Did Kirk command the Enterprise for a while after TMP?

Well, and as far as gaseous anomalies go, it doesn't exclude the possibility that the Excelsior also did some other things. And we don't know the specifics.

It's interesting that the Enterprise also had equipment for investigating gaseous anomalies. Must have been the fad in Starfleet in the early 2290s I guess

 

Seems like that was when the Beta Quadrant was opening up. So they had a lot of basic work to do exploring that region of space.

 

I imagine that's part of it.

At the end of the day, since there's not actual explanation of what happened between TMP and TWOK, and I doubt there ever will be, fans are free to fill in those years however they wish.

To be honest, I never really thought that he'd immediately return to being an Admiral after TMP. I always assumed he remained Captain for a few years. He seemed so Hell-bent on returning as captain of the Enterprise I just never really gave thought to the idea that he'd just say "well, that was fun, back to the desk now". And I just thought him successfully saving Earth from V'ger gave him enough clout that he could do that without any blowback (plus, maybe the brass felt at the time that was where he really could do the most good).

But since it's never been established in canon one way or another, neither way is 'wrong'. Just different interpretations.

 

Since the new shows love to try and fill in the cracks, we'll find out Kirk was a top-secret Section 31 007 between TMP and TWOK.

 

God I hope not. I feel about Section 31 like I do about the Borg--some great stories but now it feels like they are getting a bit oversaturated (and I'm not too keen on the Discovery idea that they are basically sanctioned by Starfleet--I liked them better in the shadows).

One thing I liked about the Destiny novel trilogy is it finally closed the book on the Borg. Loved them as a villain but they started losing some of their luster. That's starting to happen for me about Section 31 ("Collateral Damage" also basically closed the door on that as well).

 

I mean, Kirk has work adjacent to Section 31 operations in the novels before so I don't see the issue. Especially since Kirk served as Chief of Operations.

It's a nonissue for me.

Kirk taking a temporary demotion to see the refit Enterprise out and doing its shakedown cruise makes sense. Him eventually ending up being promoted, taking on the Academy as a new challenge, only to feel that depression set in is also understandable. I don't see TWOK ignoring or incongruous with TMP.

 

It is just related timeline discussion. Remember, if we are considering the entirety of the TOS/TMP era, that includes the start of Generations. That movie came out when DS9 was on the air. So all of TNG and the first parts of DS9 were part of the Chronology when Ent B launched. And Defiant came into it because of her registry. One of the few NX registries and the only one to stay even after the ship was a success. That related to the Hathawy, Stargazer, Constellation Class, and Excelsior and relative dating. I see the timeline as a tapestry comprised of many pieces woven together over time and I do try in my posts to keep coming back to how this relates to Kirk's periods of command of the Enterprise.

 

I don't either. I think it makes sense. I am not set on any particular time frame, but I think the Okuda Chronology makes sense. And Spock does give us a clue as to the nature of things when Kirk comes to tell him about Genesis and their new mission. Spock says he is content to command students on a training cruise, but if there is a serious mission Kirk should take command. To me this indicates that Spock is captain because Enterprise is now a training ship. He is a scientist and command was never his goal. So I do not think that the Enterprise every went on missions under Spock except for training cruises. And I feel the change in situation was somewhat recent. I also feel that since the movies start the period where the ranks of fleet captain and commodore vanish, that Kirk is the lowest variety of admiral in TMP and equivalent of the Commodores we saw in TOS and still eligible to command a starship. When we come back to TWOK, he is another rank up and isn't eligible to command a ship any longer. I mean they never use anything with Admiral when addressing him so we don't ever find out what kind of admiral he is.

 

While that's a fair point the rank devices indicate a Rear Admiral (the lowest) for both of Kirk's uniforms in TMP and TWOK.

 

Except that is not specified in any of the movies. He is never called Rear Admiral, only Admiral.

 

I understand that, which gives some flexibility in the interpretation of his rank, though rarely are admirals addressed as "Vice, Rear" unless during ceremony. But, I would be reluctant to assume another bump in rank simply due to change of assignment.

 

Agreed. Usually a multi-part rank would only be used in full during formal situations.

 

Yeah, it's sort of like Lieutenant Commander I guess. When you were addressing a Lt Commander during the normal course of a day you'd probably just say Commander (or Lieutenant if they were in hot water )

 

I was just reading about what the US Navy did with Commodores and Rear Admirals. A Commodore is a Captain in charge or multiple units. During the first 80 years of the 20th century, the only time Commodore was used was during WWII (which explains why it was used so much in TOS with so many WWII vets involved). In WWII a Commodore was a 1 star Admiral. That worked great for the war but horrible for peace time. During the course of the 20th century you have the O-7 rank being first a Rear Admiral 1st half, then Commodore, then Rear Admiral 1st half again. The O-8 rank was Rear Admiral 2nd half, then just Rear Admiral during WWII, then Rear Admiral 2nd half again. How that rank was displayed changed. Up through the mid 1980's all Rear Admirals wore 2 stars and the same stripes regardless of whether they were O-7 or O-8. After briefly reviving the rank of Commodore (only 1 person briefly held that rank) the Navy changed the display of rank so that while O-7 and O-8 are both called Rear Admirals, O-7 wears 1 star and O-8 wears 2 stars to match the Army, Air Force, and Marines.

So this could mean that Kirk did get a promotion without an obvious sign of rank increase because in TMP he was really a commodore but retitled Admiral (in 1979 a US Navy O-7 wore 2 stars and the stripes to match). Then in TWOK he has gotten another promotion, but displays the same rank (TWOK was released before the little Commodore incident happened). So from TMP on, Commodore is just a position title and not a rank. In TOS it was obviously a rank as it was in WWII. So the occasional Commodore reference after TOS, (I think there are 3) are position references and the person in that position is a Captain. And the first two rank promotions over captain are both Rear Admiral.

 

It would be odd for him to shift to the uniform of a grade that is only in his head. It is usually against regulations to wear the uniform of a grade one does not hold.

They're not called "captain," though.

Not exactly; from 1899 to 1943 there was no one-star rank in the US Navy. Promotion was from captain to two-star rear admiral, equivalent to a major general. The pay rate would be the same as a brigadier general (what we now call pay grade O-7), however, until the rear admiral was in the top half of the seniority list, at which point he would get O-8 pay. In April 1943 the one-star rank of commodore was revived for temporary wartime-only promotions, so in the latter part of WW2 both commodores and rear admirals (lower half) got O-7 pay. Correction: I remembered wrong, commodores in WW2 received pay of the "6th pay period," the same as navy captain.

After the war the commodores who stayed in the navy reverted to their permanent rank, usually captain.

The 1980 Defense Officer Personnel Management Act created the 1-star grade of "commodore admiral" in the navy. The 1982 Defense Authorization Act (passed in 1981) changed the title to "commodore." Because of implementation provisions of the 1980 law, "commodore admiral" was rarely used in the short time it was authorized and officers were not listed under that grade in the Navy Register. The 1983 Navy Register listed 38 commodores: 30 line, 1 medical, 3 supply, 1 civil engineer, 1 dental, 1 medical service and 1 nurse. In 1984 there were 64 (Hey, Commodore 64!): 48 line commodores, 4 medical, 7 supply, 1 chaplain, 1 civil engineer, 1 dental, 1 medical service and 1 nurse. The 1986 Defense Authorization Act (passed in 1985) changed the grade to "rear admiral (lower half)," though in general practice 1- and 2-stars are both called simply "rear admiral".

 

Well the Drydock departure certainly happened. Twice.

 

FWIW, we have plenty of freedom in interpreting Kirk's flag rank in the movies, much more than ITRW, if we take into account data from outside the TOS setting. In TNG, Picard is offered a promotion to Admiral, without suggestion of skipping rank, and the guy doing the suggesting seems to be wearing the lowest possible flag rank insignia (without extra pips, which we later learn are a thing) and is addressed as Admiral nevertheless. So it doesn't much matter whether the lowest rank involved is called Commodore, or Soggy Bottom Admiral, or Admiral-in-Training Junior Grade, since the accepted form of address hides it on all relevant occasions.

It's just that the lower Kirk's rank, the less plausible it is for him to be a bigwig at HQ, and the less likely our perhaps otherwise preferred interpretation where Kirk almost unwittingly ends up with a desk job he hates because he's given a series of skyrocketing promotions for his TOS heroics early on.

TMP rank insignia are a bit funny, with folks wearing one stripe called Ensign on two occasions, very much against TOS precedent - and with Kirk wearing the one extra stripe over TOS Commodore on his sleeves, but only one cauliflower on his shoulder, this in turn going against every later braid-and-brass scheme where the number of thin stripes is in sync with the number of brass devices the other way, with the first device coming with the thick flag braid already. So the fight over Kirk's rank can certainly continue till we get a revisit, after which it can safely devolve into the usual "which parts of Trek are real Trek" thing.

Timo Saloniemi

 

What do we think of 'The Motion Picture' novelization by Gene Roddenberry?

In it he says that Kirk took command of the Enterprise 'almost' nine years earlier, the five year mission began eight years ago, and it ended three years ago with Kirk in charge of Starfleet Operations for 2.5 years and the Enterprise refit taking 18 months.

At least in Roddenberry's head, the events of 'The Motion Picture' occur only three years after the end of the five year mission.

2273 - 9 = 2264
2273 - 8 = 2265
2273 - 3 = 2270

 

Yes, we do know now from Voyager that the 5 YM ended in 2270 (so we can extrapolate other years from that, such as TWOK likely took place around 2283, if "Space Seed" was from about 2267 or 68, give or take a year, it could be 15 years and a few months and they just rounded it). And if we take TMP dialogue as the stated intention, that Kirk's 3 years in charge of Starfleet Operations meant that the 5 YM ended 3 years prior, that would place TMP at around 2273.

Like I take TWOK writers at their word, that they intended it to be 15 years after "Space Seed"--and both Khan and Kirk noted 15 years at separate times, I also take TMP dialogue as the intended time after the end of the 5YM.

So TWOK would be about 10 years after TMP. In a way it's a self correction by TWOK to make the ages of the actors match up with their character ages. And it also makes better sense to me when they decided to decommission the ship in TSFS. It would make a lot less sense if it underwent a total refit then 3 or 4 years later was decommissioned.

Now if you accept that there was about a 10 year gap between the movies, what happened during those 10 years is up for debate obviously. Like I noted, I go with the novel explanation, that Kirk remained in command for a couple years before Spock (and Kirk) were promoted, then maybe another 2 or 3 years before TWOK.

 

I like the way Gene Roddenberry had it and that's the way I think of it as well.