The Confusing Case of Captain Pike's Chronological Age

No.

 

Perhaps you should remember TOS "Balance of Terror":

So there were at least four, and possibly a few more, officers named Stiles in the Romulan War. Since that is "family history" they should have been related, being siblings, or first cousins, or second cousins, etc.

Suppose that the various PIkes in various productions are several ciousins. It is perfectly possible for first cousins - let alone second cousins - to be born many decades apart. I also note that many families have the tradition of naming the first born son after the paternal grandfather, and sometimes the second born son after the maternal grandfather.

So Bruce Greenwood's Chrisotpher PIke could be an older first cousin of Jefrey Hunter's Christopher PIke. And Anson Mount's Christoper Pike would be the same person as Jeffrey Hunter's.

As for Pike being a clasmate of Georgiou in Starfleet Academy, It ispossible that they were once of similar ages but their ages have diverged by the time of of Strange New Worlds or "The Cage". Star Trek is a fictional universe where wormholes exist and are so common tht Data passed thorugh two before "Clues, possibly travelling foreward or backwards in time.

Since wormholes don't have to lead to the same time, it is possible that Pike and Georgiou were originally the same age, but have traveled through different wormholes and are lucky enough to find themselves still in the same centrury, but are no longer the same age.

And there are also various time warps, suspended animaton, dying and being brought back to liffe some time later, and so on, which could add up to making someone's age, the number of years they have been alive, different from the number of years which have passed since they were born.

AS for Chrisotpher PIke being KIrk's age, in"Menagerie Part 1":

So Mendez is not referring to Pike's condition at the present time, when he is a scarred shell in a life support system.

Maybe Mendez refers to Pike's condition when KIrk met him, when Pike was promoted to Fleet Captain. Spock says the voyage to Talos IV, when Spock was already a member of PIke's crew, was thirteen years earlier.

Assuming that thirteen years is between 13.000 and 14.000 years, and that Spock joined the Enterprise crew immediately before the fight on Rigel VII, Pike's command would have ended about 1.652 to 2.652 years before "Menagerie Part 2". But if Spock began serving under Pike sometime before the fight on Rigel VII, the period since PIke lost commandof the Enterpise would be longer.

And maybe Kirk met Pike at a starbase when Pike was promoted to fleet captain, and Pike retained command of the Enterprise for a few years, and then Kirk replaced pIke as captain of hte Enteprise, without meeting Pike a second time. Then Mendez coould be referring to PIke'a age more than on one two years before "Menagerie Part 1".

And maybe Mendez was describing PIke when Mendez may have known him years or decades before the accident. If Mendez was nearing retirment age and was in his fifties or sixties, two men in their thirties might seem approximately equally young to Mendez. So Pike could have been born 20 years before Kirk, and Mendez might remember Pike from 15 year earlier, when PIke was just five years older than Kirk now was in "Menagerie" part 2".

 

Those kinds of background details have never been canon before. Otherwise, the refit Enterprise is still running the pre-refit diagnostic tools per TSfS. Among other things that background details have gotten wrong.

 

Those kinds of background details carry more weight now than they ever did before, because they're now designed knowing that they'll be in HD and visible on screen when they weren't before, and that each frame is going to be paused and analyzed to death. No more lorem ipsum or funny little M*A*S*H* references these days. We're seeing more stuff lifted straight out of the series bible and production notes make it to screen -- and even some copypasta from licensed reference materials.

That being said, dialogue and plot should still take precedence over the background displays where the two conflict, but in absence of better data, the infographics do actually carry weight these days because there is thought and intent behind them when there really wasn't during the previous production eras.

 

Yup. And they carry all the weight as before. Relevant right until it's not.

 

And then Pike was recast and renamed Kirk for the series proper and was 34 in "The Deadly Years". His being a captain so young was a plot point in several tie-in materials if not the actual show itself. And if Kirk being a young captain is a big deal, Pike can't be that young.

 

I did the maths on that once and it worked out that Pike took command of the Enterprise age 9.

There's your next Paramount+ series right there.

 

Absolutely. I've *never* thought of Pike that young during The Cage, despite what the production notes say was intended. Hunter was in his late 30s and played Pike like a man who was coming to grips with his own mortality. He just feels like someone who's approaching or just past 40 to me, somewhere around 38 to 42, in contrast to Kirk who's very much played like a man who just recently hit 30.

And remember, "The Cage" is at least two years into Pike's command of the Enterprise, not right at the start. If he took command at 35 or 36, and Kirk took command at 30, that's still enough of a gap for Kirk's youth to be "a big deal."

 

So if Pike was born in 2205 regardless of Timeline, he could’ve been a freshman when Georgiou was a senior. Problem solved?

 

Based upon the ages of the rest of the "TOS" crew in the Kelvin timeline, it might be best to just ignore the Kelvinverse all together in this case. In TOS Chekov was born in 2245. In "Who Mourns for Adonais" Chekov states he's 22. However, in ST09 Chekov was born in 2242 and was only 17 during the Enterprise's maiden voyage.

Or the best case scenario is to ignore Mendez' comment that Pike and Kirk were about the same age.

 

Well, yeah, that's obvious. If he was born 2210-2215 as I propose, that would make him 52-57 during Menagerie and 39-44 during The Cage. A far cry from Kirk's age of 32-36 during TOS.

Also, Yelchin Chekov was born in 2241, instead of 2245, which is fine because it's an alternate timeline that diverged about a decade before he was born (who knows what Andrei Chekov was up to in the new timeline). Greenwood Pike is (almost certainly) the same guy as Hunter Pike / Mount Pike, he just had a different career post-2233. However old Greenwood's character was, he is the same age as Mount's and Hunter's and even Kenney's.

The only reason to argue (as I have) that Pike is a bit younger than he seems to say he is, is due to The Cage's unstated implication that he wasn't a seasoned officer like Boyce.

Strange New Worlds can come out and say Pike is 70 years old in their first episode. Or say he's 30. And we'd have to accept it. But, as of right now, I think it's better to imagine him somewhere inbetween.

 

Seems to me it'd be easiest to just say the hell with it and put Pike's age the same as Anson Mount's.

 

Seems to me his age doesn't need to be stated.

 

We already have the Academy reference and Kelvin Pike’s (non-canon) birth year, so I don’t see a problem with 2205, especially since it just so happens (?) to insert three years between Pike and Georgiou entering the Academy.

Pike would’ve been about 52-53 in DSC S2, about 49 in “The Cage”, and the same or younger in “Q&A”, when Anson Mount was about 46.

 

No this is Star Trek we need detailed and exact dates for everything.

 

You're right. I remember rewatching TOS and having my notebook of details and being angry that I didn't know Kirk's age, especially in terms of how old he was in relation to Spock and McCoy. The Autobiography of James T. Kirk was too little too late.

 

Or: he was born on the earlier date and some incident involving time dilation stretched out his apparent lifespan versus physical span before entering the Academy.

hey I can be as convoluted as anyone.

 

"The Deadly Years":

http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/40.htm

 

I think you missed the sarcasm going on between F. King Daniel and fireproof78 there. No one was lacking that information.

 

More a matter of I didn't have the information from the beginning of the series therefore ruining my view of both Kirk and Spock. The "Deadly Years" was too late by then.

Joking. Semi.