It's entirely possible that the Enterprise had some sort of minor refit prior to TWOK, including changes to the bridge, and that is what Kirk was needling Preston about.
Star Trek The Wrath of Khan Book Club
- Thread starter Tallguy
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That's explicit in the script:
KIRK
(sternly puts
him on)
Oh do you? Have you any idea,
Midshipman Preston, how many times
I've had to listen to Mr. Scott on
the Comm, telling me his troubles?
Have you any idea the ribbing I've
had to endure in the officers' mess
to the effect that the Enterprise
is a flying death trap?
PRESTON
(scandalized)
Oh, no, sir! This is the finest
engine room in the whole Star --
The repressed grins of the others, and a smile on Scotty's
face tell Preston he's being had.
I have to say that McIntyre’s explicit callback to TMP during the “take her out” scene, which as far as I know is completely her creation, is one of my favorite moments of the novel:
"Course, Captain?" Saavik asked.
Spock turned to Kirk and raised one eyebrow.
“At your discretion, Captain," Kirk said.
Spock got that expression again, and McCoy's suspicion that the Vulcan was as concerned about Kirk as he was intensified.
"Out there, Lieutenant Saavik."
Kirk started.
"Sir?" Saavik glanced back.
"Out there" was something Jim Kirk had said the last time the Enterprise was under his command.
“I believe the technical term is 'thataway,'" Spock said.
"Aye, sir," Saavik said, obviously not understanding.
But McCoy could see that Jim understood. (p.70)
(EDIT: Apologies I can’t seem to duplicate the indentation right; looks fine on the “Edit” screen but doesn’t seem to transfer over when saved.)
"Course, Captain?" Saavik asked.
Spock turned to Kirk and raised one eyebrow.
“At your discretion, Captain," Kirk said.
Spock got that expression again, and McCoy's suspicion that the Vulcan was as concerned about Kirk as he was intensified.
"Out there, Lieutenant Saavik."
Kirk started.
"Sir?" Saavik glanced back.
"Out there" was something Jim Kirk had said the last time the Enterprise was under his command.
“I believe the technical term is 'thataway,'" Spock said.
"Aye, sir," Saavik said, obviously not understanding.
But McCoy could see that Jim understood. (p.70)
(EDIT: Apologies I can’t seem to duplicate the indentation right; looks fine on the “Edit” screen but doesn’t seem to transfer over when saved.)
Chapter 4
Vonda thought Scott wasn't Scottish enough? Gotta admit, in this read through I'm thinking "Tonight the role of Commander Scott will be played by David Tennant."
When I read this as a kid I thought all of the "thee" and "thy" and "thou" was somehow a way more authentic way that real a Scotsman might talk. Now I have seen way more Scottish people on TV and movies and have met a few Scottish folk. I don't think I've heard a thee or thy out of any of them.
Does anyone have a different experience?
Huh. Wonder what she's like?
Look who's talking! Well. It's probably just SPACE.
I love this chapter. I've forgotten how much I love this chapter. For one thing, any background on Spock and Saavik I will eat up with a spoon.
Saavik is 20. She was discovered on Hellguard six years ago.
I'm not saying that VM is a master of timelines or that this is canon (shudder) or anything. Alley was older but she was also meant to be a gifted cadet graduating Starfleet. (I know, lieutenant and cadet are contradictory. I also know this is Starfleet but I've known enough Navy people who run into this like a brick wall.)
OTOH, Ike Eisenmann who played Preston was twenty.
I mean... Awwwwwww. Right?
Back to Khan. (Over the years I have really grown to hate calling him by his first name. But it is how it is done.)
As we had theorized. But the Reliant as seen on screen was the way to go.
Yikes.
Has there ever been a novel that followed up on the lost crew of the Reliant?
Also, the ship has a smaller crew than the Enterprise so not exactly alike.
The indication here is that McGivers died fifteen years ago. So, not Khan's son.
We now see Carol Marcus struggling with computer memory limitations. And we meet Del and Vance. They're talking about video games on 23rd century super computers. It made this 13 year old's mouth water. (ANY computers made my mouth water but these were amazing.)
Hyper channel. Not subspace. And VM went with it. (I'm a little fascinated by what authors choose to fix/change and not fix/change.) Terms for FLT communication that we will never hear again.
VM takes the Deltans that Roddenberry created for The Motion Picture and kind of plusses them. Definitely changes them. I mean, we now have a sample size of three instead of one for an entire species and culture.
Here the scene with Kirk taking command on the bridge and the meeting with Spock are flipped. Was that ever in that order in the script?
Oh sure, this she changes.
The Enterprise has a cafeteria and it has lines. Also, Saavik likes steak tartare. I like my steak rare, but really.
What a wonderful scene between Spock and Saavik. For one thing, it gives us more Spock than what we had in the movie.
Vonda thought Scott wasn't Scottish enough? Gotta admit, in this read through I'm thinking "Tonight the role of Commander Scott will be played by David Tennant."
When I read this as a kid I thought all of the "thee" and "thy" and "thou" was somehow a way more authentic way that real a Scotsman might talk. Now I have seen way more Scottish people on TV and movies and have met a few Scottish folk. I don't think I've heard a thee or thy out of any of them.
Does anyone have a different experience?
Huh. Wonder what she's like?
Look who's talking! Well. It's probably just SPACE.
I love this chapter. I've forgotten how much I love this chapter. For one thing, any background on Spock and Saavik I will eat up with a spoon.
Saavik is 20. She was discovered on Hellguard six years ago.
I'm not saying that VM is a master of timelines or that this is canon (shudder) or anything. Alley was older but she was also meant to be a gifted cadet graduating Starfleet. (I know, lieutenant and cadet are contradictory. I also know this is Starfleet but I've known enough Navy people who run into this like a brick wall.)
OTOH, Ike Eisenmann who played Preston was twenty.
I mean... Awwwwwww. Right?
Back to Khan. (Over the years I have really grown to hate calling him by his first name. But it is how it is done.)
As we had theorized. But the Reliant as seen on screen was the way to go.
Yikes.
Has there ever been a novel that followed up on the lost crew of the Reliant?
Also, the ship has a smaller crew than the Enterprise so not exactly alike.
The indication here is that McGivers died fifteen years ago. So, not Khan's son.
We now see Carol Marcus struggling with computer memory limitations. And we meet Del and Vance. They're talking about video games on 23rd century super computers. It made this 13 year old's mouth water. (ANY computers made my mouth water but these were amazing.)
Hyper channel. Not subspace. And VM went with it. (I'm a little fascinated by what authors choose to fix/change and not fix/change.) Terms for FLT communication that we will never hear again.
VM takes the Deltans that Roddenberry created for The Motion Picture and kind of plusses them. Definitely changes them. I mean, we now have a sample size of three instead of one for an entire species and culture.
Here the scene with Kirk taking command on the bridge and the meeting with Spock are flipped. Was that ever in that order in the script?
Oh sure, this she changes.
The Enterprise has a cafeteria and it has lines. Also, Saavik likes steak tartare. I like my steak rare, but really.
What a wonderful scene between Spock and Saavik. For one thing, it gives us more Spock than what we had in the movie.
I don't think I've even seen any other fictional Scottish characters using thee/thou outside of Macbeth or other period pieces.
It may have occurred to me to speculate at some point that maybe she'd graduated the Academy and gone back to command school as sort of a graduate program, but there's no time for that if she's only 20.
The Star Trek Chronology posited that Kirk graduated the Academy as a lieutenant, to reconcile the reference to him being an ensign on the Republic in "Court Martial" with the reference to the Farragut being his first posting after the Academy. And of course Wesley Crusher was given "Acting Ensign" status before he even enrolled. Presumably Starfleet follows different practices than present-day militaries.
Well, the Reliant is like the Enterprise in the respects that would be relevant to Khan -- it has a very similar bridge layout and presumably the controls and equipment work the same way, so whatever he picked up during "Space Seed" would still be applicable to controlling the Reliant, regardless of whether it has a secondary hull or which way its nacelles point.
Although, of course, that assumption requires downplaying the radical difference in starship design between TOS and the movies, but we've already established that the movie itself downplayed that by using movie-era props and insignias in the survivors' camp on Ceti Alpha V.
Doesn't the Search for Spock novelization show the Enterprise retrieving the Reliant crew from CA5 in its opening chapters?
IIRC, they rendezvous with a transport and off-load most of the cadets, and the transport is supposed to continue on to Ceti Alpha V and rescue the Reliant crew so the Enterprise can go straight to Earth.
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What David said. Vonda makes it part of Jimmy Kirk's Rotten No Good Very Bad Day. Starfleet takes his crew (the cadets) and then say he can't go to Ceti Alpha because he's dangerously undermanned.
(It's not skipping ahead. It's discussing the Vonda-verse!)
I meant are there any books that follow any of the survivors after the two (or three) movies? For that matter, is Mr. Kyle or even Mr. Beach ever heard from again? "I'll never forget that one time..."
The one thing about the TWOK and TSFS novelizations that I'd be most likely to ding VM for would be the accent she gives Scotty. As a kid I could handle most of the two books without any issue, but the accent was off-putting, and the stuff set on Earth in TSFS was touching but hard to deal with because of the accent, and since it obviously wasn't one of the more significant plotlines of the two films I often tended to gloss over it in rereads.
I really liked any of her additions that gave Peter or Saavik more character though. Maybe Peter in particular, since I was young when I was reading these and he was the relatable character that GR would later intend for Wesley to be.
I really liked any of her additions that gave Peter or Saavik more character though. Maybe Peter in particular, since I was young when I was reading these and he was the relatable character that GR would later intend for Wesley to be.
I'm the only writer I can think of who's ever done anything with Mr. Beach, but only in novels set several years before TWOK.
Did you have people call him "Stoney"?
I think so, yes.
Damn, they killed Kyle. That’s like killing Wedge.
I just realized that Vonda says that the engineering department remained on board. So they're all dead.
Writers’ Strike issues?
If you're allowing graphic novels, I seem to recall that Kyle showed up in the "Enterprise alumni roundup" aboard the Enterprise-A in Debt of Honor.
(Then again, I believe Garrovick did, too. Oops.)
Yes, that's what I was referring to. (But I also understand that Prodigy was nowhere near being a thing when Debt of Honor was written.
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