USS. Republic.

[Timo]

If we assume the two met before Kirk really was a Lieutenant, then we have to invent rationalizations for the line where Mitchell is warned about "Lieutenant Kirk's classes".

I guess it depends on how many competing rationalizations we want to pile up in order to avoid the dance around that line... My personal preference, devil's advocate statements aside, is that they indeed met earlier on. After all, otherwise we would have to accept that they met when Kirk was 18 years old - and an 18-year-old Lieutenant Kirk isn't something I really want to accept. Much less when Mitchell at the time might have to be considered just eight years old, given his indicated age in those damned PSI test cards.

Although once again it should be pointed out that those cards don't give Mitchell's age in terms of his birthdate. They give his age in years. As in, "This test was taken when the subject was 23 years old". And nothing in the test suggests it was taken recently; supposedly, PSI aptitude is only tested once during a Starfleet officer's career.

So again, I vastly prefer a Trek universe where most of the things stated and shown in "Where No Man" are interpreted blatantly against writer intent - considering how ill thought out that intent was.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

It's possible that Kirk and Mitchell met and became friends well-before Mitchell was warned about Kirk's classes by some third party who was unaware of the friendship between Kirk and Mitchell.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

If we assume the two met before Kirk really was a Lieutenant, then we have to invent rationalizations for the line where Mitchell is warned about "Lieutenant Kirk's classes".

Well, Mitchell doesn't say that's when they met, just that the first thing he heard from an upper classman was the warning about Lt Kirk's classes. That doesn't preclude the possibility that he already knew Kirk before that warning.

 

[T'Girl]

Three solutions:

Kirk first met Mitchell while Kirk was a cadet at the academy, and Mitchell was nine or ten years old. Maybe kirk was dating Mitchell's sister, and this is what sparked mitchell's interest in joining Starfleet.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Hmmmm,

DEHNER: I don't think so. I understand you least of all. Gary told me that you've been friends since he joined the service, that you asked for him aboard your first command.

This would seem to indicate that Gary first met Kirk at the academy.

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

Hmmmm,

DEHNER: I don't think so. I understand you least of all. Gary told me that you've been friends since he joined the service, that you asked for him aboard your first command.

This would seem to indicate that Gary first met Kirk at the academy.

or.. they'd met before that but only became "friends" at the academy.. I know, its a stretch.

 

[Timo]

Considering that even Jim Kirk needed patronage from a Starfleet officer in order to get in ("The Apple"), it would be reasonable to assume that basically every officer in Starfleet is friends with another family of Starfleet officers, the friendship going a long way back.

There would be a game of leapfrog there: a generation of officers would sponsor young men and women from another family, that family then sponsoring the children of the first generation. And both Jim and Gary would have been born into families that celebrated Christmas by making subspace contact with Uncle Frank and Big Sister Nancy across the galaxy, toasting the memory of the six relatives who gave their lives to the Service this year, and then running Academy exercises around the Christmas tree.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

Hmm.. you might be onto something there, Timo...