Final mission of the original 5 year mission

[Jedi Marso]

Is there anything official anywhere detailing what the final assignment (adventure) of the 1701's five year mission with the TOS crew was? Or anything describing/detailing their return to Earth and the immediate aftermath, knowing they were the only surviving original-construction Constitution Class starship?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Is there anything official anywhere detailing what the final assignment (adventure) of the 1701's five year mission with the TOS crew was? Or anything describing/detailing their return to Earth and the immediate aftermath, knowing they were the only surviving original-construction Constitution Class starship?

I'm not even sure that's official.

Since it's on screen stuff that's usually official. there really hasn't been anything detailing the last assignment or their reactions after arriving home. Plenty of non official stuff in novels and comics though.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

What @Nerys Myk said.

 

[johnnybear]

If we count the cartoon series then it's that but if not then it's either Turnabout Intruder or All Our Yesterdays, depending on whether you count the stardates or not!
JB

 

[Galileo7]

If we count the cartoon series then it's that but if not then it's either Turnabout Intruder or All Our Yesterdays, depending on whether you count the stardates or not!
JB

I think TAS episodes were the final on screen missions of TOS five year mission.

 

[Metryq]

I never understood the "five year mission" aspect in the opening titles. Maybe it sounded good at the time. Various crewmen would come and go, and the Enterprise routinely stopped at starbases and such—it was not out at the frontier, alone, for the full five years.

From episodes like "The Menagerie" we learn that the Enterprise itself has been in service far longer than 5 years. I would hope a starship has more life in it than 5 years. I don't know what common naval practice is—concerning ships, career officers, etc. Do career military service personnel stay in until retirement (or they decide to quit), or do they all sign up for a handful of years at a time, like renewing a contract?

 

[Jedi Marso]

I never understood the "five year mission" aspect in the opening titles. Maybe it sounded good at the time. Various crewmen would come and go, and the Enterprise routinely stopped at starbases and such—it was not out at the frontier, alone, for the full five years.

Given the deep space nature of most Starfleet exploration assignments, I always took the '5 year mission' thing to mean that a crew and captain were assigned to the ship for a 5 year tour, and that the intent was for the crew to remain largely intact during this time (a few changes notwithstanding with starbase layovers and such). The ship would be outside Federation space often and for long periods, with little opportunities for transfers and so on. After five years, the ship rolls in for a refit, major captain/crew replacements can happen, the new crew trains on the new equipment upgrades, and then out they go again for another five year mission.

Do career military service personnel stay in until retirement (or they decide to quit), or do they all sign up for a handful of years at a time, like renewing a contract?

Officers are commissioned and follow a career track based on their various specialties. Other than incurring a 'service obligation' for some high cost training (mostly aviation), there is no set time limit on service. Officers will generally serve until they decide to 'resign their commission' and leave the service, or 'retire' if they have reached or exceeded 20 years of service.

Enlisted personnel sign service contracts, agreeing to serve for 2, 4, or 6 year enlistments. At the end of an enlistment they are free to leave the service or 're-enlist' for another term. The length of an enlistment contract may depend on the type of training the person is going to receive: more expensive and extensive training may require the enlistee to sign a 6 year enlistment contract. After reaching 20 years of service over the course of several re-enlistments, enlisted personnel are also able to 'retire' and achieve a pension and benefits.

On of the interesting differences between commissioned and enlisted service is that the latter can have significant breaks in it. You could enlist for a term, leave the service, and then re-enlist at a later date if you so chose and the service needed your skills. It's technically not impossible for officers to do something similar, but it's not a standard practice and is very hard to do in terms of jumping through hoops. Once you leave the commissioned service, you are done for the most part. An exception would be re-entering a reserve or guard unit, which is a whole 'nuther ball of wax but could potentially provide a pathway back to active service if you were really chasing it.

 

[Lance]

I always loved the idea that The Animated Series' "The Counter Clock Incident" is the final mission of the five years. There's a certain cuteness in Captain Robert April, NCC-1701's very first captain, being there at the end of Kirk's historic mission.

 

[Kor]

There have been various, completely different, depictions of the final mission in Trek literature. Off the top of my head, I remember the comic that had the Klingons and the Talosians, and the more recent comic with giant bugs or worms or something.

Kor

 

[Timo]

We don't know for sure if opening credits are part of the Star Trek reality or not. I mean, the fact that Kirk is an impostor and really named William Shatner isn't part of that reality - but are the opening speeches?

Onscreen, we know that Kirk personally had a five-year mission that ended in 2270 - Icheb states this in VOY "Q2". This would be a fine way to define TOS: the personal tour of duty of Kirk, supposedly highly exceptional as per ST:TMP, rather than anything affecting the ship or her crew much. Canonically, the mission would then end with Kirk "returning", supposedly to Earth - possibly quite an adventure unto itself.

Alas, that's slightly at odds with the opening speech idea of the mission having been about the Enterprise, indeed being "her" mission. Nothing much is likely to have bookended her five years, at least not to a degree comparable to the major rebuildings she got in the middle of Kirk's five years!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

Off the top of my head, I remember the comic that had the Klingons and the Talosians...

That one exists in my "head canon" as the final mission.

 

[Marsden]

I never understood the "five year mission" aspect in the opening titles. Maybe it sounded good at the time. Various crewmen would come and go, and the Enterprise routinely stopped at starbases and such—it was not out at the frontier, alone, for the full five years.

From episodes like "The Menagerie" we learn that the Enterprise itself has been in service far longer than 5 years. I would hope a starship has more life in it than 5 years. I don't know what common naval practice is—concerning ships, career officers, etc. Do career military service personnel stay in until retirement (or they decide to quit), or do they all sign up for a handful of years at a time, like renewing a contract?

Because that was unchanged from the first regular episode, and the beginning logs were an after the fact narration, I have concluded that the whole thing are historical records of the 5 years of when Captain Kirk was in command of the Enterprise.

They are all perfectly accurate and true and anyone that disagrees is a terrible person.

 

[Kor]

Because that was unchanged from the first regular episode, and the beginning logs were an after the fact narration, I have concluded that the whole thing are historical records of the 5 years of when Captain Kirk was in command of the Enterprise.

They are all perfectly accurate and true and anyone that disagrees is a terrible person.

+1

Also, the ship being on a five-year mission didn't mean that the ship itself would automatically be mothballed at the end of the five years. There is a long-standing idea that April, Pike and Kirk all had five-year missions using the same ship, I think.

Kor

 

[Metryq]

There is a long-standing idea that April, Pike and Kirk all had five-year missions using the same ship, I think.

Pike commanded longer than 5 years, which is established in "The Menagerie." Kirk tells Mendez that he took over from Pike, and Spock reports that he served with Pike for 11 years, 4 months, 5 days (and some odd number of milliseconds). Of course, that doesn't mean Pike was captain of the Enterprise that whole time—although that, too, is established during the court that the Talos mission occurred 13 years earlier. Since Kirk said he took over after Pike, that means Pike commanded the Enterprise longer than 5 years. Unless someone wants to shoehorn in a hiatus in there somewhere.

("Hiatus" is the Latin classification for a defunct home video format.)

 

[Kor]

Two five-year (or so) missions, then.

Kor

 

[johnnybear]

Pike was da man! He could take it out there among the stars, not like Kirk who was a wuss! To be honest Kirk is the best Captain in the entire Trek universe especially in the three year TV show! He wasn't as entertaining in the movies I have to admit with that syrup on his head and that girdle around his waist! Although he was back on form for The Undiscovered Country!
JB

 

[Timo]

There is a long-standing idea that April, Pike and Kirk all had five-year missions using the same ship, I think.

Yet Kirk quotes his "five years out there" as a thing uniquely qualifying him for the command of the V'Ger mission, against the handicap of him being a paper-pusher and all.

I doubt the concept of a five-year mission even existed back when April and Pike commanded the ship - or that it outlived Kirk's one and only sortie. Other ships and skippers would simply have "ongoing" missions of exploration, and few of those, regardless of their eventual length, would compare to Kirk's achievements. And then three-year missions of charting space gases right next to top secret Klingon military installations, or two-year missions of establishing a series of colonies in the Opaque Nebula, etc. And those might overlap in terms of time, too.

Because that was unchanged from the first regular episode, and the beginning logs were an after the fact narration, I have concluded that the whole thing are historical records of the 5 years of when Captain Kirk was in command of the Enterprise.

+4.7

Also, ShatnerKirk's "mission" was an unplanned happenstance that was truncated at five years for unknown reasons, and at that point defined as "the famed five-year mission". PineKirk's five years was a scheduled sortie with an ending date the crew could look forward to while the mission was ongoing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Metryq]

Two five-year (or so) missions, then.

Kor

Or maybe those early warp drives did some funny things. At any rate, Kirk destroyed the 1701 so no one else could have it.

 

[Terok Nor]

Captain April and Captain Pike sure must have had some pretty boring adventures pre-Captain Kirk. Kirk's 5 year mission and the man himself are legendary well into the 24th century whereas April and Pike are forgotten.

 

[Timo]

It would be nice to learn what Kirk had going for him - quality or quantity.

That is, is it usual for starship skippers to save the Earth, the Federation or the whole goddamn universe at least once per tour of duty? Does it only become unusual when one does the first thing six times, the second three times and the last twice, like Kirk did at a minimum?

Timo Saloniemi