Problem with Kirk's immediate promotion to Captain

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

So nuKirk got promoted to Captain essentially directly out of the academy. As a result, he never served on any other ships as a lower ranking officer...so he never made friends with the fellow officers he'd have served with. Thus, nuKirk won't get to bump into those folks that he served under or served with. Will he therefore be at somewhat of a social disadvantage in the service relative to Kirk Prime (e.g., no former comrades to fall back on when he needs a favor)?

Obviously, he'll have 'old Academy pals', but so did Kirk Prime.

 

[ClayHefner]

Janice Lester will be even more pissed in this universe.

 

[Lethe]

Janice Lester will be even more pissed in this universe.

omg...

(I've been using this guffaw smiley all night! you all are on a tear!)

 

[Agenda]

I see a plot thread in the sequel where Kirk is wondering whether he actually deserves his command. Some might say that he got promoted through politics. ie the Federation wanted their poster boy hero to get his own ship and thus he got it.

 

[Pauln6]

It was one of the weaker moments in the movie. A promotion to first officer and a commendation would have been enough to set him on the right path and the opening scene in any possible sequel could have dealt with him taking up his new command a few years later with hand-picked officers and sexy Yeoman Rand.

As it stands, making Spock a full commander aged 25 (when he was a Lt in TOS) means that Spock receives no reward for a contribution that was almost as great while Kirk leap-frogs him, gets promoted three ranks, and is placed in command of his own ship with far less experience than most of the officers he will be commanding. It smacks of nepotism, racism, and sheer stupidity.

Now if it is a publicity stunt, that makes more sense. If we see Kirk being sent on low risk diplomatic missions as a nursemaid and poster boy then there is a certain logic. It can also be used as a lead in - Kirk is ferrying Vulcan delegates such as T'Pau and Sarek and planetary scientists such as Dr Marcus, lamenting the lack of excitement in his new command... cue disaster.

 

[EJA]

It's a good thing Kathryn Janeway will never get to see nuKirk go straight from cadet to captain; she'd blow a fuse at such massive disregard for protocol.

 

[Jeri]

Re: Problem with Kirk's immediate promotion to Captain

Not if he's the only one of all your officers whose orders saved the planet. Most of them were safe in the Laurentian System -- or trying their damndest to get there, against Kirk's advice. None of them deserve the command more than Kirk.

 

[Pauln6]

He deserves a promotion, a commendation, and a medal. Promotion to captain is not a necessary step to reward him for his efforts. It was a childishly convenient way to set up the characters for their traditional roles on the Enterprise by the end of the film. It was daft.

 

[Jeri]

What's daft is the idea that any of the other officers deserve the captaincy before Kirk. None of them do.

 

[Timo]

Why not? Spock could have stopped Nero all by himself, without any of the "contributions" of Kirk: he removed Nero's stores of red matter, he destroyed the drill that threatened Earth, he eventually destroyed Nero's ship. All Kirk did was save Pike's life; his antics onboard the Narada didn't even add up to distracting Nero on a critical moment.

On Vulcan, neither of these two officers really achieved anything much, although not for the lack of trying. Between the loss of Vulcan and the saving of Earth... Well, that's a string of incidents that Starfleet probably doesn't want to dwell upon.

Really, Kirk was a good poster kid, but not a real doer or thinker in the events that mattered and could be publicly rewarded.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pauln6]

What's daft is the idea that any of the other officers deserve the captaincy before Kirk. None of them do.

True - although given the horrors of Vulcan, promoting Spock would have been more symbolic.

Nobody is suggesting that he isn't deserving to be promoted to captain after proving that he has the requisite skills and experience. He's proved to be a disobedient risk-taker willing to use dishonesty to pass a test and to get on board a ship - endearing or a real concern? He's very resourceful, a quick thinker, and he has considerable ability to command his crew but he has no proven diplomatic skills and flies off the handle easily. He's deserving of being a first officer under a more experienced captain to test his command skill. As a captain he's a loose cannon.

I'm also far from convinced that beaming only one team onto the Narada with no security back up is a plan worthy of commendation. He got lucky basically.

 

[Jeri]

Why not? Spock...

Why not?!? Without Kirk's unshakable drive, Spock would have been with the other duds in the Laurentian System. Didn't anybody see the freaking movie?!

None of the other officers' long years of service, their bean counting or protocol talents helped a damned bit. We and everything else living on the planet would be dead without Kirk's drive.

As Pike said, Kirk had what the service had lost. He proved it -- and so did the other officers prove that they didn't.

 

[Pauln6]

Why not? Spock...

Why not?!? Without Kirk's unshakable drive, Spock would have been with the other duds in the Laurentian System. Didn't anybody see the freaking movie?!

None of the other officers' long years of service, their bean counting or protocol talents helped a damned bit. We and everything else living on the planet would be dead without Kirk's drive.

As Pike said, Kirk had what the service had lost. He proved it -- and so did the other officers prove that they didn't.

This is all true. The humans are very sanitised and mamby pamby.

However, it doesn't justify him being placed in charge of a ship of 400+ people with no experience! He was almost killed by Romulans on the Narada because he had no security escort. His risk-taking makes him a potential danger without a more experienced captain to point out the flaws in his planning.

 

[Jeri]

What it doesn't justify is anybody ELSE being placed in charge of the flagship.

 

[Pauln6]

What it doesn't justify is anybody ELSE being placed in charge of the flagship.

Number One for captain!

 

[Agenda]

It's stretching the boundaries of credibility. But we don't see what happens between the time of the battle with Nero and when he's promoted. So, maybe something else happened in the interim. At any rate, it's a weak plot point that I can overlook.

 

[Jeri]

Oh, for pete's sake! It's not a stretch; no one else deserved it after their useless performances. If people insist, they can claim he got it by default.

 

[Pauln6]

They probably asked Femputer to give an opinion on who would be best to promote!

"James T Kirk... dearie."

 

[Shazam!]

If people insist, they can claim he got it by default.

Is nobody allowed to have a problem with Kirk's promotion if it's by default?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

A simple "four years later" at the end of the movie would have gone a long way to get rid of this discrepancy.

Kirk deserves a captaincy, that much we know. But not so damned soon. Starfleet's ranks are there to be used. You just don't skip over them - that doesn't make sense. Kirk's actions deserve a reward, no doubt about that, but there's other ways to do that rather than give him a command that HE HAS NOT EARNED.

Although to be technical, Kirk's actual rank for most of his time on the ship was Lieutenant. It says so on the transporter readout screen when they're trying to beam him and Sulu aboard. So going from Lieutenant to Captain isn't so bad, he only skipped two ranks.

(as for why he's a Lieutenant: That's most likely the rank that he would have had if he had completed his Academy graduation. Kirk graduated with that rank in TOS, so he might have done that in the Abramsverse as well.)