Being a starship captain...a big deal?

It's not arbitrary if it's the stated intent of the people who made the show. At the very least, the spin-offs are violating the creators' intent.

 

Which is rather irrelevant because the so-called creators play little or no role in their creation - least of all in the worldbuilding element of it.

As regards worldbuilding, Assistant Modelmakers have greater say there than executive producers, writers or other grey eminences. We can refer to the work of the AMs as being part of the fictional universe in question. The work of the producers is not part of that universe in any circumstances.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Timo, I'm really not clear on what you're trying to argue here.

Or, IOW, as KDB put it upthread, "Back in TOS, there were 13 Starships and they were the best of the best of the best." As the Writer's Guide put it, "'starship class'... the largest and most modern type vessel in the Starfleet."

In a world where Trek canon was limited to TOS, this is all we would know. Anything beyond that, anything interpreted for the sake of consistency with the spinoffs, even including the phrase "Constitution class," indeed amounts to "Yay retconning."

We could quibble about the difference between "bigger" and "better," but what really jumps out at me here is the phrase "many spinoffs." I can't think of any spinoffs that show any other kinds of ships active in the TOS era, prior to Discovery, which debuted all of four months ago and (to put it mildly) has a great many visual inconsistencies with previously established canon. The only other thing that comes close is the JJverse, but that's explicitly a deviant timeline (one full of oversized ugly ships, IMHO) and therefore moot for purposes of this discussion.

Otherwise, AFAIK, every starship ever seen on-screen from the TOS era has looked like the original Enterprise.

Long story short... as MAGolding notes, there is indeed room for reinterpretation of the evidence from TOS, but only if one goes looking for it. One may like the reinterpretation or dislike it, but there's no pretending it was the original intent. That intent was "Starship class." "Twelve like her in the fleet." "Largest and most modern." "Not one man in a million" could captain one.

Was the Enterprise eventually (re)designated as Constitution class, with the word "starship" used more generically, and Starfleet itself said to have more starships than originally implied? Yes, obviously. But does any of that make it necessary to consider the Enterprise and her crew as anything less than the best of the best? Hardly.

 

I'm excluding experimental ships like the Discovery and the Vengeance in my analysis as I'm conceding in TOS there may be one-off experimental ships that may be better short-term than the Connies.

JJ Verse may have had a war-like ship-building expansion due to Nero. So that has nothing to do with TOS.
Even taking that into account looks like the Enterprise was still highly regarded in the JJVerse.

Discovery did have a lot of ships at the battle but what evidence is that they are better than the TOS Enterprise. They could be bigger but bigger doesn't mean better.

 

Not really. In a world where Trek canon was limited to TOS, the second half of that, the Writer's Guide bit, would not be valid. Only the fictional universe itself counts for what the fictional universe is like, and the Writer's Guide is not part of it. And the onscreen TOS never said anything at all about best of the best of the best applying to Kirk's little boat - that's an invalid fan conflation of stated tidbits.

It only amounts to people in charge not bothering to read outdated paraphernalia booklets. Those simply aren't part of the continuity, and thankfully so.

It's futile to speak of "continuity" within the confines of the mere three seasons that started it all - internal continuity within those was abysmal, and it's only the later patchup jobs that keep it together at all. TOS didn't offer enough material to establish a continuity that would be contradicted by added material. We only got the foundation on which to build a continuity. And the mold and moisture in that foundation, the so-called creator intent, has thankfully been evicted so that the house still stands.

[/quote]I can't think of any spinoffs that show any other kinds of ships active in the TOS era, prior to Discovery, which debuted all of four months ago and (to put it mildly) has a great many visual inconsistencies with previously established canon.[/quote]

The 2009 movie doesn't ring a bell? It's no more "deviant" or "visually inconsistent" than TNG was. Or, say, the third season of TOS was. And the first giant ship we see there is carefully explicated as not-deviant in the plot sense, and indeed integral to the "original story" of Jim Kirk.

And that information does not logically amount to Kirk's ship being the best of the best of the best. Heck, the "one in a million" bit already makes Kirk a bit player, not even a dime in a dozen but something literally a thousand times less special.

TOS itself already gives us two different reasons to think so.

1) There are very specific reasons to consider Kirk's ship fifth-rate, even before we learn there are bigger and better and faster ones. As stated, in TOS, Starfleet never chooses Kirk to partake in wars at the front lines. Starfleet never allows Kirk to perform interstellar diplomacy himself. Heck, Starfleet seldom actually sends Kirk anywhere except to check the blood pressure of frontier scientists - Kirk just reacts to stuff he runs into. And all that can't be because they would distrust Kirk, because we get no hint of such a sentiment. I mean, hopefully this is just because Kirk is not flying the right sort of ship. (But somebody must be flying one of those ships that do get assigned to the front lines...)

2) Whenever Kirk and his ship appear alongside other starships visibly comparable to his, Kirk enjoys no high ground, either in dialogue exposition or in plot action. Indeed, at least Captains Tracey and Garth are stated to be superior to Kirk in reputation (and never mind skippers of Commodore rank - supposedly they got that for a reason). At least Tracey flew a ship similar to Kirk's, so "Starfleet's most experienced" can be given those midgets. But it doesn't follow that the ship would be the cream of the cream.

So, in a completely separate question, is Kirk's crew the best of the best? Statistically unlikely, and hardly relevant, even though Kirk once does give a pep talk to this effect to boost faltering morale. Is Kirk the best of the best? Never indicated - he's not a celebrity either within Starfleet or outside it (even though Spock is) in TOS yet, and doesn't officially rank up there with Tracey or Garth.

Which is fine and well, and doesn't detract from the character. It would be dramatically uninteresting to follow the golden child of Starfleet: Kirk being the rank and file and just doing his (sometimes absurd and always fantastic) job is what makes for good drama. If we want to follow the Gladstone Ganders or John F. Kennedies of Starfleet, we can watch TNG!

Timo Saloniemi

 

Indeed, for some reason or another, Michael Burnham considers the Constitution class a good career move for Cadet Tilly if she wants to skyrocket to fame. Might well be Starfleet in the 2250s highly values its old Connies. But not necessarily because they would be the best of the best - the opposite might make for better heroes.

Two things wrong with that... For one, Starfleet did not believe in Nero. The incident had been forgotten for good by 2258, even by the man who wrote his dissertation on the subject. For another, at least one of the big ships predated Nero's influence.

In what sense? They didn't even know she existed (indeed, for them, she did not). Spock after his death was able to convince the alternate Kirk that the old team had had a good thing going - but that had nothing to do with whether their ship was the best of the best.

This is not at the heart of the debate - the odd fan interpretation that the dirty dozen Kirk refers to would have been the only starships in TOS is the problem. DSC disproves that pretty nicely, after which we can haggle the "best or not" issue. But like every Trek show, DSC has its characters implicitly consider their own ride the best there is, without any official or objective blessing to such pride. It's a natural sentiment for crews and skippers to hold, just as it is natural that every ship design has a stab at being important and the best in its own niche (as well as good odds of being a lemon).

Timo Saloniemi

 

We're just going to have to agree to disagree here. I enjoy fictional continuity in general and Trek continuity in particular, and I usually really enjoy your explorations into it and hypotheses about it... but I just think you're barking up the wrong tree in this case.

First of all, it is in no way, shape, or form "futile" to talk about continuity based on TOS alone. That was all anyone had (okay, with TAS handwaved in) for the first 13 years of Trek's existence, after all — the period in which Trek fandom originally bloomed (and in which I personally discovered the show). It's inconceivable that you or anyone could sit down with a copy of Bjo Trimble's original Star Trek Concordance and claim that there wasn't "enough material to establish a continuity." (Not to mention Stephen Whitfield's fascinating Making of Star Trek, for behind-the-scenes details on, yes, creator intent. Or the multiple volumes of Best of Trek books collecting countless fan articles analyzing that supposedly inadequate continuity in painstaking detail.)

It is, I would submit, only the later spin-off shows that create the need for "patchup jobs" to keep things reasonably consistent. (Of course no fictional universe will ever be perfectly consistent, but "reasonably" is a pretty fair goal.)

On the contrary, it's explicitly an alternate timeline. It tells us literally nothing about the TOS era in the original universe.

Oh, now you're just being pedantic. You know perfectly well that when anyone (well, anyone except Spock) uses that phrase, they're not trying to be mathematically accurate about the share of a population of billions, they're using it to indicate "incredibly rare and precious."

Umm, in TOS there were no wars at the front lines. The closest they ever came was against the Klingons at Organia, and that was over before it started.

Besides, how does that matter? In the TNG era the Enterprise-D was explicitly the Federation flagship, yet viewers never even learned about the war against the Cardassians until it was over, because the Ent was never involved in it!

(And what exactly do "front lines" mean in three-dimensional interstellar space, anyway?...)

So, when Kirk and his ship are among the other dozen very top ships and crews in the fleet, they're treated as equals? Seems fairly prestigious to me.

(We do also know, of course, that Kirk was the youngest captain to command a starship in Starfleet history. He was highly decorated, but even so, people with more seniority would naturally have more established career records. That's not any sort of mark against the talents and abilities of Kirk, his ship, and his crew, however.)

And for all of the "routine" missions you keep mentioning, this is still the ship that was sent to investigate the disappearing Earth Outposts along the Romulan Neutral Zone. The ship that was sent to prevent the Klingons from using Organia as a staging ground on the brink of war. That came to the rescue of the Constellation and faced off against the Doomsday Machine. That was assigned to transport over a hundred top diplomats to the Babel Conference. That was among the handful of ships chosen to participate in the M-5 computer tests. That was sent on an actual mission through time to investigation crucial events on Earth three centuries earlier. That was given a secret assignment to infiltrate Romulan space and procure the cloaking device. Not to mention that answered countless distress calls from beyond the boundaries of explored space... shall I go on?

Long story short, I think of it this way: if there were some ship out there with a more capable crew performing more meaningful missions, then that's the ship we should have been watching the show about. I naturally assume we followed the ship that offered the most interesting stories.

 

Now Kirk's fifth rate - down from 2nd rate?

TOS was on the front-lines with the Klingons at Organia and with the Romulans at BOT. At the front lines of Interstellar War on both occasions. You can twist it around to say there were probably other ships doing more important things at the time but the evidence is on screen unless you want to say Kirk was lying in his logs to prop up his own importance or something.

As lawman has said the Picard's Enterprise wasn't on the frontlines in the Cardassian war. Is that because Picard was so wonderful they weren't going to risk him and this fantastic crew?

And why did Sisko admire Kirk so much? Obviously he wouldn't admire a fifth-rate captain when he actually knew first-rate Picard. Perhaps it was his reputation with the ladies. Then he should admire first-rate Riker more.

And for the many diplomatic missions Kirk was sent on he usually had an ambassador on board, However they usually did such a bad job Kirk had to save the day. By Picard's time they had started to pick captains who were men of words rather then men of action, having to placate the Klingon internal squabbles week after week.

Are you admittingTNG is boring following Picard (ala JFK regal golden child) as compared to the dramatic "rank-and-file", "keeping it real", fifth-rate Kirk.

 

From the TOS writer's guide (emphasis added):
[Kirk] is, in short, a strong man forced by the requirements of his ship and career into the often lonely role of command, even lonelier because Starship command is the most difficult and demanding task of his century.

 

At this point I think I'm going to stop reading this thread. Kirk a "fifth-rate" captain . . . just stop.

 

I don't think that the Enterprise was merely the equivalent of a frigate in the sailing ship era.

The ratings system used by sailing navies naturally differed from time to time and from place to place. During the Napoleonic Wars the British rating system was:
First Rate ship of the line 100 plus guns, 3 gun decks.
Second Rate ship of the line, 90-98 guns, 3 gun decks.
Third Rate ship of the line, 64-80 guns, 2 gun decks.
Fourth Rate ship of the line, 50-60 guns, 2 gun decks.
Fifth Rate frigate, 32-44 guns, 1-2 gun decks.

The Making of Star Trek describes the Enterprise as a heavy cruiser. And that was probably according to the 20th century classification. Many fans don't recognize The Making of Star Trek as canonical. How is the original Enterprise described on screen?

From Star Trek III: The search For Spock:

http://scriptsearch.dxdy.name/?page=results&query=({series|tos,tas,}) and ({line|cruiser,})

I doubt that a battle cruiser seems more insignificant than a heavy cruiser.

I have heard of many different types of cruisers during the late 19th and the 20th centuries, included protected cruisers, armored cruisers, light cruisers, heavy cruisers, and battle cruisers. The USS New Jersey was the only battleship in the world on active duty when Star Trek was being produced, and only for part of that time. Heavy cruisers were the largest gun carrying ships in any navy for the rest of that period. So the makers of Star Trek may have considered heavy cruisers the most powerful warships in the contemporary world to compare starships to. Aircraft carriers didn't count to compare starships to, since the makers of Star Trek couldn't imagine that audiences would ever believe that small fighter craft transported by space carriers could ever play a role in space warfare.

It may be noted that at the great naval battle of Jutland in 1916 the British fleet had 28 battle ships, 9 battlecruisers (3 sunk), 8 armoured criusers (3 sunk), 26 light cruisers, and many smaller ships, while the German fleet had 16 battleships, 5 battlecruisers (1 sunk), 6 pre-dreadnaughts (1 sunk), 11 light cruisers (4 sunk), and smaller ships.

So if starships like the Enterprise are classified as heavy cruisers or battle cruisers, they could be either:

1) The most powerful category of space war ships of their era, really the equivalent of space battleships but called heavy cruisers to seem less militaristic and threatening.

2) the second most powerful category of space war ships of their era, inferior only to space battleships, and no doubt fighting alongside space battleships in fleet actions.

Note that in "Errand of Mercy":

And:

So starships like the Enterprise are clearly powerful enough to be included in fleets fighting invading Klingon fleets.

 

Well since the Federation and the Klingon Empire had never been to war with each other and they were both antagonizing the pants off of each other what do you expect?
JB

 

What's so difficult to grasp about the concept of the first-rate Captain Kirk commanding the fifth-rate Starship Enterprise?

It's basically there in the mission statement already. If you desperately want to include creator intent in the considerations, you are stuck with the intent of Kirk being Horatio Hornblower, sailing frigate master and commander, in space. First-rate hero, fifth-rate ship. And the former sort of directly flows from the latter, because fifth-rates are the ones that get to have adventures.

On the other hand, the background material really carries little real weight. Basically, Writers' Bibles recycle phrases from the series pitch, and the pitch is always a pleasant lie, told in order to get a product sold. Star Trek was never going to be "Wagon Train to the stars", but it was a good idea to compare the show to a bestselling phenomenon. Hornblower just struck closer to the truth in the end.

As for specific points, easily verifiable from the source material:

- No, Kirk wasn't the youngest skipper ever. That's pure fan bullshit. Nobody in the show makes the slightest nod in such a direction, even though it certainly should arise whenever Kirk's performance is being critiqued or praised.

- No, Kirk wasn't famous in TOS. He certainly was famous later on, and people in-universe naturally then also began reading on his earlier exploits as well. But TOS never tries to claim that what Kirk is doing should be exceptional for a Starfleet officer, least of all for a starship CO.

- No, Kirk wasn't on the front lines of a war that very definitely was going on at a very definite point in time. Picard for all we know may have fought on the front lines of the vague Cardassian war when it was hot (although his Federation has wars in every corner, in every decade, and not everybody gets to take part in every one of those). But Kirk was part of a key war against an arch-enemy that lasted for the exact duration of "Errand of Mercy", and his orders were to go watch a bunch of medieval folks on a planet the Klingons might want to take - and then to flee when they did take said planet. That cannot be what Starfleet normally does with its real capital ships, or there would be no Federation.

- No, Kirk's ship was never sent to investigate the disappearing outposts at RNZ. She was sent to "patrol" the RNZ at a time when nobody thought anything much would be happening there; the attacks rudely interrupted this patrolling, not to mention a wedding.

- No, Kirk's ship was never sent to investigate the disappearances of the Constellation or the Exeter. He stumbled upon both by accident. He apparently was specifically studying the Defiant disappearing, though.

Bottom line: Kirk is only ever sent to do menial tasks. Not because he would be a poor skipper, and obviously not for punishment. But he isn't getting important jobs for his great skills, either. And yet somebody else must be handling those important jobs which necessarily exist. If we want to say Kirk is a good skipper, then those others must either be better, or flying better ships. And even in the total absence of references to Jim Kirk being better than others (be they his peers, or people above or below him in the hierarchy), I tend to favor the latter option.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Kirk definitely hadn't heard of any trouble concerning the USS Exeter as she was patrolling this sector six months before! So patrols take six months or more? Plus they stumbled across the USS Constellation and Kirk mentions that Matt Decker's in command and what could have happened to him! While in The Tholian Web, The Enterprise is looking for The USS Defiant and seems quite shocked to find her drifting! Although that could be because their instruments weren't detecting it ahead of them as well!
JB

 

I think you're taking a somewhat more technical approach to the terms "first-rate," "second-rate," etc., than most people would be inclined to do. I've always understood such terms informally, and it is literally news to me that past or present navies use such terms in a formal sense.

Even in light of that, though, I see no particular reason to draw direct analogies between modern naval practices and whatever sort of ship classifications Starfleet may use in the 23rd century. You may consider it "desperate" to refer to the intent of the show's creators, but you're bringing in information from much further afield here.

But even if we do draw analogies based on present-day sources, MAGolding makes a persuasive case above that the Enterprise's designation as a "heavy cruiser" marks it as one of the most powerful ships in the fleet.

And let's keep the focus of the thread in mind. The OP wasn't necessarily asking about Kirk and the Enterprise in particular... it was asking whether status as a "starship captain" in general marked one out as among "the best of the best" in the TOS era. KDB weighed in to say that yes, it did, because there were only twelve like her in the fleet... before the retcons imposed by later spin-off shows. And then you replied opining that "Every Trek era shows there are multiple starship designs in parallel service ... If Starfleet thought ships like Kirk's were the best, wouldn't it give the meatiest assignments to those ships?"

So first of all, the focus is clearly on the understanding of things prior to later series' retcons (and even so, the first and only series to have shown other starship designs active near the TOS era is Discovery). And second, the significance of the 1701's assignments is evidently in the eye of the beholder, and for some reason you seem to have an interest in downplaying it.

In which regard...

It's not "pure fan bullshit." The Making of Star Trek specifically says Kirk was "the youngest Academy graduate ever to have been assigned as a starship command captain." We know that he was only 34 at the time of "The Deadly Years." We know that every other captain we see in the center seat during the TOS era is visibly older than him (with the arguable exception of Pike in "The Cage").

Nobody in this discussion has claimed Kirk was "famous" during the FYM. We've merely said he was of the same elite status as any other starship captain... of which there were all of a dozen at the time. Were the things he and his crew accomplished "exceptional" in a way that brought them fame later on, though, in the movie era? Well, yes, obviously. That's canonical.

We don't have a ton of context from "Errand of Mercy" to say how critical the assignment there was. When I watch the episode it strikes me as fairly significant, though you apparently disagree. On-screen, we have this:

KIRK: Negotiations with the Klingon Empire are on the verge of breaking down. Starfleet Command anticipates a surprise attack. We are to proceed to Organia and take whatever steps are necessary to prevent the Klingons from using it as a base.
SPOCK: Strategically sound. Organia is the only Class M planet in the disputed area, ideally located for use by either side.

...and Kirk later describes it as located on a "natural invasion route." I think there's enough there to support the interpretation that the mission was important.

The wedding was in the very first scene of "Balance of Terror," a scene which also establishes that Earth Outposts along the NZ had already been going silent. IOW, the assignment to patrol there wasn't a routine thing, it was an investigation of a potential emergency situation.

I don't recall anybody mentioning "Omega Glory" or "Tholian Web." As for "Doomsday Machine," though, I didn't say that the Enterprise was assigned to investigate the Constellation, merely that it came to its rescue and helped defeat the Machine. IOW, one starship aiding another (both among the fleet's best) on a critical mission.

Bottom line, I just don't see an iota of on-screen evidence for this proposition... not during TOS itself, and not even in light of later series' retcons. It's not clear whether you're just running down Kirk and the Enterprise specifically, or all of the Starship-class (later Constitution-class) ships and crews, but either way the evidence is elusive. It's clearly part of your head canon, and that's fine FWIW, but it's a quixotic view.

 

The only other starship commander we see isn't commanding a starship at that moment Commodore Stone mentions that he commanded a starship in ""Court Martial", when he tells Kirk something like "Not one man in a hundred can dio what you and I have, command a starship"

 

Good thing that the Klingons don't have the same doubts about their heroes as a few seem to on this forum:-

Battlecruiser Vengeance was a Klingon recorded serial melodrama which featured the adventures of Klingon Captain Koth of the Vengeance, in conflict with alien races and trying to capture their ships. Koth was always triumphant, and each episode ended with him being asked who he was by those he had captured, and answering "I am Captain Koth. Koth of the Vengeance. And this ship is my prize."

Kai Komerex Klingon!!

 

Timo Said:

The TOS writers' bible had three editiions, one for each season, which gave the creators opportunity to modify it and replace obsolete information with correct info.

During the course of the novels during the Napoleonic Wars, Hornblower went from being a midshipman who occasionally commanded a ship's boat to a commander, a captain, and a commodore, commanding an unrated sloop, a 5th or 6th rate frigate, a third rate 74 gun ship of the line, and a squadron. The ratings of his ships changed.

That's not pure fan bullshit. It comes from the writer's guide, I think, and certainly from The Making of Star Trek in 1968. Although it says that "Kirk has been in command of the Enterprise for more than four years and was the youngest Academy graduate ever to be commissioned a Starship Command Captain". Thus the bullshit comes from sources some people consider canonical.

And if you think that the The Making of Star Trek isn't canonical, then its description of the Enterprise as a heavy cruiser, a first or second rate warship when TOS was being made, would be replaced by the Klingon description of it as a battle cruiser, also also a first or second rate warship, in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

According to The Making of Star Trek Kirk commanded a smaller ship, perhaps with the rank of Captain, and then commanded the Enterprise from the age of about 30, and is "now" about 34. Thus it is possible that some other captain is now the youngest current captain. Thus Kirk could hold the record as the youngest captain while no longer being the youngest captain at times in TOS he was criticized or phrased.

I would hope saving the federation from conquest or take over and saving the lives of billions would be exceptional for a starfeet officer because such dangers were very rate. Otherwise the Star Trek universe would be terrifying to live in.

Captain Harriman said that he read about Kirk's misisons when he was in grade school. That should have been way back toward the era of TOS, if Generations was only 30 years after TOS.

If a vessel is in the disputed zone where an invasion is expected I would say it was on the front lines.

Kirk's orders didn't say to flee when they (the Klingons) did take the planet.

Kirk was negotiating with the Organians to begin his mission when the Klingon fleet arrived.

Kirk, not Starfleet Command as far as we are told, told Sulu to retreat if an entire Klingon fleet arrived.

Kor's later comments suggest that the main Klingon battle fleet is at Organia and the decisive battle of the war will be fought there.

Clearly the main Federation fleet was waiting for info on where the main Klingon fleet was, while the Enterprise and probably several other ships were sent to the most likely targets of the Klingons. So Kirk does have a rather important task during the Klingon War.

Correct.

Correct.

You have strange definition of menial tasks. The chef or the janitor aboard the Enterprise have menial tasks, but the captain not so much. It is true that a lot of the adventures begin during rather routine assignments.

So your memory had the number wrong by 10,000 times.

 

Political and philosophical change happened between TOS tv era and movie era. See my comment below.

Head canon time, and we've had this conversation before and will have it again...

Starship = Capital Ship or Ship of the Line. Remember that Star Trek is based on the Hornblower stories of the 18th Century British navy. In light of this, consider that...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_the_line

And...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rating_system_of_the_Royal_Navy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_ship#Age_of_Sail

So, first, second and third rate ships were all ships of the line. There were other ships with other ratings and even unrated ships. First, second and third rate ships were also considered to be capital ships. Historically these are the heroic ships with heroic commanders like Admiral Nelson.

A Starship, therefore, is a heroic capital ship that can be first, second, or third (or fourth) rate in terms of size, weapons, and crew compliment. It takes a special captain, a special man, to command a Starship. Merrick was not such a man and could only command an unrated space ship in the merchant service.

By the end of the 2200s movie era, the term "Starship" had fallen out of use in regards a specific breed of special class ship. Advances in propulsion and weapons had made even the smaller ships like the Reliant as powerful as a Constitution Class ship. The term starship evolved to refer to any space going vessel of a certain size and power. A runabout or Maquis raider or captain's yacht or Delta Flyer would never be referred to as a "starship" but could be called a "space ship."

Coincidentally, Kirk and Pike both were known to refer to the Enterprise as a "space ship."

 

Well said. I wish people who wrote new TOS stories of that era would look at the series as is, who Captain Kirk was at the time, than through rose colored glasses. Something TOS - Kirk based fanfilms could never grasp.