the 5YM to be voluntary, as opposed to more localized or intra-Federation Starfleet postings.

 

[The Old Mixer]

^This. They make a big deal in TOS about serving on a starship being an extraordinary thing...one probably doesn't get such an assignment accidentally.

 

[Rat Boy]

[- Alas, we seldom hear whether Kirk hand-picks his team or just waits for the next name in the roster to get a face when stepping through the transporter room doors. When we do witness the process, it's when Kirk has special needs and asks for a female expert (uh, that probably sounded what it looked like and what the writers intended for it to look like); when there are no special needs involved, we don't witness the process.

It's somewhat implied both in "Space Seed" and "The Ultimate Computer," first with Kirk asking for "McGivers" and then with his and M-5's contrasting landing party selections.

 

[johnnybear]

Don't forget that the Enterprise had to regulary visit Star Bases along it's path and if anyone wanted to leave the ship they could be ferried back to civilization from there! Might explain why we didn't see the same faces on the ship again! Either that or they were transferred off to another vessel like Yeoman Rand?
JB

 

[Timo]

...Or they got killed in an offscreen adventure.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nerys Myk]

Don't forget that the Enterprise had to regulary visit Star Bases along it's path and if anyone wanted to leave the ship they could be ferried back to civilization from there! Might explain why we didn't see the same faces on the ship again! Either that or they were transferred off to another vessel like Yeoman Rand?
JB

I thought Rand was just never mentioned again.