What happened to Pike/Kirk and the age of peaceful exploration?

this era of Star Trek was meant to be one of peaceful exploration epitomized by Pike/Kirk. Yes you have the nasty skirmishes with the Klingons, the chess games with the Romulans, crisis with the augments but by and large the Federation and its neighbours are largely at peace. Even the Kelvin timeline kept up the upbeat exploratory premise. Yet in STD we have already seen a near genocidal cross species war between the Federation and the Klingon empire, the start of a new Temporal war and now a factional civil war within the Federation between starfleet and section 31. So much for peaceful exploration. The stakes are already higher than anything Kirk/Spock experienced, and yet we have never heard of Michael Burnham before, the USS dicovery? Spock never mentions any of this despite it being more significant than anything he goes through with Kirk?

 

You're looking at Old Trek through rose-tinted nostalgia goggles. Let's look at what TOS has. In "Balance of Terror", war might break out with the Romulans again. In "Errand of Mercy", war with the Klingons is about to flare up again until The Organian Peace Treaty turns it into a Cold War. "A Private Little War" itself is a commentary on the Vietnam War going on at the time. There are no Chess Games with the Romulans in DSC but there is an act of espionage in TOS's "The Enterprise Incident" which is the textbook definition of Chess Game. And it looks like hostilities with the Klingons flare up again during the movies to the point where the Klingon Ambassador angrily proclaims, "There shall be no peace as long as Kirk lives!"

Kirk, by the way, saved Earth twice (TMP and TVH), and stopped a Klingon War from re-erupting again (TUC). I'll put what Kirk accomplished up against anything Burnham accomplished any day.

And if you want to know why Spock never mentions Burnham, Season 2 is in the process of explaining that right now. Be patient. You'll find out in two days.

 

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Starfleet_casualties_(23rd_century)

Be a pal, do your own research there and get back to me. Thanks.

 

You're talking about the era where Kirk hunted monsters, Threatened and occasionally succeeded in blowing the crap out of planets and in his youth watched as the governor of the colony he was living on execute half of the population when threatened with a food shortage? Hmm...

 

Yeah, but Burnham is only eight or so years into her career. Imagine what she'll accomplish if she serves for forty or fifty years. Saving the universe every year is going to lead to one heck of an unequaled resume.

 

And a Pike that was ready to retire and open up an orion slavegirl dealership. Good wholesome peaceful stuff.

hit her plateau. Got a grant for some xeno anthropology study, wrote a few obscure papers. lived the rest of her days in quiet happy academic obscurity. not so bad

 

You have a point. But it'll all happen In The Future! Because time keeps on slippin' splippin' splippin'...



Burham will fly like an Eagle and let the Red Angel Suit carry her.

 

Not when everyone else gets to save the universe 2-3 times a year and gets to do all sorts of other things because it only ever takes them a couple days to do the same thing it takes her months to accomplish.

 

I both agree and disagree.
Yes, the other commenters here are really overstating the conflicts during TOS - TOS was set in a universe comparable to the real one, where lots of conflicts were possible, but only a few of them actually ever errupt (but then become very harrowing if they errupt). And a lot of time the stakes were actually avoiding conflicts to get hot.

So yes, I absolutely think that starting this "rebirth" of Star Trek with a stupid war arc for an entire season was a damn mistake, and it showed.

But quite honestly - as far as season 2 is concerned, this is actually pretty close to the usual, idealised "Star Trek" world. The conflict with Section 31 isn't out in the open for the most part - only after "Control" took, well.... control. And the rest of the universe seems to be at an uneasy peace, with plenty of time for doing exploration and stuff, and following weird signals in the sky, only to come back to do the serious stuff it shit actually got real.

 

The pay sucks and the benefits aren't that great, but it's a living.

 

Please send me your fan fiction

 

Kirk was on a mission with the specific goal of meeting new people, learning about them, and, where possible, inviting them into the Federation. Discovery's mission is to zap around after the Red Angel signals. Pike hasn't had much chance to try peaceful alien diplomacy in Discovery yet, but in season 2 so far we've (relatively) peacefully contacted the Kelpiens, Ba'ul, The Sphere creature and May's people.

I think people might get the impression the OP has from the overall tone of the show. TOS is relatively upbeat and optimistic, even when it's discussing horrifying stuff such as Dr Adam's "rehabilitation" centre or Kodos' massacre. Discovery couldn't really be called upbeat by any means.

 

Most of the peaceful exploration in Kirk's era seemed to involve fisticuffs, a death or two and weapons fire.

 

America... IN SPACE!!!

 

And when she gets there, like her mom I supect she'll be getting a bit Kinky until she gets it perfectly right like her mom failed to do.

 

Peace through superior firepower?