What do we know about the years between ST5 and ST6?

Discussion in 'Star Trek Movies I-X' started by Roboturner913, Jul 30, 2013.

  1. Relayer1

    Relayer1 Admiral Admiral

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    Make it a series ! I promise to buy them all.

    O.K., I buy them all anyway... :)
     
  2. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Time to get back to that outline . . . .
     
  3. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Spock even commends her for the very thing in "Who Mourns for Adonais", in connection with a difficult bypass job:

    No such praise for her oral/aural skills, and no begging for such. Spock probably isn't emotionally compromised in "Who Mourns", either, so we can take his word for it that Uhura Prime can hold a mean soldering iron.

    Did we actually learn nuUhura would have repairperson skills?

    Interestingly, Uhura Prime wore command gold for a few episodes, perhaps suggesting career ambitions cut short by Kirk reshuffling his crew after the early casualties and before the first proper starbase visit. nuUhura started out with red, but that doesn't mean she'd be devoid of such ambitions... We don't know what she used to wear back in her Cadet days, and many a command officer has been witnessed doing a stint in the "services" colors soon after graduation.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  4. Relayer1

    Relayer1 Admiral Admiral

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    Great idea !
     
  5. Praetor

    Praetor Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The fine line between continuity and fanwank.
    Thanks, Timo, that was precisely the instance I was trying to recall! :)

    Excellent point. The books have her become a chief muckety muck of Starfleet Intelligence later on, so there's that. And to wit, even though Sulu was on the command track, he did know how to fly the ship and if I recall correctly knew a thing or two about repairs too. It makes sense that Uhura, with ship's communications being something of a command and control system, would be "able" to wear Gold.

    Perhaps she merely tried to keep a low profile? Section 31 surely wouldn't want to call attention to their agents. Then again, she wore that darn minidress pretty well. :rommie:
     
  6. Mysterion

    Mysterion Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Or Uhura, a capable adult person, making a career choice for her own reasons.
     
  7. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    Or the damn replicator screwed up that day. ;)
     
  8. Mysterion

    Mysterion Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Or Uhura was color-blind and thought she was still wearing a gold uniform the whole time.
     
  9. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Or a mix-up in the laundry room.
     
  10. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    Gold skirts were pretty rare. The only one of any significance was Martine in Balance of Terror. Female guest stars tended to be in red or blue. Silent extras got gold.
     
  11. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Wasn't there a Lt. Radha in That Which Survives?
     
  12. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Then there's Captain D. Okuda, appearing in many publications and a few TOS-R portholes...

    Uhura wearing red for most of the five-year mission might be chalked up as her "temping" in a "services" job on her way to command positions, much like Riker wore mustard. She would have limited options to do back-and-forth when stuck on the deep space ship, hence a longer stint as with many other "command characters". But she is then seen sticking to "services" colors for the entire run of the TOS movies. From what we are led to understand of the significance of the command color, this would seem to amount to her career stalling. (Or then moving to the SFI path behind the scenes.)

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  13. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    I knew someone would think of another one. :p Yeah, I forgot about her. Not sure if her part was as significant as Martine's, but a step or two above the usual no name extra gold skirt.
     
  14. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    You knew the dangers of posting on the TrekBBS when you signed on! :p
     
  15. Captain Nebula

    Captain Nebula Commander Red Shirt

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    She is in numerous novels, tho. She also makes updates to the Universal Translator in several novels. I think it makes the character a lot richer. Otherwise, she just ends up being the receptionist that answers the phone.
     
  16. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    This is true, and I've probably gone to that well myself on occasion. But it's probably worth remembering that this was NEVER established onscreen, so a movie isn't "wrong" if it "forgets" about it. :)

    You can't forget what was never there. :)
     
  17. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Why couldn't a receptionist be a significant heroine?

    It's not as if you really need a doctorate in order to be an interesting person, or a courageous individual, or a rich and pivotal character in drama. Aboard a starship, you can contribute a lot by being able to fix machinery: 430 lives might depend on you for that.

    Sulu never got short-shifted for only knowing how to turn left and right, for some reason. Even the novels don't dwell on his supposed "physics" background as indicated in "Where No Man"; it's something Sulu leaves well behind after Enterprise: The First Adventure and The Entropy Effect. Sure, he has all sorts of eccentric and short-lived hobbies, but he doesn't need to be a skilled something-or-other in addition to being able to perform evasive maneuvers.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  18. Captain Nebula

    Captain Nebula Commander Red Shirt

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    Sulu also got to fire Phasers and Photon Torpedoes until the first couple of movies. The Navigator (Chekov in the later episodes) didn't seem to have much to do.
     
  19. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    In the books, I tend to let Chekov fire the weapons just to give him something to do. Sulu pilots the ship, Uhura handles communications, and Chekov gets to shoot things and raises shields on occasion.

    (Chekov can also be used to scan alien ships and probes if Spock is not available.)
     
  20. F. King Daniel

    F. King Daniel Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I read somewhere that Uhura'a linguistic skills were added to the character for the aborted Phase II television series, and it's something Nichelle talked about at conventions - hence it's inclusion in several novels (IIRC, she even spoke perfect Klingon in one of Diane Duane's!)

    I guess, like McCoy's divorce backstory, it's one of those little pseudo-canon tidbits that never fully materialized until the reboot.