Saavik did wear a shirt color coded for cadets.
But since she wasn't a cadet, the color obviously isn't coded just for cadets.
In TOS, he had the rank of Ensign *before* graduation.
All attempts at explanation that make this claim are to be avoided, because one doesn't get rank before one graduates. That's the whole
point of graduation.
OTOH, people don't necessarily leave the Academy when they graduate. And we know for a fact that Kirk didn't, because he was said to have been an instructor, supposedly long after his four years of undergraduate study had ended (or else he couldn't have instructed his much-junior Mitchell). There's nothing particularly odd, then, about Kirk getting a promotion or even two after graduation but before going to his first post-Academy assignment on the
Farragut.
I like the idea but I'd tweak it so that everbody graduauates as an Ensign and the extra courses allow you to graduate as a Lt. After all, if you didn't graduate as an Ensign at least you wouldn't have a rank at all, and these are officers in training not enlisted personnel.
That wouldn't explain how Saavik is taking the course while already holding Lieutenant (jg) rank.
I figure Kirk in both universes did advanced courses and got some time in space as an ensign before graduating as a Lt.
In the prime universe, Kirk was said to have done his no-win scenario (which was never said to be
Kobayashi Maru specifically) while still a cadet. We don't know if he needed any advanced courses after that, since they could be expected to culminate in taking that test.
In the STXI universe, we never saw Cadet Kirk graduate to any rank, until his return to the Earth he had saved. And there he was told he'd get command of the
Enterprise, and the next time we saw him, he was wearing Captain braid. Difficult to tell how much time passed, or how many extra courses Kirk took, or anything of that sort.
It isn't speculation with Bashir, it was said onscreen that he had the choice given to him upon graduation in 2368 for whatever assignment he wanted and the first/earliest known one that he took on, was Deep Space 9, at the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade at which he apparently had upon graduation.
Umm, that sentence still contains a lot of speculation. His graduation date is unknown, never established in canon. We don't know if Starfleet granted him his wish of getting to DS9 right away. And we have no idea what rank he held at graduation.
For what it's worth, a classmate of his, was also given CMO status after graduating on a Starship, with the same rank.
Incorrect. Elizabeth Lense got a position in the medical staff of the
Lexington, but there was no suggestion that she would have been the CMO of the ship. And we don't know when she attained her rank of Lt(jg), because we only saw her many, many years after her supposed graduation.
I cannot be to sure exactly, but I think in the prime timeline, it's come up in some form or another that Spock is a year older then Kirk. I think that was the intention in the movie, but I am not exactly sure.
Our only good source to the birthdate of the Prime Spock is the TAS episode "Yesteryear", whose framing story supposedly takes place exactly 37 years after his birth. But we don't know the exact date of that framing story, so we can't know Spock's birthday exactly, either. That he'd be roughly the same age as Kirk is perfectly acceptable, but there may also be a large age difference if we take those 37 years as Vulcan years (which in the context of the TAS episode is actually rather likely) and if those are different from Earth years somehow.
As for Uhura's rank of Lieutenant, aren't we supposed to believe that she had been a cadet for quite some time already before meeting Kirk in that Iowan bar? Perhaps she graduated long before Kirk's
Kobayashi Maru] test, and thus got a promotion before Kirk even got a commission?
OTOH, it could be that Uhura is a brainy specialist in the STXI universe, and not the simple switchboard operator she was in TOS, and that Starfleet rewards her academic skills with a high starting rank just like it may reward medical specialists.
Timo Saloniemi
