"Jim, the Enterprise is 20 years old, we feel her day is done." My thoughts when seeing that scene.

[STEPhon IT]

He had no clout in 3 but there was a huge battle which Bennett loss in Star Trek IV, it was addressed in Shatner's movie Memories and I AM Spock. Another bout Nimoy won was against the studio wanting subtitles between the whales and the probe. IV was Nimoy's film bar none.

 

[STEPhon IT]

It is quite possible that the Enterprise left some scientific instruments with Khan's group including possibly watches and clocks that kept the time on various planets accurately for many years, and thus that Khan knew how many Earth years or Starfleet years had passed, especially since Kirk also said it was 15 years.

I honestly think this was due to rushed writing, and not thinking it through; a director who really wanted to work on a film and saw consistencies in other drafts of the 5 previous scripts and put the best parts in. Like Chekhov recognizing Khan and Khan somehow knew him retroactively???

Khan could not possibly know it was 15 years on a baron planet; he should've asked what year it was and when he had the answer his response should've been as how shocked he was when he discovered Kirk was promoted. Anyway, I don't buy the Enterprise was built in 2245 when there are episodes of the first season which state the crew was living in the 22nd Century.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Khan could not possibly know it was 15 years on a baron planet

Not even if the wreckage of the Botany Bay included a chronometer?

And even if not, Khan is clearly intelligent enough that he would be able to estimate the time passsed. Even if he couldn't see the stars (judging by Ceti Alpha V's constant storms, I'm sure he couldn't), he could still remember the rising and setting of the sun.

there are episodes of the first season which state the crew was living in the 22nd Century.

There were no episodes that actually STATED such a thing, but there may have been occasional implications to that effect. In any case, they have been retconned out of existence.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Earth time, since the 15 years figure is also confirmed by Kirk ("There's a man out there I haven't seen for 15 years...").

It's bad writing, Johnny; and we know the distances of planets can determined different cycles of time and months or ever years. The distances of space travel would alter any sort of relevant Earth order of time, because the traveler would know the moment they left Earth or any planet those people were dead millions of years ago.

It's one of the things TOS tried very hard to avoid in space or on an alien planet because those things factor in. Its something that pissed me with Star Trek Continues in their last useless fanfilms talking Earth years when they were no where near Earth during any of those events. So stardates would be appropriate.

When DS9 was good I remember a character spoke of the year of Bajor and it was something like 9374! It blew my mind at the time, but I understood immediately that Earth time is irrelevant outside of Earth.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Not even if the wreckage of the Botany Bay included a chronometer?

And even if not, Khan is clearly intelligent enough that he would be able to estimate the time passsed. Even if he couldn't see the stars (judging by Ceti Alpha V's constant storms, I'm sure he couldn't), he could still remember the rising and setting of the sun.

So Ceti Alpha V is like Earth the third planet from our Sun, and not like Jupiter??? And did you see any working chronometers in ST:II???

There were no episodes that actually STATED such a thing, but there may have been occasional implications to that effect. In any case, they have been retconned out of existence.

I only take what was seen and heard on TOS as facts, and I've given you several episodes to pick upon. Do the math, TOS is in 22nd Century not the 23rd. As for what came after, the writers didn't have the time to do their homework.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

It's bad writing, Johnny; and we know the distances of planets can determined different cycles of time and months or ever years. The distances of space travel would alter any sort of relevant Earth order of time

Well, I agree with you in principle that different planets have different planetary years, of course, but since two different characters in the movie plainly tell us that it's been 15 years since Khan was marooned on Ceti Alpha V, we're forced to assume that either Khan was keeping track of the Earth years for some reason (which would fit with his 20th century two-dimensional thinking in the final battle), or that the years of Ceti Alpha V's altered orbit were close enough to Earth years as to make no substantial difference.

It's either that, or we assume that both Kirk and Khan didn't know what they were talking about, and that's not something I'm prepared to do.

And Trek has never really alluded to time passing differently on Earth than it does aboard the Enterprise, probably because they knew it could confuse the hell out of casual viewers. I suspect that warp speed was partially a way to sidestep those issues.

I only take what was seen and heard on TOS as facts

So I assume that you're putting TOS on a higher pedestal than the movies when it comes to continuity, then?

I tend to look at this question from a character point of view. Khan's basic characteristic in TWOK is that he's obsessed with Kirk and blames him for all the hardships he's had to endure on CAV. Khan would absolutely know that it's been 15 years he's spent on CAV. Hell, he probably had it timed down to the second, because he was obsessive, crazy, and he didn't have much else to do outside of survive and brood. And since Khan was a genius in his own right, I wouldn't put it past him to calculate the time differential. That seems like something that would be within his abilities.

But Kirk confirms that it's been 15 years since he last saw Khan, and he ought to know. I would assume that Kirk likely called up his old logs of the Enterprise's encounter with the Botany Bay while they were en route to Regula I to refresh his memory (offscreen, of course). They never state so in the movie, but Kirk's a smart guy and it seems a prudent thing to do.

 

[STEPhon IT]

I will always put TOS on a higher pedestal because what was on the series was true. Retconned stuff I'll state them for what they are, after the fact jargon based on zero evidence to prove it. I felt the series wasn't continuity conscious when it was in production. The Enterprise was given an open history giving the impression the ship has been around a long time, definitely before 2245 since Space Seed and Tomorrow is Yesterday suggest Kirk and crew was in the 22nd Century.

I love The Wrath of Khan and I'm willing to accept what was mentioned because the movie was great. I'm open to the believing TOS was set in the latter part of the 22nd Century and in the movies they were in the 23rd Century, but those chronology books from Fans turning pro are all wrong on the timelines. The Enterprise was older than 40 years old.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

Khan would have very little motivation to bring anything but weapons and personal effects over from the Botany Bay before he himself is shown ditching the ship and leaving her spinning in the wake of the Enterprise. And Kirk would have no motivation for going back for the ancient derelict.

In the interquel comic book to Space Seed & TWOK published by IDW, the Botany Bay is brought down to the surface by & company, along with Kirk, McCoy, and Scott, to serve as a place to live while they get about starting new lives on Ceti Alpha V. However after planet six explodes, it gets battered by the atmospheric changes until nothing of it is left but cargo containers.

But Khan's personal effects might well include stuff tied together with belts that feature the Botany Bay logo. Say, the very stack of books that eventually sits on the shelf next to the fateful belt.

Yep, pretty much.

(Yes, those are Kirk-era cargo containers, identical in shape to the ones seen in his cargo holds in ST:TMP, although there's some tomfoolery with the exact size. There's even a Federation logo on the outside, although it cannot be seen in the movie. And then a couple of items that say Starfleet on the inside, but those aren't exactly part of the containers if one wants to argue the point.)

Exactly.

Khan doesn't strike me as the sort of guy who would care about timekeeping systems other than the one pertaining to him personally. If Ceti Alpha V still has seasons after the disaster, then Khan counts his years by those. If it doesn't, Khan might very well resort to using Earth years. But those are more or less the only two plausible choices.

Timo Saloniemi

Khan is using Earth timekeeping systems because that's the only way he and his people could keep track of time (these systems/devices might have been been programmed on the Enterprise with data about the planet gained from sensor scans.)

 

[Dukhat]

In the interquel comic book to Space Seed & TWOK published by IDW, the Botany Bay is brought down to the surface by & company, along with Kirk, McCoy, and Scott, to serve as a place to live while they get about starting new lives on Ceti Alpha V. However after planet six explodes, it gets battered by the atmospheric changes until nothing of it is left but cargo containers.

The cargo containers weren't from the Botany Bay, but were in fact Starfleet issue cargo containers from TMP. I'm pretty sure the actual ship was not on the surface of the planet.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

The cargo containers weren't from the Botany Bay, but were in fact Starfleet issue cargo containers from TMP. I'm pretty sure the actual ship was not on the surface of the planet.

In this story, it was brought to the surface of the planet.

 

[Maurice]

The cargo containers weren't from the Botany Bay, but were in fact Starfleet issue cargo containers from TMP. I'm pretty sure the actual ship was not on the surface of the planet.

You would be correct. Khan even identifies them as "cargo bays".

 

[F. King Daniel]

Then why did the seatbelts/harnesses/whatever say "BOTANY BAY"?

 

[Dukhat]

Because they brought stuff from their ship to the planet.

I have a photo from the set which clearly shows the cargo containers as Starfleet (they’re the same ones that the work bees haul around in TMP).

 

[Timo]

...Heck, there's even a "spine" there - that is, the structure that connects those containers into a "cargo train" to be towed by a workbee. Supposedly, there would have been a full train there, but only four containers remain properly attached to the spine, while two others are bent out of the line and the final two are nowhere to be seen.

It's just too bad that we cannot see any of that in the actual movie, which has just one scene where the UFP (not Starfleet) logo on the outside might be visible but the sandstorm effect obscures it there. So theoretically we're free to speculate. Including speculating that those containers have not changed since the 1990s, and originally came from Khan's ship...

...Although that wouldn't be my preference, some things in Trek do easily survive unchanged for centuries, including many pieces of alien shipbuilding art. Why would the containers need to change? (And why would the Enterprise have less future ahead of it in ST3 than those seemingly ancient alien ships we so often meet?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Norsehound]

...back to the OP question... I've been coming to the opinion that Morrow and Starfleet brass had it out for the Enterprise, and were looking for a chance to retire her in spite of her status.

It could be for a number of reasons;

1. Legendary as she is, she's only one heavy cruiser... one that is about as old as the rest of her class. My headcannon suggests the Mirandas are new, more efficient cruisers to replace the older Constitutions. Losing Enterprise for a replacement Miranda seems operationally sound. They even have a new registry picked out for the next Enterprise (since alphanumeric designations weren't even considered), and she might be a Miranda or an Excelsior sister ship.

2. The Fleet museum is clamoring for the Enterprise and has some clout with Morrow. Retire the ship and let her be preserved in posterity as the most famous Starship in Federation history. Especially now that she's damaged.

3. Kirk's unusual obsession with his ship is well known and this kind of favoritism is frowned upon by starfleet etiquette. Combined with all the other reasons, putting the Enterprise to pasture it might encourage Kirk to calm down and take his Admiralty responsibilities more seriously. Not likely, but someone must have had this thought and suggested it to Morrow.

4. Some iconoclastic tendencies within the Federation brass want to remove such symbols as the Enterprise and give her no more fame than she's due. She's only another heavy cruiser, not some legendary prototype like the one they are building and spending a lot of cash on in spacedock. Scrap her, throw out some excuse to make her crew happy, and move on with the Next Big Thing.

 

[Damian]

None of this is really canon, but the Enterprise was 40 years old and the feeling was that that class of ships was becoming obsolete (according to some novels). That combined with the extensive damage done to the Enterprise in TWOK made them decide to just retire the ship. I agree with some others, the 20 year old line was probably referencing the age of Star Trek more than the ship. The movies were generally more catered to a wider audience and they probably didn't give much thought beyond that.

If anything probably what confused audiences more who didn't know there was a long in universe gap between TMP and TWOK is why are they mothballing a ship they just seemingly did an extensive refit on a few years a go. To some, it was basically a 4 to 5 year gap between TMP and TSFS (instead of more than 10 years). The same with the Enterprise-A. To the common moviegoing public they probably thought, it was a brand new ship in TFF and they are already retiring it 2 years later in TUC. Again, we know there was several years, and the Enterprise-A was likely a refit of a different ship.

 

[Marsden]

.
2. The Fleet museum is clamoring for the Enterprise and has some clout with Morrow. Retire the ship and let her be preserved in posterity as the most famous Starship in Federation history. Especially now that she's damaged.

That was my theory for a long time, too. THE Enterprise as a museum ship would make sense.

As for Yorktown being renamed Enterprise A? That ship was in bad shape, maybe the engineer couldn't get the solar sail working and life support did fail. There's an empty ship that had to have a completely new energizer and control system replacement and no surviving crew. Giving that to Kirk isn't that great of a reward, no matter what they renamed it.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Actually, I thought Morrow was remarkably level-headed. He certainly wasn't the stereotypical Evil Admiral trope. He definitely had his reasons to put a lid on all the talk about Genesis.

And to keep Kirk from going back there, regardless of what was at stake for him personally. I’m sure Morrow sympathized with what Kirk was going through, but he could not have allowed Kirk to return to Genesis after the Federation Council ordered that only the Grissom be allowed to visit the system. As the Starfleet Commander, he had to look at the big picture, and retrieving the body of one of his officers was a much lower priority than making sure that a brand new planet was safe to visit and eventually colonize and that the Klingons and Romulans didn’t raise hell trying to steal the Genesis technology for themselves.

 

[Tenacity]

the studio wanting subtitles between the whales and the probe

A great idea, could have been used to explain what the probe's purpose was, and how Earth and the whales fitted into that purpose.

Instead the audience got meaningless whale noises.

Then the probe left.

 

[thribs]

That’s 20 years old with the refit. It’s 40 if you include the original.
Still quite a young ship. I’d imagine Connies would have a 60-70 year lifespan. The Galaxy had a 100 years.