Maybe some kind of pun on the original name of its lead character?
Maybe some kind of pun on the original name of its lead character?
Ryan - Actually the timeliners have 'The Cage' in March. Here's the footnote in the document - IDWNV produced a comic which retells the story of the “The Cage”. In order for 13 years having passed between the events of “The Cage” (TOS) and “The Menagerie” Timeliners speculate that “The Cage” must happen around the month of March. Spacing the episodes in this way assumes Spock was rounding a bit.
But they don't explain why they chose March, or why they rounded.
Thanks, Darren. Don’t know how I missed seeing that.
For what it's worth, I have 'The Cage' in late April 2254, concurrent with Chapter 2 of the TOS eBook 'Seasons of Light and Darkness', by Michael A. Martin, as per the historians note at the beginning of the novella which says that McCoy's time on Capella overlapped with 'The Cage'.
FWIW, I've always had "The Cage" happening around April, too. I have a vague recollection of basing that on the timing in the Early Voyages comic, but I don't remember specifics.
Speaking of the Pike era, I still try to keep as much of Vulcan's Glory in my personal continuity as possible, but I suspect that's about to get a lot harder to do. For those that haven't relegated it to "alternate continuity" status entirely, where do you place it? I originally had it about six months before "The Cage," but moved it earlier because of Spock's "11 years, four months, five days" service with Pike. All depends on where you place "The Menagerie," I suppose. And now Vulcan's Glory overlaps with "Q&A," of course... *shug*
While checking info in Gary Mitchell-era stories last night, I tripped over an interesting little tidbit. In Captain's Peril, Spock says he served aboard the Enterprise for "11 years, nine months, fifteen days" before Kirk took command. Five months and ten days longer that he served under Pike according to "The Menagerie." In reality, I'm sure it's just a timing error that didn't get caught in the editing process, but "in universe," I wonder of those "extra" months could actually account for time Pike spent away from the ship, either some of the stuff in Burning Dreams or his temporary command of Discovery. Probably best to just ignore it, but still an interesting thought, to me, at least.
Speaking of the Pike era, I still try to keep as much of Vulcan's Glory in my personal continuity as possible, but I suspect that's about to get a lot harder to do. For those that haven't relegated it to "alternate continuity" status entirely, where do you place it? I originally had it about six months before "The Cage," but moved it earlier because of Spock's "11 years, four months, five days" service with Pike. All depends on where you place "The Menagerie," I suppose. And now Vulcan's Glory overlaps with "Q&A," of course... *shug*
While checking info in Gary Mitchell-era stories last night, I tripped over an interesting little tidbit. In Captain's Peril, Spock says he served aboard the Enterprise for "11 years, nine months, fifteen days" before Kirk took command. Five months and ten days longer that he served under Pike according to "The Menagerie." In reality, I'm sure it's just a timing error that didn't get caught in the editing process, but "in universe," I wonder of those "extra" months could actually account for time Pike spent away from the ship, either some of the stuff in Burning Dreams or his temporary command of Discovery. Probably best to just ignore it, but still an interesting thought, to me, at least.
Huh. I haven't read Seasons of Light and Darkness, but I always thought McCoy's time on Capella was more likely to overlap with "Where No Man Has Gone Before" than "The Cage."
Í have it in late December 2253, on account of the late December reference in chapter 1. That would place Pike giving up command around late April/early May 2265. I don't think that fits with The Captain's Oath, though.
Haven't read The Captain's Oath yet, myself, so in some ways, I'm still going off Enterprise: The First Adventure, though only in a "something vaguely like this happened" kind of sense.
I'd forgotten the "late" part of the December reference in Vulcan's Glory, that helps. Chapter One, (and that late December day of the first scene), takes place six days into Spock's two-week leave, he arrives at Vulcan two days later, sees T'Pring the following day, and then reports for duty on Enterprise five days after that. So "late December, plus 14 days" gives us the start of his service (and "Q&A", if one tries to reconcile Vulcan's Glory with it) in early January, I suppose.
Say his leave starts on 22-24 December, add 14 days, that gives us what, 5-7 January for the start of his service with Pike? Add 11 years, four months and five days, and we get... 10-12 May for the start of Kirk's command, or thereabouts... About six weeks still works for the "just after" references to his birthday in E:TFA. Should also work if you prefer the "All Those Years Ago" version from the comics, too.
I still lean towards the Pike-to-Kirk transfer happening in 2264 (whichever version), though. It gives more time for pre-"WNMHGB"/pre-5YM missions, and I think it fits better with the timing of Pike's command, even after Discovery. His second 5YM should end in 2263, and I figure there's a year of refit on the ship before she launches under Kirk's command.
I'm sure The Captain's Oath is incompatible with that, and Strange New Worlds definitely will be, so I know that idea is going to get blown out of the water. But for now, I'm holding onto it.
I long since gave up trying to keep books in piecemeal like that. I realized it was a disservice to the stories as they were meant to be told, that it was better to respect the intent of the author and just enjoy them as alternative possibilities. Although I suppose that, instead of trying to mentally edit the book as you read it, you could treat it as an alternate thing while still assuming that something similar happened in the main timeline. That's sort of what I do with the animated series -- I assume that what "really" happened includes elements of both the aired episodes and the Foster adaptations/expansions, that they're both "inaccurate" interpretations in different ways.
To be honest, though, I always had trouble reconciling Vulcan's Glory with Trek continuity as it had previously been established. The premise that there had once been a ton of Vulcans on the Enterprise crew was hard to reconcile with TOS's stance that Spock was the only Vulcan on the crew and one of relatively few in Starfleet, and the Vulcan characters acted a lot more emotional than one would expect. Despite coming from Fontana, it felt pretty revisionist.
Doesn't work. Spock's 11/4/5 reference in "The Menagerie" was specifically to the length of time he served with Pike, not on the Enterprise specifically. That's what was clever about DSC season 2 -- by moving both Pike and Spock to Discovery together (more or less), they could put Pike in command of a different ship without affecting that line from "The Menagerie."
TCO has Kirk take command in 2265; I have it in my personal chrono as May 9. I have the handover proceed similarly to the Mike Barr "All Those Years Ago..." version, with Kirk and Pike meeting for the handover and having a similar conversation in the officer's lounge. (So I guess that is the sort of thing mentioned above, assuming "something similar" happened without accepting the whole work.)
I don't buy the idea that Constitution-class missions are required to exist only in 5-year blocks. The idea that 5-year missions are the only existing mission profile makes no sense. Okay, DSC has codified the idea that Pike's Enterprise conducted at least one 5-year tour, but that doesn't mean they were somehow the only mission profile the Enterprise was permitted to use. For instance, I assume that the galaxy-edge mission in "Where No Man..." was a separate mission slated to last several months, apart from the later 5-year general-survey tour that Kirk was assigned to begin on his return from the rim.
What I've established in a couple of my TOS novels is that 5 years isn't some inflexible mandate, just the recommended maximum duration of a general survey tour before a Constitution-class ship is brought in for refit and crew reassignment, since anything longer would put too much strain on the ship's systems and personnel. In Ex Machina and Forgotten History, I asserted that Kirk had requested an extension of the tour beyond 5 years, but had been denied after the Pelos incident and its alleged Prime Directive violation (VGR: "Q2"). And presumably a 5-year tour may be cut short if the ship is severely damaged (or destroyed, obvs). And it would only be for the general survey/patrol missions, rather than specialized short-term missions like the galactic rim shot (ba-dum-ting). Some of the ships in the "Ultimate Computer" war game may have been on short-term assignment; possibly the reason four Connies were available at such short notice was because those four were not currently out in deep space on wide-ranging multi-year exploration tours.
I don't know why the author chose to place McCoy's time on Capella in 2254.
Like you, based on the uniform McCoy is wearing in the video shown just before Kirk and company beam down to the planet, I had his time on Capella between 'WNMHGB' and 'The Corbomite Maneuver'.
Even the Okuda chronology doesn't give a date for McCoy's posting. Only a vague 'sometime between his graduation from Starfleet Medical and his posting on the Enterprise'.
The Captain's Oath places McCoy's time on Capella shortly before Kirk takes command of the Enterprise, a stint of a few months in early 2265. I just ignore the uniforms as a production error, or assume that perhaps that particular design was starting to come into use before the Enterprise crew adopted it (we've seen in DS9, VGR, and DSC that more than one uniform design can be in use simultaneously).
That is generally my approach. I don't try and retcon every minor detail; as you say, that's a disservice to the work. But especially with some of the classics I read when I was a kid/teen that helped enrich my love of Trek -- stuff like Final Frontier, The Lost Years, Strangers from the Sky, Federation, The Romulan Way, Best Destiny, etc -- a nebulous version that maintains the spirit and the meaning to the characters/world still exists for me in my "headcanon."
That's fair. But I always looked at it as something that evolved over time. Early on in the series, it seemed like the Enterprise was imagined as an "Earth" ship and Spock was the only "alien" aboard thanks to his mixed parentage. Early references to Vulcan having been "conquered," etc, seem to fit that notion.
But ideas changed as the series went on, and in the Federation as we've come to know it, he simply couldn't be the only non-human in a crew of 400+, but he's the only one we ever saw. By the time we get to "The Immunity Syndrome," there was a Constitution-class ship crewed entirely by Vulcans. A lot of people have come up with various explanations for that, but I just tend to go with "there've always been Vulcans in Starfleet."
So yeah, Vulcan's Glory may indeed be some revisionist work by Fontana, making the world fit more with how it was presented in late TOS than in early TOS. If it were to be, say, adapted for Strange New Worlds today, I'm pretty sure Spock and T'Pris would be the only Vulcans on the ship, as the others are mostly incidental in the novel anyway.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone make the assumption that they have to. Two five-year missions for Pike just fits with the timing, with three/four years for refits and other assignments before/between/after as needed. I've never thought that's the only thing allowed for Constitution-class ships, just that it was common especially during Kirk's time, because of their capabilities.
Well, sure, in Starfleet. I just have trouble buying that there were once so many on the Enterprise specifically, when it always seemed that Spock was unusual in his willingness to serve on a mostly human crew. Also, what the heck happened to them all?
I've seen lots of people assume that five-year missions were the default, and that the only possibility for Pike was two 5YMs with a year and four months of refits.
That's a fair point, but keep in mind that Spock was not with Pike from the beginning. Both Vulcan's Glory and Short Treks: "Q&A" showed him joining the crew after the mission had already been underway for a certain time. Early Voyages put Spock's arrival two years into a 5-year mission. Going by that, Pike would've been in command of the ship for roughly thirteen and a half years (minus his months on Discovery), so we're not just talking about two 5YMs and a bit extra. There's significant room for different mission profiles/durations.
People actually take Spock's line in "The Menagerie" as the length of Pike's command? That would never have even occurred to me. April from 2245 to 2250ish (plus the years he oversaw construction before the ship launched), Pike from 2250 to at least 2264, if not 2265. Pike had a good thirteen to fifteen years in command.
That's always been firmly in my mind. As I said:
I always assumed that the 5YMs wouldn't start immediately on launch, but after a "shakedown" period for the new captain and crew (allowing for the "Gary Mitchell era" before the 5YM, etc). I figured Pike's first 5YM started in 2251, with Spock joining in 2253, and ended in 2256.
With Discovery placing the breakout of the war in mid-2256 during Pike's 5YM and Enterprise not returning until it was all over in late '57/early '58, seems like my dates need to be pushed a bit later. Unless SNW changes things, the second 5YM still looks like it takes place from 2258 to 2263, with some wiggle room, and at least a year until Kirk takes command. I assume Pike would be nominally in command of Enterprise while she was in drydock, but wouldn't just be sitting around reading construction reports, and they'd give him some kind of detached duty somewhere else, perhaps leading to his promotion to Fleet Captain.
Isn't Pike's tenure codified in DSC: "Brother"? When Pike introduces himself, his whole service record is on the viewscreen for all to see.
It annoyed me they had 5-year missions prior to TOS, because I quite liked Into Darkness' idea that theirs was the first.
It annoyed me they had 5-year missions prior to TOS, because I quite liked Into Darkness' idea that theirs was the first.
It shows he became Captain of the Enterprise in 2250, which tracks with what we've always "known". That's not helpful in figuring out when Spock came aboard, the precise years of his 5YMs, or when the handover to Kirk would take place. 2250 has never been in question.
Whereas I always prefer the idea that it was a standard thing for Constitution-class ships. Remember, in the Kelvin timeline the Enterprise launched 13 years after she did in Prime. Not really any time for previous missions.
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Except that Into Darkness is set nearly a decade before TOS. That crew's 5-year mission begins at the end of the movie in 2260, and Beyond is a bit over halfway through it in 2263. Which, if not for what happened to the ship in Beyond, would've lined up perfectly with a second 5YM from around 2266-70.
Also, STID did not say the Enterprise's 5-year mission was the first. It said that 5-year missions into uncharted deep space were a new Starfleet program that Kirk was hoping the Enterprise would be selected for. If it's an entire program, it's profoundly unlkely that it would be limited to a single ship. And given that the Enterprise was then badly damaged and its launch delayed by a year, it's probable that the program went ahead with other ships first.
How closely does everyone stick to the September 16th date for Sarek? If we use that to judge the placement of The Undiscovered Country (Praxis in June, the rest of the film in August), that leaves exceedingly little time for any of post-TUC novels for the launch of the Enterprise-B to be the same year. I know they can't all have happened, but I at least like to keep Sarek and The Ashes of Eden in my own version of events. If the September date is ignored, and we move TUC earlier in the year, there'd at least be a little wiggle room...
I really wish they'd gone with a 2291 or 2292 date for TUC or a 2295 date for Generations (which some of the novels did use, early on - Vulcan's Forge and Federation, at least).
I really wish they'd gone with a 2291 or 2292 date for TUC or a 2295 date for Generations (which some of the novels did use, early on - Vulcan's Forge and Federation, at least).
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