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Spoilers The Autobiography of James T. Kirk - announcement and reviews

In addition, I think the way we wrote the Andorians in ST:E, and the way they're portrayed in Journey to Babel (the Ambassador describes his people as a violent race) is that they wouldn't necessarily run to join up with a peace keeping organization like Starfleet, and even if they did the standards of Starfleet Academy might be difficult for them to attain (Kirk says in "The Apple" that Mallory's father helped him get into the Academy - that implies it wasn't easy or a given that anybody could go). But there would be the occasional Andorian who might get in.

The angle I've taken in the post-ENT, early-UFP setting is that the UESPA Starfleet is the exploratory and diplomatic arm of Starfleet and the Andorian Guard is the defensive arm. So they're both in Starfleet, but in different subfleets with different (though occasionally overlapping) responsibilities. I've been assuming they'd eventually evolve into the more unified force we see in the later shows, but I suppose it's possible that the separation could've persisted into the TOS era. There was an IDW TOS comic story (one of the issues of Burden of Knowledge) that portrayed the Andorians and Tellarites as still being fairly separate and mutually unfriendly societies with their own distinct fleets (still using the exact same ship designs from a century before). I found that interpretation kind of iffy, preferring the idea of a more unified Federation, but it's not out of the question.

I've often thought that since we never saw the Intrepid in "The Immunity Syndrome," it's conceivable that it was a ringship of Vulcan design, rather than the Constitution-class vessel it's generally been assumed to be.
 
I've often thought that since we never saw the Intrepid in "The Immunity Syndrome," it's conceivable that it was a ringship of Vulcan design, rather than the Constitution-class vessel it's generally been assumed to be.

Oh, I never even considered that, but that is a neat idea.
 
SOT but in the TOS era is there the same separation of duties, or just most ships have predominantly a single race for life support reasons?
 
SOT but in the TOS era is there the same separation of duties, or just most ships have predominantly a single race for life support reasons?

I imagine it's more the latter. In Christopher's notes on the early Starfleet uniforms, he uses the insignias we saw for the Constellation, Exeter, Antares, and Enterprise as logos for the various founding fleets, and the ships we saw in TOS that apparently belonged to those sections all had human crews, or at least human captains.
 
In Journey to Babel I really didn't get the impression that the federation member races liked each other particularly well. Felt it was more like what the EU has become than the US. Things like UESPA would back that up. Certainly it's possible for foreign citizens, even ones who aren't allies, to be in your fleet, so no questions there.

When was the first use of "Federation citizen"?

By the movies, and even TAS, we saw many alien Starfleet members, which kind of suggests something closer, but were there any in TOS? I suppose although Vulcans and Andorians can survive fine on a Earth ship (see Spock/Shran), Vulcans prefer a hotter ambient temperature, and Andorians colder. I assume the E would be about 21C, but a Vulcan ship might be 35 or 40C, and an Andorian nearer freezing. By the time that the movies roll round, the uniforms magically adapt the climate far better?

Personally I've never liked Journey to Babel (or DS9:Babel come to that)
 
In Journey to Babel I really didn't get the impression that the federation member races liked each other particularly well.

Well, all we saw was that the diplomats representing those member worlds had strong disagreements about the Coridan issue -- although some of the remarks Sarek and Gav traded were kind of speciesist. But we can't jump to conclusions about entire species based on a couple of individuals. I always got the sense that Sarek and Gav had a history, having interacted often as ambassadors, and thus didn't like each other. So it could just be professional rivalry rather than widespread racial tensions.


When was the first use of "Federation citizen"?

Best way to search for lines in Trek episodes and films:

http://scriptsearch.dxdy.name/

The first usage, though with different wording, is in TAS: "More Tribbles, More Troubles": "Much as I hate to admit it, Captain Koloth, Cyrano Jones is a citizen of the Federation and entitled to Federation protection."


By the time that the movies roll round, the uniforms magically adapt the climate far better?

Other way around, really. "Spock's Brain" showed that the standard uniforms had temperature controls that the crew could use to protect themselves from the cold of Sigma Draconis VI -- but by TWOK, they were wearing heavy parkas on landing parties.


Personally I've never liked Journey to Babel (or DS9:Babel come to that)

Huh? The only similarity there is in the titles.
 
When was the first use of "Federation citizen"?

Best way to search for lines in Trek episodes and films:

http://scriptsearch.dxdy.name/

The first usage, though with different wording, is in TAS: "More Tribbles, More Troubles": "Much as I hate to admit it, Captain Koloth, Cyrano Jones is a citizen of the Federation and entitled to Federation protection."

"Errand of Mercy" has this line, underlined in the preceding context:
AYELBORNE: As I stand here, I also stand upon the home planet of the Klingon Empire, and the home planet of your Federation, Captain. I'm putting a stop to this insane war.
KOR: You're what?
KIRK: You're talking nonsense.
AYELBORNE: It is being done.
KIRK: You can't just stop the fleet. What gives you the right?
KOR: You can't interfere. What happens in space is not your business.
AYELBORNE: Unless both sides agree to an immediate cessation of hostilities, all your armed forces, wherever they may be, will be immediately immobilised.
KIRK: We have legitimate grievances against the Klingons. They've invaded our territory, killed our citizens. They're openly aggressive. They've boasted that they'll take over half the galaxy.
In that context, "our citizens" could only really mean "Federation citizens."
 
Dan and I had a great chat with David about the book on Literary Treks!
1443720743755
 
Just posted my review as well!

It was a pleasure getting to speak with David about this book. I definitely envy him getting the chance to write it!
 
I don't know how I missed hearing about this book until now. I'll have to try to track down a copy this weekend. I just hope Kirk's solution to the Kobyashi Maru is based off how he beat it in the TOS Kobyashi Maru novel or at least is very different from the 2009 film. The 2009 Kobyashi Maru portion was my dad's least favorite part of the movie an mine as well. The deleted scenes in the novelization and the special edition made us hate it even more.
 

Green eyes on Shatner look really odd.


Green eyes on Shatner look really odd.

Yeah, it's not the most realistic looking colorization.

I tried to naturalize it a bit, but it's still not quite there. :)

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That is a good point, it is a little strange. I felt like the picture was meant to have that sepia tone to it, even though that does not make sense at that point in history and digital photography.

Dan and I had a great chat with David about the book on Literary Treks!
1443720743755

Great interview.

Thank you so much!
 
I'm being lazy and don't feel like going back for quotes, but I'm responding to the whole debate about the racial makeup of Starfleet. I honestly thought that it was pretty much just a real world issue and never really needed to be addressed in universe explanation. The only reason we didn't see a lot aliens on the Enterprise is because they couldn't afford to do a bunch of aliens on a regular basis.
The books and even the Abramsverse movies have given us much more diverse crews. We've gotten a whole bunch of alien crew members on the ships in Vanguard. The pre-Seekers Sagittarius alone has an Andorian, Vulcan, Saurian, Denobulan, and a Tiburonian as members of a 14 person crew.
 
I'm being lazy and don't feel like going back for quotes, but I'm responding to the whole debate about the racial makeup of Starfleet. I honestly thought that it was pretty much just a real world issue and never really needed to be addressed in universe explanation. The only reason we didn't see a lot aliens on the Enterprise is because they couldn't afford to do a bunch of aliens on a regular basis.

Right. Which was why the Enterprise gained a Caitian and an Edoan in the crew as soon as the animated series began and they had the freedom to include diverse aliens, and why it had a whole bunch of Vulcan, Andorian, Saurian, Rhaandarite, Zaranite, and other alien crewmembers as soon as it was featured in a big-budget movie. Implicitly, that diversity was there all along, just not featured on camera before.
 
Candidly from what we've learned I don't think GR had to fight all that hard to get Spock into the show. I think it's another one of those things GR hyped to make himself look better and NBC look short sighted.

From what we've learned from the Cushman books, NBC WAS short-sighted, even more so than we ever thought. And since I've had twenty years of knock-down drag out fights with networks over much smaller issues, I am certain that GR making one of his main characters an alien that wasn't from "Mars" or someplace the network execs had heard of was a titanic accomplishment, proven by the fact that there weren't any alien characters on tv at the time, except Uncle Martin and Debbie the chip on Lost in Space. Just the fact that they airbrushed Spock's ears and eyebrows from the promotional materials showed how uncomfortable they were with it.

Respectfully, the Cushman books are far from factually accurate sources of information, rife with numerous (and often silly, lazy) errors and complete with various passages where Cushman has been demonstrably proven to have just been making things up.

If you are so inclined, I'd highly recommend taking a read over at Star Trek Fact Check for further proof of this.
 
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